Beast Devourer: I Grow Stronger by Eating Monsters

They spent the rest of the morning exploring the outskirts of Kharad.

Maelor showed them the region from above.

The dry hills were split by deep ravines, some natural and others widened over generations of mining. Small settlements clustered around dark shafts and underground entrances, while stone ducts ran along the slopes to capture air currents rising from caverns below.

In some places, the interaction with the Burrowers was almost domestic.

Markers stood over active tunnels.

Bells.

Painted posts.

There were even small platforms covered with mineral-rich food that, according to Maelor, were meant to keep juveniles away from certain excavations.

”You feed them?” Roland asked. He had finally joined them.

”Not like pets. We leave salt and mineral-rich stone in places where we want them to dig.”

Raven looked toward a row of recently opened cavities.

”You direct them.”

”Sometimes.”

”That sounds like a terrible idea.”

”It is when it goes wrong.”

Valeria studied a natural vent.

”So Kharad partially depends on them.”

Maelor nodded.

”Kharad existed before the major mines because there was water in chambers the Burrowers had opened. Then we found minerals. Then we learned we could use their tunnels. After that, we discovered that a colony that gets too large can split a street in half.”

Roland looked toward the town.

”A complicated relationship.”

”Like most things you can’t kill without losing money.”

Raven looked at Maelor.

”I definitely like him.”

Valeria sighed.

”Of course you do.”

They reached an abandoned quarry around noon.

A vertical rock face was covered in dozens of rounded openings, some less than half a meter across and others large enough for a person to walk through.

Maelor pointed toward the smaller ones.

”Juveniles.”

Then he indicated an almost circular entrance roughly two meters wide.

”Adult.”

Raven approached.

FORGE reacted to the biological residue.

[Blastback Burrower Trace Detected.]

[Maturity Estimate: ADULT.]

[Pressure Chamber Viability: POSSIBLE.]

[Insufficient Fresh Biological Data.]

”I need a larger one.”

Maelor looked at him.

”You haven’t even seen this one.”

”FORGE says it might work. It doesn’t say it’s sufficient.”

”Your magic has expensive standards.”

”So do I.”

Valeria raised an eyebrow.

”That explains quite a lot.”

Maelor was about to answer when an explosion rolled out from the direction of town.

It wasn’t thunder.

There was no storm.

The sound struck the walls of the ravine and echoed back several times.

BOOM.

A column of dust rose over Kharad.

Every trace of humor disappeared from Maelor’s face.

”That was inside town.”

Raven was already moving.

They reached the district less than ten minutes later.

By then, the immediate panic had already begun to organize itself.

Residents were being pushed back from the street while municipal workers and miners cleared the injured away from a stone warehouse near the commercial district. Most of the building’s front wall was gone. Part of the roof had collapsed, and broken masonry covered both the street and the interior.

One nearby bell was still swinging.

”Burrower!” someone shouted.

”Something came up under the warehouse!”

”Clear the street!”

Raven slowed before crossing the perimeter.

He didn’t enter immediately.

First he looked.

The warehouse appeared to have exploded outward. Stone blocks lay across the street among broken timber and dust, and a man with blood running down his forehead was being helped away by two workers.

Valeria reached Raven’s side.

”What are you looking at?”

”The debris.”

”The wall exploded.”

”Yes.”

Raven walked to one of the larger stones in the street and turned it with his boot.

Its outer face was covered in dust.

The broken interior was fresh.

Nothing unusual.

Then he looked at where the debris had landed.

Some of the wall had been thrown outward, exactly as everyone expected.

But too much of it remained inside.

Several shelves near the front had also been knocked deeper into the warehouse instead of toward the street.

That was wrong.

Raven crossed the perimeter.

A municipal worker immediately stepped in front of him.

”The structure hasn’t been cleared.”

”How long until it is?”

The man looked toward the cracked roof.

”Too long for whatever you’re thinking.”

Raven glanced through the missing wall.

”Then I’ll be quick.”

”That wasn’t permission.”

”No.”

Raven went inside.

Valeria followed without hesitation.

Roland remained outside near the crowd, watching both the street and the bells.

Maelor cursed under his breath and followed them in.

Raven ducked beneath a partially broken beam and stopped near the center of the warehouse.

He didn’t search documents yet.

He searched the damage.

Collapsed shelves.

Broken crates.

Tools.

Dust.

A section of the floor had given way near a side wall, leaving a dark hole large enough for a person to fall through.

