Return of the Fallen Volume 7 Chapter 53
His eyes rolled up and into his skull as he inhaled the dead flesh from the Ancient beast’s corpse that lay beneath his feet. Thousands of pounds of meat lifted from the ground and disappeared into Kazuki’s mouth. Maybe he would get a chance to chew every few seconds but not even a second later, that food vanished and entered his soul world. After entering there barely another fraction of a second passed before a spiraling void at the base of Kazuki’s soul tree, pulled the constant supply of food in, devouring everything like a black hole.
Danny and Kai already knew what to expect inside the soul world and had retreated a good distance the moment Kazuki removed the corpses from his storage ring.
Sasai and Tozu on the other hand witnessed Kazuki devour Ancient beast like a bottomless pit. They watched on in both shock and horror. They knew just how tough Ancient beast’s hides were since they in fact are Ancient beasts, yet Kazuki’s teeth tore through them like a hot knife through butter. Not only that but Ancient beasts contained incredibly pure energy within their flesh. It was not something a human should be able to eat. Such energy should be like poison for others. Ancient beasts could eat other ancient beasts but even they would have difficulty digesting such energy.
Kazuki though, like a demonic gorger didn’t stop for even a moment as a mountain worth of dead flesh was being consumed at a faster and faster rate.
Kazuki had told them to step back and they had both thought that he was merely being dramatic. They now knew he was absolutely serious. The way he could rip through those bodies had he a mind to, it wouldn’t be impossible for him to tear through them. Plus, the way he looked right now, it seemed his facilities had left him. Especially with his eyes rolled up in his skull like that. He looked like a mad creature in a dreamed state.
Neither Tozu nor Sasai even knew if Kazuki could hear them at the moment. That’s how out of it he seemed.
They watched on in both curiosity and mild confusion as Kazuki’s hair started to grow along with his fingernails. They could hear a few pops here and there as bones broke and stretched slightly when they grew back together. Neither knew why this was happening but they understood that right now, Kazuki was growing even stronger than before.
The outside was a sight to behold but the inside wasn’t wet cotton. Inside his soul world, Kazuki was containing the spiraling vortex that was sucking in all of the dead flesh and converting it into energy.
The more this miniature black hole gobbled up, the stronger the pull and the bigger it grew. The first few times Kazuki had unleashed this power, the black hole had grown in small increments. At first, it was difficult to control but after training with Oren in the abyssal trench, his control and aura both grew rapidly, allowing him to contain the Ourodyess technique to some degree. Using his aura, he would prevent this devouring power from consuming his mind and taking complete control over him.
That was how things went. The vortex would try and grow and Kazuki in turn would hold it back with his aura. He had learned to seal it and basically turn it off and as he evolved, his aura grew with him, keeping it in check.
The voice in the back of his mind as always called out.
(Devour devour devour.)
Everything seemed normal as before. This was how things normally went but after some time, a small change began to occur.
After feeding the vortex a little more, the force and speed at which it spun suddenly shot up and increased several-fold in one spot.
Kazuki quickly created a few layers of his aura over that spot and pressed it down but in doing so the small spot spread to the opposite side and grew stronger.
*Schk*
A crack formed in the spiral.
“What!?”
The vortex took in more and more flesh and Kazuki suppressed its growth a little more frantically. This in turn caused the crack itself to grow and stretch a tiny bit more.
Again Kazuki created more layers of aura to try and block the crack from spreading more but that only caused another crack to form, then another and another after that. Seeing a few cracks, Kazuki felt something ominous and knew he needed to seal the technique and shut it down before something happened.
Immediately he covered all the leaks and expanding ripples of energy with multiple layers of aura. His mind connected with his body and as a piece of food was flying toward his face, his mouth slammed shut, preventing anything else from being consumed.
While he was doing this, the call grew louder in his mind.
(DEVOUR DEVOUR DEVOUR!)
His mind felt as if it was splitting from this shouting voice but Kazuki resisted. His hands moved like lightning and he folded more layers of aura over this mini black hole.
*Schk*
Another crack formed.
(CONSUME THEM! EAT THEM ALL! DEVOUR THE UNIVERSE!)
Kazuki’s hands moved even faster in his soul world. He had already made more than 10 layers of aura to cover the worst spots where energy continued to leak but it still wasn’t enough.
His body on the outside began to again move without his control. It slowly grabbed another morsel and pried his mouth open.
The voice in his mind now screaming at him.
(THE UNIVERSE, EAT ALL OF IT! MORE MORE MORE!)
The food almost in his mouth. Kazuki snapped and roared in his soul world.
“SHUT THE FUCK UPPPPPPPPPPPPPP!”
His eyes as wide as an enraged ox, Kazuki’s hands flashed and blurred like light. He was already at his limit but still, he pushed forward and formed another layer with his aura and then a final one on top of that.
(EAT IT ALL EAT EVERYTHING AND UNLE
“SILENCE!!!!!!!!!!!!”
