3 Chapter #2 - Prey

Finding prey was not difficult. Finding a prey to satisfy his appetite in the vast Menos Forest was easier than he expected.

The main problem was his hesitation in approaching the prey. Even if he had suppressed the part of himself that he found difficult to accept, he could not fully get used to the inhuman movements of his body.

The thing in front of him - no, the Hollow - was smaller than he was. It stood on all fours and its pale yellow skin stood out. It had a slender body, clearly feline, and a mask of the kind that covered its entire head.

It walked calmly, idly. At a glance, it could be seen that it too was looking for prey. It was careful and regularly surveyed its surroundings. Kizuna, on the other hand, could only observe him from behind, as he was behind here.

Should he attack directly? Could he catch up? If he could catch up, would he be able to hit him? These and various other questions occupied his mind for a moment, but hunger took its place. Hunger could really affect his thoughts.

As horrible as it was to think about, it was an experience he had already had before. At least that's what his memories from the system told him. He got into position. He stretched his leg and stood with his lower body in a slightly inclined position. He adjusted his upper body and arms to suit a quick lunge forwards, while his fingernails were in a position ready to propel himself.

He closed his eyes and, without further hesitation, leapt with all his might!

Behind him, only a silver silhouette could be seen as grains of sand splashed into the air. Its sudden take-off and movement was far from being visible to an ordinary human, but this Hollow, a feline, turned around as if it had sensed it.

The Hollow's sense of danger was high and extremely fast, and it moved with confidence, but now, for the first time, it had difficulty perceiving what it was. Something... something silver-coloured was coming towards it!

Despite its difficulty, its reaction speed was still high, even for an Adjuchas. It ran forwards with all its might and caused a cloud of sand to form! Kizuna was standing in the same position this Hollow had been in before.

As he dispersed the cloud with a swipe of his arm, his eyes were locked on Adjuchas, who was travelling at breakneck speed. As his hunger pounded his mind, his hesitation disappeared.

'It looks like a cheetah. I wonder how it tastes?'

His eyes flashed with murderous intent, and he lunged once more, but couldn't keep up. When he realised that throwing himself repeatedly was not going to work, he took a different stance. He started running on all fours, no different from a wolf!

As his front and hind legs pounded the ground, his speed increased steadily. His sensitivity to the Spirit Power - no, Reishi, as the system called it - around him had never been clearer. He could feel the reiyoku within him stirring.

The cheetah-like Hollow thought it had eluded it, travelling at high speeds. inwardly snickered.

'How can a helpless wolf catch a noble like me?

Speed was what it relied on the most. It was out of the question for an ordinary Adjuchas to catch it. In fact, it was quite sure that it could surprise many names and survive again.

With the comfort and arrogance of this, his pace slowed down for a moment. In this slowdown, it heard some sounds coming from behind it.

BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM!

It was almost beating the ground. It was not light, no, it was extremely heavy. It could clearly feel it beating the ground. The disturbing sound was coming from right behind it.

At that moment, it realised that if it hesitated, it would die and continued to run with all its might. Its nimble claws touched the ground one second and found themselves further ahead the next. But the disturbing sound and silhouette did not stop.

From behind it, a voice was heard, flat, strong and disturbing at the same time, harbouring a great hunger:

"Where do you think you're going?"

And at that moment it only glanced back for a moment. That glance was the last thing he saw.

There was a monster on all fours, not a werewolf, but a beast that moved like a gorilla because of the disproportion of its body, and with every movement it pounded the ground, lifting up all the dust, sand, dirt and earth.

Its jaws were wide open and in the centre of its mouth was something blood red in colour. When it saw this thing, which was getting darker and darker, it was accompanied by another voice.

"Cero."

And a loud explosion of Cero was heard!

Cero formed a gigantic beam that instantly shattered its mask and skull, cutting off all movement and leaving the corpse stuck to the ground. But Cero's beam was far from stopping. It travelled through the trees like a shimmering streak, thinning out and only stopping after a few seconds.

Kizuna had finally succumbed to hunger as it stopped moving. Without hesitation or thought, Without hesitation, he went to the front of the corpse and began to eat. At first he was afraid that it would taste disgusting.

But it was unexpectedly delicious!

He wasn't sure if it was just him or if all Hollows felt the same way. All he knew was that right now he wanted to savour it to the fullest.

He heard a robotic voice in his mind once more.

[The first hunt has been successfully completed. The first hunt special user has earned 100 War Points. Congratulations!]

Kizuna sensed a mocking tone in the robotic voice's congratulations, but ignored it, thinking it was just him. It wasn't something that mattered much. For the moment, continuing to eat was the most important thing he wanted to do.

When he had eaten all of his food and his hunger was alleviated, even if only for a short while, he began to think properly.

What he had just done had been crazy, but now that he knew he had to get over it, he calmed himself down and focused on his main goal.

There were a few things he was sure of now, as far as the system was concerned. The 'punishment' mentioned was the fate he would suffer if he did not become Vasto Lorde. He needed to feed regularly. If he couldn't feed, he would regress and eventually become Gillian.

At least that's what the system said, and since he didn't want that, he had to solve the problem of feeding regularly first.

"System, do you have a warehouse where you can store my catch?"

To Kizuna's question, the system responded in its usual robotic voice, but this time with an amused tone.

