Demonic Devourer: First, I Eat the Babies [LitRPG]

With one mockery of a god dead and another one subdued, I have a lot more power to bring to bear.

I need to figure out what to do with it.

A glance up at the ceiling reveals that yes, it’s starting to cave in. Pieces of rubble tumble from the dark stone above. Each building-sized chunk of brick and steel has the slowly-dimming flesh of the Forgotten Queen attached to it. As one falls past me, I realize that the divine corpse has woven itself into the material.

For a moment, I wonder if the entire city is going to fall on top of us. If it does, I’m going to have to dedicate my skills to surviving. I’m not entirely sure which of my new skills will be able to help with that, but I can improvise. It would be disappointing to lose the dwellers, but the fact that I’ve advanced in level and significantly in my affinities would more than make up for it.

As I use Bloodpath to dodge the falling debris, I rethink it.

This city is several hundred levels tall. If it were all built from the base, any major seismic event would knock the entire place down. There were quite a few monsters on the first level, and even the sixty-second level where I was ambushed had a bunch of laboratories. Though that turned out to be a distraction, enough of it looked genuine that I think that this entire monster infestation thing isn’t an isolated issue.

The point of this is that there’s almost certainly been something else that’s shaken the foundations of this city, and it’s still stayed standing. It has to be fairly old given the degradation of the material down here alongside the complexity of the city design itself. Essentially, I don’t think the destruction of one level is going to lead to a domino reaction with the whole city.

I should still hurry. There’s no telling whether the collapse here will be complete, and the anomalous spawn of the Forgotten Queen are all dead or dying. All I have left to accomplish on this level is to cash in on the favor I earned with the dwellers, and I’d rather not have them all die or run away before I can make good on that.

When I return to humanoid form, the disc that the dwellers offered me burns with uncomfortable warmth in my pocket. I retrieve it and push my magic power into it, and their location springs into my mind immediately.

Though the falling ceiling is obviously a danger, it’s not immediately threatening to me. At the very least, nothing falls fast enough to avoid my razor-sharp instincts. Anytime a chunk of concrete and rebar comes close to crushing me, I just melt into blood and drift away, unharmed. Even so, I have a couple close calls. Just to be safe, I put three of my recently gained stat points into Mind (Speed), raising the stat to a respectable 20.

The dweller group seems to have survived mostly fine. To be honest, I can’t actually tell if any of them have died. While I’ve been pretty focused on the anomalies, I haven’t paid any attention to the swarm, and they all look almost exactly the same.

“Items,” I tell them without preamble. “You said you would build for me.”

A disconcerted chitter sweeps through the swarm at that. I get the feeling I’m about to be in for some bad news.

“The hive has been reduced,” they eventually say, buzzing in harmony. “The ability to build has been lowered. In these conditions… impossible.”

I look through the list of skills I’ve been offered. Everything I got for my first level-up is something that I already know about, so I don’t need to waste mental time looking through them again.

Of my options, Abyssal Echo is definitely the best suited to annihilating a group. Bless won’t buff me and Retribution requires me to get hit, while Corrupt just makes them more powerful with time. Electromagnetism is a viable second choice, especially since there's so much rusted metal just lying around in the form of scrap heaps and rapidly descending pieces of ceiling. Dominate Monster… I discard that idea for now. Probably not worth it, especially since they have mental skills of their own that might be able to counteract it.

I don’t know if the random skill will be helpful, but skills should never be actively harmful to their user. Divine or Demonic? I think the latter is more likely to churn out a skill that deals damage, but Smite has proven itself to be plenty powerful already.

Every thought passes through my head in a fraction of a second, but something in my expression or demeanor must change, because the swarm stirs with unease once again.

They chitter amongst themselves, communicating in Dweller, and I tense, ready to select my skills and attack. If it comes down to it, my Soulpyre will turn this place into the final resting place for every living being within—preferably excluding me, of course.

