Battle of the Hollow Forest

The Forest's core lay more than ten kilometers from the outskirts where Wien was. With his enormous body, Wien walked for a long time before gradually drawing within a thousand meters of the summoner.

Once he entered that range, Wien found hundreds of Gillians packed densely around him. They neither quarreled nor attacked one another, simply walking step by step toward the source of the summons.

Although Wien could now tear apart dozens of Gillians with his teeth without the slightest effort, he did not do so. Instead, he concealed his body and Spiritual Pressure, followed behind all the Gillians, and watched what was happening ahead.

As he drew closer to the summoner, Wien felt the fluctuations of Spiritual Pressure grow stronger. He should be almost there.

When the dozens of Gillians in front of Wien stopped, he knew that the summoner who had initiated this war was behind that dark mass of bodies. Judging by the oppressive Spiritual Pressure, this Hollow was at least a peak Pseudo-Adjuchas, perhaps already close to becoming a Vasto Lorde. It would probably make that leap after this war.

But Wien had no idea why someone so powerful had not entered the Inner Circle to develop.

Revealing himself, Wien squeezed his way into the crowd of Gillians. Finally, from the third row of Hollows, he found the summoner.

It was a Pseudo-Adjuchas-class Menos Grande that resembled a sandworm. About forty meters long, it was like an enormous wall.

Each of its more than twenty segments had two blade-like appendages on both the left and right sides. A grotesque mask tightly encased its head. Beneath its enormous mouthparts, four rows of sawlike teeth were exposed to the air, and dark green liquid dripped continuously from its mouth.

The hissing sound the liquid made when it hit the ground was enough to tell him that the green substance must never touch his body. Otherwise, he would either die or be injured.

A low, unceasing hiss filled the air. The sandworm-like Adjuchas was still summoning Gillians.

This war was no small affair. Even hundreds of Gillians were not enough to fill its gaping maw.

Seeing this, Wien chose to lie low. This was sure to be a major war, perhaps a battle against another Forest of Menos, or perhaps an internal conflict within this Forest.

However he looked at it, this battle would not end in a day or two. After getting a clearer picture of the situation, Wien decided to hide in the rear half of the ranks, gathering information while taking the opportunity to devour other Gillians and strengthen himself.

The summons lasted a full three days. Nearly six thousand Gillians had gathered in the core region. It was not that too few had assembled, but that as the summons continued, more and more Gillians with consciousness appeared. Wien encountered three in his own immediate area alone.

However, they did not come into conflict with Wien. Having consciousness and Intelligence, all they were thinking about at this moment was consuming the food before them as quickly as possible. None of them would invite trouble for themselves over it.

The summoners also understood that they could not stop this from happening. They knew that even with Gillians devouring one another, each could eat no more than about ten over three days. They could afford such losses.

But Adjuchas were different.

The ones gathered here were not just Gillians. There were also dozens of Adjuchas.

Those fellows did not make trouble. After casually eating a few unlucky Gillians, they waited quietly beside the sandworm Hollow.

Wien could not possibly pass up this opportunity. Concealing his Spiritual Pressure, he devoured Gillians, biting off and eating their masks. Then he moved elsewhere and continued. He did this to keep the summoner from discovering him feeding on such a large scale.

Unlike other Gillians, Wien was exceptionally skilled at Spiritual Power Compression. A normal Gillian needed one or two hours to refine the Reishi after eating one of its own kind, while Wien needed only about half an hour. After all, Wien only ate the masks.

He left the enormous bodies for the mindless Gillians to swarm, preventing them from falling into fear and chaos over the horrifying rate of deaths.

On top of that, Wien used his ability to keep concealing himself and changing positions, so the Adjuchas could not tell that one individual was responsible. Not even an Adjuchas with extraordinarily keen perception could do so. After all, thousands of Gillians had gathered here. They simply could not lock onto any single one.

Three days passed in a flash, and Wien devoured the masks of nearly a hundred Gillians. Of course, his exceptionally strong ability to convert and compress Reishi was also one reason he could devour so many.

It could be said that before the war had even begun, Wien had already gained more from it than anyone else.

