If you guessed that our little deväk was wounded because of overconfidence then you'd be mostly wrong. It wasn't overconfidence that drove its assault, no my friends it was the desire to eat, and grow. It was the desire for more. Yes our little insect was overconfident because it had never been injured before, but that was not the driving force behind its action. For good or ill this combination resulted in both the destruction of the ant colony, and in the tendrils on the deväk to be nearly completely burned away.
While the carapace of its aväk progenitor was extremely sturdy and resistant, the malleable flesh of a marg just wasn't. Fortunately for the small insect it didn't have a highly developed nervous system. Unfortunately, our small friend was still in agony. Which as you might have guessed, my dear friends, did not leave it in a good mood.
In fact if I had to describe its mood in a single word I would choose, 'rampagy’, despite it not being a real word it is the most adequate. When the hatchling finally regained control of its body it began to rip and tear at the Queen desecrator's corpse. Viciously, without reason. Turning the ant into a weird meaty jigsaw puzzle that had about half the pieces missing. After its light snack, the deväk calmed down a bit. With that bit of clarity, the not-quite-but-almost-monster-deväk realized that whatever the queen had sacrificed her life for must have been very important. At least to the queen it was. That queen had hurt the deväk, and so it wanted to return the favor by destroying her precious things. If the deväk had known what spite was and how futile it was to spite something after death. Then it might've reconsidered, but the imbecile that this insectoid was didn't process the nature of its mental state. No, in fact it just thought that smashing the queen's precious thing was the only way left to hurt the ant.
I suppose I should give the deväk some credit, while it does have a small and very limited brain it is very complex and it did manage to connect the dots regarding the queen. Honestly, by the standard of aväk’s this reject is years ahead of even the highest most well bred class aväk hatchlings there was.
However, it did not take a genius to find a hollow wall. Actually, it helps if you aren't a genius and just start hitting walls when you can't find anything obvious. Making short work of the offending wall the deväk peered upon the hidden chamber, which was filled with strange glowing orbs that pulsated ever so slightly. Picking one up the deväk nearly popped it. The incredibly fragile orbs were, well, rather fleshy with a purple-ish blob in the center.
Being an gluttonous idiot the deväk wanted to eat the 'squishy glow ball', immediately and would have done just that if its tendrils hadn't been a mangled mess. The deväk had lost a significant portion of both tendrils so it had to reform them with what little flesh remained. It was left with tendrils that were significantly skinnier and shorter than before. Which only added fuel to the fire of its hatred.
It picked up the orb it had inspected in the tendrils mouth, and once it was all the way in, it crushed the orb. Then all at once its mouth was filled with sweet nectar. It was more like a smoothie than actual food to the deväk, but it truly didn't care about that. It tasted good and satisfied the deväk's already full belly. So it began to gorge itself on the indescribably delectable orbs. It ate and ate and ate, and ate. Not even realizing, or caring for that matter that it was eating unhatched desecrator larvae. After a while a blue thing popped up in its vision, it barely glanced at it before absorbing the message.
1003/1000 Des Ants consumed. New abilities, physical attributes, and skills gained upon next metamorphosis. Arthropod gene pool is half stabilized, 2 months until destabilization and death will occur. Continue to consume in this gene pool for added benefits upon metamorphosis. Be warned, keep things balanced, to keep all gene pools active.
Pleased and yet still annoyed, the deväk processed the developments slowly. On one hand our deväk was thrilled that the 'snack-balls' were actually useful to it, instead of being just food. Albeit really tasty food. It was also pleased that it had bought itself more time before the bad thing happened to it. On the other hand though, it really wasn't looking forward to waiting for its rewards and just the thought of trying to figure out how to balance its gene pools seemed like a nightmare to its tiny mind. Well really it just thought it sounded heavy, but that was close enough since the bug didn't know about dreams.
The whole time the deväk was processing the message it was stuffing its face, err, well back tendrils I guess. The sun had long ago set and the deväk was still eating. When it got too full to eat anymore it would spend some time venting its frustration by attacking the ant corpses still inside the nest. It would rip and tear and stab until the corpse turned to paste or until it got hungry again before going back to eat more eggs. It did this several times until the eggs were all gone, which was done in just a couple of hours. It had eaten a collective of one thousand two hundred thirty six desecrator ants, wiping out the entire colony in its single day feast. Just as it was about to collect some of the corpses from the outside and bring them in. The little deväk felt an intense burning in its abdomen, as something new filled its vision.
