Beast Devourer: I Grow Stronger by Eating Monsters

Raven discovered at midnight that the Prototype Rifle’s greatest enemy wasn’t pressure.

It was a difference of less than a quarter of a second.

The workshop was silent except for the scrape of metal, the low crackle of an oil lamp, and Valeria’s breathing from the other side of the room. The provisional assembly occupied almost the entire main table, while tools, metal fragments, and strips of conductive tendon covered what little space remained.

FORGE kept an incomplete representation suspended across his vision.

[PROJECT: PROTOTYPE RIFLE.]

[Core Systems: 5/6.]

[Projectile Stabilization: INCOMPLETE.]

[Assembly Stability: 58%.]

He had started the night at fifty-one.

Seven points in almost four hours wasn’t fast progress, but at least the parts had stopped trying to turn themselves into shrapnel.

Raven held a secondary valve between two fingers and studied the activation sequence again. The Impulse Spark initiated the cycle, the Reservoir supplied mana, the Pulse Core converted that energy into acceleration, and the Pressure Chamber was supposed to absorb and redistribute the resulting force before it became destructive.

The immediate problem was the transition between the last two systems.

The Stormhorn Pulse Core reached peak output before the Pressure Chamber finished opening its compensation channels. The difference was only 0.23 seconds, insignificant in most combat situations but disastrous inside a weapon that was accumulating mana, kinetic force, and pressure within the same confined structure.

The previous test had already proven that.

Raven adjusted the channel slightly.

FORGE reacted.

[Pressure Regulator Response Improved: +0.04 sec.]

Not enough.

He adjusted it again.

[Pressure Regulator Response Improved: +0.02 sec.]

The gain was smaller.

Raven set the tool down.

Continuing to modify the same component wasn’t going to solve the problem. He needed to change the sequence itself.

Behind him, Valeria turned a page in her book.

Raven looked up.

”I thought you were asleep.”

She remained seated on the same bench, one leg crossed over the other and the book open in her hands.

”I can still read.”

”That didn’t answer the question.”

”Then I learned from you.”

Raven turned back to the assembly.

”Go back to the inn.”

”No.”

”You don’t need to stay.”

”You don’t need to still be awake.”

”I do.”

”Then so do I.”

Raven looked at her.

”That logic doesn’t work.”

”It works perfectly. It just doesn’t benefit you.”

She returned to her book.

Raven decided not to waste energy on an argument he already knew exhaustion would make him lose.

His attention returned to the Pulse Core.

The organ wasn’t an engine.

That had been one of his initial mistakes.

He had been treating it like a terrestrial mechanical system in which activation produced force and force produced output. But the Stormhorn had never used Kinetic Pulse as an isolated mechanism. Its entire body had participated by storing movement, correcting posture, and distributing force before the discharge ever occurred.

The organ expected feedback from the structure around it.

The rifle had no muscles.

Not yet.

Raven looked at the treated tendon insulating the biological systems from the Black Mithril.

”FORGE.”

The interface responded.

[Awaiting Design Input.]

”Can the conductive filament be used as a tension sensor?”

A moment passed.

[Functional Reinterpretation Possible.]

[Mana-Conductive Biological Filament Retains Responsive Contraction Under Energetic Load.]

[Potential Application: Passive Load-Feedback Network.]

Raven went still.

Valeria looked up from her book.

”That expression usually means you just thought of something.”

”The insulation doesn’t have to be only insulation.”

”What else can it do?”

Raven picked up one of the treated tendons.

”It can respond to tension. The tissue contracts when the mana flow changes, which means I can use that response as feedback between the Pulse Core and Pressure Chamber. Then I don’t need to activate the venting system according to a fixed timer.”

She moved closer.

”The discharge itself would tell the chamber when to open.”

”Yes.”

Valeria studied the components.

”That sounds much more like an organism.”

Raven looked at her.

”Because it is.”

FORGE projected a revised architecture.

The channels shifted. Instead of several isolated systems linked together in a simple sequence, the weapon now resembled a responsive network in which one component could influence the timing of another.

[Design Principle Revised.]

[Static Timing Sequence → Responsive Biological Regulation.]

[Projectile Stabilization Development: 21% → 39%.]

[Assembly Stability: 58% → 64%.]

Raven stared at the increase.

