Chapter 181

◈ Chapter 181:

Rain held a bundle of pink tentacles in arm as he walked and snacked, wandering through the ruins, his paw occasionally lifting as he casually grazed on a new tentacle as though picking from a plate of chicken. They were quite delicious, like a salty fried seafood, although the giant ball of tentacles he had taken them from hadn't been particularly happy about the loss, neither had it been happy about him eating the rest of it.

He had eaten… well. A Lot of monsters, so many that he had lost count, every massive cage he could find in the damned ruins, and he had spent hours walking through it and devouring all of the abattoirs giant monsters, what must have been a dozen panthara cut apart by predation, and dozens more of other monsters he had fought physically in the hopes of levelling and attaining a class.

No such luck, however he had levelled, a gratifying amount, reaching level twenty one, a staggering amount of levelling for a leveller on their own, a literally impossible amount of levelling, no one of such low level could fight and kill monsters so beyond their ability… Unless they were a powerful monster themselves. The lack of Class however did sting. Most levelers gained theirs between the level of ten and twenty, that he had yet to luck into one himself was worrying. Maybe he couldn't even get a Class as a monster?

He paused as his gaze roved over a wall of the ruin, a tentacle hanging from his mouth. The  wall was littered in those strange angular runes that seemed to be everywhere in the ruins, the lines that formed each rune like that of a claw mark cutting into the stone, a claw mark that looked suspiciously like a smaller version of his own claws. As he looked it over he realised the wall was covered from top to bottom in the same runic script.

What did it mean? Was this wall special somehow? It was just yet another question that he had no way of answering, another thing about his species of monster that he didn't understand. There had been monsters like him long long ago, and they had built this place, before it was destroyed and buried by something monumental, that he knew, but more than that?

Feeling more than a little frustrated he followed the wall and passed around a corner, pausing as he found his view of the runes blocked by stacks of small cramped cages. Not massive cages like those of the giant monsters he had been happily devouring, but small things a few feet on each side, each of them containing monsters like goblins, or kobolds crouched inside.

There were gasps and drawn in breaths as he peered at them, the small cage level with his eyes containing a blue scaled kobold. She darted back and pressed herself against the back of the cage, staring at him, too frightened to even scream.

Rain sucked the tentacle into his mouth and stared at her.

He could eat her, true, but after some of the monsters he had just chewed his way through she wouldn't even be a mouthful really. Instead he asked a question.

"Are there more monsters? More… large monsters?"

The kobold looked ready to shit herself in fear but managed to shake her head.

"I - d-don't kn-know," she choked out.

Rain considered eating her anyway,

She didn't seem to like the look in his eyes and squeaked.

"I mean yes! You ate all the big ones! For sure! Don't eat me!"

Rain lifted a tentacle to his mouth and slowly chewed on it.

"Why?"

"B-because they're right there! If we scream they'll come running and kill us all!"

Rain tilted his head.

"The levelers?"

She nodded frantically, jabbing out a claw and pointing down the row of cages.

Okay admittedly that was handy to know. They could live. Maybe Opal would like that.

He turned and strode past, the kobold girl sinking down like a deflating wine skin as she released a great breath in relief.

The monsters cowered back from his passage, before the blood coated wolf, hoping only to avoid his gaze.

He snacked on another tentacle.

The cages ended and at first he thought the kobold had lied, but then he turned another corner and found what he was looking for, light, light spilling across the walls of the ruins, the first light he had seen since leaving his cage. Interestingly the corpse of the young panthara that the Chimaere had killed was there, discarded in the sands by a shattered stone door frame. He slowed and then slipped into a side passage, following along the wall until he found what he was looking for, a small gap in the stone blockwork, or rather a small gap nine feet above the ground, a hole that only someone of his height could use.

He peered through the gap into the space beyond. There was a clearing in the ruins, what might have been a town square at some point in the distant past but was now just an uneven space filled with sand. Lanterns had been strung up around the perimeter of the square illuminating the levelers and what they were doing.

