The call

The injuries to the face, eyes, body, and hind legs, coupled with the prolonged strangulation, finally got to the beast. It started by letting out weak groans while staggering about while it lazily shook its body from side to side in a bid to toss Luke away, but his grip was still firm enough to keep him hanging while delivering devastating blows.

Bam.

The beast fell on its four legs and began moving, but Luke was quick to notice its movements had become sluggish.

With renewed determination, he kept unloading flurries of punches on the face of the beast, which was already covered in blood. Its eyes were blinded, and its nose disfigured, causing the beast to gasp for air.

"Die already!" Luke cursed as he kept punching.

His regenerative abilities only dealt with his wound and didn't give him extra stamina. Luke could feel the strain on his joints and muscles, and knew he was getting weaker by the second. This battle had become a battle of endurance between man and beast!

Thud!.

After what seemed like forever, the beast let out a painful cry as it fell to the ground, but even then Luke didn't dare halt his attacks. He kept smashing his fist into the skull of the beast until its heart stopped beating, and its body stopped twitching.

It was finally dead!

"Finally!" Luke screamed with in an exhausted tone as he let go of the beast and rolled away.

Luke remained on the floor, unwilling to move as he gasped for breath. Only after the battle did the feeling of fatigue hit him badly like never before.

Luke's fists were swollen and sore. It was completely covered in blood with the skin around his fist area peeled out and if one looked properly they would be able to see his bones. Luke's chest kept heaving up and down as he struggled to get more air, he felt like his heart was going to explode.

Trying to move, Luke let out groans of pain. His joints were sore, his back was aching badly, and his waist was damaged. Luke's eyelids felt heavy, and even with great effort, he could barely keep them open. 

"Just closing… my eyes… for a few… seconds."

After struggling for a while, Luke succumbed to his exhaustion and finally shut his eyes to rest.

"No!"

Luke's eyes yank open, and he took a deep breath before he pulled his hand from under the beast. Luke had seen firsthand what the smell of blood could do and knew even though the bear-type beast may have killed all the beasts in the area, there was still a possibility the thick stench of blood could attract beasts in other areas.

Staying here for long was just too risky!

Sluggishly raising his body from the ground, Luke turned his attention to the corpse of the heavy beast, and a thought crossed his mind.

"How does the ability even work?" Luke muttered as he placed his hand on the beast.

"Huh?!"

He was shocked to feel energy running through the body of the beast and for a moment he suspected the beast was, however, he realized the dead beast's organs were not functioning.

"Phew… Its just soul essence." 

Letting out a sigh of relief, he ignored everything else and focused on the flowing energy, Luke began tracking the flowing soul essence to its source. He stopped at the chest area and concluded this must be where the soul core was located.

"Beautiful," Luke was mesmerized by the feeling but quickly snapped out of it.

He wasn't sure what to do next in order to absorb it, but he felt his body calling the soul energy, it felt like it was just waiting for his permission. 

After contemplating for a while, Luke decided to agree to this mental pull, and he was shocked by what happened next.

Luke noticed the skin of the beast squirming as he felt something moving into his palm, creating a strange feeling of something constantly moving up his arm and into his body. Not long after, he noticed that the body of the beast was shrinking.

"I absorbing the beast?!" Although this was exactly what the ability's info said, he found it odd and confusing.

'How does it work?'

'Does it mean my body won't be 100% human… sorry, Nephilim? Wait is this what it really means to be a Nephilim?' 

This raised a lot of questions for him, but at the same time, Luke felt the sour pain all over his body subside. The more he absorbed the beast, the less pain he felt from his internal injuries, and his external wounds were healing rapidly, leaving him wondering if this was also a perk of his Devour ability.

"What?!" Luke's eyes opened wide in shock. "I am no longer hungry!"

"Cool!" Luke exclaimed. "Doesn't that mean I won't worry about food that much?" He said while considering the journey to the Ancanoria empire.

Looking at the remnants of the beast's corpse which had shrunken by a lot, Luke could still feel the call, as if something was asking him for permission to go beyond this.

Granting the permission once again, Luke felt the soul essence flowing into his body through one hand and sipping into every cell of his body. 

It felt like he had been in a desert for a long time and not only was he offered cold water to drink, he had a bucket of cold water poured on him.

[You have absorbed beast soul core]

[Counter: 2/1000]

"Two? Wow!" Luke was stunned.

He had believed every beast had only one soul core to give, but this changed his view on a lot of things. At first, he was confused, but after considering the strength of the beast, he found it reasonable that the beast gave more. By the way, the beast came out on top of the bloodbath, so no one could doubt its strength.

Experiencing the strength of this beast firsthand also helped cement Luke's opinion of it. This also made Luke understand that the stronger the beast, the more soul-core it had to offer.

Without hesitation, Luke moved to the next corpse. He saw no need to absorb the nutrients from them since he felt full and his injuries completely healed, so he went straight to absorbing soul cores and after a while, he was done.

"Finally!" Luke let out a tired smile as he looked at the counter.

[22/1000]