A dim sky, an endless expanse of pale dunes.
Ivan looked up and saw nothing but absolute desolation.
He had been wandering this barren wasteland for what felt like ages without seeing a single living thing.
It was as if this white sea of sand was his final resting place.
“Is this…
life after death?” Ivan’s last memories were frozen in a cramped hospital room, staring up at a dust-caked ceiling as he drew his final, miserable breath of air.
In his previous life, he had been a classic small-town overachiever.
After more than a decade of grinding his way through school to escape poverty, he finally made something of himself, graduating from a top university and landing a lucrative job at a massive tech conglomerate.
Through years of working himself to the bone, he managed to climb the social ladder, buying a house and a car in a tier-one city.
For a time, Ivan was the absolute pride of his hometown, the legendary “perfect child” every parent compared their own kids to.
But just as he achieved financial freedom and was ready to finally enjoy life, a late-stage stomach cancer diagnosis shattered everything he had bled for.
Because the disease was caught so late, his parents sold off his city apartment and car after his first round of chemotherapy.
They moved him back to a small local hospital in their home county under the guise of “conservative treatment.” Following the transfer, his condition plummeted.
Two months later, he was dead.
“The past is dead and gone,” Ivan muttered, letting the memories flash through his mind one last time before discarding them entirely.
Standing in the white desert, he instinctively tried to shift his weight.
A loud rustling echoed from the sand behind him.
A massive, white bone-plated body was writhing beneath the surface, revealing a broad carapace and razor-sharp, segmented legs.
“Ah, what the hell is that monster?!” “Oh, wait.
That’s my own body.” “Never mind then.” “I’ve turned into a monster with a human torso and a centipede for a lower half.” Maybe it was because he hadn’t spoken to anyone in so long, but Ivan stood there rambling to himself for a good while before he finally snapped out of it and took a closer look at his new form.
Since there were no mirrors or pools of water around to catch his reflection, he had to rely on a visual check.
He was a giant beast, measuring roughly four or five meters long, sporting an incredibly muscular human upper body attached to a centipede’s lower half.
His two large, human-like hands were coated in a layer of white bone armor, brimming with raw physical power.
Ivan had no doubt he could casually crush a grown man’s skull with a single grip.
More importantly, right at the juncture where his human torso met his centipede half, there was a perfectly circular hole.
“This bizarre body, this damn hole in my chest, and this godforsaken white desert.
Don’t tell me this is Hueco Mundo…
and I’ve become a Hollow?” When he first saw the environment, he hadn’t been entirely sure.
But combined with the hole in his body, he was almost certain.
He was in Hueco Mundo.
He was a Hollow.
Ivan quickly brought a pale, massive hand up to his face.
He felt a hard, bone-like texture.
Sure enough, his face was covered by a mask etched with strange, intricate patterns.
“So, I’ve transmigrated into the world of Bleach?” He had been a hardcore Bleach fan in his past life.
He never expected that after dying, he would wake up in Hueco Mundo as a Hollow.
Realizing he was now a terrifying monster didn’t bring any fear or discomfort.
Instead, he felt a surge of excitement.
“Come on, this is incredibly cool!” But on second thought, Hollows were a high-risk species in the Bleach universe.
If you got killed by the Shinigami from Soul Society, you might get lucky.
If you were innocent in life, you’d just get purified and sent to Soul Society.
But if you were judged as a sinner, you were going straight to Hell.
If a Quincy found you and killed you, it was even worse.
No chance of reincarnation at all—your soul was entirely wiped from existence.
And then there was Aizen’s rule over Hueco Mundo and his endless Arrancar experiments, which had slaughtered countless Hollows.
“Man, being a Hollow is a rough gig.
I just don’t know what the timeline is right now.
If it’s before the main plot starts, I have time to grind and grow.
If it’s during or after the plot, this is an absolute disaster.” Roar!
Right in the middle of Ivan’s wild imagination, a low, guttural snarl erupted from behind him.
A green lizard Hollow, over two meters long and dripping dark yellow slime from its jaws, was charging straight at him.
Boom!
Ivan’s heavy centipede tail whipped out from beneath the sand, slamming brutally into the lizard Hollow and driving its entire body deep into the dune.
Before the lizard could even attempt to get up, Ivan spun around and unleashed a wild flurry of uncoordinated, street-brawler punches.
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
Whimper…
Caught in Ivan’s unrelenting stunlock combo, the lizard Hollow was completely brutalized.
The white mask on its face shattered into three pieces, and its sharp claws were snapped clean off.
It lay in the sand, letting out high-pitched whimpers as if begging for mercy.
Dark green blood splattered all over the surrounding sand and coated Ivan’s body, but his fists didn’t stop swinging until the lizard was an unrecognizable, lifeless pulp.
Ivan let out a long breath.
Looking at the thoroughly dead lizard in the crater, he exhaled heavily.
While killing a Hollow much smaller than himself wasn’t exactly difficult, it was still a massive mental hurdle for someone who had been a law-abiding citizen of the modern world just days ago.
He had lived thirty years in his past life without so much as killing a chicken.
But he quickly calmed his racing heart.
Since he knew he had transmigrated into Bleach as a Hollow, he had to adapt his mindset immediately.
He needed to seize every opportunity to grow stronger, because this world was crawling with fatal threats.
Without knowing the exact timeline, rushing for power was his only absolute truth.
This world was dangerous, yes, but it also offered opportunity—the chance to grasp supernatural strength and transcend his mortal limits completely.
Ivan locked his eyes on the pulverized corpse of the lizard Hollow.
He remembered clearly from the canon that Hollows evolved by devouring each other, and the absolute apex predators among them could eventually evolve into legendary Vasto Lorde.
Tossing aside his lingering disgust, he grabbed a severed forelimb covered in green blood, shoved it past his pale mask, and began to chew.
Crunch, crunch!
He finished off the limb in just a few bites.
Instead of the nauseating reaction he expected, it actually tasted incredibly good.
He didn’t know if this specific lizard Hollow was just a delicacy, or if his palate had been completely twisted the moment he became a monster.
After swallowing the meat, Ivan felt his Reiryoku increase by a tiny fraction.
His eyes lit up with excitement.
He looked down at the remaining chunks of meat in the crater and began to feast.