Published at 9th of September 2025 12:38 pm

Book 5: Chapter 27 Hunger Unending [Part 2]

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Patches fell strangely still beneath me, her raw tempestuous energy fading in the wake of my magic. I urged her forward: a trot, then a canter, finally a thundering gallop. Her motions felt almost mechanical, but unstoppable all the same.

The blonde elf’s efforts proved futile. Patches and I slammed into their line like a meteor of black and gold, scattering sand and elves like chaff in the wind. It is one thing to hold a line against a horse, but against the prehistoric terror I rode, they stood little chance.

I struck with my lance, the extravagantly long tip skewering an unlucky elf. I lifted him skyward and flicked him free, his screams lost in the din. Frustrated that I was not killing enough, I swept with the haft of my lance using an Improved Power Strike. I was able to knock some of the invaders aside, bowling them over like skittles, but the strike itself was not enough to kill them.

In response, their weapons came at me in a flurry, clanging off my armor. A few found gaps, but inflicted nothing more than superficial wounds. Wounds that my Holy Aura and regenerative gifts soon took care of. But suddenly, Patches froze, then fell beneath me, and I was thrown from the saddle.

Scrambling to my feet, I saw through the slit of my helm an elven spear lodged in Patches’s eye. A fell blow had slain my noble donkey.

They had killed Patches! These wretches had dared to rob me of one of the few creatures that had loved me unconditionally. Grief slammed into me, a crushing weight that threatened to lock my limbs in despair. She had carried me across the Grass Sea, across the Whispering Wastes, and all the way to Al-Lazar, asking only for the occasional carrot and a gentle pat. The unfairness of it all staggered me.

My limbs grew leaden with grief, my step heavy with sorrow.

Yet grief soon gave way to fury. These knife-eared fiends had more than flirted with death; they had now seduced it. I trembled at the sheer injustice. Why was it always me who had to suffer?

More… the voices within whispered. We are the last of your true companions now.

And I found truth in their words.

They had stood by me through every cruelty this world offered—my only steadfast allies. At last, I accepted them. And with that acceptance came the first glimmers of a greater power. I had resisted my destiny too long, but for one moment—just one—I let it claim me. I was owed that at least. Just one moment of surrender.

They guided me to unleash Greater Drain, and the spell burst forth like a savage tentacled storm, clinging to every living thing around me. An ebon plague ravenous for life’s energy.

A wave of bliss enveloped me, serene and almost transcendent, eclipsing any mortal pleasure I had ever known.

Rather than simply accepting the bounty Greater Drain offered, I chose to reward the spell in turn. Long ago, by sheer luck and desperate determination, I had learned to limit a spell’s power. Now, it was time to reverse that.

I poured even more Mana into Greater Drain, fueling its insatiable hunger. Tendrils of black grew thicker, more lifelike as the Mana of this world was sacrificed on the altar of my desire. Reality itself began to fray under the impossible purple-black energy. The barriers between reality and the beyond thinned.

You have learned Overboost (lvl.1)

I laughed at the notification, even as more of the knife-ears fell victim to the spell. If only this revelation had come sooner—such a simple idea. Why had I never tried it before?

Because it was not yet time, the voices answered in unison, sounding uncharacteristically robbed of their usual madness. For a moment, I thought they sounded like me, or perhaps it was that I sounded like them.

Then this is the time, must be the time, I mused wryly. Everything converged on this moment.

Greater Drain coalesced into a single living tentacle, serpentine and long. No longer invisible, it manifested for all to see, and a deafening keening rose from the elves’ ranks.

Focused.

Even heightened, the spell could not kill instantly. It killed slowly, inevitably. There was a purpose in this, something tied to the core of my path. The soul of my magic. Yet, for all of its hunger, it was also consuming far more Mana than it returned and draining my reserves.

I reined it in while fighting enemies wielding God-metal with my Shocksteel Lucerne. Their Mithril weapons tried to pierce my armor, but Adamantine alloy—though oppressively heavy—was the mortal equal of Saint’s Silver. It was never meant for someone with mere human Strength, but I was far beyond such simple limits. More than a man, less than a god. What do you call such a being?

I did not bother to block or defend; my training let me weave intricate patterns with my weapon, each strike fated and true, that scythed through their ranks. Not even bothering to summon my Mimic Shield, instead made it form an eye on my forearm, giving me better vision to target my attacks. The fools, thinking it a weak spot, aimed many of their attacks against the living eye.

