"Ah!"
The Shinigami swallowed by Yoshio let out a miserable scream, but the sound didn't travel far, as if swallowed by the black sludge itself.
However, the guard wasn't alone—three more black-clad figures instantly rushed over.
Yoshio enveloped the black-clad guard's body. Black mud surged into him, and in an instant his body turned utterly pitch black—even his eyes became deep and hideous black.
Before the other three could react, Yoshio directly controlled the guard to swing his sword and cut the three down in a flash.
In truth, after the main family was exterminated, the Tsunayashiro branch family had done an excellent job protecting themselves.
But the branch family's quality was inherently lower than the main family's. And now, because they needed to unearth the main family's secrets, they had temporarily sent "outsiders" away, leaving most remaining people of little value.
Only an insider like Yoshio could obtain such information.
This is the terror of a spy: knowing your weak points, then striking!
Moreover, Yoshio was certain that doing this wouldn't cause the Hollows to wreck his plan, since the Hollows also needed someone to take the blame now.
Who better than himself—a Hollow—to shoulder it?
After finishing, Yoshio controlled the guard toward the gate.
He poured out the blood he'd prepared, opened the Third Treasury's gate, and from his body extended countless black tendrils of sludge that snaked deep into the chamber, retrieving three exquisite treasure boxes.
Having done so, he left the man's body and quietly slipped out of the Tsunayashiro Clan.
Through prearranged gaps in the Shakonmaku, Yoshio opened a Garganta within the Seireitei and headed to Hueco Mundo.
As mentioned before, the Seireitei had a Shakonmaku designed to block external reishi from entering. So normally, Hollows couldn't open a Garganta directly into the Seireitei and couldn't leave directly either.
But this thing had loopholes.
With prior preparation to the Shakonmaku, one could pass through directly.
In the original story, Aizen did exactly this; otherwise, those Menos Grande couldn't have so easily torn the space above, brought down the Shakonmaku, and carried off Aizen and the others.
Yoshio could naturally do the same, so he now opened a Garganta and traveled to Hueco Mundo.
Upon arriving in Hueco Mundo, he took out the three chests from his pitch-black body.
These three chests contained soul king fragments—of course, only a portion collected by the Tsunayashiro Clan over millions of years.
As Suì-Fēng had said earlier, there was already a seventh treasury.
While not every treasury necessarily held soul king fragments, he likely had more than just these three boxes in hand.
Still, however many he obtained, it was best to eat them first.
His body was still too weak—so weak that Yoshio truly felt uneasy.
In fact, because Angra Mainyu and Yoshio's favorability were tallied separately, Angra Mainyu could also generate Souls Abilities.
But his spiritual power was currently too weak, like Yoshio's had once been; he still couldn't possess a Souls Ability.
Once he devoured the spiritual power within these soul king fragments, that might change.
This was one of a Hollow's advantages; for example, it's not so easy for Shinigami to utilize the power of soul king fragments. If the Tsunayashiro Clan could simply devour them, they would have done so long ago.
But Hollows were different—Hollows were born to eat, eat, eat. The Soul King was even the natural enemy of Hollows, and soul king fragments naturally held a powerful allure to them.
A Hollow that devoured soul king fragments could more easily digest the potent energy within.
So Yoshio directly opened one of the boxes.
The box was unusual: it had a combination lock, and the password was Tsunayashiro Muneyoshi's blood. Probably not just Muneyoshi; other key Tsunayashiro figures could open it too.
When Yoshio had examined it earlier, he noticed a blood groove, so he intentionally kept some of Tsunayashiro Muneyoshi's blood. He hadn't been certain before, but when he placed the blood in and it unlocked, he let out a sigh of relief.
If it hadn't opened, he wouldn't have been anxious; he could always drag it back to the lab and study it slowly. As long as the technical skill was sufficient, nothing was unopenable.
Of course, it being this easy was convenient.
Yoshio looked at the gleaming fragments in the box. His Hollow instincts told him he had to devour their power!
It was the most primal impulse—the desire to evolve—driving Yoshio to draw one fragment into his body at once!
There were ten fragments in one box, each only as big as a pinky nail.
Yoshio didn't rush to eat them all; he ate just one first.
At once, he felt a surge of powerful spiritual pressure pour into him. This power resonated within him and began to transform his body.
As the spiritual power surged, Yoshio also felt a kind of pleasure—a happiness—like someone starving finally eating something delicious, or like seeing water in the desert!
He found his body's area increasing. Previously, he was about the size of a person lying on the ground; now he had swelled to the size of a bed!
If he kept devouring, wouldn't his true form become a sea of black sludge?
And with just one soul king fragment devoured, Yoshio obtained a Souls Ability he considered to be "All the World's Evil."
All the World's Evil: Grow stronger by absorbing malice, and infuse malice into others.
Since it was his Souls Ability, it was naturally permanent.
This power fit Angra Mainyu's identity perfectly.
The ability to absorb resentment was already great. At this stage, he could only absorb malice aimed at himself, but by the description, he'd be able to absorb any malice in the future.
Even if the malice wasn't directed at him, as long as it existed, he could absorb it.
If he could absorb the malice of everyone under heaven, then while he wouldn't be truly invincible, he'd be close, wouldn't he?
Besides devouring resentment, he could also implant resentment into others.
Simply put, he could "turn people black."
Moreover, this "blackening" could be directed.
For example, if Yoshio absorbed Grimmjow's malice toward Kurosaki Ichigo and transferred that malice to Inoue Orihime, then even if she previously liked Kurosaki Ichigo, she would develop malice toward him—without changing her feelings toward anyone else!