Unfortunately, Wien could not withdraw now. No matter how well he hid himself, once he left the group, his Spiritual Pressure would surely be locked onto by those Pseudo-Adjuchas-class Menos Grande. If he really did draw a group attack by accident, it would be hard for him not to die.

After another long while, the sandworm Adjuchas let out a summons. The vast army of Gillians stopped devouring one another and marched together toward the south of the Forest. Wien walked in the rear half of the ranks, waiting for a chance to escape.

A war meant nothing to Wien as he was now.

However, Wien had imagined everything going too smoothly. This time, he had no opportunity to leave the ranks. Not a single Gillian withdrew, including those with consciousness.

They let out excited-sounding howls as they walked slowly forward, as if the summoner had ordered a picnic rather than a war.

After they left the southern part of the Forest, what happened next made Wien's heart sink. The sandworm Menos Grande at the front shook its mouthparts, and an enormous black opening appeared before Wien's eyes.

A Garganta. A spatial technique that only a tiny fraction of Gillian Level Hollows, some Pseudo-Adjuchas-class Menos Grande, and Menos Grande of Vasto Lorde-class and above could master.

Inside a Garganta was a subspace called the Dangai, which could connect Hueco Mundo, the World of the Living, and the Soul Society. It was the primary means by which large numbers of Hollows traveled.

Wien had no idea where the Garganta opened by the sandworm Menos Grande led, but if he did not enter, he would certainly die. Moreover, once he entered the Garganta, there would be no turning back until he came out again.

"...Sigh. I'll just have to see this through. If I'd known this would happen, I wouldn't have gotten greedy." At this moment, Wien felt some regret. Had he known things would come to this and chosen not to participate in the war, he might have been able to hunt even faster while so many Pseudo-Adjuchas-class Menos Grande were away.

Surrounded by a group of Gillians, Wien slowly walked into the Garganta. As he entered, he instinctively glanced at the sandworm Menos Grande standing watch beside it. Although Wien was now fifteen meters tall, he looked so small before the sandworm Menos Grande, which was nearly forty meters long.

The sandworm Menos Grande seemed to sense Wien's glance and instinctively looked in his direction. Startled, Wien quickly looked away and hurried into the Garganta.

But Wien did not know that after he entered the Garganta, a strange expression appeared on the sandworm Adjuchas's enormous mask. Immediately afterward, a hoarse voice rang out.

"Hmph, an interesting little ant."

Upon entering the Garganta, Wien saw a pitch-black, straight passage. It was much like the stalactite cave he had once seen. The Reishi here was about as dense as in the Forest of Menos, but there also seemed to be a strange aura. It was as though even looking at it for another moment would make one dizzy. Wien did not dare do anything else and could only follow the other Hollows forward.

In this dim environment, there was no sense of time at all. Wien did not even know whether time in the Garganta was distorted relative to the outside world. All he knew was that as he kept walking, he felt as though his mind was about to collapse.

By his own reckoning, this long journey had already lasted at least a month, yet they still had not reached their destination. If his level had not been too low for him to dare speak, Wien would have started cursing long ago. Fortunately, Wien had enough endurance. Just before he could no longer bear the misery, the path through the Garganta finally brightened again. Wien knew that this journey was over. Next, he might have to face a fierce battle.

But Wien did not know who the enemy was. Perhaps it was the Quincy hiding in the World of the Living, or perhaps the Soul Reapers who ruled the Soul Society.

However, all of Wien's guesses were wrong.

When Wien stepped through the final curtain of light in the Garganta, the world that greeted him was still dim and desolate. This was... still Hueco Mundo. It was simply different from the place where he had entered. Several thousand meters from where he emerged, another Garganta was opening. Thousands of Gillians stood densely packed on the opposite side, and a huge graveyard lay between the two groups.

That was right, a graveyard.

A Menos Grande Graveyard made up of the bones of countless Gillians.

As everyone knew, after a Hollow died, it would slowly turn into Reishi and dissipate into the vastness of Hueco Mundo. But that was not the case here, for tens of thousands of Gillian skeletons lay on this land.

