Dark Meal Part 2

Merely five minutes after Beatrice closed her eyes and began digesting her gains from devouring Kiara's soul, her flesh began splitting apart, causing Blood to fall down her body and onto the floor below her, unnerving Antonia, who was currently watching her.

Merely a few moments after the wounds appeared, flesh began being pushed out from them, as Beatrice's mana rapidly grew new flesh, more in line with the new understanding of darkness that she was obtaining.

Roughly two minutes after this process began, several hundred ants surrounded Beatrice, taking away the pieces of flesh that had been ejected from her body, allowing more and more flesh to fall to the floor, prompting Beatrice to open her eyes for a brief moment, before allowing them to continue their actions.

Although Beatrice already had a quite deep understanding of darkness, Kiara's own point of view was something nearly foreign to the mage, who viewed interests and benefits as the only things that mattered.

Even though Kiara's memories weren't able to sway Beatrice's opinion in the slightest, they still allowed her understanding of Darkness to go into a completely new direction.

As such, piece after piece of Beatrice's flesh was being thrown out every single minute, and by the time the first hour had finally passed, even flesh that had just been regrown began being pushed out of Beatrice.

In just an hour, Beatrice felt as though she had been somewhat reborn, as her body, which was already very strong, became over ten percent stronger.

But even the main bulk of her progress was done by then, Beatrice felt as though her understanding of Darkness could still be rapidly improved in a short amount of time.

In the end, Beatrice was right, as even though her rate of progress slowed down drastically after that first hour, her strength improved by a further 1.5 percent after another day of comprehension.

By then though, Beatrice's progress had fully slowed down and returned to somewhat normal levels, although much faster than before her devouring of Kiara, causing Beatrice to turn her attention onto one of the boxes floating in front of her.

"I guess it's time..." mumbled Beatrice as she stretched out her hands towards the second box under the curious eyes of Antonia.

In just a few moments, Beatrice released the seal that she had placed on the box and revealed the soul inside.

As she touched Ben's smooth, young and tender soul, Beatrice couldn't help but slightly salivate, causing her to grab it and bring it up to her mouth.

"Goodbye little Ben..." mumbled Beatrice as she took one final look at the soul, which had already been marked by her long ago.

As Beatrice had considered Ben her personal property long ago, she could not let him truly roam around without a proper leash, as such, Beatrice had already placed several marks and restrictions onto his soul over eleven years ago.

Back then, Beatrice had even begun experimenting on Ben, using the more powerful version of the Dark Manipulation Spell that her teacher had taught her back in her past life, the Dark Kiss her.

Although Beatrice had great advantages when it came to casting spells that involved souls and spirits, thanks to her extremely large amount of Spiritual Power, ten years ago, Beatrice was not very proficient in casting the powerful Rank 3 Spell.

In the end though, although it was somewhat risky, Beatrice cast this spell on both of the siblings, using it as a final weapon against them.

Thankfully, Beatrice did not have to use the control granted to her by the spell, and was able to let the siblings roam free without much interference.

As she did with Kiara, Beatrice then destroyed the red hickey on Ben's soul, finally freeing him from her control.

Sadly, though, Ben's soul did not have much time to enjoy this newfound freedom, as it was soon devoured by Beatrice.

The moment she devoured Ben's soul, Beatrice slightly bit her lips, as she felt the sour flavor of the soul that spread into her mouth.

Unlike Kiara's soul, which was very sweet and tasty, almost like a piece of cake, probably thanks to all the things he had endured, Ben's soul was very sour.

Interestingly, though, this did not mean that Beatrice did not enjoy the taste of the soul, in fact, the opposite was true.

As Beatrice's teeth crushed the fragile soul apart, destroying the last bits of Ben's consciousness, the sour flavor of the soul spread into Beatrice's mouth, slightly alleviating the overwhelming sweetness left behind by Kiara.

But although Beatrice greatly enjoyed the feeling of devouring souls, as she found out right now, this feeling itself was not Beatrice's goal.

As such, Beatrice quickly began delving into Ben's memories, his emotions, thoughts and most importantly, understanding of darkness.

Originally, back when he was free, Ben's understanding of darkness was rather shallow, and much weaker than that of Kiara.

Interestingly though, after he was captured, and as Ben's physical body quickly became unable to fight, Ben's understanding of darkness, as well as his magical prowess quickly grew, surpassing even that of his sister.

Sadly though, because of his circumstances, as well as the shackles restricting his magical abilities, this was not able to change Ben's fate in the slightest.

Ironically, though, as the one who had orchestrated Ben's torture and pain, Beatrice would be the one to benefit from his understanding.

Unlike Beatrice, whose life was somewhat smooth sailing, other than her deaths of course, Ben had his parents be both tortured and killed by his very own beloved sister, who he adored very much.

Subsequently, he experienced over ten years of hiding, where even the slightest mistake could lead to both the deaths of everyone related to him, and his own capture.

This did not end here though, as Ben was then brutally raped and tortured by that his very sister, who used every single torture method she could think on his.

Finally though, in the end, after experienced over half a year of complete loneliness, Ben then witnessed the death of his own child, who was horrifically disfigured thanks to the fact that his very own sister was the mother.

Because of this, although Ben's understanding of darkness was still not as advanced as that of Beatrice, it was completely different from both Beatrice's and Kiara's, allowing Beatrice to once again obtain full benefits from him, as she did from Kiara.