Reincarnated with the Country System-Chapter 255: The Devourer 2

"What was that creature?" asked Commander Vren, Kaelen's chief of science and tech.

Kaelen didn't look at her.

"Don't know," he said. "But it's a S rank threat."

Across the ridgeline, Marrak watched the storm rise like a god's wrath. His cloak flapped in the wind, the sand grinding against his scaled skin.

"Report?" he said.

Sael crouched beside a fallen outcrop, her sharp eyes scanning the battlefield. Behind her, runners ferried messages, wounded, and spare quivers. Fires burned where drones once stood. And yet—there was no triumph in her face.

"Seventeen injured. Four dead. The Devourer returned to the lower strata. The machines are broken, but not gone."

Marrak nodded. "They will rebuild."

"They always rebuild," Sael said softly. "But now they know fear."

He looked down into the dust-shrouded canyon, where the once-mighty Juggernauts had vanished like children's toys in a flood. His voice was quiet.

"They came to tame the desert. But it is not theirs to tame."

Inside the medbay of Hammerfall, screams punctuated the antiseptic hum of machinery. A burn technician worked feverishly over a soldier whose legs had been mangled by debris. Another was removing shrapnel from a scout's abdomen. Blood smeared the floor in shallow pools.

Kaelen passed through the corridor without pause. He had seen enough blood in his life to know that guilt was a luxury, and sentiment was death's shadow. He entered the secondary strategy chamber, where the topographical readouts had been recalibrated.

"Pull all units back to Ridge Nine," he said. "I want aerial mapping recon. No more ground advances until we know what we're standing on."

A junior officer hesitated. "Sir, that will delay the objective timetable by—"

Kaelen turned his head, and the officer fell silent under the weight of his stare.

"We're not hunting rebels anymore," he said. "We're surviving them."

Three hours later, a quiet fell over the gorge.

The Empire's advance halted. Juggernauts shifted back into holding formations. Striders, still functional, were ordered to perimeter patrol only. Stormwings buzzed along the upper canyon thermals, scanning cautiously—never lingering too long in one place.

Inside the Black Sand Clan's subterranean assembly chamber, Marrak stood before a torch-lit gathering of elders and warriors. The floor was smoothed clay, stamped with generations of Chameleari clan symbols.

"The Devourer has eaten," said Elder Haren. "The canyon remembers our sacrifice."

"But will it rise again?" asked another.

"It was not summoned," Sael interjected. "Only disturbed. It sleeps now—but the Empire is not finished. They will send more."

Marrak stepped forward. His silhouette loomed against the flame-dance behind him.

"Let them. For every tower they raise, the sand will take it back. For every machine they send, the wind will scatter it. And for every soldier they send through these canyons, they will learn the one lesson no empire dares to remember—you cannot conquer a land that will not be ruled."

There was silence. Then a rumble of quiet assent.

"We begin relocation tonight," Marrak continued. "The clans move east. Phase Two begins at moonrise."

Back in Hammerfall, Kaelen reviewed the post-battle analysis. A flickering holo-record showed the worm's eruption in real time—paused, enhanced, scanned frame-by-frame.

It didn't make sense.

The creature's hide was denser than tank plating. The speed with which it moved… biologically impossible. It ignored thermal signatures. Seemed to hunt vibration.

Kaelen turned to Vren. "How many of these things are out there?"

"We don't know," she replied. "There are myths. Chameleari songs, oral histories. They speak of Desert Fathers, or Buried Beasts. But no confirmed sightings in over a century."

"Until now."

"Yes."

Kaelen tapped the console slowly.

"This war is different," he said finally. "The rebels aren't just resisting. They're rooted. They're fighting with the land, not just on it."

"So what do we do?" asked his communications officer.

Kaelen looked out over the desert again, where the sun was beginning to sink into rust-colored clouds.

"We stop pretending we understand it."

That night, in the far reaches of the Eastern Crags, Sael sat alone beside a low fire. She was sharpening a curved obsidian blade, her mind still full of worm-roars and crumbling Juggernauts.

Marrak joined her.

"You did well," he said.

She didn't respond immediately. Finally:

"I don't like using the Devourer. It is not… controllable."

"It is not meant to be."

"It could have turned on us."

"Yes."

She looked at him. "Then why take the risk?"

Marrak tilted his head, his reptilian eyes reflecting the firelight.

"It is for our survival . We build from purpose. Fear ends when you defeat the source. But purpose? Purpose spreads."

He leaned forward, his voice quiet.

"We are not here to win battles. We are here to outlast their will to fight them."

Far beneath the earth, in tunnels older than memory, the Devourer curled back into slumber.

It did not know war. Did not know rebels or empires.

It knew only rhythm—drums of footsteps, pulse of pressure, the taste of machine-vibration on the roots of the world.

It would sleep again.

But it would remember the scent.

"There are victories in silence. And wars won in waiting." — Chameleari Tactical Codex, Leaf 7