The Reishi they gave off was so dense that even the air felt viscous. Moreover, the hostile energy here was so heavy that the Reishi in the atmosphere was too violent for Hollows to absorb properly. Although Hollows did not need to breathe, they would still feel uncomfortable here.

"The Menos Grande Graveyard?!" Wien could not help being shocked by the desolation and bloodshed before him. Feeling the turbulent Reishi all around him, Wien knew that although he could absorb it, it was too violent and chaotic. Absorbing too much would affect his mind.

At this point, Wien also seemed to understand why the Adjuchas had summoned tens of thousands of Gillians here. One reason was to devour them in order to advance. The other was to wage war against another Forest of Menos.

In Hueco Mundo's outer region, three Forests of Menos stood in a three-way balance. Every so often, a war would break out between two of them so they could deplete and devour one another, creating better conditions for evolution for Gillians with consciousness or for Adjuchas. Yet in this monumental war, almost all the final benefits went to the commander-level Menos Grande. For a Gillian to survive was simply too difficult.

Awooo!!!

The violent Reishi in the air stimulated every Gillian present, sending them fearlessly toward the enemies across the graveyard. To Wien, this Reishi was harmful, but to the mindless Gillians, it was a great supplement. They had no idea what effect it would have on them in the future. They would not realize it even until their bodies burst.

Thousands of Gillians roared excitedly as they marched forward. Minutes later, the Ceros of two mindless Gillians formally ignited the war between the two Forests of Menos. In an instant, the Spiritual Pressure across the entire graveyard exploded exponentially.

Countless Ceros dyed the dim yellow sky dark red, and nearly a hundred Gillians were blasted into chunks of flesh in an instant. Far from calming or frightening the Gillians behind them, this drove them into an even greater frenzy.

After the smoke and dust from the first wave of Ceros cleared, a second wave exploded in the air close behind. The smell of blood spread in an instant.

"What do I do... How do I get out of here?" Pushed forward by the Gillians behind him, Wien concealed all the Spiritual Power in his body as deeply as he could. He tried to break free of the crowd, but this did little to slow his progress. After all, the Gillians behind him paid him no mind. Their advance only grew faster, not slower.

"I have to think of something." As Wien squeezed backward with all his strength, his mind raced. "The Gillians at the front are basically cannon fodder. The real main course is those dozen or so Adjuchas. Only when they make their move can I take advantage of the chaos to get out of the middle of the battlefield. Should I conceal myself? No, it's not time yet." Wien analyzed the situation aloud to himself.

"I need to get to the very back of the battlefield." With that, Wien suddenly turned and slapped the Gillian still pushing forward behind him, sending it flying. At the same time, he unleashed his Spiritual Pressure to intimidate the other Gillians, then headed straight for the rear.

Although the Gillians behind him continued moving forward, they were no match for Wien with his Spiritual Pressure unleashed. He knocked them down one by one with a slap, and the Gillians coming up behind trampled them to death.

This swift retreat had only one flaw: there was a chance that his own side's Adjuchas would discover him deserting. But Wien could no longer worry about that. For now, he had to get as far behind the battle zone as possible before he was discovered and locked onto, reaching an area where he would not face direct combat until the Pseudo-Adjuchas-class Menos Grande joined the battle.

Wooo, awooo!!

After retreating several hundred meters, Wien heard a shriek from the rear of the battlefield. Immediately afterward, a powerful Spiritual Pressure rushed toward him. At that instant, Wien activated his concealment ability and moved sideways, hoping to evade the Spiritual Pressure locking onto him. But his actions had no effect. In just a few breaths, an enormous figure crashed into the Gillians beneath it, sending them flying, and landed in front of him. The sandworm Menos Grande had discovered Wien.

"Damn... A Pseudo-Adjuchas-class Menos Grande's Sonído?" Feeling the explosive Spiritual Pressure leap toward him, Wien could not help taking two steps back.

"Ant, where do you think you're going?!" The sandworm Menos Grande's voice was filled with the authority of a superior.

"...My lord." Faced with the overwhelming pressure of that Spiritual Pressure, Wien had no choice but to yield. He hurriedly bowed and said, "I'm not trying to run. I only want to win this war!"