Chapter 136: Shadows Among the Team
Uche stood silently beneath the twisted roots of a mana-bloom tree, its glowing petals casting soft indigo light across his skin like rippling silk. The air was thick with ambient energy, humming gently around the base as if whispering secrets. Around him, the squad moved with practiced coordination adepts mapping the nearby mana crystal deposits, their glyph-stamped scrolls glowing faintly; commanders directing the carving of beasts with sharp hand gestures and murmured codes; and Frank, always at the center, calm and deliberate, every step calculated.
But Uche's attention never left the man.
Frank.
To the others, he was the newly promoted team leader. A rare Master-rank who had risen from humble beginnings. Quiet. Strategic. Unshakably disciplined. Efficient in all things. But to Uche, he was a target. Douglas had made himself clear.
The memory of the meeting was still fresh in Uche's mind, etched like a brand behind his eyelids. It was just after Frank had returned from his first UR expedition, bearing wild reports of massive mana hauls, unnatural beasts, and signs of spiritual refinement most people would kill to glimpse.
"Every time I visited my sister," Douglas had sneered, voice coiled with disdain, "that boy was always there. Pathetic. Loud-mouthed. Too close. But now?" His fists had clenched. "Now he walks like a predator. And I can feel it in my bones he found something in UR. Something big."
That something was what Douglas wanted.
"You'll follow him," he had commanded, slipping the slender, rune-etched ring into Uche's palm. "This will suppress your Master-rank presence. No one in his team will sense what you truly are. Not even Frank. Watch. Report. And if it's a technique, an artifact, or a relic bring it back to me. One way or another."
And so, Uche had joined the mission under the guise of a newly promoted commander. Quiet. Competent. Unassuming. A man who blended into the rhythm of camp life with ease. The ring did its job perfectly; Frank, for all his sharpened instincts and battlefield awareness, hadn't given him more than a courteous glance.
Yet in the past five days, Uche had seen enough to understand why Douglas was worried.
Frank wasn't just growing stronger he was evolving. Systematically. Deliberately.
Every beast they hunted, Frank consumed. Not physically, but through the red parasitic vine that now coiled like a living tattoo along his forearm. It pulsed faintly with a life of its own, whispering of dark symbiosis. The moment the beast's core was removed and its essence spent, Frank would retreat to the shadows and let the vine feed. It was subtle, almost ceremonial but to a trained eye, the buildup of vitality in his frame was unmistakable.
Frank's aura had grown denser. His muscles moved with terrifying control. His gait was precise, balanced, always grounded signs of someone walking the path of high-tier physical cultivation. A predator refining every instinct.
"Titan's Hunger," Uche whispered to himself, crouched on a ridge above their latest kill site. The theory clicked into place.
But something didn't add up.
Uche knew the signs. Practitioners of Titan's Hunger were usually built like siege weapons massive, constantly consuming, ravenous. Their metabolisms devoured everything in sight, requiring high-energy meals at regular intervals or they risked catastrophic collapse. Yet Frank still looked lean, his figure sharp and refined. And Uche had never seen him eat more than the required team ration packs never indulging, never feasting.
If not for the intel Douglas had provided that Frank had exchanged something on earth moon for the art Uche wouldn't have believed it. The typical hallmarks of the technique weren't present.
But he had seen something others had missed.
That parasitic entity it wasn't just a vessel. It was alive. A being bound to Frank's essence. Uche had watched it drain the corpse of a Class-2 Mana Golem in seconds, leaving nothing behind but a brittle husk.
He tapped a rune on the crystal band hidden beneath his glove. It pulsed once message sent.
Douglas would be pleased.
Yet a sliver of doubt crept into Uche's mind as he watched Frank crouch over the dead mana hound below. The red vine snaked outward, sinking into the corpse, drinking greedily. Frank's eyes glowed faintly, irises swirling with a dim, eldritch red. His breath was slow. Controlled. Almost meditative.
This wasn't reckless consumption. It was practiced. Precise. Honed through repetition.
"He's not just lucky," Uche realized. "He's… intentional. Calculated. Like a predator grooming its weapons.
And that made him dangerous.
Uche stepped back into the cover of the trees, vanishing once more into the haze of twilight mana. His boots made no sound as he moved across moss and root. The mana-bloom petals swirled gently in his wake, disturbed only by the weight of his thoughts.
He would keep watching. For now.
But if the opportunity arose
He would make his move.
Just as Douglas instructed.