Blackness...

Emptiness...

Coldness...

Apathy...

My last memory blurred in front of my inner eye, and the last thing I remembered were the blows and the stabbings. How I lay there in the side alley, my hands clasped together over my head, my body bent in a fetal position to allow as few attacks on vital organs as possible. The mocking shouts of my tormentors, my... murderers.

And why all this?

I had turned eighteen barely a week ago, and was living on the street.... I had begged for money, and with the few coins sparingly bought something to eat at one of the food stores, which already knew me and always looked at me with pitying looks behind... And the passers-by and customers, who for the most part turned up their noses when I walked past them.

And just as I was about to sit down in one of my usual hiding places in a side alley between two garbage cans to eat the precious good in my hands, I heard the screaming.

Only then, as I am always the naive and kind-hearted idiot who has to play hero, I intervened when I saw four thugs holding a young woman and in my head all sorts of scenarios were playing out about what would happen to her.

And what good had it done me? Twenty-seven knife wounds, more broken bones in my body than I can count, and....

my death.

And here I float now. Motionless. Or do I even have any limbs left that I could move? I don't even know anymore.

I feel empty... Apathetic? Yes, emotionless. I should be scared, right?

But I... I feel nothing. Simple. Nothing.

Time passes. There is no light, only darkness. Emotions do not exist in this place, only cold, clear thoughts. Structured and logical.

I am dead, and I am floating here, in whatever this is.

More time passes and flies by. Are there seconds, hours, or even years or decades, which have passed? Or even just a moment. I don't know.

After all, there is no clock here.

After a short time, or an infinity later, I see something new in the weightlessness for the first time.

A light appears. And a dark silhouette is simply there. Black on a light background.

I can't tell if it's a man or a woman. Or a human being at all.

Suddenly everything blurs and I'm sitting at a luxurious mahogany desk, right across from the person I just saw. I still don't recognize anything except the black, billowing outline.

I stare at the figure with interest and tilt my head. After all, it's the first time since... A long time? That something has happened.

"Hello, David." Sounds an ethereal voice, which in my lifetime would have given me a proper goose bump all over my body. But now my head only wanders from the right oblique position to the left, and I continue to watch silently and with interest, eager to see what would happen now.

The situation is like the best movie I have ever seen. After all this time in the Void, this encounter is like an epiphany for me. Pure excitement, so to speak.

"Hmmm... It seems your soul has lingered a little too long in the interspace. We are extremely sorry about that. We really are. Unfortunately, there is an extremely long queue, and it must be worked through in order, exactly in the order in which the souls arrived with us." Explains the figure, his billowing hands crossed in front of him and lying on the table, while one finger pokes a little on the mahogany table.

"I'm here to make you an offer that only people with extremely bad luck get from us in several reincarnation cycles in a row."

"The normal course would be to erase your memories of your last life and enter the circle of rebirth normally. You forget everything, start all over again."

"Or, thanks to several lives in a row in which so much bad luck happened to you that it actually seems impossible, you accept our offer of misfortune. This means that everything that has happened to you in these cycles, whether you remember it or not, will be offset and you will receive, depending on your karma value, a particularly strong body, a unique ability, or something comparable in your next life. And you get to keep your memories of your last life from earth."

"But" David, as the figure had called him, felt a penetrating gaze rest on him. "If you accept this offer, you will be reborn by chance into one of the countless beings in one of the infinite worlds. You get your bonus, strength varying according to karma value, and start with all your memories. But where, or as what, is left to the wheel of rebirth and fate."

And with these words, the figure is silent again.

I don't quite know what to make of this. I feel nothing. I really don't. So I only know that it is wiser to accept the offer.

I nod.

I know that the figure across from me is smiling, even though I don't know how to know that.... Anyway.

The light behind the figure shines, and it almost seems to swallow the emptiness and darkness around it. It spreads out, and together with the light the table, the black figure, and my existence disappear.

I open my eyes. Or at least I try, but something is wrong, because I have no eyes. At least not in the conventional sense.

Odd... I know in any case that I remember everything. And I can feel again, and I seem to have a body.

But this body is definitely different. One hundred percent not a human body, let alone a biped.

I am, a mole? What kind of a bad joke is that? But somehow I have to chuckle inside when the warning slipped back into my memory that I would get a body by chance. Even though I could never have dreamed of a small, blind mole.

And as if my consciousness was finally fully awakened, a stream of information flooded into my little brain, which was like an upload.

*System rights are being checked...

*System access has been granted!

*Initialization of the system....

*Soul recognized...

*Soul successfully interwoven with living being!

