Free Tier - Accidental Champion (Book 6) - Chapter 11 - The Devourer

Sometime ago…

The entity was fiercely intelligent, yet scarcely aware of itself. Emotions had not been relevant to its evolution, and so it had never had any need for them.

It had knowledge of emotions. It knew what they were, even if it had little way of understanding them. It had knowledge of a great many things, for the entity consumed everything it came into contact with.

Everything.

As it consumed, it adapted. It grew abilities based upon the things that it devoured. It devoured not only physical matter, but other types of matter and energies as well—it ate memories.

And souls.

The entity had once been nothing more than a single celled organism on the side of an asteroid. Long ago, it had grown large enough to envelop the entire asteroid.

The asteroid was bright blue. It glowed in a brilliant light as it made its way through the stars. It had long discovered how to circumvent the small laws that the universe tried to use to pin it down and was able to travel faster than the speed of light. The entity, however, wasn’t in any sort of rush. It had all eternity with which to move from one sector to another.

The entity thrived at the edge of space, where the System was still making its slow crawl across everything that was and ever would be.

It had an awareness of the System. It took in the information the System fed it with a great eagerness, for the System helped it order itself. But there was more—the entity had travelled in space for so long that it could feel the System’s presence.

There were few who travelled beyond the edges of integrated space. The entity knew this. It had devoured the memories of trillions upon trillions of Denizens and beasts an untold number of years, and through all of that it had encountered but a smattering of different beings that had travelled that far into the black.

The entity had travelled that far.

It had travelled farther. It knew of the System’s ways.

The entity could safely travel outside of integrated space without the influence of the System hindering it. It noticed when the notifications stopped coming. It noticed when the information within itself no longer felt ordered in the same way—when it couldn’t bring up a list of its own properties on a whim.

But devouring beyond the edges of integrated space was something it enjoyed greatly. It felt little resistance when it moved through this space, consuming everything it came upon just as it would wherever else it lurked.

It had just devoured an entire world on the outside edge of the Night Realm sector. The Night Realm was perhaps the youngest sector the entity had ever encountered. Many of the planets had only been integrated into the System for several centuries—at least near the edge—while those closer to the previous sector had been integrated for several thousands of years.

The entity knew its presence in the Night Realm sector had been noticed by the inhabitants. Beams of power had already shot toward it while it moved from one star to another.

It consumed the energy beams, taking the damage, turning that damage into power of its own. These people could not harm it.

Nothing could harm it.

The beams of energy were a vivid purple. They crashed into the asteroid but were swiftly consumed. The power bubbled within the entity, making it feel the only thing it could feel—more hunger.

It moved toward the direction of the energy beams. Something else was heading its way. Something that intrigued the entity, for it was rare that it would see its like—a vehicle was travelling through the void of space toward him.

These beings have developed spaceflight.

The thought drifted through its mind. The thought was not its own—not really. It was from one of the memories it had devoured along the way. With all the memories the entity had eaten, it was slowly taking on different personality traits.

Along the way, it was even developing a personality of its own. It did not care about this. It did not care about anything but the hunger it felt and the things that it devoured.

The Devourer comes.

Another thought that wasn’t its own. The entity had a name—a System given name—that the Denizens it consumed always seemed to know.

The Devourer.

It was one of its many names. Along with The End. The World Destroyer. And simply Death.

The asteroid was on a collision course with the starship. It was this ship that was shooting those purple beams of energy toward it. As the entity observed the ship, it noticed a wide panel on the top of the ship slid away. The starship was opening. A being stepped out and onto the top of the starship.

This being didn’t wear a spacesuit—it, he—was clearly able to survive in the void of space, much as the Devourer could survive.

The man looked to be an elf. He had pointed ears that stuck out of his pale white hair. He summoned something to his hand—the Devourer had seen its like before.

An elven archer. Powerful, if able to survive in the void.

The archer summoned an arrow from his inventory and nocked it, then began loosing one arrow after the other rapidly straight at the asteroid.

These were not things the Devourer could so easily consume. The arrows cut through its protections and dug into the rock of the asteroid itself—the thing that had become the entity’s body.

