"-at...do you..mean?" Magnus tried his best to recall the words to ask the mysterious voice inside of him.
"Hahahaha..." The voice weakly laughed before saying. "You don't even know...how to...speak. No...you only...forgot."
"...?" Magnus frowned, clearly not getting what the voice in his head was talking about. The strange thing was that even though he clearly forgot most of the words in their language he was still able to clearly understand what the strange voice was saying to him, like what voice's intended meaning was going straight into his head.
"I am...too weak. Drip your...blood on those rings...there are a lot...of useful things...in there. Consume more... and make me...stronger...then I'll help you get...stronger..." The voice said before it faded.
Magnus thought for a while but after that he stared straight and it seemed like a fire burned in his eyes. He had already decide to leave the forest. Why? That mysterious voice seemed to be linked to the mark on his chest and may even be the cause of that burning sensation. He had already devoured a lot of enchanted beast and this is connected and still this weak? Then it means that beast may not cut it anymore.
But maybe other humans will...
Without much thought, he followed what the voice told him and he grabbed the rings that he took, using a sharpened beast tooth to prick himself. A drop of Magnus' blood fell onto one of the rings and it glowed. Before long, the light faded and when Magnus held the ring, the contents of the ring flooded into his mind.
One Steel Sword...Three Crescent Fruits...Two Helena Family Robes and four hundred sixty seven Silver Coins.
Magnus didn't care for the value of the robes and the silver coins what interest him are the sword and the fruits. Just as he traced the surface of the blade, the Darkness suddenly moved and devour the three fruits on his side. A soothing feeling then came coursing through his body and he had a crazy idea.
He willed the Darkness to slowly envelope the Steel Sword before he willed it to devour it.
Chomp...
The Darkness shrunk and the Steel sword within it. Magnus now slowly got nervous, if what he was thinking was wrong then he just long a valuable weapon. He slowly willed the Darkness to surface and to spit out the Steel Sword.
Out from the Dark mark on his right palm, the familiar palm of the Steel sword erupted. When he slowly pulled the blade out, the silvery glint of the sword disappeared and what greeted him was the dark, shiny surface of the blade as the light bounced off of it.
Clearly, this was the same "Steel Sword" but was made of the Darkness. From this, Magnus inferred that maybe the Darkness is capable of absorbing an inanimate object, break it down even to it's construction then produce a replica.
"Could...I...make...more?" Magnus thought.
Quickly, he willed the Darkness to produce another Steel sword out from his left hand. After a bundle of Darkness gathered on his palm the basic shape of the sword was slowly being formed. Though it took a while, the sword did form...
Magnus was extremely elated. This means that as long as he could maintain the darkness he could make endless copy of the Steel sword! Why stop there? Any weapon he encounters and devour can be reproduced by his Darkness...
But immediately after this thought an extreme sense of powerlessness overwhelmed him and Magnus fell down to his knees, out of breath and excessively sweating.
"Ha...Ha..."
Looks like the time limit of his Darkness was much shorter when conjuring two Steel Swords.
After a short rest, Magnus took a look inside the other rings found other interesting things. He found another set of clothes, a couple of different fruits,a set of armor, a Large sword, a chest full of silver and gold coins and finally a sword with some strange symbols engraved into it.
This ring must've belonged to the elder judging from the number of things he found inside. The content of the last ring was more or less same as the first ring, with only a different sword stored inside and a few fruits and a set of clothes.
Just as he did as he did earlier, Magnus devoured the Large Sword he found and the other sword then he consumed all the fruits he found. Another wave of power and comfortable feeling coursed through his body again.
Crack!
Magnus didn't what it was but he felt something broke inside of it and the strange thing was, he didn't felt anything wrong. More like, he felt stronger than ever and full of energy. This event added to his joy and he turned his attention to the sword with engraving and from a glance he knew this was an extraordinary sword.
But it didn't escape it's fate as he devoured it like the other. Magnus wasn't in a hurry to try and find out what were the capabilities of these new weapon but since he hasn't figured out how to extend the usage time of his darkness he didn't want to test them out.
Though he did have one thing he wanted to try...
Magnus willed the Darkness to devour one set of clothes that he found and tried to recreate the clothes using the darkness. While the Darkness did took on the form of the clothes he devoured and the good thing was the duration of the Darkness in this form was much longer. He then tried to will it to change the form of the clothes slightly.
Like, he would create a hood or make the length itself longer but Magnus learned that for the Darkness to take the form of these shapes it needed energy or more material to work with. So he devoured the other clothes, except for one set and experimented for a while.
The ending? Magnus willed the darkness to take the form of a sleeveless coat with a hood. On his hands were bracers made of cloth and it was the same for his feet then he formed pants that were comfortably fit and easy to move in.
He estimated that he could maintain this clothes form for about three hours and since he didn't devour one set, it didn't matter if time run out, he could just change.
After he thought he had to do, Samael packed up, using the rings to store the various Beast skin he had compiled for more than three days now.
With one last look at the cave where his fate changed, for better or for worse, he would not have any regrets. Putting on his hood, Magnus ran forward through the jungle and he was even surprised with his own physical capabilities because he could've sworn he wasn't as fast as this yesterday.
It must've something to do with that strange breaking sensation that he felt...
...
