Beast Devourer: I Grow Stronger by Eating Monsters

White light flooded the area.

Except beneath the wagon.

There, it seemed to die before reaching the ground.

Raven took the lamp and moved closer.

The glow weakened.

Not because the lamp was failing.

It was still producing the same amount of light.

The space around the darkness simply seemed to accept less of it.

”Magic,” Roland said.

Valeria shook her head slightly.

”Probably. But I don’t recognize the structure.”

Raven brought the lamp closer.

The shadow retreated slightly.

Then reclaimed the lost ground.

As if it were breathing.

Predator’s Instinct still didn’t react.

Neither did Predation.

Raven didn’t touch the darkness.

He didn’t need to learn everything by putting his fingers into it.

”There are more,” Valeria said.

She was right.

Now that they knew what to look for, Raven noticed them elsewhere.

Beneath a corpse.

Between two trees.

Inside the overturned wagon.

Small patches where light simply didn’t behave the way it should.

They weren’t normal shadows.

They were residue.

Raven looked at the dead again.

”Something used darkness either as a weapon or as a means of movement.”

Valeria formed a drop of blood above her palm and sent it toward one of the dark patches.

The droplet entered.

For an instant, its glow dimmed.

Then it emerged from the other side.

”Not an active portal.”

”Residual effect?”

”That’s what it looks like.”

Raven started to answer when Predation reacted.

No interface appeared.

Not at first.

The reaction came from his stomach.

Hunger.

Brutal.

Sudden.

Raven went completely still.

It had nothing to do with Predatory Regeneration.

He knew that kind of hunger. He had felt it after recovering from serious injuries, when his body demanded nutrients.

This was different.

It didn’t want food.

His mouth began producing saliva.

His pulse accelerated.

Something inside his chest seemed to lean toward a specific direction.

Raven turned slowly.

Toward the overturned wagon.

Nothing.

Valeria noticed.

”What is it?”

Raven didn’t answer immediately.

Predation appeared.

[High-Value Biological Entity Detected.]

The pressure intensified.

Not danger.

Desire.

Some part of Raven—some part that didn’t feel entirely his—had just detected something it considered food.

[Analysis Initiated.]

Raven looked around.

Predator’s Instinct remained quiet.

That was almost worse.

[Species: Bloodborn.]

Valeria stepped closer.

”Raven. Tell me what you’re seeing.”

The interface changed.

[CORRECTION.]

[Species: ROYAL BLOODBORN.]

Predation’s response intensified again.

It had never done that before.

Not with the Blackmaw.

Not with the Broodmother.

Not with anything Raven had encountered since arriving in Veyr.

Then the next information appeared.

[Level: 71]

[Existence Rank: CHAMPION.]

Raven stopped caring about the hunger.

Level Seventy-One.

Champion.

He had become Awakened that morning.

She was two Existence Ranks above him.

Sixty Levels higher.

Valeria read the change in his expression.

”That doesn’t look like something you wanted to find right after evolving.”

”No.”

”How bad?”

Predation continued before Raven answered.

[Bloodline Density: EXTREME.]

[Ancient Hereditary Structure Detected.]

[ROYAL BLOODLINE:]

[NIGHT SOVEREIGN.]

A strange pulse ran through Predation.

Almost excitement.

That was concerning.

[Multiple High-Order Traits Detected.]

[”Abyssal Regeneration”]

[”Void Step”]

[”Abyssal Vessel”]

[”Night Sovereignty”]

[???]

[???]

[Analysis Interference Detected.]

The last two entries couldn’t be resolved.

Not because of incompatibility.

Interference.

The entity was so far beyond Predation’s current analytical depth that part of the assessment simply failed.

Then something worse appeared.

[Predation Response: EXTREME.]

[High-Value Evolutionary Source Confirmed.]

[Current Host Biological Capacity: INSUFFICIENT.]

[Current Predation Integration Ceiling: INSUFFICIENT.]

[Forced Assimilation Risk: CATASTROPHIC.]

[Estimated Survival Probability Following Forced Assimilation: 2.7%]

[Potential Outcomes:]

[Bloodline Rejection]

[Mana-System Collapse]

[Neurological Destruction]

[Biological Overwrite]

[Death]

[Recommendation:]

[DO NOT ATTEMPT.]

Raven stared at the number.

Two point seven percent.

Predation had found something it considered extraordinarily valuable and, in the same evaluation, was explicitly recommending that he not try to eat it.

That was new.

”Good,” Raven murmured.

Valeria looked at him.

”The last time you said something like that, we had just discovered a parasitic colony. What does ’good’ mean this time?”

”It means the system apparently possesses some instinct for self-preservation.”

”That answered absolutely nothing.”

Raven was about to explain.

A voice came from above.

”What an interesting look.”

All three of them turned.

Raven hadn’t heard anything.

No footsteps.

No breathing.

No movement against wood.

A woman sat atop the overturned wagon.

As though she had been there the entire time.

One leg rested over the other. One hand loosely held her own ankle with complete ease. Silver hair fell past her waist, far too clean for someone who had supposedly crossed a road covered in corpses. Two small black horns swept backward through the strands.

Her eyes were violet.

Not the red Raven associated with Bloodborn.

Deep violet.

Her pupils narrowed slightly when they found Raven.

Predation’s pressure increased again.

[Target Confirmed.]

Raven closed the interface.

It didn’t remove the hunger.

It only stopped displaying it.

Valeria reacted immediately.

Blood spilled from one of the vials at her belt and formed three crimson blades around her.

The stranger didn’t even look at her.

She kept watching Raven.

That annoyed Valeria more than she would probably admit.

”Get off the wagon,” Valeria said.

The woman tilted her head slightly.

”It doesn’t appear to belong to you.”

”Neither do the bodies, and I’m still fairly interested in knowing why you’re sitting among seventeen of them.”

Now the stranger looked at Valeria.

Only for a moment.

Long enough to evaluate her.

Then her attention returned to Raven.

”The blood sorceress is worried about you.”

Valeria’s expression hardened.

”I’m worried about anything that appears silently on top of a scene containing seventeen dead people.”

”Seventeen.”

The woman looked around.

”Then you found two more.”

Raven registered that immediately.

”How many were there?”

Her eyes returned to him.

”Nineteen when I arrived.”

Roland tightened his grip on the bow.

Raven raised one hand slightly.

Not yet.

The Champion Bloodborn was surrounded by four people who, combined, probably couldn’t force her to do anything she didn’t want to do.

Starting a fight because she was sitting suspiciously would be a poor decision.

Raven looked at the bodies.

”Did you kill them?”

”Some.”

Valeria shifted the blood blades.

”That was not the reassuring answer I was hoping for.”

The Bloodborn smiled.

Small fangs appeared.

”I wasn’t trying to reassure you.”

Raven studied the scene again.

”How many?”

”Three.”

”The other sixteen?”

”Already dead or dying.”

”And the three?”

”They tried to kill me.”

Raven looked at her hands.

No blood.

Clothes untouched.

Not a single wound.

That meant nothing with Abyssal Regeneration.

Predation had shown him enough.

Valeria spoke before he could.

”What a convenient story.”

”You’re free not to believe it.”

”I won’t.”

The woman smiled again.

Raven noticed there was no tension in her shoulders.

No visible preparation.

She didn’t need any.

That was probably the most dangerous part.

She didn’t look relaxed because she had failed to recognize the threat.

She looked relaxed because they weren’t one.

Raven had seen that posture before.

Usually in large predators.

They didn’t waste energy threatening something they didn’t need to intimidate.