But the Devourer did not register pain.

Several more beings came from the top panel of the starship, wielding a myriad of different weapons. Every single one of them was an elf like the archer. Spells were flung the asteroid’s way as melee fighters launched themselves in the air toward the Devourer.

Come to me.

The personality that was developing within the Devourer felt a sense of pleasure at its enemies making its job easier. The Devourer itself was ambivalent—it simply wished to feed.

The asteroid cast several of the many spells that was in its possession.

Animate Souls.

Lend Power.

Protect.

Shell.

Touch of the Devourer.

Several things happened in quick succussion—the first spell created a being in the void of space that materialised as though from nothing.

This being wore a white suit of armour. It looked male and vaguely human, except for the pointed ears and the horns on either side of his head.

It wasn’t an elf, nor a demonkin.

It was a Soul Amalgamation, a being created from the very souls that the Devourer had consumed over the years.

This was what possessed the burgeoning personality that had been developing inside the entity for several thousand, or perhaps millions, of years—the Devourer had little care, nor need, for the concept of time.

The Soul Amalgamation smiled widely. He was a bastardised mix of many beings, not looking quite like any of them. His teeth were filed to sharp points, as were the tips of his fingernails.

A weapon materialised into the being’s hands. The Soul Amalgamation had been a persistent personality for many years now, so many that it had eventually named itself—”Amal.”

Amal gripped the great sword he had formed. He could form any weapon he wished, and wield them all with great skill, for his skills were that of the souls devoured.

Amal shot forward through space as the second spell the Devourer cast slammed into him. A bright blue light engulfed Amal, and he mentally breathed in the power of it.

It infused every layer of his being. Notifications swept past Amal’s vision, numbers he didn’t care to read, flowing past in a flash. He pushed them away.

The Soul Amalgamation didn’t often get to fight within the void.

Protect and Shell hit Amal next. The first spell would help him against magical attacks, while the second would help him against physical attacks. Amal was not susceptible to mental damage—he didn’t strictly have a mind, for his mind was the mind of the Devourer itself, even if only a small portion of it, and the Devourer’s mind could not be pierced.

A white light, then a green light, enveloped him, then shrunk until they left a slight glow on his skin. The spells in action.

Then a red light engulfed him as the final spell, Touch of the Devourer, hit him.

This was the spell he had been waiting for. Void! The feeling was intoxicating. Amal was filled with the very same hunger that the Devourer itself possessed, only within him he could control it to a certain degree.

His appearance seemed to light a fire under the elven Denizens that were currently attacking the Devourer. Amal had seen this countless times. The asteroid was an odd target, and a hard to damage one.

But him? He looked like any other Denizen—a target they were used to. Something they could poke a stick at and make bleed.

Or so they thought, for Amal didn’t bleed.

The elven archer loosed arrows at Amal. They slammed into his Shell barrier and ricocheted away into the void without so much as making a sound. The silence, he knew, would be strange and eerie to his enemies. He enjoyed how unsettled it made them.

Those arrows had a deadly power in them. A power he knew would be strong enough to explode a small moon.

Spells came his way then, from the mages that swam in the void—great big balls of fire that would be strong enough to cut through a planet and burn out its core. Wild bolts of energy powerful enough to topple mountains. And a dearth of mental attacks that Amal could feel, mental attacks that could influence a million Denizens at once, but did not a thing to him.

True C Grades. Every single one of them.

Amal scanned them. They had protections against scanning, but he blundered past those protections with force, revealing that one of the Denizens—a muscular elf with a large battleaxe in their hands—was B Grade.

The B Grade hurtled through the void toward Amal, the battleaxe glowing fiercely. The elf’s mouth was open in some sort of battle cry, but the sound was lost to the nothingness. The battle cry seemed to infuse the elf with power, making him move even more swiftly.

The wide smile that Amal had taken on when he’d materialised had not faltered for a single instant. Now, it only broadened, to a point where no human, nor demonkin, nor elf, would be able to imitate the expression themselves.

