I could feel my blood boil from the power that was appearing inside my body, this was something that I had never felt before, regardless of all of the hard training that I had done under Mikutsuhi.

It was very strange. Could that amount of blood I ingested from the youngster in front of me be the reason this happened?

There was no other trigger, so this was the most logical conclusion.

I could feel my vision swim as my head started hurting. The body in front of me was still warm, so I needed to get rid of it as quickly as possible. There was no time to faint now!

I could feel images appear in my head as some sort of seal inside of my body was broken, and my guesses were proven right.

My power had slowly increased, and my injury sealed itself due to the blood I unconsciously drank.

This was something that everyone could do, the innate ability of devouring!

Everyone would awaken these memories the first time they drank/ate someone with special abilities.

It was more of a curse, to say the least, and the reaction from my brain was even more intense since I drank the blood of someone from my own race!

Cannibalism was something that never crossed my mind, but I wasn't disgusted by it. I killed and pillaged, and the number of bodies that bloodied my hands was in the triple digits. Would it change anything if I added cannibalism to my sins?

From what I understood, cannibalism/devouring was one of the ways to advance in strength, I wasn't sure about my talent, but eating was simple and quick, there was no reason to suffer for long times like I had when I trained under Mikutsuhi, it was very convenient.

Strength was something that I needed if I wanted to survive in this world, and I was already wanted by the kingdom where I lived. Increasing my strength as soon as possible was the best way to close the chapter of my old life and open up the new one!

I just wanted to see what happened to my mother, and then I could leave this wretched country behind and live another life.

The body below me was getting cold quickly, and now I had a good way to get rid of it.

My strength increased slightly after I ingested the youngster's blood and I was looking forward to seeing the next increase after I ate his body!

I slowly ripped off a piece of meat from his body, but I turned my nose away, eating human meat consciously was still somewhat hard to do, but I endured and put the piece of meat in my mouth, chewing and swallowing.

The meat was tender and bloody, of course,  as it was uncooked, but there was no time for that.

The body in front of me lost its legs, arms, torso, and lastly head, eating the whole body took me a while, but it almost felt like I had an endless hole in my stomach that wanted to be filled, I was never satiated as I ate the youngster body, the only things left were his armor and sword, somehow my teeth started to sharpen during my eating frenzy, and I even ate the bones.

They elongated a little bit, and when I poked them on my tongue, I could feel their sharpness as I drew a little bit of blood from my tongue.

The pain from before hit me like ten thousand cattle on my chest, it looked like devouring a person didn't come without side effects, but I withstood the pain as I trashed on the forest floor, making sure to avoid the pool of blood, I didn't need the sharp smell of blood on my body, I already smelled bad enough, adding the smell of blood ontop would make me too conspicuous for experts.

Unfortunately, no more memories awakened from me eating the youngster's whole body, but I could feel some new things in my body.

It almost feel as if two hearts were now beating in my body instead of one, but the new heart was beating very slowly and weakly. It was almost as if a new person was being born in my body.

A very strange sensation, but I could feel my strength increasing every second after the pain had receded.

I was almost ten to twenty times stronger than what I was initially, and I think that if I from this moment fought the youngster once again, I would be able to easily decimate him!

I clenched my fist as I looked down at the armor and sword before deciding to bury them away from the pool of blood just to give any possible pursuers two leads and confuse them. But before I did so, I retrieved my sword and put it on my waist, I was no swordsman, but it was better to have a weapon, both for intimidation and increased attack range/power.

Living as a bandit taught me quite a lot of ways to escape and confuse pursuers as I learned well from all of my ex-comrades.

After making sure I buried the weapons a good distance away from the pool of blood, I went to find a nearby river where I could fully cleanse my body and get rid of all of the smells that gathered upon it, making the task of tracking me harder to do.

After I found the river, I took off my shabby clothes

I jumped into the river, letting my sword and clothes rest on the land a little farther away from the river so they wouldn't be swept in.

As I took a bath in the river, I looked down at my reflection, I could see some physical changes appearing, my former blue pupils were slowly turning dark, and some tufts of hair were already growing out of my bald head, which was very quickly considering I only shaved my head a few days ago.

My teeth sharpened, I was slowly growing another hand, and now all of these physical changes slowly made me different from the person in the wanted poster, this was quite a good thing.

******************

Unknowingly to Minato, a strong man with long braided blonde hair who wore heavy armor with a cross and shield symbol on the chest piece was relaxing three hundred meters away from the river. Not far away from him leaned a mighty war hammer, resting on a sturdy tree and leaving a dent both in the ground below, and the sturdy tree.

He was seemingly napping, but his voice was rather loud as he said in his sleep:

"Where did that useless kid go? I swear if he dies pursuing that bandit group, I need to find another piece of trash to take as my apprentice. What a hassle!"