The Systemic Lands

Chapter 525: Day 4,905 (6) – The Biter

The Biter

They were foolishly looking for me. But I had worked in the Regional Map room after I had gotten the meta-point from the Almighty System. Plotting and planning. The thing was the map really tracked humans. While I had lost store access, I had gained so much more.

Humans were the best of course, but I had carefully selected other things as well, monsters. The trick was to select the right monsters to use the drawback of my unique skill to my advantage. There were panicking and checking everywhere for me, but I wasn’t disguised as a person.

That was the real trick, using blending skills to hide in the Imperial Palace, and then leave it, without anyone the wiser. They would be running around pointlessly searching for me. I would leave and search out other interesting monsters for a while before coming back.

The upgrade had seemed like the perfect time to strike. I had been planning for tonight, but Emperor Michael was scary. Very scary. If he ever saw me, I knew I had no chance. But it felt good getting one step closer to eating him. He had started me on this path.

I remembered long ago when I was just a soldier, fighting the Dragon Empire. We were given meat. Told it was enhanced rations. That statement was a lie, the meat was human flesh. My time in the government had revealed the truth to me and there had always been rumors.

Using the points, I had earned, I had gotten bite skills. Everyone laughed at me and called me stupid. They weren’t laughing any longer. No one would laugh at me ever again. Bite skills were powerful. The closer the skill the more powerful it was. One of the many things I had found out before other people.

A bite skill could easily go two levels above it in terms of ability to do damage. When Death came, I bit through the monster, and then got a meta-point. I wasn’t an idiot that would tell others and doubled down. I got a unique skill, which would let me become stronger the more I ate. Consumption was what the process was called, and I was going to internalize all the best traits.

Strength would flow through me the more I consumed. While others might harbor hate, or resentment to be forced onto this path, I was grateful for Emperor Michael. In a strange way he opened my mind to the glories and powers of bite skills that I would never have considered.

His teammate Joyo was an easy target. And he had so many stats. Finally, he was human. Human enough that even now, after consuming him, my body was slowly moving back to its original form. While I was humanoid shaped, I didn’t want to go too far from the norm.

That was why consuming a powerful human was key. Now that I had finished off the rest of his delectable body, it was time to go out exploring again in level 5 zones for anything of interest. Getting the right traits to manifest was a tricky process.

It wasn’t enough to find one monster with a good trait. I needed a monster with a couple good traits. To let their powers and abilities integrate with me. I also had to look out for conflicts or bad combinations. Fluidic monsters weren’t a good mix with monsters that had tough armor.

Also, most monsters used their abilities through direct energy manipulation. They rarely had specialized organs. Finding such monsters was key, so that way I could add additional organs inside of me like my stealth one. It was so useful to fight off long range observations like the Regional Map. They were probably using pass phrases and other tests to try and find me.

Well, I had just cleared the outer city wall, with no one the wiser. Landing on the ground was easy with my Body stat and there were enough towers around the perimeter of the wall to find one to climb up and over.

It was too soon for me to go after level 6 monsters. The terrain was too rough and the risk of running into a level 7 monster was too high. I had seen the monster that had been summoned and rumors I overheard were it wasn’t even the real deal, but a scaled down version.

That was scary, very scary. Still, a Molten Millipede would be a delight to consume. The power, the fury. It would increase my overall strength for sure. In the end all would be devoured by me. While Emperor Michael might be far in the distance for now, I would catch up one day. His companion would help me get there.

The one thing I had wanted to consume but didn’t dare was the inky black of the void. That stuff was still too strong to risk. I just needed to find something else to consume. There were rumors of a forbidden zone nearby, but I hadn’t found it.

There were a lot of zones and it was much safer for me to hang out in level 5 zones where there were no other people around. I had almost been spotted once by Michael’s airship. That had been a heart stopping couple of minutes. I had quickly left, not wanting to risk a confrontation.

He was the true monster, not me. Just thinking of his immense abilities scared me and kept me motivated to get stronger, so I wouldn’t be killed. Still, he was fighting dangerous monsters. I toyed with the idea of reaching out, but a discussion could only be held between equals. I wasn’t his equal…yet.

It was only a matter of time. I just needed to keep consuming the right combinations in the right amounts, and eventually I would become unstoppable. It was a complicated thing. “Halt!” I came to a stop as the tall grass swayed about me.

I looked over at a middle aged, non-descript man with several soldiers behind him. “This zone is restricted, you aren’t allowed to be here,” he said. Hmm, well he would delicious.

