Chapter 31 - Eating The Prizes

She watched the girl run away in the distance with little plan to stop her. Since killing her wasn't very easy, she didn't want to put in too much effort on such an idea when she could use her instead.

She ordered her drones to follow the girl from under the ground so that this way she could find where the main Morlock hideout is— and attack it when she had enough information on it.

For now, she decided to leave the tunnel, but first, she had to go and collect her prize for this battle.

Three bodies.

She picked up the dead girl and carried her back to the other location so she could eat all of them at once, stopping only once she had reached the fire man and cat man that had died.

Deep down it felt slightly odd to be eating a person herself— since before she had her minions do it— but she knew it wasn't possible to avoid it forever.

And while her lingering past emotions made it feel weird, she ultimately didn't care enough to limit her growth and evolution over something so foolish.

As such, she decided to eat the cat man first, since he would be the closest to what she had eaten so far.

She ripped his body apart and took big bites out of it, trying her best not to spill as much blood as she possibly could— as she didn't know how much information she needed before she gained the abilities of the man.

Quickly the man's body vanished from before her and she could feel the changes going on within her body. Her very core was shifting to accommodate and understand the information she had just eaten.

'It worked?'

She wasn't sure, it felt like it worked, it felt different, but she wasn't sure what exactly she felt.

She decided to open the system panel and look at the abilities to see if she had gained anything new. And to her pleasant information, she had.

[Werecat XGene - The user has the abilities of a large feline even in their normal form, having capabilities such as enhanced hearing, sight, smell, taste, and even touch, along with things such as enhanced balance, tough skin, enhanced speed, enhanced stamina, and common capabilities of a large feline. The user is also able to temporarily enter a state of overdrive, growing fur and cat-like features in order to boost all their feline capabilities.]

It was an interesting ability she had gained, and while it ultimately didn't add much more to her than she already had, it did clarify a few thoughts she had in mind.

'So I can take the abilities of mutants, that makes this much better. With the amount of mutants in this world, if I eat most of them I would be able to evolve further.'

Another interesting thing she noticed was that the ability was marked as 'XGene' rather than just Werecat, which meant that it was able to differentiate between similar abilities— and that something made the XGene different from normal.

With that out of the way, she decided to eat the other man.

He felt a bit odd to eat since his skin and flesh were rather burnt from his own ability, but it did make him taste better since he was technically cooked.

Quickly she finished eating him without wasting any parts, not even blood, and once she was done she could feel the changes happening in her body much more than the one before.

It was clear that the information from this mutant was working a lot better than the Werecat's, it also seemed to be changing the most within her, so she waited a few minutes till it had properly adapted.

Once she was able to tell it had finished, she checked her system panel.

[Combustion XGene - The user is able to produce flames from their body in the form of bursts of combustions, however, the heat of the flames will also affect the user, making them able to be burnt by it just as much as others. Due to the way this works, the user's body has adapted slight fire resistance.]

Well, that was around what she expected when she had seen the man's burnt skin. It was definitely an ability that hurt the user which made it lacking enough to fit in with the Morlocks.

One thing that was a welcomed adaption however was her body's attempt to adapt to the ability by gaining fire resistance, at least to an extent.

It just goes to show how much her species were able to adapt, even when the adaption wasn't something they had information for.

'Let's test it.'

She decided to test it out, and it came like second nature to her. It was as easy as breathing to her, after all, it was literally a part of her now, so she could do it without even needing to think.

Suddenly a small flame burst forth from her fingertip, it was small but hot enough to rival that of a candle flame, and while she was able to resist the heat for a while she eventually started to feel the burn.

It gave her an idea of both her current flame capabilities, and her current fire resistance, but that was all for the time being, as the ability would improve the more her body improved.

Finally, she decided to move on to the one she had been waiting to eat for a while, the one she had the most interest in eating, the girl.

Her abilities seemed more in the realm of superhuman, it was after all the ability to read minds, so she wanted it a lot, but she also wasn't sure if she would get it.

That's why she took her time to eat the body very safely, not spilling or wasting a single part or drop. Eventually, she had finished eating the body, and changes began to happen in her body.

Her mind shook as she felt it pulsating like never before— it was so violent she felt her ears ringing as she clinched her head.