Magnus soon realised that the 'soul' he just consumed didn't feel right.
It felt incomplete. Something was lacking, somewhere, somehow.
The taste he got from the person who died beside him was just that. A taste. He could not feel any growth in his power, nor did he feel any exhilaration.
"Do I have to eat their bodies as well?" He thought to himself as he recalled how he had consumed ghoul meat and absorbed energy in that manner. It was also written in the Half-Night Tome how he had to devour both body and soul, even if not completely.
With that said, he for sure did not want to engage in cannibalism.
Eating monsters? Disgusting, but doable.
Eating his own species? That was beyond Magnus' bottom line.
Magnus looked past the dead woman and at the mega-sized dinosaurs. They were also good targets.
"Those are beasts... I can definitely take a piece of their flesh to eat."
Magnus needed to look for monsters as well.
The beasts of Thare always grew to huge sizes, after all, while its monsters were much smaller. It was a distinction that meant that beasts were significantly harder to kill. Magnus only noticed such a fact now as he witnessed another set of beasts emerge from behind a hill.
His measly human standards weren't enough to kill a bunch of beasts and devour their souls at a rate that was efficient.
"This city is doomed..." Magnus thought to himself, but just as he did, a barrier seemed to have formed.
Whooooooong!
A crazy amount of Spirit Energy flowed outwards from the centre of the town, knocking all non-humans backwards, and forcing them out of the city. It grew into a dome of blood red that crackled with bolts of red lightning.
Magnus then heard cries of relief.
"It's Sir Vieth!"
"Sir Vieth is here!"
"We're going to live!"
Magnus followed their gazes to see a man with a robe draped over his shoulders and long, black hair.
The man stood at the central tower of the city, holding his arms crossed as he looked into the distance. He was focused. And the people of the city seemed to perceive such a fact as they hurriedly turned quiet after their initial shouts of relief.
They then evacuated, despite the cries of some and the wails of others.
The ones who were wounded or injured were being helped out of the rubble while those who had lost friends and family were allowed to grieve in the middle of it all.
As for the beasts, they were now outside the barrier, banging on it with their bodies, only to find that nothing they did could destroy it.
Magnus was in awe of such a display of strength.
'Singlehandedly turning the tide... how admirable.' He thought to himself as he wondered what he could do now. The fighting had abruptly stopped, as all of the warriors were busy regrouping.
"I'll have to go to the front lines myself..." Magnus wanted to experience the thrill of war.
After all, The Jester mentioned that this was the Warring Era. He was going to spend his days seeing just how horrifying a battlefield truly was, and see if all his fantasies of valiance would be squashed together with his naivety.
Magnus decided to head towards the edge of the city where the beasts were running wild.
Along the way, he sneakily summoned Restiel from the Hivemind and sent him elsewhere. They were going to split up the battlefield between them to enjoy the perks that war gave for the strong.
Magnus wanted to attempt a certain technique that he felt stupid for not trying.
There was a way to use gravity in a manner that would instantly incapacitate any melee, brute strength fighters.
It was making them float.
Yes, just that.
Magnus did not have anything dramatic to do, because as long as the target did not have any sort of leverage, they wouldn't be able to move. They weren't the ones in command.
The only problem was the expense. Magnus would have to spend so much Spirit Energy to manipulate the gravity of these titanic beasts.
Fortunately, he had his Golden Gravity Sphere.
With it, he had a strong focal point to utilize.
ROAAAAAR!
Magnus heard the earth-shaking war cry of a massive dinosaur.
It shook his heart in his chest, making it beat in an irregular manner at that moment.
Warriors were going after it, looking like lively ants. Magnus saw a few flashy Blessings get activated.
But it all looked hopeless. Ants were ants, at the end of it all.
Thus, Magnus sent out his sphere into the sky above the dinosaur.
He invoked,
"I am the cause of creation,
The maker of stars."
And the golden sphere vibrated as if in joy.
Whoong! Whoong!
Magnus then reversed gravity for the stegosaurus-like dinosaur at the best moment he thought of: Just when it leapt ever so slightly into the air to slam its feet onto the warriors beneath it whilst it rammed the barrier.
The earth-shattering stomp that many expected did not come. The dinosaur lay suspended in the air, too high up to touch the ground with its feet or tail.
The human warriors stared in a daze.
Magnus saw this and then muttered,
"Come on, you useless fighters. Think of something. I can't help you or else my Curse will act up the moment we slay the beast and until we somehow disband our coordination."
Unfortunately for Magnus, other than a few archers, everyone lacked the ability to hit their target now that it was in the air.
Thus, Magnus retreated, seeing that his small experiment half worked, and half did not.