[Sure. You can open it for only 100 Battle Points. Do you want it?]

Kizuna was pretty sure it was having fun with him this time, but he was far from being in a position to negotiate. Gritting his teeth, he grunted:

"Give me the damn thing."

[Request approved. Simply use the 'Take in' command for what you want to keep and the 'Take out' command for what you want to take out. To see your storage, you can use the 'Storage' button].

Hearing the robot voice's joyful voice, Kizuna became even more annoyed, but then he shook his head from side to side. He had other things to think about. If he ranked the urgency, the first thing would be to become Vasto Lorde. The next thing would be to get out of this shithole!

He didn't know how he was going to do it, or if he could get out of this form, but he didn't want to ask the system. He was afraid of the answer.

So he decided that in order to become Vasto Lorde, he had to know himself first. He had to have qualities other than what the system gave him. He could feel it. He just had to discover it, learn it and develop it.

He took a deep breath and threw the remains of the corpse into the storage room. Then he closed his eyes and when he opened them again, his eyes shone with murderous intent. He licked the outer perimeter of his mask, which should be his lips, with his tongue and set off for the next target.

***

A few weeks passed. Kizuna had fully adjusted to his situation, but as he had expected, he had not discovered any new powers or improved anything about himself. For this reason, he had given up and only sought to stockpile prey.

He no longer hunted to avoid starvation, but to fill as much of his stock as he could. His actions with this in mind had even caused a rumour of a massacre spreading throughout the Menos Forest, but he was far from knowing that.

As he galloped down the road, he stopped for a moment. He caught a faint whiff of reishi in his nose - or at least what he thought was his nose. As this odour came from the west, he raised his neck slightly and his mouth unconsciously opened. As his tongue hung out, his sharp teeth became visible.

After shaking his head left and right, he was able to quickly find the source of the odour and started running in that direction. He could more or less guess the source of this smell.

Kizuna wasn't sure if it was the newborn's reishi or reiatsu, but he could smell it. He could find his prey with this unique sense.

Newborns were relatively easy to hunt. Perhaps it was a bit pathetic, but Kizuna didn't care.

While he was running around like that for a while, the silhouette of a large purplish Hollow with a hammer-shaped head appeared. Then he paused when they fully met.

Both looked at each other blankly for a while. There was a strange air, as if they were both trying to understand what was happening.

"What are you?"

Hearing this question, Kizuna decided to attack instead of answering. There was no need to answer questions. He was his prey after all. He stood with his head forward, his arms back, his body slightly bent forward, his feet firmly planted on the ground. It was a strange position, more like a bird trying to fly than a wolf.

Adjuchas could not make sense of this position, but he took his own. His limbs were in an X-shaped defensive stance. He stood in a fixed stance, showing his confidence.

Kizuna swung his right claw rapidly.

Adjuchas, who had never seen a Hollow like this before, was surprised for only a millisecond, but being a new Adjuchas, he naturally stood in a defensive stance without thinking too much.

When the wolf's claw collided with his limb, it sounded like swords.

Ding! 

"Hmhm... You smell too much of reiatsu. Are you sure you're a newborn?"

Kizuna, who cautiously stepped back a little, asked.

He was confident in his strength, but apparently not strong enough. Following this, he began to look for his vulnerabilities.

With a hammer-shaped head, he had a body similar to armour, purple on the outside and white on the inside, which was durable, although not as bulky as him. His arms were razor sharp. It lacked limbs like fingers.

When he couldn't see any serious flaws in his body no matter how much he looked, he became more serious.

"Sort of. What about you?" 

The equally cautious hammer-headed Adjuchas replied. This beast with its silver fur had to have a flaw, and it didn't take him long to find it.

Kizuna, unaware of this, merely shrugged.

"Sort of. How about surrendering? I'll finish you off painlessly."

The hammerhead rejected the offer outright. It was out of the question for him to accept this when he had become the strongest will after so much effort and became Adjuchas!

"No way. Die!"

He swung his left limb in an arc as he lunged towards him in anger. The reiatsu emitted from his limb was leaving a trail behind.

Kizuna dodged the blow by stepping back as he hesitated whether he could stop it when he saw it. He was frankly bewildered. No one he had fought so far had ever used such a move!

Adjuchas, realising his confusion, took advantage of it. Adjuchas quickly used both limbs like scissors to cut off his head, trying to cut his head like a piece of paper.

But Kizuna immediately recognised the attack full of blue energy and stopped it by sliding backwards in an agile movement. Although he lost his balance for a moment due to his sliding backwards, Adjuchas did not realise that moment.

He realised it would be best to attack his exposed body. He was experiencing a feeling he wasn't sure if it was adrenaline. The desire to kill his opponent was at its peak. At that moment, its mouth opened wide and a howl was heard. The sonic waves from the howl struck Adjuchas' chest with silvery, tangible violence!

Hammerhead Adjuchas could see it, but his reaction was delayed.

Crack!

He took a few steps backwards, spewing blood as tiny cracks appeared. There was an unexpected surprise on his face.

"T-That's impossible! My skin is one of the strongest!"

'But it was possible.'

Kizuna didn't pause a gram with that thought. He didn't know what the move he had just made was. At that moment, he felt that he could do it and did it. That's all there was to it. He would not hesitate to take advantage of the opening left by the Hammerhead Adjuchas in surprise...