Hollow White and Mercenary Tao (35K Subscription Request)

Buzz~

In an instant, heaven and earth seemed to turn black and white. The oppressive pressure made breathing difficult; even standing still seemed to become a challenge.

"Spiritual Pressure… This is Spiritual Pressure?!"

Midnight Watch clutched her heart. The suffocating oppression was so overwhelming that her differently colored nails nearly dug into her flat chest. She could not breathe, and her heart felt as if it might stop beating at any moment.

She even wanted to cut out her own heart and make the damn thing keep beating.

Midnight Watch even doubted her own judgment. As an Ability User on the soul side, a Reincarnator most skilled in all manner of soul-based curses and memes, she found it difficult to imagine that this dark, evil thing, so oppressive it made people unable to breathe, was Spiritual Pressure?!

On the beach before her, Tian Ji Bian, the secret Supreme Expert of the Salty Fish Gathering whose true identity had practically been made obvious, now had divine black-and-white light appearing across his body. He suddenly turned around and stared blankly at the blonde woman on the other side, holding a long sword.

The King of Destiny, who had been sitting on a reef and laughing heartily as though she had won some incredible battle, now wore no expression.

Her appearance and clothing began to change naturally. Her golden hair yellowed as though withering, then fell away. Her graceful figure rapidly hunched over, and her white knitted sweater turned into a gray linen robe.

The King of Destiny looked at Flowers Bloom, Flowers Wither, who at some point had drawn her long sword and stood amid Spiritual Pressure so fierce it even made her uncomfortable. Her emerald eyes remained as calm as ever.

Yet the Heartlight powerful enough to make the void ripple continuously radiated an unmistakably extraordinary fighting spirit.

"So this is your plan, Ye…"

Flowers Bloom, Flowers Wither still shook her head.

"Not ours. Mine."

Feeling the clear pressure emanating from one of the new generation’s most elite Reincarnators, The King of Destiny finally felt a peculiar sense of age. At some point, the Reincarnators of this era had become capable of making their own choices.

Then he shook his head again. This was not something Flowers Bloom, Flowers Wither could have accomplished alone. Behind all of this, that person’s ambition was still lurking.

Aizen Sōsuke’s face appeared in his mind.

That madman—what exactly had he created in order to win…

He recalled the fate he had specially arranged for that creation in order to exert influence over it, and could not help wondering whether this "behind-the-scenes manipulation" had also been part of Aizen’s plan.

But he immediately dismissed that speculation.

No. On the path of fate, Aizen could not possibly see farther than he could.

Countless scenes and worldlines began appearing in The King of Destiny’s mind. He was running simulations, trying to sort out Aizen’s purpose.

In the end, his thoughts stopped at a strange point.

Perhaps because they had spent enough time together, perhaps because he himself had grown accustomed to the title of The Three Supreme Kings, he had somewhat forgotten.

Aizen was not actually human. At the very least, he could not be considered a native of this world.

The multiversal war… perhaps it had already begun…

—

Special Reincarnator EX051, you have been affected by Heart Light - All Things Descend

Exemption failed. Energy System: Qi has been lost.

Exemption failed. Specialty: Martial Arts Mastery Level 9 is no longer usable.

Exemption failed. Ability: Divine Finger Technique is no longer usable.

Exemption failed. Energy System: Satsui no Hado has been lost.

...

Bai Cangshu blinked and realized that he seemed to have fallen into the sea. The deep ocean was incomparably cold, yet like the void, it offered no buoyancy. He continued falling, utterly unable to resist.

One power after another that he had obtained from the Infinite Dimensional Space drifted out of his body like schools of differently colored fish, eagerly darting free before vanishing into the sea of void.

An unprecedented weakness washed over him. He began losing the sensation of his physical body; even the power he had possessed before entering the Space, the complete command over his formidable flesh, was fading away.

Bai Cangshu wanted to try activating Unknown Law. He wanted to imitate Satoru Gojo’s Heart Light: I Alone Am the Honored One, but there was no response at all.

Had his pride caused him to miss the opportunity to use it?

Or were this Mad King’s Heartlight and authority overwhelmingly stronger than his own?

Crack~

A sound like porcelain shattering rang beside Bai Cangshu’s ears. Within the boundless, deep seawater, several cracks seemed to appear.

A powerful suction force surged forth, but it drew in only the void and seawater. He himself instead fell toward an even deeper place.

Bai Cangshu extended his hand, not to call for help, nor to grasp anything. He was merely looking at himself.

He recalled the omnipresent noise and surging emotions brought about by the Super-Empathy granted by the Life Equation over the past few days. They had now completely vanished.

He had returned to calmness, but he had also lost those turbulent experiences.

At a time like this, should he be afraid? Should he be angry?

Looking at his hand, which seemed to be growing ever paler within the sea of void, Bai Cangshu realized that he could not produce the "correct" reaction.

As he continued sinking, he was thinking about what was correct, what standard that correctness was based on, and under what category it existed.

Was it because he had always lived in the human world that he subconsciously regarded human reactions as the benchmark for what was "correct"?

Humans feared death. Humans reacted to the reality that they could no longer exist. Therefore, he believed that he, too, should react at this moment.

Immediately afterward, Bai Cangshu formed a new question.

Who am I?

Or rather, am I human?

It was a question Bai Cangshu had almost completely ignored for far too long.

Did having a human appearance, a human bodily structure, and living in the human world make him human?

From childhood to adulthood, Bai Cangshu had always lived in a state of profound alienation. He could recognize that he was different from others, but for far too long, he had always distinguished himself from others through strength and weakness.

But now, as he pursued Heart Light Pulse and felt human hearts, he had discovered that even a natural aberration like Satoru Gojo possessed a heart and an innate ability to sense Heart Light Pulse.

