LEVEL 0 IMMORTAL-Chapter 91: You Shall Feast

Elias watched these six cannibals, observing that while they looked human, their features had some beastlike traits, but Elias knew instinctively that these were men who had been twisted.

Their eyes had no white in them, leaving them with a black wet void, and their teeth were serrated and sharp, made for ripping and tearing,

With broad shoulders, a thin waist, and small legs, they would easily be able to walk on all fours as well as an animal, and like the first one that attacked him, the six suddenly screamed bloody murder in their weird language that the Passenger must have disdained to interpret because it was silent.

Their charges were fierce and without coordination, and the slight apprehension he had in his heart faded away as Elias watched every single move they were making, and then he moved, not content to allow them to reach him.

They moved like animals, and such raw and primal brutality was something Elias innately understood. If these had been trained warriors, he would have been more cautious, but in the path of primal savagery, Elias was a special case.

The first came low, trying to hamstring him like a wolf would do to a cornered prey... that was a mistake.

Elias pivoted, knee rising, and drove it upward into the cannibal’s chin. The jaw shattered as teeth sprayed like dice. The man flipped backward, neck broken before he hit the ground.

His strength had not yet reached the hundred-point mark, but with the enhancement of his Ascendant Swarm and his trait as a hunter, every move he made carried extra damage and weight.

The body of the first cannibal had not even touched the ground when two more leapt from the sides with claws outstretched and mouths gaping.

It was the classic moveset by pack hunters, as the first was meant to maim, and these two would harass, distracting the prey from the killing blow. Elias almost felt insulted, and the thrill growing in his blood began to die down.

With a bit of anger in his eyes, Elias caught one by the wrist, twisted, and used the momentum to slam the other face-first into the forest floor.

"BOOM.... CRUNCH!"

He heard and felt cartilage crunch and blood fountained into the air. Elias paused as if to admire the two bodies groaning in pain with their shattered bodies, and then he stomped downward once, his heel through the back of the skull of the target below the first that he had used as a hammer, neatly decapitating him.

His senses were already telling him that the fourth was close, and he spun around, still dragging the first man into the path of a fourth attacker. The cannibal’s claws raked across his own brother’s chest instead.

With a move that surprised him, the attacker, seeing that he had not touched Elias, retreated.

"Oh, you are not all dumb," Elias muttered as he released the wrist of the cannibal he had been using as a weapon. The man was nearly half dead as he fell to his knees, and Elias looked down at him for a brief moment before he drove an elbow through his throat.

He felt the windpipe flatten a moment before he crushed the spine. The vitality of a Fury Forge allowed the man to choke on his blood for too long before he died.

There were seven targets when he landed, and in a few seconds, four were dead, and the last three circled him with wariness, fear beginning to emerge in the depths of their eyes.

Elias knew that his time in the Fragment had changed him, but he was still not used to the ease of killing, and he almost hated it.

His Talent, his real talent, demanded that he be brought to the limit so he could grow, and anything short of that made him upset.

Elias knew that these feelings were not normal, but an effect of awakening an Elder Talent, and in battle, he could fight it or go along with it, but Elias chose to control it; anything else felt like a mistake.

He had been in his head for barely a second, but the last three had not attacked; they still circled him. Perhaps it was the broken bodies of four of their people that surrounded Elias that made them wary.

However, this state did not last for long; they began to growl as a feral state seemed to be taking over their minds.

The growling deepened, as Elias almost felt as if the minds of these creatures were being suppressed as their aggression was clearly rising.

One held the femur of his prey like a club, the second clutched a jagged stone he had picked on the ground, and the last simply bared bloodied teeth and hissed at him.

Elias flexed his fingers, and his fingernails popped out into claws. The fact that these three were beginning to show any hint of caution was enough for Elias to increase his wariness and treat them like more dangerous prey.

A part of his new instincts may disdain weak prey, but Elias would never allow those instincts to rule his actions. Even if it were the lowest of prey, he would still use all of his strength.

Elias could feel the resolve to attack increase in the hearts of the cannibals, and he could even see it, as the Lumina beneath their skin rushed towards their heads and core.

’That was a bit odd,’ Elias thought, ’Should I be able to see the Lumina inside the bodies of others?’

His thoughts were interrupted as the one with the femur rushed towards him with the bone raised up while screaming like a bull.

Elias sidestepped the careless charge, claws flashing upward, and the arm holding the bone separated at the elbow.

The cut was clean, and surprisingly bloodless for half a second, then, as if the body of the man was remembering he needed to bleed, the stump erupted with blood.

For half a second, the man stared at his bleeding stump, and then he screamed. Elias was not fond of torturing his targets, especially those who were weaker than him; it felt like a senseless waste of time and energy.

He stepped closer to the screaming man and drove the claws from his left hand through the roof of his mouth, and his hand burst out the top of his skull. Elias stepped back, and the body spasmed once and dropped.

The remaining two, despite seeing the death of the first, seemed to be resigned to death as they rushed together, with just stone and teeth.

Elias dropped low, dodging both their attacks, his arms crossing in an X. The first cannibal’s stone shattered against the right claws, as he took that weapon out of the picture, and the jaws of the second man snapped shut on empty air.

He rose inside their reach, arms uncrossing in a scissor motion, and he felt the slight tug of resistance as the man on the left had his throat opened from ear to ear, while the other was split from groin to sternum, with his guts spilled in steaming ropes.

Neither man could even scream as they collapsed in a wet tangle, twitching, as life rushed out of their bodies.

The fight was done, and now he would feast.