Chapter 258: Change of Plans |
“So… what do you guys do every day?” I asked, swimming alongside the Dark Naga.
We were heading toward the corpse. It was visible even from here, a vast shape resting on the seafloor, but distance underwater is deceptive. It looked close. It was not. I could reach it in moments if I wanted to, but the Dark Naga were slow, deliberate creatures, and I had no intention of outpacing them. The last thing I needed was to spook them into hostility.
Not that it would matter much if they did.
I could handle them easily. I could, if I were being honest, take them apart and eat them without much effort. Still, there was little point. Having another race quietly subservient was far more useful than a brief meal. On a more collector-minded note, I already had the Naga. Acquiring the Dark Naga would neatly complete the set, so to speak.
That thought led, as it often did, to a stranger one. I wondered briefly if heaven had its own version. Light Naga, perhaps. Gleaming scales, halos, immaculate fins… Probably not.
Heaven ran on faith and racism. I doubted the angels would tolerate anything remotely serpentine slithering through their polished, perfect realm.
“We guard,” the Dark Naga captain replied.
“Cool. Sounds fun,” I said as we continued forward.
Not much of a conversationalist. I had a feeling that applied to the rest of them as well. The silence stretched, filled only by the slow rhythm of scales cutting through water.
The Dark Naga paused mid-stroke, just for a moment.
“Not anymore,” he replied.
“Anymore?” I echoed, turning my head to look at the Dark Naga swimming beside me.
“Unclear.” the Naga said.
“Uh huh…” I said, facing forward again.
The corpse was much closer now. Its vast shape glowed faintly in the deep, an unhealthy, almost deliberate light radiating from something that should have been nothing more than a pile of bones.
As we neared it, the Dark Naga slowed, then stopped around me. I drifted for a moment before turning, the question clear on my face even if I did not bother to ask it out loud.
“We cannot approach. Ether levels too high,” the Naga said.
“Right. Wait here, I guess.” I turned and shot forward, leaving them behind. The water peeled away as I closed the remaining distance, and soon I was close enough to finally get a proper look…
This thing was ugly…
Nearly a hundred metres long, the corpse stretched across the seafloor, its body serpentine and coiled. Four massive legs protruded from its underside, with two additional arms set higher along the torso, their placement uneven and unnatural. Webbed wings lay folded and tattered along its back, far too large for a creature that already seemed overbuilt.
The head was elongated and serpentine, the skull drawn out into a predatory shape. Along the sides were long, oval eye sockets, stretched horizontally rather than set forward. Above them, a bulbous, dome-like forehead swelled outward, smooth and rounded, distorting the skull’s proportions and giving it an oddly top-heavy silhouette.
Hmm. Those eyes were strange. You could not fit actual eyeballs into sockets shaped like that. The bulb at the top, though, made sense. A sensor dome. The adaptation clearly worked well if even this thing retained it. That only raised another question. If the dome handled sensing, why keep the eyes at all?
As for the body, it was harder to draw conclusions. Among the Firstborn, physical form was flexible. Bodies could be altered at will. The serpentine structure might simply be a temporary configuration, optimized for deep water. Or it could be more permanent. There was no easy way to tell.
As I drifted closer, I noticed something that made my mood lift immediately.
The corpse was regenerating. Not quickly, not dramatically, but enough to be unmistakable. Fine tissue knitting itself back together in slow, stubborn increments.
Huh.
Those winged assholes in Heaven had not managed to fully kill this one.
Given a few more thousand years, the angels might have received a rather unpleasant surprise. That was, of course, assuming I had not come along first. It also explained the fog spreading above ground. I had initially assumed it was a byproduct of decomposition, but it was not decay at all. The body was healing, and in the process, it was bleeding ambient ether into the surrounding world.
From what I could see, there were two hearts in there. Huh. Not bad.
I swam into the rib cage, slipping easily through the gaps between the massive bones. This thing was big. Still big. Alive, in a manner of speaking… but not for long.
Now then, let’s eat, shall we.
I drifted toward the nearest heart and began to reshape my body, expanding until I was large enough to consume it in a few solid bites. Just looking at it made saliva pool in my mouth. I had not had a meal like this in years.
Oh, this was going to be so fucking good.
I took a bite, and the reaction was immediate. Flavor flooded my senses, an absurd, overwhelming sweetness that hit like a shock. It was rich and dense, layered with something deeper beneath it, a taste that felt ancient and powerful. My hunger surged in response, drowning out everything else.
