Cherreads

Chapter 47 - The Price of Hunger and the Stolen Years

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Cate finished the arm, consuming it until not a single bone was left, yet she was still filled with hunger. She could no longer see the man before her as anything other than meat. She did not want to kill him. After all, this man was Albrecht, a son to one of the vampire gods, and killing him would bring her a great many problems. Besides this, Cate was the team leader and would have to take responsibility for any deaths. There was even a risk that she could be demoted over the man's death. Still, Cate was filled with an overwhelming hunger, feeling as though she were a ten-thousand-year-old hungry ghost.

The firm arm was gone, and this only encouraged her to at least have a taste of the other limbs. Soon, Albrecht was laid out on the table with Cate feasting on his other hand. It took her about ten minutes to be done with that hand and move on to the legs. There was no stopping her at this point. She ate all the limbs, and when she was done, she felt a little better. The fire in her chest had been quenched a little, but the hunger was still there. "I can bear with this much," she thought as she began using the Restoration Spell to heal what she had eaten.

The Restoration Spell was one of the most popular and famous spells in the world. It could only be used by Supreme Magicians, but Cate's understanding of magic had already reached that level. It was only that she was stuck at the peak of the Master realm for some reason. The Restoration spell could heal any wound. As long as a living thing still had even a single breath left in its lungs, this spell could bring them back from the brink of death. The spell had been used for thousands of years and had spread to all corners of the earth, with many variations being made. Cate had also made a variation of her own, and it was the one she was now using.

She glowed with a bright green light, and her life force surged through her hands and entered the sleeping Albrecht. After a few seconds, the limbs that had been eaten away began growing back in a bizarre and grotesque manner that was still satisfying to see. As she pumped more life force into the vampire, Cate grew gaunt and bony. Her eyes became sunken, and her hair became grey and thin. As a Master Magician, Cate had a life span of about two hundred years, and it now seemed as though she was using up all of it to heal the vampire. After about two minutes, Albrecht was back to normal as though nothing had happened to him.

The life force that Cate had channeled into Albrecht then began flowing back into her body. She regained her youth and good looks. She even seemed younger than she had been earlier. This was not an illusion. The Restoration Spell worked by using the caster's life force as a catalyst to activate the injured person's life force to its absolute limit. The life force used by the caster would then flow back into the owner, and that would be the end of things. When Cate created her variation of the Restoration spell, she made it such that when her life force flowed back into her body, the process allowed her to steal some of the life force belonging to the person she was healing. She believed that healing someone for free was just wrong. From Albrecht, Cate increased her life span by about ten years. Since he was a vampire, Cate believed that Albrecht would not miss this little life force.

After cleaning up the tent, Cate put Albrecht back into the seat where she had found him and returned to her position, watching over the camp. She sat down cross-legged and closed her eyes in meditation. She began dissecting what was happening to her and how she could manage the hunger. If left unchecked, she believed that she could end up eating someone.

The following morning, everyone was confused about how they had slept for so long and so deeply. The most confused one was Albrecht. He was a vampire with no need for sleep, and yet he had done just that. He felt weak, especially in his hands and legs, but he could see nothing wrong with himself. He flexed his hands a few times and felt his strength rapidly coming back. What caught him off guard was how his limbs appeared so new that they could be mistaken for a newborn's.

The group gathered after clearing up their tents. With the storage magic treasures that each of them carried, moving around with things like tents and beds was simple. Cate had a ring that had a black stone in it. This was her storage item. Mary had a small pouch that she tied around her waist. The Mage Born used the large space created within his swords. Jordan and Albrecht had their own storage treasures, but they did not disclose what they were to the others.

These items were forged by powerful alchemists who used magic to warp space to their will. Cate's ring looked small, but within, it had a space large enough to fit a grand hall. Living things could not be stored inside these created spaces, but they could be preserved perfectly for all time. Any magician could wield a storage item. All they needed to do was channel a wisp of their magic into the treasure, and they could put in or bring out whatever they wanted from it. Only the magician to whom the treasure belonged could access the space within, and this was made possible by the use of blood magic that bound each storage treasure to a single person. As long as they were alive, no one could gain access to the storage space. These treasures were beneficial but also very expensive. Only the wealthiest of supernaturals could afford one of these treasures. Cate could, of course, easily afford to have as many of these treasures as she wanted, but for Mary and the Mage Born, Cate was not sure how they had gotten their hands on them. As for Albrecht and Jordan, one came from the Amara Immortal Vampire clan and the other from the Staranse Mage clan; they could easily get these treasures from their powerful backgrounds.

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