Early the next morning, Hasumi Ren woke up.
After a night's rest, the exhaustion from the past few days had mostly dissipated.
He stretched his body, feeling better than ever before.
After washing up, he stepped out of his room.
The early morning in the Fourth Division was as peaceful as always.
The surrounding leaves were dotted with morning dew, glistening under the sunlight.
Ren first went to the Captain's office to ask about Rangiku's condition.
Unohana told him that Rangiku had been placed in an intensive care ward, and a barrier to nourish her soul had already been set up.
All she needed now was a long period of rest and recovery; there was nothing more to worry about.
Although a portion of her power would ultimately be missing, it wouldn't affect her daily life going forward.
Ren felt relieved. He spent the next few days peacefully until his day off arrived.
*'It's time. Time to test out my new skill.'*
Fully equipped, Ren stepped out of the Seireitei's west gate and headed toward Mount Furi.
Returning here after such a long time, Ren felt an inexplicable sense of familiarity.
As he navigated through the forest, he paused at the edges of some open clearings, occasionally spotting traces left behind by Kido training.
That was probably the work of Kaien and Kukaku.
Afterward, Ren continued deeper into the mountains.
He didn't stop until he reached an even more remote, uninhabited area deep within the old forest.
*'This place should be hidden enough.'*
Ren entered his inner world and once again saw the unconscious vessel of his Hollow spiritual pressure.
With a thought, his Soul Splitting ability activated.
The next moment, Ren's consciousness awakened. He opened his eyes, and a tearing sensation emanated from within his body.
Wisps of dark red Reishi slowly separated from him.
He could feel the Hollowfied spiritual pressure that had been lying dormant inside him draining away, beginning to converge in front of him.
The spiritual pressure accumulated more and more, gradually solidifying and transforming into a physical creature.
At that moment, Ren curiously opened his system panel.
He saw the experience points for his Hollowfication skill rapidly decreasing.
The numbers constantly jumped, finally settling slowly at Lv1.
Within Ren's body, only a Lv1 Hollowfication ability remained.
His internal Hollowfied spiritual pressure was also reduced to a minuscule fraction.
Afterward, Ren deactivated the Soul Splitting ability and focused his attention on what was in front of him.
The Hollow spiritual pressure he had split off had now coalesced into a standing, humanoid entity.
Right now, it stood before Ren on two legs.
It had long arms and legs, a pitch-black body, and a large hole in its chest unique to Hollows.
It was also incredibly tall, so much so that Ren had to look up at it.
A bone-like mask, characteristic of Hollows, covered its face, revealing only two perfectly round, empty holes.
Those two hollow eyes were staring blankly at Ren.
Ren also stared blankly back at it.
One person, one Hollow, staring wide-eyed at each other.
A peculiar sensation arose.
This body was now completely under his control.
Ren could see himself through the eyes of the Hollow in front of him, and he could fully perceive its existence.
It was like some sort of extension of his own body.
In fact, Ren discovered that he could control it directly.
At this moment, the two bodies seemed to share a single brain, able to think together and process things in parallel.
Both bodies thought simultaneously and acted simultaneously.
He tried making his main body look to the left while making the Hollow look to the right.
With just a thought, he commanded it as easily as his own arm, without the slightest sluggishness.
Following that, Ren gradually began to control both bodies to perform increasingly complex actions.
As Ren grew more accustomed to the feeling, he could even control the split Hollow to engage in hand-to-hand combat with himself.
*'Fighting myself feels a bit weird.'*
*'But it's very interesting.'*
This seemed quite different from what he had understood Soul Splitting to be.
He had separated his own spiritual pressure to form an independent entity.
And this entity was entirely controlled by his thoughts.
It truly exceeded his expectations.
*'If I were to split off my self-aware Zanpakuto, I wonder if I would still enjoy the same highest-priority control rights...'*
Just then, Ren remembered something.
He controlled the split Hollow and attempted to open the system panel.
The next moment, a completely different system panel appeared before the clone Hollow's eyes.
