SSS Primeval Devourer: Every Path I Devour Becomes Mine

Corvain waited in the quarry house with one broken blade at his belt.

The other had been left under the shelf in the lower yard. His right wrist hung under a blood-black wrap. Ulqor’s puncture had torn through his left upper arm, and Radrazh had opened the same shoulder. Blood had dried down that sleeve. Behind him, the quarry wall carried three black powder kegs beneath a web of cables.

Below the wall, the old pass road bent between two cliffs. Kessendrel’s people were gathering there with carts, waiting for the road to open.

The first cart stood closest to the bend. Hessa sat on its driver bench with the charcoal board tucked inside her coat. The mother with the beans held both children under the wagon canvas. They had heard the cistern go down and came anyway, because a road was either open or it was not.

Corvain had put the kegs above that answer.

"You came," Corvain said.

"You ran out of people to send."

Corvain’s mouth showed broken teeth when he smiled. "I ran out of men who thought you could be killed normally."

Nyra took the outer ledge. Thronebreak pointed toward the cable drums. "Those kegs will bring the wall onto the road."

"They will bury it for a year," Corvain said. "House Talvern can afford a year."

"Kessendrel cannot," Nyra said.

Vhar stepped into the quarry floor. Corvain pulled the broken blade from his belt and moved for Vhar’s throat.

Vhar shifted both scabbards free across his back. The captain had used two hooked blades to bind a draw in the culvert. A broken blade could still catch a wrist. Corvain’s torn left shoulder hung low. A short knife was strapped inside that sleeve. He could still close the left hand near his belt, but he could not lift the arm into a proper guard. The kegs waited above the road.

He spoke once, low enough that Corvain heard it through the wind crossing the quarry.

| THE FIRST AND FINAL SLAUGHTER |

Vhar drew Radrazh with his right hand. His left hand stayed on Ulqor’s hilt. He planted his heel hard enough to crack the quarry floor and drove Radrazh’s edge under the guard of Corvain’s remaining blade.

CLANG!

Radrazh cleaved through the guard and split the remaining blade along its length. The guard and broken point burst away from Corvain’s hand. Before either piece struck stone, Vhar caught Corvain’s left wrist, drove an elbow through the captain’s jaw, and put a knee into his stomach.

CRACK!

Corvain folded. Vhar seized the back of his coat and threw him through the quarry-house doorway.

BOOM!

The doorframe burst. Corvain rolled across the floor. The pistol crossbow lay at his left hip. He curled the remaining hand around its grip. Vhar turned Radrazh in his right hand and cut through the left wrist holding it.

SHRAK!

The crossbow landed beside the broken House blade. Corvain screamed once and kicked the cable release with his right heel.

CLACK!

The drums turned.

Vhar’s left hand had already reached Ulqor’s grip. He drew the blade and cut behind Corvain’s planted heel. Its edge passed through the boot leather and severed the Achilles tendon beneath it.

SPLT!

Corvain’s right leg folded. He hit the floor on the ruined knee. His right hand could not close. His left hand lay beside the crossbow. Radrazh had destroyed the last blade. Vhar’s elbow, knee, and throw had broken the body behind it. Ulqor had taken the tendon that could have carried him upright or away. Corvain could not stand, draw, or work the drums by hand. He dragged his left forearm toward the cable lever and caught its hooked underside against the raw end of his wrist.

The first drum fed its cable toward the west wall. The second pulled the east wedge loose. The third held the kegs above the road, waiting for the final lever inside the house. Corvain had built each piece to make the others matter.

Nyra sprinted for the nearest one. A House survivor rose from behind the kegs with a hooked axe. She caught the axe on Thronebreak’s shaft, turned it aside, and drove the spearhead through his thigh.

SPLT!

He fell across the release rope. Nyra cut the rope with the butt spike and shoved him clear of the drum.

The kegs started rolling toward the road anyway. A second House survivor had tied a pull-cord from the far wall around his waist. He threw himself backward.

Nyra reversed Thronebreak, caught the cord against the spearhead, and pinned it to the quarry floor with both hands.

TWANG!

The cord went tight enough to cut a trench through the dust. The man at the far wall fell flat when it stopped answering his weight.

Vhar had Corvain by the throat. The captain’s body was already broken. The kill was one breath away.

The first cable snapped.

PANG!

The quarry wall moved.

Stone the size of carts sheared loose above the road. People below screamed and ran between the stopped wagons.

Corvain laughed blood into Vhar’s hand. "Kill me. Let it fall."

Vhar threw him into the quarry house instead.

THUD!

