Deep in a silent, ancient forest, untouched by human footsteps for over a thousand years, a sound broke the stillness.
It was not the call of a bird, nor the low rumble of a predator.
"Waah! Waah!"
The thin, high-pitched wail of a child. A human child.
The sound carried strangely here, bouncing off thick tree trunks, weaving through the roots and moss, sinking into the damp soil, only to be thrown back into the air again. The forest heard it—but did not care. No creature stirred to investigate. No wind bent the branches in sympathy. The wilderness was indifferent.
On a great up-arched root of an ancient tree, a small figure lay, red-faced and crying. The skin of the root was slick with moss, and the child's limbs trembled from the effort of clinging on. His cries grew louder, more desperate.
Then—thud.
He slipped.
His tiny head struck the ground, damp earth giving way under his weight but offering little protection. Blood began to seep from the wound—slow at first, a dark glistening drop in the soil—then faster, a thin line tracing through the dirt, threading between pebbles like a trickle seeking a path. The child's cries faltered, consciousness slipping away.
When his eyes opened again, the forest was different. Shadows loomed long, and the night air was heavy. A massive figure blocked the moonlight.
It was a beast.
It stood like a lion, shoulders broad, chest rising with slow, predatory breaths. But where a lion's mane might be, scales caught the dim light—serpentine, iridescent. Its eyes were slit like a snake's, glimmering gold in the dark.
The child froze. Saliva dripped from the creature's maw, landing on his face in warm splatters.
Then, without ceremony, the beast lunged. Jaws closed over the child's head. Bone cracked; darkness swallowed him. In a single brutal motion, the predator ripped the body apart—half consumed in the first bite, the rest shoved down in one gulp.
But in the rush of blood and meat, its fangs struck something hard. The Olf—this lion-serpent apex predator—ignored it, swallowing the object along with the flesh.
It would regret that.
Later, while stalking prey, the Olf's muscles clenched violently. A gut-deep spasm made it stagger. Its belly twisted unnaturally. Then came the retching—thick gouts of blood, bile, and half-digested meat spraying onto the ground. The beast roared in pain, spine arching, claws raking at the soil as something inside it began to eat its way out.
The object it had swallowed—a small, smooth stone—was no lifeless thing. It gnawed from within, devouring the beast's organs, drinking its strength.
The Olf thrashed, but the agony only grew. Within moments, a predator that had ruled these woods for decades was reduced to nothing but scraps—meat and bone vanishing into the stone's hunger—until all that remained was a fist-sized jewel, pulsing faintly in the moonlight.
From its glow, a child crawled out.
He was naked, smeared in blood, still crying—but alive. The stone rested deep in his belly now, hidden from sight yet radiating a strange warmth. It kept him breathing. Kept him whole. The flesh and strength of the beast it had consumed flowed into his small body, reshaping him.
His skin knitted where the Olf had torn him apart. Muscles tightened over his bones. Breath came easier. The hunger in his gut was no longer for milk or soft food—it was for meat. For blood.
A faint shimmer appeared before his eyes.
[STATUS]
Nature: Man-Beast
Level: 1
Power: Devourer
Increase levels to unlock further features.
The child stared blankly, not understanding the words—but the feeling was clear. The stone inside him was speaking without sound, pushing instincts into his mind. Hunt. Feed. Grow.
Before the night ended, he obeyed.
The Olf's legs—now his legs—launched him higher than any human child could leap. Inches became metres, metres became trees. He bounded from branch to branch until he spotted movement below: an antlered beast, grazing.
Hunger surged.
The child dropped onto its back. His small hands, strengthened by stolen muscle, locked around the creature's neck. His jaws—unnaturally strong—clamped down. With one frenzied wrench, he tore out the throat. Hot blood sprayed over his face.
The deer's body twitched long after death, but he kept tearing, gnawing, ripping through flesh like an animal gone mad. The stone inside him pulsed, drawing the carcass's meat into itself—skin, sinew, bone—leaving nothing but empty air where the corpse had been.