Level: Gillian (Experience: 680/8000)
Hierro: Lv3 (Experience: 0/3000)
Regeneration: Lv3 (Experience: 0/3000)
Sonido: Lv3 (Experience: 0/3000)
Cero: Lv3 (Experience: 0/3000)
Descorrer: Beginner (1%)
Ren looked at the panel, which was different from his usual one, and paused slightly.
He wasn't surprised that his clone could open the panel.
But this Hollow-centric panel was somewhat unexpected.
*'However...'*
*'My level five Hollowfication only managed to produce a single Gillian?'*
Ren felt like the system might have been hacked.
He found it a bit hard to accept.
Sighing, Ren continued to scan the panel.
The Zanjutsu, Hakuda, Hoho, and Kido below had also been replaced by various Hollow abilities.
And in the special abilities row, there was an addition: Descorrer.
Ren clicked on Descorrer to check its description.
He then understood; this was the basic skill Hollows used to traverse space.
That meant he could now open a Garganta and travel to Hueco Mundo.
*'This is... truly interesting.'*
Hueco Mundo. That was the home base of the Hollows, a place sandwiched between the Soul Society and the World of the Living where Hollows gathered to survive.
Ren remembered that the Reishi concentration there was higher than in the other two worlds.
But it was also the most dangerous place.
*'With the current strength of this body, sending it to Hueco Mundo...'*
*'It seems worth a try. At the very least, it's a Gillian-class Hollow, so it's not entirely without the ability to survive in Hueco Mundo.'*
*'Moreover, this is just a spiritual pressure clone; it doesn't involve the core of my soul.'*
Even if something unexpected happened to it in Hueco Mundo, it wouldn't affect Ren at all.
At most, he would just lose the Hollowfied spiritual pressure he had accumulated.
Following this, Ren's thoughts became more active.
If this was the case, he could completely control it from within the Seireitei, sending it to Hueco Mundo to farm monsters and evolve, thereby achieving dual-line progression across two dimensions.
*'Besides, even if it stays in the Seireitei, there's no room for it to grow.'*
*'I'd also have to be careful that it doesn't get farmed as a wild monster by Soul Reapers on patrol.'*
The next moment, under Ren's control, the clone Hollow raised its claw.
At its fingertips, a trace of dark red spiritual pressure condensed.
The spiritual pressure grew denser and stronger.
Then, it tore a rift in the air.
Inside the rift was endless darkness, as if it could swallow everything around it.
This was a Garganta.
Unlike the Dangai, which had a stable structure, the Garganta appeared much more primitive and chaotic.
Ren took a deep breath and controlled the clone Hollow to step into the rift.
Beneath its feet, spiritual pressure formed a path forward.
At the same time, Ren carefully monitored whether there was any delay or possibility of losing control over the clone.
Fortunately, even though the clone had entered the Garganta, the connection remained unbroken.
This also put Ren's mind at ease.
Subsequently, the figure of the clone Hollow gradually disappeared into the rift.
The rift also slowly closed under the influence of space.
Leaving only Ren standing quietly in place, watching the clone he controlled continuously move forward, following the attraction sensed by its body.
However, the flow of time and space inside the Garganta was different from the outside world.
His clone ran in the Garganta for a long time, but his main body in the Soul Society only experienced a single instant.
This also caused Ren's mind to experience a momentary sense of confusion.
He didn't know how much time had passed, but his clone sensed that the destination was getting closer and closer.
Immediately after, it condensed spiritual pressure in front of it, opened a spatial rift, and jumped out.
After its feet landed on the sandy ground, Ren finally breathed a sigh of relief.
The feeling of chaos in his mind, caused by the different flows of time, gradually improved.
Then, Ren slowly raised his head and looked around.
A boundless, vast white desert stood before him, dotted with rare, fiercely shaped, withered branches.
In the sky was an endless long night, with only a crescent moon hanging high above.
Ren observed everything that seemed to have been drained of color, experiencing the high-concentration Reishi environment in the air, and couldn't help but sigh softly.
"So this is..."
"Hueco Mundo."