*Energy structure loaded...

*System successfully integrated with living being!

[System trait was awarded from the highest level: Devourer].

[Trait: Devourer]

Enables the soul to absorb and integrate the special properties when devouring other living beings or objects.

Adaptations of the host with said properties in physical, mental, or soul possible.

*Reincarnation finished!

Ps.: Do something out of this life!

Um... Okay? Thank you. System, or whoever you are. Or should I even be grateful for that? I mean, a mole, come on.

But I just thought it was kind of funny on the other side.

And if I understand this information correctly, which seemed to have installed itself on an instinctive level of my being, then the system along with the trait was the gift I had received.

The present body seemed to me to be only temporary, if I think about it more sharply. I knew immediately what possibilities were revealed to me through the Devourer trait. Not only did I have this wealth of information thanks to this system, no, with the help of this unique ability I could take on the characteristics of other creatures or magical objects that I devoured.

The devouring itself did not only refer to the physical possibility to eat, but also to devour mana or souls!

When I became aware of all this I could not help but be all excited and fidgety inside! Of course, a little difficult with a mole body, the stubby arms and currently still buried a little deeper in the earth.

Nevertheless, I could hardly wait to incorporate my first properties me!

Finally ready to go, I used my strong if short arms along with the claws to shovel me further through the earth realm. I had woken up in a small earth cave, from whose ceiling roots hung.

As a human being in my former life, I would have had more than a little claustrophobia, but fortunately these feelings and emotions simply eluded me as a simple mole. I just wanted to dig! Draw long underground passages, and build my own cave system!

Wait, wait. No! I want to DEVOUR! Oops, I really need to be careful with these animal instincts, it occurs to me.

If I don't concentrate and suppress it, there's nothing I'd rather do than dig, burrow, and tunnel. But my soul, along with the memories of my past life, pull me out of the animal instinct. Fortunately.

And so I set off joyfully. Or rather, I dig my way through the earth.

I always linger briefly at some roots and nibble at them, only to swallow the disgusting stuff in my mouth. In my small stomach, everything organic transforms into a kind of energy and dissolves to merge with my cells.

After a few hours of aimless digging around, I finally get the first successful message from my system!

*Root network unlocked!

Well, they don't exactly skimp on information here, do they? Fortunately, just as I'm about to make another sarcastic comment about the measly info, I get that tingling in the back of my mind again and the information automatically pops into my head.

Interesting... Sure it makes sense, but that could be pretty overpowered, right?

The new ability was quite simple and straightforward. I could now access the entire network of roots around me as soon as I touched a root, tree, or anything else that was connected to the network. From my memories, I knew that trees in forests communicated with each other, that is, they could send short signals through their root network to other trees. And not only could information be exchanged, but food and help could also be sent to sick trees!

In this way, the healthy trees often helped the sick trees, at least in a natural and healthy forest, and could send nutrients to fight vermin or diseases.

And I myself now also had access to this massive network of forests! I could siphon nutrients, feel the forest, the air and the soil through the connected trees, and even communicate a little with the trees!

Okay, even though communicating is a bit... far-fetched. Let's call it rather... ping? I could feel if and roughly what was moving through the forest, what the weather was or would soon be, and much more.

Quite pleased about this ability, I began to dig up the first time. So far I had avoided this, simply to stay in the earth realm for the time being and to be able to get used to this body in relative safety. And of course to snack on some worms, bugs and roots!

Sadly, the energy and quantity of the small creatures was probably not enough to give him an ability of these, in contrast to the roots bursting with life.

But nevertheless, I was satisfied with my yield in the few hours I had spent with it so far.

As a mole, I somehow had an internal clock, which worked quite precisely, and could therefore roughly estimate that I had spent no more than three hours with my digging.

And so it went upwards, where the earth became easier and looser, and I could dig even faster, until I pushed through a grassy soil and came out on a kind of small clearing in the forest.

I could see only with difficulty, and everything was in a washed-out black and white film, but my tactile senses felt the surface, while my nose sniffed the fresh grass around me, which told of wetness and a rainstorm that must have passed along here recently.

Suddenly, I jerked around as my senses perceived something else. A larger predator was sniffing and creeping along the clearing, apparently looking for its prey. Which could not be me, since I had just emerged.

I watched the gray wolf, because that's all I could see with my weak eyes, cautiously as he crept along crouched there and aimed at a point further ahead in the middle of the clearing.

Only now that I knew what I had to look out for, I felt the slight taps and vibrations in the ground, to which I still had to get used to. A mouse sniffed the air and moved carefully through the grass, unaware that a hunter was already waiting for it.

