The adventurer was on a completely different level than all the other humans that Kim killed till now. He was not only faster and stronger, but his skills and combat instinct also shined in Kim’s eyes.

Quite numerous times he attacked from the blind spot, yet adventurer would deflect the blow without even looking in its direction. He simply predicted the attack! He was a prey with instincts of a predator, a predator with the instincts of prey! When he attacked, he knew how he would react to that attack and anticipated Kim’s counter-measurement, to counter that too! When he was defending, he knew how he would attack a seemingly defenseless enemy and would rise a guard accordingly to his predictions! And he was never mistaken!

Humans can be scary too! That was the thing that brother Zariel tried to warn him from! Beasts in human’s skin! A worthy opponent!... a worthy meal!

The archers and spearmen that aid juggernaut were much weaker and slower, in other circumstances they would be already lying dead – but, once again – it was the adventurer leading them that made seemingly insignificant lumps of meat into a troublesome nuisance.

The way he was taking advantage of arrows barrage to both defend and attack! The way he positioned himself with squads of spearmen! So many times Kim was thinking that he ALMOST got him, so many times he could already feel the pressure of skin ripping under his claws, of a stream of blood gushing into his mouth… just to be thrown aside or forced to jump away.

But, the adventurer was only a human, and every human share a common trait – they make mistakes.

His fighting style was perfect. So perfect, that eventually – predictable. They were fighting in such a way to keep the lowest possible casualties. Humans weren’t ready to sacrifice anything for the sake of victory. Foolish, arrogant humans.

Once again Kim entered the cacophony of battle, dancefloor of fighters. At the same time, when his brother Zariel was dancing with Giselle, he was dancing with warriors and archers. When Zariel made a pirouette with Giselle, Kim made a pirouette while slashing with his claws on the sides and splitting throats of his opponents. When Zariel speeded up the dance, Kim charged on his enemy. When Zariel bowed to Giselle as the music ended, Kim tore a huge chunk of flesh from one of the warrior’s throats… with his teeth. Elegant dance of passion, and passionate dance macabre, both at the same time were danced by one creature in two bodies. Both of them enjoyed it. Both of them felt ecstasy rushing through their veins.

Kim learned to frequently change the patterns on his moves. These moves were always there, at the back of his head, yet, the longer he lived, the more he ate, the more clearly his visions would become. Everything he ate was a part of him, that also meant experience and hunting styles of each and every predator that died in his mouth was added to his own.

The speed of his thoughts kept accelerating, his predictions started becoming more and more accurate. It was like a hundred creatures were thinking in his head at the same time, each was dealing with a different equation which was later put together, like a mosaic picture made of billions of brilliant ideas.

That was Kim. That were Kim. Kim was perfection. Kim were a cluster of perfect beings. Best of their kind.

And Kim was not getting tired. The stamina of countless beings kept rushing through his vein. That was the true terror of Devourer. Hundreds of days he could fast, and he would never hunger. A hundred barrels he could drink, and his thirst would never be quenched. He was like a perfect battery, that could be loaded above its capacity, never being lost till it would be used, because of that as the battle last longer, the fatigue started showing on the faces of every warrior. The strikes were a little bit weaker, their moves were a little bit slower.

Soon, Kim would have their opportunity to strike. Soon…

“My lord! Every woman and child has been evacuated! We are all coming to assist you…” a single beast man came running to him from one of the back alleys “Dooon’t!” Kim hissed back

Right now, his situation was optimal. The time was working in his favor, but if the rest of the beast-men would gather in one place, enemy reinforcement was sure to join shortly after. And in the crowd he would lose most of his battle potential.

“Retreat! Regroup!” Kim kept on yelling “But.. what about you, my lord!?” “Me? Distraction! Will join you soon! Leave!” “But, there is too many of…” “LEEEAVEEEE!”

His scream was like a roar of the lion. Panic spread across the enemy lines… as well as his own people.

Right now, it wasn’t about the safety of other beast-men, even if Kim knew that this decision was good in the long term as well, his motivation now was completely egoistic.

He needed to kill that man. He had to. For the first time, there was a prey he was struggling to kill. Prey that was fighting back! He felt like an eagle trying to hunt down a snake. Will the snake manage to bite him before his talons would crush his skull? Adrenaline! It was like a drug!

ECSTASY!

At first, he didn’t notice that he was already standing near the gate of the city. It should be closed as the guards having an advantage should have shut the entrance of the city while trying to corner the rebels so they could wipe them all out at the same time, but, beast-men sabotaged from the inside a colossal mechanism triggering the huge iron gate movement. That meant that Kim still has an escape route available, not for long though. The walls were slowly being occupied but the additional squads of the archers.

