"Why did you forcefully disconnect us from the natural forces? What is going on here?" Poseidon asks.
I'm standing in the top floor of the Tower of Babel, in the middle of an emergency Denatus.
"You should be happy about this development." I say as I take a walk about the room. "You all call your Familia members your children. What is a parent's job?
To prepare their child for independence. You have succeeded. Rejoice!
I have made the world itself independent from divine intervention and control, and once all the monsters are in the dungeon I will take it away and from that point on, the only threat to the people of this world, are the people of this world.
Once the dungeon is gone, I will leave this world with my Familia.
You should all return to heaven and watch over the people from afar, only providing guidance when absolutely necessary. They will no longer need you to hold their hands. Let them develop on their own."
"Who will be in charge when you leave? We won't have a God to rule the heavens." Astraea asks, looking worried.
"I've already given Olorun a copy of Ouranos' divinity. He'll be God of the Heavens in my absence. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have preparations tot make. I suggest you all prepare as well." I say before walking out the room.
I teleport to the master bedroom in the mansion, where I finally have a moment to myself for the first time since I killed Gaea yesterday.
I stand in front of a mirror as I place my hand on it's surface and enchant it to reflect not my physical appearance, but my soul.
"Oh, Man! What the fuck is this?!" I exclaim in surprise and disgust as I see an amalgamation of every creature I've ever devoured whole. "This is so much worse than I feared."
'Hephaestus walked around with her soul curse for thousands of years, even though her friend is a goddess of magic. I definitely won't find a solution here in this world.' I think to myself.
"No. No you won't." I suddenly hear a voice from behind me. I turn around and see Rob standing in the doorway.
"Jezus Christ, kid, you've made a mess of yourself." Rob says as he looks at the mirror.
"Didn't you know about this when you sent me off to the Doom universe?"
"No, I don't use my omniscience all the time."
"Right. I don't suppose you came here to fix this?" I ask, pointing to the mirror that's still showing my soul.
"No, I didn't. Look, kid, you're technically almost three hundred million years old. I know that you've only spent about a hundred thousand awake, but still... That's too much time spent, gaining too little power.
At this point you'd have to seriously use the full extent of your abilities to be able to significantly destroy, or otherwise alter half a galaxy.
Now don't get me wrong, that's not bad. But you asked for the freedom to travel to any world you please, whenever you please, and I granted your request.
If you had followed my plan, however, by now, you would have been able to go toe to toe with almost anyone in Marvel's Earth-616, except perhaps the Living Tribunal and The One Above All.
Knull, Odin, The Celestials. They would have been a joke. But as you are now? They'd wipe the floor with you.
So, how about we do it my way for a while? See if you like it. And if you don't? So be it. You can go back to going wherever you want to go."
"... Are you serious? Earth-616?" I ask in slight disbelief. "Alright then, I'll try it your way. So, what do I do about this shit?" I ask, pointing to the mirror again.
"It's a simple two step plan. Step one, go to Bleach and devour some Reiryoku, Spiritual Energy. Just like any other energy you devour, your body will immediately start producing its own.
Reiryoku will strengthen the soul over time, simply through prolonged exposure. So you won't even have to do anything else with it.
As your soul strengthens, the anger from the Ghidorah Dragons will soon stop affecting you."
"That sounds like a good plan. What's step two?"
"Once you got what you need from Bleach, you can immediately leave. You don't need to learn their methods of training their Reiryoku or how to use it in battle. You can, if you want to. But you don't have to. You're better off simply letting it strengthen your soul, learn how to control it and then leaving it be.
As for step two, that will require you to assimilate every creature you've ever devoured whole, one by one, into your soul.
Unfortunately, to do this, you'll have to first sever your soul from your physical body, but we're getting ahead of ourselves. First, Bleach.
You shouldn't bring Alice there. The next world, sure, but not Bleach.
Just go in, take what you need, maybe fight a little to get some measure of control over it and get out. Again, you don't have to waste time trying to learn more. All you need is spiritual energy, also known as Reiryoku, got it?"
"Yeah, I got it. Just let me say bye to Alice and I'll be on my way."
"Wait, what? No, no. There's no need for that. If you do this properly, you'll be gone for a few hours tops. And that's from your perspective. From hers, you won't even be gone at all."
"Alright, fine. Open a portal then." I say before Rob waves his hand and a portal appears in front of me.
"Oh, and kid? Aside from your divinities, your soul hasn't really been strengthened much. So, I'm afraid the Shinigami are quite capable of inflicting mortal wounds, since their attacks afflict both the body and the soul.
Good luck."
I step through the portal and eventually arrive in the outskirts of Soul Society, a place called Rukongai, where the 'regular' souls reside.
I start walking in the direction I hear noise coming from. Under the cover of darkness, I approach a large wall and I jump on top, keeping myself hidden as I observe souls going about their evening while I listen to their conversations.
It doesn't take more than ten minutes to figure out that just like any other society, this one too has a darker underbelly.
I reduce my weight and manipulate the air around me as I start floating towards a dark, seedy alley, where two men are discussing terms for the purchase of a woman to be kept as a sex slave.
I hover directly above them as I return to my normal weight and stop manipulating the air around me.
I land with both my feet on top of their heads as the sudden unexpected impact snaps the vertebrae in their necks, permanently paralizing both men.
As they lay silently on the ground, I reach my hands towards them, pull out their Reiryoku and devour most of it, leaving just enough to allow them both to live out their miserable lives as paralyzed shells of their former, despicable selves.
As a career criminal, I figure the slave dealer must know a deal more than some random individual on the street, so I put my hand on his forehead and search his memory for any information on Seireitei, the area in Soul Society where the Shinigami live and work.
Unfortunately, as I suspected, I don't find much more than I remembered myself. The whole of Seireitei is surrounded by a great wall that stops anyone from entering uninvited.
Though the physical wall itself is only ten meters high, it extends a spirit barrier high into the sky and deep below the ground, ensuring no one can enter through either the sky above or ground below.
I take all the money they had on them and start running across the rooftops, remaining unseen the whole time as I go straight for the wall.
As I get closer, the neighborhoods get nicer. After almost an hour or so of traveling just below the speed of sound, I reach the wall.
As I'm still clinging to rooftops and shadows, I take out a pitch black cloak and cover myself as I step out of a dark alley and start blending in with the locals, walking along the wall using a cane, pretending to be an old man.
I make my way towards one of the four gates and find it sealed tight. I then head for an inn nearby. I enter and pay for a room for the night.
I sit on the bed and start using all my senses to observe the entirety of Seireitei. Immediately a three dimensional representation of it appears in my mind, showing me every building and every person in near perfect detail.
Meanwhile, I split my focus as I also concentrate on my breathing. I breathe in through my nose, expanding my chest and at the same time my Reiryoku also expands beyond my body as it covers the whole room. I then breathe out through the mouth. As my chest deflates, so does my Reiryoku as it retreats back into my body.
I take great care to ensure my Reiryoku does not go beyond the room as with every breath I take, the strength, the density and the amount increases just like all the other forms of energy I possess.
Noticing a few similarities between Reiryoku and my Aura, it doesn't take me long to figure out how to perfectly control and manipulate it.
Remembering a few things the Shinigamis can do with this form of spiritual energy, I start thinking on more applications.
I remember they can amplify the output of their Reiryoku, which causes Spiritual Pressure, also known as Reiatsu, to be felt by those around them.
They can use this Reiatsu to intimidate their opponents or even use it to attack. It can paralyze someone or in a concentrated burst, it can even cause physical damage.
Aside from Spiritual Pressure, the Shinigami also use their Reiryoku to cast spells, increase their speed, fuel the special abilities of their Zanpakuto and increase their physical strength and durability.
The more I think about it, the more convinced I become that this Reiryoku shares too many properties with my Aura and Magic for it to just be a coincidence that Rob would send me here.
Through my journeys I have come to possess and control a few energies. Titan energy, which can forcibly evolve the strength, growth and natural abilities of any living creature to such an extent that a lizard (Godzilla) can become powerful enough to cleave a world in half.
Divine energy, which can fuel the divinities I use, similar to how Magic fuels spells.
And then there's Magic of course, which speaks for itself.
But if I were faced with an insanely powerful enemy I wasn't sure I could handle, I wouldn't bother with any of them. I would only use the one I am most comfortable and familiar with. The most powerful energy I possess, my Aura.
I have long felt that I should find a way to combine my Aura with the other energies somehow, and now here I am, in possession of an energy that I believe is the bridge between my Aura and Magic
So I decide to experiment. First without using the power of Creation. If I don't succeed, I can always use Creation to manipulate them.
I hold out both my hands and have three little balls of energy floating above my palms. One is my aura, which is bright blue. The second is magic, shining a golden light, and the other is Reiryoku, which is pitch black.
I then try to combine the three and bring them closer together. Without any manipulation on my part, the magic and Reiryoku latch on like magnets and combine perfectly. Immediately afterwards, my aura starts to greedily absorb the new combined energy.
The combination of spiritual energies and magic becomes darker and more volatile as my aura goes from sky blue, to midnight blue until it becomes pitch black with a faint blue glow, all in less than a second.
The combination of energies immediately covers my body as it starts to assimilate all of my Magic with all my Reiryoku, which is done quickly given the, as of yet, low amount of Reiryoku.
I close my eyes as I let the energies combine and refocus my attention on the mental map and try to find a good place to steal some Asauchi so I can have Genesis devour it and make my own Zanpakuto.