Depthless Hunger

Over the next day they rushed out of the city while Omilaena explained what she'd discovered. Kai didn't understand the details of the reagents and materials she'd used to come to her conclusion, which she threw out excessively in her haste, but the basic idea was clear enough: she'd found where the demons were manufacturing their anti-glamour obelisks.

"And this shipment is the big one," Omilaena said from the driver's seat of the diamond star. She still hadn't explained exactly where they were going other than further north. "Maybe the last one before the demons try to take action. Their security will probably never have more flaws than now."

"So what do we do?" Kai asked. "Destroy the work?"

"Are you insane? That would put us in the middle of the Commonwealth with a bunch of demons and maybe even Matiavel himself coming after us." Omilaena trapped her fingernails against the crystals sharply. "No. Ideally we'd get a sample, but we already brought back the previous one and they'd probably notice. Diagrams would be good. Shipment routes and other plans. If we give them all that information, we'll have more than earned the Council's boon."

"How much time do we have?" Zae Zin Nim had seemed oddly displeased for some time, but she was completely focused now that they approached their destination.

"Until things get violent? Hard to say. Until our window closes? Days, not weeks. It sounded like they were getting ready to move."

There weren't many other details they could discuss until they got close, which wasn't long. Most of the Commonwealth countryside was hills, fields, and forests, so the cleared region stuck out like a sore thumb. Parts of it reminded him of the box-like building with the smoke-belching cauldrons, but this one had a large spiked wall surrounding it. Before getting any closer Omilaena pulled the craft away, keeping them barely in range with their enhanced senses.

"They're making the obelisks in there," Omilaena said. "Unfortunately, it looks like it's sealed up pretty tight."

"I see qi-absorbing materials," Zae Zin Nim said. "They'd be hard to break at all, and likely impossible to do quietly."

"And of course their chakra defenses are durable. No sneaking in easily."

Both women turned toward Kai, who could only shrug. "I'm not really an expert at this sort of thing, but I can feel mana running through the foundations of that wall. Should we assume they covered all their bases?"

"Elemental powers wouldn't work; I think those towers will draw in energy." Omilaena rapped her fingernails in a rapid rhythm as she thought. "Looks like their security mainly exists to prevent theft or slow down an attack. I didn't get information on personal security, but we can assume they have people strong enough to back up all this."

"Then stealth is our only option?" Zae Zin Nim asked. "I fear as a cultivator I have never had much use for stealth."

"I'm sure they'd block all the obvious techniques. Which just leaves..."

They were both looking at him again and he knew he didn't have any expertise to offer, then he realized what they meant. "Me?" Kai gestured vaguely at himself. "How many times have you joked about me being a big barbarian smashing through everything?"

"What you are is someone using abilities that fall outside what anyone is expecting." Omilaena smiled and put a hand on his shoulder. "They might have a few defenses for a monster attack, but they're definitely not expecting an intelligent monster to try and sneak in."

"But I don't have any stealth techniques."

"That doesn't sound like a problem to me, just a mandate."

.

..

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The first thing they did was fly into a nearby forest and locate the first stealthy monster they could find: a predatory cat with fur that blended into the shadows. It was just a gamma-ranked threat, so Kai killed and ate it almost immediately. That left him to figure out the essence while the others rushed off to see what they could find.

He could incorporate the stealthy essence into his soul easily enough, but it didn't actually make him any stealthier. If he used it long enough, would his skin become mottled in the same way? Creeping around made him feel vaguely ridiculous, especially because he couldn't find any other useful monsters.

At first he'd thought that he could hunt monsters throughout the Commonwealth while steadily building up his skills with stealth, but he'd run across surprisingly few. The fact that monsters technically existed everywhere didn't mean they were ubiquitous, especially ones as strong as he needed. It seemed like the Commonwealth had its own territory largely under control, so he worried that the others wouldn't be able to find much.

