Chapter 34: New Me, New Strategies

I looked at her blankly as I took in what she just said. She wants me to eat her?

To be honest I could just take it but I was expecting she would ask me to do something to extend her life. Like refilling that giant magic machine above us or something. Isn’t our whole race’s schtick survival of the fittest? You know surviving is part of that whole thing…

“You want me to kill you?” I asked, barely able to believe it.

“Yes.” the Eternal Mother replied calmly.

“Why? You could ask me to find a way to heal you or find a way to recharge that machine or something.” I replied.

If there is one thing I know from my past life. If something seems too good to be true, chances are it is. Incidents where you get free stuff are few and far between. Once I was offered a slice of pizza by this teenage girl. She said she wanted to help me and honestly it was five degrees celcius out, I hadn’t eaten in a day so I wasn’t about to be picky.

It turns out the reason she bought me the slice of pizza was because she had a school project about helping the poor. So she just bought me a slice of pizza and made me take a picture with her. How did I find this out? Well she was blabbing on her phone almost immediately after she took the photo.

So that was a lesson in how everyone always wanted something…

Then there’s the time that a group of men in suits visited the slum I was living in to ask for applicants to this medicine trial in exchange for cash. I was about to sign up with lil sis but this nice man stopped me telling me the medicine may do horrible things to me in the long run.

There’s a lot more examples I have but the point is that I learned everyone wants something and nothing is free.

“Does it matter?” the Eternal Mother asked.

“How long do you think I’ll last if I’m so trusting?” I replied with a question of my own.

“Ha, good, it would not do for one of our kind to be meek and trusting. Trust no one, we are Firstborn, we stand alone.” the Eternal Mother said with a smile.

“So why do you want me to help you commit suicide?” I asked again.

“It’s simple really, you see that contraption above me will last about a few more months at most. Even if you could restore power to this infernal contraption it wouldn’t matter. I am forever chained to this machine, I am living on borrowed time.

Do you know why so many of our kind decided to transform ourselves into a pair of eggs?” the Eternal Mother asked and I shook my head in response.

“Because for us the only goal, the only purpose we have is to survive and grow strong. Back then long ago, in a time that lives on only in distorted legends. There were some who could not grow any stronger and were on the cusp of being devoured. For you see we only eat those worthy and some are born more worthy than others.

Every single one of our kin is different, we are a species of one. None of us can fully assimilate the essence we obtain, we take what we have the most affinity for and some of us can take more than others.

So then came the solution, by turning themselves into eggs they found a way to live on. For we would not eat a newborn, it is simply a waste. Just like how those bipedal cretins fatten cattle, we too did this for our own kind. It wasn’t uncommon for one of us to look the other way when we came across something that was not worth eating.

Because you see the strongest among us battle for supremacy and everything else grovels at their feet. For the strong do what they will and weak suffer what they must. That is our way, that has always been our way. Eat or be eaten, kill or be killed, consume, adapt, overcome.” the Eternal Mother said.

“So you want to live on through me, because you can’t leave anymore. You're basically dead.” I stated.

“More or less. Unfortunately you won’t get much from me. Well it’s a lot for you as you are now but I once had four hearts. So you just have a quarter of my power at your disposal.” the Eternal Mother said.

“So our essence is concentrated in our hearts?” I asked.

“Yes, essence is just energy in the form of information, we call it the essence code. It is both an information database and a power source. We add to our code and grow its power. The difference between us and everything else is that our essence code is mutable like clay. It can change, adapt and our bodies can handle this chaotic nature. For you see the bulk of our power is not actually in our physical or magical strength, it is in our ability to change our essence code.

This ability of controlled evolution and adaptation is an extremely resource intensive trait. That is why most of the other races switched to the mating system, which eventually evolved into the gender system. They gave up their ability to change, and banked on random mutations and population size. Thus when they breed it becomes relatively cheap in terms of resources. With two parents offering the power for two offspring.

This has changed greatly over the eons of course, now breeding mostly hampers the female. The males only offer a copy of essence to meld with the essence of the female. The offspring then inherit a random combination of the traits. From there, the ones with the best traits for survival will continue to sire progeny. They used evolutionary pressure and large populations to fulfill the same function our mutable essence did.

It is a crude solution but understandable for weaklings, they were after all unfit to walk among the strong. Not everything that crawled out of the Primordial Pool was fit for survival in our world. To their credit this solution is… creative to say the least.” the Eternal Mother said.

“I see. Although, after hearing all of this… it looks like the others had the winning strategy. After all we are the ones thought extinct.” I replied.

“Hahaha, you may be right, so what will you do with that information?” the Eternal Mother asked.

“Simple really, the other races get power from numbers. I’ll just have to get a lot of them on my side. With your abilities to change them, I can change them to my designs. I will offer them power in exchange for loyalty… or perhaps sculpt loyalty into their very being.” I said.

“Hmph I tried that young one, eventually the other races figured out those under my sway were just slaves, with no independence. They realised submitting to me was as good as dying.” the Eternal Mother said.

“I plan to do it… more subtly.” I replied.

“Subtly?” the Eternal Mother asked curiously.

“You see there is one thing I realised about them. You don’t have to control them directly, you just have to control what they care about. If you offer food to the starved they will do pretty much anything. I will have some slaves for sure, but I will let the more intelligent groups keep their own free will. I plan to make them be my very willing servants.” I said. This was something I also learned in my past life. If one can control what the other cares about, then that person controls the other by proxy.

