I Can Devour Monsters' SSS Talents

"The Black Silence is infecting this whole world again."

Seris’s voice was still echoing through the square when a scream came from the western street. Almost at the same time, everyone turned their heads.

A blood-covered man ran out from around the corner of the street. One hand was pressed against his torn side, and with the other, he tried to keep his sword behind him.

"Don’t let him get close to me! Help me!" Only a few meters behind him, another Awakened was running after him.

The second man showed no clear sign of corruption. His skin looked normal, his eyes had not turned black, and there were no strange veins visible on his body.

But the look on his face was not normal.

His face was so full of anger that it looked like someone had killed the person he loved most right in front of him. The veins on his forehead were visible, and he held his blade above his head with both hands.

"It was you!"

"What are you talking about?!" The injured man stepped back in fear.

"You wanted to kill me from the beginning!"

"I don’t even know what you’re talking about!"

The attacker ignored his answer, and his sword came down.

Seris moved at that exact moment.

Her body was no longer falling apart like the day before, and the treatment from last night had brought her speed back. In a few short steps, she moved between the two.

The attacker’s sword was still coming down when Seris turned her body, and instead of using the blade, she struck the man directly on the temple with the handle of her sword.

A dull sound came out, the man’s eyes lost focus for a moment, and his body fell to the ground.

"Don’t kill anyone!" Rindo shouted immediately.

Several Awakened who had already drawn their weapons stopped.

"Restrain them first! We still don’t know if this condition can be reversed."

Seris bent down and looked at the unconscious man, and a few seconds later, the system finally reacted.

[Corruption of the Calamity detected.]

Her eyes narrowed, and more messages appeared.

[Type: Black Silence Corruption]

[Stage: Initial]

[Recorded Signs:]

[Increased Aggression]

[Extreme Suspicion]

[Distorted Perception]

[Reduced Behavioral Control]

Then the final warning appeared.

[Warning.]

[Continued corruption may lead to a complete collapse of reason.]

Seris stared at the words without moving for several seconds.

So this was what they had seen on the way, the wolves that tore open the stomachs of their own kind.

The creatures that attacked each other for no reason, the monsters that kept thinking only about killing even after their stomachs had been torn open.

Those were the final stages, what was lying in front of her now was only the beginning, and that might have been the most frightening part of all.

The injured man barely managed to reach the wall.

"I didn’t do anything to him." His voice was shaking.

"I swear. We were on guard duty together last night. We even ate together."

"Was there any problem between you before this?" Rindo asked.

"We argued over the division of potions a few days ago." The man thought for a few moments.

"That’s all?"

"Yeah."

Seris kept her eyes on the unconscious man, so the Black Silence did not create hatred from nothing.

It found something that was already there, a small annoyance, an old doubt, jealousy, fear, anger, and then it pulled it, twisted it and made it so large that it consumed all of a person’s reason.

Another scream came from the direction of the medical center, followed by the sound of something breaking...

"Damn it." Rindo raised his head.

Seris picked up her sword.

"The medical center."

Liana immediately moved with her.

The situation inside the medical center was even worse.

Two healers were fighting in the middle of the hall. One of them was the woman who had spent several hours working on Seris’s wounds last night.

"You kept all of it for yourselves!" The same woman was now holding an empty bottle and shouting with a red face.

"What?" Another healer stepped back.

"The potions!"

"There are no more potions!"

The woman threw the bottle toward his head.

"Don’t lie! I saw you!"

On the other side of the room, a man who should have been treating an injured soldier had both hands placed on the patient’s chest.

But instead of healing, his mana was entering the man’s mana channels in an unstable way, and the patient screamed in pain.

"Stop! What are you doing?!"

"If I heal you, you’ll kill me later." The healer stepped back with terrified eyes.

"What?!"

"You’re all going to do the same thing."

Seris moved forward and grabbed the healer’s wrist, the man turned around and tried to punch her without thinking.

Seris simply moved her body to the side and knocked him unconscious with one strike to the neck.

At the same time, the female healer attacked her coworker, Liana moved between them, and the woman tried to scratch her face while screaming.

"You’re with them too!"

"I don’t even know who you mean by them!" Liana grabbed her wrist.

