“Roar!” Ian Gray let out a deafening bellow.
Immediately, the surrounding horde of mindless Gillians retreated, leaving a wide, open clearing for him and Ivan.
A sharp whistle pierced the air.
Ian Gray took the initiative, executing a flawless Sonído to appear directly in front of Ivan.
His two massive scorpion pincers lunged like a pair of lethal shears, aiming straight for Ivan’s face.
In that exact fraction of a second, Ivan shifted backward, raising the massive blade in his right hand to block.
Clang!
A deafening metallic ring echoed out as the pincers clamped down on the Zanpakutō’s edge, sending a shower of sparks flying into the air.
Slashing his left hand downward, Ivan manifested a ten-meter-long Lightning Whip and lashed out.
Seeing this, Ian Gray kicked off the empty air.
Reishi exploded beneath his feet as he used Sonído to instantly blast ten meters backward.
Crack!
The Lightning Whip smashed through several massive petrified trees with unparalleled destructive force.
Just as Ian thought he had safely cleared its attack radius, the seemingly missed whip abruptly elongated.
Bending at an impossible angle, it transformed into an agile serpent of pure electricity, biting fiercely toward the scorpion’s back.
Sizzle!
Right as the lightning serpent was about to pierce Ian’s torso, the stinger attached to his back snapped out to meet it.
Cloaked in pitch-black Reiatsu, the deadly tail barb collided head-on with the crackling lightning.
Boom!
The violent clash of highly compressed Reiatsu triggered an earth-shattering explosion.
Gale-force winds tore through the clearing, violently shaking the surrounding quartz-like giant trees.
Exploiting the brief window where Ian was fully occupied deflecting the whip, Ivan used Sonído to instantly appear directly above him.
He raised his massive longsword high.
Arcs of lightning coiled fiercely around the blade.
With a savage downward cleave, he unleashed a gigantic, dark-gold crescent of sword pressure charged with the wrath of thunder.
Having just exhausted his strength fending off the lightning strike, Ian could only scramble to twist his body out of the way of the descending blade beam.
He wasn’t fast enough.
The strike sheared cleanly through his right arm, severing it completely.
A sickening tear echoed across the battlefield as dark blood sprayed out.
Ian clutched his bleeding stump, his face turning deathly pale.
But the strike wasn’t finished.
The shockwave of Ivan’s full-powered swing continued onward, cleanly slicing a wandering, mindless Gillian in the distance straight down the middle.
So strong!
If only I wasn’t already injured…
Ian gritted his teeth.
Despite being ambushed, enslaved by Hubert Allen, and forced to regress into a Gillian, Ian Gray had always considered himself an Adjuchas at heart, entirely separate from these lowly, mindless beasts.
When he had first sensed the sheer intensity of Ivan’s Reiatsu, he had immediately mistaken Ivan for an Adjuchas.
That was why he had so desperately craved a fair, one-on-one fight—he wanted to prove, to himself more than anyone else, that he was still that proud, elite Adjuchas he once was.
Ivan looked down at the one-armed, half-scorpion Hollow.
In a rare break from his usual ruthless efficiency, he didn’t press the attack to finish the job.
Instead, he lowered his weapon, studying the Hollow with a complex look in his eyes.
Through the crossing of their blades and the collision of their Reiatsu, Ivan had sensed something off.
His opponent’s will to fight wasn’t burning with a desire to win; rather, there was an unmistakable undercurrent of seeking a warrior’s death.
“I don’t need my enemy’s pity!” Ian roared, seeing Ivan halt his attack.
Pitch-black Reiatsu exploded from his body.
From his scorpion tail, a chaotic barrage of razor-sharp stingers glowing with dark purple light fired wildly into the air, raining down toward Ivan.
Watching the dense volley of Reiatsu-forged needles scream toward him, Ivan slowly shook his head.
He had hoped for a thrilling, all-out brawl against the scorpion, but in the end, it was just another one-sided stomp.
Nevertheless, knowing full well he was outmatched, this half-scorpion still dared to bare his fangs one last time.
He was, undeniably, a worthy opponent.
And Ivan intended to give a worthy opponent the respect he deserved.
Gripping the hilt with both hands, Ivan let arcs of wild lightning weave through the massive blade.
He swung with absolutely everything he had.
That dark-gold crescent of sword pressure reappeared, so bright and overwhelming it seemed to dye the bleak sky of Hueco Mundo gold.
Too strong.
