◈

Rain pushed through the foliage and emerged back into the central clearing of the Half-goblin tribes cavern, he held a dead Goblin in one paw, the last to be recovered after scouring the place. Things had progressed quickly and there were many many bodies laid out before him. Forty regular goblins, sixteen Lamia-goblins, six Human-goblins, eighteen Harpy-goblins, a Minotaur-goblin, a legless regular Minotaur, a Queen Harpy, six Diredog-goblins, and two Cavebear-goblins. It would have been three but Rain couldn't get the one he had pushed down a hole out of it so he had eaten it where it was.

It was a lot. Easily more than twice as much meat as the piscine army had been. Drool dripped from Rain’s mouth and his lower jaw trembled in anticipation. His stomach had demanded he eat with every body he dragged to the clearing, it had been immensely difficult to hold off so long and his hunger was verging on pain. His paws curled and uncurled as his eyes ran across the last of the bodies that Opal and the Kobold were busily stripping.

Enough. He had waited long enough for this. Eyes alight he threw the last Goblin on the pile and dived on the nearest Lamia-goblin. He hadn't tasted Lamia before. It tasted saltier than he expected, a little bit like eel which he had sometimes stolen from the butcher's shop in his previous life. The interaction of Goblin and Lamia was interesting, a two-tiered flavour that left a Gobliny after taste. He sucked up the Lamia-goblins tail into his mouth like spaghetti until he was forced to start biting off chunks and gulping it down. It didn’t take long to consume his first Lamia-goblin, he was absolutely ravenous, and he immediately pounced on the next and then the next barely stopping to let the growth shudder through him. He groaned involuntarily, how he had lasted this long without going mad he didn’t know, he needed the feeling of growth, the feeling of power and strength welling up inside him like nothing else, addictive didn’t begin to describe it.

It wasn’t long before he had eaten all ten Lamia-goblins and regretfully the last went into his mouth.

More.

He leapt on the Human-goblins and began to consume them. Flavour: mediocre. The mix of human and Goblin taste went poorly, the flavours trying to overpower each other while at the same time cancelling each other out, as a result he found them dissatisfying and it left him wanting. Still, it did not stop him from gorging himself and soon the six were gone.

More.

Next was the Harpy Queen, her comparatively large body was the starter to the Harpy course. Opal had taken back the Inquisitor’s longsword and the Queen was laid out next to her daughters. Rain didn’t sit on ceremony and pulled one of her thighs into his mouth. One bite, two bite, thr-- he paused. Sweet! What had started as a mild background taste became as overpowering as eating cake frosting. He struggled to adjust to it, the fact meat could taste like this was jarring to say the least. It took him a few moments but he managed to start eating again, though the overpowering sweetness made him want to gag at times. When the Harpy queen was devoured at last Rain actually felt the need to wipe his tongue on his paw to help rid himself of how sweet it was. He eyed the other Harpy-goblins with distaste and shifted to eating a Cavebear-goblin for now to cleanse his palate. The smoked oaken taste of the bear was a balm to his taste buds and washed away the feeling of having just eaten a bucket of sugar. The Bear was big, a massive amount of meat, and it took him a long time to get through it with multiple breaks. By the time he was nearing the end Opal had joined him, resting her hands on his chest and feeling him grow larger.

He finished up the bear with a few snaps of his jaws and reluctantly turned back to the Harpy-goblins. Hesitantly he nibbled on a corner, then took a small bite, then a larger, he blinked in surprise. The sweetness was still there but the mixture of Goblin had massively reduced it and introduced a savoury element. Gleeful at finding an unexpectedly highly ranked food he chowed down on the half Harpies quickly grinding his way through them. The last of them soon disappeared behind his jaws

More. More. More.

Next he moved onto the Diredog-goblins. Fiery, more fiery than any Kobold, much more so. The disturbing looking creatures burned on the way down and Rain was soon breathing hard, his mouth on fire. However, despite the pain, he found that he couldn't stop himself from taking another bite, morish was an understatement, the spiciness made them sadistically satisfying and he couldn't help but shovel more mouth burn into his mouth. His eyes were watering by the time the last Diredog was done with. He collapsed onto the grass panting like a bellows as his stomach began to digest. Opal fell atop him and hugged his torso.

He groaned as his bones began to grow once more and his stomach flattened. Opal came to rest on his muscular abdomen with a little sigh.

“So worth it. Spicy but so good.”

He looked down at her, so much smaller looking than when they’d first met.

She looked up at him and smiled. “I made a good call, yes? This tribe was prime for getting eaten.”

“Yeah, you did, it was a smart idea. I feel that much bigger and I haven't even finished yet. You’re starting to look so tiny.” He held up one of her hands in a giant paw, just one of his paw pads was nearly the same size as her hand.

She blinked up at him.

“Tiny?”

“So small. I must weigh several times what you do by now.” He gave her a wolfish grin.

A flicker of emotion crossed Opals face, first immense pleasure, then worry, then unhappy frustration. She bit her lip and abruptly got to her feet. She looked like she was about to say something, then shook her head and ran off.

Rain looked after her in surprise.

“...doesn't she like that?”

He furrowed his brow but he couldn't think why she would suddenly feel upset. He grumbled but as his stomach growled for more he put it to the back of his mind.

Forty Goblins awaited his jaws and he wasn't going to let them remain outside his stomach. He ground his way through them, compared to larger monsters Goblins were becoming trivial to eat due to his larger body, appetite, and maw. There were a lot of them but he was very very hungry, hungry enough that he was eating Goblin before the previous had fully digested. Gut rounded with Goblins he eventually consumed the fortieth goblin. Without pause he went straight into the remaining Cavebear-goblin. It didn't take long and soon there was nothing left of the hill of flesh but a wide puddle of blood. He belched loud and long as it digested and the last of the growth washed over him with a satisfying stretching feeling.

Of the half goblin tribe only Cairn and what Rain assumed what was Cairn’s unwilling father now remained. He could only compare it to eating two entire cows. He gave the Minotaur he had mercy killed a moment of thought, a thankyou for his body and his sympathy for what had happened to him.

Rain had consumed an entire monster tribe, a large one. Ninety two once living beings had gone inside him and been made a part of him, fuel for his immense surging growth.

“G-gods, I’ve never eaten so well in my life.”

He simply lay there for a moment, a wolf in a field of blood. There was so much blood that it covered most of the grassy clearing.

After a little while, he rolled to his feet. The ground was significantly lower than he remembered, a sign of his growth. He estimated he’d hit eight foot tall at this point, nearly a full foot of growth, which was a huge amount of increased mass, more mass than his previous two foot of growth combined. His sheer weight left broad paw pad footprints in the grass as he walked through it. He felt stronger too, in fact as he came up to the building in the middle of the clearing he felt like testing his strength. He placed a paw on one of the support beams and squeezed, the wood splintered then broke beneath his grip. He then placed his paws against the building’s walls and pushed. With a creaking screech the entire crude building fell over and collapsed, although, he considered, the building likely had been weakened since he’d caused a mini earthquake.

He clenched and unclenched his paw in front of his eyes. He definitely felt much stronger, he knew his strength was going up disproportionately to his growth.

He stepped over to one of the small central buildings and with a snarl ripped its roof off. He then pulled down its walls. Inside was a large comfortable looking bed, the Minotaur-goblin’s he assumed. The first sight of a real bed in his new life was too much to resist and he was too exhausted to stop himself. He let out a long long sigh and slumped down on top of it, the bed letting out a groan of distress from his weight. Sleep soon took him unawares and his body steadily continued to heal.

.

.

.

.

.