Kim could hold the ground versus dozen or two at the same time, but despite his still developing skills and instincts that were being forged in the heat of battle, he knew that a single wolf will never hunt an entire herd of sheep at the same time. Especially not when the dog’s barking that could be heard from nearby…

… but he didn’t need to hunt them all.. just that man alone will be enough to state his hunger!

He purposely waited a bit longer than needed with dodging to let one of the arrows slightly cut his arm; second lateer he repeated that allowing another bolt to dig into his shoulder, far from muscles and nerves. He let out a pained yelp, even though adrenaline didn’t let him feel any pain at all.

His opponent noticed his “weakness” and used the very moment to perform reckless finishing blow. In an instance, adventurer raised his colossal ax above his head with the intention of splitting Kim into two, showing off his whole unprotected corpus.

Kim bolted onward. The time slowed down for both of them. Adventurer already knew that he wouldn’t be able to dodge nor block the attack in time. Unlike most of the creatures he killed, there was no fear in his eyes. No begging for life, only sadness, and anger. He was mad at himself that he let Kim play him like a child.

Mouth pf Chimera widened in a grotesque, bizarre smile. The moment he was waiting for has finally approached! He savored each part of the second that was passing; in his mind, he was already celebrating victory…

… but his instincts screamed; yelled so loud that Kim just couldn’t ignore them. He stopped his assault, dropped flat on the ground and rolled aside.

That saved his life. Between him and the adventurer, a powerful fire bolt hit the ground shattering the road. The impact pushed everyone aside from the center of impact. Everyone looked at the roofs of the houses. The whole battle scene was suddenly surrounded by people in dark robes with hoods over their faces that appeared from nothingness… literally. New and new figures kept appearing in the thin air.

“Sentinels are here!” someone yelled “Fuckers from Senate took their sweet time!”

Sentinels. Kim heard that name. Brother Zariel said that they were a very powerful magicians. When asked by Kim if they were stronger than him, he answered:

“I personally know only one of them; bastard named Daralon. I am lucky that he appears to like me. It’s not that he is weaker or stronger. I don’t even want to think about fighting with him. Most spells are straightforward. Destroy this, explode that, flood over there… His spells are… disgusting. Messy. Tricky. You never want to annoy someone that mastered curses as much as him”

If other Sentinels are all on a similar level as the one that big brother feared…; that meant that Kim had to run. Now.

One of the Sentinels, a woman guessing by the obvious body shape, jumped off the house and landed on the ground beneath it. With confidence she started approaching him. Her posture was challenging and welcoming, so full of openings that every less experienced hunter would just charge right on her. But her aura and smell that followed her once again tickled Kim’s senses.

She held a scepter in her right hand, with a fluent motion she raised it above her hand and pointed it in Kim’s direction.

The powerful gust of hot wind sent him on the neatest building. The wall cracked under the pressure of the blow. She didn’t use the chant which meant that she wasn’t even treating him seriously.

… This lesser creature underestimating him? Good.

Another gust of wind, this time; Kim morphed his lower limbs into talons which he used to anchor himself to the ground; waited till the gust would end before he spat the blob of toxin at her enemy. As expected, she quickly raised a shield of wind forcing the ooze to hover in front of her reducing her vision. Using seconds of distraction, he dropped on all four and charged onward. When the woman finally cast distraction aside she noticed Kim’s clawed hand about to slash her face; yet once again he was stopped, this time by a pillar of ice.

“You owe me a kiss, Natasha!” “In your fucking dreams! I had him when I wanted!” “Sure, a person that specializes in medium-range wanted a beast in front of her face.” “SHUT UP!”

They were arguing in the middle of battle? Were they that stupid or overconfident?! Even when he was fighting moments ago with much weaker humans which he was decimating one after another, he didn’t lower his guard for a second. It wasn’t a matter of pride, but survival.

“Guys, can you leave this lovely conversation for the time after the quest? We were supposed to capture the creature.” Third-person – the fire user, shyly raised his voice “THIS CONVERSATION IS FAR FROM BEING LOVELY!” “I like it when a woman pretends to be hard to get…” “I am not hard, you are just an un-dateable cunt!” “That hurt!” “Guys, you are starting it again. Why do I keep getting assigned to the two of you?” “Because only you have balls to disturb our lovely quarrel…” “IT AIN’T LOVELY!”

Kim reached a conclusion - Mages are insane. Completely lacking self-preserving instincts. Unfortunately, their skills appear to completely compensate it.

