Demonic Devourer's Development

To remove my tongue helped, but made it very inconvenient to push meat into my maw. Adding the state of the carcass to the equation, consuming it took me thrice as long as usual, and by the end, I was covered in the creature's disgusting blood all over.

But even the perspective of feeding (on) fishes in the near future didn't diminish my elation when I saw the notification that I got 4 million EXP from the monster and new abilities. Four million for a creature this size meant that its abilities were something the System thought was worth plenty of EXP.

I really hoped for regeneration… But here, I was disappointed. The abilities the creature gave me were: 'Chaos Resistance', 'Disgusting', 'Blind Sense', 'Acid Spitting' and 'Fat Burning'. I assumed that the second one was responsible for the creature's rapid regeneration between its first and second stages, but it implied something I was already afraid of—the monster could only regenerate as long as it had fat to burn. And I could never get any, even if I wanted to! All excess calories went straight into EXP, especially now that I had 'Absolute Devourer'.

Chaos resistance… That implied that there was such a thing as chaos damage. Or at least, had been. But since I hadn't seen or heart about anything like it now, I left this ability gather dust with the rest of the useless ones.

It was unsurprising that the beast had an ability that made it taste so bad with how awful it was on so many levels. Really, it was a great divergent or a distraction for any predator I can imagine. That included myself, so to take that ability, I would first to permanently get rid of all my smelling, taste, dignity and pride.

'Blind Sense' and 'Acid Spitting' were good, though. I didn't take the latter since I already had my claws and they were more than enough, but the blind sense was… Very interesting. After I evolved it, I didn't see any difference at first (besides burning on my eyelids that indicated a new marking on my skin), until I blinked.

It was then that I found out that now, even with my eyes closed, I could tell where exactly were things around me, and what they were, even when something was between me and the object—and even myself, from all sides, without a mirror. Well, not exactly "even with my eyes closed". Only with my eyes closed—blind sense, as came from its name, conflicted with my eyesight.

Its range was also very limited. At first, I could only "see" as far as my outstretched hand. Range increased with level—by the time I levelled it up to level 15, I could "see" at about five meters away. I also picked an upgrade for it that let me "see" colours, too. That let me see that the marking that appeared on my face were markings on my eyelids that looked just like a pair of burning orange eyes when my eyes were closed.

I would've upgraded it to level 20, but it had a base cost of 10 EXP, and I just didn't have 10 million EXP to spare at the moment. Too bad… too bad that the further it went, the slower its range grew.

Plus, it would become mostly obsolete outside of the caves anyway…

When I returned to Gi again, he set up a camp and was sleeping, but as soon as I drew near, he jumped up into a fighting stance. His weapon of choice was a shiv made of someone's claw. He didn't relax when he realised it was just me, but lowered the shiv. Then, the wind must've reached him, because he suddenly pinched his nose with a free hand.

"Holy mountain, you stink!"

"Tell me something I don't know," I walked past Gi and straight towards the river. I wasn't afraid to dip into it with the fishes, because I was sure that the taste of that blood will scare all of them away for an hour, no less.

Practice showed that I underestimated the fishes. After half an hour of my scrubbing, one of them grew bold enough to bite me. The taste of its meat, as bland as it was, helped me to wash away the leftover taste of the monster in my mouth. I emerged from the water clean and refreshed.

Gi was on the shore, waiting for me with glum and impatient eyes. He already gathered his camp, but before I could command us to move out, he blurted, "Master, you said you wanted me to grow strong. Teach me something, then! Like, how to fight."

The sudden request made me falter mid-step. I slowly turned to the bold boy. "Do you know how to swim, pipsqueak?"

Gi shook his head. "How does that matter?"

"I can teach you to. I will just throw you into the river, and you will either learn to swim fast, or… What was your friend's name?"

Gi paled. Pleased with his reaction, I grinned. "Pipsqueak, I have more important things to do than give one-on-one lessons. I have other people for that, and even they have their own free will when it comes to teaching you or not. From me, you already getting as much as you will. Got it?"

The boy nodded, I nodded, and we continued our trek to our mutual satisfaction. Alright, only I was satisfied. Gi looked quite unhappy, but why wouldn't he? Maybe he never will be happy again in his life. Maybe he will. Maybe he will die tomorrow in his camp when I leave to hunt, though that was improbable—my web traps stopped any predators hungry for some sweet and soft human meat before.

If his soul ends up in Heaven, won't that be great for him? If not, then he would make a good demon… or be reborn and live a life that might be as shitty as this one. Unlike with me, the bastards who called themselves gods didn't hunt for him.