"Ahem… Did I just burn out all my reiryoku with one Cero?"
Riku looked at the massive crater he'd carved into the distant sand dune. He grinned through his mask, clearly pleased. The destruction was immense—almost half as powerful as the alien Gillian's blast from earlier.
As one of the signature techniques of the Menos-class Hollows, Riku had managed to unleash a Cero while only at the Strong Hollow (Qiangli Xu) stage.
"Am I… a genius?" he mused with an amused lilt, scratching his masked head with a clawed, bone-white hand.
"But still, the charge-up takes too long, and it completely drains my reserves… Guess this is a last-resort move for now."
Feeling the depletion of his spiritual pressure, Riku coiled his centipede-like tail and spiraled downward, burrowing beneath the white sands of Hueco Mundo. He knew from the original Bleach manga that the very sands of the realm were composed of high-density reishi, allowing spiritual beings to naturally recover their energy over time.
But still, at such low reserves, any passing Hollow could sense his weakness and pounce. So, like a seasoned predator, he waited beneath the sand, conserving his strength.
Several hours later, with his reserves restored to a stable level, Riku emerged from the sand. Over the past two weeks, he had mapped out the surrounding territory. Venturing deeper into the desert would risk running into groups of Gillians or even Adjuchas, who roamed closer to the edges of the Forest of Menos.
For now, his best strategy was to hunt Newborn Hollows (Xinsheng Xu) along the outskirts and slowly build his strength until he could challenge Giant-class Hollows directly.
Even at nearly eight meters long, Riku's movement remained silent and undetectable thanks to his newly awakened skill:
Concealed Reiryoku.
Boom. Boom. BOOM!
Suddenly, the ground trembled, and a series of thunderous roars echoed through the desert. Faint pulses of spiritual pressure rippled toward Riku's location.
"A battle? And from the intensity, it's no skirmish…"
Creeping closer with his reiryoku masked, Riku slithered through the shifting sand dunes. When he finally got a clear view, his jaw metaphorically dropped.
"Wait… that's a Bai Xu Ghoul formation!"
In rare instances, over a hundred Giant-class Hollows would gather in a chaotic feeding frenzy, instinctively devouring one another. The one to survive would ascend into a Gillian-class Menos Grande. This phenomenon, rarely witnessed even by seasoned Adjuchas, was occurring right before Riku's eyes.
"I didn't expect this kind of jackpot!"
Concealed just beneath the shallow sand layer, Riku watched the chaotic melee unfold. His spiritual suppression kept him undetectable, even amidst the volatile energy signatures.
A few of the combatants—massive in stature—were clearly above his level. But the carnage also provided opportunities.
One particularly desperate-looking Hollow caught his attention. It was a hulking octopus-type Giant-class, now being driven back by two coordinated hyena-like Hollows. Their masks and appearances were nearly identical, save for the jagged difference in their teeth.
"They're smart," Riku observed, "A pack strategy."
The short-toothed one engaged the octopus head-on, drawing out its full fury as they clashed, tentacles flailing wildly. Meanwhile, the long-toothed twin circled behind, eyes locked on an opening.
Shhk!
Twin bone spears—fangs—stabbed into the back of the octopus-type's mask. It screamed in pain, flailing its limbs as frothy spiritual bubbles erupted from its facial orifices. The bubbles burst on contact, creating an explosive cloud that damaged the hyenas as well as the caster.
"Heh… tried to kamikaze out of the trap. Not the dumbest move, but definitely desperate."
Riku remained hidden, analyzing the aftermath. The octopus's self-detonation was a last-ditch effort, but it wasn't enough to escape. And now, both attackers had taken damage, presenting Riku with an opportunity.
The battlefield was ripe with openings—and he was the only one invisible.
Riku observed with keen interest from beneath the sand layer, his senses honed on the battlefield above.
"Aahhh!"
The explosion had torn through the long-toothed hyena-like Hollow. Its cracked body, as large as a small hill, bled freely—rivers of deep crimson gushed from its wounds like waterfalls, staining the pale sands of Hueco Mundo.
Despite its injuries, the beast howled and raised its right claw. Reiryoku surged, and the limb grotesquely swelled in size. Its four talons, now thick as steel beams, gleamed like sharpened blades as they arced down toward the battered octopus-type Gillian.
"Insane…"
Four savage slashes ripped through the octopus Hollow's back. Dark green blood erupted like a high-pressure geyser, splattering across the white dunes. One of the claws also cleaved directly through part of the Hollow mask, cracking it and sending a large, shattered piece of the octopus's skull mask tumbling to the sand below.
That fragmented mask—half the size of the creature's massive head—landed with a dull thud at the base of a dune.
The short-toothed hyena Hollow, having narrowly avoided the octopus's flailing tentacles, charged the broken mask with wild eyes and drooling anticipation. As it reached down to seize the trophy—
Thrum—!
The sand exploded outward.
A humanoid upper body, fused with a centipede-like lower half, burst forth from beneath the battlefield like a subterranean missile. Riku surged forward with incredible speed, his Concealed Reiryoku still active. In a blur, he snatched the fractured mask the moment before the short-toothed hyena could grab it—and disappeared beneath the sand just as quickly.
"RAAAH!"
The hyena Hollow froze in disbelief. For a moment, it simply stood there—then released a scream of primal rage. But try as it might, it couldn't sense even the faintest trace of Riku's spiritual pressure.
The long-toothed hyena, locked in a brutal standoff with the near-dead octopus Gillian, had noticed the theft as well. But the octopus's death throes—desperate, unpredictable, and wild—left no opening for it to break off and pursue.
"Whew… 'Fortune favors the bold,' right?"
Miles away from the chaos of the Bai Xu Mutual Devouring, Riku emerged beneath the sand layer, dragging the massive, fractured Hollow mask—nearly half the size of his own torso—behind him. His grin, hidden beneath his centipede-shaped mask, was full of smug satisfaction.
"This haul's definitely a win!"
Without wasting time admiring his loot, Riku immediately began retreating in the opposite direction, swimming through the dense sands for nearly two full hours. He knew the two hyenas had only rudimentary intelligence—but he wasn't going to take any chances. In Hueco Mundo, caution meant survival.
Once he was certain he'd escaped pursuit, Riku slowly surfaced. He scanned the surrounding dunes—confirming no other Hollow presences within several kilometers—before submerging again. Roughly ten meters below the surface, he finally stopped and brought out his prize.
With a quiet sense of triumph, he dug his claws into the half-mask.
Crunch. Crunch.
"Mmm… kinda tastes like seaweed-flavored soda crackers."
Despite the odd flavor, Riku noted that the spiritual particles within this fragment were far denser than anything he'd consumed before—even the flesh of the giant earthworm Hollow.
Both had been Giant-class Hollows, but the difference was clear.
"This… this is the core mask," he muttered between bites. "The other was just scraps—a cast-off limb from a dying Hollow. But this… this was the source of its reiryoku."
And Riku could feel it—the moment the mask fragment hit his core, the spiritual energy began flooding through him like molten metal in his veins.