Pressing down with this final layer, Kazuki managed to contain the Ourodyess power and the spiraling vortex vanished. His soul world went quiet and Kazuki’s mind-body collapsed.
Although he had no physical body inside his soul world, at the moment he actually felt the effects of physical exhaustion. Not only that, his mind was racked with a splitting headache.
Danny was by his side and helped him up.
“What the hell just happened? After you grew in strength your aura grew along with you. I thought you could control this eating power but from the looks of it, you almost failed. What was that?”
Kazuki shook his head.
“I don’t know. It’s never been this wild before. No matter how hard I pressed it, it resisted me. Not only that, multiple cracks started to form and I panicked. I tried to press them but that only made them spread. The vortex was growing too fast for me.”
At the base of his soul tree, Kai’s small figure was inspecting it closely.
Kazuki and Danny walked over.
“Brother, what is it?”
Kai shook his head.
“Somethings wrong, something is different.”
Kazuki felt a chill down his spine.
“What are you talking about, what’s wrong?”
Kai shook his head.
“I can’t say for sure. From observing it, it’s obvious that this devouring power, the Ourodyess technique is growing at an accelerated rate. At first, it was only slightly out of your grasp but you could manage it. After the many times you’ve been using it though, I didn’t expect it to go this way but it is growing even faster than you can handle. Just now you got extremely lucky. If you couldn’t contain this, you would have been completely under its control. Little dummy, this power, I don’t think you should use it anymore.”
“What, but it’s the only thing giving me an edge. At the rate I’m growing, I just need to absorb a few more powerful creatures with it. At that point, I should be able to compete with Fera with just my physical body alone. How can I just stop?”
“Do you think I say this so easily. I want you to take revenge on her and the other one just as much as you do. This power though, we don’t understand it well enough. I’ve been thinking about it more and more recently. This technique is really weird, isn’t it? It comes from an accursed god. The more you devour with it, the stronger it grows. A voice in your hand, losing control of your body more and more. Both I and Danny felt this suction force pulling on us. If it can devour us, why can it not devour your mind, your soul as well? If something were to happen and your mind was erased, this thing would have absolute reign over your body and you would be gone forever. In your place would be a mere puppet and nothing more. This technique, it’s far too dangerous to keep using.”
Kazuki turned to Danny.
“Danny, you know what’s at stake. My brother is too protective. He’s not thinking rationally.”
Danny shook his head.
“Kazuki, you of all people should not be saying that right now. I and your brother see it plain as day. We’ve both felt this power pulling us in. This is no joke. This power, it’s unnatural. Something that can constantly give you such explosive growth. There is always a drawback and nothing is free. You keep hearing a voice but none of us have questioned it up until now because we both understood you needed to grow as fast a possible. This voice that calls to you, it’s not normal. Something that tells you to eat the world, this is not something one should listen to. Yet, you would actually fall into it to gain power and you think it’s Kai who’s not thinking rationally. Kazuki wake the fuck up and think! Are the consequences worth it? IS losing your mind worth it? Your hatred is normal and to do nearly anything to get the revenge you seek I understand but the way you’re going, trying to use unknown forces and bend them to your will. Come on, you’ve played plenty of video games and read plenty of books on Earth, can you not see through such a cliche ominous power. Just think about it.”
Danny and Kai stared at Kazuki as if he were an idiot. Kazuki though got the message. He knew the power couldn’t be trusted fully but he was getting pulled in by the benefits. Having his power grow so fast, his future path was laid out before him. He could see his sister’s head on a platter and his bitch of a mother keeled over next to her. The thought alone was one that brought euphoria. At the same time, he knew something was odd or rather just plain wrong with this power.
Hearing the voice call out to him again and again. He knew deep down that he needed to stop using this technique but letting it go would mean it would take him even longer to catch up with Fera. To wait so long, that in itself would endanger his life.
In the end, though, the voice in his head was beyond reason and he had felt it first hand as he lost control over his own body. Kazuki made a decision then and there to not use it again until he got things straightened out by Etora.
Coming out of his soul world, Kazuki saw the strange look both Tozu and Sasai gave him and ignored it. Removing the excess hair and breaking his elongated nails, Kazuki slowly started to rise into the air.
“Lets go!”
After that, he gathered the rest of the Ancient beast’s corpses that he didn’t devour, along with all of the elemental crystals and scales, and flew to the top of the underwater volcano.
*BOOM!*
Punching through the top of it, Kazuki flew out of the icy ocean and floated high into the air.
Tozu and Sasai could see that Kazuki wasn’t going to answer them about what just happened and followed after him.
“Kazuki, where are we headed.”
Kazuki smirked at Tozu.
“As I recall, you said you owe me a mountain’s worth of gold right? For now, you lead the way.”
Tozu gave a slight nod before both he and Sasai became streaks of red and silver light as they flew forward at blinding speed.
Kazuki as well left a blue streak of light behind him as he followed.
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