I Can Devour Monsters' SSS Talents

”Now it’s my turn.” Lian thought calmly in the darkness of the Ruined Heart.

While outside that hidden space, his body truly showed no sign of life.

His heart had stopped.

The blood was no longer moving through his veins, his brain activity had collapsed, and the mana paths that had been under Black Silence’s control only moments ago had gone out one after another.

His body lay on the ground; Seris’s sword was still passing through his chest, and its bloody tip was sticking out from his back.

The body was truly dead.

And exactly as Lian had predicted, Black Silence could not ignore this change.

Inside, the endless ocean of darkness that had surrounded the Ruined Heart for days began to retreat.

Countless mouths moved away one after another, and eyes that opened and closed in impossible places slowly moved toward somewhere beyond Lian’s spiritual existence.

The Calamity was leaving the body, though not exactly like a simple soul leaving a body, but its entire impossible structure was opening up.

Horns that had no clear direction, wings whose every part ended in another darkness, and mouths that could not fit inside any single body were coming out of the human shell that had compressed them inside for several days.

At that moment, a panel appeared in front of him.

[Death confirmed.]

[Extra Life has been automatically consumed.]

[Restoration process started.]

[Body Restoration: 0%]

[Estimated time until full recovery: 05:00]

”Five minutes?” Lian thought with slight sarcasm, if he had a face in that bodiless space, he probably would have raised an eyebrow slightly.

”Very generous.” He continued dryly.

Five minutes.

On the surface, it was a lot of time.

But not when the Calamity was leaving his body and the world was also trying to push that creature out of its structure at the same time.

Lian could not let Black Silence escape.

All the pain he had endured, all the chains he had intentionally allowed to be broken, the awakening of the Titan, and even his own death had all been for gathering all of Black Silence in one place.

If it escaped now, this entire gamble would become meaningless.

He quickly went through the options he had left.

First, the Devouring Egg.

That creature was still under his control, and in terms of its nature, it was perhaps one of the few things that might have a chance of swallowing something at Black Silence’s level.

But the problem was obvious.

If the Devouring Egg ate the Calamity, it would not be ”Lian” who swallowed it.

The system had specifically demanded in the Evolution Quest that he himself swallow one of the five Calamities, and there was no guarantee that using a creature as a middleman would complete the condition.

Even worse, he did not even know what would happen to the Devouring Egg if it really ate a Calamity.

A creature that was made to grow by swallowing things might no longer be something Lian would want to keep beside himself after eating something like Black Silence.

So this option was rejected.

Second option.

[Glutton]

This one was not even worth thinking about for long, [Glutton] swallowed skills and talents, and unfortunately not complete existences, especially not a Calamity that could infect an entire world.

So that one was also removed, leaving only one thing.

The Ruined Heart.

He turned his attention back to the huge structure in front of him.

For all the time he had been trapped here, he had focused on the cracks, the light inside them, and the boundary that had hidden him from Black Silence.

Five positions.

Five huge spaces were located around the central part of the Heart, each with a different shape and depth; as if something had once been placed on each one and then violently pulled out.

He stared at them for a few seconds, he had already made some guesses about them before, but he was not sure.

His mind immediately returned to the Evolution Quest.

[Condition: Swallow one of the five Calamities.]

Five Calamities and five positions, the chance that it was only a coincidence was almost ridiculous.

”So these are probably for you.” He said thoughtfully as he felt the retreating presence of Black Silence.

His eyes moved back to the Heart itself, it was broken and had many cracks.

Some parts of it seemed to not exist at all, some cracks were far too deep, and the lines that should have completed its structure suddenly ended in nothing.

Maybe the Ruined Heart had not been like this from the beginning.

Maybe it had become incomplete, and if the five positions really were connected to the five Calamities, there was another possibility.

Was the Evolution Quest only designed to grow the monster class?

Or did every swallowed Calamity return something to the Heart?

Or maybe the Heart had been made from the beginning to hold those five creatures?

Lian had no answer, but he felt that perhaps the entire structure of his evolution was much deeper than he had thought.

Not only the structure of his evolution, but also the secret behind the existence of his Unknown Class that questioned all the limits of the other classes.

”I need to survive first, I’ll have time for philosophical questions later.” He cut off his thoughts and looked away from the five positions.

Black Silence had almost left the body.

From inside the spiritual realm, Lian could feel the Calamity’s anger.

Anger from losing, anger from not knowing exactly what had happened.

Until a moment ago, everything had been over for it.

Lian had been destroyed, the Cindari was dead, the Titan had been released, and the remaining part of Black Silence had returned to its original existence.

It had found the best possible vessel and Earth, a world with billions of living creatures, was only a few minutes away.

Then the body itself had moved against its command, the defense had been lowered, and the voice of the body’s original owner, who should have been dead and should not have existed, had come out of its mouth.

And a sword had destroyed the heart of the body.

Black Silence still did not understand what had happened, and that was exactly why it was angry, because it did not understand how it had lost! Because it did not understand where it had made a mistake!

But it did not matter for now, the body was dead, the anchor had also been destroyed, and the world was pushing its presence away.

So it only had to leave, find another anchor and another vessel, and go to Earth, it could even use one of those four Cindari for now.

But just when the last part of the Calamity’s presence was about to leave the spiritual space, a sound like the cracking of the sky spread through the darkness.

Crack.

Lian turned around, the cracks on the Ruined Heart suddenly lit up, and golden light came out from between them.

Crack... crack...

The cracks became larger, for a moment he thought the Ruined Heart was breaking apart.

But no.

Two huge parts of the broken structure slowly moved away from each other, like doors that had been closed for thousands of years.

And behind them, light could be seen, pure golden light that lit up his entire soul.

He could get out and the path to the outside had opened.

Lian moved, his spiritual form passed through the light and entered the same spiritual realm where Black Silence was present.

And at that exact moment, the Calamity stopped, all the mouths, all the eyes, all the horns and shadows that had been moving toward the exit until that moment suddenly stopped.

Lian felt something like the gazes of hundreds of creatures on him at the same time.

Black Silence turned back, if such an impossible structure could even be called ”turning back.”

Countless eyes from different angles fixed on Lian.

And for the first time, he felt not only anger but also shock, the creature it had eaten, the identity it had erased step by step, the name it had removed from its mind... was standing in front of it!

”You...” Black Silence did not finish the sentence, and its voice spread through the spiritual realm from many directions at the same time.

Lian only looked at it, and the Calamity’s presence became tense for a moment.

”Impossible.” Black Silence said with anger that this time it could not completely hide.

”How many impossible things have you seen today?” Lian answered calmly in an annoying way.

A wave of dark pressure formed around Black Silence.

But before attacking, its attention left Lian and moved behind him, toward the Ruined Heart that was still open, with golden light coming out from its cracks.

The Calamity remained completely still for a moment, something in its presence changed and it felt something strange, and in all the hundreds of eyes of this impossible structure, there was confusion.

”That... is that the thing?” It said more quietly, and all those eyes stayed on the Heart for a moment.

The Calamity understood now, on the first day it had taken over Lian’s body, it had checked the entire body, it had found many things, but it had felt something unknown.

Something that even it did not know, and it had only been able to feel its presence, but every time it searched for it, it found nothing.

It could not find any trace of that unknown thing, until it slowly came to the conclusion that maybe it had been mistaken...

But now that thing was in front of it.

”What is this?” Black Silence asked carefully.

”If you figure it out, I’d be happy if you told me too.” Lian answered completely seriously, he himself had no idea what this thing was or how it was even inside his body.

”It doesn’t matter, I only need to destroy both of you.” This time, the Calamity attacked immediately.