"Whoosh!"
Yoru Chikao directly used Sonido, instantly teleporting a hundred zhang and appearing behind the Gillian.
Compared to the Gillian's nearly hundred-meter height, Yoru Chikao, who was twenty meters long, seemed rather small.
His centipede-like tail directly wrapped around the Gillian's leg.
The Gillian's pale, bone-like giant foot was instantly entangled, and then Yoru Chikao activated Gran Rey Cero.
"Zzzzt!"
Violent arcs of lightning directly shot out from Yoru Chikao's tail.
It gave the Gillian a 'foot massage'.
"Roar!"
Feeling the immense pain in its foot, the Gillian roared skyward. Only then did it discover Yoru Chikao behind it. Its massive head immediately turned, its huge mouth opened, and a black-red Cero aimed at Yoru Chikao.
Yoru Chikao exerted force with his tail, pulling hard, and actually tore off the Gillian's legs.
"Roar!"
The Gillian cried out in pain again, and then lost its balance and slammed heavily onto the ground!
"Rumble!"
The Gillian's massive body fell, crushing a swath of giant trees in the forest.
The Cero, which had been halfway charged, exploded directly inside its mouth.
Yoru Chikao seized the opportunity to unleash a lightning whip, splitting the Gillian in half down the middle.
Just like that, this lone Gillian was cleanly and decisively dealt with by Yoru Chikao.
Yoru Chikao carefully observed the sharp bone spines around the Gillian's neck. Only then did he basically confirm that the two bone spines he had obtained from the Chameleon Hollow earlier indeed originated from a Gillian.
Originally, he had intended to use those two bone spines as dual swords after advancing to a Giant Hollow. However, after his advancement, Yoru Chikao's strength greatly increased, and those two bone spines could no longer easily penetrate Yoru Chikao's defenses. So, he simply absorbed them using Soul Eater.
Yoru Chikao directly raised his tail high and activated Soul Eater again. A dark golden spiritual pressure erupted from the sharp spike on his tail, forming a huge vortex of spiritons. In a short while, the Gillian's body, broken into two halves, was completely absorbed!
As the massive spiritual pressure flowed into his body, Yoru Chikao spread his arms, revealing a look of enjoyment.
"Comfortable!"
He hadn't expected that devouring a lone Gillian could increase Yoru Chikao's overall spiritual pressure by sixty to seventy percent.
Feeling the surging spiritual pressure within his body, Yoru Chikao stretched lazily.
Yoru Chikao now felt that if he were to face that Gillian again, he could easily kill it even with a direct Cero clash.
"But I wonder, how would I fare against that mutated Gillian from before?"
Although Yoru Chikao was still a Giant Hollow and had not yet advanced to a Gillian, ordinary unintelligent Gillians were no longer his match.
With his current strength, as long as he didn't encounter Adjuchas that commanded groups of unintelligent Gillians, he would basically be out of any life-threatening danger.
As for encountering a Vasto Lorde, there were so few Vasto Lorde in the entire Hueco Mundo that one could count them on one hand. Yoru Chikao believed his luck hadn't turned that bad.
Moreover, he also had the divine skill of Concealing Presence. Yoru Chikao estimated that if he activated Concealing Presence now, ordinary Adjuchas probably wouldn't even be able to detect his disguise.
Therefore, his courage immediately grew, and after activating Concealing Presence, he headed deeper into the Great Hollow Forest.
Since there was no white sand in the Great Hollow Forest, Yoru Chikao couldn't hide himself beneath the sand. And Concealing Presence could only hide spiritual pressure, not his physical form. Thus, Yoru Chikao's travel speed was very slow, focusing primarily on hiding his tracks.
During this period, Yoru Chikao encountered many lone Giant Hollows. Yoru Chikao killed and devoured them one by one. It must be said that the Great Hollow Forest was indeed a treasure trove for Yoru Chikao, who possessed Soul Eater.
His efficiency and utilization rate when devouring Hollows with Soul Eater were incomparably more convenient than directly eating them.
Other Hollows relied on eating to devour their kind, which was time-consuming, and the Hollows' corpses would gradually turn into spiritons and dissipate into the air of Hueco Mundo as time passed. Furthermore, during the process of devouring, they also had to guard against sneak attacks from other Hollows. Once they let their guard down during consumption and were caught by another Hollow, at best they would lose their prey, and at worst, they and their prey would become someone else's prey.
"It's great not having middlemen making a profit!"
Yoru Chikao pursued a Giant Hollow shaped like an electric eel. This electric eel could release faint blue voltage around its body. Yoru Chikao had a premonition that if he devoured this Hollow's spiritual pressure, it would somewhat enhance his Gran Rey Cero. Therefore, he began to hunt this Hollow.
It must be said that this electric eel's speed was extremely fast among Giant Hollows. Yoru Chikao had to continuously use Sonido several times to catch up.
A lightning whip streaked across the sky, striking down directly at the electric eel Hollow swimming in the air ahead. The electric eel immediately surged forward nearly a hundred meters, surrounded by blue electric light, but Yoru Chikao's lightning whip was faster. It directly knocked the electric eel out of the air.
Yoru Chikao flashed forward, instantly appearing in front of the electric eel Hollow. The segmented limbs of his centipede tail horizontally slashed, directly cutting it in half at the waist. Then he activated Soul Eater and began to fully absorb this electric eel.
After a short while, Yoru Chikao slowly opened his tightly closed eyes. He raised a hand, and a lightning whip glowing with dark golden light reappeared in his grasp.
"As expected..."
A hint of wild joy appeared on Yoru Chikao's large face, covered by his mask.
Devouring this electric eel didn't significantly increase Yoru Chikao's spiritual pressure, but his understanding of Gran Rey Cero seemed to instantly gain new insights. This lightning whip was originally derived from Yoru Chikao's Gran Rey Cero. Originally, the lightning whip felt truly like a solid whip when held.
But after devouring this electric eel Hollow, Yoru Chikao clearly felt that the lightning whip seemed to have become an organ on his own body. It moved however he willed it to, lengthening or shortening, softening or hardening, all at his command.
Just as Yoru Chikao was immersed in the joy of his enhanced Gran Rey Cero ability, he suddenly sensed a peculiar spiritual pressure.
This spiritual pressure was faint and flickering, like a candle in the wind, as if it would disappear at any moment.
However, Yoru Chikao clearly felt the difference between this spiritual pressure and that of a Hollow. If a Hollow's spiritual pressure was a blazing fire, then the small wisp of spiritual pressure he sensed was like a solid piece of ice.
"Could it be... a Shinigami?"
Yoru Chikao carefully sensed the location of this faint spiritual pressure and began to move in that direction. Under Yoru Chikao's perception, this peculiar wisp of spiritual pressure was already extremely weak and posed no threat to him in his current state. Only then did he boldly proceed, wanting to see if there were any unexpected gains.
"According to the spiritual pressure, it should be right here, shouldn't it?"
Following his perception of that wisp of spiritual pressure, Yoru Chikao arrived amidst a dense cluster of giant trees, but found nothing.
He searched carefully for a while before discovering that the faint spiritual pressure was coming from a narrow tree hollow.
This was understandable, given Yoru Chikao's current overall length of over twenty meters. Even if his lower body moved underground, his upper body alone was ten meters tall, so his sight would naturally struggle to spot the tree hollow at the base of the tree, which was only half a person's height!
Due to his size limitations, Yoru Chikao had no choice but to extend his tail into the tree hollow and directly pull out two items from within.
"It's actually..."