Beast Devourer: I Grow Stronger by Eating Monsters

”So if you have an arrow stuck in you...”

”I can stop the wound from closing over it until I remove it.”

”A broken bone?”

”I need to align it before allowing full regeneration.”

Maelor added, ”A parasite?”

Raven looked at the jar.

”We already learned that one.”

Roland approached after checking the perimeter.

”Are we done?”

”With this.”

Raven stood.

The weakness hit immediately.

Not from the cut.

From mana loss.

[Current Mana: 9 / 18.]

Valeria noticed the slight stagger.

”You burned through half your reserves just to stop your own ability from helping you.”

”That’s an uncharitable description.”

”It’s an accurate one.”

Raven pulled out water and a strip of dried meat from his pack.

Roland watched him eat.

”Again.”

”Regeneration.”

”I know.”

”Then why are you asking?”

Roland shook his head.

”I didn’t.”

Raven finished the meat.

Valeria handed him another strip.

This time, he took it without arguing.

That made her raise an eyebrow.

”No comment about debts?”

”I’m busy.”

”You’re definitely injured.”

They didn’t turn back immediately.

Maelor wanted to.

Valeria considered it.

Raven didn’t.

The infection had been caught before meaningful integration. His mana was low, but not critical. His arm worked, and Manual Regulation reduced the chance of the same problem happening again if he suffered another wound.

More importantly, they had learned something too significant to leave untested.

Juvenile Hollow Threads were in the water.

Not only inside people.

That changed the outbreak entirely.

Raven looked at the jar.

”How long does one take to grow to the size we found in the corpses?”

Maelor shook his head.

”We don’t know.”

”Then we need to know whether this water has a high concentration or whether I was unlucky.”

Valeria looked at him.

”You can say it.”

”Say what?”

”That you want to keep going because we’re close to the toads.”

”That too.”

”Thank you.”

Roland pointed toward the channel.

”How do we test the water without putting another one inside Raven?”

”I’d prefer not to use myself as the sampling method.”

Maelor pulled out several containers.

”That’s why I brought these.”

They collected samples from five locations.

The first contained nothing.

Neither did the second.

Predation detected two juvenile signatures in the third.

Nine in the fourth.

In the fifth, Raven stopped counting after the system passed thirty.

[Waterborne Hollow Thread Concentration: HIGH]

[Exposure Risk Through Open Tissue: SEVERE.]

Raven looked around.

They were no longer simply moving through an infected area.

They were approaching a source.

Maelor went pale.

”This should have infected every animal drinking from here.”

”Maybe it did.”

Valeria studied the branches overhead.

Very few birds.

Few insects.

Almost no animal noise at all.

Raven had noticed the silence when they entered Deep Mire.

Now he had an explanation.

”The toads didn’t disappear because they left Deep Mire.”

Roland looked toward the water.

”They died.”

”Many of them.”

Raven looked northeast.

The map showed the old springs a little over a mile ahead.

Deepwell Toads required high concentrations of mana to evolve.

Hollow Threads consumed mana.

Two organisms competing around the same resource.

That could explain quite a lot.

A heavy sound came from somewhere among the trees.

SPLASH.

Everyone turned.

Another followed farther away.

Whatever made it wasn’t small.

Raven activated Predator’s Instinct.

Nothing yet.

No threat was directed at them.

Maelor lowered his voice.

”A toad?”

Roland shook his head.

”Too big.”

Raven unfolded the map.

The next marker corresponded to one of the old Mana Reservoir Toad territories.

”We check it.”

Valeria stared at him.

”You have nine mana.”

”I know.”

”You just had a parasite inside you.”

”I know that too.”

”Your regeneration performed reverse surgery on you.”

Raven looked at her.

”That description was unnecessary.”

”But accurate.”

Raven folded the map.

”We don’t fight unless we have to. We look, then we go back.”

Roland exhaled through his nose.

”That’s what you said before the wasp nest.”

”Technically, we did a lot of looking before we went inside.”

”That doesn’t help.”

They continued deeper.

This time, nobody allowed Raven to cross any channel first.