But he had nothing at all…

Bai Cangshu withdrew his hand from the sea of void and touched his chest.

There was nothing there.

Bai Cangshu finally lowered his head. He saw a massive hollow in his chest.

An intense emptiness arose. Bai Cangshu felt hungry, or rather, thirsty. The instant he sensed that enormous hollow, he instinctively felt the urge to fill it.

The more he craved, the less satisfied he became. Yet the less satisfied he became, the greater his craving grew.

A color as black as ink began to spread from the hollow in Bai Cangshu’s chest. Bai Cangshu blinked only once before realizing that darkness had already swallowed him.

It was as if he had fallen into the depths of a chaotic sea unknown to anyone. There was nothing here, only boundless darkness and chaos.

Darker than darkness, greedier than Greed.

Yet Bai Cangshu felt his truest desire: fill it!

He opened his mouth. Like a snake choosing its prey, like a giant beast about to devour everything, the roar he released carried a tremor like that of a shuddering soul.

Roar!

His body exceeded a thousand meters in height. Merely standing atop the ruins of Tokyo, silver-white Ripples spread directly from behind him all the way to the Pacific Ocean.

He gripped the giant sword symbolizing the restrictions on King’s Authority. A trace of sorrow still remained on his enormous illusory face.

Below him, the vast Neon Island had split completely along Tokyo’s centerline. The tectonic plate beneath the island had been severed. As seawater rushed in, the once most prosperous Ginza district had completely sunk into the sea.

A new trench had appeared.

Terrifying tsunamis spread across the Pacific Ocean.

This was the world’s labor pain, and also the Reincarnators’ labor pain.

Golden Qi, ripple, scarlet Satsui no Hado, the various movements of the Crane School martial arts style, Kaioh Kaku’s techniques from Baki, and Shen Wulong’s Logic from the Kengan World appeared one after another across his body, gradually being absorbed by him.

Light like impure breath spilled from his mouth. Even for him, assimilating the abilities of a ferocious beast like Mercenary Tao required tremendous effort.

This was also a powerful burden.

The Mad King was not a Reincarnator specializing in physical combat, nor did he have any pursuit or preference for martial arts. Yet he simply wanted to assimilate this power.

When the future multiversal war began, he hoped that the powerful warrior named Mercenary Tao could become a contributor to this world.

This world should have been like this.

Roar!

Black ripples exploded, and the silver power of King’s Authority across the Mad King’s body lit up in an instant.

Crack, crack, crack. Dense black Ripples instantly spread across the surface of the silver King’s Authority.

Clear black patterns even began appearing on the Sword of Damocles.

Not to mention the black, cloud-fragment-like substance in the air. In only an instant, it had completely filled every corner of Tokyo’s ruins.

The Mad King raised his head. Heaven and earth had changed color. Above the sea of clouds that had completely dispersed when he drew his sword, the sky was no longer azure, but had turned pitch-black.

Red Dust dropped to one knee with a thud. He had already been exceedingly weak after his Inner Force had been extracted. Now, with the terrifying Spiritual Pressure erupting at such close range, he collapsed to the ground without any ability to resist, his entire body desperately wanting to prostrate itself.

His face was pale as paper. He opened his mouth, wanting to gasp for air, but only kept exhaling white mist.

The surrounding temperature had fallen to a terrifying degree.

Although Myriad Phenomena Descend had not absorbed Mo Shi Mo Wang’s spiritual power, he was not doing much better than Red Dust.

His face was filled with terror as he kept looking around.

Farther away, the more than twenty Title-level Reincarnators who had previously soared into the air to avoid the battle’s aftershocks had not lost their abilities, yet they too landed one after another, all manner of lights continuously flashing across their bodies.

Some tried using their abilities to defend themselves. Others tried using items.

But the Spiritual Pressure falling from the sky like rain turned everything into Silence.

Mo Shi Mo Wang suddenly felt his vision blur, as though a figure had been inserted directly into his field of view out of thin air.

It was a slender figure, almost somewhat frail. The edges of its black trench coat had turned into cloud-like wisps that continuously stretched and drifted outward, lending the entire figure a deathly texture.

Its arms hung at its sides. Its skin was deathly pale, and nail-like gelatinous matter extended from its fingertips, black in color.

That was… Mercenary Tao?

He could barely believe it. Its gleaming white hair danced like Reishi matter. A white mask completely covered its face, while demon-like curved horns atop its head pointed toward the sky.

Merely seeing this thing made Mo Shi Mo Wang feel as though his heart were about to stop beating and his breathing become impossible to maintain.

He could barely think. Could a Reincarnator become something like this?

Was that Kamui, or a masked transformation?

Was Mercenary Tao currently flesh and blood, or a soul body? Was Mercenary Tao dead or alive…

All kinds of questions seemed to stagnate in his mind. He only felt the surroundings had become incomparably cold.

Pfft!

Mo Shi Mo Wang blinked once more, then felt his body grow light. In his vision, only the image of that figure standing where he had just been remained, along with Red Dust, who should have been not far from him.

Now, only spurting blood and the traces of a sound barrier exploding like clouds remained.

Bang!

Mo Shi Mo Wang smashed through the ruins of some unknown Tokyo building. His momentum did not cease as he crashed through dozens more buildings in succession, completely vanishing beyond the edge of vision.

Only then did the other twenty-plus people realize that another figure had appeared in the field.

The fastest-reacting among them closed and opened his eyes, revealing a Three-Tomoe Sharingan. Lightning Release Chakra light flared across his body.

The Lightning Release Chakra Mode activated in an instant. Before the piercing roar could even sound, a black Flash flickered out of existence once before him.

Pfft!

Amid the explosion of lightning and flesh, he caught sight of mutilated corpses being flung away alongside him from the corner of his eye.