Rain frowned as he looked down at them. The pair of humans were standing around a large table. On the table was the chimaera's corpse, the thing laid out on its back, wings and tail hanging down limp, its one goat head dangling off the edge. None of that was new, however what was new was that the chimaera's rib cage had been fully opened up, peeled open into two parts, like a grizzly set of cupboard doors, exposing its six lungs and three hearts and all kinds of strange colourful fleshy things encased in its chest cavity.

Were they harvesting its organs for something? That was what Rain thought at first, but then one of the levelers leaned over it and tilted a glass bottle, a few drops of fluid falling from it and sprinkling over its insides.

The goat's head twitched in response to the fluid's touch and Rain understood.

The damn thing wasn't dead! They had somehow knocked the chimaera unconscious and were working on it alive! The bottle being dripped inside of it was a healing potion!

That was… concerning. Rain chewed slowly on a tentacle as he watched to see what would happen next.

A needle was lifted from a tray on a side table. Not a small needle, no this thing was the size of a knitting needle, with tiny intricate lettering glowing down its razor length. The thing was clearly highly magical, practically buzzing with enchantments. The leveler slowly lowered it into the chimaera's chest cavity, angling it beside one of its very slowly beating hearts. It seemed a few needles had gone before as rain could see them scattered amongst the organs and flesh of the thing. …That was a lot of needles.

He took another bite of tentacle then paused as he heard a cry of pain. A young man with messy hair hobbled into view, clutching at his foot while hissing through his teeth.

"Fucking ruins! Why in the abyss doesn't Quistis smoke these things?!"

The leveller lowering the needle jerked at the yell and nearly skewered the chimaera's heart. He pulled back, cursing colourfully before forming a calming breath.

He turned and glared at the young man rubbing his toe. "Do you have any idea how valuable this monster is? You almost made me kill the thing! Not that I'd mind the levels in truth, but Quistis would fill my asshole with razor blades for it, and no, I'm not joking, she has literally done that to multiple people." He wiped sweat from his brow and glanced at the ruins. "She can't do it."

"Huh?"

"She can't get rid of that stone, her Class doesn't work on it, at all."

The young man blinked and so did Rain. Quistis couldn't affect the black stone? That seemed like very important information and Rain's ears perked up, eager to hear more.

"Well why didn't she just put this hole in the ground deeper where there aren't any ruins? Or better yet, why not connect it to the dungeon directly?"

The leveller with the needle turned back to his work, carefully lowering the thing down into the chimaera's chest cavity.

"Because the dungeon is directly below us, and if you knew then you wouldn't be asking for any connection to the dungeon, ever, or for this hole to be even this deep."

The man dripping healing potion on the opposite side of the chimaera shuddered. "For the love of god don't even suggest it to her, she might get it in her head to try again."

The young man gave him a puzzled look.

"It's…" the potion dripping leveller sighed. "It would be easy right? We connect the Abattoir directly to the dungeon and grab up all the monsters that we could ever need right? Don't even need to go near the surface except to fetch clients."

The young man nodded enthusiastically.

"Well that's what we used to do years and years back. The thing is, we didn't realise, we didn't know, they were watching us, waiting. They timed it so that the guard had just found us again, blowing down through the earth with magic, trying to dig us out. They chose that exact moment because they knew we would be most distracted. Hundreds of panthara surged up from the dungeon, killed half of all of us, and then crashed over the guards coming down like a wave, driving up and breaching into the slums."

The young man paled, suddenly looking quite ill.

"Th-that was because of us?!"

"Yep. Heard as many as twenty thousand people died once they reached the surface and started spreading out. The panthara knew what they were doing and exploited all they could out of it. Any other monster would have attacked on the first sighting of one of Quisitis's tunnels, but they were patient and they made plans." He tapped his cheek. "It's the barbells you see, the scaled tentacle things that float from their muzzles, they can pick up vibration, and any tunnel Quistis brings close they will know about. Hell they know we're here right now, there's god knows how many of the things clustered in the dungeon directly beneath us, hundreds and hundreds."

The young man looked sicker still at that thought.