They found four more dead Mana Reservoir Toads before reaching the next marker.

All of them drained.

All of them showed tiny punctures around the reservoir.

The fifth wasn’t dead.

Barely.

The creature lay on its side atop a small mud island, struggling to breathe while the crystals along its abdomen flickered irregularly.

Raven moved close enough for Predation to analyze it.

[Mana Reservoir Toad]

[Level: 14]

[Rank: Awakened]

[Mana Reserves: 3%]

[Hollow Thread Infestation Detected.]

[Secondary Organisms: 64]

[Host Integration: 58%.]

Valeria saw his expression.

”How many?”

”Sixty-four.”

Maelor stopped moving.

”That should have killed it.”

Raven watched the toad.

”It’s trying to survive.”

Its abdomen contracted.

Something moved beneath the skin.

Then something else.

Raven didn’t need to cut it open to understand what was happening.

The parasites had adapted to exploit the exact resource that made these creatures valuable.

Their mana reservoirs.

They weren’t simply eliminating their natural predator.

They were turning it into food.

Maelor spoke quietly.

”If this is happening throughout Deep Mire...”

”Then we know why the toads are disappearing.”

Valeria looked toward the water.

”But we still don’t know why the Hollow Thread population increased this much.”

Raven agreed.

Something had changed.

A normal predator didn’t usually destroy its own food source without pressure.

Maybe the population had exploded.

Maybe something was producing them.

Or maybe the juvenile forms weren’t the most important part of the organism at all.

Raven looked at the dying toad.

FORGE reacted.

[Crystalline Mana Reservoir Detected.]

[Integrity: 67%]

[Mana Capacity: HIGH]

[Current Saturation: CRITICALLY LOW]

[Prototype Rifle Compatibility Cannot Be Accurately Evaluated.]

Useless to him.

And Mirevale probably couldn’t keep it alive for long either.

Raven pointed toward the animal.

”Maelor.”

”What?”

”You can try to save it.”

The alchemist looked surprised.

”I thought you’d want the reservoir.”

”It’s infested, empty, and damaged.”

”How generous.”

”Don’t confuse lack of usefulness with charity.”

Valeria smiled.

”There he is.”

Maelor began preparing a sedative.

Raven moved several steps toward the edge of the island.

A sound rolled through the deeper water.

Not a splash.

A low vibration.

Almost like a toad’s croak, except far deeper.

FORGE reacted.

Not with certainty.

With possibility.

[High-Density Mana Reservoir Signature Detected.]

[Distance: Unknown.]

[Candidate Source Classification: Reservoir Toad Evolutionary Variant.]

[Signal Strength: INTERMITTENT.]

Raven slowly raised his head.

Valeria recognized the expression immediately.

”No.”

”I didn’t say anything.”

”You don’t need to.”

The sound came again from deeper inside Deep Mire.

Raven stared into the darkness between the trees.

His arm still hurt.

He had nine mana.

He had just learned that his regeneration could turn a shallow wound into a perfect prison for a parasite.

And for the first time, he had learned how to stop it from doing that.

Progress.

Unpleasant.

Painful.

Still progress.

Raven looked toward the source of the signal.

”We’re going back.”

Valeria blinked.

”What?”

”We have samples. We confirmed the infection route, figured out why the toads are disappearing, and now we know where to search tomorrow.”

Roland stared at him suspiciously.

”We’re actually going back?”

”Yes.”

Valeria slowly smiled.

”Three reasonable decisions in one week. We should be worried.”

Raven started walking.

”I have nine mana, and whatever is ahead is probably Level Twenty or higher.”

”Four decisions.”

”Keep talking and I’ll change my mind.”

She laughed.

Behind them, the infected Mana Reservoir Toad croaked weakly while Maelor worked to keep it alive.

Farther ahead, beyond the red-marked zones, something much larger answered from the swamp.

Raven didn’t need FORGE to understand that they were close.

The second rifle component was somewhere out there.

But now he also knew that acquiring it might not be the most dangerous part of Deep Mire.

The swamp was full of Hollow Threads.

And something had to be producing them.