Human Devourer

[Ouch…]

'Aren't you a ball of fire yourself? How do you get hurt from that,' Leon thought as he didn't let go of Akira's neck, no matter how much his body was beginning to burn.

"JUST… FUCKING… DIE!" Akira shouted as the vortex of fire became much more powerful, enveloping Leon as he now struggled to keep going.

He truly wanted to let go of Akira's neck and run away as everything was hurting.

But…

"NO, YOU DIE!"

And so, Leon did something unbelievable.

~BITE~

[Oh? Keep your hunger in check…]

He actually bit Akira's shoulder with all his might.

Of course, such an attempt wouldn't do anything as he was still burning and Akira's defense was high.

But…

[You know what to do.]

"DEVOUR!" Leon activated the skill, and it was as if Akira's power was seeping into his mouth.

"Huh? WHAT?" the vortex of fire was weakening.

[Devour isn't only about absorbing souls and gaining stats, it can also DEVOUR an enemy's power, weakening it!]

"…" Leon was too focused on what was happening to listen to EGO.

"W…What t-the hell…?" Akira was beginning to lose consciousness, the grip around his blade weakening.

And then…

~SNAP~

Leon snapped his neck.

He couldn't have done it before since his measly 18 strength points wouldn't have been enough to overpower Akira's defense to snap his neck, but he took the chance the moment he was weakened.

"You already know what to do, EGO," Leon stood up as he wiped the blood from his mouth.

[Yes sir!]

"EGO," Leon pointed at Akira's body, "Use Devour!"

[Count it as done!]

Dan watched as the small ball of fire stopped on top of Akira's body, then opened its mouth wide and began to suck a white aura out of the dead boy.

[Delicious! But I still think monsters taste better, it's close though!]

'Fair, it would have been bad if you became addicted to human souls,' Leon had no plan to go on a rampage, or at least not against those who didn't want to kill him.

[You have been granted 17 stat points for devouring Akira, bearer of the [Hero of the Sun] talent]

[+3 souls]

[Congratulations!]

[You have completed the Side-Quest "Human Devourer"!]

[You have obtained 15 stat points!]

With this, Leon was literally only one soul away from reaching level 5.

"Phew…" Leon's body hurt all over, but before assigning his stat point, he reached his hand toward Dan and helped him get up, then went over to grab his bell and gave it to him, "We both really need healing…" he smiled.

"Oh yeah," Dan shook his bell, which made quite a nice sound, then he threw it on the ground to summon the golden fox, "Foxxy, use [Healing Properties]!"

Foxxy arrived, its eyes filled with determination.

It looked up at the two exhausted boys, and then began to lick Leon all over his injuries, slowly healing them and removing the burn marks created by the vortex, then it moved to Dan and healed him up as well.

"That thing is extremely useful…" Leon was astonished, he was back at 200 HP again!

Maybe this was why they only kept the strongest of awakeners alive? Because such skills were extremely useful to the nation?

"Haha~ don't mind it, Foxxy does everything in this relationship, I'm pretty much her master, but she has the pants in the fights," Dan laughed.

It was almost as if they hadn't just killed a human being.

A trash one sure, but to be honest, it didn't affect them at all.

On the other hand, Leon was focused on his status panel.

[You have 32 stat points!]

"Well, 20 in speed and 12 in strength, can't go wrong with these two."

[Your Speed Stat has increased by 20 stat points!]

[Your Strength Stat has increased by 12 stat points!]

"Hm~" Dan looked at the hallway they were in and… "Oh, looks like we found the boss room."

At the very end of the long hallway could be seen a beautiful red door with golden handles.

"Kind of looks like the principal office's door, not gonna lie," Dan pointed, and Leon agreed.

But right as they were about to head toward the end of the hallway, toward the end of this trial…

They heard footsteps behind them, and the loud chatter of people.

And once they turned around… they saw 7 people, walking together as a group toward them.

"We should be careful, only 9 of us left…"

"Dude, I don't even know how Jax was hit by those bullets, he died with a single headshot…"

"Forget about it, I'm sure we're close, maybe Akira's going to help us kill the boss…"

Dan and Leon kept looking at the group, and soon enough, they noticed them.

"Oh!"

"Dan and… Leon, was it?"

They all began walking faster toward them, wanting to meet as they hadn't seen each other for a while after all those deadly monsters.

But once they approached the two boys, all the group stopped in their tracks with wide eyes.

And the reason was quite obvious: Akira's corpse was on the ground, dead, with his neck snapped, and yet Leon and Dan were laughing like it was the greatest days of their lives.

"…Holy shit," one of the girls mumbled as she saw the rich boy's body.

"Akira is dead…? I thought for sure he would be the one to survive…"

"Did you guys do that?" a white-haired boy with blue eyes asked, he seemed to be the leader, and he confidently looked at Dan and Leon.

"Well, more like Leon did it, I guess," Dan shrugged, he didn't seem to care as he kept petting Foxxy, who was gently brushing its head against Dan's leg.

"…"

The white-haired leader advanced toward Leon, then put his right hand on his shoulder while nodding, "Amazing job, my guy," he gave him a thumbs up.

And then, everyone in the group cheered as well.

They all ran toward Leon, lifting him up and carrying him around like he was some sort of savior.

[Yes! YES! PRAISE US!] EGO really enjoyed this somehow.

"…" and once Leon looked at Dan, all he saw was that the blond-haired boy with sunglasses was shrugging.

They kept carrying Leon for the entirety of the long hallway until the red door at the end.

'They seemed to really hate Akira, huh…'

[Good job, Host, you have helped out society by killing that bastard, plus we got stronger by doing so!]

'Well… hopefully I can reach level 5 before though, I only need one more soul…'