Not a meter behind the mouse was a hole in the ground, most likely the burrow of the mouse, from which the small animal had just emerged and was now cautiously walking in the direction of the wolf.

Fascinated, i watched the spectacle of hunter and hunted in front of me at close range, totally absorbed in it and intent on remaining as still and inconspicuous as possible in my own tunnel.

The mouse continued to crawl forward, and just as it was about to scurry between a few roots of a tree not a meter away from the edge of the forest, the wolf struck, and a short squeal later the hunter disappeared back into the forest with his prey in his mouth.

I wonder if this is a mouse nest and the wolf is always indulging in the food source? If so, pretty clever, haha. A little snack paradise of its own!

Well, but good. After a few more minutes of waiting, I was pretty sure I was safe, and I carefully crawled out of my tunnel myself, crouching down as small as I could in the direction of the mouse burrow.

I stared down into the darkness, which was dark to me as well, but I could see more than one would think, due to my other much sharper senses, similar to bats.

A meter diagonally down, actually following a mole tunnel, I felt some movements of smaller mice.

Greedy once again to take full advantage of my ability to evolve, I slowly crawled forward into the tunnel but careful not to make any frantic movements or noises so as not to scare the small animals.

I made short work of the mice, which had no chance thanks to my sharp claws, even if I still knew from my memory that moles actually ate nothing so large and rather enjoyed themselves with insects at most.

And so I sat there, cut the mice into smaller morsels, and ate my fill over the next day. Time and again, I would fall into a tired food coma, only to wake up again and continue munching. Occasionally a rain worm would fit in between the meals, or other insects and larvae, which I had discovered nearby and which had probably served the mice as food before.

And so my first days in the new world passed quite monotonously, but somehow fun for me, especially when I looked at the fruits of my labor.

*Cell regeneration unlocked!

*Lesser night vision acquired!

*Lesser mobility gained!

*Lesser flexibility gained!

All in all, the earthworms had given me probably the most useful ability I could have imagined as a human before: To regrow limbs! As long as I kept my head, everything else could grow back with enough nutrients and time.

I was also very happy about the night vision, because as a mole I could not see very well, and in the dark I had to rely more on my other senses like touch. Therefore, the night vision was already a clear advantage for my future evolution and development and came from the usefulness directly after the cell regeneration.

The extended mobility and flexibility I had finally got from the mice, which enabled me as a mole unnaturally faster reflexes, a faster movement and my body slightly more unnatural movements with bones and muscles. For example, I could now turn my paws upwards unnaturally almost one hundred and eighty degrees.

If I could have whistled, I would have done it now, so satisfied was I with my yield of the first days.

When I wanted to go out again, of course after another hours sleep, when I suddenly trembled and a premonition filled the clearing. Something powerful had appeared, and it radiated a bloody and malodorous aura, which beat the wolf from before by far. Nevertheless, something was not quite right, because I sniffed a sweet salty smell in the air. The creature that had just entered the clearing was bleeding profusely, and a miasma-mana mixture in the form of a mist covered the ground of the grassy clearing.

I was already crawling backward, but it was too late, and the miasma wafted into the tunnel, already flowing around my frozen and trembling form. The power that flowed out of the being outside physically and mentally was breathtakingly terrible, and held me in place as soon as it touched me.

Immediately I knew instinctively that I had to do something when the purple glowing mist-like stuff tried to penetrate my leathery skin. Unlike before, this was the first time I saw something other than black and white! The entire mist glowed ominously and glowed and pulsated in a vivid purple!

Oh fuck! This is not good!

I noticed when the stuff penetrated the first pores and I felt how it attacked my cells and directly ignited my cell regeneration, which tried to fight against it.

My thoughts raced and jumped around inside, looking for a solution. Until I inwardly face palmed myself.

Sure, of course. Rather react hectically instead of thinking logically.

And with that, I opened my little mouth and began to inhale! I ate the mist, and DEVOURED the miasma faster than it could float down the small earth tunnel.

First seconds passed, and then minutes, and later hours, in which I devoured continuously. I inhaled constantly any miasma, and even when I became more and more tired, I did not stop. I grinned inwardly, and was once again amazed at this far too strong ability.

At some point, less mist floated down, and what had been a flood was now more of a drip, and finally it dried up completely.

Exhausted and barely able to keep my eyes open, my mole body simply collapsed on the spot, and I sank into a restful sleep.

I awoke a few hours later, my muscles and bones slightly crumbly, and stretched my little body.

Shortly before I fell asleep, I had received another message, which I now scrambled out of my head and looked at the information.