Restiel flew over in a hurry as Magnus recognized that without a proper team, nothing would work out even if he used his crowd control abilities. He would rather save his Spirit Energy and fight with another member of the Hivemind.
His original body disappeared in a flash of light after looking for a place to hide while Restiel took to the skies.
Wielding his scythe, Restiel was fully under Magnus' focused control.
"Time to stretch these wings myself," Magnus grinned with the angelic face that Restiel had.
It created quite a juxtaposition.
A devious smile on such a face would obviously do that.
Whoosh!
Magnus flew forward and slashed his scythe at the beast's eyes. Those eyes that were larger than him looked like a giant mirror instead.
Magnus was thus able to watch Restiel's beautiful form as he slashed.
ROOOOOAAAAAR!
It was a wail of torment for one, and a cry of triumph from the humans below.
The warrior's morale was suddenly brought up upon seeing an angel that decided to aid them in their battles. They began climbing the beast like the ants that they were, drawing blood wherever they could.
"Kill! Kill! Kill!"
Magnus heard the bloodthirst in their voice as he chuckled.
"Unfortunately, Restiel cannot exert the same bloodlust. His Vow is truly a particular one." He closed his eyes as he sensed the Curse on Restiel's wrist.
"It is only allowing me to kill this beast because it is hurting others. It wants me to purify its sins. A surprise. Never knew that beasts could sin."
Magnus had heard of many religious stories, and it was always humans who were the sinners.
Animals didn't seem to have the capability to do so.
Magnus continued fighting as he aimed for the beast's other eye. He slashed with a spin when he arrived, creating a deep, deep crevice in the beast's eyelid.
"Come on!" Magnus yelled out as he swung the scythe again.
He forced the blade into its eyes as if he was mining rock in a cave.
"Go blind!"
And it worked.
The scythe sunk deep into eye tissue, causing the beast to cry out in agony.
But Magnus was not done. This beast wasn't as strong as the giant duck he once encountered. It was actually something he could fight.
Whoosh!
The beast thrashed its entire body, hoping to rid itself of the ants climbing all over it.
But after getting knocked back a great distance, many of the warriors, including Magnus, returned to the fight. Although a few had died due to the impacts, many still survived.
Fervour filled them as the beast continued to writhe in pain.
Magnus was quite literally mining into the beast's eye. Blood was spurting everywhere like a fountain, but he found no other way he could end the battle other than destroying the beast's brain.
"Fuck, this is going to take forever,"
The beast kept thrashing about, making it impossible for Magnus to properly dig through its eye. Nonetheless, he didn't give up.
He wasn't expending Spirit Energy in these attempts. All he was doing was swinging his scythe like a crazy man.
Eventually, he would win... together with everyone else.
Even if it took an entire hour of work.
Which it did.
Near the end, Magnus had to use his original body's Blessing. The beast was about to run away, after all. That was when things started getting dire. The rate at which Magnus' Spirit Energy depleted was too rapid for another half an hour of work.
Magnus feared that he would lose the chance to taste the soul of a giant beast. All of his efforts would have gone to waste if the beast escaped.
And so he dug like no tomorrow.
Even at the cost of Restiel's safety.
He emerged from the battle with a broken arm and a few shattered bones. But it was all worth it.
When Magnus took even the smallest bite out of its flesh, he could feel the beast's soul follow it and into him. His body turned incorporeal while he chewed.
"Ah," He gulped down the food served to him.
"Now that's what I'm talking about."
Magnus then rushed out of the mega-sized dinosaur's carcass and witnessed Restiel slash into another beast's eye despite his own injuries. There were still more beasts out there, although a few had fallen due to the presence of some special humans.
"I need more."
He muttered to himself as he felt his Spirit Reserves refill.
If he got a new soul to devour, he could train himself again. He glanced at the other dead dinosaurs as a smile emerged on his face.
But soon, he recalled an issue.
"I'm at a bottleneck... How do I break it?"
Restiel was still not showing signs of growth at all. He's stuck, and Magnus was likely the same as well.
"I will probably have to wait for another Spirit Energy Supplement Scroll," He muttered.
As soon as he had those thoughts, however, a hint arrived from Master of the Hivemind. It flowed into him out of nowhere that Magnus was jolted awake.
"What?" He exclaimed, "I can set all my members to be at a bottleneck in strength and then I can automatically advance them through a ritual? That's a thing?"
He received what seemed to be an automated reply. It was like his intuition was capable of thought.
"Or I can just assimilate a stronger being... I see. I understand."
It turns out that Master of the Hivemind can be used like that too.
Thus, it dawned on Magnus,
"Is that why I was easily able to make it past 1-star really easily? Because Klaris was already at that level?"
Magnus thought it was likely.