I Became an Ant Lord, So I Built a Hive Full of Beauties-Chapter 385: Hunger & Ashes

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He kept counting in his head with the empty bell the system had left in place when it stopped line by line. He hit ten bodies. He hit twenty. The warmth inside him thickened, not like wine but like clean broth. His arms felt stronger. His legs felt like they had one more slope in them without pain. His sight stayed clear.

He lifted a plate on one chest and bit through the thick place over the heart. He swallowed the last of the small life. The skin went gray in a breath. He wiped his mouth on his wrist and moved to the next. He did not bother to perform the ritual like a predator. This was his ritual.

Azhara shifted the leash foot to foot and watched him finish a third in this row. She swallowed and laughed once under her breath and shook her head at herself. "Still handsome as ever," she said softly, like a joke only she could hear. She kept her eyes on him. She did not blink much.

Rauk tried to crawl one pace to the side to get his shoulder out of a small cold puddle of his own blood. The leash pulled tight. Azhara felt the tug and set her heel down again. "Stay," she said. Rauk stopped. Sweat shone on his face. His lips looked blue.

Kai finished another five. Another five after that. He did not taste names. He did not care to. He tasted iron and heat and a tiny clean sting at the back of his tongue that meant one more point to spend on strength or on speed or on the hard places that hold a body together when the hammer hits.

He stopped after the last one. He lifted his head and listened.

The wind pulled at the dune lines. The camp was still two hills away. He could hear the deep hum of many ants at rest, the odd clank, the low laugh of men around a pot, and one your-lucky-day laugh that belonged to Mardek even when you could not see him.

"System," he said inside. "Now. Total."

[Ding! Essence Eater sequence complete. Bodies drained: 48 four star (4★). Stat points gained: +192 unallocated.]

He rolled his shoulders. The joints popped. His breath felt long and easy.

"Good," he said inside. He glanced at Azhara. Her eyes widened when she saw the way he stood now. She was not subtle about it.

"Wipe your mouth, sir." she said with a grin that showed teeth. "You look like you ate a red fruit too fast."

He wiped. It did not help much. She laughed once. The laugh held more heat than sound.

Rauk licked cracked lips. "You will not... make a grave," he forced out.

"We will make fire," Kai said.

"Good," Rauk said. "Do not leave them for the wild beasts." He swallowed. It shook his whole body.

Azhara tugged the leash once like a joke and then left the captain sitting in his own breath while she checked the piles one more time. She came back and stood next to Kai. She leaned close for a heartbeat and let her shoulder touch his. She did not push. She just wanted to feel the warmth coming off him. It was bright enough to feel through cloth.

"Your hands are steady," she said.

"They have to be," he said.

"Your eyes are sharp," she said.

"They have to be," he said again.

She leaned back and rolled the leash around her palm. Her pupils were big. She kept her voice light. "I will hold your dog. You go and get our princess back."

"Not yet," Kai said. "Two more things."

"Cores," Kai said. "Every four-star core. Bring them."

Azhara flicked the leash so it looped over Rauk’s neck twice and bit down tighter. She bent, found the captain’s knife with her toe, flipped it, caught it, and slid it into her belt. Then she worked the dead again, faster now that she knew where each man wore his inner plate and the small pouch under it.

She came back with two greasy bundles tied in torn cloth. She opened them. Hard lumps clicked together in the moonlight. She counted aloud. "Ten. Twenty. Thirty. Forty. Eight more." She went back, kicked a stubborn chest plate until it bent, dug with two fingers, and hissed when she touched a hot shard. "Forty-six. Forty-seven. Forty-eight."

She brought the last two and let them clack into the pile. "Here, sir."

Kai opened his hand over the heap. The cores shivered and lifted like iron filings under a magnet. They slid across the air in a small arc and vanished at his wrist as if they had fallen into his skin.

Rauk’s one open eye went wide. "Where did you put them?"

Kai said nothing.

"I have seen bags that eat things," Rauk said. "I have seen boxes that fold a tent into a pebble. I have never seen a hand do that." He swallowed. "What are you?"

Azhara answered for Kai. "He is my master. He is the King of our mountain. He is a problem you did not understand before you put your hand in it. He is not a trick. He is not a toy. He is not like the men you shout orders at. He makes orders for others and all kinds of things."

Rauk stared at her. "You are happy when he is cruel," he said. It was not an accusation. It was a thing he saw and did not know where to put it.

"I am happy when my master is strong," Azhara said. She did not blush. "He is strong for us."

She turned away and knelt by the corpse pile. She pulled a flat stone from the sands. Then she struck her dagger blade against it three times, and caught the sparks in shredded belt leather she had rubbed with oil just a few seconds ago.

{Note: I request everyone to read the Void lord book.}