This was what Amal enjoyed the most about being summoned into existence. The thrill of fighting. The Devourer could crush every single one of these beings with a spell, but it needed to touch them to consume them.

That, the Devourer had found, could be difficult in certain circumstances.

The Devourer was strong enough to destroy an entire world simply by hurtling toward it. Its mass, if not stopped by the world’s inhabitants, would be more than enough.

But so much of that world would be lost—unable to be Devoured. And so, over the many years of its existence, it had developed better ways in which it could consume.

The Soul Amalgamation was one of them, and since the Devourer’s first use of it, that burgeoning personality had been getting stronger and stronger, to the point where it was able to influence the Devourer into summoning it even when it wasn’t strictly necessary.

The B Grade elf with the battleaxe came close enough to swipe at Amal. Amal glided to the left. He had full control of his movement in the void, able to fly in it as though he was born to it—and he supposed he had been.

His sword flashed out, denting the armour that the elf wore.

Only a dent.

That came as a small surprise to Amal, who was so used to cutting through anything and everything in his path.

He was a little surprised, too, that this sector even had C Grades this strong, let alone a B Grade, what with it being on the ass-end of the universe.

The elf whirled, once again swinging its battleaxe. The elf was fast—almost as fast as Amal—and caught him in the upper thigh. A spell detonated on impact. Amal felt the pain—even though he was a Soul Amalgamation, and not a true living being, pain was something he was rather familiar with.

It was also something he enjoyed. Feelings were intoxicating to him, and the stronger he felt them the better.

His smile broadened even further, cutting deep into the side of his face, to the point where all his sharp teeth were visible.

The B Grade axe-wielding elf widened his eyes at the sight of such insanity, before sending a barrage of attacks toward Amal.

Amal swiftly blocked the attacks. Though pain was something he enjoyed feeling, he knew this B Grade could do him real damage. If he was destroyed during this fight, it might lower the chances of the Devourer summoning him into being again in the near future.

Being destroyed also had an effect on his personality. Every time he’d been destroyed, he’d felt it slowly eating at him. He would come back, but he would come back different.

Unlike the Devourer, Amal had enough self-awareness to care about such things. He wanted to remain himself.

And he wanted to devour.

Amal’s weapon shifted into anything he needed it to be as he fought. Soon, the battleaxe was disarmed from the elf’s grip. It went flying through the void, and the likelihood of it ever being recovered by any being until the universe’s end was… Infinitesimal.

Disarmed, the elf brought his hands up in fists, but Amal could tell he was resigned to his fate—he knew he thought a losing battle. Knew that he would soon be defeated.

But it was a battle he’d needed to fight.

A part of Amal understood that.

Amal’s weapon dematerialised. His claws elongated, and he fell upon the elf, ripping through his armour and into the flesh beyond.

Touch of the Devourer activated. All the energies that made up the being before Amal began to be consumed. He felt the thrill of the power entering him, even as it was filtered back into the Devourer itself.

And Amal felt the memories. These, he kept. These, he coveted. These were the building blocks that helped to further solidify his personality.

This was what he craved the most from these battles. More than the power, he hungered for memories, for personality, for feeling.

One by one, he experienced the elf’s memories. There was a dearth of them. Going back two thousand years. From when the elf was a child, and his father had handed him his first battleaxe. From when he was integrated into the System and finally got to choose the class of Warrior, just like his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather before him. Memories of when he stepped into the Tower of Champions and cleared floor after floor with a party of Denizens he’d known since he was barely able to stand—members of that very same party stood at his back even now.

All these memories flooded into Amal until he knew the elf intimately. Until he had almost become the elf. He knew the village he was born in. The city he moved to. The wives and many children he fathered along the way. The world he protected.

The world he failed to protect.

Avesmari.

The B Grade hadn’t merely been the protector of a single world, but the protector—the ruler—of a hundred worlds. He was the High King Aerathin of the Varian Court.

Or, he had been.

Now, he was dead.

Amal moved onto the other Denizens hovering in the void before him.

One by one, they were consumed, their starship destroyed.

The Devourer changed its course toward the planet Avesmari.

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