Grey’s stomach grumbled and he almost wanted to cry real tears. Why was he staring at an arm like it was a juicy steak?
When his Vampire Lord Frame acted up, it was because he sensed a bloodline he really wanted. In reality, this would make a lot of sense right now. These arms should be related to the Old Ones, and they should have pretty powerful Dark Kin blood, no?
Grey wasn’t 100% sure how it worked, but if getting help from the Blood Witch’s legacy could improve his Vampire Lord Frame, maybe getting some blood from other Dark Kin would also help.
But right now, he didn’t feel that feeling, maybe because he had partially activated his Last Paladin Frame so his Vampire Lord Frame’s abilities were more restrained.
Instead, he was getting the feeling of true, unsatiable hunger. He knew for a fact if he wasn’t controlling himself right now, he would want to devour that arm... completely raw.
’What the hell...’
This was his Mechanical Jaw Lineage Frame acting up now? How many different forms of hunger was he going to force on himself by accident? And where was this fetish for flesh suddenly coming from?
He thought the gnomes were just tinkerers. They were great engineers.
In fact, he thought that maybe his new Frame might be able to help him craft mechs better. If it did, it might actually be worthwhile to keep it.
But this... was most definitely not that.
’Is it trying to help with my Stamina?’ the thought suddenly flashed in Grey’s head, his intuition working its magic again. Prometheus was really helping him a lot with being in tune with his own body and what it wanted, as well as what external signals the world was sending him.
Grey had used blood to increase his Stamina before in the past, but that had to happen under a very specific set of circumstances.
The first was that his Vampire Lord Frame had to be activated. And while he didn’t really take Kaito and Lloron seriously, it was probably best he didn’t do that right now unless he had no other choice.
If he managed surviving this loop and news got back to the main city, he wouldn’t even be able to set foot anywhere near it until he was strong enough to kill everyone. And given the power of the Guardians... and how much more powerful than that the Empress probably was...
He was a long way from that.
He wasn’t yet a one-man army.
He still wasn’t even sure how The Relentless had killed him.
The second issue, though, was that he needed to have some connection and understanding of the blood.
He had managed to use this ability against the Syrn because the Syrn’s blood had become a bit important in helping him to perfect his Dark Solveign Frame. It was technically a part of him.
So right now, Grey could probably use the blood of other humans—especially Holy Knights and Paladins—and that of Syrns to help his Stamina out.
For anyone else, he could only use it to improve his raw physical power for a short time.
His Mechanical Jaw Lineage, though... just seemed to want him to...
Eat.
"Fuck it."
Amunet was still a bit shell shocked by the harshness of Grey’s words earlier, but Grey seemed to have already forgotten about it.
He reached over, and picked up the enormous arm. The claws of his pimp gloves sank into it and he opened his mouth.
He paused, blinking to look over at Amunet. "Didn’t your mother ever teach you it’s rude to watch someone eat like this?"
Amunet’s lip twitched.
If Grey was trying to hide his affiliation with Dark Kin right now, he was most definitely not going to do a good job of it by taking a bite out of a humanoid like this.
Grey, though, didn’t seem to care anymore. His curiosity had gotten the best of him.
His jaw almost unhinged and he took a bite.
Amunet looked away.
The moment Grey’s teeth bit through, he was surprised for two reasons. The first was that his teeth ripped through the flesh even his spear had had a small tough time with, like it was the most tender meat he had ever had.
The second was the jolt of electricity that immediately ran through him.
He took a second bite, then a third, then a fourth after that, his jaw unhinging further and further every time like he was only getting more used to it.
Before he knew it, he was chomping through bone, ripping through marrow, sucking up sinew until there was nothing left at all.
His stomach churned, a wild flow of energy repeating over and over again in a Recursive flow as it ground down the power flowing from the arm.
"Holy shit."
Grey didn’t even bother to wipe his mouth, blood of black and violet dribbling down his chin like he was a baby in need of a bib.
"HOLY SHIT!"
Grey repeated himself even louder this time. But what he didn’t expect was for his roar to come with a shockwave that blasted against an arm slapping against the city.
The arm was ripped to shreds as though a ballistic round had just exploded through it. A perfectly circular hole was torn through.
Grey started to laugh, but those around him were forced to block their ears. It was like his chest was a rapid fire cannon, every breath and pulsing wave of laughter coming with endless shockwaves that shook and ripped apart everything in his path.
And as the blood rained down, Grey’s jaw unhinged and he took a deep breath.
Large amounts of blood and flesh raining down were suddenly trapped in a whirlpool that was ripped out and toward him.
Grey breathed in more and more until it felt like his lungs might explode.
Power surged out of him and his momentum reached an untouchable peak.
BANG.
"WOOOO!"
Grey leapt forward, diving through and into the darkness.
Amunet’s eyes widened. Without thinking much, she dove after him.