Chapter 2: First Bite—Not the Goddess
The beast’s roar drew closer.
Cassian left the underground shrine and climbed back toward the surface. The instant he reached the final stair, a dark shape smashed through the dead brush to his side.
It ran on four legs, with gray-black fur and shoulders nearly a meter high. Its jaws split unnaturally far back, exposing two rows of saw-like teeth.
[Ash Hound]
[Level: 2]
[HP: 170]
[Core Trait: Blood Scent]
[Description: Can track wounded targets through even faint traces of blood.]
Cassian focused on the core trait.
Blood Scent. That was the valuable part.
The Ash Hound lunged.
Cassian stepped back half a pace. All he had was the starter shortsword issued by the system—no shield, no armor, and no troops. A normal Level 1 newcomer facing a Level 2 monster would at least have militia helping him.
Cassian had none.
Gray-black claws swept toward him. He twisted aside a fraction too late, and his coat tore open as three bloody lines appeared across his left arm.
The Ash Hound barely paused after landing. Its nostrils twitched, and it lunged again—faster this time.
Cassian’s gaze sharpened.
It was following the blood.
Blood Scent wasn’t just useful for tracking. At close range, it could also lock onto an injured area, and the hound’s second attack was aimed directly at his left arm.
Cassian stopped retreating and stepped forward instead.
The Ash Hound opened its jaws. Just before its teeth closed around him, Cassian snapped his elbow upward and deliberately offered the wounded arm.
The hound changed angle exactly as he expected, biting toward the strongest scent of blood.
Its throat opened to him.
Cassian drove the shortsword up beneath its jaw and through its neck.
The Ash Hound convulsed violently, but he kept hold of the blade until the last of its strength drained away.
[Ash Hound killed.]
[Territory Essence +8.]
[DEVOUR available.]
A golden panel unfolded at once.
[Devourable Core Trait: Blood Scent]
[Devour?]
"Devour."
A thread of dark-red light rose from the corpse like blood being drawn from a wound and sank into Cassian’s chest.
The world changed.
The air was suddenly full of details he had never noticed before: rotting soil, tree resin, the blood on his own left arm—and a faint, rancid animal scent seventeen meters behind and to his right.
Cassian turned.
A pair of green eyes stared at him from behind the brush.
[Blood Scent transformed.]
[Acquired: Bloodsense I]
[Effect: Enhances perception of blood, biological scents, and wounded targets.]
A second one.
The corner of Cassian’s mouth lifted, not because he had gained an ability, but because he already knew exactly where his next target was.
The brush exploded outward as another Ash Hound charged.
Cassian moved before it reached him and cut across its abdomen. The wound was shallow, but the hound roared and blood filled the air with a new scent.
Cassian could tell where it was flowing fastest—the left side of the abdomen, where his blade had gone deepest.
When the hound lunged again, he ignored its jaws and watched the wound instead. His sword drove through the same opening, tore into its organs, and dropped it to the ground.
[Ash Hound killed.]
[Territory Essence +8.]
No new ability appeared, which was exactly what Cassian expected. It was the same low-level monster with the same core trait; there was nothing new worth taking.
He flicked the blood from his sword.
A metallic clash sounded from the shrine entrance.
Veyra had made her way to the doorway. A dark-gold chain still clasped her right wrist and stretched back underground, clearly preventing her from going far.
"The second one was faster than the first," she said.
"I knew where it was."
"You didn’t before."
"I do now."
Veyra looked down at the first corpse, then back at Cassian. "You took something from it."
It wasn’t a question.
Cassian nodded. "Mm."
"What?"
"Its sense of smell."
Veyra studied him for a moment. "Just its sense of smell?"
Cassian met her gaze. "It’s only my first bite."
A short laugh escaped her. "You do have an appetite."
Bloodsense caught another scent before he could answer. This one was different—farther away, behind the trees, with an earthy musk mixed with something like rust.
Cassian started walking toward it.
Veyra frowned. "Where are you going?"
"Third one."
"You’re injured."
Cassian glanced at his left arm. "Not enough to kill me."
He kept walking.
Veyra didn’t stop him. She simply lifted one hand.
An impossibly thin beam of black light flashed from her fingertip. More than twenty meters away, it punched through a dead tree and struck the monster waiting behind it.
The creature went rigid. A thumb-sized hole had appeared through its chest, but it was still breathing when it fell.
Cassian stopped.
[Graveclaw]
[Level: 3]
[Core Trait: Predator Step]
[Status: Near Death]
Veyra leaned against the stone doorway. "A gift."
Cassian looked at her. "Why didn’t you kill it?"
"Don’t you prefer doing it yourself?"
Cassian smiled and walked over.
The Graveclaw was leaner than the Ash Hounds, with abnormally long limbs and hind-leg muscles drawn tight like bowstrings. If Veyra hadn’t attacked first, Cassian probably wouldn’t even have seen it clearly before it came out from behind the tree.
