This is not the worst idea you've ever had.
The Hollow is coming; you don't have much time to think. You slide the heavy stone lid of the vat and jump inside, landing with a wet splash, and curl up; then you pry at the lid from below and awkwardly push it back into place from beneath.
When you're done, you hear footsteps coming in the storage room, and you feel the vat trembling around you; you sense that you are being moved. You curl up tighter and try to be as quiet and as weightless as possible.
You're sitting chest-deep in meat rubbing against you as the vat is shaken. There's a thin layer of fluid at the bottom, but you're not sitting in liquid; rather the meat has been slathered in a thick gravy, smelling sickly-sweet. You are aware, all too keenly, that these square cuts pressing against you were carved out of another Hollow. The smell is pungent, reminiscent of distant memories to you, but the cooking and seasoning changed it enough that it does not make you truly hungry.
...where did they find seasoning in Hueco Mundo?
Even through the closed stone of the vat you can hear sounds outside. You must be moving through main corridors, with Hollows talking and walking around you. Just how many people live in this butcher kingdom?
Voices rise, enough that you can hear them, disturbingly childish.
"Snatch away a lone Hollow,
Put him on a hook;
Flay him while he's raw,
Then give him to the cook!"
Did they just rhyme 'hollow' and 'raw'? Well, you're not surprised. It's not the first Hollow nursery rhyme you hear, and they always have something in common - they're created by mad, heartless monsters with no books to read, almost nothing in the way of culture, and only other mad heartless monsters for audience. The results are… Predictable.
"The Butcher King has a great big mouth,
The Butcher King has a great big knife,
The Butcher King has two great big hands;
The third one catches you,
The second one slices you,
The first one devours you!
Last one standing is a fine king's meal!"
Other voices rise further, dissolving the rhymes in the inchoate hum of a crowd; the vat is shaking harder, taking turns, likely to avoid people on its path.
You hear… Music. Percussion sounds, rhythmic and visceral, pounding beats that reach your thorax even through the vat. There is clapping too, hands and paws slamming the ground heavily. And then it stops, all of a sudden, and the voices go quiet.
"And in mere moments, before you, come from afar to display their skill and grace to a true king, the Dancers of the Salar de Luna! But first, a new course, a meal fit for a king. Hunted in the Forest of Menos by our bravest warriors, the fierce, mindless Gillian, seasoned with nectar of the Seven-Hollowed Ant!"
Eeeew.
Suddenly you feel your motion angle upward rather than forward; the vat is being lifted in the air… And then put onto an elevated place, trembling with the shock of its weight. Voices rise again, people chatting, and you tense. This is it; this is the moment. You clutch Polilla's hilt, bracing yourself for action…
The stone lid slides heavily, falling to the side of the vat, and you freeze. An enormous mask, easily your own size in height, stares at you with beady eyes; it is bone-white and shaped in the form of a vicious oni, fangs curving at angles out of its mouth, a long and sharp nose stabbing out of its face like a blade.
And atop that mask is the four-sided golden crown of Barragan.
"AND WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE, LITTLE MORSEL?," the giant speaks, its voice the rumbling of an avalanche. "ARE YOU SO EAGER TO FEED YOUR KING, YOU CHOSE TO BE PART OF ITS FOOD?"
You blink twice rapidly and panic.
The energy comes like a surge, forming in your chest with a breath; it travels upwards, rising from the lungs, mixing in the trachea, and then splitting again in the horns of your mask. It gathers at the tips, between the two antennae-like protrusions, a pale grey orb twisting with unseen faces. Before the Butcher King has time to react, it erupts in a surge of energy, a translucent beam that frays at the edges like mist in the morning or the clothes of a ghost.
The Cero catches him square-on, engulfing the mask, and the King rears back with a howl of pain. The laments dissolve, the weeping fades in the distance. You blink again, mind catching up to your actions, but by then it's too late to do anything but commit. You catch the vat's lid, hurl yourself onto it, and kick - blinking out of sight with the bang of a Sonido and hitting the smoking mask of the Menos, catching its nose to stabilize yourself. You push on it, kick yourself up, land on top of its head…
The feasting hall is far, far below, the crowd of Hollows looking up at you dumbstruck. You see great stone tables arrayed before a cohort of monsters, and the same knife-wound in the rock that is the main gate of the cavern ahead of you. Great black cloth flows beneath you and the mask like a torrent of night.
It's a Gillian; the Butcher King is a Gillian. It would actually have been much worse if it had been smaller (and thus an Adjucha), but the sheer size of his mask while standing above you in a marinade of Hollow meat just made you panic. You kick yourself internally. But at least you're standing on his head while he is stunned, the crown at hand; from up close you realize that it is far taller and wider than you'd imagined, too small for a Gillian's head but too large for your own. But if you can take it and bolt out of here, the mission will be accomplished before anyone has time to react. You grab the crown and pull…
...it doesn't come. You pull harder, and something groans, the crown moves, but is still stuck. You look down.
With its head too wide to put on the crown without it slipping, the Butcher King had it hammered into the upper side of its mask. It's embedded there, small cracks running from the point where it was beaten in.
