“Not good.
This blood isn’t just acidic, it’s venomous!” Ivan felt his internal Reiatsu suddenly stall.
As his punching speed inevitably slowed, the chameleon Hollow he had been brutally pummeling began to regain its mobility.
Realizing the situation had instantly turned sour, Ivan tried to pull back and retreat, but it was already too late.
Squelch!
The chameleon Hollow drove the two massive bone spikes it was gripping in its front claws directly through Ivan’s back!
“Gah!
This bastard actually knows how to use weapons?!” Clearly, the chameleon had scavenged these jagged bone spikes from somewhere and was wielding them as daggers.
The two spikes effortlessly punctured Ivan’s hardened back carapace, sinking deep into his flesh.
Ivan couldn’t stop a cry of pain from escaping his lips.
It had been over two months since he transmigrated.
Although he had evolved into a Strong Hollow at record speed, his rapid growth was almost entirely due to his human intellect, calculating ambushes, and optimal resource management.
When it came to a raw, head-on deathmatch, he severely lacked combat experience.
That was exactly why he had slipped up and let the venomous blood catch him off guard.
Not to mention, the opponent he was currently grappling with was a Giant Hollow—an entire tier above him.
Enduring the agonizing strike, Ivan fought desperately through the pain, forcing his mind to stay rational and formulate a counterattack.
He knew perfectly well that the enemy held the advantage in both Reiatsu capacity and sheer size.
If he lost his footing and fell into the chameleon’s combat rhythm, he was as good as dead.
“Lightning Arc!” Ivan let out a furious roar.
Dark gold lightning erupted across his entire body.
Right now, he didn’t have the proficiency to fire his lightning as a ranged attack.
But by burying those two bone spikes into Ivan’s back, the chameleon Hollow had practically hardwired a direct conductive link between them.
It was the perfect opening.
Zzt!
Feeling a massive surge of high-voltage electricity coursing up the bone spikes and into its claws, the chameleon immediately tried to let go and retreat.
But Ivan wasn’t about to give it the chance.
He violently twisted his body, seizing the chameleon’s front claws with his own hands.
At the same time, his massive centipede tail whipped around, wrapping the giant lizard in a crushing death grip.
Fighting through the excruciating pain of the two spikes impaling his torso, Ivan cranked his electrical output to the absolute maximum.
“Die!” “Ahhhh!!!” The chameleon Hollow had barely managed to scrape together a tactical advantage before Ivan completely reversed the board.
Sizzling and charring black under the relentless voltage, the beast had no choice but to force its jaws open and beg for mercy.
Just as Ivan suspected, this Hollow possessed a human ego.
“I was wrong!
Spare me!
I’ll never…
I’ll never torture dogs again!” “Torture dogs?
Are you kidding me?” Ivan sneered.
“You actually think I’m killing you because you were torturing a dog?
No, no, no.
I just want to eat you!
Besides, you don’t actually know you were wrong.
You just know you’re about to die!” A savage grin stretched beneath Ivan’s mask as he stared down at the pleading chameleon trapped beneath him.
He didn’t ease up on the lightning for a single second, keeping the voltage dialed to the max.
He knew perfectly well that the moment he showed mercy and stopped, the enemy would launch a desperate, fatal counterattack.
“You can speak!
That means you have your human memories, just like me!” the chameleon babbled frantically.
“We’re the same!
We’re the same kind!
We can team up and hunt these mindless animals together!
If we join forces, we could even take down a Menos Grande!” Ivan remained completely unmoved.
A distinct look of mockery flashed beneath his pale mask.
“If you choose to be a hunter, you better be fully prepared to become the prey.
What’s the point of all this talking?
Just die quietly!” With that, Ivan unhinged his jaw.
A speck of black-red Reiatsu began to violently condense right in front of his mouth.
A Cero!
Normally, Ivan fired his Cero from his fingertips, but right now, both of his hands were occupied keeping the enemy pinned down.