That was what everyone outside had seen.

A hole beneath a destroyed building.

An easy explanation.

Raven approached the opening but didn’t descend.

He studied the edges.

The floor had broken downward.

There were no fresh claw marks along the underside.

No displaced earth sprayed into the room.

No stone fractured upward from below.

Maelor crouched beside him.

Raven pointed toward the opening.

”If a Burrower broke through here?”

Maelor ran his fingers over the edge.

His expression changed.

”It would look different.”

Valeria crouched nearby.

”How?”

”When they come up, they break the floor from underneath. Stone lifts, cracks outward, sometimes gets thrown across the room.”

Maelor tapped one broken edge.

”This collapsed into the tunnel.”

Raven nodded.

Exactly.

The hole hadn’t caused the explosion.

At least not directly.

He moved next to the destroyed front wall.

The pattern there told the second half of the story.

Material had traveled both directions.

Outward into the street.

Inward across the warehouse.

Not a pressure blast rising from below.

A localized detonation near the wall.

Raven found a twisted piece of metal beside a broken crate.

He picked it up and smelled it.

Faint chemical residue.

Unfamiliar.

Valeria noticed something else.

”Mana.”

”How much?”

She moved two fingers close to the fragment without touching it.

”Very little, but concentrated. It was part of something prepared, not ambient residue.”

Maelor swore quietly.

Raven looked at him.

”Burrower pressure blasts leave anything like this?”

”No.”

”You’re certain?”

”I’ve been inside galleries after they vented hard enough to kill people. You get shattered rock, dust, pressure damage, disturbed ambient mana.”

He pointed at the metal.

”You don’t get that.”

Raven returned to the wall and followed the fracture lines.

He found the first black mark between two stones.

Then another.

Then a third.

Regular spacing.

Mounting points.

A placed charge.

”Someone blew the wall.”

Valeria stepped closer.

”And the floor collapse?”

”Could be secondary. The detonation weakened it, or the pressure below did.”

”So the hole made everyone assume Burrower.”

”Yes.”

A municipal worker entered behind them.

”You need to leave. We haven’t stabilized the roof.”

Raven turned.

”One question first. What did this warehouse store?”

”Tools. Mine equipment. Records.”

”Whose records?”

”Keller Ridge Consolidated.”

Raven stopped.

Keller.

Valeria recognized the name too.

Not proof of any connection to Oren Keller.

Not even necessarily the same branch.

But after Dunvar, the name deserved attention.

”Local company?” Raven asked.

”They hold concessions here and along the border. This warehouse has belonged to them for years.”

Raven glanced across the scattered papers on the floor.

He didn’t start searching yet.

The building was unstable, workers were trying to clear it, and he already had enough to establish one thing.

The first explosion had not come from a Burrower.

Then the bells outside rang.

Three small notes.

One deep strike.

The municipal worker’s expression changed immediately.

Everyone inside stopped.

Maelor raised his head.

”That one’s real.”

Raven felt the vibration through his boots a second later.

Unlike the previous night, this pressure had direction.

North.

Moving toward them.

Valeria looked toward the hole.

”Burrower?”

”Probably,” Maelor said.

”Out.”

This time Raven didn’t argue.

They moved toward the missing wall as the pressure increased beneath them.

A burst of air erupted from the collapsed section of floor.

Dust shot upward.

A broken plank lifted and slammed against a shelf.

No creature emerged.

The discharge traveled through the tunnel below and vented into the warehouse with enough force to shake the remaining wall.

Outside, the bells answered.

CLANG.

Then the pressure vanished.

For several seconds, nobody moved.

Maelor stared at the hole.

”That was a Burrower pressure release.”

Raven looked back toward the black mounting marks on the wall.

Two separate events.

First, someone had planted a charge and blown the warehouse.

Then, less than fifteen minutes later, real subterranean pressure had moved beneath the same district.

That timing was going to make the lie much easier to believe.

Valeria crossed her arms.

”So now we know.”

”A colony is active beneath Kharad,” Raven said.

”Probably.”

”And the warehouse explosion wasn’t caused by it.”

”No.”

”Which means someone created a fake Burrower attack immediately before a real Burrower event.”

Raven looked toward the hole.

”Yes.”

Maelor’s expression hardened.

”That’s not a coincidence I like.”

Neither did Raven.

The municipal workers cleared everyone from the warehouse after that.

