Hollow? One-Shotted

Boom!

As if to confirm her words, a muffled bang suddenly erupted from inside a two-story wooden warehouse about a hundred meters to the front and right.

The fragile walls and sloping roof could no longer hold. With a cacophony of splintering wood, they collapsed inward.

Wood chips and dirt shot into the air, sending dust billowing beneath the faint moonlight.

An alarmingly enormous shadow slowly straightened within the cloud of dust.

The Hollow stood over five meters tall, with a massive frame, dark cyan skin, and disproportionately thick limbs ending in claws that gleamed coldly.

A fearsome, pure white bone mask covered its face. The mask's lower edge was split open, revealing rows of jagged fangs.

Most chilling of all were the mad, scarlet eyes behind the mask's eyeholes.

"It's a large Hollow! Get ready to fight!"

Everyone stared at the enormous hole in its chest, instantly drawing the Asauchi at their waists and bracing themselves for battle.

But in the next moment, surging, chaotic Reiatsu flooded outward like a tangible tide, saturated with sickening malice.

Under its pressure, several third-years turned deathly pale in an instant, and breathing became difficult.

Their legs trembled uncontrollably, and they could barely hold on to their Asauchi.

"No, impossible..."

Heita Harada's voice trembled, filled with disbelieving fear.

"That Reiatsu, that size and those features... This isn't an ordinary large Hollow anymore. It's a Menos Grande on the verge of evolving into a Gillian!"

His voice had taken on a nearly hysterical, tearful pitch.

"How could we run into a monster like this..."

"We're finished... We're going to die..."

The third-years were nearly overwhelmed by fear, their mental defenses on the verge of collapse. Some even slumped to the ground, their eyes unfocused.

Even the normally composed Nanao felt an icy hand squeeze her heart, her fingertips instantly turning cold.

Information flashed through her mind. She knew what a monster approaching the level of a Menos Grande meant.

A gap in Reiatsu this vast was a gulf that courage and teamwork could never bridge.

"Wang Xun, what do we do..."

Nanao turned to look at him in a panic, but there was no surprise or fear on Wang Xun's face.

There wasn't even a trace of tension.

The cold moonlight traced the outline of his extraordinarily calm profile.

"Just my luck. The thing I feared most had to happen."

Wang Xun muttered softly to himself, his right hand already resting casually on the hilt at his waist.

He was hesitating over whether to act.

All his concealment and disguise before this had been solely to avoid the attention of those dangerous people.

But now that Aizen had discovered him, continuing to hide like this seemed a little like deceiving himself.

Even if he continued to keep a low profile, there was no telling whether Aizen would strike at him again.

He might as well reveal himself to Aizen.

Before he met Kaien, his strength had, at best, put him among the top students in the elite class. He hadn't stood out all that much.

It was thanks to Kaien that his strength had improved dramatically during this time.

What if he changed his persona a little?

He could go from an unremarkable fifth-year suspected of harboring secrets to a low-profile genius hiding his strength.

That way, Aizen probably wouldn't continue probing him for the time being.

An ordinary student who no longer hid his abilities and possessed only a little strength would presumably seem uninteresting to Aizen.

Having thought it through, Wang Xun suddenly saw things clearly.

There were still more than ten years before Aizen's development of the Hōgyoku neared completion and he made his move against the captains.

That should be enough time for him to grow stronger.

Wang Xun looked at the fear in Nanao's eyes, then at the Hollow in the distance.

He had made his decision.

The Reiryoku contained within the students of the Spiritual Arts Academy was a great source of nourishment for Hollows.

The enormous Hollow had already spotted them, and the hunger in its eyes was no longer concealed.

Its scarlet eyes locked onto the group on the roof. It let out a guttural, greedy roar and kicked off the ground with its powerful hind legs.

Boom!

The ground where it had stood exploded into a shallow crater. Its enormous body shot forward with a speed that belied its size, hurtling toward them like a cannonball amid a blast of fetid wind.

Its claws tore through the air with a piercing shriek, about to rip the roof and everyone on it to shreds.

Cold sweat beaded on Nanao's forehead. The icy touch of death seemed to brush against her skin, leaving her unable even to think.

Then a warm, familiar hand came to rest gently on her slightly cold little head.

"Don't be afraid."

The next second, Wang Xun vanished from where he stood.

The large Hollow, which had lunged at them so fiercely with its destructive power, suddenly froze in midair.

Its forward momentum stopped dead, and its scarlet eyes rolled upward in disbelief.

A section of blade, gleaming coldly, had pierced clean through the top of its head with unerring precision.

At some point, Wang Xun had appeared behind the Hollow.

If not for the blade protruding through its brain and out of its head, it would have looked as though Wang Xun had merely brushed past it by chance.

The Menos Grande let out a low growl, the scarlet light within the eye sockets of its bone mask rapidly fading.

Its massive body began to convulse violently, weblike cracks spreading across its knotted skin as its Reiatsu began to dissipate.

With a slight flick of Wang Xun's wrist, the blade slid smoothly free.

The Menos Grande went completely still, its enormous body losing all strength. Still in its lunging posture, it crashed heavily to the ground in front of Nanao and the others.

After it fell, its body rapidly broke apart into fragments of Reishi, leaving only a cracked white mask that was quickly fading.

The next second, the mask broke into several pieces with a soft crack and vanished.

From the moment the Menos Grande sprang to attack to the moment Wang Xun struck with his sword-

The whole thing happened in an instant.

Dead silence fell over the surroundings.

No one had seen what happened.

Several third-years sat slumped on the ground, fear still etched on their faces before it gave way to even deeper bewilderment.

Huh?

They stared blankly at the spot where the Menos Grande had vanished, then turned their eyes stiffly toward the white-haired senior who had already sheathed his sword, their minds completely blank.

It was as if everything that had just happened had been a figment of their imagination.

Their emotions had surged wildly like a roller coaster, then slowly settled.

What rose in their place was a complicated feeling they could not put into words.

"Did you all get a good look at that combat demonstration?"

Wang Xun's voice broke the silence, his tone as steady as ever.

"When killing a Hollow, especially a humanoid one with a large mask like this, remember: try not to strike its mask head-on."

Hearing this, they instinctively looked at Wang Xun's upright figure in the moonlight.

"Because there's a good chance that through the shattered mask, you'll see its twisted, anguished face from when it was human."

"If the shock makes you hesitate or go soft for even a moment, that instant of hesitation could cost you your life."

He walked over to the stunned Heita Harada and patted him on the shoulder.

"All right, Harada, snap out of it. The danger's over. Follow procedure, count everyone, and check for injuries."

He turned to Nanao, who looked just as dazed.

"Nanao, use the Denreishinki to contact our instructor, Hasegawa, and report the situation."

Heita Harada jolted back to his senses. He looked at Wang Xun as though he were some kind of prehistoric monster and stammered.

"W-Wang Xun... just now, you..."

"Oh, I got lucky."

Wang Xun waved a hand casually, speaking in an offhand tone.

"That thing only looked scary. It was actually pretty easy to kill."

Leaving Harada completely bewildered, Wang Xun offered no further explanation.

His attention had been drawn to a dark red fragment.

Was this... left behind by that Hollow?

Wang Xun touched the fragment without showing any sign of it.

[Obtained Hollow Reiatsu fragment. Hollowfication experience +450]

[Hollowfication: lv1 (experience 460/1000)]

Wang Xun raised an eyebrow almost imperceptibly.