"K... Kkeuaaack!"
The scream was not an appeal of pain.
It was the death throes screamed as the body collapsed.
The swallowed fragment did not digest in the stomach but exploded like a small sun within.
Kugugung.
A force defying gravity took effect.
Kkabi's gaunt body, barely over a meter tall, floated into the air.
From around his navel, a blinding golden radiance burst through his skin.
It was a light so intense that his internal organs were clearly visible, as if a powerful light had been placed inside thin paper.
Udeudeuk! Kwajik!
Horrific sounds tore the silence of the Black Valley.
They were the sounds of bones breaking, but simultaneously the sounds of something growing massively.
His spine twisted and elongated like a snake, and his ribs swelled as if they would burst through his ribcage.
"D-don't come... What on earth is that..."
Gark, who had been charging with his axe, stepped back.
The scene unfolding before his eyes was not mere biological evolution.
It was a destructive 'mutation' that ignored the laws of physics.
Jji-ik- Chwa-ak!
Kkabi's dull green skin couldn't handle the rapidly expanding volume and burst open.
Through the gaps in the tattered hide, instead of murky black blood, sticky and dazzling golden energy flowed out.
That energy instantly congealed, forming wriggling 'golden muscles.'
His limbs twisted bizarrely and thickened.
The gaunt goblin's physique instantly exceeded 3 meters, then 5 meters.
His head split open like a watermelon breaking, and from within, a larger and more hideous jawbone surged up.
His mouth ripped open to below his ears, and shark-like serrated teeth sprouted through the gums in droves.
In that process, the personality named 'Kkabi' evaporated without a trace.
The memories of being trampled, the sense of injustice, the desire to live. All of it burned white.
Only one thing remained.
The primal command to fill the empty stomach.
Thump-!
The mutated monster landed on the ground.
The earth screamed and caved in.
A massive beast covered entirely in golden muscular armor.
It was no longer a goblin.
It was a 'Golden Devourer.'
"Hun... gry..."
A thick, gravelly voice, like scratching the bottom of hell, flowed from the monster's maw.
The predator's rolling eyes fixed on Gark.
Reason did not exist in those eyes.
Only the appetite recognizing the being in front of it as 'protein' glistened.
"Y-you monster bastard...!"
Gark felt his legs trembling.
His instincts were warning him to run.
But he was the Orc Captain ruling this sector.
He couldn't be scared and run away in front of his subordinates.
Fear was soon replaced by anger.
"Even if you get bigger, you're just a goblin! Die!"
Gark shouted and kicked off the ground, leaping up.
The steel axe in his hand slammed down towards the predator's crown with terrifying momentum.
It was a strike powerful enough to split a boulder.
Kang-!
A dull clashing sound rang out.
Blood should have splattered.
Brains should have flowed.
But what entered Gark's eyes was an unbelievable sight.
As soon as the blade of the steel axe touched the predator's golden skin, it crumpled like an aluminum can.
Not a single scratch was made on the predator's skin.
"...?"
Gark stared blankly at the lump of scrap metal in his hand.
The predator slowly raised its head.
The crumpled axe blade was right in front of its eyes.
The beast opened its maw.
Crunch!
"...Huh?"
The predator bit into the axe blade.
The sound of steel shattering like candy rang out.
The beast chewed and swallowed the steel with crunching noises.
"The, the axe...?"
Gark's thoughts stopped.
Overwhelming difference in power.
This was not a fight.
It was a reversal of the food chain.
The predator, having swallowed the axe, looked down at Gark and smacked its lips.
"Meat..."
"H-hiek!"
Gark tried to step back, but it was too late.
The predator's massive hand roughly grabbed Gark's torso.
Puck-!
"Kkeuaaack!"
Golden claws pierced through the Orc's thick steel armor like tofu and embedded deeply into his side.
The armor tore like a sheet of paper, and dark red blood spurted out.
Gark writhed in pain, struggling in the air.
"Spare... Spare me! The tribute! You don't have to pay the tribute! Please!"