Even if I wasn’t crippled to less than sixty percent of my former power, even at my absolute peak, I couldn’t have beaten him.
He can do it.
He will kill Hubert Allen.
That was the final thought that flashed through Ian Gray’s mind.
When the golden light dissipated, a massive, jagged fissure over a dozen meters long scarred the ground.
Beside it lay the ruined corpse of the half-scorpion.
Ivan walked forward and activated Soul Devour, making sure not a single drop of Reishi went to waste.
As the dark-gold vortex manifested behind him, dragging in the final severed arm, a profound, unprecedented wave of satisfaction washed over Ivan.
A Gillian who had merely regressed from the Adjuchas stage contained Reiatsu equivalent to a hundred ordinary Gillians!
If this was just the appetizer, how delicious would a true, complete Adjuchas be?
Right at the moment of the scorpion’s death, Ivan had detected the faint, lingering signature of a foreign Reiatsu etched into its soul.
If his guess was correct, this taint belonged to the Adjuchas pulling the strings behind the scenes.
“Don’t worry,” Ivan muttered.
“I’ll be coming for you very soon.” At that exact moment, miles away, Hubert Allen suddenly shivered in the middle of tearing into his latest meal, an inexplicable chill running down his spine.
Having thoroughly digested the half-scorpion, Ivan turned his attention to the surrounding horde.
Without their commander to keep them in check, the mindless Gillians had descended into a chaotic frenzy.
Ivan licked his lips.
His hunting spree was far from over.
“That scorpion bro was a true gentleman,” Ivan mused as he systematically slaughtered the panicking, stampeding Gillian herd.
“Not only does he deliver himself right to my doorstep, but he throws in over a hundred ordinary Gillians as a complimentary bonus!” It didn’t take long for Ivan to butcher, devour, and fully digest the entire hundred-plus Menos herd.
Compared to before the battle, his total Reiatsu capacity had surged by roughly another fifty percent.
“Much obliged for the gift, scorpion bro!” More importantly, for the very first time since arriving in Hueco Mundo, Ivan actually felt a faint sense of fullness.
Instinct told him he was standing right on the threshold of evolution.
All it would take was consuming another one or two hundred basic Gillians, or one complete Adjuchas, and he would finally break through to the Gillian stage.
Right now, I’m still technically a Giant Hollow, yet I possess combat power on par with an Adjuchas.
If I officially advance to the Gillian tier, won’t my stats directly rival a Vasto Lorde?
Ivan pondered internally, excitement flaring in his chest.
Pushing the thought aside, Ivan flared his Reiatsu to its absolute limit, aggressively tracing that lingering thread of foreign energy he’d sensed on the scorpion.
He needed to strike while the iron was hot.
He was going to hunt down the master behind the puppet and use that Adjuchas’s flesh and blood as the final catalyst for his own evolution.
Locking onto the faint spiritual signature, Ivan launched himself southward.
Chaining Sonído after Sonído, he traveled at breakneck speed for the better part of the day.
Finally, the distant Reiatsu signature began to burn fiercely in his senses.
He was close.
At the same time, he detected hundreds of overlapping Gillian signatures swarming densely around the primary target.
“A flawless, complete Adjuchas, backed by an army of several hundred Gillians.
A bit tricky, sure, but nothing I can’t handle.” Staring ahead at a massive nest constructed atop four intertwined colossal trees, Ivan seamlessly activated his Reiatsu Concealment.
His plan was straightforward: systematically assassinate the outer perimeter guards before diving into the heart of the nest to butcher the Adjuchas.
Wasting no time, Ivan vanished into the shadows, locking onto an isolated sentry at the very edge of the encampment.
Swish.
With a silent burst of Sonído, a blindingly fast arc of cold steel completely bypassed the sentry’s defenses, executing it instantly.
A moment later, the golden vortex of Soul Devour swallowed the remains without making a sound.
But just as Ivan set his sights on the second target, preparing to repeat the flawless assassination, deep within the center of the nest, Hubert Allen’s serpentine eyes snapped open.
“Enemy attack!” “Roar!” Following Hubert Allen’s furious screech, the hundreds of Gillians idling mindlessly beneath the giant trees instantly snapped into a frenzied state of high alert.
As a collective hive, hundreds of masked faces swiveled in unison, locking dead onto Ivan’s concealed position.
Ivan clicked his tongue.
“Figures.
You really can’t use cheap tricks meant for mindless grunts against a real Adjuchas.”