He had no choice but to channel the blast through his mouth.
The charge time was noticeably slower than using his hands, but the energy was successfully gathering all the same.
Watching the black-red orb of annihilation charging up right in front of its face, the chameleon Hollow knew that if a Cero detonated at this range, it would be instantly vaporized!
It frantically tried to lash out with its long tongue to interrupt the attack, only to remember that its primary weapon had already been blown to shreds by Ivan’s opening shot.
“You absolute madman!
If that Cero goes off this close, you’ll be blown to pieces too!” Ivan completely ignored the chameleon’s hysterical screaming.
The Cero finished charging.
Boom!!!
A deafening explosion rocked the dunes, sending a massive shockwave of sand and dust blasting into the sky.
In its past life, the chameleon Hollow had been a violent street thug from Karakura Town.
Ever since he was a kid, he took sick pleasure in torturing stray cats and dogs, earning the disgust of his peers, teachers, and even his own parents.
As an adult, he escalated into armed robbery and murder, eventually catching a shotgun blast to the chest from the police, dying on the spot.
His deep-seated malice prevented his soul from passing on, and he descended into Hueco Mundo as a Hollow.
Miraculously, he didn’t lose his mind like the others.
Retaining his memories and sadistic nature, he climbed the ranks from a Newborn to a Giant Hollow in just a few short years, standing right on the threshold of evolving into a Gillian.
Earlier that day, he had finally stumbled across a dog Hollow that possessed a spark of intelligence.
Thrilled at the prospect of a good torture session, he gave chase—only to run straight into Ivan.
Cough, cough!
As the smoke cleared, Ivan let out a series of violent, ragged coughs.
His body was an absolute wreck.
He looked around.
The crater was littered with scorched chunks of meat and shattered mask fragments.
The chameleon Hollow had been blown completely to bits by the point-blank Cero.
Gritting his teeth against the blinding pain, Ivan reached over his shoulder and yanked the two jagged bone spikes out of his back.
Splash!
Thick, dark red blood poured freely from the two gaping puncture wounds.
“Gah!” Ivan hissed through his teeth, but his eyes were crinkled in a triumphant smile as he looked at the scattered remains of his enemy.
Relying entirely on his own strength and wits, he had successfully assassinated a Giant Hollow an entire tier above him—and an intelligent one, at that.
Woof, woof, woof!
The little yellow dog Hollow, which had been terrified and chased off by the shockwaves of their battle earlier, suddenly came trotting right back up to Ivan.
It held a large, jagged piece of the chameleon’s shattered mask in its jaws.
Understanding the gesture, Ivan reached out his massive hand, took the mask fragment, and tossed it into his mouth.
As the highly concentrated Reishi dissolved in his stomach, a wave of profound comfort washed over his battered body.
The gruesome wounds across his torso began to slowly knit themselves back together, and the internal Reiatsu blockage caused by the acidic venom was instantly flushed out.
The little dog Hollow was acting exactly like a real puppy.
It looked up at Ivan’s towering, monstrous form, a remarkably human-like expression of flattery and gratitude on its masked face.
It wiggled its backside frantically, trying to wag a tail that had already been vaporized by Ivan’s first Cero.
The sight of it aggressively shaking a charred stump was honestly a bit comical.
“I was just hunting for myself.
Saving you was completely coincidental.
If you’re not hurt, get the hell out of here before I decide to eat you too!” Ivan barked impatiently, entirely unimpressed by the pup’s fawning display.
He immediately got to work, scarfing down the rest of his hard-earned loot scattered across the sand.
But as he chewed, he glanced back down at the pitiful, staring dog Hollow.
He picked up a small chunk of meat from the sand and casually tossed it over.
“Eat up and get lost!” To Ivan, it was just a tiny scrap of flesh.
But to the dog Hollow, the chunk of meat was literally bigger than its entire body.
The yellow pup happily dragged the massive prize off to the side and began to eagerly tear into its own meal.