Zoe really wanted to rip the door clean off its hinges and slowly stomp into the hallway like a very small godzilla. Unfortunately, she had to restrain herself. After all, while she suspected that killing everyone would be easy, there was no reason to take chances by assuming so.

With the possibility of some kind of strong resistance in mind, Zoe stepped forward as stealthily as she could and reached for the knob. As her claws closed around it, she realized there was a slight problem.

They couldn’t get any traction.

The knob was perfectly round, polished metal, and her claws were hard and not particularly dexterous. Flexing her other hands, she realized that it was extremely difficult to even move them independently. Getting just her former index finger to point out took a massive amount of willpower.

Fuck this.

Gripping the knob tighter, Zoe pulled. She tried to still be discreet, consciously activating {Stealth} at the last moment — but it still felt kind of loud. At least it hadn’t come off of its hinges — the bolt had just cut a gash through the frame.

Zoe darted out as soon as it was open, smacking the beige-uniformed man facing her in the chest.

He tumbled over onto his butt. Zoe smashed his chest in with one of her colossal talons before he could fight back or cry for help. Kicking the corpse back into the storage room, she grinned at the system notification.

{You have leveled up! You are now level 30.}

Good. They can fuel my progress.

Retreating back into the storage room herself, Zoe closed the door as someone called out. She wasn’t quite sure what they said, but she thought it might have been something like “find anything?”

She looked down at the corpse. It was odd that he had been right there at the door. Who guarded a storage room? Perhaps they had heard her prior entrance and he had gone over to check if something was up. Well, too late for you, Zoe thought, should have run instead of coming closer.

As she looked down at the corpse, Zoe thought back to her first corrupted skill — {Devour}. She knew that it had come from {Lesser Vampirism}, but she didn’t really know what was different about it. {Lesser Vampirism} had worked on corpses, so maybe this would as well.

Time to find out, I guess.

Lifting up the man’s corpse with her upper pair of arms, Zoe stared at it before taking a bite out of the shoulder. Ever since she had first become a demon, her sometimes-carnivorous diet had become far easier. Her teeth had more easily cut through flesh, and she could swallow huge bites.

But this was a whole other level. It felt like her lower face practically split in half. It probably did. As she crunched through bone, all she felt was a slight pressure in her jaw. Powerful.

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{+45 Mana}

{No useful essences detected. No useful traits detected. Requirements for ability or level gain not met.}

Zoe stared. The fuck?

In terms of what the ability had actually given her, it was no different from what she normally got. In fact, she didn’t even need an ability to gain mana this way — it seemed to have been an innate ability of being a demon.

And yet, even though the second message said she wouldn’t get any of those things, it obviously implied that she could get them by eating her enemies. Holy shit. If she killed something really powerful, could she gain some of its abilities? That would be ridiculous.

Resolving to test it out further at a more appropriate time, Zoe dropped the corpse and stepped back out into the hallway. There was no reason to keep eating it — she was in full health and her mana had already been topped off. It would only delay her and give her supposed “captors” more time to bring her wherever they were trying to go.

While Zoe was interested in finding out where that would be, she also realized that there was a decent chance she could die or be captured for real. After all, that ‘annihilation’ weapon had done quite a bit of damage to her. Whoever these people were, they were well supplied.

Keeping {Stealth} active, Zoe snuck down the polished metal corridor towards where she had heard the other voice coming from. It also happened to be in the direction that was towards the front of the ship — perhaps she was close to the cockpit.

She made it all the way to where a thick tarp obscured the entrance to the next area. It had a slit down the middle that would let someone pass through easily enough — like a door that was always closed but you never had to open. Through it, Zoe could hear several voices much more clearly now.

“Are you absolutely, positively, confidently sure that this is the best route to take? We could still head more southeast and get back to base in two fewer hours.”

The man who responded had a deeper, gruffer voice. “This is the way the sky watcher says to go, so this is the way we’re going.”

Zoe thought she heard the first man grumbling. “Yeah but the sky watcher is like several hundred leagues higher than we could fly. And it doesn’t have to be constantly sweating about an A-rank abomination dangling around under it.” He snorted. “I say the faster we get this thing contained and done with the better.”

“Sure, but this is the way the sky watcher said to go.”

{Breath Control has leveled up! Breath Control is now level 8}.

Zoe hadn’t even realized that she had been holding her breath until she got the ability level up notification. It came as a welcome surprise regardless, and then she went back to focusing on the conversation.

“I told you, this is what the sky watcher said!”

Zoe honestly found it quite amusing. She wasn’t actually nervous at all — she felt like she could handle anything at the moment — so she could just enjoy eavesdropping for a few more moments. The argument reminded her of many disputes she had had with professors.

The floor trembled slightly. Focusing, Zoe realized she could hear someone walking towards her position from behind. Like boots on slightly flexible sheet metal. That’s probably literally exactly what it is.

Looking behind, she saw that there was another slitted flap behind her. Looking around again, she saw that there was nowhere to go. Shrugging, she decided it would work well enough to ambush whoever it was right when they stepped out of the flap — but then she got a better idea.

Backing up to the middle of the corridor, Zoe quickly scrambled up to the ceiling. Her claws and talons were both strong and supernaturally sharp enough to make puncturing and then scaling the thin metal walls easy.

Positioning herself up on the ceiling, ready to drop down at just the right moment, Zoe grinned.

This is going to be fun.