Chapter 3: The Buffet

“Don’t move. You can’t escape even if you tried, I can smell you from a mile away and I can outpace you on any terrain.” I said to the woman as I slithered up to her.

She mutely nods as she shakes in abject terror. I smelled the distinct scent of ammonia as I noticed the woman had wet herself. She was practically naked, the only clothes she had on her were the shredded remains of the top half of her dress and her stockings. I could see her bare breasts and the small bush of blonde hair between her legs from which the smell of ammonia was emanating.

Funnily enough I felt nothing at the sight of what in my perception was a completely naked woman that was rather beautiful. In fact as I ponder this I realised I had no sex drive whatsoever. Could it be because I was technically still a child, I mean I was born only hours ago. Maybe if I run into another of my kind I would feel something? Also am I male or female? That’s going to be an awkward question. I was a guy before but I’m not sure now. Oh I hope I don’t have to lay eggs in the future…

Well I suppose that’s a question for another time so I put it out of my mind and began to eat the remains of the bandits. As I took my time enjoying my meal I could sense the woman getting more and more terrified as I slowly ate the bodies. I could sense her twitch in fear every time the sound of me crunching bones echoed out.

I didn’t really care honestly, I just want to be smarter before I talk to her. Hopefully I could get improved [Advance Cognition] and [Auditory Communication] before I talked to that woman. There's a lot of questions I want to know, what are humans like in this world and more importantly what do they think of Devourers?

As I bit into the final heart I heard the voice in my head again.

Achieved [Human Genome] Level: 2 / 10

[Advance Cognition] improved

[Colour Perception] improved

[Fine Motor Skills] improved

[Auditory Communication] improved

[Human Pathogen] acquired

Core Evolution Achieved Stage: 2 / 50

[Bone Spines] acquired

[Bone Spines] can be augmented with [Pathogen] and [Toxin] abilities to improve offensive capabilities

As soon as the voice stopped I felt my shoulders change. I switched my gaze to my shoulders and saw a row of spikes have appeared. As the spikes appeared I found as usual I instinctively knew how to use them. Now the question was how accurate were they?

I looked at the wagon and focused my gaze on a single point and I fired one of the spikes. The spike fired from my shoulder and embedded halfway into the wood only a few centimetres off target. So it’s reasonably accurate…

Well that’s good enough for now, with that I turned and slithered over to the woman as I finished up the rest of the corpse I was munching on. When I arrived at the woman she let out a whimper as she raised her hands up in a show of submission.

“I have some questions.” I say and I realise my voice is now smoother. It still sounded weird but at least it didn’t sound like a toddler trying to talk anymore.

“What questions?” the woman asked shakily.

“First things first, do you have a mirror?” I asked and I saw her eyes widen slightly in confusion.

“I do… in the wagon…” the woman replied.

With that reply I nodded in the direction of the wagon and she got the message. She shakily stood up as she instinctively tried to cover herself before realising it was quite pointless in front of a creature like me.

She walked shakily over the wagon and fumbled through the contents of the wagon. Eventually she took out a mirror about the size of the ones they use in barber shops.

“Point it towards me.” I say and she obeys as she faces the mirror towards me. I could tell she was trying her best to keep the mirror steady.

What I saw was surprising to say the least. My face was dome like and completely smooth. There were no eyes as far as I could tell, no nostril either, just a smooth white surface. I opened my mouth and it revealed rows upon rows of serrated teeth.

“Interesting…” I say and I see my mouth move as I speak. I think I know why I sound weird, I don’t look like I have lips… well at least not the kind of lips humans have. It's more like this flap of skin that covers the teeth that moves when I talk.

I shifted my position so I could see my body profile and saw I actually looked really scary. If I was my old self I would have pissed myself just like this woman here. My blades had a cruel curved edge to them, my humanoid torso looked rather muscular and it was covered in layers of white armoured plates. My snake-like tail was rather long and quite thick, which explained why my tail lash hit that bandit so hard. Honestly I looked closer to an alien than a stereotypical monster…

“That’s enough.” I say as I gesture for her to put the mirror away and she puts it on the ground.

“Good, now where are you from?” I ask as I lean forward and tower over her.

I see her eyes widen as my body bathes her in shadow. I could tell she was too afraid to talk. I could have backed off to calm her down but honestly I was lazy. Plus I had a better idea, I shot one of my spines right next to her feet. She screamed as she jumped away from the spike that was now embedded into the grass.

“Answer.” I growl trying to make my voice as threatening as possible.

“The only reason you aren’t dead is that I have questions and that I find you... mildly amusing.” I say as I shoot another spike next to her feet this time she fell over backwards with a shriek.