He crouched beside it and pressed his shortsword to its throat.
"Don’t do this next time."
Veyra raised a brow. "Hm?"
"Don’t damage it this badly."
"Why?"
"I don’t know whether DEVOUR has a completeness requirement."
For the first time, Veyra looked genuinely surprised. "You’re calculating depreciation on my help?"
"Good merchandise shouldn’t be broken before I take it."
Cassian pressed the blade down. Blood flowed, and the Graveclaw went still.
[Graveclaw killed.]
[Territory Essence +17.]
[DEVOUR available.]
[Core Trait: Predator Step]
[Devour?]
"Devour."
Dark light sank into his body, and heat spread through his legs.
It wasn’t raw strength. It was closer to a new physical instinct—an immediate awareness of balance, foot placement, angles of force, and distance. The stone pillar ten meters away suddenly felt much closer than it had a moment ago.
[Acquired: Predator Step I]
[Effect: Significantly enhances short-range burst movement.]
Cassian looked at the pillar and moved.
Bang!
Stone chips burst beneath his boots as his body shot forward. It wasn’t teleportation, but he was moving at least twice as fast as before.
Three steps later, he was already beside the pillar.
Veyra’s expression shifted slightly. "That came from the creature too?"
"Yeah."
"Permanent?"
"So far."
Veyra said nothing while Cassian walked back. She studied the young Lord who, less than half an hour ago, had been nothing more than a Level 1 mortal. In that short time, he had taken two abilities that had never belonged to him.
"Cassian."
"Mm?"
"What is your talent called?"
He paused. "Devour."
The shrine fell quiet.
For the first time, some of the casual indifference left Veyra’s gray-gold eyes.
"Devour," she repeated slowly. "No wonder."
"No wonder what?"
"No wonder you looked at me that way earlier."
Cassian smiled but let the subject drop. A new system notification had already appeared.
[Territory Essence: 33/100]
[Required for Domain advancement: 100]
Sixty-seven more.
Cassian looked toward the woods as the light continued to fade.
Veyra followed his gaze. "It’s almost dark."
"I know."
"The things that come out at night are more dangerous."
Cassian tightened his grip on the shortsword. "Then they’re worth more."
He walked straight into the forest.
Veyra remained at the doorway, watching him disappear among the trees. After a few seconds, she looked down at the dark-gold chain around her right wrist, then thought again of the name of his talent.
Devour.
The corner of her mouth slowly rose.
"A mortal who wants to eat gods..."
"Try not to die too soon."
——
Two hours later, Cassian pulled his shortsword from beneath the jaw of a Mire Viper. The snake’s body was still twitching.
[Mire Viper killed.]
[Territory Essence +18.]
[Current: 51/100]
[Core Trait detected: Toxin Resistance]
This time, he didn’t skip it.
"Devour."
A faint dark-green light was drawn from the corpse and sank into his body. The lingering numbness at the base of his tongue, left by a graze from the viper’s fang, quickly faded.
[Acquired: Toxin Resistance I]
[Effect: Increases resistance to common biological toxins and corruptive poisons.]
That made three abilities worth keeping.
From there, the pace of the hunt changed completely. Bloodsense found prey first, while Predator Step turned detection into pursuit. Cassian stopped wasting time on drawn-out fights; if he could kill something quickly, he did, and if its ability was ordinary, he barely spared the DEVOUR prompt a glance.
Half an hour later—
[Bonehide Boar killed.]
[Territory Essence +22.]
[Current: 73/100]
At the same time, the regional chat channel finally began to stir.
"Anyone over 50 Essence yet?"
"My C-grade Domain has six hunters and I’m only at 41."
"I’m at 29. Already lost a militia soldier."
"The monsters are getting stronger now that it’s night. Better not leave your Domain."
"How much does Rowan have?"
A name soon appeared.
[Rowan Ashford: 78]
The channel quieted noticeably.
"A-grade is ridiculous."
"Twelve Ash Spearmen is just unfair."
"He should rank up tonight."
Rowan didn’t respond. He was waiting for his seventy-ninth point of Essence.
On the other side of the dark forest, a Level 5 Nightfang Warg hit the ground.
Cassian had already used Predator Step to cut behind its flank. His shortsword went in beneath the ribs, Bloodsense found the strongest flow of blood, and his second thrust followed the same wound deep into the body.
The giant wolf crashed down.
[Nightfang Warg killed.]
[Territory Essence +30.]
[Current: 103/100]
Its core trait was nothing more than an ordinary bite enhancement. Cassian glanced at it and left it alone.
Then the regional obelisk flashed gold.
[Announcement.]
[A Lord has met the requirements for Domain advancement.]
Across the region, everyone looked up.
Rowan froze mid-motion.
A second later, the name appeared.
[Cassian Vale]
[Domain: Forgotten Shrine]
[Territory Essence: 103/100]
The regional channel went completely silent.
A few seconds passed before the first message appeared.
"...Who?"