Descendants of Gibbous
Chapter 31: A rogues struggle

Chapter 31: A rogues struggle

*SOMEWHERE IN THE HUMAN WORLD—10PM*

’How long has it been? Three weeks?’

Kaos clicked his tongue angrily as he stood in a secluded alley between two housing complexes, the sound resounding on the walls and down into the dark, empty street.

’I just need one more human before...’ He stared at his half-healed arm, rage filling his chest and making his blood boil at how weak he was now.

Two humans.

He had devoured two humans already and yet, he couldn’t heal quickly. On a normal day, that would have been enough aura and flesh to make him strong enough to fight at least two S-ranked heroes alone, but after what he went through for the past few weeks, he was in the most pitiful state he had last experienced in his childhood.

He couldn’t hunt like normal because he was hurt, and when he did manage to successfully hunt a human, the rogues in the area dared to force themselves on his feast.

Kaos had sworn to come back for them after he had healed.

To think it took a couple of cowards to almost kill him and demolish fifty of the men the rogue lord had given him. The bunch of them had drained him of aura and left him thrashing on the ground like a spineless idiot as he tried to escape with his life. Then there was the sibling duo.

’Those two.’

Kaos clenched his jaw.

The sister had injected poison in his body with her blood magic, but because they shared the same rank, he had been able to suppress its effects for a while.

If only that stupid boy hadn’t kept the gem around his neck.

Kaos had seen it glowing on his chest, pumping a repulsive aura that filled the boy’s body with enough aura to perform the most gut-wrenching techniques the wizard had last seen eleven years ago during their raid at the Numen’s mansion. The were only two people who could move like that:

The former Numen, and the Rogue Lord.

The wizard remembered the day they raided the Numen’s house very well. It was tattooed deep in his mind, never to be forgotten, and forever for him to be haunted by it.

He remembered the earthquakes that happened with each attack the two shot at each other, the bloody massacre they performed whenever they landed amidst a raging battle between rogues and heroes. It was almost as if the entire war revolved around them as if the rest of them were just side characters—pests waiting to be stepped on and squeezed alive. Many lost their lives that day, only for the war to end with the rogue lord claimed dead and the heroes winning, but at a great loss too, for their Numen had died.

However, Kaos was one of the lucky few who were able to come in contact with the rogue lord a few years later.

The Rogue lord already had a few selected rogues by the time Kaos met him—ten of his most trusted right-hand men—the Corvus. The wizard knew better than anyone how strong they were. After all, he had challenged the lowest ranked amongst them for her position and was almost devoured alive.

Had it not been for the Rogue lord stopping the shitty woman from eating him, he’d have been in her belly by now, and she’d probably be using his wizardry skills. Hence Kaos’s devotion to the Rogue lord. The man had given him a chance to prove himself one more time so he could become the eleventh-best-ranked amongst his Corvus.

But the chances of him getting the position had gotten slimmer now. After all, he and the men he had been given were defeated by a mere boy. Although, now he had entail on the gem that he was sure the Rogue lord would be pleased to hear.

’It grants its user massive amounts of aura, probably equal to an entire nation’s worth of humans,’ he thought to himself just when he heard a loud grating singing voice coming from somewhere down the street.

It was a woman. A drunk one at that.

"Shut up! We’re trying to sleep!" Came an old woman’s voice from above the complex, and the drunk immediately stopped singing.

Kaos rose from the dumpster he was sitting on, scrunching his nose as if he was only noticing the smell now as he made his way to the corner of the alley. Then he peeked and saw a plump frame standing to his right, looking up at the old woman who had rebuked her.

He looked at his surroundings, his senses on high alert as he waited for any whiff of any stray Rogue’s aura, but nothing of that sort happened. The woman was his, flesh, aura, bones and all, a meal that was bound to grant him the energy he needed to finally leave this shitty place.

The plump lady pointed at the building she was facing, her voice shaky and hoarse.

"You...you bitter old hag! Do you own this world?"

The only reply that came was the loud thudding of a door and a sharp click of the tongue as the old woman retreated inside her house.

"That’s right you witch. Close the door and go to sleep. Let the big fish swim in the night without disturbing us."

’She’s a big fish alright.’

Kaos’s eyes glinted a hunger-filled purple as he withdrew his wand—a gold thin and pointed dagger with a hilt shaped like a crescent moon. He pointed it at the unsuspecting lady, whispering in a low dead voice:

"Mortis Katochos!"

A red light shot from his wand, heading straight for the drunk woman. The moment it hit her, Kaos waited for the loud thudding sound of her body on the ground, before he finally came out of the smelly alley, making his way to his almost-dead prey. Just like he had suspected, she was rather meaty. Tears were already streaming from her eyes, her voice a squeaky sound as the bit of life force in her left her body.