Six points.

Valeria caught his expression.

”That was good.”

”Sixty-four.”

”I still wouldn’t put my face behind it.”

”Neither would I.”

”I’m proud of you.”

Raven picked up a tool.

”Don’t abuse it.”

Roland appeared around one in the morning carrying a basket.

He entered without knocking, stopped when he saw the table, then looked at Raven.

”Still not a weapon?”

”Correct.”

”Excellent. I brought food before you turn it into an explosion.”

Valeria extended one hand.

”Finally, someone useful.”

Roland handed her bread, cheese, and cold meat.

Raven looked at him.

”I’m also here.”

”Your hands are occupied.”

”I can eat.”

”That’s what you said yesterday, and then we found untouched bread three hours later.”

Raven didn’t remember that happening.

Which probably confirmed the point.

Roland placed a second portion beside him.

”Joren has the Keller Ridge men in custody. The documents we recovered are enough to keep them locked up until regional authorities arrive.”

”Supervisor Hedd?”

”He wasn’t among the ones who tried to escape.”

Raven stopped working.

”Missing?”

”Looks that way.”

Not ideal.

Also not tonight’s problem.

”Tell Joren to send copies of the records through separate routes,” Raven said. ”If Keller Ridge has contacts, one courier is easy to intercept.”

Roland nodded.

”I already told him something similar.”

Raven looked up.

Roland smiled.

”Surprising, I know. Sometimes I think without receiving instructions.”

”I never said you couldn’t.”

”Not verbally.”

Valeria took another piece of cheese.

”He’s improving.”

Roland looked at her.

”Are you still counting his conversations?”

”Naturally.”

Raven closed his eyes for a second.

”Both of you can leave.”

”No,” they answered simultaneously.

Raven returned to the rifle.

It was simpler.

At two twenty, stability reached sixty-nine percent.

At three ten, it dropped to sixty-seven.

The second decrease didn’t come from an explosion. It came from Raven trying to save space by thinning the isolation layer around one section of Black Mithril.

FORGE recalculated the interference immediately.

The metal suppressed biological mana strongly enough that the reduced separation would create inconsistent activation after repeated cycles. A single test might work. Several shots could produce increasingly unstable output until the timing failed somewhere Raven could no longer predict.

That was unacceptable.

The weapon was already larger than he wanted.

He would have to accept that it was going to become larger still.

Raven added another insulation layer and redesigned the Reservoir mount so the biological conduits could pass around the Black Mithril instead of directly across it. The change forced the rear structure to widen around the central chamber.

The result was ugly.

But functional.

[Assembly Stability: 67% → 72%.]

Raven rubbed his eyes.

When he looked toward Valeria again, she was no longer reading.

The book rested closed across her lap. Her head had tilted against the wall, and part of her dark hair had fallen across her face.

Asleep.

Roland had left almost an hour ago.

The workshop was quiet again.

Raven watched her for several seconds.

He could wake her and tell her to return to the inn.

She would probably argue.

Or he could leave her there.

The temperature had dropped considerably after midnight.

Raven looked at his own coat hanging beside the door.

No.

He would need it if he went outside.

A folded blanket rested on one of the shelves, probably used by Hadrik during long workdays.

Raven picked it up.

He walked over to Valeria.

She didn’t wake when he placed it over her shoulders.

Raven adjusted one edge so it wouldn’t slide off.

Then returned to the table.

There was nothing particularly significant about it.

The room was cold, she was asleep, and the blanket existed.

Problem and solution.

Simple.

Raven decided not to think about it any further.

The next improvement came from the Deepwell Reservoir.

Until then, Raven had treated it purely as storage.

That was incomplete too.

Its crystalline structure didn’t merely hold mana. It could release different amounts through separate internal channels depending on which biological functions required energy. In the original creature, those pathways would have supplied several organs at different rates.

Raven had originally assumed the rifle only needed one output route.

That assumption had been wasting one of the Reservoir’s most useful properties.

Instead of forcing the primary firing cycle and every regulatory function to draw mana through the same pathway, Raven separated them. The main channel would supply the Pulse Core during acceleration, while two smaller channels would independently feed the Pressure Chamber and the responsive tendon network.

That meant the weapon’s safety and stabilization systems would no longer compete with the main discharge for energy at the exact moment they were most necessary.