I transform my other two arms into bone blades and raise them as if I’m about to cut her in half.

“I suggest you start talking.” I growl again.

“Averlon, I’m from the city of Averlon…” she sobbed as she held up her hands in front of her face.

“Good, now which way?” I ask and she frantically points down one side of the road.

“Now then what is an Iron Rank Adventurer?” I ask and I see her look up slightly at my question.

“Adventurers are…” she began but faltered halfway as she looked at me in terror as if afraid to answer.

I use one of my blades to slash at the ground next to her and she screams as my blade cuts a clean gash across the earth.

“MONSTER HUNTERS! THEY ARE MONSTER HUNTERS!” she wailed as she threw up her hands in effort to shield her face.

“And the Iron rank?” I asked.

“It’s the lowest rank among the adventurers, the ranks are iron, bronze, silver, gold, platinum, mithril and Hero ranks.” she said, babbling as fast as she could.

“So they hunt monsters like me?” I asked as I backed off slightly, giving her some room.

“Yes…” She replied softly, her voice shaking and calming slightly.

“Now then, what do you know about Primordial Devourers?” I asked and I saw confusion flash through her eyes.

“What?” she asked in confusion, her brows furrowed and looking like she forgot her fear for a moment.

“Primordial Devourers, what do you know about them?” I asked again.

“They… they don’t exist, they’re just monsters that live in stories.” she replied, her voice shaking with uncertainty.

“What do the stories say?” I pressed and I watched as gaze shifted as if she was trying to recall them.

“They say the Devourers are the first form of life, they say all life came from Devourers. All that breathe are progeny of the Devourers. The stories say they were wiped long ago…” the woman replied.

“By who?” I asked. If my kind were wiped out then this place just got a lot more dangerous.

“Many beings, the angels, the demons, the heroes of old, the ancient dragons. The mightiest of the other races all banded together to kill off the Devourers. That great war is called the War in Heaven. The angels of heaven tried to wipe out the Devourers that lived in Terra, they lost in Terra and gave the Devourers the power to enter heaven. They were only defeated after all the other races united against them.” the woman replied.

“And that’s it? None were ever seen again?” I asked as I tilted my head.

“No, some appear from time to time, hatching from long dormant eggs. When one appears it always causes untold destruction. Nations fall, cities burn, usually they are defeated by the heroes of man who are aided by the angels of Heaven.” the woman replied.

“What would happen if another Devourer appears?” I asked, this perhaps was the most important question of all.

“The nations would call their mightiest heroes to defeat it as soon as possible, heaven will also get involved. The Seraphim are far more powerful than humans. They have to do so, the Devourers grow stronger over time, they can eat anything and with each meal the devourers… grow stronger…” the woman replied as she faltered and her eyes widened as she looked at me, the realisation hitting her.

“You don’t look anything like the paintings…” she said softly.

“We evolve as we eat, I am sure my appearance will change as I continue to grow.” I replied.

“You… aren’t going to let me go are you?” the woman said, her voice trembling.

“If you let me go, I might go back and tell everyone. Then the nations will send their heroes to hunt you down…” she said, her voice barely a whisper.

“Smart one aren’t you?” I reply as I bare my teeth. Well it looks like this discussion is over, chow time…

“Wait… may I have a last request?” the woman said shakily.

“What?” I ask as I look at her.

“Could you make it painless? And do the deed from behind. I don’t want to see it happen.” the woman said as tears flowed down her face.

“Alright… turn around.” I say and she shakily turns around. She kneels with her back to me and I see her look up at the sky. I could sense her breathing picking up speed, she knows she’s about to die and she is terrified.

“Well they say being raped is a fate worse than death. Not sure how true that is.” I say as I raise one of my blades.

“Yes I suppose it is good I remained pure to the end.” the woman said, choking back a sob as she lowered her head in resignation.

“Farewell.” I say as I bring my blade down and pierce her through the back of her head. The blade goes clean through and her body goes limp. A quick death, simple, painless…

Well so much for that, I still felt a little bad for her. I guess this is the [Advance Cognition] talking, still there was no guilt. I just felt it was a little unfortunate that I had to kill her. Oh well, whatever.

I bit down onto her torso with the dismissal of that momentary thought and enjoyed the sweet taste of her heart along with the rest of her body. After that I ate the woman’s husband? Father? Brother? Whatever, he’s food now. As I ate the horses I heard the voice in my head again.

Equus Essence acquired

Insufficient essence for assimilation

I wonder what the horse essence will give me...

Well that was a fruitful discussion and a nice meal… What now?

