Devour Vol 2 Ch 29: The End Of A Chase, Golden Tears!

The Darkness Devourer barely blinked as the storm of blue plasma rained against her skin.

It was nothing.

Tiny flashes of light. Fleeting heat. The sort of thing that might amuse her if she wasn't already drowning in fury. Each weapon discharge, each futile burst of energy against her body — it was like rain hitting an ocean. It didn't matter. None of it mattered.

Her violet eyes locked on the single speck of light darting through the chaos: the Neralian ship that dared to run.

They thought they could flee her judgment. That they could escape after what they had taken.

"Come back!"

Her voice tore through the vacuum, and though space should have been silent, her scream moved through it anyway — waves of pure energy bending reality itself. Stars flickered. The void trembled. Fractures rippled through space like cracks in glass.

The fleeing vessel shuddered as the sound reached it.

Inside the Vanguard, the crew clung to whatever they could. Loose tools and weapons flew through the air as the deck shook violently. Sparks burst from consoles. The lights flickered red and white.

"Status report!" Veyran shouted, his voice cutting through the chaos.

A younger technician stumbled forward, blood trailing from a cut across his forehead. "Sir! The spatial grid is collapsing around us — the hyperlane drive can't reinitialize! The distortion waves from that thing's voice destabilized the local curvature field!"

"In plain words!" Veyran barked.

The soldier swallowed. "We can't go back into hyperspace, sir. The fabric of space itself is too unstable. The drive can't find a path!"

Veyran froze. He knew what that meant.

They were trapped.

They couldn't hide. Couldn't run. Couldn't even scream loud enough to reach anyone who might help.

The crew was still shouting orders, trying to stabilize the engines, but Veyran already knew. The look in his eyes said it all.

The chase was over.

Outside, the Darkness Devourer slowed her movements, her cosmic body casting a shadow that stretched across light-years. The fire from the fleet still burned faintly behind her — a thousand ships reduced to drifting embers — but she didn't care.

Her gaze remained fixed on the single ship that fled her, the one that mattered.

Her tongue brushed across her lips, slow and deliberate, as the dark energy within her began to swirl and gather. The stars around her dimmed, the light bending toward her palm as if terrified to resist.

Then, she extended her hand.

Her essence — pure shadow made real — flowed outward, coiling into the shape of a vast, inky claw. It stretched for miles, black and shimmering, the kind of darkness that devoured light itself.

The Vanguard's hull sensors screamed warnings.

"Brace for impact!" someone yelled.

But there was no time.

The darkness struck.

The entire ship was swallowed by the cosmic claw. Metal groaned. The bridge lights went dark for a heartbeat. Soldiers were thrown across the room, colliding with the walls. The sound of shattering glass and snapping steel filled the air.

Veyran felt the gravity twist as the Devourer's grip tightened around them. The artificial lights flickered again, and all he could see through the viewport was black — endless, suffocating black.

"Sir—!"

The ship lurched violently to one side, alarms screaming in unison.

"We've been caught," Veyran said, voice quiet, hollow. "The chase is over."

Outside, the cosmic claw retracted, pulling the ship toward the waiting palm of the Devourer herself.

Her enormous eyes watched, unblinking. Her smile was thin — not the gleeful smirk of a predator, but something else. Something wounded.

The massive being gazed down at her tiny prize, her anger burning in every motion.

"Time for some answers," she whispered.

Her voice rolled across the void like thunder, vibrating through the hull of the captured ship.

The Devourer turned, her expression unreadable. The remnants of the Neralian fleet drifted behind her, scattered and broken. Their defiance had been admirable, but meaningless.

Soon, she thought, they would all understand.

Soon, she would know why.

⸻

Far away, in another corner of the cosmos, Elara soared through the void like a comet of gold. Her body glowed faintly, her long hair trailing behind her in streaks of radiant light. The emptiness around her pulsed with the echo of something vast — an energy that she knew well.

Her sister's energy.

It was faint, but chaotic. Fractured. Angry.

That alone unsettled her.

Darkness — one of the eldest among them — was rarely angry. She was whimsical, detached, aloof in her cruelty. The other Devourers might rage, destroy, weep, or taunt, but Darkness... she played. Her moods were the slow tides of eternity — calm, deep, and ancient.

And yet now...

Elara could feel her fury burning across light-years.

She didn't understand it, but the pull was undeniable. Something was wrong.

Her enormous eyes flickered as she followed the energy trail, moving faster through the void. Stars blurred past her as she crossed the barrier between nebulae, the space dust glowing gold in her wake.

"I can feel her," Elara murmured softly. "She's close."

Conrad, seated on her shoulder, was clutching a strand of her hair the size of a mountain ridge. He had grown used to seeing impossible things, but even now, he could feel the pressure in his chest from the energy radiating around her.

"What's going on?" he shouted up at her, his voice carried by the faint atmospheric field that surrounded her form.

"She's angry," Elara said. "That's never a good thing."

"Your sister?"

"Yes." Her expression hardened. "Darkness is the oldest of us... second only to the Mother. There are few things in existence that could make her lose control."

Conrad frowned. "Then what could do that?"

Elara didn't answer. Her golden eyes narrowed as a strange shape appeared in the distance — something vast, drifting and unmoving.

At first, it looked like a moon. Then, as they drew closer, she realized what it was.

Her breath caught.

The glow of her aura dimmed slightly as the shape resolved into a colossal figure — a titan like herself. A Devourer.

Only this one was motionless.

Her body floated through the void, cold and silent. Her hair drifted like rivers of shadow, her hands limp at her sides. Her once-vibrant cosmic skin had gone dull, her eyes closed as if in eternal sleep.

Elara froze mid-flight. Her heart — a heart larger than cities — seemed to stop.

"No..." she whispered. "No, it can't be."

Liquid shimmered along her cheeks — faint golden trails, glowing softly as they floated away like droplets of starlight. She didn't even understand what it was. She had never wept before.

She reached out a trembling hand toward her fallen sister.

Conrad steadied himself on her shoulder, following her gaze — and when he saw it, his breath caught in his throat. The scale of it was unimaginable. The dead titan's body stretched across half the visible sky, her very presence blotting out constellations.

"What... what is this?" he whispered.

Elara's voice was low, shaking with something unfamiliar — grief, and beneath it, fury.

"This," she said, her eyes beginning to blaze with a furious gold, "is murder."

The stars themselves seemed to dim in response to her words.

The light around her grew hotter, brighter — waves of golden energy rippling from her skin, distorting the void. Her aura burned with divine wrath, lighting the cosmos like a newborn sun.

Conrad shielded his eyes as the warmth surged around him. He could feel the rage in her heartbeat, in every tremor that shook her colossal body.

Whoever had done this — whoever had dared to strike down one of their own — would pay.

For the first time in an eternity, the golden Devourer's voice trembled not with amusement, but with vengeance.

"She was one of us," Elara whispered. "And someone killed her."

And as her eyes lifted toward the void — toward the direction of her sister's fading energy — the gold of her pupils deepened to a molten fire.

"I will find out who."

✅

The cosmos shuddered as the light around her flared, the birth cry of something divine and furious echoing through space.

And far away, the Darkness Devourer's smile faltered — for the first time — as she felt her younger sister's wrath awaken.