Devourer

Chapter 105: Good Faith

“Nice…” I said in satisfaction as I looked at my little display section. 

I had started keeping this menagerie of the various creatures, call it a hobby I guess. It’s been a month since Tralis fell and I was getting quite bored so I started this whole thing. So far I have Spriggans, Stalker Chameleons, Horned Bears, Trolls, Feathered Wyverns and Humans. My collection of trolls had both genders as well as particularly young one. For the humans I lacked your typical human fair skinned female but I had a male one, as well as the two exoticly dark ones which were male and female. I’m a little upset by the lack of the normal females though, I guess as much as women get the short end of the stick most of the time in human nations they at least don’t get the death penalty that often. It made sense to an extent why the females get treated the way they do. This world was way too violent and dangerous. If you couldn’t fight or do dumb labour well then you were less useful. Magic was a great equaliser in a way, if a woman was powerful in terms of magic she could find herself high in the social hierarchy. Or even without magic, raw talent would still be able to propel one forward. Cecilia’s magic ability is a good example, but she had a royal bloodline to be fair. I suppose a better example would be Beatrice and Sarana with their extreme talent in their specific fields.

But anyway, the dynamics of human society did not interest me unless there was something to be gained or lost so… whatever. If it’s not a problem for me then it’s not a problem.

I looked up at the special vats I grew that held my prized collection. They were filled with this fluid that kept them alive and unconscious. The front had this transparent carapace that acted like a sheet of glass so I could admire my little collection. Yes I could eat them but I don’t need to yet so I might as well collect them. I like looking at them, they looked really nice, all arranged neatly like that.

Then I sensed movement from upstairs. Looks like Cecilia was finally here, I guess it was time for something I am very excited about. Sure enough I heard her graceful steps down the stairs. I turned to see her look around the large room, her eyes wide not with fear but curiosity. To the average human this room would look like absolute nightmare fuel. Why that was the case was quite simple. Like any self respecting scheming individual who had many strange and profane hobbies I needed a lot of apparatus and special tools to do it. But the aforementioned apparatus were not built, they were grown. 

The entire room was covered in flesh like growths. They weren't overtly disgusting, Cecilia came down once in a while so I made sure to make them not too revolting. For instance they don’t leak any fluids or have some horrible stench. In fact most of them give off the smell of freshly picked flowers. The visual aspect didn’t seem to bother Cecilia at all so I just left it as is. Although most humans find it absolutely horrifying. The fleshy growths had eyes built into them because I needed the growths to know which direction to grow in. They didn’t have ears since I just commanded them in the hive mind. There were also these pulsating vessels that pumped nutrients and other materials from the various digestion vats to the gestation chambers.

The flowery scent that permeated the room also had an unintended benefit. Everytime I woke up one of my new mandatory volunteers for any testing I wanted to do, the smell often terrified them even more. I suppose it was the extreme juxtaposition of the senses that heightened the terror. Many of them covered their faces with their hands, afraid to inhale anything, for fear of poison. It wasn’t poisoned but it was funny to look at.

Well most of the mandatory volunteers were really freaked out the moment they saw me anyway. So the visual appearance of the Living Room was only an added thing. But they were dead soon anyway so I didn’t exactly torture them unecesarily. I have standards afterall… actually no not really I just honestly found their screaming annoying so I just gag them and carry on as per normal. There was nothing in it for me to knock them out, waste of resources frankly. So they get to be awake for the whole thing.

“This place has changed a little.” Cecilia mused as she looked around the room.

“Yeah, I started calling it the Living Room.” I replied with a grin and Cecilia cracked a small smile at that comment.

“Very funny friend.” Cecilia said with a roll of her eyes as her gaze shifted to the display pods that held my collection.

“A new hobby.” I said before she could ask.

“Well everyone needs a hobby, although…  a menagerie isn't that bad of an idea…” Cecilia said as she cupped her chin,

“Huh?” I asked, I knew she had another scheme brewing in her head.

“You know how we wanted to advance the field of Beastiary to help educate the masses on your hive. People fear what they do not understand.” Cecilia said as she calmly approached the pod that held a Wyvern.

“Imagine what kind of an institute we could make with something like this… the learning opportunities. The beastiarians across the world will flock to the empire to work at the institute.” Cecilia said as she brought her face right up to the pod and peered intently at the sleeping wyvern.

“It’s a beautiful creature isn’t it? I’ve never seen one with my own eyes. The feathers are gorgeous. They must fly really well with those feathers.” Cecilia said her eyes darted around the contents of the pod.

“Not well enough to out fly me but pretty well compared to some of the other things.” I said and Cecilia turned and gave me a wry look.

“Saying that something loses to a Firstborn after their genome is assimilated is like saying something lives under the sky.” Cecilia replied dryly.