Gluttony
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You consumed tens of hundreds of lives to satisfy yourself, despite already being full you still hunger for more. Behavior that is monsterish has branded you a sinner. You will always be hungry, not eating will cause intense discomfort, but eating will cause you more discomfort. You must choose, will you overcome this part of yourself or will you indulge and become even more monstrous... Regardless of your path as this sin progresses, the effects will worsen. Like sliding down a slippery slope, be cautious not to slide all the way down, for you may lose your mind in the pit of your hunger. Your stomach is now a bottomless pit. You feel… Sluggish 0%
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This message was not the calming blue the bug was used to and the message didn't wait to be absorbed, as it forced itself into the deväk's mind. The burning pain and the intrusive message didn't sit well with the deväk. Then it only got worse as the bug’s stomach felt like it was being torn apart. Stretching, expanding and magically altered from the Sin’s effects, it became impossibly cavernous, but still inside the little bug. Anything swallowed would be gone forever. It understood that whatever this 'Sin thing' was, it was definitely not good news.
Well at least it wasn’t the best thing. A bigger stomach meant it could eat more so that was nice. However, the Sin also stripped food of all its flavor as the bug soon found out. That was less than satisfying. Being in pain due to the lack of food was even less appealing. Besides those two sensations the rest was close to how it felt for most of its incredible short life. It was already always hungry, and being sluggish didn't seem all that bad. That was until it brought up its status page with a stray thought that being heavy seemed bad.
Name
Physical Modifier
Attributes
(Blank)
Str: -10.0%
Str: 6
Age
Agi: +1.5%
Agi: 3
2 weeks
Dex: +2.8%
Dex: 6
Species
Mnt: +1.0%
Mnt: 1
Deväk (Hatchling)
Per: -0.5%
Per: 3
End: +8.6%
End: 8
Con: +7.0%
Con: 5
Abilities
Skills
Sins
Malleable Tendrils
Minor Shapeshift
Gluttony
Parasitical Growth
Combat Level 4
Seeing a minus ten percent did kind of ruin its mediocre opinion of the sin. The little deväk definitely didn't like it, and it only hoped that there was a way to remove it. Since it seemed that pulling the sin directly off its status page wouldn’t work. The black shelled glutton didn't get too down about it though, after all, it could eat without limit now.
It ate every scrap of every corpse in the colony, and except for a few blood stains the place was like a ghost town to the young sinner. As it ate our bug was notified of its sluggishness increasing. Going outside the deväk briefly wondered what happened to the bright sky orb, and if something had eaten it before continuing its gluttonous rampage. Midway through its extended feast it heard something loud in the trees on the other side of the clearing and it froze. Its head snapped in the direction of the noise and saw what our young bug thought of as two titans fighting it out.
One 'titan' was an Undergrowth, a parasitical entity that uses the discarded and dead scraps of plants to make itself a body. Sustaining itself off the blood of animals, most undergrowths are a mostly beneficial part of the forest that keeps the monster population in check. The undergrowth in question looked like a stag with broken branches for antlers. While the other was a rather large Axolotl that was far more lithe and vicious looking than its normal underwater dwelling counterpart.
Everything about this scaled up version was superior to what a normal animal would have. Speaking of scales, the Axolotl was covered in brown scales that shone like metal in the dim light. These scales covered its body while its eyes glowed green. Its head was spade shaped giving the monster a large mouth. Its teeth looked serrated, and like something that no axolotl should have. It was definitely a monster. It was a little known fact, that if animals lived long enough and gained enough magical essence they could grow into monsters. Which basically just makes them bigger, smarter, and more vicious. While also making them highly prone to mutations.
The axolotl was taking great swipes at the undergrowth knocking off clumps of rotting leaves and dried sticks. While the stag undergrowth kept trying to gore the axolotl with its branch horns. From the bleeding wounds on the axolotl the undergrowth had landed more than a few hits. It seemed like an even match until the axolotl surprised the undergrowth with a swipe from its tail that knocked the faux-stag's head clean off. The body stood there stunned for a moment before charging off into the forest. Away from the axolotl. The axolotl in question, snorted before letting out a growling roar.
Definitely not a normal axolotl.
A spike of fear shot down the deväk spine as that roar reverberated throughout its whole body. For the first time in its life our deväk knew fear. It realized that it was insignificant, especially to something like that. With all of its senses and instincts in agreement the deväk decided to hide in the empty hole, for a long while. Well a long while for the bug. After all, one of those gigantic titans could have taken the orb out of the sky, and the bug didn’t want to meet it.