"Ah, here we go," said the one working inside the chimaera, the new needle settled in place on one of its hearts. "Enough heart pins aimed at this things insides to rip it to shreds with a flick of a switch. No need for any smoke to keep it under control."

The potion leveller glanced down at the goat head. It's coal of a tongue, a blacked charred thing, was dangling from its mouth.

"So, you understand, yes? We can't get any monsters directly from the dungeon. The moment Quistis opens a way there are half a hundred panthara charging toward it at minimum. So now we get our monsters the old fashioned way, smuggled up through one of the official like castled entrances, bribing guards to let us carry through a dimensional bag, or drive a caravan through with a 'dead' but really just sedated monster under a blanket. Sedated much like this. Right I think we're done, ready to seal it back up?"

He slapped a hand down on the opened rib cage of the thing.

Which was unfortunate as it jerked the chimaera from its stupor.

The three levelers froze, looking down in horror as the goat head opened its eyes, blinking in the light and looking up at them. A moment frozen.

Then the pain of having its insides opened up hit it and it shrieked in rage, struggling and thrashing, one wing catching the leveller with the potion and breaking his arm, the other wing knocking over the tray full of needles. It struggled up, legs kicking wildly, blood splashing from its open body, braying and screaming and then launching itself free, flapping its wings as it caught air and shot over the top of the ruin walls.

The three horrified levelers took one look at each other and then ran after it.

"Quistis!! Quistis!! Help!!"

Rain chewed on the last tentacle thoughtfully as he watched them go. He had a plan involving the black stone now, a way to stop Quistis, probably.

A few steps from the hole in the wall and he was grabbing up the discarded dead panthara in passing, eating it as he returned to his cage, still pondering plans.

The goblin and harpy didn't seem particularly pleased to see him, and darted about the cage as he neared, practically fighting each other to get as far away from him as possible. He didn't mind, he was pretty full so they had nothing to fear from him.

He stepped back in as he ate the last of the panthara until there was only a leg left and turned and gripped the bars as he held the leg in his jaws. He then bent the bars back as they had been with far more ease compared to when he had first spread them. There was one thing to be said about levelling even if he didn't have a Class, levels on their own improved endurance and toughness and strength amongst other things and all synergised nicely with his own ability as a monster.

Rain sank down in the middle of the cage and crossed his legs, just as he had when first put inside, except now he was coated from head to toe in gore and looked like a truly feral thing that would rip a person's face off without hesitation.

He needed to be inside the cage because he wasn't certain he could have fit back through the bars after this. He ate the last of the panthara's leg and then he let all the held back and damned up growth flood into him.

It was a lot, and he jerked back with a ragged gasp, falling onto his back with a cage rattling thump as the result of eating tons and tons and tons of monster flesh crashed into him in a straining surge, trying to make him grow all at once.

"Hrnff!" A groan escaped his mouth as every last part of his body tensed up, a core deep strain as his muscles surged on mass, the feeling of his bones growing longer, joints popping and knuckles cracking as he scrabbled at the metal ground, claws cutting into it, in the throes of his own body become bestial. It was too much! His back arched up into the air as the most incredible feeling, the most intense morning stretch and strain ripped through him, feet slipping and sliding across the slick metal floor as his toes and digits curled and clenched before spreading as they pulsed larger. There was just so much growth! With every breath he could feel his chest becoming broader, his body bigger, thighs and arms thicker and heavier set with straining muscle, his teeth lengthening as his maw grew larger, more, more! His body swelled with more wolf, more muscle… and more power. No one who experienced this couldn't fail to become addicted, to become bigger and taller and stronger, more and more dominant. Like an ego trip but physical, outgrowing all others, revelling in the size difference, for himself, but also for Opal. If she wanted to feel smol and helpless against his mass then he would give her what she wanted, and more.

Rain slumped back with a choked gasp as the incredibly intense feeling of growth passed, leaving him lying limp and weak and spent on the ground, chest rising and falling like bellows.

He heard a small and very awed goblin voice from the other cage.

"What the fuuuuuck."

Rain couldn't help but grin hearing that, new larger wolf teeth shining in the dark.

Now he just needed to check through his new Skills.