“Hmm I'm not sure how you are going to do that but I doubt you wish to give a long explanation on it.” the Eternal Mother said.

“Yeah, it would be a pain...” I replied with a small chuckle.

“Now then, I assume you are willing to devour me?” the Eternal Mother asked.

“Naturally.” I replied.

“Excellent, now then there is a problem. I have a lot of adaptations but I can only give some of it because I only have one heart left. So now you have to choose…” the Eternal Mother said.

“You can do that?” I asked in surprise. Huh, I didn’t know we could control our bodies to that extent. That is some pretty precise stuff.

“What’s on the market?” I asked.

“The adaptations I have were made for a different time, our kin once evolved to fight each other but now the world is different so I expect you will choose a different approach.

The first option I give you is my combat focused adaptations. My combat abilities focus on ambushes and stealth. I used my creations to distract and impede while I waited for the perfect moment to strike. I have a weak defence but powerful offence. I am what is called a Stalker type strain, essentially I am an ambush predator. There are two other types, the first being brawlers that focus on physical strength and lack speed. The second are those that focus on magic and ether manipulation but fall short in physical capabilities.” the Eternal Mother said.

“So the warrior, mage and rogue?” I asked, that sounds alot like the system the adventurers use.

“Yes the chaff imitate our strategies even till today. Afterall we had eons to perfect it.” the Eternal Mother replied.

“And the next option?” I asked.

“The second is my magical abilities, they are formidable by your standards but it is nothing worthy of note against the true masters of the arcane. I just learned them out of curiosity and I rarely used them in battle. But if you desire to move into that path I can give you head start.

The third and final option is my fleshcrafting abilities. I can give you the power to sculpt flesh and turn what is sallow into something... more… much more…

This is my strongest ability, you will be able to create works from scratch or change what is weak. In truth this ability is also very rare, there is a reason after all they decided to keep me alive.” the Eternal Mother replied.

Honestly, straight up power sounds good but… I can get that from elsewhere. What’s more, what she described sounds alot like what I have now, I’m mostly an ambush predator as well. So her physical traits won’t give me many new strategic options. I’ll just be able to do what I do now but better.

The second option just didn’t seem like a good choice, I mean she basically admitted that she’s a shit magic caster compared to the other Firstborn. But then again that’s a really high bar, Cecilia said in the old legends the Firstborn could raise islands from the sea, create pocket dimensions and other crazy shit like that. So her powers may still be really powerful…

But the last option was really interesting. I have been thinking about this for a while actually. I have a feeling individual strength may simply not be good enough. From what I can tell the old devourers were individualistic, they didn’t collaborate. I have a feeling if the other devourers all worked together they wouldn’t all be dead. Strength in numbers and all that.

Plus being strong alone didn’t seem to work last time and back then there were a lot more of us. Isn’t the definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a different outcome?

She said it herself, this world is different than what it used to be. I mean I don’t exactly have access to the kind of prey that used to exist. Finding this mangled piece of a devourer is a big win but compared to the stuff the other devourers had access to this is probably just crumbs.

I need to use a different approach…

I need people on my side, strength in numbers...

So my plan is this, I’m not going to compel loyalty through direct control, at least not on a mass scale. I’m going to get them addicted to something, in this case power. With this ability I can change them, make them better. The past devourers were born with their power; they don’t know what it’s like to be weak and helpless with no way of fighting back. Well at least the ones in charge didn't know...

But me? Oh I know what that’s like. In my past life my life was a dead end, I had no opportunities to improve my life. I was helpless, powerless, I couldn’t save myself, I couldn’t save my lil sis. But now? Ohhh now… I can be as powerful as I want, I have limitless potential. And this feeling… ohh it’s intoxicating…

I will offer this forbidden fruit to those who are willing, their power growth will rely on me. If I control this desire, then I control them. Of course I will alter them slightly to be addicted to this quest for more power. If I make the game I can ensure the house always wins…

They can have whatever goals they want, do all that hero shit, feed the poor, save the nation, blah blah blah, whatever... At the end of the day no matter what the goal, no matter the passion they need power to do that. People are slaves to their passions, we are nothing without them.

We are all addicts and I know addicts. Afterall in the slums if there is one thing that is always present it’s addicts. Whether to some kind of drug or to their lost dreams. Take away what someone lives for and you might as well kill them where they stand. Afterall, that’s what happened to me. When I lost lil sis, I just gave up. I stopped caring, I suppose that’s the main reason I died…

Well I won’t be powerless this time, everything in this world is one of two things to me.

They are either allies…

Or food…

If there is one thing that I have that the old devourers don't, it's that I know what it's like to be weak. I used to be human, and that knowledge will be useful. I know how they think, well how I used to think anyway. Humans are weak and squishy creatures but we are quite smart. As the Eternal Mother said the humanoids here learned to play their worse hand better than the devourers learned to play their far better hand. I may be smart but I can’t think of everything and I can’t be everywhere. I need help…

So that’s the plan, those who serve me will get something for it. If I can just offer a better deal than anyone on the market, converts shouldn’t be that hard. What did those business people call it? I remember overhearing it once…A value proposition? A USP? Well that can’t be right... USP and value proposition don't sound remotely like the same thing…

Well whatever, I get the general idea. I give you shit, more shit than anyone else, shit only I can give you and in return you work for me. Maybe I can throw in a year end bonus or something.

I’ll see how it goes…

“So what is your choice youngling?” the Eternal Mother asked.

“I’ll take fleshcrafting.” I replied as I saw the corner of her mouth curl up slightly in a small smile.

Good choice...