"Ugh… what's happening to me?"
Wayne slowly opened his eyes. His body felt heavy, weak—almost alien. The cold wind brushing past made him shiver involuntarily, and his blurred vision gradually cleared to reveal a dim, colorless sky.
The horizon was swallowed by fog, neither cloud nor light in sight—only a chaotic gray expanse that seemed to stretch infinitely.
"Where… am I?"
He muttered to himself, scanning the desolate surroundings. The air was damp and fishy, and every breath carried the metallic taste of dust and decay. Beneath his feet lay a cracked wasteland that seemed to echo silence itself.
Then, memories returned—fragmented, disjointed.
"I should be dead… I was in a hospital… fighting that disease…"
His voice trembled slightly.
"So this is… the afterlife?"
Before he could make sense of it, a roar tore through the stillness.
"ROAAAR!!!"
The ground trembled. Wayne's instincts flared. He spun around—only to see a monstrous creature galloping past him. It was enormous, the size of a mammoth, with a tail longer than its entire body. Its face was hidden behind a grotesque white mask—part cow, part cat—its eye sockets hollow, burning faintly with crimson embers.
A gaping hole pierced through the creature's torso.
Wayne froze. "A hole… in its chest? That's… impossible."
But the beast ignored him, charging into the mist with another low roar, leaving only dust in its wake.
Wayne stood there in disbelief. Then, a chilling realization struck him.
"This thing… looks familiar."
He racked his mind, and a memory surfaced from his past life.
"No way… a Hollow? From Bleach?"
Silence answered him.
"…Don't tell me… I actually transmigrated?"
The idea sounded absurd—but everything he saw fit too perfectly.
Hueco Mundo.
The realm of Hollows.
The thought alone made his spine tingle. "If this really is Hueco Mundo… then—"
He stopped. A strange sensation pulled at his chest. Looking down, Wayne's breath caught. A dark hole had formed in the center of his torso—empty, yet coldly alive.
His voice trembled. "So it's true… I've become a Hollow."
For a long moment, he simply stood there, the silence of the wasteland pressing down on him. Then, with a bitter laugh, he exhaled.
"Well… at least I'm alive. Sort of."
He began to examine himself. The first thing he noticed was his body's proportions—roughly human, around one meter eighty tall. His shape wasn't beastlike or mutated like the Hollows he'd seen in the anime. Relief flickered across his face.
A thin layer of white, chitinous armor covered his torso and waist, forming something like a bone-plated battle skirt. His left arm still resembled a human's—though hardened by bone at the joints and shoulder—while his right arm had transformed completely into a claw, each finger sharpened into a bony blade.
"This… looks like an early-stage Adjuchas, or maybe even less."
He flexed his right arm, listening to the faint creak of bone.
Then, the chill at his face reminded him of one more thing.
"The mask…"
Every Hollow bore a mask—the embodiment of their empty heart. Reaching up, Wayne felt it: smooth, cold bone molded perfectly to his skin. It wasn't a mask—it was a helmet. It wrapped the upper half of his face and the entire back of his head, while pale gray hair spilled down from the back.
Two horn-like protrusions curved upward, framing his vision. A thick bone ridge formed an inverted triangle over his forehead, splitting slightly at the bridge of his nose.
Yet, strangely, his sight was clear.
"Interesting… it doesn't block my vision at all."
Wayne let out a slow breath. The surreal reality sank in—he was no longer human.
And yet, somewhere deep inside, he could still feel a heartbeat.
"Fine," he muttered, clenching his clawed hand. "If I've been reborn in Hueco Mundo… I'll climb to the top."
After confirming that his body was intact, Wayne began to test his strength. In Hueco Mundo — a world where the strong prey upon the weak — power was everything. As long as one possessed strength, one could walk proudly across the desert. Otherwise, one would end up as food in another Hollow's stomach, or as nothing more than part of the endless white sands.
Wayne clenched his left fist and struck a withered tree beside him.
With a single blow, the trunk splintered and toppled. Without hesitation, he raised his right claw and slashed down. His sharp talons cleaved the fallen trunk into five clean pieces.
"Hmm? Not bad." Wayne's lips curled faintly. "I just don't know how strong my reiatsu is yet—or what my abilities are. But I can figure that out with time, right?" he muttered to himself.
"First things first… let's find a weaker Hollow nearby and test my power."
But before he could take a step, a crushing pressure pressed in from all directions, nearly forcing him to his knees.
"Urgh… this feeling… spiritual pressure?"
Following the source, Wayne looked up with effort and froze. A massive, shark-shaped Hollow was gliding across the desert about a thousand meters away, its movements shaking the ground. With a roar that seemed to tear the air apart, the creature released a thunderous shockwave.
The blast shattered nearby dead trees and sent Wayne tumbling through the sand. Even from that distance, he could barely breathe beneath the overwhelming pressure.
Minutes later, he finally managed to stand, trembling. But when he looked again, the massive Hollow had vanished, leaving behind only silence.
"Get out of here!" Wayne's instincts screamed. Whatever that thing was, it ruled this desert.
If he lingered here, he would be shredded before he even realized it.
Perhaps the shark hadn't attacked only because a mere insect wasn't worth its notice.
Wayne didn't dare to test his luck. He turned and ran in the opposite direction, not stopping for a second.
After who-knew-how-long, he finally collapsed beside a half-buried boulder, gasping for breath. His stamina had improved since becoming a Hollow, but fear still gnawed at his chest.
"We should be far enough now," he muttered, wiping the cold sweat from his brow. The memory of that suffocating pressure sent shivers down his spine.
A self-deprecating laugh escaped his mouth. "I thought I was strong just because I could knock down a tree… but compared to that monster, I'm nothing."
He clenched his fists. "No—I need to know exactly how strong I am."
If that shark was an Adjuchas-class Hollow, then his power barely surpassed that of a regular Gillian. But if it was merely a large beast Hollow, then he was among the weakest beings in Hueco Mundo.
Determined, Wayne began to move again—slowly, cautiously.
Wandering aimlessly here was suicidal. No one could predict which powerful Hollow's territory they might stumble into next. Yet staying in one place meant certain stagnation, and stagnation meant death.
He recalled what he knew from the Bleach world: Hueco Mundo was divided into an inner and an outer circle. The inner regions belonged to the kings—creatures of overwhelming power. The outer circle was where the weak roamed, split into three layers: the surface desert, the sand layer, and the underground.
Wayne concluded that he was somewhere beneath the surface—perhaps near the lower strata, where the Forest of Menos stretched endlessly. With his current strength, entering that place would be suicide.
Even so, the vast desert wasn't empty. Small valleys, black deadwoods, and rocky ravines dotted the landscape—territories of lesser Hollows who hadn't yet evolved into Gillians. That was the kind of prey Wayne sought.
There was no sun or time in Hueco Mundo. The dim sky never changed, and even the air itself seemed timeless. Wayne could only estimate his travel by exhaustion and rest.
After what felt like three days, he climbed a low dune and stopped. In the distance lay a dark thicket—twisted black trees, their branches clawing at the ashen sky.
It wasn't much of a forest, more like a graveyard of petrified wood, but to Wayne, it was enough.
He tightened his grip, eyes glinting behind his mask.
"This will do… Let's begin."