With that thought in mind I looked around and I saw the bandit’s trail leading into the forest. I wonder… don’t bandits usually have a camp? Would there be more of them? Well I have no pity for these types of people… to be fair I don't have much pity for anything… still these were criminals and the human part of me still disliked them. Besides… who’s going to miss a few dead bandits?

I let out a small chuckle as I turned and began following the trail. The trail was quite thick and honestly it smelled quite unpleasant. I don’t think those guys bathed very often, proper hygiene is probably an abstract concept to them. I wound my way through the forest and followed the trial and I soon found a narrow path. I think this is the path the bandits took.

Then I sensed movement ahead and carefully moved off the path while making sure I made as little noise as possible.

“What do you think is taking them so long?” I heard a voice say as a pair of men appeared walking along the trail.

“Duno, maybe they found a pretty girl or something and are having their way with her.” the other man replied.

They were wearing roughly the same gear as the bandits from before. Same beat up armour and weapons, and the same unwashed scent….

“Selfish bastards, probably going to have their fun first before dragging her back and let us have the sloppy seconds.” the first man said.

“I hope Boris doesn’t kill her, remember when he killed the one before we got her back?” the second man asked.

“Yeah, I don't know why he likes to choke them as he does his thing. That one was pretty and young too, the boss knocked two of his teeth out for it later.” the first man said with a laugh.

“Hahaha yeah I remember that, he was talking like some village idiot for a week. Well the boss does like the young ones.” the second man replied with a chortle.

“Yeah that one probably still hadn’t even had her first blood yet, she barely had any hair on her. Big mistake Boris, big mistake…” the first man said with a laugh.

All the while they were talking I was manoeuvring behind them, my blades drawn. Their conversation was honestly vaguely disgusting, looks like that bandit leader’s a paedophile. Well there’s going to be one less paedophile in this world soon…

Once I was in a good position I slashed at the neck of the second man that was following the first one. He was immediately relieved of his head and I saw my body exit invisibility as his headless body fell forward with a thump. The other man yelped as he turned around just in time for me to pepper him with [Bone Spines] laced with [Human Pathogen]. He staggered back as he looked down in shock at the six spines in his chest.

Then his eyes turned bloodshot and trickles of blood began flowing down his nose. He gasped as he fell over backwards. I moved closer to him and looked down and saw him gasping as black blood bubbled up from his mouth. I switched one of the blades back to my taloned hands and cut his leather chest armour open.

I looked down and saw the spots where the spines had hit looked to be turning black with ugly red veins radiating from the wounds. Whatever this [Pathogen] is, it's fast acting and looks pretty painful. The blood leaking from the wounds was also black like tar, this looks really effective, I hope it doesn’t affect the taste of the meat…

Well I am curious about the full scope of this [Human Pathogen] thing, I wonder if it gets any stronger. So with that in mind I decided to eat the other one first while keeping an eye on the dying one. He died rather quickly. I got only two bites into his friend when his body stilled and went limp. That was what? Less than a minute?

As I finished up the second man I felt something come up in my throat and I instinctively hacked up something from my mouth. I looked down and to my surprise I saw a lump of metal that looked to be melted and fused together.

Oh… I guess I shouldn’t have eaten their armour as well as their bodies… To be fair at the time it didn't really bother me. I crunched through the metal as easily as I did their bones. Then again if I just cough it up doesn’t that mean there isn’t an issue? I know owls cough up pellets of bone occasionally and cats do cough up fur balls… It would be quite inconvenient to peel the armour off everytime I eat a human. Oh well forget it I'll just keep eating it and see what happens...

With that meal finished I reengaged my invisibility and continued following the trial and soon I came across a walled camp. The walls were wood and I could see a guard standing atop a watch tower looking very bored.

I also sensed two more of the bandits patrolling the perimeter…

I clambered up a nearby tree so I could see into the camp. What I saw made me very excited, it's like a continental buffet down there...

There’s about two dozen bandits milling about in the open, probably with more in some of those wooden shacks. There were about five women in this wooden pen and I saw one bandit exit one of the houses and dragged a crying woman along with him. The man opened the pen and chucked her into the pen where she landed in the dirt a sobbing mess.

The men were all using the same beat up arms and armour. After examining them I couldn’t sense any threat whatsoever, it looks like these guys were just walking and talking meals for me.

There was this larger house in the middle where this bonfire was. I’m guessing that’s where the bandit leader lives. The house was much better constructed; it wasn't like the crappy shacks around the camp. This one looked like a cottage with proper walls.

There were other creatures as well, I saw attack dogs, horses and this large bear thing… That one looks interesting…

Well well well…

Dinner is served…