Somewhere in the Great Hollow Forest.
Four towering giant trees were intertwined, their branches linking together to form a special nest above them.
"Roar!"
A strange roar echoed from the nest, and a Hollow, only four or five meters tall, with a humanoid upper body and a snake-like lower body, howled at the sky. Then, it looked at another half-human, half-scorpion Hollow beside it and spoke with contempt:
"Ian Grey, you useless trash, how did the two hundred Gillians I put under your command mysteriously disappear? How dare you say you didn't steal and eat them yourself?"
With that, its snake body swept out, sending the half-human, half-scorpion Ian Grey flying dozens of meters away, directly out of the nest.
Ian Grey, in turn, scrambled back in a disheveled state, humbly bowing to the half-snake Hollow before him:
"Great Lord Hubert Allen, these lost Hollows were not devoured by me. I have already located the culprit who massacred your subordinates. Allow me to lead a team to hunt him down!"
The half-snake Hollow looked at the cowering Ian Grey before him, seemingly quite pleased, enjoying the process of humiliating him:
"Not bad. I suppose a degenerated one like you, whom I defeated, wouldn't dare to secretly devour my subordinates. Go, kill that rebellious inferior existence, and bring me his head!"
"As you command, my great master!"
Not long after, Ian Grey, in his half-human, half-scorpion form, led a large troop of ordinary Gillians away from the nest atop the giant trees with a gloomy expression.
Halfway there, Ian Grey suddenly flicked his massive tail behind him, piercing through the nearest ordinary Gillian, then pounced behind that Gillian and completely tore it apart.
"Hateful! Hateful! Hateful!"
After Ian Grey's frenzied outburst, his emotions finally stabilized, while the large group of ordinary Gillians behind him were terrified out of their wits and at a loss.
Ian Grey was originally an Adjuchas in the Great Hollow Forest. He had always been a lone wolf and disliked commanding these unintelligent ordinary Gillians until one day he met Hubert Allen, whose strength was comparable to his own.
Although their strengths were equal, Hubert Allen had gathered a large number of Gillians. Under a group attack strategy, Ian Grey was quickly defeated, and his body was deliberately crippled by Hubert Allen. This caused him to permanently lose the chance to evolve into a Vasto Lorde.
Furthermore, he was imprisoned, preventing him from hunting other Hollows for a short period to replenish the spirit particles constantly leaking due to his crippled body, which caused him to fall from the Adjuchas rank and become a special Gillian.
Subsequently, Hubert Allen even planted snake venom within Ian Grey's body to enslave him, making him the commander of his ordinary Gillians.
At this moment, Ian Grey was leading over a hundred Gillians towards a certain location in the Great Hollow Forest.
...
On the other side, Yoru Chikao was still hunting various lone Hollows.
Over the past few months, Yoru Chikao had been using Concealing Presence to hide his tracks, infiltrating Gillian groups to ambush and hunt Gillians.
According to his own rough estimate, he had already hunted approximately over a hundred Gillians.
His own spiritual pressure had increased more than tenfold compared to when he first arrived in the Great Hollow Forest, and his strength had undergone earth-shattering changes. However, despite devouring so many Gillians, he himself showed no desire to advance to a Gillian.
Currently, his size has remained at over twenty meters, without any growth compared to when he first entered the Great Hollow Forest.
"Could it be that simply devouring Gillians doesn't allow me to advance to a Gillian? Do I have to hunt an Adjuchas to advance?"
Yoru Chikao secretly pondered his path to advancement. Based on his understanding of the original work, it seemed no Hollow in the original work had such difficulty advancing to a Gillian.
But then he thought, in the original work, there was also no Hollow that could kill Gillians like slaughtering dogs before advancing to a Menos Grande. Thinking of this, he felt relieved.
Just as Yoru Chikao was lost in thought, he suddenly discovered another lone Gillian. He immediately drew his blade and moved forward. With a powerful, heavy diagonal slash, the Gillian was instantly split in two.
Yoru Chikao's tail extended, a dark golden vortex forming at the tip of his stinger, then he devoured the Gillian's corpse clean.
Just as Yoru Chikao had finished devouring the first Gillian, he discovered another lone Gillian appeared not far to his left front.
"Heh, what a coincidence?"
Yoru Chikao instinctively smelled a hint of a conspiracy.
But he still didn't care, because with his current strength, even if he encountered an Adjuchas, he might not be without the power to fight.
As for whether he would encounter a Vasto Lorde?
If a Vasto Lorde wanted to kill Yoru Chikao, it would just rush over and instantly kill Yoru Chikao. Why bother setting up a bait to lure him in?
Indeed, after Yoru Chikao eliminated the second Gillian, he sensed the spiritual pressure of a third lone Gillian not far away.
"Interesting!"
Yoru Chikao simply went along with the other party's intentions, immediately following the spiritual pressure to devour the third Gillian as well.
Sure enough, when Yoru Chikao devoured the third Gillian with Soul Eater, he suddenly realized that he had been surrounded by a large group of Gillians.
"Thump, thump, thump."
As a series of footsteps sounded, a humanoid Hollow, only seven or eight meters long and less than half of Yoru Chikao's size, appeared before Yoru Chikao.
Beneath its humanoid appearance were two large scorpion claws, and a massive scorpion tail dragged along the ground. Most striking was the human palm-sized gap on its crimson mask.
"An Adjuchas? No, this should be a special Gillian that degenerated from an Adjuchas."
Upon seeing the newcomer, Yoru Chikao's fighting spirit immediately surged. In the several years since he entered the Great Hollow Forest, he had either encountered only some low-level Giant Hollows or unintelligent Gillians. The last intelligent Hollow he encountered was Tirus Sandavici, who ambushed him in the desert.
At this moment, it was naturally a joy to finally see an intelligent special Gillian.
On the other side, Ian Grey looked at Yoru Chikao's strange actions and the ten-meter-long blade in his hand, his eyes filled with confusion.
"Strange Adjuchas? Why are you so fixated on hunting these low-level Gillians? And that blade in your hand, why does it somewhat resemble something belonging to those invading Shinigami?"
Hearing the words of the half-human scorpion opposite him, Yoru Chikao nodded slightly.
"He actually mistook me for an Adjuchas, doesn't that mean my spiritual pressure has already reached the Adjuchas level!"
Hearing Ian Grey's words, Yoru Chikao neither denied it nor affirmed it, merely looking at the half-human scorpion before him, his eyes brimming with fighting intent.
Ian Grey seemed to understand Yoru Chikao's meaning and actually waved his hand, signaling the restless Gillians behind him to remain silent. He wanted to have a head-on confrontation with Yoru Chikao.