MY DEVOURER SYSTEM

005. The Shadow Contract

The restricted sub-basement of the Vanguard Academy smelled like heavy radiation shielding and the faint, sweet rot of dead rifts. This was Sector 9—the biological waste facility where the bodies of monsters harvested by elite teams were brought to be drained of energy and burned.

To an ordinary cadet, it was a toxic dump. To Ren Kestrel, it was a free buffet.

"You're late, Cadet Kestrel," a smooth, aristocratic voice called out from the shadows of the massive metal storage vats.

Isolde Revenhall stepped into the dim light. She had traded her silver battlefield armor for a sleek, dark-purple military trench coat with the Revenhall family crest on the lapel. Behind her stood two silent, masked bodyguards.

Ren stopped five paces away, keeping his head slightly lowered to play the part of a weak subordinate. "The disciplinary squad delayed me, Lady Isolde. Corbin Reyes paid a visit to my room."

Isolde’s violet eyes narrowed a bit. "Corbin is a mad dog for the Halvern family. He’s a Tier-4 Beast-Soul user, meaning his physical speed and strength double when he fuses with his phantom panther. He intends to murder you during the Wilderness Selection next week."

"I figured as much," Ren said flatly.

"Then you understand why I am here," Isolde said, nodding to one of her guards. The guard stepped forward and opened a matte-black briefcase. Inside lay a gorgeous, midnight-blue combat undersuit made of tough graphene fibers, along with a pair of alloy daggers carved with glowing gravity runes.

"Academy rules forbid external armor during the selection exam," Isolde explained with a sharp smile. "But this is a Revenhall Aegis-Suit. It fits right under your standard uniform. It can absorb three deadly hits from a Tier-4 entity before breaking. The daggers will let you cut right through the defense of low-grade Abyssal beasts."

Ren looked at the gear. The System immediately scanned it in his field of vision:

[Item Detected: Revenhall Aegis-Suit (Grade: Rare)]

[Item Detected: Gravity-Etched Alloys (Grade: Uncommon)]

[System Note: Wearing these items will mask host's anomalous muscle density by projecting a false energy signature to external scanners.]

Perfect, Ren thought. This will completely hide my parasite growth from Corbin's tracking sensors.

"Thank you, Lady Isolde," Ren said, taking the briefcase. "But a protective suit won't keep me alive if an entire squad hunts me down. I need a favor. Something that costs you nothing, but guarantees I return to serve your house."

Isolde raised an eyebrow. "Oh? A Zero trying to negotiate? Speak."

"I need twenty minutes alone in the primary waste bay of Sector 9," Ren said, pointing to the massive, reinforced steel doors behind her labeled HAZARDOUS BIOMASS. "The academy throws away the unrefined, corrupted marrow of Tier-2 and Tier-3 beasts there before burning it. No one guards it because the radiation is lethal to normal humans."

Isolde stared at him, her violet eyes flashing with suspicion. She knew Ren had survived the Abyssal Stalker somehow. Now, he wanted to walk into a room full of toxic, corrupted monster guts.

"The radiation will rot your organs in ten minutes, Ren," she warned coldly.

"Let me worry about my organs," Ren replied, his eyes meeting hers with a sudden, icy certainty that made her guards instinctively step forward.

Isolde held his gaze for a long moment, then raised her hand to stop her guards. A sharp, amused laugh escaped her lips. "Fascinating. You really are a monster, aren't you? Fine. The security cameras in Sector 9 will experience a 'localized gravitational glitch' for exactly twenty minutes. Don't make me regret investing in you, Kestrel."

She turned around, her trench coat swirling as she and her guards vanished up the lift.

The moment the lift doors closed, the red indicator lights on the security cameras went dark.

Ren didn't waste a second. He walked to the heavy valve of the biomass vault, turning it with his massive strength until the heavy seal broke. A wave of freezing, green mist rolled out, carrying the nasty smell of raw Abyssal energy.

He stepped inside and slammed the heavy door behind him.

The vault was filled with massive open steel troughs. Inside lay the half-melted remains of high-grade rift monsters: severed limbs of Shadow Wolves, broken wings of Gargoyles, and chunks of armored Drake flesh—all leaking thick, glowing fluids.

[Warning: Extreme environmental toxicity detected.]

[Abyssal energy saturation: High.]

[Host's hunger meter is spiking: 88%. Primal urges rising.]

"Time to eat," Ren growled.

He lunged toward the nearest trough, dropping his human look entirely. The whites of his eyes turned pitch-black, his irises glowing a fierce, predatory gold. He plunged his hands into the corrupted monster meat, his [Devour] skill activating at maximum power.

Black, parasitic tendrils shot out from his palms, boring into the monster flesh, rapidly liquefying the meat and sucking the raw genetic data directly into his bloodstream.

The notifications inside his brain fired like a machine gun:

[Devouring Corrupted Shadow Wolf Marrow... Integrating...]

[Strength +1... Strength +1... Agility +2]

[Devouring Fragmented Gargoyle Skin... Integrating...]

[Physical Defense +5%]

[Devouring Low-Grade Drake Heart Remnants... Integrating...]

[Abyssal Mana Capacity Unlocked: 100/100]

[Hunger stabilized at 100%. Biological matrix reinforced.]

Ren stood in the center of the toxic vault, breathing heavily as the green mist was literally sucked into his pores. His body didn't grow bigger—the Devourer System compressed the mass—but his muscles felt like tightly coiled steel wire.

He pulled the sleek, midnight-blue Revenhall Aegis-Suit from the briefcase and slipped it on. It conformed to his skin perfectly, humming as it activated its masking frequency, completely hiding his explosive new power levels beneath a standard, weak cadet aura.

He picked up the gravity daggers, sheathing them at his waist, and wiped the remaining black residue from his lips.

The twenty minutes were up. The camera lights on the ceiling flickered back to red.

Ren walked out of the sub-basement and headed toward the upper training grounds. His face was completely calm, looking exactly like the weak, clumsy F-rank Zero the academy expected.

Let Corbin Reyes bring his entire squad into the Wilderness Selection. Let the Halvern family look forward to his corpse. They thought they were trapping a rat in the dark rifts, but they had no idea they were locking themselves in a cage with the apex predator.