Nekeili held his breath, caught between awe and fear as the large titanic being slaughtered the corrupted Hexapods in droves, hundreds dying within just a few breaths. Their bodies were crushed and torn apart with horrifying efficiency, the sound alone enough to make his chest tighten—a wet, grinding noise of splitting chitin and rupturing flesh that echoed across the fractured plains.
A few dozen Apex myriapods surged forward, climbing and constricting around the macro beast's limbs, their elongated bodies wrapping tight in instinctive coordination—much like the one that had chased him and nearly killed him, yet had died by his very hands. The memory surfaced sharp and immediate. He could still feel it the resistance, the tearing, the moment it gave way. These creatures… they were the same.
Or at least, they used to be.
Natives of Adramadeus.
Now they were something else entirely changed, twisted, a perversion of the very world that had birthed them. The thought didn't fully form, but it lingered in the back of his mind, something instinctively understood rather than consciously realized.
As fearsome and powerful as these Apex myriapods were, they didn't last. The macro beast flexed, a subtle shift in its massive frame, yet the force that followed rippled outward instantly. The myriapods, still tightly coiled, couldn't release in time.
Their bodies tore apart along their own seams.
Segments split open with sharp, cracking sounds as their chitin failed under the pressure. The tension they had created became their undoing, their own strength turning against them as they twisted, broke, and came apart mid-constriction. Strength that could have killed him meant nothing here. Many fell dead instantly, while the rest were reduced to a sloppy, broken mass clinging to the creature's limbs, twitching as thick black ichor leaked from their ruined bodies.
The macro beast lowered its head and licked them off slow, casually devouring them without pause.
The void-infected creatures scattered back into the canyon, their movements frantic and erratic. Some fled deep into the fractured land, vanishing into cracks that sank into darkness, retreating toward whatever depths they had crawled out from. Others didn't go far. They turned and fed, tearing into their own dead without hesitation, ripping apart heads, snapping limbs free, consuming whatever they could grab.
No hesitation. No recognition.
Only hunger.
Whatever they could take, they took.
Nekeili gripped the large stone in front of him harder, his fingers digging into the rough surface as tremors rolled through the land beneath him. He forced himself lower, pressing his body into cover, making himself smaller, quieter. The titan hadn't noticed him.
A being of its magnitude didn't care for him, Yet he didn't move anyway.
He couldn't risk it.
He just watched.
The massive creature shifted, its weight settling into the fractured ground as it seated itself, the land subtly giving beneath it. Its many limbs moved with unsettling precision as it gathered the remains of the perverted insecti, dragging them inward before feeding—gorging itself on their tarred, chitinous flesh. Thick black ichor spilled across the earth, pooling unevenly, staining the littoral ground as the creature consumed everything without restraint.
The smell hit him harder now.
Metallic. Rotten. Heavy.
It clung to the back of his throat, making his stomach twist. He should've been repulsed, Part of him was.
But it felt distant. Faint. Buried under something else.
Something stronger.
One of the creature's arms lifted slowly, controlled, and a sphere of air formed around a dark orb that appeared almost instantly. The space around it distorted faintly, as if being pulled inward. At first, it was small barely noticeable but then the energy began to move.
It flowed along the creature's arm, not randomly. It was deliberate, Like a current being guided.
It climbed upward in steady streams, gathering at its fingertips before feeding into the growing sphere, each strand merging seamlessly into the whole.
Nekeili's grip tightened. His nails split, digging deeper into the stone, but he didn't react.
He knew what that was.
Not because he understood it—
Because something in him recognized it.
Nekeili whispered against the corse stone"That… that's the same"
That was siphoned energy.
The realization settled in him, quiet but absolute, and with it came that pull again. That same call he had felt before, when his body guided him to the apex centipede's head.
Only this time—
It was stronger.
Sharper.
That was condensed void essence.
Pure power.
His breathing grew uneven as he stared, his body completely still, but inside, something shifted. The hunger wasn't just there anymore—it was growing, spreading, pressing deeper into him with every passing second.
His greed spoke for him "I… want that…"
The thought came too clearly.
Too fast.
His fingers pressed deeper into the stone, nails cracking further as small fragments broke loose beneath them. He didn't feel it. Didn't care.
All his focus was on the sphere.
The more the creature fed, the more void essence flowed through it, drawn upward, refined, condensed. It wasn't random. It wasn't chaotic. There was purpose to it, a process that turned consumption into something more.
And the longer it went on—
The worse it became.
The hunger wasn't just physical anymore.
It spread into his chest, his thoughts, his awareness. Everything else dulled at the edges, pushed aside as that single point of focus became all that mattered.
Finally, the creature finished feeding. The last of the void essence surged through it in one continuous stream, flowing into the sphere as it lifted its head and roared.
The sound hit him like a force.
His vision blurred instantly, his skull ringing as blood seeped from his ears, his nose, his mouth. The pressure alone felt like it could tear him apart.
Still, He didn't look away.
The orb began to condense, shrinking as its surface tightened, the energy within growing unstable as it was forced inward. It resisted, shifting violently, unable to hold its form as it compressed further.
Then suddenly—
It expanded.
Violently.
The mass swelled outward, unstable, threatening to rupture completely.
Nekeili's body tensed.
"Is it going to explode.." he muttered
The giant beast roared again, louder this time, its limbs flexing as it forced control over the unstable essence. The energy resisted, pulsing erratically, but it didn't matter. The creature overpowered it, forced it into place, compressing it again and again until—
A sharp soundwave rang out.
Everything stilled.
Where the sphere had been, something remained.
A small, solidified black crystal hovered in the air, its obsidian surface catching the light as dark purple and black hues shifted across it. It wasn't unstable anymore. It was complete. Dense.
Real.
Nekeili stared at it, unblinking, his breathing slowing as his body went completely still. Everything in him every thought, every instinct collapsed into that single point.
The hunger wasn't distant anymore, It wasn't something he could ignore.
It was there.
Dominant.
Consuming.
"I need it…" Nekeili growled deeply
Like an animal that hadn't eaten in days, He couldn't look away.
And the hunger inside him only grew.