Before you have time to reassess you approach the great body moves beneath you, and giant hands rise together. You duck to the side before they can slam on you, but when they meet the strength of the impact is such that you are knocked straight down from the Gillian's body; you fall, fall, and hit the ground hard, pain lancing your shoulder.
"Defend the king! Kill the intruder! Eat her alive!" Come rallying shouts from all around the room. You rise up, shoulder bruised, to see a half dozen bestial Hollows leap over their tables and dishes to come at you. They are weak compared to you, but large, numerous, and with a master ready to seize any advantage they can get by ganging up on you…
You breathe in, channel the power from your lungs, the orb is born between your horns again. Then you stare down at the ground and fire the Cero Fantasma; energy flows out and spreads around you, twisting in a whirlwind of mist-like fire, unseen faces crying within. The Cero spreads around you like a dome and swallows the contenders. They are blasted at the far ends of the room, and you stand alone for one moment.
"IS IT THIS RELIC THAT YOU WANT, CROWN-SEEKER?" The King says, reaching behind him. From against the far wall of the cavern he raises a butcher's cleaver, terrible in size. "THE ROOT OF MY POWER. THE ABANDONED LEGACY OF OLD BARRAGAN, THE FOOL WHO KNELT."
The King's clawed foot kicks at the stone table in front of him, and it flies off towards you, heavy and too wide to dodge, but you make a jabbing motion and fire off a Bala. It hits the table, cracks the stone, and deflects its course; it smashes beside you on the rocky ground, Hollows running from the impact. His path free the Butcher King steps forward and brings down his terrible cleaver, immensely strong but slow, too slow. You roll to the side and the blade cuts into the earth, shaking the ground, its impact sending a gust of wind that feels like a blow to the stomach. But you draw Polilla in one smooth motion, and while the Gillian is pulling his blade out of the rock you slash at his wrist, cutting the dark fabric of his great cloak; blood sprays on the ground and he howls, pulling back in a haste.
Two Hollows, too devoted for their own safety, jump towards you before you can take advantage of the opening. The first one is lion-like, a quadruped, and you thrust your free hand over your shoulder, sending him rolling away with a Bala. The second one is the great crimson ape you saw before; he roars and barrels down on you, fists like hammer. Polilla deflects the first punch, your speed lets you dodge the second, and before he can guard himself you swipe up, slashing his mask in two. He falls down and you are alone.
Somewhere, amidst the shouts, the running, the commotion, there is laughter and singing.
"Kitchens churn, bodies burn,
Stars are shining bright.
It's your turn, now you learn,
How our King feasts tonight!"
You turn on your heels to face the King before he can compose himself, but it is too late. The cleaver is coming down on you, a curtain of steel falling down, and it's all you can do to raise Polilla in an horizontal guard above your head. The blade falls with terrible strength, but your zanpakuto is beyond any mortal blade; it does not break.
Instead it is your strength that is wanting. The sheer impact of the blade caves in your arms; you fall to one knees, your guard brought down, and the cleaver bites into your shoulder. With all your strength you push back, keeping it from slicing you in two, and finally it relents, withdrawn by the King's hand. He steps towards you, long black coat sweeping the ground - from so close you can see the patterns of faded red running down the length of his body, testimony to his countless meals.
"NO CHALLENGE, THEN? NO TAUNTS, NO INSULTS, NO WARNINGS? WHO DO YOU SERVE, TO COME ALONE IN MY WALLS? NO VOICE, NO ALLIES, NO KINGDOM - YOU ARE NO CROWN-SEEKER. YOU'RE ONLY A GHOST."
Blood drips to the floor. Your wound is wide and long, a bloody gash that tore through your cloak and uniform, bleeding now on your chest and back. You flex your left hand, and it responds - perks of the abstract biology of spirits - but the shoulder itself is weak, and you're bleeding. You find your breathing ragged, and sweat pearls on your brow. But the cleaver is heavy, unskilled; you're confident you can dodge the next blow, and in the opening-
"FIND A BETTER PURPOSE IN DEATH THEN, MORCEL."
The Butcher King opens its bloody mouth, and spiritual pressure rushes over the room, intensifying in an instant. Scarlet light gathers between the curved fangs, a pulsing orb of power, and the King breathes: a Cero far too wide to dodge bursts out to swallow you.
You answer in kind. From between your horns surges wisp-like light, rushing to meet the red tide. Your Cero is far smaller in width - but at the end of the day it is as powerful as the King's own, merely focused instead of spread out too widely. Grey and red slam against each other but your Cero pierces through his, the red light scattering into a deflagration between you two, at the center of the room, but your own Cero pushes back that tide, and when the shockwave shakes the entire cavern the brunt of it is towards the King. Stone tables are knocked back by the impact, dust rains from the ceiling. Hollows scream out, running away.
You take one moment to catch your breath as the King stumbles backwards, dazed for the count.
Seize the moment.
[X]Defeat the Butcher King. Even if you claimed the advantage this will be easier said than done; but the other Hollows will be too terrified to intervene, and if you engage and slay the King one-on-one they will surely run rather than cause you any more trouble. You can take the crown from his body.
[ ]Take the crown and run. You don't have to risk yourself facing this opponent. Now that you know the crown is stuck in his mask, you can strike where it's embedded and make off with it. That means getting out of the fortress and away with the Menos and his army at your back, but it's better than a chancey duel.