Raven kept staring at the question floating above the corpse.
«"Species: Human"
"Compatible Skill detected: Kinetic Acceleration"
"Required biological source: Mana Heart tissue"
DEVOUR?»
The barn fire crackled behind him.
One of the support beams finally gave way and collapsed in a shower of sparks, dragging down one of the hooks those men had used to hang human remains like butchered livestock.
The smell of burning wood began mixing with blood, old meat, and oil.
Raven had spent too long thinking.
Not because he needed to convince himself the man had deserved to die. That discussion had ended the moment he tried to sacrifice Raven to a deity and turn him into dinner.
Nor because Raven believed the dead had some special right to keep their organs.
He had left enough bodies behind that pretending to feel reverence for one now would have been ridiculous.
The only useful question was what difference it made that the creature in front of him was human.
He looked at the dead man’s hands.
Five fingers.
Nails.
Skin.
Red blood.
Then he remembered the lupine woman he’d seen entering Greyhaven, animal ears rising from the top of her head.
The saurian partially covered in scales.
The half-oni man.
Intelligent races mixed with traits that, in another context, someone might have called monstrous.
He had seen beastkin buying roasted meat from food stalls in the city and hadn’t heard anyone wondering whether doing so somehow compromised their humanity on a philosophical level.
Raven exhaled through his nose.
"Fuck it."
The screen didn’t react.
"What practical difference does it make?"
Human.
Monster.
Beastkin.
Demonkin.
This world probably had another twenty words for organisms intelligent enough to argue over which of them was superior to the others.
Predation didn’t seem impressed by any of them.
Neither was Raven.
If a creature possessed something that could make him stronger, the system detected the organ and offered it to him.
That was all.
Pretending one particular species deserved some sacred exemption simply because Raven happened to have been born into it was beginning to feel like a fairly arrogant way to divide biology.
And besides...
He looked back toward the barn.
Those bastards ate people.
Part of him immediately recognized how convenient it would be to use that as justification.
Raven smiled without humor.
"No. I don’t even need that."
The man could have been a saint.
That would’ve made the decision far more unpleasant.
It wouldn’t have changed what Predation was capable of doing.
That was the important information.
Humans counted.
Which meant anyone possessing an extraordinary Skill could potentially become a source of power.
Raven stopped looking at the corpse as a man and began looking at it as what it now also was.
A resource.
The ease of that thought caused a brief flicker of discomfort.
Not guilt.
Warning.
There was a difference.
Raven knew exactly what kind of slope could begin with one reasonable decision and end with someone justifying anything.
He had worked for a government built on that kind of reasoning.
But he knew something else too.
Limits were only useful when they made sense.
"I’m not going to start killing people because I feel like tasting their hearts."
He picked up the knife.
"That would be stupid."
He thought about it for a second.
"And inefficient."
It wasn’t as though he was suddenly going to walk through Greyhaven asking everyone what Skill they had before deciding which side dish would pair best with them.
Probably.
Raven looked at the screen.
«DEVOUR?»
"Yes."
The interface changed.
«"Kinetic Acceleration selected."
"Mana Heart integrity: 83%."
"Thermal processing not recommended. Excessive heat may damage Trait structure."
"Consume sufficient Mana Heart tissue to begin assimilation."»
Raven stared at the final warning.
"Of course it has to be raw."
Predation remained indifferent.
"What a shitty system."
He knelt.
Raven had learned human anatomy years ago.
Not at a university.
Black Hound preferred a more practical education.
Where to place a bullet to incapacitate someone quickly.
Which blood vessels caused near-immediate pressure loss when severed.
Which wounds looked severe but still allowed someone to continue fighting.
How long it took a person to lose consciousness when certain arteries were compressed.
How to stop bleeding.
And how to cause it.
Finding a heart didn’t require the system.
Finding a Mana Heart did.
Raven opened the torso enough for Predation to react.
«"Biological source located."»
It wasn’t exactly the heart.
There was another structure attached behind it.
A reddish mass roughly the size of a large walnut, connected to the main organ by a network of bluish vessels that still retained the faintest glow.
Raven studied it.
"That explains a few things."
He had assumed a "Mana Heart" would simply be the normal human heart somehow adapted for magic.
It wasn’t.
These people had something else.
Or maybe not all of them did.
Darius had said not everyone awakened Skills.
Raven cut the connections.
The small organ rested in his palm.
Warm.
Too warm.
The system reacted.
«"Human Mana Heart"
Stored Skill: Kinetic Acceleration
Predation compatibility confirmed.»
Raven stared at the organ for a moment.
The idea was still unpleasant.
Good.
That meant some basic mechanisms were still functioning.
He put a piece into his mouth.
Chewed.
His expression changed immediately.
"Fuck."
The taste was much worse than expected.
Iron.
Salt.
A sharp bitterness that spread across his tongue.
And something resembling static electricity.
The texture didn’t help either.
Too soft in some places.
Strangely fibrous in others.
He swallowed.
«"Assimilation: 29%"»
Raven closed his eyes.
"Thirty would’ve been too generous."
He cut another piece.
This time, he didn’t waste time staring at it.
Chewed.
Swallowed.
The number increased.
«"Assimilation: 61%"»
A third.
«"Assimilation: 88%"»
Raven looked at the last piece he needed.
"I hate you."
He ate it.
The reaction was immediate.
Raven’s actual heart slammed once hard enough to hurt.
Then again.
The mana inside his body shifted.
Not toward his legs like Burst Step.
Everywhere.
Arms.
Shoulders.
Back.
Legs.
All the way to his fingertips.
Raven planted one hand against the ground.
For an instant, the world around him felt strange, as though every object suddenly possessed a possibility for motion that was only waiting for someone to push it.
Then the sensation vanished.
The system appeared.
«"Predation requirement satisfied."
"Human Skill assimilation initiated."
"Kinetic Acceleration acquired."
"First Sapient Skill successfully devoured."»
Raven looked up.