Hueco Mundo, the Newborn Zone.
As the name suggested, this vast expanse at the very outer fringes of the endless desert was the primary spawning ground for Newborn Hollows.
Roar!
A frenzied shriek ripped through the desolate air.
Tracing the sound to its source, a vaguely humanoid silhouette was thrashing wildly.
In the next second, the figure was completely engulfed in a thick, white liquid before bursting out as a spider Hollow roughly half the size of a grown man.
Clearly, this was the final death throe of a Soul that had been undergoing Hollowfication.
The process had run its course, fully transforming the victim here in Hueco Mundo.
When Ivan first spotted the figure, he thought he had actually stumbled across a living human wandering the sands.
It was only when he crept closer that he realized the Soul had completely lost its mind and was just one step away from fully turning into a monster.
Moving with the speed of a thunderbolt, Ivan’s massive body erupted from the sand.
He snapped his jaws around the half-sized spider Hollow, swallowing it whole like a bite-sized snack.
“Instead of losing your mind and scraping by like a feral beast, you might as well become my nourishment and let me carry you to eternity!” Ivan patted his stomach, offering a brief eulogy to the spider Hollow that had already dissolved into Reishi within his gut.
For the next stretch of time, Ivan camped out in the Newborn Zone, prowling the sands for freshly spawned Hollows.
Armed with the stats of a Strong Hollow and a habit of launching premeditated ambushes, his grinding sessions were absolutely risk-free.
After all, Ivan wasn’t like standard Hollows; he still possessed human intellect.
He knew he was weak right now.
If he acted like some battle-crazed shōnen protagonist and challenged opponents way out of his league, he’d just be asking for a death wish.
He didn’t have some sealed demonic power or a cheat system to bail him out of a tight spot.
Before he knew it, over ten days had passed.
Ivan’s overall length had reached roughly ten meters.
He was still hunting in the Newborn Zone, partly to grind for stats, but also to see if he could find another Newborn Hollow that had retained its human consciousness like he had.
Unfortunately, he didn’t find any kindred spirits.
But his physical size had bulked up significantly.
After some testing, Ivan found that the power of his Cero had increased by several margins since he first unlocked it.
It now packed about seventy percent of the destructive force of the blast he had seen from the mutant Gillian.
More importantly, he was no longer a one-pump chump.
His expanded Reiatsu reserves allowed him to fire off two consecutive Ceros before he ran completely dry.
This meant that if he encountered a formidable opponent, he could use his Reiatsu Concealment to hide in the shadows, blast them in the face with a point-blank Cero, and then mop up the crippled remains.
Below the Menos Grande class, there was practically no Hollow that could survive that combo.
He was technically still classified as a Strong Hollow and hadn’t yet evolved into a Giant Hollow.
But by his own estimates, as long as he stayed hidden and landed the first strike, he could easily assassinate a Giant Hollow!
As for the Gillian class…
yeah, that was still way out of his league.
Just thinking about the towering silhouette of that mutant Gillian gave him the chills.
Then again, he couldn’t use that beast as a baseline.
That mutant was an absolute anomaly among Gillians; its combat power was undoubtedly leagues above the standard, mindless drone.
Meanwhile, back at the site of the hundred-Hollow free-for-all.
After over a dozen days of savage, unrelenting slaughter, the brutal battle royale was finally drawing to a close.
The cratered battlefield was littered with scattered limbs and broken masks.
Splatters of multicolored blood soaked the surrounding sand.
Only two Hollows remained standing: the two pitch-black, hyena-like Giant Hollows.
They looked completely identical, save for the fact that one had long fangs and the other had short ones.
They were the exact same monsters Ivan had stolen the octopus mask from.
However, both Giant Hollows had grown significantly larger since Ivan last saw them.
Their bodies were covered in fresh, jagged wounds, leaving them looking utterly miserable.
Under normal circumstances, these two hyenas should have engaged in one final deathmatch.
The winner would devour the loser and ascend to the Gillian class.
But instead of tearing into each other, the two beasts walked together, gently licking each other’s wounds.
Then, a bizarre phenomenon occurred.
The bodies of both hyena Hollows began to melt simultaneously, dissolving into two pools of pitch-black liquid.
The puddles flowed together, merging into a single, massive reservoir of black sludge.
Bloop, bloop!
The black liquid began to boil violently like a pot of scalding water.
It rapidly expanded upward, forming a towering, solid black cylinder.
Suddenly, a massive white bone claw burst through the side of the cylinder.
The claw gripped the black shell and ripped it completely open, revealing the colossal, masked head of a Gillian.
But unlike a standard Menos, this mask was lined with a row of razor-sharp teeth.
That wasn’t all.
As the rest of the black shell sloughed away, a second massive head poked out.
This one had a standard mask, devoid of the sharp teeth.
A two-headed Gillian!
Another mutant!
Roar!!!
Both heads of the mutant Gillian threw back their necks and roared in unison, howling to the heavens to celebrate their successful evolution.
Clap, clap, clap.
The moment the howling stopped, the sound of polite applause drifted across the dunes, followed immediately by an incredibly effeminate, theatrical voice.
“My, my!
To think a simple stroll would yield such an unexpected harvest!
A mutant Gillian.
If I offer you as tribute to the great Lord Baraggan, I will most certainly be showered in praise!” The two massive heads of the Gillian snapped toward the source of the voice.
Standing atop a distant dune was a humanoid Hollow roughly seven or eight meters tall.
Its entire body was a bright, flamboyant pink.
Its stark white mask was etched with the intricate pattern of a blooming rose.
It possessed thick, muscular limbs contrasted by an incredibly slender waist, and a large, deep-purple flower bud grew directly out of its back.
It was an incredibly bizarre sight.
To a human, this creature would be a giant.
But compared to the hundred-meter-tall mutant Gillian, it looked like an insignificant ant.
Yet, the newly evolved mutant Gillian didn’t dare make a single move.
From that “insignificant” figure, the twin-headed monster felt an utterly terrifying wave of Reiatsu!
More importantly, it felt a primal, bloodline-deep suppression.
It was the absolute authority a superior being held over an inferior one.
The two-headed Gillian instinctively knew that this flamboyant creature was an apex predator—an Adjuchas!
“Who…
are…
you?” The sharp-toothed head of the Gillian spoke slowly, stumbling over the syllables as if it wasn’t quite used to speaking yet.
“I am a general serving under the absolute King of Hueco Mundo, the almighty ruler of all Hollows, Lord Baraggan Louisenbairn!
I am Charlotte Chuhlhourne!” the effeminate voice proudly announced.
“Greetings…
Lord…
Charlotte!” The two-headed Gillian clearly possessed high intellect.
Feeling the monstrous Reiatsu rolling off Charlotte Chuhlhourne, it immediately took the smart route and offered its submission.
However, since it had only just gained the ability to speak, its words were slow and its pronunciation heavily slurred.
“Hohoho, don’t be nervous, my child.
Lord Baraggan is very fond of juniors with high potential like you.
Come, follow me to seek an audience with the King!” The moment the words left his mouth, Charlotte Chuhlhourne vanished in a blur of Sonído, reappearing right beside the two-headed Gillian.
Despite his “tiny” stature, the Adjuchas effortlessly dragged the colossal beast away, heading straight toward the absolute heart of the endless desert: Las Noches!