“We apologize for our failure,” the swarm buzzes. As one, the dwellers retract their wings, which I believe is a gesture of deference roughly equivalent to prostrating oneself on the ground. “We possess treasures that you may claim instead.”

The burning rage just beneath the surface dims, just a bit. “You have loot for me?”

Right. Keeping allies alive can have its benefits. Setting the cards I have in play on fire is extraordinarily tempting, but a bad hand is better than no hand at all.

“Show me,” I order.

“Yes, reaper,” the swarm replies.

Reaper. Huh. I don’t know if I like that name. Well, at least it’s better than “demon girl.”

I stop myself from picking my skills and wiping the floor with the dwellers’ corpses. Above us, the ceiling is continuing to collapse, but there’s no rumbling. Nothing indicates a total systemic destruction of Novarath, which I can take as a sign that the city is still intact.

Again, I’m not sure what to think about that fact.

A chunk of the ceiling falls towards us. I prepare to Bloodpath away, but I stick around to see what the dwellers are doing. None of them panic, and none of them even make a move to run.

Instead, a miniature scarlet sun forms above their heads, casting much of the level around us into nightmarish red shadow. The crackling magic energy grows, condenses, and releases itself, detonating upwards into a crimson pillar.

Magic meets concrete, and the former wins out easily. When the light clears, not even dust remains.

“Our great weapon,” the swarm chitters. One of the dwellers steps forward from the midst of the pack, holding a chrome rifle half the size of its body with reverence that would’ve suited a holy icon.

I take the gun from its hands. My Appraise is supposed to function on inanimate objects now, so I give it a shot.

 

Soulshard Rifle

Category: 1

Tier: Bronze

Current Charges: 2/100

Resizes to fit the user’s grip. Firing this weapon uses any number of charges to create a destructive ray of force. Power scales with charges used. In order to recharge this item, you must collect souls.

 

Okay, there’s a few new pieces of information there. First of all, Category? I don’t remember that being immediately relevant, but—

It clicks into place, another latent piece of knowledge revealing itself. I thought I was done with reclaiming memories from the amalgam, but I guess not.

Though many in the secluded _________ nations ______ never elevate themselves to a level high enough for this to be relevant, you are different. Operations in _____ line of work will last for hundreds to _____ of years. Pertinent information ____ as follows:

Category 0: Level 0 - 99

Category 1: Level 100-199

Category 2: Level 200-299

Category 3: Level 300-399

Category 4: Level 400-499

Category 5: Level 500+

Category 6: ________

Humans and human-adjacent creatures in the _________ region are naturally Category 0. This is not your failing. Over the course of your time here, you will _______ until you increase _________.

I gasp slightly as the memory exits my mind. Unlike the other ones I’ve thought back to so far, this one felt more visceral somehow. More importantly, pieces of it were missing. I want to chalk it up to soul damage and the complete regeneration of my soul from nothing, but previous memories weren’t missing pieces even when my soul was nearly completely gone.

Something else is afoot here, but I can’t tell what. Censorship? Stripping my memories of information I could’ve used?

While I’m burning to find answers, I need to focus on the current situation.

So the weapon I have is Category 1, which means it is significantly more powerful than anything I’ve seen so far—barring Scintilla, of course. I don’t know the power level of anything I can’t Appraise, but I myself am Category 0 according to that. That means that this is strong.

But the tier that Appraise declared it to be in is Bronze. My Bronze tier skills are useful, but they’re also by far the weakest of my repertoire. The gun didn’t act like a Bronze tier skill when it vaporized the concrete. Maybe being a higher Category means that it’s in a different league entirely, which changes my thoughts on a lot of things.

How many charges did that blast consume? There are two remaining, but I have no idea how much the dwellers just used. And how am I supposed to collect souls to recharge it?

Either way, this is powerful. Not enough to knock down a city—I think—but it’ll be a valuable addition to my arsenal. I wonder if charging this gun will prevent me from Devouring a given target. No way to learn but to try it later.

