The Ultimate Devourer

Preventive methods

The two remaining teens were quite shaken. They weren't sure if they were going to follow Arata's words or not. The girl even took a step forward and asked meekly:

"Do we truly have to eat them? Can't we give them a proper burial?"

Aratas shook his head and then said:

"They have failed, thus they cannot enjoy a proper burial. Maybe if they made some contributions to the Church, but they haven't done anything to deserve a proper burial. You two, eat them now!"

Arata's eyes were serious as he unleashed a little of his aura to coerce them.

I narrowed my eyes and made sure to take note of this.

Those two could be me in the future. Of course, I didn't have such moral problems, but what if the Church just directly sent me to my death in a suicide mission?

I shook my head and kept it clear while waiting for the two to decide.

The boy with white hair decided as he took a step forward and started eating the mangled flesh from the floor, just like an animal, his eyes were watering, but he continued to eat, not gagging even once.

The girl took a step forward and looked at the remaining broken flesh and blood on the floor, some tears started to seep out of her eyes as she gritted her now sharp teeth before she started doing the same with it.

However, her reaction was relatively strong, she gagged, and she choked, and lastly, she almost wanted to tear the meat out of her body, but in the end, she swallowed and cried mutely.

She knew that the death of her close friends was going to come sooner or later, and she knew that she was going to be sad when it happened, but what she didn't know was that she had to eat their remains!

"Good"

That was the single word that Aratas said as he observed the changes made to their bodies and psyches.

"From now on, you will live and die for the Church. You are the beneficiaries of a very important project, and you will get to live nicely until you will have to pay us back for our 'hospitality'"

There was no free lunch in the world. The other two knew that, so they bowed and didn't say anything else.

Aratas looked at me and said:

"Go and arrange some good place for them to rest before they start to get accustomed to their newly changed bodies. You will have to wait a few days before I will come back to get you more 'food'."

I nodded slightly and we left the dungeon and Church. We were now back at the training camp.

Shira waved at me and was surprised to see two recruits, but seeing the similarities between all of us, she could draw two and two together.

And so could most of the other children who were training.

A crowd started to gather around us, and some of them even started shouting:

"Even more freakish heretics? What are the higher-ups doing?! One was bad enough, but now there are three of them?"

Before things could escalate, Mirato arrived at the training ground and pacified things while throwing the three of us a dirty glance that was also quite obvious to the crowd of trainees.

They gloated inside, knowing that we weren't being looked on favorably by the head nun of this Church.

But that didn't matter. Mirato told them that no fighting was allowed between us and them. And that they should leave us alone if they didn't want the trouble that they couldn't withstand.

While she most likely hated us, she knew that we would fight on the battlefield later and that we need to be at peak strength for the Fire God Church to win, let's not even mention the fact that Aratas most likely forced her to be 'nice' to us.

Shira was the only one who approached me and the other two. I learned they were called Zerath and Mawi.

"Minato, are you ok?"

I nodded and responded easily:

"I know all of them have their prejudices. After all, what we have done is considered forbidden, but don't forget that we are doing this for the Church."

Shira nodded and patted me on the shoulder before she looked at Zerath and Mawi, giving them a toothy smile before saying:

"Yeah, we should all work hard for the Church and Lord Aprathos' blessings."

I nodded back and I and my new team decided to make our way back to the dilapidated house to rest.

Well, they needed it, so I showed them the way before I went back to the training grounds to get even more familiar with the eight moves of the basic swordsmanship which I ingrained into my brain from eating the last prisoner.

Shira was already there, sweat going down her chiseled abdomen as the muscles on her back tightened while she swung the sword forcefully but gracefully at the same time.

The strength from her sword swings was so high that the air was cut cleanly, leaving behind a sound that resembled thunder!

Her strength was increasing every day, improving and reaching levels that made me rather jealous.

My strength increased slightly after I ate that last prisoner, but the training didn't help me improve at all, and I didn't truly understand the moves that I stole through devouring.

I could do them as well as the former person learned them, and I couldn't improve them either. They stagnated at the peak level that the last person I had eaten knew.

If I was honest, the previous levels also improved slightly as I continued to eat more, but the improvements were negligible at best.

My mind wandered while my body got used to the eight form before going through the first to the eight.

Shira couldn't help but take a glance at me, seeing how I already learned and seemingly 'mastered' the eighth form made her quite surprised, but also happy for me and the Church as a whole.

I gave her a nod and stopped training. I wasn't particularly tired, but I knew that sooner or later, some preventive measures would be put on our bodies so we wouldn't betray the Church, even with the limits of devouring, we would grow insanely strong and insanely fast on a battlefield where death was as common as eating and drinking. I need to prepare for those preventive.

My only way to freedom and strength was the battlefield, it wasn't like the Church was a bad place for me, but my freedom was extremely restricted, and I know that once I became useless to them, they would exterminate me at the first chance they got. After all, I could be considered 'forbidden goods'.