Proceeding with Caution

Over the next two days, Wien carefully scouted the outskirts of the jungle and gained a general understanding of the area beyond it.

The jungle was not very large, with a radius of roughly several kilometers. Areas like this were countless in the underground layer of Hueco Mundo, and vast numbers of low-level Hollows occupied such terrain.

Wien had spent two days exploring not because he walked slowly, but because within several hundred meters of the forest, he had hardly seen a single Hollow he considered weak.

The ones he saw were all large Hollows that gave him a powerful sense of danger. Fortunately, they had already entered the forest and had not noticed Wien.

During those two days, Wien also saw more than a dozen oddly shaped Hollows enter the forest one after another. Some even came to blows before they made it inside.

But Wien did not dare take advantage of their fight. His foremost goal now was to determine his own strength, not to profit from others' battles.

Judging from what he had seen over the past two days, Wien might have been overly optimistic about his strength.

After crossing over, Wien had received no so-called golden finger, no system, no cheat. All he had was his own instinct for survival. Because of this, Wien believed he was very likely among the weakest Hollows in Hueco Mundo.

After another day of circling around, Wien finally found his target among some ruins.

It was a lizard-shaped Hollow perched on a dead tree. Wien patiently lay in wait near it for a long time, and by observing it, he realized that the lizard-shaped Hollow was probably just an ordinary beast Hollow, without a trace of intelligence, possessing nothing but a living creature's instincts.

The lizard Hollow was nearly a meter long, and its size convinced Wien to attack it. After making sure there were no other Hollows nearby, Wien began slowly approaching it from behind.

"If it's a creature like this, it should be all right, shouldn't it?" One step, then two, Wien lowered his body and slowly approached the lizard.

When he was only a few steps away, the lizard-shaped Hollow suddenly turned around, and a faint surge of Spiritual Pressure swept toward Wien. The sudden Spiritual Pressure made his body freeze for an instant, but then he rushed at the lizard.

That single exchange of Spiritual Pressure was enough for Wien to determine that the lizard's Spiritual Power was weaker than his own, so he did not hesitate. He took a quick step and lunged to the lizard Hollow's side, raising his left hand to smash down with a punch.

But just then, the lizard Hollow suddenly opened its mouth, spraying a jet of black liquid mixed with faint Spiritual Pressure at Wien.

But Wien, being humanoid, did not panic at such an attack. He pushed off with his foot and dodged the liquid with a slight sidestep to the left. At the same time, he pivoted on his left foot and spun around, using the force of the spin to raise the bladed claw on his right hand and slash viciously at the lizard-shaped Hollow.

Splat!!!

With a muffled sound, the lizard-shaped Hollow and the dead tree beneath it were both chopped into five pieces. The section attached to its head fell to the ground and writhed in pain, scarlet liquid spilling everywhere. After roughly several dozen seconds, the lizard Hollow, cut into five pieces, finally died and lay motionless on the ground.

"Phew... I didn't expect even the lowest-level Hollows to have a way to attack." Wien let out a long breath.

He looked back at the black liquid that had just brushed past him. It had landed on the silvery-white sand and was making a corrosive hissing sound.

Wien tentatively touched the liquid with his claw. White smoke rose immediately from the point of contact.

He quickly rubbed his claw against the sand to wipe off the black corrosive liquid, then shook it, stood up, and went over to the lizard Hollow's corpse to examine it closely.

"According to the anime, once a Hollow is cut down by a Soul Reaper's Zanpakuto, its body immediately turns into Reishi and disappears. But from the looks of it, if a Hollow is killed by another Hollow, its corpse doesn't disappear right away. Could that be due to a property of the Zanpakuto?" As he pondered this, Wien reached out and picked up the part of the corpse attached to the mask. He swallowed and stared at it with a frown, but made no further move.

During his days of scouting, Wien had not eaten anything at all, and Hollows needed a tremendous amount of energy to replenish the Spiritual Power they consumed.

This energy could be obtained from human souls or by devouring living beings with Spiritual Power, such as Soul Reapers or other Hollows.

But although Wien had gone several days without taking in any energy, he still found it hard to bring himself to eat the half-lizard, which was dripping an unidentified red liquid.

Time ticked by, and Wien remained in a daze, holding the lizard Hollow's severed body. The other four pieces lying on the ground had already begun gradually turning into Reishi and vanishing into the air. Only the part attached to the mask remained.

"Forget it. If I can't stomach it, I'll just throw up." He clicked his tongue softly, and in the end, he opened his mouth and bit into the lizard's body.

Hiss...

To his surprise, as Wien bit down, he did not feel the lizard's flesh was tough or hard to tear. Instead, he bit a chunk off cleanly, with hardly any effort. Perhaps the protective Spiritual Power on the Hollow's body had dissipated after its death, or perhaps too much time had passed and the Spiritual Power in its body had begun turning into Reishi, making it so easy to bite through.

The lizard meat hardly needed chewing once it entered his mouth. Instead, it turned directly into liquid energy and flowed into Wien's body. It had almost no taste; he merely felt a warm current gradually spreading to every corner of his body.

But the thought of what kind of creature he was eating, and the texture in his mouth, still sent a chill of disgust through him.

But to gain strength, Wien had no choice but to force himself to eat despite the nausea rising in his stomach. After all, those who had gone before him had Bear Grylls to back them up: tastes like chicken, crunchy.

Putting those thoughts aside, Wien began tearing into the lizard. He quickly ate the meat off its body and felt much warmer. In the end, only the lizard's head and mask remained.

But when Wien pulled off the lizard Hollow's mask, its head quickly turned into Reishi and vanished into the air, leaving only a hollow white mask. Only then did he remember that most of a Hollow's Spiritual Power remained in its mask. Even if he ate the entire body, the Spiritual Power left in it might not amount to a fifth of what was in the mask.

But those unintelligent Hollows, following the principle of wasting nothing and taking everything, would eat their enemies whole. And Wien, who was intelligent, did not think much about it either at that moment. He opened his mouth and bit into the mask.

As soon as the mask entered his mouth, it turned into a dense stream of Reishi and entered his body. The warm, comfortable feeling nearly made Wien cry out. At that point, Wien made a major decision: unless circumstances forced him to, he would never take another bite of any Hollow's flesh!