The woman attacked with her knee, Liana blocked it, twisted her arm and, despite her strong resistance, forced her down onto the floor.

A few moments later, two Awakened entered and tied the woman’s hands.

Liana let out a breath, and for a moment, she looked at the same woman who had saved several people’s lives last night.

"Yesterday, she was treating people."

"Today, she thinks those same people want to kill her." Seris answered.

Liana looked at her, and Seris stayed silent for a few seconds.

"The Calamity doesn’t create something new inside your mind, it only finds what is already there." Her eyes fell on the unconscious healer.

"Then it makes it so big that nothing else is left."

Liana’s face slowly became more serious, if this analysis was correct, no one was completely safe, every human had something inside them.

Fear.

Anger.

Jealousy.

Hatred.

Guilt.

Even love, if it was twisted in a sick way, could turn into something dangerous.

Seris thought of Seraphina for a moment, then immediately pushed that thought away.

Rindo created a new system in less than ten minutes.

Every street was checked by groups of three. No one was allowed to move alone, and everyone was required to report even the smallest strange behavior from their companions.

"Take their weapons first." His voice could be heard from the central square.

"Then restrain them, and keep the corrupted people separated."

"What if they resist?" one of the Awakened asked.

"Keep them alive if you can, only kill them when there is no other way to save yourselves or the others." They had no idea whether this condition could be reversed or treated.

And until they knew that, he did not want to kill their own kind, the best thing was to capture anyone who had been corrupted.

But there was a question ... how did someone even become corrupted?

Then he turned toward Cassian.

"Double the guards around the Cindari prisoners."

Cassian immediately understood what he meant.

If a corrupted Awakened entered the prison and killed Maelor, Kael or Tharos, the temporary ceasefire would be destroyed in an instant.

"What about the guards? What if they become corrupted?" Cassian asked.

"Change the groups every thirty minutes, no guard stays with the prisoners without two others beside him." Rindo answered.

Then his eyes moved toward the chaotic streets, Ashfall had been relatively quiet for the first time in a long while only a few minutes ago, and now screams were coming from three different streets.

And outside the walls, the Cindari emergency horns still did not stop.

But unfortunately, the problems did not end there.

Tavern entered the negotiation area half an hour later, this time he had no ceremony with him and had come with only two officers.

His black armor was covered with blood in several places, and his large blade still had a red mark on it, but the blood did not belong to him.

He walked directly toward Rindo.

"Is this your doing?"

"If it were our doing, why are our own people killing each other?"

Tavern looked into Ashfall, two Humans in the distance were restraining a man who was screaming that everyone around him was a traitor.

The Cindari commander still said nothing, the trust between them was so low that even such a scene was not enough to convince him.

But at that exact moment, one of the Cindari officers behind Tavern moved.

Seris was the first to notice the change in his expression, the officer put his hand on his sword, while the commander was still facing Rindo.

The blade came out and Seris opened her mouth.

"Behind—"

Tavern noticed it himself, his body turned and the officer’s sword struck the flat side of Tavern’s large sword with a heavy sound.

"You sold us out!" The officer’s eyes were full of anger.

"What?" Tavern froze for a moment.

The officer attacked again.

"Ever since those outsiders came, we have only been retreating!"

The blades collided.

"They took our commanders and you did nothing but talk!"

"Drop your weapon." Tavern knocked the blade away with one movement of his sword.

"Traitor!"

This time, the officer attacked directly at his neck, the Cindari commander no longer had time to hold back.

He stepped forward, let the attack pass beside his face and struck the officer directly in the jaw with the handle of his large sword.

The man fell to the ground and became unconscious.

A strange silence formed between the Humans and Cindari present, and the Cindari commander told his other officer to take this corrupted one away.

Rindo looked at the fallen officer for a few seconds and then at Tavern.

"Do you still think this is our doing?"

Tavern did not answer, there was something in the Cindari commander’s eyes that did not look like doubt.

It was fear, not fear for himself, but fear of something much bigger.

"Our camp is falling apart from the inside." He said a few seconds later.

"Ashfall is the same." The Student Council President answered calmly.

"We had three other cases, and this is the fourth." Tavern looked at the unconscious officer.

"They will become more common, if this is the same thing we saw on the way, in a few hours it will be much harder to contain them." Seris said.

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