For the next several minutes, Raven remained outside while inspectors checked the remaining supports, the collapsed floor, and the wall. One of the yellow-coated technicians arrived from the square, examined the ground-connected bell, then marked the building with white chalk rather than red.

Temporary access.

Not safe.

Safe enough to retrieve records and equipment from the outer section.

Only then did workers begin moving debris.

Raven stayed nearby.

If someone had deliberately destroyed a Keller Ridge warehouse, there was a reason.

He wanted to know what they had expected to disappear.

Once the front section was declared stable enough for salvage, Raven went back inside with Valeria and Maelor.

This time he looked at the documents.

Most were exactly what a mining warehouse should contain.

Inventory sheets.

Pickaxes.

Rope.

Oil.

Supports.

Supply orders.

Then he found a ledger half-buried beneath a collapsed shelf.

The first pages were ordinary.

Farther in, the entries changed.

Bore Twelve.

Ventilation Cut Six.

Old Pressure Gallery.

Several pages were missing.

Not burned.

Removed.

Raven examined the binding.

The torn edges were clean.

Recent.

Valeria noticed.

”These were taken before the explosion.”

”Probably.”

”So someone removed specific pages, then blew the building.”

”Or removed what they needed and destroyed the rest to hide that anything was missing.”

Maelor leaned closer.

Raven showed him the ledger.

The guide read the tunnel references.

His expression sharpened.

”Bore Twelve is closed.”

”Since when?”

”Two years.”

Raven pointed toward the date of the inventory entry.

”Then why is it active here?”

Maelor stared at it.

”Good question.”

A worker called from the damaged side of the warehouse.

They had found another container.

Two men were removing a fallen section of shelving near the wall where the charge had been placed.

Underneath it sat a reinforced archive box.

Unlike the loose records, it had been stored low and behind other equipment.

Its lock had broken during the explosion, but the box itself was intact.

One worker opened it.

Inside were folders wrapped in waxed cloth.

Protected documents.

Not ordinary inventory.

Raven took the top folder.

The first page carried a heading.

KELLER RIDGE CONSOLIDATED — SUBSURFACE EXPANSION PROPOSAL

Beneath it:

Sector: Bore Twelve / Kharad Lower Network

Then a handwritten note:

Population clearance required before acquisition.

Raven read it twice.

Valeria read over his shoulder.

Her expression lost its humor.

”Population clearance.”

”Yes.”

”Evacuating Kharad?”

”Not necessarily all of it.”

He turned the page.

Property maps.

Parcel boundaries.

Purchase estimates.

Appraisals.

Several marked areas corresponded to neighborhoods built above older tunnel systems.

Then another handwritten note.

Burrower instability may accelerate relocation timetable.

Maelor read it in silence.

”Bastards.”

Raven looked at him.

”How much are those properties worth if residents leave?”

Maelor didn’t answer immediately.

Valeria understood first.

”Less.”

”Much less,” Maelor said. ”Declare an area unsafe and no one wants a house built above it. Mining rights are different.”

Raven looked back toward the destroyed wall.

Now the timeline made sense.

Someone had accessed the warehouse before the blast.

Specific records had been removed.

A charge had then destroyed the front section and weakened the floor, creating damage that could easily be blamed on underground activity.

Minutes later, genuine Burrower pressure had moved beneath the district.

Whether whoever planted the charge had expected that second event was another question.

But once it happened, the false explanation became much stronger.

Now they had motive.

Not proof of who had ordered it.

Not proof that Keller Ridge itself was responsible.

But enough to know that someone wanted parts of Kharad to appear increasingly unsafe.

And beneath all of that, an actual Burrower colony was behaving strangely.

Another weak current of air emerged from the hole.

Almost like breathing.

FORGE appeared.

[Blastback Burrower Habitat Confirmed.]

A second reading followed.

[Multiple Subterranean Biological Pressure Signatures Detected.]

[Individual Count: UNRESOLVED.]

[Mature Pressure Chamber Probability: HIGH.]

Raven allowed the interface to fade.

He had come to Kharad for one organ.

Now he had a colony beneath a town and someone above it trying to turn that colony into a weapon.

Maelor stared toward the damaged floor.

”If those charges are disturbing the lower chambers...”

He didn’t finish.

He didn’t need to.

Valeria stated the consequence.

”They could cause the exact disaster they’re pretending is happening.”

Raven folded the document and put it inside his coat.

”Then we found the first problem.”

Maelor looked at him.

”The first?”

Raven pointed toward the ground.

”The second one is still breathing underneath us.”