“True, anyway should we get going? I’m really excited for what comes next.” I said eagerly as I turned towards the stairs.

“Yes I think we have kept Mahaila waiting long enough.” Cecilia said as she turned as well.

When we exited the Black Box I saw Mahaila leaning against a tree. She was back in her pink scaled Lizardkin form. I know that isn’t what she usually looks like, Draconians looked quite different from Lizardkin. They were bulkier, taller and had wings. I mean the Draconians were named after the word Draco which is based on the Dragons. While the Lizardkin are well… named after Lizards…

“Should we go?” I asked Mahaila and she silently nodded as her gaze shifted to the entrance of the Black Box. She couldn’t see it obviously thanks to manifestation shrouding the entrance.

“I can fly myself there. I’ll lead the way..” Mahaila said as a pair of draconic wings shimmered into existence on her back. The wings were way too large for her thin frame, revealing once again that this was not her original form.

“Is that a manifestation? I was wondering why I couldn't see any trace of the magic around your little disguises.” I said as I peered down at her wings.

“It’s a special spell I learned from my master. He developed it with my uncle. It was explicitly designed to be able to fool the Firstborn. Most Firstborn are so confident in their detection abilities they never bother to double check. It works well because manifestations are essentially lies made real, so once in place there is no magic involved. A lie to trick the world.” Mahaila replied as she looked back at the entrance of the Black Box.

“I’m guessing your master didn’t teach you how to see past manifestations.” I said and Mahaila nodded.

“It’s far easier to make one than it is to break one. That is perhaps the strongest aspect of manifestations. Once one is employed, it is extremely difficult to be undone by a third party.” Mahaila said.

“Good to know, can you keep up? I can out fly Azatherine.” I asked and Mahaila cracked a small smile as her forked tongue darted out for a moment. I noticed she does that when someone says something particularly amusing.

“So can I.” Mahaila replied with a chuckle.

“Nice. I know where the vaults are so which one should we hit first. I don’t think we can go to the one under the capital. Unless of course you have an idea on how to get in undetected?” I asked as my mind wandered to her map.

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Mahaila just shook her head and she paused for a moment as if thinking.

“The vault in the capital isn’t that important. It’s built into the structure of the palace itself, so it’s not that large. Furthermore if you had something really dangerous and important you wouldn’t put it under your palace. You would put it somewhere no one would go.

That would be the vaults against the mountains. Most mountain vaults are larger and those areas are the most dangerous. An intruder would have to not only risk the dangers of the desert but also the beasts of the Primordial Peaks.” Mahaila said and I nodded.

It made sense, that mountain range was a circular ring of mountains around the Primordial Font. The Primordial Font was the place where the Firstborn crawled out from. It’s dormant now, there wasn’t enough remaining power to spawn anymore Firstborn. But just because it can’t spawn anymore Firstborn doesn’t mean it's not a large source of ambient ether. Ether was a funny thing, it behaved alot like air and water in certain ways. It liked to flow from areas where there were alot of it into places where there was less of it. It’s not exactly that simple but it did behave similarly to something like that. 

Every creature had an Ether core inside them, it wasn’t a physical thing per se, it was in fact a mass of energy inside them which was usually located in the heart. This was part of the reason why I loved eating hearts so much. The heart also stored essence which was the main thing but the Ether core was also there. The Ether core essentially self regulates and absorbs ether around the creature when it's empty. Stronger creatures have larger Ether cores that store more energy. So the problem lies in the situation when there was a greater Ether concentration in the air around the organism as compared to their Ether core. When this happens, the Ether essentially starts getting forced in and eventually this will crack or even break the core. When that happens the organism dies since the Ether core is basically the vessel of the spirit. This means that areas like Primordial Font were simply uninhabitable by weaker species. This included all the surviving humanoid races, the Heirs of the Firstborn were the exception of course. But this fact was a significant factor for many creatures, infact both the angels and demons couldn’t remain in Primordial Font’s vicinity for too long. A human would succumb in minutes, an angel would die in days.

“If the best vaults are the ones in the middle of nowhere. Should we go from east to west?” I asked and Mahaila nodded in response.

“The eastern vault in the middle of the desert shouldn’t be that well stocked. You can roughly tell by the entrance. The ones near the mountain have extremely well fortified entrances. It's almost excessive in a way.” Mahaila said as she flexed her wings.

“Well let’s go see shall we. Are you going to lead the way?” I asked as I picked up Cecilia and opened up my wings.

“Yes, I’ll conceal myself but I’ll leave a trace for you to follow.” Mahaila said as she shimmered out of existence. But I could still see a trace of ether surrounding her.

“Yeah that looks good. Lead on.” I replied and Mahaila shot up into the sky. 

