c17 - Promotion Soon
"ROAR!"
Ian Gray's bellow echoed like a thunderclap across the vast forest of Hueco Mundo.
Instantly, the surrounding Gillian-class Hollows recoiled in instinctive fear, backing away to leave a clear ring for the duel between Ian Gray and Ye Chuan.
"Whoosh!"
The sound of air tearing apart rang out. Ian Gray moved first. His bulky form blurred as he appeared in front of Ye Chuan in an instant, twin scorpion-like pincers lashing out with terrifying speed and force like massive shears forged from obsidian.
In response, Ye Chuan pivoted backwards and raised the blade in his right hand.
"CLANG!"
Steel clashed with bone-like chitin. Sparks burst from the impact.
Without pause, Ye Chuan's left hand snapped downward crackling with spirit particles. A ten-meter-long whip of lightning exploded from his palm and snapped across the battlefield.
Ian Gray's eyes narrowed. His foot stepped onto the air using Hirenkyaku-like motion, condensing Reishi beneath him, and he twisted backward, vanishing ten meters away.
BOOM!
The thunder whip struck the ground where he'd stood, tearing through several giant bone-trees of Hueco Mundo like twigs. Ian Gray exhaled in relief only to freeze as the whip twisted midair unnaturally, stretching and bending like a lightning serpent. It curved and shot toward his exposed back with surgical precision.
"SHNK!"
In that critical moment, Ian Gray's segmented scorpion tail lashed out with deadly instinct. The barbed tip, laced with pitch-black spiritual pressure, intercepted the thunder whip midair.
BOOM!!
The clash of compressed spiritual forces detonated with a deafening boom. The explosion whipped up a storm of dust and Reishi particles, and even the nearby trees groaned under the force.
Ian Gray grunted, bracing himself. But Ye Chuan had already vanished.
From above.
He descended like judgment from the heavens, long blade raised in both hands. Lightning coiled around the weapon, arcing violently. With a roar, Ye Chuan swung.
A dark golden crescent of lightning-infused sword energy exploded from the strike, its sheer pressure making the very air tremble.
Ian Gray barely had time to glance up before throwing himself to the side but he was too slow. The edge of the blade light clipped him.
SCHLK!
His right arm was cleaved off cleanly, blood spraying out in a fountain of crimson as he crashed into the sand.
"ARGHHH!"
Ian Gray clutched at his stump, pale and snarling in pain.
The thunderous arc didn't stop it crashed down and obliterated one of the nearby Gillian that had failed to retreat fast enough, bisecting the massive creature like paper.
So strong… If only I wasn't already injured…
Though now a degraded Gillian, Ian Gray clung to the pride of once having been an Adjuchas. When he sensed Ye Chuan's spiritual pressure earlier abnormally dense and refined for someone who hadn't even evolved to Gillian he mistook him for another Adjuchas. He'd challenged Ye Chuan head-on to prove to himself that he hadn't truly fallen.
Ye Chuan stood still, gazing at his half-Hollow opponent part man, part monstrous scorpion. He didn't press the advantage. His brows slightly furrowed.
In that moment of contact, he'd sensed no hatred in Ian Gray's movements. Only a yearning. A stubborn will clinging to a fractured identity.
"You're hesitating?" Ian Gray sneered bitterly. "Don't pity me, damned fake Adjuchas!"
The words were barely out before his spiritual pressure surged again, and the scorpion tail behind him glowed with venomous Reiryoku. Dozens of pitch-black spikes burst outward, homing toward Ye Chuan like missiles.
"Tsk."
Ye Chuan sighed.
He had hoped, in vain, for a clean, honorable battle. But in the end, Hollow instinct always won.
"Then I'll honor you the best way I can."
He gripped his blade in both hands once more. Lightning howled. The sword shimmered gold.
SLASH!
The dark golden arc returned vast and consuming. It ripped through the air and consumed everything in its path.
Ian Gray's final thoughts flickered through his mind like dying embers.
So strong. Even at my peak, I might not have matched him. This guy… he could defeat even Hubert Allen…
Then, darkness.
As the energy dispersed, all that remained was a deep scar in the ground stretching over ten meters and the shredded remains of Ian Gray's Hollow body.
Ye Chuan approached slowly. The dark golden vortex behind him activated, like the maw of a void.
He didn't let a single piece go to waste.
The last fragment of Ian Gray's broken body vanished into the swirling vortex. Ye Chuan exhaled softly, satisfied.
"A Gillian that fell from the Adjuchas level… his spirit power is equivalent to a hundred standard Gillians. Then, what kind of feast would a true Adjuchas be?"
As the thought passed, Ye Chuan's eyes gleamed. During the battle, he had faintly sensed another Hollow's spiritual pressure attached to Ian Gray. Undeniably, it belonged to the true Adjuchas who had enslaved him—Hubert Allen.
"Don't worry. I'll find you soon."
---
Elsewhere, in the heart of a dark nest, Hubert Allen, a tall jagged Hollow with jaguar-like features, paused while gnawing on his latest kill. He suddenly shivered.
Back on the battlefield, Ye Chuan stood amongst the panicking Gillians. With their leader dead, the pack had splintered into disorder.
He licked his lips.
The hunt wasn't over.
"That half-scorpion Hollow was generous. He didn't just give me himself—he gave me over a hundred Gillians as a bonus."
Ye Chuan's blade blurred into motion again. Lightning tore across the battlefield like divine retribution. One by one, the Gillians fell—consumed by the vortex of his Soul Devouring ability.
In a matter of minutes, over a hundred Gillians had been slain and digested.
Ye Chuan paused. His spiritual pressure had skyrocketed, now nearly 50% denser than before the battle.
"Thank you, Ian Gray," he whispered. "Your sacrifice wasn't in vain."
More importantly, he could feel it now.
The edge of transformation.
He wasn't a true Gillian yet, but with a few dozen more or the flesh of a real Adjuchas, he could break through.
"I haven't even reached Gillian, and I already have Adjuchas-level combat power… If I evolve now, I might rival even the Vasto Lorde."
The thought stirred something wild and ravenous within him.
Ye Chuan let his spiritual pressure spread fully, tracing the fading echo of that second Reiryoku signature he'd sensed from Ian Gray's body.
South.
He moved swiftly.
After traveling for half a day through Hueco Mundo's endless terrain, he finally felt it.
The spiritual pressure—thick, refined, unmistakably Adjuchas—was close. But not alone.
Hundreds of Gillians surrounded it like outer walls around a fortress.
"A perfect Adjuchas protected by a personal army… troublesome. But not impossible."
Ye Chuan crouched behind one of the bone-trees near the clearing. He calmed his breath, cloaking his spiritual pressure like a predator preparing to strike.
"I'll peel away the outer shell first…"
His blade shimmered, and lightning coiled silently.
WHOOSH!
A silent slash beheaded the first Gillian stationed outside the nest. The corpse barely hit the ground before being devoured by Ye Chuan's vortex.
But just as he moved to hunt a second—
"Enemy attack."
Hubert Allen's eyes snapped open deep within the central tree-nest.
"ROOOOAR!!"
His howl echoed across the grove.
Every Gillian within the radius immediately lost their stupor and entered a frenzy. Like a stirred hornet nest, they surged toward Ye Chuan.
He clicked his tongue in annoyance.
"Looks like I can't deal with them like the dumb ones anymore."
This time, it's war.
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