“Another item,” the swarm collectively says. “We have little need for it. The commissioner of this project perished long before this day.”

A pair of marbles the size of a fingernail sail out of the dark. Thankfully, the blood droplets I have in the air are enough for me to guide the marbles to me without making a fool out of myself.

 

Communication Stone

Category: 0

Tier: Silver

A paired set of stones that enable telepathic communication at distances up to 100 miles when active.

 

I raise my eyebrows. That’s a genuinely useful item… for a party. Which I’m currently not in.

Are Sierra and Adrian still alive? I’m too far down to find them with Locate Person, and they got sent into that ambush, same as I did. If they are, then I should probably find them. If not, then I’ll have to escape on my own.

That does raise the question of what I’m going to do next. I think over it for a second, considering my options.

For what might be the first time in my short existence, I think I’m going to choose reuniting with the group. Given the current state I’m in alongside the information my soul-amalgam has just oh-so-helpfully provided me, I don’t think I’m powerful enough alone. Sierra’s true power is still invisible to me, but I know she’s significantly stronger than me with her Red Mage class.

I return my attention to the dwellers in front of me.

“Is that all?” I ask, putting enough force in my voice to sound dangerous but not enough to appear uncontrollably angry. “Two items? That’s it?”

“There is,” the dweller group replies uncomfortably. While there was some level of tension before, their group appears far more high-strung than they were before. Something is bothering them. “It is not meant for human hands.”

“Good thing I’m not human, then,” I reply casually. “If you don’t hand it over, I’m going to start killing you.”

These dwellers aren’t very powerful. A quick Appraise reveals that the bulk of them are many levels higher than me, with most of them in the low to mid 20s, but very few of them have combatant classes. Given the lopsided power I currently hold at level 17, I think I can burn them all pretty easily.

There’s a reason they never tried to destroy the being that I managed to kill in minutes.

The unease grows louder and louder. It takes me summoning my burning Soulknife for them to finally take action.

"Very well,” the swarm chitters nervously. “A drastic countermeasure, an item that is never meant to be used by a singular being. A last resort, intended to pit a disaster against a calamity.”

Unlike the last items, this one doesn’t come sailing out of the dark. Instead, as I watch through my blood sense, dweller after dweller passes along a disc-shaped tablet no larger than my fist, intricate spirals woven into it that I could never hope to replicate. I'm not exactly sure what it does, but it has to be powerful.

They handle it gingerly, as if dropping it will kill us all. Given the way they talk about it, I think there's a nonzero chance it will.

Around us, rubble continues falling. The dwellers evidently have more defenses than I was aware of, because more beams of light shoot up from the swarm, though these are a muted orange rather than the red of the Soulshard Rifle.

For my part, I just dodge. My Bloodpath is enough to keep me from getting annihilated by the falling debris, and not much of it lands close enough to me to warrant using it too much. I’m a touch annoyed that they’re not defending me as well, but it’s not like I need it.

Eventually, a dweller approaches me from the swarm, treating the tablet as if it’s made out of glass. It swaddles it like a baby, and I almost expect it to shatter in my hands.

When it hands it over, though, it’s cold stone and hard metal, just like the other items.

No warmth emerges from it. I can’t sense any overwhelming power, either. Even with my somewhat amplified sense for magic, it doesn’t feel like much.

It has to be hiding a major effect.

For the third time, I use Appraise.

Titan Caller

Category: 2

Tier: Diamond

Charges Remaining: ?/?

Activate this item to shake the world. When activated, this tablet awakens [Scintilla, Titan of the Nameless Sea]. The Titan this tablet awakens is set to the closest Titan to the user.

[Scintilla] will encroach on the position of the tablet and will continue towards it until it is within 1000 feet of the tablet. At this point, it will rampage for a time ranging between two and 72 hours before retreating.

I almost drop the tablet out of sheer shock.

“What the fuck,” I whisper.