Hueco Mundo, Great Hollow Forest.
Yekawa sat on a giant rock, eyes closed, recuperating, feeling the immense spiritual pressure flowing through his limbs and bones.
Suddenly, a dark golden pillar of spiritual pressure rose from around him.
"My King's spiritual pressure is 30 to 40 percent higher than it was three years ago; he can now be called a strong one even among Vasto Lorde!"
The strange fish, Jiwa Barnes, looked in Yekawa's direction, his eyes filled with extremely complex emotions, including reverence, but more so, fear.
Puck, the goat beside him, also chimed in:
"My King, your current strength is probably enough to go to Hueco Mundo and challenge Baraggan."
Upon hearing this, the strange fish immediately used his fish tail to cover the goat's mouth:
"You shut your mouth! That Baraggan's Hueco Mundo has hundreds of Adjuchas. If My King really listened to you and challenged Baraggan, are you suggesting we two fight against a hundred?"
Reminded by Jiwa Barnes, Puck immediately stood up on his hind legs and covered his large mouth under his mask with his two front hooves. At the same time, he furtively glanced in Yekawa's direction, afraid that Yekawa might actually hear him.
"Am I… stuck in a bottleneck?"
Yekawa frowned slightly. Three years had passed since his Soul Society clone became the Fourth Seat of the Eleventh Division. During these three years, Yekawa's routine remained the same: fight, then devour.
Unfortunately, most of the Hollows Yekawa devoured in these three years were Gillian; he barely encountered any Adjuchas.
And at his current stage, Yekawa found that his spiritual pressure was only about 30 to 40 percent higher than when he fought Ulquiorra. After that, no matter how many Gillian he consumed, he couldn't increase his spiritual power by a single bit.
Yekawa immediately realized he was in a so-called bottleneck, and there were two ways to break through it: the first was to devour a Vasto Lorde, and the second was to devour dozens or even hundreds of Adjuchas at once.
"Devour a Vasto Lorde?"
As soon as this thought emerged, Yekawa shook his head helplessly.
He was already struggling to find an Adjuchas in this area; where would he find a Vasto Lorde to devour? As for the only Vasto Lorde he knew, Ulquiorra had already completed his initial Arrancar transformation. Even though Yekawa had made significant progress in the past three years, he couldn't guarantee a stable victory against him.
Therefore, the first method was directly rejected.
As for the remaining second method, the only place in the entire Hueco Mundo that seemed capable of gathering so many Adjuchas at once was Hueco Mundo.
As for the strange fish and the goat's words just now, with the enhancement of Yekawa's powerful spiritual pressure, his five senses were naturally incredibly sharp. He heard the two Hollows' conversation clearly, but he was too lazy to bother with it.
Yekawa, who had been resting with his eyes closed, suddenly turned his head and glanced at the strange fish and the goat whispering behind him, scaring the two Hollows into trembling.
"Should I just eat these two wastes? They are Adjuchas after all..."
"Forget it. Even if the spiritual pressure of these two wastes increased tenfold, it probably wouldn't help me advance to Adjuchas."
"What these two idiots said is actually right. With my current strength, even if I can defeat Baraggan, if he and his hundreds of Adjuchas attack me, then I..."
"Unless... Baraggan isn't in Hueco Mundo!"
At this point, Yekawa suddenly remembered that in the original work, when Aizen and his two subordinates first arrived in Hueco Mundo, their first stop was Hueco Mundo. Afterwards, Baraggan, who was under Kyōka Suigetsu's influence, seemed to have personally killed all the Adjuchas in Hueco Mundo at that time, with only a small portion who were not in Hueco Mundo at the time surviving!
"Perhaps, I can take the opportunity to pick up some scraps?"
"According to the feedback from the Soul Society clone, the current timeline seems to be not far from Aizen's first entry into Hueco Mundo!"
Thinking of this, Yekawa no longer hesitated. He immediately got up and used Sonido to arrive beside the goat and the strange fish.
"Congratulations on your emergence, My King! My supreme King, your boundless spiritual pressure makes me tremble. It is truly my Barnes' honor to serve by your side!"
During these three years of cohabitation, this strange fish's strength didn't increase much, but his flattery skills certainly improved a lot!
And Puck, the goat beside him, kept repeating one phrase:
"Hail My King!"
"Hail My King!"
Yekawa seemed quite helpless about this.
"If you two really can't praise me, just shout 'My King is awesome' from now on!"
Although the two Hollows didn't quite understand the meaning of "awesome," since the King told them to shout it, they would!
"My King is awesome!"
"My King is awesome!"
"Alright, stop the nonsense. Get ready; we're leaving."
Yekawa interrupted the idiots' chatter.
"Leaving? My King, where are you going?" The strange fish Barnes asked tentatively.
Yekawa's face under his mask revealed a half-smile:
"As you two said, to Hueco Mundo!"
"Ah, My King, spare..."
Upon hearing this, how could Jiwa Barnes not understand that everything he and the goat had said earlier had been heard by Yekawa.
Yekawa, however, grabbed the strange fish with one hand and the goat's tail with the other, transforming into a bolt of lightning and shooting straight up into the sky, heading directly for the Desert above the Great Hollow Forest.
"Bang!"
A sudden loud noise erupted in the previously calm Desert, kicking up a sky full of sand and dust. Immediately after, a dazzling dark golden pillar of light burst out from beneath the sand layer, shooting straight into the clouds.
Then, a strange fish covered in bone spurs and a fiery red goat were thrown out, rolling several tens of feet away.
Following that, the light pillar slowly dissipated, and a completely black humanoid figure walked out from it—it was Yekawa.
"Desert, I'm back!"
Yekawa spread his arms, feeling the dry Desert wind hitting his face. Compared to the dark and sunless Great Hollow Forest, he still preferred this pale Desert.
"The concentration of reishi here is so high, it seems Hueco Mundo is not far from here!"
Feeling the rich reishi in the area, a look of joy appeared on Yekawa's face beneath his mask. Immediately, the armor formed by the pale centipede on his back suddenly writhed, then transformed into tiny centipede Hollows, only a few centimeters in size, heading towards Hueco Mundo, where the reishi concentration was highest.
This small centipede was naturally a new clone created by Yekawa, but this clone was different from Ito Makoto in Soul Society.
Ito Makoto contained all the spiritual pressure of an Adjuchas, as well as a trace of Yekawa's soul essence.
However, the current small centipede was merely created from a wisp of spiritual pressure, its combat power not even comparable to a Freshman Hollow. But this was already enough, because its only purpose was to observe the movements of Hueco Mundo.
Especially when Aizen would arrive at Hueco Mundo!
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