The events after he left the cave were pretty much repeats itself. Whenever Magnus finds any kind of Enchanted beast, he would kill and devour it to satiate the hunger of the entity within him. Along the way, Magnus has devoured about seven beasts but he didn't feel like the mysterious entity within him was getting stronger.
He grew impatient but Magnus thought that there must be other things which can consumed to strengthen that entity. Then...he came up with an rather devious answer...Humans. Magnus thought to kill and consume humans, at first he shivered at the thought but there was like some strange voices calming him down. Telling him that it doesn't matter if they're humans, in the end, they're still food...
Magnus exited the forest, back to the road where he escaped the Slave traders. He looked left and right and saw nothing within his vicinity except for trees. Ultimately leaving it up to fate, Magnus turned right and walked forward, not knowing where he would reach.
An hour or two has passed and Magnus had already worn the set of clothes that he didn't devour as he was almost reaching the limits of his darkness.
"No! Please, don't kill me!" Suddenly, Magnus heard a woman's voice echoing.
It was just a few hundred meters in front of him so he hastened his steps and he saw three men wearing armor with a woman, who, it seems they were about to kill. One of them had his sword raised as he was about to decapitate the woman.
The woman had red, short hair and an extremely charming face and seductive body. It was a bit strange that these knights didn't do anything to her despite of that. They must've been extremely disciplined to be able to resist a woman such as her.
"Who's there?!" One of them seemed to have discovered Magnus's presence at vigilantly shouted.
Magnus looked on as the knight who had his sword up in the air saw him. The other two turned and one of them quickly took out a crossbow and shot at him.
Whoosh...
Magnus was alarmed but he dodged the bolt coming at him.
"Die!" The other two exclaimed.
Then the other two quickly rushed at him with their swords. The one at the left pounced at him with a downward slash but he dodged it with a step, narrowly avoiding the path of the sword. Then, the one at the right followed up right away with another downward slash and at the same moment, the first one who attacked him raised his sword towards him.
Ding...
"What!?" Both Knights exclaimed at the same time.
In that split moment, they were sure that that attack would do the trick but to their surprise Magnus caught both of their blows with his hands. What was even stranger, was that Magnus wasn't wearing any protective equipment on his hands but he was still able to catch their swords.
What Magnus did was summon the Darkness and concentrated it between the edge of the blade and his skin, hidden from their sight. Making it an unseen armor.
Magnus tightly clasped his grip on the sword in his left palm and pulled it forward, throwing it and the person holding it three meters away. In the same motion, Magnus turned and used his open left hand to punch the other knight that attacked.
Whoosh...
Another bolt came at him and this time it grazed his neck.
"grr..." Magnus made some growling noise, similar to a beast, this was something he picked up while hunting. He wiped the blood oozing from his neck and stared at his opponents savagely.
Animals asserted their dominance over others using noise, like growls to scare other animals. Magnus had to imitate these sounds to scare small animals from entering his caves when he was training.
The other two knights attacked him again and the third one was reloading his crossbow. The two knights came at him with thrusts and the same time, the third one fired his crossbow.
Magnus faced the two knights coming at him, seemingly ignoring the one with the crossbow. As the two knights thrust at him, Magnus took a step forward, avoiding the intercepting path of the two swords. He knocked away the opponent to his right and grabbed the other one by the hand and threw him to the one with the crossbow.
The one he threw crashed with the one with the crossbow and they fell. This gave Magnus an opening to kill the other one.
He quickly rushed to the one he knocked away and quickly formed sharp claws around his fingers as he plunged it into the enemy's throat before tightening his grip and pulling out the flesh within it. Then Magnus run towards the two enemy who fell to the ground.
Just as the two were standing up and grabbing their weapon, they were perfectly in line for Magnus to kill them.
Magnus covered his arm in Darkness and formed a sword. He swiftly stabbed it through the remaining two enemies, when he retracted it, both men fell to the ground bleeding out, lifeless.
The Scarlet haired woman watched on in fear at the savagery of this young boy as he dealt with three seasoned knight.
Magnus, for the moment forgot about the woman and he bent down, taking the ring off one of the knights. It was a shame, though, only one of them had a ring and very few interesting things on them. But still, Magnus took their weapons, including the crossbow and devoured it.
Magnus took both body in each hand and threw them down with the other one so, it was then that he saw a faint silver light glowing within their chest and he quickly knew that these men all had a Stigmata. Using the darkness, Magnus devoured their whole body and once more, that familiar feeling of power welling up inside of him entered his senses.
He was right!
Devouring humans with a Stigmata did greatly elevated the hunger of that strange entity and there was even a feeling of strength flowing into him similar to when he devoured the baby Gold Fist Black Gorilla.
But the strange thing was, the strength he felt was much less than when he consumed the baby beasts. Like there was something fundamentally missing...
"That's a...fake." Suddenly the voice within him, echoed again, but this time it seemed more lively even...feminine...
"?" Magnus didn't know what words to use to ask what it meant so he just a curious sound.
"You humans...hahaha, i knew you were all crazy back then. But i never thought that you would even find a way to make copies of a Stigmata..." The Voice seemed to be crazed and happy at the same as it laughed before continuing.
"Ohh, you can call me Gula...Magnus, right?" The Voice, Gula, now was losing the sinister vibe on it's voice and sounded even more feminine. Magnus was now sure that this entity was a woman.
Now how will this strange woman inside of him, change his fate?