The Ultimate Devourer

The second limit of devouring

After I regained my vision, I could see that we were standing in front of another jail.

Inside it sat two middle-aged men with impressive physiques and scars running all over their faces, making them unrecognizable.

Even though their physiques were impressive, it was obvious they were both starving and dehydrated from the color of their skin and the way their bones protruded from some places on their exposed skin.

Aratas opened the jail bars and made both of them walk slowly forward as they glanced at each other before they tried to attack Aratas in a combination of moves, but Aratas easily grabbed both of their heads and smashed them together, but not strong enough to knock them out.

They were disoriented, but after they quickly regained their wits, their eyes moved towards me, and then they decided to switch targets after they understood they weren't Aratas's match.

My eyes narrowed as I saw a vision before I took a sidestep, unsheathed my sword, and decapitated one of the men in one swift motion.

Seeing the future and preparing an immediate counter was a very strong ability, unfortunately, I only got a fragment of that ability, and I was unable to resist the side effects, I dropped my sword immediately as a wave of pain struck me directly, paralyzing my body and making blood drip from my eyes and nose at the same time.

I could feel my strength being sapped at an extremely quick speed as the remaining prisoner picked up my sword and he was ready to loop off my head just like I did to his cellmate.

I gritted my teeth and bit my tongue, making a sudden move at the last second. The sword missed my neck and drew a scary scar on it, making blood slowly start gushing out and if I didn't seal the wound soon, I would surely die, but I knew that with Aratas there, I could afford this.

I took one step forward, making the stunned prisoner regain his wits and try to kill me once again, but now it was too late. One second of being distracted would change the result of the life and death fight!

My newly sharpened teeth bit into the prisoner's shoulder, making him wince as I used my newly acquire strength to rip his arm off his body!

My sword dropped to the ground below as it made a clattering sound while the prisoner shouted in pain, clutching the stump where his previous right arm stood.

That's when my eyes became crazed as they widened and I rushed directly towards his neck, ripping it off just like I did to Aratas's previous squire.

I drank the blood and started eating the bodies until something didn't feel right. I finished consuming both of the skulls when my body started twitching. The pain from before came in waves, but this time around something was different.

The changes in my body weren't beneficial anymore, and I could feel that I was splitting at the seams, ready to break into pieces and explode!

My eyes widened as I clutched my head and started trashing on the floor while Aratas looked at me with cold eyes and said:

"It looks like there is a limit on how many bodies you can eat before your organs will fail to sustain you because of the sudden changes that happen to them every time you ingest an expert."

Aratas waved his hand, making some of my pain go away, but things didn't seem to get better as Aratas continued:

"It looks like the special magic of the Church doesn't work on someone who disintegrates from the inside, the damage is done at the same time as the healing, so they cancel each other out. It looks like I'm destined to have no worthy squire."

Aratas sighed as he looked down at me and waited for my self-destruction.

I could feel all the blood in my body boiling, making my skin turn red as I started sweating blood.

The bones in my body made strange crunching noises as they broke all over, starting with my arms and legs, moving to my chest, and then my skull was fracturing, I could feel it in my whole body as I screamed soundlessly due to my tearing voice chords.

My teeth were falling out of my mouth, and my hair was sticking to my skull as it became filled with blood.

I was disintegrating.

I could feel it, my body was self-destructing, but I wasn't done with life yet!

Those foolish bandits took eight years out of my peaceful life, transforming me into what I was today, a bastard, someone without family, a criminal, a cannibal. It was all their fault! I couldn't live normally with my parents, being a peasant who lived off the land.

So if I couldn't live peacefully, then why should anyone else?!

What did I do wrong when I was barely 7 years old, what did I do to deserve all of this!?!?!?

I ignored all of the pain as I punched the floor below me, making my mangled arm break even further as bone shards left the opening on my knuckles, I tried to get up, but I had fallen back down just like a puppet whose strings had been cut off.

I wasn't ready to die yet, my will didn't let me die yet!

I saw my father's death, I didn't know if my mother lived, my whole life was a failure, I had no talent to become an expert, but I still will become one by devouring others!

Tears of blood dripped from my breaking eyes as I clenched my gums together, my body stopped trembling as new sharper teeth grew out of my gums, and the bones in my body grew out of the fragmented shards, rekindling a skeleton in my mangled flesh.

My failed organs started to work once again as my two hearts worked in tandem to pump blood through my body, and my hurting head that was split open started to close as my grey matter now sat where it was supposed to.

Aratas's eyes widened and his mouth opened as he saw all of the changes happening to me, he couldn't help but wave his hand as he tried to help me regenerate all the extensive damage done by the devouring failure.

The holy fire worked its magic as I could feel my body once again, I tried to get up, but a sharp pain that strung my nerves high to hell made me scream in the catacombs. The scream traveled through the whole underground as Aratas helped me up and said:

"I didn't believe you would come back from that, you weren't more than a puddle of flesh before your body started to regather itself..."

"It looks like because you didn't fall unconscious, the self-destruction stopped after all the energy from the flesh you consumed was expended, and it seems that strength-wise, you even took a step forward."

I glanced down at my trembling hands and clenched them, slight thunder sounds could then be heard coming from them as they traveled through the whole underground.

My strength had increased, but the pain and the position where I stood, one foot into the grave wasn't worth it, if I didn't hold on because I was disappointed by the failure that I could call my life, I would have died then and there.

I gritted my teeth and sighed as now I knew that there should be a delay between the bodies that I eat if I didn't want to implode like before. I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to hold on a second time if that happened again.