Chapter 203: You Are Ruled By Hunger

The first spawns that emerged had been small at first, no larger than cats, their limbs soft, and their eyes blind. But they had grown quickly, and they had learned.

It did not take long for them to die, and from that point, every newly born spawn was a little bigger and stronger at birth, as if the foul womb that gave birth to them was both learning and growing stronger.

Stormfall was a massive city, and the spawns were able to scatter across the lower districts, and their presence was not quickly noticed as they followed the same paths that rats took, the same routes that the desperate and the forgotten used to move unseen.

They found places where the city’s light did not reach. Cellars, sewers, abandoned buildings whose owners had long since fled or died, and they multiplied.

As their number grew, the number of people who were missing increased, and their hunger was no longer truly hidden.

Three became nine….

Nine became twenty-seven….

Twenty-seven became eighty-one….

And it had been barely three days since the first spawn was created, and this was under the premise that most of them had not pursued death, but had been hunting so that the womb they were born from would quickly grow and expand, so that it would be able to fulfill the needs of spawns when a massive expansion was about to happen.

The spawns no longer looked like Luka. They had changed, adapted to their environment. Some grew long limbs for climbing, their fingers becoming hooks that could grip stone. Others grew low and wide, their bodies flattening to slip through gaps no larger than a man’s head. A few, the oldest, the ones who had fed most often, had begun to show intelligence.

They waited and planned, and were not in a hurry to die, as they were waiting for the right moment to unleash their hunger.

This was not due to fear; the Void Womb could only give birth to the previous template that had died. And so, the stronger they became before they died, when they were reborn again, they would carry all their previous growth with them to a certain extent.

Soon, they would not be able to hide their presence, and when that time happened, there needed to be an elite unit that could stand at the frontlines. Meanwhile, the massive womb was digging deeper into the earth as it could feel massive sources of power below, and if it wanted to be able to birth legions, it needed energy, far more energy than could be gotten from eating rocks and flesh.

Every prey eaten by the spawns, ninety-five percent of the energy flowed to the womb, and it had begun to create a massive storehouse of energy, and at this time, it could birth eight thousand spawns before it perishes from the lack of energy… However, the yellow-eyed boy wanted millions, and in a short time, the womb could only dig deeper into the earth to find greater sources of power.

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The basement was cold, even though it was summer and the sun blazed overhead. It had been a storage cellar once, before the building above was condemned. Now it was a nest that was slowly being filled with spawns.

There were seventeen of them in this basement, and the largest sat in the center of the room, its body swollen, its limbs folded beneath it, and its eyes half-closed.

These creatures could not sleep; they could only wait, even if that wait went on for centuries. The hunger they were always feeling denied them the capability of rest.

A sound like footsteps came from above the basement, and the largest spawn’s eyes opened. Its head turned toward the ceiling, and the others stirred, their hunger rising, their need sharpening.

The footsteps stopped, and then the door at the top of the stairs creaked open, and a man, thin, ragged, his face lined with hunger and tiredness, pushed his way into the darkness.

He had used this basement in the past to rest when he passed this area of the city, and he shivered when he sensed the cold, as it did not seem natural, and then he saw the red glowing eyes like tiny dots of burning flames in the dark, and he barely had time to scream before they took him.

Rez had once been a guard for a prestigious family in the upper district, but greed caused him to steal, and as punishment, his master had cut off his right arm, broken his legs, and from that moment on, he could only scrounge through the underbelly of the city to survive.

Even with his disabilities, he could fight, and living in the lower districts for more than twenty years had taught him how to kill.

His fist caught the first spawn in the throat, drove it back, and crushed its windpipe. It collapsed, choking, and its body convulsed for a moment before turning to ash.

There were blades hidden at the back of his fist that had been enchanted to shoot forward when Rez threw a punch. It might have seemed like a normal blow on the surface, but that punch had nearly torn off the head of the spawn, and despite his thin appearance, Rez was a peak-level Fury Forge.

Rez blinked in astonishment; he had not felt any quiet surge of Lumina that came when there was a connection with a prey that had just been killed. Instead, this creature just faded to ash, his mind struggling to understand what he had just witnessed, and in that moment of hesitation, the others were on him.

He fought like a cornered animal, but there were too many, and their claws and teeth were sharp, including the fact that they had bodies that did not make sense. Rez were used to fighting men, not abominations, and before long, they pulled him down, bloody and beaten.

Rez was in the dark, and he could hardly see. The basement was not that large, and he had been working for almost forty-eight hours and needed somewhere to rest. There was no way he would have come ahead in this confrontation.

Four other spawns were killed in this short and bloody fight, but they had succeeded in capturing Rez, and they brought him to his knees and held him in place.

“What the fuck is this?” Rez screamed, “I don’t owe the Thief’s Guild a mark. I work an honest job, and I am only here to sleep. Please spare me, and I will never return.”

Rez was panicking; he did not know what was in this basement, but figured that there must be a Beast Taming Master here, and he may have just stumbled into one of their Beast Pens.

He cursed himself for selecting this basement when there were several others he could have chosen from, and although the atmosphere around him seemed to be wrong, he could only beg for his survival.

The largest spawn had not taken part in the battle, and it rose from the ground and moved towards the kneeling man, standing almost eleven feet tall.

As it was moving towards Rez, its mother began to open wide, wider than any natural living being could ever do, and Rez, whose eyes had adjusted to the dark at this time, saw this horrifying sight. His mouth hung open in shock, barely able to scream as the mouth descended and took off his head.

It stood straight, and the other spawns descended and began to feast, and in mere moments, there was no sign that Rez had ever been there at all.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep