I Can Devour Monsters' SSS Talents

Seris did not take her eyes off the cocoon.

The sword was still in her hand, although her fingers no longer had much strength to grip the handle.

Fresh and dried blood covered almost all of her clothes, and every time she breathed, pain ran from her cracked ribs to her injured side.

Behind her, One was lying on the ground, and only the very weak movements of one of his antennae showed that he was not completely dead yet.

Aren was also farther away, with both of his arms cut off and his body barely moving up and down, hanging between consciousness and unconsciousness.

And in front of the cocoon, five moving corpses stood in silence.

Four ancient Cindari stood on both sides of the Founder, and Cindar Vael stood in the center, with the same dry face and golden eyes, looking at the thing he had waited centuries to reach.

Seris did not know how many seconds had passed since the number 99.9 appeared.

Maybe only two seconds, maybe ten seconds, but it felt like every second was becoming longer.

Then—

Thump.

A sound came from inside the cocoon, not very loud, but deep enough that Seris could feel its vibration in her bones.

And then everything stopped.

The huge flow of mana that had been pulled from all across the world toward the Forgotten Tree until a few moments ago suddenly stopped.

The golden and black lights twisting across the surface of the cocoon also disappeared.

Even the wind seemed to stop for a few moments.

"Is it over?" She unconsciously held her breath.

No new message from the system appeared, and the number 99.9 had also disappeared.

But then a soft sound came.

Crack.

A thin crack appeared on the white and blackened surface of the cocoon, the crack stretched from top to bottom and a second crack appeared beside it.

Seris immediately changed her sword stance and moved her healthier leg slightly back.

Her body was almost empty of strength, but everything she had left became ready to react at that moment.

The cocoon did not explode, instead, contrary to what she expected, it slowly opened.

Its two halves moved away from each other in a strange way and a thick black liquid poured from the bottom onto the dry ground.

First, one leg came out, then the second leg and finally ...Lian stepped out of the cocoon.

The young Pendragon only stared for a few moments, there were no horns on his head, and no wings had grown from his back.

His body had not turned into some strange creature either, he was just Lian.

The clothes that had been torn during his crazy journey from Rootcrown to here and then during the battle with the Cindari leader were still on his body.

His hair looked the same and even the burned wounds on his hands that had been caused when he pulled Selina out had mostly closed.

If someone only looked at him from a distance, they might not even notice any difference.

But Seris understood immediately, this was not Lian, or at least whatever was controlling that body was not the Lian she knew.

The eyes were the first sign.

Inside his dark pupils, a very weak purple light was shining.

It was not a strong or dramatic light, it was more like a distant star still visible behind a layer of darkness.

But even that was not the real difference, it was his presence.

She had seen Lian’s anger before.

When One was injured, when Kaelos attacked him and Aren, even that frightening calmness before his first punch.

But anger, no matter how cold, was still an emotion, his mocking was human, his curiosity was human, even his desire for battle was something that could be understood.

What was standing in front of Seris now had none of those things.

It was not anger, not hatred and not pleasure, not even cruelty, because cruelty also required something to matter to you.

It was only indifference.

An indifference so deep and cold that when she looked at it, she felt that if the entire forest burned right now, if a thousand people were killed in front of that creature or if this whole world fell apart, not even the slightest change would appear in its eyes.

Life and death were not two different things to it, there was only something that had not been consumed yet.

Seris’s body reacted before her mind, the muscles in her neck tightened and the hair on the back of her neck stood up.

Her heartbeat suddenly increased and her hand gripped the sword handle so tightly that her knuckles turned white.

Her right foot unconsciously moved half a step back, and all her instincts shouted one command.

Run.

Just run.

She immediately stopped her foot.

She was angry that her own body had reacted like that without her permission, but even that anger could not remove the feeling of danger.

Her healthy eye remained fixed on Lian’s face.

"Lian...?" She said in a low voice.

His head slowly turned toward Seris, that was all, there was no other movement and for a moment their eyes met.

And Seris did not find what she was most afraid of seeing in the deepest part of her mind.

Recognition.

There was no recognition in those eyes, not even the smallest sign that the creature in front of her knew who Seris was.

It was as if he was seeing her for the first time, something cold sank into Seris’s chest, she felt her heart hurt ....

The four moving corpses moved at that exact moment.

The ancient swordsman lowered his sword and bowed his head.

The moving corpse that controlled the roots also bent its body slightly forward and the mage, even with one arm cut off and his shoulder almost destroyed, repeated the same bow.

The other one also lowered his head.

The four creatures that had attacked Seris without hesitation to kill her only a few minutes ago were now bowing before Lian’s body.

Only Cindar did not do it.

The Founder stood a few steps away, and finally something that looked like emotion appeared on his dry face.

A small smile, but the deep satisfaction inside him was impossible to hide.

Hundreds of years of waiting, generations of planning and lies that had become history.

Humans who had been hunted, creatures that had been sacrificed and an entire civilization that had been created only to watch over a single plan.

It had finally worked...Black Silence was walking in the world again!

But the creature inside Lian’s body did not even look at Cindar once, his purple eyes calmly passed over Seris and looked into the distance.

Beyond the gray plain, beyond the Forgotten Tree and in the direction of the Giant’s Graveyard.

Something was there, something that the new body knew even without seeing it.

A part of its own existence, trapped and compressed, chained inside the body of a huge creature that had served as its prison for centuries.

This birth had freed it, but it had not made it complete.

What was now inside Lian’s body was only a part of Black Silence, the part that had been pulled out of the Titan over the centuries and gathered inside the tree.

The main part was still there, inside the Corrupted Titan and until that part was also freed, Black Silence was only free, and not complete.

And its hunger instinctively knew its next destination.

The Giant’s Graveyard.

Seris did not know what the creature in front of her was looking at, but she noticed something else.

The look it had given her a few moments ago was exactly the same look a human might give when walking past an ant on a stone.

Part of Seris’s pride was angry about this, and the wiser part of her was afraid.

"It doesn’t even see me as an enemy."

In the corner of her vision, a panel was still open.

[Objective of Evolution: Kill the Calamity.]

She gave it a short look, the Calamity was right in front of her, only a few meters away.

But her body—

Lian’s body.

Her sword did not lower, but she did not attack either and a question more important than the evolution mission was turning in her mind.

Was Lian still in there? Maybe his consciousness had been completely swallowed, maybe only his body remained.

But what if even a small part of him was still deep inside that existence?

What if there was a way to pull him out?

What if he could still return?

The system wanted her to kill the Calamity, but if the Calamity and Lian were no longer separate from each other, what would completing that mission mean?

Seris’s fingers tightened around the sword handle.

She did not know.

But if that creature attacked, there would be no time left to think.

At that moment, a weak sound came from behind her, the sound of something heavy being dragged across the ground.

Seris immediately turned around and her eye widened.

"One...?"

The giant ant was moving, it should not have been able to.

Its stomach and side had two holes in them.

Its natural armor was broken in several places and a pool of dark blood had formed under its body.

But One was pulling himself forward, not by walking, he did not have the strength to do that.

His legs no longer had enough strength and he grabbed the ground with his claws and front part of his body, pulling himself forward a few centimeters.

Then again.

And again.

Every movement should have caused unimaginable pain, but his antennae were moving slowly.

A very weak feeling flowed through the Hive Link.

Happiness and calmness .... his master had returned.

The link had become strange and weak, but it was enough for One, he could feel that same presence, that same body that had always given him orders.

"One, wait—" Seris opened her lips.

It was too late.

The wounded ant reached Lian’s leg, raised its head with difficulty.

One of his antennae touched Lian’s body.

The movement was so weak that it looked more like a childish caress.

One tried to pull himself a little higher, maybe he wanted to touch his master’s hand.

Maybe he even wanted to bring his face closer to him like a loyal animal.

The creature inside Lian’s body looked down, nothing happened for a fraction of a second.

Then his hand rose ...but just before moving, the hand stopped.

Not even a second ....less, so short that Seris might later doubt whether she had really seen it.

The purple light inside Lian’s eyes trembled for a moment and Cindar also saw the same pause from a distance, a pause that showed hesitation.

Then the hand moved, the back of his hand hit One’s body.

Just one hit.

But One’s several-ton body was lifted from the ground like a light object, the sound of the air breaking echoed and the giant ant flew dozens of meters and crashed directly into the lower part of the Forgotten Tree.

BOOOOOM!

The huge dry wood of the tree cracked.

A large crack appeared on the trunk that could once have held several buildings inside it.

A part of it broke and fell.

One made a sound that Seris had never heard from him before.

It was pure pain, a muffled and terrible sound that almost immediately stopped.

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