It was perhaps an irony that Deadwaste, so poor in every other category, could be considered rich in monsters. He briefly even considered that might be the reason he'd been able to develop monstrous powers, but he rejected the idea quickly - if that was the case, the ability would have appeared many more times. The only takeaway was that he couldn't always count on being able to hunt monsters to advance.

When Omilaena returned in the diamond star it looked like she came empty-handed and he worried that the plan wasn't going to work, but then she handed him a monster core trapped in crystal.

"This is from something called a Mutefang," she explained. "It's a giant snake that moves and strikes completely silently. You might not have the scales, but I'm willing to bet you can make it work."

"I'll certainly try." Kai considered whether to crack the crystal and then just swallowed the entire thing. "How'd you get this so quickly?"

"I bought it, of course. We're fairly rich and we're in the middle of the crossroads of the whole continent."

Kai never felt as connected to monstrous abilities he hadn't eaten himself, but that fact didn't eliminate the essence the core contained. He realized that some of what he'd lost in the past probably had to do with not fully understanding its attributes. Thanks to all his work with the Thunderbird essence, he was getting better at feeling out the nature of a beast.

The Mutefang had been an excellent choice by Omilaena, so he switched to testing it. With surprising ease the basics of its essence worked, allowing him to walk almost silently. If he stepped directly on a branch it still cracked, though, so he had to be cautious and brush up on his hunting techniques.

"This is the best I can find." Zae Zin Nim caught up to him, dragging something in some sort of net. When she opened the net, a human-length slime flopped out and a hideous stench rose. Its body appeared to be made of nearly clear slime, and it was hard to feel with his spiritual senses, but he felt like he could detect it by smell alone.

"That is foul," he said as it inched away.

"Eat the slime, Kai."

He swallowed it in two bites, but even his endless hunger couldn't make it taste good.

On the second day they brought back fewer monsters with less useful essence. Kai realized that a large part of their success might depend on him and his training, and he was glad that he'd spent so long mastering the processes involved with monstrous fusion. Trying to rush everything now without that experience could have been disastrous.

Some of the other abilities only sort of worked, many of them highly dependent on monster bodies. His thoughts wandered back to the Savage Heart and its capacity to transform... if he learned it, could he change himself and use more abilities effectively? It would have been incredibly convenient if Atavan had just taught him the technique, but instead fate just mocked him with the knowledge that there was a solution beyond his reach.

Eventually he found a workable balance and fused the monsters with one another, then finally into the serpent essence until he developed an ability he called Mutefang's Stealth. It began at Gamma rank and he managed to increase it to Delta with training - he wasn't invisible, but he was a lot stealthier than he had been without monstrous support.

On the third day his allies were clearly scraping the bottom of the barrel. Most of the monster cores they brought were only suitable for feeding into his new ability, which he eventually managed to increase to Epsilon. Unfortunately, he thought that had more to do with the ability's potential being limited than his growth being exceptional. If he ever took more time to develop a true stealth skill, this one would probably just be fodder for the main components.

When they hit the fourth day and all returned with few options, Kai was ready to say they'd done as much as they could. They crept as close as they dared on foot to examine the obelisk construction site, and Omilaena seemed to be able to guess a surprising amount about its layout. He wanted to ask her about that, but this wasn't the time.

As for the plan itself, it was nothing elaborate: he'd have to hope that his stealth ability was good enough to slip through all the energy defenses. The location was lightly guarded beyond that, presumably to avoid leaks or sabotage, so he just needed to evade the defenders and gather everything he could. It seemed understandable, if not easy.

And then, while they were still discussing the details, they saw a demon walk out onto the roof. Her purple eyes glittered even from a distance, scanning everything around her. Zae Zin Nim let out a small sigh and sat back as if she'd given up.

"Is that a demon or a demonic arts user?" Kai asked. "I didn't sense anyone like that earlier."

"Definitely a true demon," Omilaena said, "which means Matiavel sent one of his thirty to handle this."

"Do we hope she leaves again?"

"There's no time. You might as well sleep early today, Kai... we'll have to do it tonight."