Development

After the battle, Wien ordered his subordinates to clean up the battlefield. He took Pairomon's corpse and mask, then distributed the remaining Hollow Beasts he had killed and their masks among the four Hollows who had come to support him, especially the Pangolin Hollow Beast who had opened the Negación for him.

After the four divided the resources on the spot, Wien took his forces and headed back.

"Jekain, have all our forces arrived?"

"My king, they are waiting for orders a few kilometers away."

"Good. Go organize them and bring all the Pseudo-Adjuchas in our territory over. We won't leave any resources in this area. Harvest them all on the spot."

"Yes, my king." Jekain bowed and accepted the order.

"Nel, afterward, take the sensory-type Pseudo-Adjuchas and a few who are good at scouting to patrol the borders with the neighboring hostile territories. If you find enemies, deal with them on the spot. If there are too many or you can't beat them, withdraw with your people first. Once you're back, organize the Pseudo-Adjuchas for defense."

"All right, Lord Wien." The tail behind Nel swayed gently. "But my lord, don't you need me to heal your injuries?"

"It's all right. Although I was badly injured in this battle, I also gained some insights and experience from it. I need some time to digest them. We need someone strong enough to hold the front line, so I'll leave the harvesting in this territory to you for the next few days."

"Yes." In the end, Nel nodded and agreed.

Before long, Wien returned to his own territory with his forces to rest and regroup. Jekain left halfway there, taking a large number of Pseudo-Adjuchas to Pairomon's territory to gather and harvest its resources.

Because it had been a surprise attack, the other lords knew nothing about what had happened in Pairomon's territory. Fortunately, the place where Wien and the others had fought was not far from the center of the territory, and word had not spread to the others. Otherwise, Wien might already have been fighting some unknown lord trying to reap the benefits.

After issuing all his orders, Wien returned to the underground cave beneath the fortress to rest.

Ever since they had begun building up the territory, the rock-type Hollow Beast under Wien's command had been constructing its central fortress on his orders.

After more than a year of construction, the enormous fortress was nearly complete. Though it was not particularly attractive in design, it was highly practical. Sensory-type Pseudo-Adjuchas and those with powerful ranged attacks lived on the fortress's outermost perimeter.

The corridors and walls wound back and forth. Unless one of their own opened the doors in each partition, enemies would have to spend a long time taking detours.

Of course, without Spiritual Pressure reinforcing them, the walls' toughness was nothing worth mentioning.

Farther inside were the quarters of Jekain's subordinates, followed by Jekain's own residence. At the very center was the fortress's conference hall, and above it was where Wien stayed.

For his own convenience, Wien had also ordered the rock-type and Pangolin Hollow Beasts to hollow out a huge underground space beneath the fortress for his use.

For now, Wien could use the underground space to rest and hone and develop his abilities.

In the cave, Wien sat cross-legged on the ground, the Spiritual Power inside him beginning to circulate at his will. For now, he first needed to recover from his injuries.

The reason Wien had not asked Nel to treat him this time was that he wanted to use his injuries to gauge the actual speed of his regeneration and whether he could improve it.

According to Wien's understanding of this world, Hueco Mundo and Soul Society were actually similar: both were made of Reishi. That applied to living beings and buildings alike, every blade of grass and tree, every mountain and stone. The substances they formed differed only because of differences in the density of the Reishi's arrangement.

In the world of Soul Reapers, scientific and chemical terms from his previous life, such as molecules and atoms, had never been mentioned. But that did not mean they did not exist.

Wien was a transmigrator, and he knew far more about these things than others did. Since matter was made of Reishi, he wanted to try using Reishi as a structure comparable to molecules and atoms.

"Reishi composition is simply a matter of breaking matter down into Reishi, then using Reishi to form matter again. Different numbers and densities of Reishi arrangements produce different substances." Wien sensed the Reishi in his body slowly regenerating his flesh, blood, and bones, and came to a conclusion about Reishi.

The regeneration speed of Hollows seemed to be innate. No Hollow had ever sought to accelerate it by developing the ability themselves.

Wait, I remember... There seemed to be a Hollow like that in the manga. It had an ability that let it recover instantly by eating something. Which one of the Espada was it? Wien scratched his mask and thought for a long time, but still could not remember.

After a while, Wien gave up trying to remember and resumed sensing his own regenerative ability.

Having compared himself with some of the ordinary Pseudo-Adjuchas under his command, Wien had concluded that his regeneration was indeed faster than that of an average Pseudo-Adjuchas.

Wien had wondered whether this was related to how condensed his Spiritual Power was, but after some thought, he abandoned the idea. After all, there was a limit to how condensed Spiritual Power could become. If he had already reached that limit, he should have mastered high-speed regeneration long ago.