*Complete curse immunity achieved!

Through the constant absorption and devouring of the miasma, which seemed to come from an extremely strong curse, I had achieved a complete curse immunity, which according to my system information was something extremely unusual. Normally, one would first achieve lesser resistances or the like, but the strength of the miasma had apparently been so tremendous that the devouring of it had led to complete annihilation and immunity.

I rubbed my hands inwardly with joy and if I could have grinned, I would have done it in this body. So there was only an odd grimace in my mole face, which would look rather creepy for an opposite than to radiate joy.

Satisfied with my achievements, I sniffed the air and tried to find out whether the air was clean. In the truest sense of the word, and also in terms of danger.

After a few seconds, I was sure enough, and slowly crawled up the narrow earth tunnel on all fours, until I let my wet nose peek out of the hole and sniffed again.

The air seemed to be clean, and I could neither smell nor feel anything of the dangerous creature, which made me rise completely out of the earth realm.

What I saw there would certainly have made my heart sank to my boots as a human, when I looked at the former meadow in the clearing with my mouth open with my black and white gaze. Where grass had grown several centimeters high before, nothing was left but ashes and withered grass, dead roots and so on. Whatever had raged here and had been responsible for this miasma had wiped out all life in many meters around.

All the more I breathed a sigh of relief and was incredibly glad to have possessed my devouring, otherwise it would have happened to me similarly!

I turned my chubby body around and looked at the whole extent of the destruction, until I was frightened once again and flinched briefly, which seemed quite funny with my extended reflexes. A mole that could suddenly jump back thirty centimeters in the blink of an eye had certainly never been seen before.

In front of me was an almost four meter long corpse of a person, or at least what was left of it!

The creature was huge by human standards, and if I had been able to feel something like fear, I would have peed in my lower legs.

Dead skin flaked lightly in the wind from the naked body of the creature, and the head seemed to consist more of a bone helmet than skin, while above the temples and at the back of the head of the dead creature was a huge gray deer antlers, which measured in the entire length certainly a meter.

Well holy shit, what are you for an ugly beast?!

After a few minutes of walking clearly and emotionlessly around the corpse, I turned my head at a slight angle and stared at the creature thoughtfully. A slight rolling of the stomach suddenly became noticeable, and in contrast to all the previous things that I had eaten, the trait of the Devourer seemed to crave this creature inwardly.

I could barely control myself from sinking my teeth and claws into the lifeless body like a rabid animal, and just about controlled myself as I took slow steps toward the dead creature.

Slowly and just so controlling myself, I sank my teeth into the rotting flesh of the creature in front of me, and bit into it. I first thought that I would have to puke at such a corpse, but I was certainly not prepared for the pure delight and the feeling of happiness that spread in my mouth at the first bite!

The tough blood of the creature tasted like the most expensive honey, not too sweet, with a hint of forest, nature and herbs. It literally melted in my mouth and moved rapidly down into my stomach to be instantly decomposed and devoured.

No sooner was the first energy of this strange creature devoured and penetrated into my cells, I was overcome by unbridled hunger and my control slipped completely.

In my madness and gluttony, I no longer noticed what I was doing and a kind of veil settled over my mind, while my gaze and my thoughts allowed only one thing; to devour!

Hours, and then even days, passed in which I slipped back and forth between sleep and my feeding frenzy, barely in control and not master of my own senses and thoughts. It was supposed to frighten and scare me, but somehow I knew it was the right thing to do. My trait recognized the concentrated power in the being in front of me and knew that every second counted, in which more and more life force was drained and lost forever.

And so I simply surrendered, but knew that I could stop at any time with all my willpower, if I really wanted to. But I did not do that.

And I shredded piece by piece the corpse in front of me, ate and bit, cut everything into smaller parts with my claws so that it fit into my smaller mouth, and also did not stop at the antlers and the inner organs of the dead creature.

The bones and antlers themselves were a problem at first, but were quickly solved when I pulled the energy responsible for the enormous hardness and density out of them and inhaled it, so that I could then devour the brittle parts as well.

Three days and three nights after constant eating and sleeping without interruptions elsewhere, the being before me was finally completely devoured, and a system message greeted me.

*Wendigo devoured in its entirety!

*Wendigo curse of hunger recognized...

*Curse of hunger completely resisted by curse immunity!

*Shapeshifter unlocked!

[Warning! Higher form detected!]

*Do you want to use your shapeshifter ability to evolve to the form of the wendigo?

YES - What a question!

*New form has been accepted!

*Initialize shapeshifting...

And with these words I fell again into a black and deep sleep.