"You're a Devourer," Vex said. "Like me. I can smell it on you — the hunger, the greed, the lovely, lovely desperation."

Leo stood his ground. "I'm nothing like you."

"Oh, you will be." Vex walked around his throne, fingers trailing across its back. "You've killed. You've eaten. You've felt the power pour into you and thought: *more. Give me more.*" His smile widened. "That's how it starts. That's how it always starts. I was a Level 1 nobody once. A farmer, even — imagine that. And now look at me. Ninety-seven levels of pure, stolen glory."

"You eat people."

"I eat *experience*." Vex's eyes glittered. "People are just the containers. Why should a hero's strength rot in the ground when I can put it to use? Why should a warrior's lifetime of skill fade into nothing when I can carry it forward?" He tilted his head. "You understand, don't you? You've felt it. That beautiful blue light. The taste of a life's worth of growth."

Leo's hand tightened on the Devourer's Fang.

"See?" Vex laughed. "You can't even deny it. You're a wolf wearing a farmer's skin, just like me. The only difference is that I stopped pretending."

"Where's the girl?" Leo demanded. "Maya. What did you do with her?"

"Your thief? She's in the hall below, with the rest of my collection. She'll make a fine puppet — quick fingers, sharp eyes." Vex's smile turned predatory. "I always save the best ones. They make the most beautiful empty shells."

Leo saw red.

He didn't think. He drew the Devourer's Fang and charged.

The sword sang as it left the sheath, and for one moment — one glorious moment — the weapon's power flared through him like a second heartbeat. Vex's eyes widened. Real surprise. Real recognition.

"Interesting," Vex breathed. "Harlow's old sword. So the smith is still alive."

Leo's blade crashed against a wall of shadow that rose between them. The impact jarred his arms. Vex hadn't even moved.

"Level 15," Vex said, almost lazily. "You came to face me at Level 15. Do you know how many Level 60s I've broken? Level 70s? Level 80s? I am ninety-seven, little farmer. I have eaten the strength of champions. What do you have?"

"Nothing to lose," Leo snarled, and struck again.

The shadow wall caught him again. And again. Vex didn't fight — he toyed, deflecting Leo's blows with casual waves of his hand, studying him like a bug under glass.

"Your technique is sloppy. Your level is a joke. And yet..." Vex's eyes narrowed. "There's something familiar about you. Something about your face."

Leo froze mid-swing.

"Your name," Vex said slowly. "Leo Chen. I've heard that name before."

"How—"

"Rao told me. Before I finished him." Vex smiled. "He said the most interesting player was coming. A booster. A man who played everyone else's characters. A man who knew the game better than anyone who ever played it." He stepped closer, and his shadow crawled across the floor toward Leo. "He said you were the one who logged in the night the world went dark. The night everything changed."

Leo backed away. "You don't know anything about me."

"I know everything about you." Vex's voice was soft, intimate, horrible. "You're the reason I'm here. You're the reason all of us are here. You were the last login — the final account to connect before the servers burned. Your death started this. Your death made us all prisoners of this world."

"That's not true!" Leo shouted. "I didn't do anything!"

"You logged in, Leo Chen. That was enough."

Vex raised his hand, and the floor exploded into shadow.

Leo dove sideways. The shadow-wraiths that rose from the stones had red eyes and grasping claws, and they came at him from every direction. He cut them down — Devourer's Fang flashing — but for every one he killed, two more rose.

**【Warning: Puppet Legion approaching.】**
**【Warning: Devourer saturation at 70%.】**
**【Warning: Your level is insufficient for this combat.】**

"Run," a voice said — Maya's voice, ragged, from somewhere below. "Leo, run! They're coming up the stairs! There are hundreds of them!"

Leo looked at the door. Then at Vex, standing serene in the center of his shadow court.

"Can't run," Leo said through gritted teeth. "If I run, he wins. If I run, you become a puppet. If I run—"

"Then you die!" Vex roared, and the shadows surged.

Leo swung the sword, and the blade bit through a shadow-wraith, and the blue light of its death flickered at the edge of his vision.

**【Shadow-wraith destroyed. Residual experience: LOW.**】
**【Devour? Yes / No.**】

And then Leo understood.

He was surrounded by enemies. Every one of them carried experience. Every one of them was food.

He sheathed the sword.

"Vex," he said, and his voice was calm now, "you made one mistake. You filled this room with your power."

Vex's smile faltered.

"You made it edible."

Leo reached out and grabbed the nearest shadow-wraith with his bare hand.

**【Devour.】**

The blue light tore through him like lightning. The wraith screamed — a thin, horrified sound — and dissolved. Leo's body burned, but he didn't stop. He grabbed another. And another.

**【+10 XP.】**
**【+12 XP.】**
**【+15 XP.】**

"You can't—" Vex's voice cracked. "You can't eat shadow! That's MY power!"

"And it's delicious," Leo said.

He was Level 16 now. 17. The wraiths were dying, their experience pouring into him, and with every level the world sharpened. Vex's shadow wall flickered. Vex's smile was gone entirely.

"You'll burn out," Vex snarled. "Your body can't hold all that. You'll shatter!"

**【Devourer saturation: 85%. Warning: approaching critical.】**

"I know," Leo said. "That's the point."

He grabbed two wraiths at once.

**【+18 XP. Level Up! You are now Level 18.】**
**【+20 XP. Level Up! You are now Level 20.】**
**【Devourer saturation: 95%. CRITICAL.**】

The pain was white-hot. His veins felt like rivers of fire. But the shadows were thinning, Vex's power draining away, and in the corner of the room, the great door was beginning to crack under the weight of the puppet legion outside.

And Leo had one last idea.

He turned to face the door.

"Vex!" he shouted. "Your puppets are coming! Your precious collection!"

"Let them!" Vex screamed. "They'll tear you apart!"

"They'll do more than that."

Leo threw open the door.

And the puppet legion poured in — a tide of empty-eyed knights and mages and heroes — and Leo stood in the middle of it, arms spread wide, and did the only thing a Devourer could do.

He opened his mouth to the flood.

**【Devour.】**
**【Devour.】**
**【Devour.】**

The blue light was everywhere. It poured from the puppets in rivers, in oceans, and Leo drank it all. Level 21. 22. 24. 26. His body screamed, his bones sang, and the Devourer System rang in his skull like a war bell.

**【Devourer saturation: 100%.】**
**【WARNING: CRITICAL OVERLOAD.**】
**【WARNING: HOST BODY CANNOT SUSTAIN—**】

"Shut up," Leo whispered. "I know what I'm doing."

The last puppet fell. The shadows collapsed. And Leo stood in the center of a circle of husks, steam rising from his skin, his eyes burning with blue fire.

**【Level: 31.**】

Vex stared at him.

"You... you actually did it. You ate my legion."

"Yeah." Leo's voice was hoarse, raw, triumphant. "I did."

He raised the Devourer's Fang.

"Now let's finish this."

---