The rest of the herd panicked, bounding away through the undergrowth. The child chased without pause. He caught another by the flank, yanking it down with terrifying strength, ramming a hand through its ribs to grip the heart. With a sharp pull, he tore it free and bit down, chewing even as life left the creature's eyes.
One by one, the herd fell. By dawn, not a single antlered beast remained alive in that stretch of forest. The child stood among the ghosts of their bodies, now grown to the size of a grown man—skin taut over hard muscle, eyes bright with a predator's fire.
The stone gave more than strength. When birds took flight to escape, his arms elongated—black, sinewy tendrils whipping out to snatch them from the sky. Their bones cracked in his grip; their meat vanished into him before their wings could fall to the ground.
And always, his gaze returned to the faint glow beneath his skin. He smiled at it—his only companion, his only god.
That night, a new prey appeared. A serpent beast, hundreds of metres long, its scales black as midnight. It moved like a river of muscle through the trees, fangs glistening with venom.
The child leapt, aiming for its neck.
A mistake.
The serpent's head snapped around with lightning speed. Its fangs drove clean through his chest, pinning him midair. Saliva and venom mixed with his blood, splattering across the leaves. Pain ripped a scream from his throat—a sound the forest had never heard from him.
The snake swallowed him whole.
But the stone was already awake.
Inside the serpent's belly, it expanded its hunger. It drank venom like water, devoured muscle from the inside out. The predator thrashed, smashing trees as its body hollowed. Minutes later, nothing remained but a faint wisp of vapor rising from the soil.
The child stood in its place—whole again, but changed.
Scales shimmered along his arms. His eyes slit like a snake's. Fangs pressed against his lips.
[STATUS]
Nature: Man-Beast
Power: Devourer
Status Change: Choose to become any of these beings, or eclipse them all:
Olf: Lion-bodied predator with serpent features; unmatched brute strength.
Antlered Beast: Digest plant matter, survive on any terrain.
Serpent Beast: Camouflage, grow fangs, inject venom.
Current Features:
Serpent's Scales
Olf's Power
Antlered Beast's Endurance
"You may gather the strength of all you consume, and shape it into something unique… or gift it."
The choice was no choice at all. He would take everything.
The hunt grew wider. Beasts fell—wolves, boars, monsters of tooth and claw. The stone devoured them all.
Then came the dragons.
The first was a fire-blooded wyrm, scales glowing red-hot. It tried to scorch him where he stood, but the stone drank the flame before it touched him. He leapt onto its back, tore open its spine, and fed until there was nothing left.
The wind dragons came next—faster, sharper—but his limbs lengthened to snare them mid-flight, snapping their wings like twigs.
Even the Man-Dragon fell—a creature that looked human, spoke like a sage, and fought with cunning illusions. But the child had no mind for deception. Hunger cut through trickery. Teeth cut through flesh. The stone pulsed brighter with every swallow.
Forests vanished as he passed through them. Rivers ran red, then clear again when no life was left to bleed into them. The world grew quiet, not with peace, but with absence. No prey remained. No gods stirred.
The stone whispered of the tally.
[STATUS]
Nature: Man-Beast
Title: Cruel Devourer of Races
Child of the World
Destroyer of Animals
Devoured:
Man
Olfs
Serpents (All kinds)
Antlered Beasts
Trees (Entire categories)
Gods (Water God consumed)
Dragons (Innumerable)
Current Muscle Holdings: Beyond measure.
Title of God: Bestowed.
Backer: Reincarnated World Stone.
Dominion: Land and Beasts.
"Beasts fear you. Gods watch you. You hold divine protection. Your aim is to strike from the shadows, to guard the cornered gods from the light, and become the god of gods."
Reward:First bearer of the World Stone in its truest form.
The child—no longer child, no longer man—looked at the glowing message with eyes gone cold. It had been ages since his first cry on that root. He remembered none of the softness of life—only the wet tear of flesh, the warmth of blood, the satisfaction of swallowing a world piece by piece.
A new line appeared.
Change Place: Next World – Earth
He stared at it. The hunger inside him stirred again. Another world meant new prey. New meat. New gods to tear apart.
He reached out—not with his hands, but with his will—and the world around him blurred into nothing.