I followed her up and I made sure not to take my turns too sharply lest I shake Cecilia up too much. Yes she did cast a spell to make this trip more comfortable but too much momentum would still be unpleasant.

Mahaila wasn’t kidding, she was fast, I could keep up and I wager I could overtake her but I suspect she is far more manoeuvrable. The size and weight of my body significantly restricted my aerial mobility. My body was designed for raw speed not manoeuvrability. Something of my size wouldn’t be that good at an aerial dog fight anyway, especially against something as small as a humanoid.

The trip didn’t take long, only about fifteen minutes of flight, normally this trip by carriage or horse would take days even with a direct straight line route. If you choose the safer roundabout route or the treacherous across the mountains it would take weeks. 

Eventually I saw Mahaila descend but she did so extremely sharply. I couldn’t do that with me holding Cecilia so I slowly arched downwards while reducing my speed. Eventually I saw her land at this odd patch of sand that seemed to be slightly shimmering with ether. I began my slow circling descent to ensure the process was as comfortable as possible for Cecilia. Technically I could just drag out my landing on the sand but that would kick sand everywhere, which wouldn’t be the best outcome for Cecilia. I don’t think getting covered in sand was particularly comfortable for humans. Not really sure about that, never saw sand in my past life.

When I finally landed Cecilia got off and gave me a grateful smile to which I returned with a smile of my own. I turned to Mahaila who had taken out that odd looking totem that was supposedly the masterkey. Immediately I could tell this illusion wasn’t as good as the ones in Elysia. I had checked out one of the vaults in Elysia and even I could not see through it. But for this one I could tell that it was there.

“Wondering why the spell is weaker?” Mahaila asked casually as she raised the totem and it began to glow. Then the illusion vanished revealing a small structure with an intricate door filled with swirling runes. Judging by the shape of the structure my best guess was that the door will reveal a staircase leading downwards.

“Yeah.” I replied as I approached the door. I already had an idea why…

“The Elysians were excellent mages. As you know such techniques and secrets are not usually shared. I assume this door is superior to the one that the Black Box has?” Mahaila asked as she gazed at the extremely well constructed and enchanted door. 

“Yeah it is. Let me guess the Draconians were better at architecture than magic. So they compensated with a better door and structure?” I asked and Mahaila nodded as she held the totem against the door and I watched the individual segments of the door start to shift. I could hear some complex mechanism moving behind the door. Soon enough the door slid open and revealed a stairway going downwards. Although the structure looked small but in truth the doorway was very large, it was obviously not intended just for humanoid use. The designers clearly expected something rather large to enter.

Just as I was about to head down I saw Mahaila walk in front of me blocking my way and she held out the master key towards me. 

“It’s yours.” Mahaila said simply and I gave her a look as I tilted my head.

“I just wanted to prove to you that the key works, this vault is probably the only one with anything that I would be remotely interested in. The more discreet and secure vaults probably have things that would be only of interest to you. You know where the rest are, you don’t need me. So I will ask you, Firstborn, what do you want me to do?” Mahaila asked as she raised a brow. 

I knew for a while that Mahaila didn’t know what to make of me. I am sure I am behaving very differently from what she expected. Of course she didn’t know the fact that I actually used to be human so I could relate with humans to an extent. I could tell the way I seemingly danced circles around the humans with ease must have been odd to her.

Still having Mahaila as a genuine ally would certainly be useful. People you can trust are few and far between. But trust requires a leap of faith so let’s see what she does when I ask her this question.

“Tell me Mahaila were you part of the war that helped kill off the other Firstborn?” I asked.

“No… but my master was part of it. He was one of their… favourites I suppose you could say.” Mahaila replied calmly. Hmmm… so far so good…

“Were you happy that the Firstborn were wiped out?” I asked and Mahaila calmly nodded in response.

“Do you regret them being wiped out?” I asked and Mahaila shook her head.

“They were monsters, our lives were props on a stage, pieces on a board. We existed to entertain them. But you are not the old gods, the consideration you show to some, or perhaps I should say the consideration given to the deserving is… unlike anything I have seen or heard from the Firstborn. You may be Firstborn but you are not what came before you.” Mahaila said as her hand glowed and she floated the key towards me.

I activated my magic and hovered the key towards my face. I examined it and saw its fine construction, with magic runes written so minisculely small it was difficult for me to see. There must be more than a thousand runes inscribed into this little thing…

I floated the key towards Cecilia who calmly took the key and began to examine it with interest.

“Could you keep it in your little box for now?” I asked and Cecilia nodded with a smile.

“You are truly different Great Beast…” Mahaila said as she shook her head in resigned confusion.

“Every Firstborn is different, we are a species of one remember?” I said with a grin.

Also if you see anything you like in there help yourself…