“Oh, me? Well, how about I eat you? That should solve any issues,” I suggested and turned to face them. My cloak hiding my features, swished about me in the darkness of the grasslands.

“That’s the serial killer, take him out,” the man said, and the soldiers rushed forward or unleashed skills. They skills fell into my mouth. Small crumbs for the appetizers to come. I rushed about, the soldiers tried to scream and escape, but they were weak. Too weak to even be considered a threat.

“Well, this makes things interesting. You aren’t human anymore, are you?” the man asked.

“No,” I said while being weary of him. He was completely unconcerned while facing me. “You have quite a bit of stats, I will consume you,” I hissed out and advanced.

“Capturing you, will be a great boon to my position and research. I might even take a Director position.” I ignored the man and rushed forward. “Exsanguinate!”

“AHHH!” I screamed and collapsed to the ground. My blood burst out of my skin, making my cloak wet with my blood.

“A useful skill. A curse skill. One I have honed perfectly.” The man said and approached me. “Your disjointed energy is melted well, but there are still fractures. Exsanguinate! Can’t have you getting ideas now.” I screamed more vividly this time.

“Now what to do with you. I will turn you in, but also you claim you as a research specimen. My energy density experiments are a dead end. But you, you will provide unique insights.” I felt something stab into me and let out a pitiful groan. “Don’t worry, that is just a corruption spike. A tool of my own design to incapacitate troublesome people or specimens.”

More spikes were driven into me. I couldn’t muster up the strength to scream. “If I couldn’t see your ability to resist damage and how well your energy holds togeather, you should have died for sure. Your toughness and tenacity will be noted.” I felt my cloak being pulled. The real trick was that the cloak was me.

“OH! You are the cloak you are wearing. How clever. You must have found some unique monsters. High level too by the looks of it. Now I am tempted to not reveal you. But you killed by guards. There will be questions, and I do want the credit.”

“How? Find me?” I groaned out. I needed to know this if I was going to escape and this man was in a talkative mood.

“We had people looking for any disturbances nearby. Never underestimate bad luck and a pair of human eyeballs. Why I have a design. The multi-eyeball monitor. Quite clever, to link up eyeballs to a monitoring system that would alert if there was movement. But a bit too macabre and of limited use unfortunately. Also easily circumvented.”

“But now humans, making them better is quite the challenge and something I have been working on for a long time. You are going to help me. Oh yes you are,” the man said.

“Noooo,” I tried to scream out, but my voice was a pitiful groan instead.

“Remarkable, no vocal cords, but you have internalized the process of sound mimicry through energy manipulation. Do you inherit knowledge from the monsters you consume or people?” I didn’t answer that.

“Well be stubborn. I will consider you a personal project. Just have to make sure you never escape.” I felt my chest being open and something put in. Then it was sealed back up. The process was incredibly quick. “Just in case you work around the corruption spikes. Installed a failsafe inside of you.”

“Don’t worry, not a tumor like that cursed Astrologer. Something more physical. It isn’t a masterpiece, but still quite impressive. I call it the pacification spike. Full of fun pacification surprises. Also you aren’t human anymore, so you really don’t have rights. And you killed Michael’s teammate. I am sure he will be happy to have suffer for a long time and be used for science!”

I couldn’t even muster up a scream as my strength had completely left my body. “It really is what you know, not your stats or god-points. Knowledge is the most potent weapon. Hmm, I don’t want to risk touching you and you hate my method of communication. Well time to wrap you up,” he said and I felt myself being placed in a bag.

“Usually this is used for organ and other body parts. But I dumped them out and put you in instead. Since you are so much valuable than worthless meat. We are going to do so much research togeather. I rarely get to talk to anyone, but with your biology, your cooperation will help me make quite a bit of progress.” My head stuck out as the man carried me over his shoulder. I still didn’t know his name.

“We are going to do great things togeather. I have taken someone important under my wing. If we can use your talents to assist him, well, it would be quite interesting. And that is the purpose of true science, interesting things. Honestly, this place has been a breath of fresh air from all the screaming and motivation.”

“But don’t worry, you will get proper motivation to help out with science. I have my ways.”

“I…will…consume…you,” I forced myself to say.

“Oh, impressive. But expected of someone with your stats. A shame you don’t know how to properly leverage them. I guess your inherited or consumed knowledge is limited. Well, no matter. All will be revealed on my operating table.”