Gark's pleading voice did not reach the predator.
To the predator, it was merely the sound of food whining.
"Thanks for the meal."
The predator opened its massive maw to the limit.
The mouth lined with serrated teeth filled Gark's vision.
"N-no! Aaaaaaaack!"
Crunch. Chomp. Rip.
Gark's upper body disappeared into the predator's mouth.
Terrible chewing sounds echoed through the village square.
Blood splattered everywhere, but before it could hit the ground, it evaporated from the heat emitted by the predator's body.
From the body of the predator that drank blood, the golden light flashed even more intensely and ominously.
It was not a simple meal.
It was the process of the
"U-ugh! Run!"
"The Captain got eaten! Everyone's going to die!"
Gark's subordinates, who had been frozen, screamed and scattered.
But the disaster was spreading to the entire Black Valley village.
Crunch. Chomp. Rip.
There was no trace of Gark left.
The Orc Captain who ruled the Black Valley oxidized into a handful of nutrients inside the stomach of a goblin he had treated like a bug all his life.
The predator licked the black blood on its lips with its long tongue, seemingly satisfied.
The golden muscles wrapping its body swelled even more massively.
Instead of blood splattering, the golden radiance emitted by the beast flashed even more ominously and intensely.
It was not a simple meal.
It was the signal flare of a suppressed revolt.
"U-ugh! Run!"
"The Captain got eaten! That's a monster!"
Gark's subordinates screamed and scattered.
But there was nowhere for them to run.
The disaster had already encroached upon the entire Black Valley village.
Boom! Bang!
Explosions erupted simultaneously all over the village.
The fragment that fell from the sky was not the only one.
Countless lives that were hungry, trampled, and aggrieved put that golden curse into their mouths.
In a back alley, a rat crawling in the gutter swallowed a fragment.
The rat, which instantly swelled to the size of a house, snatched the stray cat that was trying to hunt it and crushed its head.
When an old demon used as a quarry slave swallowed a fragment, his gaunt arms turned into weapons that crushed boulders.
He pulled off the head of the overseer who had been wielding a whip in one go.
"Kraaaah!"
"Help me! My slave has gone crazy! Aaaack!"
The food chain was overturned.
The strong became food for the weak, and masters became snacks for slaves.
The minor warlords, the existing establishment, collapsed helplessly before this absurd power gap.
Yesterday's order turned into ashes along with the burning village.
Black Valley instantly transformed into a hellscape filled with screams, chewing sounds, and the sound of breaking bones.
The predator that used to be Kkabi looked down at the burning village and roared.
The world reflected in his eyes was no longer a fearful place.
Everything in sight just looked like delicious meat.
[...Do you desire power?]
Along with an auditory hallucination from the void, the predator threw itself into the ruins in search of its next prey.
But the screams did not stay only in the Black Valley.
Beyond the burning village, to the distant places where sight could not reach.
The panoramic view of the northern Demon Realm revealed as darkness lifted.
The scene was disastrous yet majestic.
Black Valley was not the only affected area.
Columns of black smoke were rising like volcanoes all over the vast land.
Simultaneous flashes of golden explosions were redrawing the map of the murky Demon Realm.
In some places, mountains collapsed, and in others, rivers boiled.
The powerless became monsters, and the powerful devoured each other to become greater monsters.
Over the chaotic landscape where the sky collapsed and the ground split, a heavy and chilly voice was laid.
[Power contained in one without a vessel is not a blessing but a disaster.]
Transcendent power inhabiting an unprepared body burned away reason and degraded the owner into a puppet of desire.
The fragments of the
[Order has collapsed. Laws, morals, and status are meaningless now.]
In the world that would unfold from now on, only one thing was needed.
Only the power to survive and prove oneself.
[From now on, the real hell where only the prepared survive...]
Under the sky of the Demon Realm covered in black smoke, heroes and monsters harboring new ambitions were opening their eyes.
[Indeed, the era of Warlords had arrived.]