Corvain struck the far wall and slid down beneath the intact cable lever. Vhar turned for the collapse.

Nyra was already at the second drum. "I can hold the east cable. Get the road clear."

"You hold it alone?"

"You gave me the warning promise. Use it."

Below, Hessa had climbed down from the driver bench. She was pulling the mother with the beans toward the west ditch by the wrist while the two children clung to the woman’s coat.

"This way," Hessa shouted. "The stone slides past this side. Keep their heads down."

The mother looked once at the cart. "Our food."

"Your food cannot eat it if you are dead," Hessa said. "Move."

The woman moved.

The route worker shoved the lame mule behind the first cart while another driver cut loose a grain load that had caught on the wheel. The rope snapped free.

TWANG!

The sacks slid across the road and burst against the ditch wall. Pale grain poured into the mud. No one stopped to gather it.

A boy from the second cart froze beside the wheel, one hand locked around a broken side rail. His sister was already in the ditch below him, crying for him to jump.

"Look at her," Vhar said.

The boy looked down.

"Wait for the next stone. Jump on the hit."

He bent his knees. Above him, the cliff groaned. The road shook beneath the wheels as a small stone struck the far bend.

BOOM!

The boy jumped. He hit the wet ditch on both feet, stumbled, and fell into his sister’s arms. Hessa pulled both children behind the cart axle before the next shadow crossed the road.

The girl kept one fist in her brother’s coat. He did not try to pull free. Both watched the cliff through the narrow gap beneath the cart.

Vhar saw the gap open between the boulders. It was narrow, but it was where the living people were.

Vhar looked at the sagging wall, then at the road full of people.

"The east cable will tear through the drum. Step clear when it does."

"I will."

He ran downhill.

Hessa saw him first. She threw the reins at the route worker and jumped down from the driver bench.

"Ditch on the left!" she shouted. "That one holds water. Do not put the carts there!"

The route worker swung the mule toward the shallower side. The cart wheels skidded across loose stone.

SKID!

Vhar reached the rear rail and lifted before the axle could break. The mule found the new angle. The cart cleared the bend with the mother and children still under its canvas.

The first boulder struck the road ahead of the carts.

BOOM!

Horses screamed. A driver fell from his seat. Vhar reached the wagon, lifted its rear axle, and shoved it sideways into the open ditch. The cart rolled clear before the next stone crushed the road where it had stood.

"West ditch!" he shouted. "Leave the loads!"

The second boulder came down toward a family under the cliff wall. Vhar planted beneath it and caught its lower edge against both shoulders.

THOOM!

Stone drove him ankle-deep into the road. The family crawled under his arm one by one: father, mother, two children, and an old woman dragging a sack she refused to leave.

"Leave it," Vhar said.

She dropped the sack and ran.

The father came back for it.

"Leave the sack!" Vhar said.

"It is our grain."

"Your children are in the ditch. Go."

The man looked from the sack to the small bodies waiting beyond the road. He ran.

Hessa limped past the ditch with the charcoal board still under her coat. A falling stone clipped the road behind her and threw dirt across her shoulders.

THWACK!

She did not stop. "The lower culvert is clear," she shouted. "Take the injured through there, not east. The east ground is hollow."

The route worker heard and turned the lame mule toward the culvert mouth. Two women lifted the old man from the bridge Chapter between them and carried him after the cart.

Vhar held the boulder until the last child cleared the ditch. His knees bent a finger’s width under the load. The Titan body held. When he stepped aside, the stone crashed into the empty water channel Hessa had chosen.

CRASH!

Mud and broken rock sprayed over the abandoned grain sack. Nothing living remained beneath it.

Above him, Nyra’s drum shrieked.

SCREECH!

The east cable tore free. Nyra jumped from the platform as the drum exploded behind her.

KRAK!

The broken cable whipped across the quarry floor, cut through the last keg fuse, and sent the powder kegs tumbling into the cistern trench instead of toward the road.

The kegs struck the water below.

SPLOOM!

Their fuses hissed out one after another. Black smoke rose from the trench and drifted away from the road.

Corvain dragged himself through the quarry house on his left knee, left forearm, and one boot. His right bracer scraped behind him, still strapped over the destroyed wrist. He hooked the raw end of his left forearm under the final lever.

Vhar saw him through the dust.

He let the boulder fall into the empty ditch, crossed the broken road, and entered the quarry house with Radrazh in his right hand and Ulqor still sheathed.

Corvain drove his shoulder down against the left forearm caught under the lever.

The final fight had one lever, one ruined body, and one road full of people beneath it.

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!