FORGE accepted the modification.

[Independent Auxiliary Mana Channel Established.]

[Projectile Stabilization Development: 39% → 57%.]

[Assembly Stability: 72% → 78%.]

Raven placed both hands on the table.

Seventy-eight.

For the first time, the projected architecture looked coherent.

Not elegant.

But coherent.

The rifle was beginning to exist before it had actually been built.

Black Mithril formed the load-bearing skeleton. The Reservoir sat protected near the rear and fed separate primary and auxiliary mana channels. The Impulse Spark remained close to the future trigger assembly so it could initiate the cycle with minimal delay. The Pulse Core aligned directly with the barrel to provide acceleration, while the Pressure Chamber wrapped partially around that section to absorb and redirect excess force.

The conductive biological filaments tied all of those systems together, acting not only as insulation but also as a primitive feedback network that responded to changes in tension and mana flow.

Projectile Stabilization was no longer looking like a missing part.

It was becoming an emergent function of the entire architecture.

Raven finally understood what each section was supposed to do.

More importantly, he was beginning to understand what happened when one of them failed.

That had been the missing piece in his thinking.

A weapon wasn’t merely a collection of components capable of producing one successful discharge. It had to survive that discharge, recover from it, and remain predictable enough to fire again.

Raven had used rifles that could fall into mud, take impacts, overheat, accumulate grime, and continue functioning.

This prototype wouldn’t come close to that standard.

Not yet.

But at least he could now design its first shot without depending entirely on luck.

Valeria woke at four thirty.

She didn’t move immediately.

Raven was adjusting a Black Mithril plate when he noticed her eyes were already open.

She looked at the blanket.

Then at Raven.

Then back at the blanket.

She said nothing.

Suspicious.

”Good morning,” Raven said.

Valeria looked toward the dark windows.

”That’s generous.”

”Good indeterminate hours of the early morning.”

”Better.”

She stood without letting the blanket fall.

Raven waited for the comment.

It didn’t come.

She approached the assembly.

”How much?”

”Seventy-eight.”

”That increased quite a bit.”

”I found a better way to power the secondary systems.”

Valeria nodded, still wrapped in the blanket.

”Did you eat?”

Raven pointed toward an empty plate.

”Yes.”

She almost looked disappointed at losing another opportunity to complain.

Then she lifted one edge of the blanket.

”Did this also appear through FORGE?”

Raven kept working.

”Must be a hidden function.”

”Interesting.”

”Very rare.”

”Does it activate when a Blood Mage falls asleep in a chair?”

”The requirements seem unusually specific.”

Valeria smiled.

”Then we’ll have to study it.”

Raven finally looked at her.

”You can say thank you and end this.”

”I could.”

”But you won’t.”

”Thank you.”

That caught him off guard.

Valeria’s smile widened.

”Now I’m going to keep bothering you.”

”Of course.”

She returned to the bench with the blanket still around her shoulders.

Raven shook his head.

Hadrik arrived before dawn.

His first reaction was to inspect the wall that had caught the fragment the day before.

Then he checked for any new holes.

”I’m pleasantly surprised.”

”Nothing exploded tonight.”

”Yet.”

Raven accepted that as fair.

Hadrik examined the new structure.

”It’s growing.”

”I needed more insulation.”

”That doesn’t look like a rifle anymore.”

Raven looked up.

”You’ve never seen a rifle.”

”Then I can say whatever I want.”

From the bench, Valeria raised one hand.

”He has a surprisingly strong argument.”

Raven decided to ignore both of them.

He still needed one final structural piece.

Not another Core System.

The section where the Pulse Core and Pressure Chamber converged was receiving force from several directions during the same fraction of a second. Raven needed a flexible support collar that could keep both components aligned without transferring every stress spike directly into the Black Mithril frame.

Hadrik forged the band while Raven refined the geometry.

The first version was too thick and restricted the pressure channels.

The second had enough clearance but was too rigid, which simply moved the stress into the surrounding frame.

The third flexed just enough to distribute the recoil without allowing either biological component to shift out of alignment.

FORGE accepted it.

[Structural Recoil Distribution Improved.]

[Projectile Stabilization Development: 57% → 71%.]

[Assembly Stability: 78% → 82%.]