"Nelliel, I will definitely kill you today!"
In a desert of Hueco Mundo, a sharp roar tore through the oppressive air.
A Menos Grande, comparable in size to an elephant with an overall silhouette like a mantis, was frantically swinging its four huge scythe-like claws, slashing wildly ahead.
Wherever the sickles passed, even the white sand was split in two by the air pressure.
But the one being attacked was a woman who was clearly no ordinary being.
The upper half of her face, above the bridge of her nose, was covered by a white bone mask. On both sides of the mask extended a pair of curved antelope horns, revealing only the lower part of her face below her nose.
But even with half her face covered, her fair skin, delicate oval face shape, and that voluptuous body that was impossible to look away from were enough to tell that beneath the mask was undoubtedly a stunning face.
Below her waist was a goat's body covered in light-colored fur, her four hooves stepping on the white sand, her posture elegant and composed.
The difference in size between the two immediately showed the gap in their ranks.
One was an Adjuchas, the other a Vasto Lorde.
The female Vasto Lorde called Nelliel looked up calmly at the Adjuchas before her, whose size was more than ten times her own. "I don't want to fight you, Nnoitra."
Nelliel's tone carried a faint trace of weariness.
But this indifferent attitude, more than any mockery, drove Nnoitra mad.
Nnoitra let out a roar, swinging all four scythe arms at once, launching a storm of attacks that rained down on her small figure.
Left with no choice, Nelliel raised the double-headed javelin fused with her right arm, blocking and parrying left and right, deflecting each strike.
The crisp sounds of metal clashing echoed over the desert, sparks flying with each collision.
Although the size gap between them was vast, it was clear that the smaller Nelliel was the one gaining the upper hand.
Even with the white bone mask covering most of her face, Nnoitra could clearly feel Nelliel's calm, unshaken emotions.
Not to mention anger or fear, she didn't even treat him as a real opponent.
This condescending indifference only made Nnoitra's blood boil even more, his lungs about to burst with rage.
"I just can't stand that attitude of yours!"
He roared, slamming all four sickles down at once. "As a Hollow, you should crush your opponent with absolute power and devour them!"
Nnoitra's way of doing things was no different from most of his kind in Hueco Mundo — evolving by devouring others of his kind.
But compared to ordinary Hollows, he was far more ferocious.
Many times, he wouldn't just kill and devour other Hollows; he would also torture them.
Destruction and slaughter — that was the instinct of a Hollow, and the only law of this world.
Nelliel was the complete opposite.
The philosophy she followed was that of not killing.
In her view, the survival rule that most Hollows in Hueco Mundo followed — devouring each other for evolution — was foolish.
If it was just the lowest-level Gillians without self-awareness devouring each other out of instinct, that was one thing.
But once they evolved into high-level Gillians and gained self-awareness, there was no longer any need to devour comrades for evolution.
Admittedly, at first glance, this sounded quite reasonable.
But on closer thought, in this dog-eat-dog world of Hueco Mundo, it was complete nonsense.
Because Nelliel's talent in Hueco Mundo was top-tier.
Ever since she awakened as a high-level Gillian and gained self-awareness, she had never devoured anyone. She had risen all the way from Gillian to Vasto Lorde purely through daily training.
This talent could probably only be compared to the number one cheat of Bleach World, Kurosaki Ichigo.
Other Hollows didn't have such talent. Without devouring their own kind, they could only stay stuck in place forever, never evolving.
Thus, Nelliel's words sounded to other Hollows like a top student saying, "No matter how stupid a person is, by 14 they should have learned calculus, right?"
But there was another reason Nnoitra hated her.
His deep-seated inferiority complex.
He had been stuck at the Adjuchas level for countless years.
And seeing that Nelliel, without devouring any of her kind, had effortlessly reached the Vasto Lorde level, that bone-deep jealousy drove him mad.
What made it even more unbearable was that Nelliel was a woman.
Why?
A weak woman who didn't even eat her own kind could stand above him, looking down from a place he could never reach?
And Nelliel adhered to a policy of not killing.
Every time Nnoitra came to bother her, she wouldn't get angry. She would just treat it as killing time and play along.
Like a kindergarten teacher playing games with a petulant child.
And so the two of them were locked in this cycle.
One frantically trying to kill the other but never reaching him, the other completely indifferent but never delivering the killing blow.
This twisted symbiotic relationship had continued for who knows how many years.
But Nelliel, who was playing 'games' with Nnoitra, didn't notice that their every move was being watched by several pairs of eyes crouched in the distant white desert.
"Senpai, are these two idiots?"
After observing Nelliel and Nnoitra for a while, Yu finally couldn't help but turn to Makoto and ask.
From their earlier conversation, he had roughly figured out their personalities.
One was a misogynistic sadist, the other a saint so naive it was laughable.
Although Yu himself was ruthless, he didn't discriminate against kind people.
During the time Makoto was absent from the One Piece World, he had also followed the principle of not harming civilians.
But Nelliel's words just now were simply laughable in this cannibalistic world of Hueco Mundo.
If you don't eat others, they'll come to eat you.
It was only because Nelliel was too strong that she could hold out for so long.
But even without Nnoitra's relentless harassment, with her naive, almost childish personality, sooner or later another Menos Grande would come for her.
"The top student and the bottom student can never understand each other."
Makoto smiled.
These two words perfectly summarized the relationship between Nelliel and Nnoitra.
Nelliel couldn't understand why Nnoitra needed to devour his own kind to evolve, and Nnoitra couldn't understand how Nelliel could get stronger without eating her own kind.
Once these two met, they were bound to clash.
Hearing Makoto say that Nelliel had reached Vasto Lorde level purely through training without devouring any of her kind, Psykos, who was following behind the group, was dumbfounded again.
Just the fact that Makoto, Yu, Beam, and Pochi had been chosen by the Reincarnation Game and immediately gained Vasto Lorde power upon entering Hueco Mundo had already been a blow to her.
And now, here was another native who had reached Vasto Lorde through training alone.
What kind of freaks was she running into?
That's right, Makoto hadn't killed Psykos. He had spared her life.
The main reason was that Makoto had discovered through Orochi that this woman had already done considerable research on Hollows. Although her personality was a bit twisted, her talent was genuine.
If given some inspiration, she might become the second Urahara Kisuke or Kurotsuchi Mayuri.
"Boss, can we have that cockroach?"
The Teddy Devil rubbed his paws together and asked, his eyes gleaming with eagerness.
During this time, Makoto's group had been wandering around Hueco Mundo, hunting other Hollows, killing them, and devouring their souls in order to help the Four Gay Bros and the others break through to the Vasto Lorde level as soon as possible.