I bit again. And again.
Each tear of flesh released more warmth, more ether, the heart pulsing weakly even as I devoured it. I clung to the organ, ripping into it with careless force, reveling in the sheer indulgence of it. This was not food meant to be eaten politely. This was sustenance on a scale I had not tasted in years.
Thought unraveled. Logic slipped away piece by piece, washed out by instinct.
All that remained was hunger. Raw and demanding. I wanted more. Needed more. The need was total, eclipsing reason, purpose, until there was nothing but the act of feeding and the certainty that stopping was not an option.
The first heart collapsed in on itself beneath my grip, its glow dimming as the last of its strength was torn away and swallowed. I barely registered it. The moment it was gone, the absence hit harder than the meal itself, a hollow ache that demanded to be filled immediately.
I turned and surged deeper into the rib cage, water churning around me as I locked onto the second heart. It beat stronger, faster, as if it somehow sensed what had just happened. That only made it better.
I did not slow down. I slammed into it, claws and teeth tearing through connective tissue as I pulled it free enough to bite. Flavour exploded again, familiar and intoxicating, and whatever restraint I might have had left evaporated. I tore into it greedily, ripping chunks away, devouring them almost without chewing.
The creature shuddered around me, vast muscles spasming in slow, useless waves, but it barely registered. All that mattered was the taste, the warmth, the surge of power flooding back into me with every bite. I fed until the heart was little more than shredded ruin, until the glow faded and the beating finally stuttered and stopped.
Only then did the hunger begin to loosen its grip.
Then of course the voice reappeared.
Acquired New Devourer Strain
[Harrow] Strain Acquired
Warning Strain Incomplete…
Analysing…
[Harrow] strain assimilated
[Gestalt Domination] Upgraded
[Gestalt Ascension] Acquired
[Deep One Arcana] Acquired
[Hunger of the Undying] Upgraded
[Will of the Undying] Acquired
[Psionic Transcendence VIII] Upgraded
[Psionic Transcendence X] Acquired
[Harrow Fangs] Acquired
Combining [Harrow Fangs] with [Kaiser Blades]
[Mortem Blades] Acquired
[Mortem Spines] Acquired
[Death Fog Affinity] Acquired
[Death Fog Mastery] Acquired
[Death Fog Aura] Acquired
[Death Fog Breathe] Acquired
[Commander of the Dead] Acquired
[Necromatic Ascension] Acquired
Calibrating [Void Enchant]
[Harrowed Enchant] Acquired
[Harrowed Enchant] Available for [Mortem Spines] and [Mortem Blades]
Kills will now cause corpses to reanimate as [Undead] upon kill
No core evolution progress achieved
Current Devourer Strains:
Wraith
Eternal Mother
Harrow
Note: Ambient Ether absorption is now significantly increased. It is viable to decontaminate Vulpus Maxima and other contaminated regions.
Well, I will be damned. That actually made things easier.
I might not need to drag the Vulpus across the mountains after all. In theory, I could simply absorb all the Ether fog myself and stabilize the region. Problem solved.
Then again.
If I did that, the angels would notice. An ether irradiated hellscape does not just fix itself. Questions would follow, and none of them would be comfortable. I could not keep it secret either. One or two Vulpus would talk eventually and absorbing that much Ether, especially Ether leaking from a dead Firstborn, is not something just anyone can do. Only another Firstborn could manage it.
Which meant open war and I was not ready for that yet.
Still, evacuating the Vulpus only to reveal later that I could have fixed everything all along would look… bad. Betrayal bad. Cultural extinction bad. The kind of bad that comes back to bite you centuries later.
Unless.
Unless I framed it as something I gained later. A new evolution. A reward from defeating Heaven. Some special magic, or access to their absurdly fancy power source. I could sell it as progress. As growth. Hey, look at that, I can repair your homeland now. Not before. Definitely not before. Totally impossible back then.
Not that I was pretending and not that I uprooted your entire culture when I technically did not have to. Certainly not because the angels would have tried to kill me.
Yes.
That sounds reasonable enough.
Yeah. Let’s go with that…
◦◦,`°.✽✦✽.♚.✽✦✽.°`,◦◦
“Let’s go with that?” Ordias replied dryly, his gaze settling on the trembling messenger. In another age, a bearer of news like this would have lost his head before finishing the report. Constraint, however, had a way of teaching restraint. This messenger belonged to the Empress, not to him. That distinction mattered now, unlike the days when he had been a Vampire Lord.