Kaos didn’t waste any time and immediately dragged her quivering body back into the secluded spot. He was too hungry to care about where he was eating. Too powerless.

"Lupus oris," the wizard chanted again, this time, pointing his weapon at his mouth.

Immediately after he chanted the spell, his mouth protruded forward and shifted into that of a wolf, sharp teeth and all. He had one hour to finish eating, or the spell was going to retract. With that in mind, Kaos bent himself at the woman’s body, digging into his meal before she was completely dead.

However, when the metallic taste of her blood hit his tongue, he scrunched his face in disgust.

"Ugh. Shitty quality," he mumbled as if he was rating meat from a butchery. "Why do they drink and smoke so much when they know it kills their health?"

Kaos had tasted different human grades to know what kind tasted better. From E to S—S being the extremely healthy, or newborn babies whose flesh and blood was rich, and E-grade being those poor in health mostly from not taking care of themselves properly, he now knew where to find the better grade. But because he couldn’t use portal magic yet, he had to improvise.

Thus even as the wizard complained, he continued to eat. After all, he didn’t have a choice.

Today was the deadline for bringing the gem of Memento Mori to the Corvus and the Rogue lord. Even though he had failed to secure the gem, Kaos knew that the news he carried was just as important and could spare his life whilst giving him a chance to ask for redemption.

’I won’t fail next time,’ he thought to himself, ripping the woman’s flesh to threads as the bit of non-corrupt aura left in her blood filled his veins and body with yet another pump of energy.

"Hmm, I can feel it now," the wizard mumbled to himself as an itch in his arm began to suffice.

Like a tree growing branches, a bone shot out of his arm at spontaneous speeds. He grinned, the pain nothing but a part of his growth to him as he watched the bone extend and multiply into tiny segments on its own. Loud cracking sounds filled the alley, his palm reconstructing in mere seconds before his fingers frames followed and completed the arm.

Then came the flesh.

It spread evenly, tendons lining his bones as veins pumping with blood stretched along with the muscle. Kaos groaned in approval when the regeneration came to a halt, but he still couldn’t feel any movement in his hand. It was lifeless.

’Do I really have to finish this E-grade meat?’ He asked himself, glancing at the half-ripped and jagged body he had shredded with wolf teeth.

But the answer was already in his head before he blurted it out. And so, by the time his spell disappeared and his mouth was back to normal, Kaos was licking his lips and wiping his face of any blood using the same arm that had been lifeless a while ago.

This was the way of the rogues.

No need for training or straining himself. All it took was one human, and the aura in their bodies would be fed to the Gibbit who feasted on them.

The humans were livestock meant for Gibbits to devour, but it seemed the majority of Gibbous was yet to come to their senses. Since aura seeped into Gibbous after humans died naturally, or killed each other for whatever reasons known to their greedy, murderous selves, the majority of Gibbous preferred to let the humans live until their death.

"Stupid idiots," Kaos cursed loudly, blasting the skeleton he had licked clean and turning it into powder.

Humans were fragile like this. They were meant to be ruled over by Gibbits. It was the natural order of things, the food cycle. The strong feast on the weak, it was that simple.

Even Gibbous was that way too.

The weak were suppressed, left to be spat on by those in power. Kaos had been among the weak, that was until he met the Rogue lord. The man showed him a way to be powerful, a way to finally be at the top of the food chain. He gave him a home after the heroes killed his parents who like him, wanted to be at the top of the chain too.

That’s why the wizard respected the Rogue lord so much.

He was his savior—the only Gibbit who deserved to be sitting on the throne, and he was supposed to be his right-hand man. Nothing more, nothing less.

Alas, the lord couldn’t move around yet, not when there was grapevine spreading rampantly about him being alive. The heroes had caught on to the vine and were on the lookout for him with red eyes, but the Lord made sure to keep his identity hidden among a few men whom he trusted.

Only when he was completely healed would he finally show up in the open and attack, but for that to happen, he needed the gem of Memento Mori that he had sent for Kaos and a few other rogues to retrieve for him.

"Okay, I think I can do it now," the wizard mumbled to himself, pointing his sharp wand at the skeleton’s powder.

The white dust rose around him, filling the air with freckles.

Kaos flicked his wrists and a purplish flame immediately erupted around him, the alley roaring with a flame hotter than the humans were used to. Then he vanished, the fire along with him too, but not the heat.

Soon, a few people came out of their homes fanning themselves, surprised by how hot it had suddenly become inside.

Little did they know that one of them had been devoured and used as a portal point, and the wizard who had done that was now in a land far from their grasp, standing amidst a podium with pillars surrounding him, engraved in red marks filled with immense aura.