They tried to drag me down through the sheer mass of bodies, clumsily trying to pull me to the ground to stab me with their little knives. It was, of course, all for nothing, for at this point in the game, I was simply too strong.

This was the reward for focusing on a singular strategy and not trying to be a jack-of-all-trades. A little bit of this, a little bit of that. A result that could only result in one being subpar at absolutely everything. There had been no going around picking up wildflowers to make potions, no mining the ore in the ground to make my own weapons. No, mine was the path that was all about dealing violence and death.

I saw then hope drain from their own eyes, yet they pressed on. Fools. Why resist the end? I was inevitability made flesh.

I was destiny, and I was fate. They should feel honored that I spared them any attention at all.

Seeing their weapons fail, the enemy soldiers drew back, making way for a very different line of attack. Their Mages raised a choir of arcane spells, and I could feel the air almost hum with their energy. Out of an irrepressible curiosity, I cast Sage’s Sight indiscriminately at the magic that they were drawing to themselves. At once, I realized their singing was the chant, drawing on the world’s Mana rather than their own reserves.

Damnable cheats. That was not how magic was supposed to work.

You have learned Sage’s Sight (lvl.3).

You have gained 1 Intelligence.

Spikes of Earth hammered against my armor, yet shattered upon its unyielding black plates. Water coalesced around my helm, threatening to drown me in its suffocating embrace, then dissolved as if undone by some hidden force. Next came blades of Wind, whipping sand into a ferocious grit. The dagger at my waist hummed—a faint, eerie melody—and the wind’s fury diminished to naught but a soft, gentle kiss.

Then Fire claimed me, and I burned like a doomed pyre upon the sands. I baked within my armor of black and gold, roasted by Fire’s wrath. It’s a queer thing to catch the scent of your own flesh charring, to feel your limbs lock as they fuse to the scalding metal. Even my ridiculous Constitution would have counted for little had the flames raged on.

A part of me welcomed that final release, yearned for a reprieve from the nightmare that was this world. Yet providence favored me, for I was clad in an armor these flames could not truly breach: That of faith. Faith in the mightiest of gods—myself. For all men maketh of themselves gods in their own minds.

Death would not claim me here.

The inferno abated, if only by a hair, and I watched in pain-fueled awe even as my sight was burned away. Entropic Aura was devouring the very Mana fueling the magical conflagration around me. A sudden clarity, a lingering boon of Sage’s Sight, perhaps, showed me the truth. Mana was an energy like any other, and energy is neither created nor destroyed, only transformed. But my Entropic Aura did more: it bound Mana to the laws of real physics, converting it to simple heat, an irreversible process.

I stood as anathema to Mana itself.

Still, the Fire gnawed at me, and my Health slipped toward its last dregs. Yet I found new purpose in that agony, drawing on the same magic meant to consume me. From its grim inspiration, I launched a spell of my own: Freezing Aura. It threaded itself between waves of Entropy and Holy power, and the wrathful Fire became its unwilling fuel.

You have learned Freezing Aura (lvl.4)

You have learned Freezing Aura (lvl.5)

A plunging chill soothed my scorched flesh, though I remained paralyzed, my Regeneration too weak to undo all the grievous harm. Around me, a shield of raw, crackling force took shape, a fragile thing conjured by the torrent of magic feeding it. More elemental assaults pounded the frozen barricade, and in doing so, they merely strengthened it.

Each spell, each scrap of Mana, was consumed, devoured in a perpetual cycle. And in my heart, I knew: I was burning the very lifeblood of this world. Monstrous? Certainly. A violation of the natural order? Beyond question. Yet I no longer cared. I came from a world without magic. Let this realm learn to do without it as well.

Such was my benediction upon this savage world, a chance for them to rise to my challenge or perish by it.

I had become a beast in truth, and in that realization, I discovered my new, monstrous purpose. A purpose greater even than my puerile quest for immortality. My soul sang with exultation even as Greater Heal eased my injuries, bringing me close to full Health once again.

What did they call those monsters in games that demanded a small army to defeat? The ones that needed teamwork and hours of preparation to overcome? The ones you had to bring down in stages, if they could even be brought down at all?

I merely grinned as I saw my Asura gauge fill at last. It was time to walk the path of carnage once more.

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