Of course, he could also indiscriminately transfer malice to Inoue Orihime, which would "blacken" her more or less across the board.
Or, if he transferred Aizen's malice toward the Soul King to Yamamoto, then Yamamoto might replace Aizen in attacking the Soul King Palace.
Looks like I'm walking further and further down the villain's path.
That feeling arose within Yoshio.
After slowly digesting the power of that one fragment, Yoshio continued devouring, consuming all ten fragments in the first box before finally stopping.
At that moment, he felt his inner spiritual pressure rapidly ballooning, and his body growing ever larger—already reaching the size of a lake.
On the white sands, vast pools of black sludge appeared like ink.
Then, those pools rapidly began to shrink, the contained spiritual power compressing, growing smaller and smaller.
At last, the mire returned to about five or six square meters. From the ever-shrinking pool, a humanoid being emerged and finally stood up.
But the being had no features, and below it was still a puddle of black sludge like a shadow.
"Adjuchas… easy enough, isn't it?"
Yoshio said with considerable delight.
He had gulped down ten soul king fragments. Though each was tiny—pinky-nail size—the ten together held immense spiritual power.
This surge of spirit power propelled Yoshio to the Adjuchas class of Menos Grande, and his spiritual power was by no means weak among Adjuchas either.
Of course, the breakthrough to Adjuchas wasn't as hard as to Vasto Lorde.
Generally, a Gillian Menos Grande that kept devouring would eventually become an Adjuchas.
However, once at Adjuchas, it was quite possible to stagnate. Devouring had attribute requirements, and talent was decided from the start. At the Adjuchas stage, if one couldn't become a Vasto Lorde, then no matter how many Menos one devoured, further evolution would be impossible.
And once devouring stopped, they would regress.
After regressing back to Gillian, they could never become Adjuchas again, and might even lose their intelligence!
This was the Hollow's most intense, primal fear!
Yoshio indeed couldn't be sure whether this Hollow incarnation of his had the potential to evolve into a Vasto Lorde. But even if not, it didn't matter—because he was born an Arrancar.
Because his soul is composed of hollow factors split from the soul of a Shinigami, he is a naturally occurring Arrancar. As an Arrancar, he naturally has evolutionary paths beyond just Hollow Devour.
To let stagnating Menos Grande evolve again was a meritorious deed in the Hollows' eyes. So although Aizen treated the Espada as pawns, the Espada were still very grateful to Aizen.
"Still… pretty good."
Feeling the power of this body, Yoshio couldn't help but feel a rush of joy.
Such a rapid rise in strength in a short time brought an addictive sensation—being ruled by joy and euphoria.
It's not hard to understand why Aizen seemed to lose his reason after evolving with the Hōgyoku.
At that time, Aizen must have been even more excited than Yoshio was now.
After all, I haven't felt any limits myself yet, while Aizen was stuck for hundreds of years. During the battle in Karakura Town, he broke through in one stroke, and then kept improving continuously.
From a Shinigami's limit to the Hōgyoku's stages one through five—five upgrades in such a short time—anyone would be ecstatic.
Because he planned a second round of looting, although the reishi from the first box's fragments hadn't fully digested yet, he opened the second and third boxes.
A full thirty soul king fragments—an immense flood of spiritual pressure surged into Yoshio, and in an instant, the reishi storm that had just calmed raged within him again!
Boom!
A violent surge of spiritual power shot skyward, as if punching a hole through the heavens, blasting straight into Hueco Mundo's crescent moon!
With the increase in spiritual power, Yoshio's body began to transform again. The body once sculpted of black sludge grew more humanlike; facial features appeared, and the black mire at his feet visibly shrank.
Now the black mire beneath him was only a meter in diameter. Whenever Yoshio moved, the mire moved with him.
"That's enough."
Yoshio murmured, "With my current strength, I should have no problem becoming an Espada, right?"
The corner of his mouth curled. With his spiritual pressure at this level, he could carry out the second heist.
He again exploited the Shakonmaku's weak point to open a Garganta and enter the Seireitei.
He appeared near the Tsunayashiro Clan once again, and activated the Hollow reiatsu detection, sensing a rather strong spiritual pressure within the Tsunayashiro estate.
Suì-Fēng…
Indeed, he hadn't shown up at the Tsunayashiro Clan for quite some time, so they had surely discovered the Third Treasury had been robbed.
Naturally, they'd be more concerned about security, and it made sense for the Onmitsukidō to protect them.
He needed to finish this quickly…
Suì-Fēng wasn't scary—because she herself was only an "imaginary body." Her motives were unclear, but she certainly wouldn't act like the real Suì-Fēng and obey orders.
The trouble was, Yamamoto Genryūsai was still in the Seireitei. If this dragged on and Yamamoto came, it would be bad.
Yamamoto's strength was still far too great—well beyond what Yoshio could handle at this stage.
He wasn't thinking of dealing with Yamamoto at all. What a joke—he'd been in this world for not even ten years!
So if Yamamoto came, he'd have to retreat!
Whether or not he got what he wanted, whether or not he killed members of the Tsunayashiro branch family—he had to leave!
This time, he had to strike decisively!
To that end, Yoshio didn't even conceal his presence!
He appeared at the Tsunayashiro estate's main gate. In an instant, countless shadows surged from his body!
The darkness roiled like great waves on the sea, surging toward the Tsunayashiro estate, rumbling as it crashed upon it. The black ocean seemed poised to drag the opulent residence into an evil, unknowable realm!