He looked down at the message again. The naval invasion and the pincer were frozen. Do not press the attack. Hold the elves in containment at the river.
Ordias did not think the order was foolish, even if it was infuriating. The invasion was already prepared. Ships stood ready, plans finalised, the entire line along the river poised to exploit the opening and now he was being told to hold position.
This reeked of grand strategy. Something had changed, and whatever that change was, it had forced a significant pivot in plans, and this definitely came from the Great Beast.
The phrasing alone gave it away. That cadence. That irritating, infuriating irreverence, worn so casually by someone powerful enough to earn it. No one else would dare write like this to him.
For instance, the letter began with: “Yo, Ordias…”
Yo…
Ordias had killed for lesser transgressions.
But that raised an obvious question.
The Great Beast did not write. He never bothered with letters. He usually appeared in person, hijacked some unfortunate hive creature with a mouth not designed for speech, and garbled out his instructions directly. Efficient. Crude. Personal.
A letter meant something had changed. He was busy with something else. Something important enough not to show up himself. Or he was simply fucking with Ordias. That was always a possibility. With the Great Beast, there was no reliable way to tell.
Oridas pinched the bridge of his nose as he tried to get his blood pressure under control.
“My Lord?” one of his adjutants asked.
“Have it done. Holding pattern. No offensive operations until we receive Imperial authorization,” Ordias said, eyes still closed, fingers pressed firmly against the bridge of his nose.
Every instinct in him screamed against the order. Centuries of war had taught him to press when the enemy faltered, to turn hesitation into annihilation. The river line was ready. The elves were contained. One command would have shattered them.
Instead, he exhaled slowly and let the moment pass.
Authority mattered. Timing mattered more. Whatever game the Great Beast was playing, Ordias was being forced to wait his turn, and that, more than anything else, set his fangs on edge.
On a certain level, Ordias knew this was not stupidity. As much as he chafed against the Great Beast, he did not doubt its intelligence. Victory won without unnecessary losses was still victory, and full assaults through the Elven forests were ruinously expensive in both men and material. Worse, every elf slain was a potential subject lost.
A cleaner conquest carried another advantage. Fewer bodies meant fewer grievances. Reduced devastation left less fertile ground for rebellion later.
All Ordias had to do was sit still and bleed the elves from across the river. They could not meaningfully strike back. If they broke first, it was a free victory. That outcome was unlikely, but within this framework, he could not lose.
The Empire’s coffers were deep enough to sustain the stalemate for years, and Ordias doubted it would even take that long. If whatever scheme the Great Beast was pursuing failed, the Empress would simply order the assault renewed. If it succeeded, the assault would be unnecessary. Either way, the logical move was to wait.
But the one thing that truly grated on him was this. The Great Beast had not bothered to explain what the play was on his end. No context. No outline. Just an order to wait and trust that something elsewhere justified the pause.
So Ordias remained here, mired in an uncomfortable forest, ordering his men to loose volleys into trees across a river. Leaves shattered. Bark splintered. Elves vanished deeper into cover. It was effective, technically. It was also faintly humiliating.
Strategically sound or not, it was hard to feel like a conquering general while waging war against foliage. Still, Ordias was nothing if not pragmatic. A temporary humiliation in exchange for the elven homeland was a bargain he could tolerate quite easily. Especially with a cup of blood in hand.
Ordias glanced down at the map, his eyes lingering on the infuriatingly frozen front line, then shifted his gaze back to the messenger.
“You may return to the capital post haste,” he said evenly, “and inform the Empress that her message has been received.”
The messenger hesitated, fidgeting in place. “Sir… I am from the front line. A hive creature told me to write that down exactly as it was said.”
Ordias paused. Slowly, he looked up. “You are one of my soldiers,” he said, voice flat, “and a hive creature instructed you to write this message, deliver it to me, and say it was from the Great Beast.”
“Yes, sir.”
Ordias pinched the bridge of his nose again and closed his eyes. So the Great Beast was not busy after all. He was simply fucking with him. Ordias exhaled, opened his eyes, and looked at the messenger once more. “Very well. Return to your post.”
The soldier turned to leave. “And soldier,” Ordias added without looking up,
Kindly mention where you got the message next time…