In the end, Wien decided it had to do with the speed and adaptability with which Reishi transformed into flesh, and continued his research in that direction.

If he had the chance, Wien really wanted to establish an organization like the Soul Reapers' Twelfth Division research institute. Unfortunately, there were not many Hollows with the relevant abilities in Hueco Mundo's outer circle, so he could only put the idea aside for now.

He would wait until this war was over. After completing his revenge plan, Wien would head to the Inner Circle to meet those Pseudo-Adjuchas with formidable fighting strength, and even Menos Grandes with Vasto Lorde-level power. By then, he believed his forces would expand many times over, laying a solid foundation for confronting the various factions in the future.

Having settled on a direction, Wien continued his secluded training. Besides his regeneration, he also planned to optimize and develop the skills related to his abilities.

After his last grueling fight, Wien had discovered that Dimensional Slash, a variation of his Space-Splitting Slash, still had flaws. For example, constructing spatial coordinates caused fluctuations in Spiritual Pressure that put enemies on guard. This created a gap in the attack with the ranged Spiritual Power blade, giving enemies a chance to defend or dodge.

If he combined the effects of Concealment with the construction of space and hid the resulting Spiritual Pressure fluctuations, perhaps all the enemy would sense would be the fluctuations from the Spiritual Power blade. That would reduce their chances of dodging.

Of course, it would be even more perfect if he could hide the blade as well.

However, such precise manipulation would consume several times as much Spiritual Pressure as an ordinary Space-Splitting Slash. It would be equivalent to activating the blade, Space-Splitting Slash, his Concealment talent, and his spatial talent all at once, while also requiring extremely precise and focused control. Whether such development was truly worthwhile was a question of cost-effectiveness that Wien still needed to investigate.

The same applied to Sonído. As a movement skill, Void Flash Sonído was already excellent, but Wien still could not produce several clones at once.

This was especially true after he had already used up some of his Spiritual Pressure. During his battle with Pairomon, even with an intense burst of power, Wien had only been able to produce one clone to block Pairomon's view.

Thus, Wien still had a great deal of room to improve his proficiency with Void Flash Sonído.

Having decided what to develop, Wien began his secluded training. This time, however, it did not take long. After just one month, he emerged from underground.

The reason was simple: the Pseudo-Adjuchas under Wien's command had consumed nearly all the Gillian resources in Pairomon's territory. It was now an empty shell with land but no resources.

Now Wien needed to come forward and decide on their next target.

"Jekain, how is Gatemont's side progressing?"

"Gatemont has used his overwhelming strength to conquer two territories. The alliance he belongs to is already on the verge of collapse. They're advancing much faster than we are."

"It doesn't matter. With two alliances under attack at once, I doubt the other two will sit around waiting for death. While they unite against their enemies and fight for resources, their respective interests will certainly bring them into conflict with one another. We need to seize that kind of opportunity."

"My king, what should we do?"

"Have any new Pseudo-Adjuchas joined us in the past month?"

"Yes, my lord," Nel answered softly from the side. "Over the month we spent harvesting, we found six Gillians with consciousness in Pairomon's territory who were willing to join us. Counting the Gillians from our own faction, that made twenty-two in all. Seven have completed their evolution, another six have sunk into the sand, and the rest are still accumulating."

"But, my king, we've also had several clashes with neighboring lords over the past month. They were all lords in Pairomon's alliance. Because Pairomon had not attended their alliance meetings for so long, they eventually sent people to summon him. We killed two groups of scouts, but during the third encounter, one of the allied lords, Snegatakk, came in person. Our sensory Hollow Beast, Adal, was killed before he could fall back to defend."

"Adal? That bat Pseudo-Adjuchas who was with us last time?"

"Yes." Jekain lowered his head regretfully. "Adal was our strongest sensory Hollow Beast. Unfortunately, he couldn't withstand Atakk's sneak attack and was killed outright. Because our sensory specialist died, all five of our Pseudo-Adjuchas in that scouting battle, including Adal, were killed.

"Fortunately, Lady Nel arrived in time and held Atakk off. Otherwise, we might have suffered even more casualties. Of course, they also lost three Pseudo-Adjuchas Hollow Beasts because of it. Adding the two groups of scouts, they lost four in total, leaving our Pseudo-Adjuchas casualty figures at seven to five.

"However, the alliance also learned that we wiped out Pairomon. The next time Atakk brings his forces, it may not be as simple as just a few Pseudo-Adjuchas."

"Hmm..." Wien nodded. He understood the situation before him. After all, his forces still could not compare to those under the great lord Gatemont, who could crush opponents through sheer strength. Outwitting them was their only hope.