Chapter 811: You weren’t this strong...

Damon’s fist struck the man before he finished speaking. A translucent shield flashed between them, shattered, and drove its broken pieces back into the chest it was supposed to protect. The man folded around the blow, blood bursting from his mouth as Damon caught him by the throat before he could fly away.

“Senior sister this, senior sister that,” Damon snarled, dragging him closer. “Do you people ever introduce yourselves normally?”

The man’s eyes bulged. His hands clamped around Damon’s wrist, and an enormous surge of mana erupted from his body. A moment ago, he had arrived radiating righteous fury. Now he was kicking desperately at empty air while trying to pry apart fingers that refused to move.

Damon barely felt the resistance. He looked down at the hands gripping his wrist, then at the man’s face. This was an A-rank powerhouse, someone whose arrival would once have sent him scrambling for an escape, and the bastard couldn’t even loosen his grip.

A blade of wind struck Damon across the neck. It tore his collar and left a shallow cut that closed almost immediately. Damon slowly turned back toward the man, who had gone very still.

“Was that supposed to take my head off? You are so fucking weak. You don’t even have an ounce of origin energy! You are of no use to me!”

“You…” The man coughed, staring at him. “You weren’t this strong.”

Damon growled. “Yes, bitch. I am stronger now. What are you going to do?” He did not bother wasting time anymore. The blood tendrils hungrily lashed out, devouring the guy from head to toe in an instant. Not even his soul was left.

Damon panted as he let his divine senses unfold. This guy did not come alone. More were on their way. The very next second, one after the other, several A ranks and B ranks showed up.

Damon counted eleven before the last tear closed. Several looked past him, searching the empty landscape for the man who had arrived first, while an older woman near the front immediately raised her staff.

“Where is he?”

Damon wiped the blood from his mouth. “You just missed him.”

Her gaze dropped to his hand, and her expression changed. A pulse of mana spread from her staff, linking the barriers around the others. The B-ranks moved behind the stronger members, while three A-ranks separated from the group and began circling him.

Damon watched them arrange themselves. He could feel the power moving between their barriers, the spells gathering behind their weapons, even the faint fluctuations whenever one of them adjusted their flight. None of it carried the weight he had felt from the gods.

“Release his soul,” the woman said, tightening her grip on the staff. “Whatever grievance you have with our sect, you will answer for—”

Damon moved before she finished. He crossed the distance between them and struck the linked barrier with his palm. The woman immediately drove her staff toward his face, but a blood tendril caught it midway and pulled her off balance.

A sword struck him across the back. Damon lurched forward, feeling its edge bite through his skin before stopping against the muscle beneath. Now their defenses were shattered and they were wide open.

Damon did not hesitate and went for the kill. Eleven blood spheres appeared, imprisoning the eleven of them. The next second, each blood sphere shattered into countless blood tendrils that mercilessly devoured everyone trapped inside.

Their attacks burst against the crimson strands, tearing gaps that closed before anyone could force their way through. The older woman raised her broken staff and tried to gather the others’ mana again, but the connection collapsed as Damon drained the power feeding it. Her next command became a scream, and even that faded as the tendrils tightened.

Damon stood motionless at the center of it all, absorbing the streams rushing toward him. The wound across his back closed, his depleted mana swelled, and eleven struggling presences grew weaker until he could barely sense them. A few tried to abandon their bodies, only to discover that his bloodline was just as eager to swallow their souls.

Within seconds, the last of them disappeared.

Weapons and rings fell through the space where their owners had been. Damon caught them with a sweep of his remaining tendrils, more out of habit than interest, and drew everything toward himself. He examined the nearest sword, recognized it as the one that had cut his back, and tossed it aside when it failed to stir even the slightest response from his hunger.

“Fucking useless,” he muttered.

He had swallowed twelve people, several of them A-ranks, and his Origin Energy hadn’t increased at all. His body had gained something, certainly, but the improvement was so small that he had to look for it. After tasting a god, this felt like trying to fill his stomach by licking crumbs from a plate.

This was not enough. None of it was enough. If he was only strong enough to devour these weaklings and not stand face to face against an actual God, then how was he supposed to devour enough origin energy to become powerful?

Damon roared in frustration. He felt as if his head was about to burst from the unquenchable hunger that was inside him. He wasn’t even able to think clearly. Hunting down any more of his blood brothers was also out of the question. For now, it looked like this was all he could handle, and barely.

So what was he supposed to do now? He had killed the small fries that came after him, but now the stronger ones would start to show up. Just like La Rocha suggested, perhaps the best plan was to hide?

He was weak. He was nothing. Just a single strong encounter like that spear God, he would simply cease to exist. How was he supposed to hunt Gods in his condition?

Damon clutched his head as he felt his thoughts get more and more muddled. Then suddenly he froze. He was wrong. He was wrong all along. He had been far too focussed on origin energy that he completely forgot what had made him undefeatable in the first place.

“La Rocha…” Damon grinned, his eyes no longer muddled in madness. “New plan. I need a new set of coordinates.”

“For the location of another God, my lord?”

Damon smiled and shook his head. “No. Give me location where the most blood is being spilled. I need a war. I need a massive giant war. I need monsters, lots and lots of monsters. I need entire worlds filled with bloodshed and monsters. Give me countless armies, villains and bloodthirsty murders. I need to binge eat like there is no tomorrow.”