One of those mages proved to be too much for him. Three of them were a certain doom. Three of them plus small garrison of soldier… Wait. That’s it! Let’s use their number against them.

“Uh! Let’s just end it and go back. I don’t want to spend more time than needed with that asshole!” she-mage once again raised her hand toward Kim who quickly jumped between the soldiers who moments earlier moved aside giving space for magicians to do their deed. In the last moment she canceled her spell trying not to damage bystanders, in the meantime; Kim slashed confused mob that broke its formation. “This little bugger have brain between his ears, huh?...” the fire user noticed “… I almost want it to be my partner instead you two…” “ZIP IT!” he was yelled by his comrades

Ice mage touched the ground with both his hand.

“Oh, the cruel mother that dwells on the North;

Punish thy foes that corrupt your land;

May none escape, may none shall pass;

Trap them in prison of celestial ice! ICE AGE PRISON!”

The ring of cold air spread through the whole plaza. It passed without causing any damage through every living being, but once it touched Kim, the air materialized freezing around his legs.

“Here. The job’s done. No need to thank me, I am just doing my job! I will sign your autographs later, form a queue please…”

Silly. The solid structure of his prison is its weakness, all he had to do was to shrink his leg size…

As he thought, so he did. Seconds later he morphed his legs, jumped off the shackles and morphed back.

“A wonderful work indeed, shithead! You didn’t even trap his in a sphere! A bloody shapeshifter! I thought that you have at least two brain cells but apparently you don’t even have one!”

So, they also possess the ability to attack him without hurting their kinsmen. Kim was running out of options. He looked toward the gates, and as soon as he did a wall of fire was erected in that place.

“A-A-A! Not running away sweet-thing! You are smart and I like it. Here is a deal – you surrender and go with us and we will not hurt you. A fair deal isn’t it?” “He will still most likely get hurt on our destination thought…” “SHUT THE FUCK UP, YOU RETARDED MORON!” “Oopsie daisy. Am sorru! Forgib pwease?” ice user said like a child. “I am working with degenerates…”

Thousands of minds started working in Kim’s head looking for a way out. And he found it pretty quickly, it was risky, but when your choices are either risk of certain damnation, taking a risky option turn into a logical solution.

He charged at the ice user, making sure that the wind-woman was behind his back. Looking at how dumb they were, he thought that the woman would use this opportunity to hit both him and hated Ice user at the same time, with all she got atop of that, and seeing that the ice user would raise a protective spell… or not?

“Answer my command, sprits of ancient gale!...” she started a chant. So, at least one of them met Kim’s expectations. “Come on! You won’t do that…” Ice mage smiled under the hood “…Bow before the queen that suffers a bale!” “… but you totally do… Fuuuck meee sideways.” “STOP IT! DON’T YOU SEE HE IS BAITING YOU!?” fire mage, the only one with sanity intact yelled at his companions “Send down a storm! The thunder and light!” “I command you as your king, spirits of ice!

Grant me the armor that nothing shall slice!

Nothing with bend and nothing shall move!

As at the…”

The rest of the chants got mixed together into incomprehensive cacophony.

From woman’s scepter, the typhoon-like gust was sent. It was so powerful, that many roof tiles were ripped off the houses and send flying alongside it. At the same time, ice mage raised a structure of ice pillars in the form of a shield in front of him. Kim started jumping from a smaller pillar to the highest till he reached the top and then once again jumped vertically up. For a second he was hovering in the air. He morphed his backs growing wings…And then, he waited.

The powerful wind hitting the shield stopped for a moment, before separating itself into three weaker, yet still powerful streams of wind. To the left and right which caused lots of damage across the soldiers and infrastructure, and one of them going vertically up – right at the Kim, catapulting him even higher.

Now, he fully spread his wings and using acceleration granted by the witch he flew above the walls and vanished in the darkness of the night.

Once the hailstorm calmed down; everything and everyone become quiet. Ice and wind mages were looking at one another with guilty expression under hooded faces. Only fire mage was trembling.

“Hey, Sigi…” “One. I am not Sigi. Two. Don’t you fucking dare opening your mouth…” “Siegphird! Cooome on! Accidents are bound to happen!” “Your accidents cause: a) damages across bystanders b) damages in environment c) releasing dangerous individuals… THAT WAS MEANT TO BE CAPTURED! FOR FUCK SAKE YOU NITWITS! I AM DONE WITH YOU! I am going back to headquarters to report the mess that you caused. You stay here. You have to clean this pile of shit you made here!” “Sigi! Don’t be like that!”

But man already started vanishing.

“Aaaand he left us! I believe he wanted to give us some intimate time…”

The murderous glare from the woman was his only answer.