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"Wraith… craving the same 'meal' as before?" Johnny's eyes glinted as he brushed the link between them.
"I… desire it," the voice answered in his head hungry, reverent.
"You've grown stronger, haven't you?" Johnny could feel it the Wraith pulsed with more power than when he first summoned it. Devouring hadn't just fed Johnny; it had leveled up his monster too.
He pointed down the corridor toward a heavy door plated in rune-etched metal. "Through that door. Every guard you see erases them. Fast."
"By your will… and for the feast."
The Wraith blurred, a smear of shadow racing for the end of the hall. Chains wrapped around the great door snapped with a shower of sparks as those talons sheared them like twine. Two Asgardian sentries turned at the sudden clatter.
"What—?"
They didn't finish the thought. The Wraith phased into view between them then talons scissored. Skulls split. Bodies hit stone. Silence.
It dropped to feed before the blood finished spreading.
Johnny didn't flinch this time. He stooped, scooping up a fallen shield and spear. Knowledge poured in as another dividend of the Devourer System. His mind mapped grip, stance, counters: shield-spear forms used by palace guards and dungeon wardens.
The shield's alloy could blunt both steel and sorcery.
The spear served as a close-quarters weapon and a charged projector, like a man-portable energy lance, with limited internal reserves before switching to divine power draw.
"An Asgardian's toy," Johnny murmured, testing the weight. "Useless to anyone without godforce. Lucky me."
The Wraith finished feeding; heat flushed Johnny's veins again. Strength ticked higher. Reflexes sharper. The divine ember inside him his a stolen sliver of godforce. Thrummed.
"Fed… master. More remains?"
"Oh, there's plenty more."
They moved through the dungeon's golden corridors too opulent for a place meant to bury the forgotten.
Carved pillars, inlaid floors, lanterns that burned without oil. Asgard did everything in gilded excess, even misery.
Prisoners crowded the bars as Johnny passed some desperate, some calculating, some mean.
"You're not one of them," a gaunt elf rasped. "How did you get out?"
"Free us, and we'll swear to you," another bargained.
Then a voice, loud and ugly, cut through the chorus: "Hey! Let me out or I'll hunt you down and kill your whole family!"
Johnny stopped.
He turned, face blank, and walked to the source—a thick-necked brute with a scar like a lightning fork across his cheek. "That was you?"
The man sneered. "You heard me. I've killed more than you've met. Open this door, or when I'm out, you're dead."
Johnny's gaze slid over the others. "All of you with him?"
Sensing leverage, several prisoners piled on snarls and threats, a mob sensing weakness.
Johnny sighed, took one step back, and didn't raise his voice. "Wraith. Your meal just arrived. Leave none alive."
The jeers turned to confused laughter. "Who are you talking to, idiot—"
The iron bars groaned. The Wraith's talons wrapped two vertical rods and bent them inward like warm wax, opening a gap wide enough for a man to squeeze through. Gasps rippled down the block as the metal shriek echoed.
The prisoners surged, eyes wild with opportunity.
Johnny lifted the shield and spear and tilted his head, almost curious. "You threatened my family," he said to the scarred man, matter-of-fact. "I don't have one here. But I do have a line you just crossed."
The Wraith slipped through the gap, a black scythe in motion.
Screams erupted cut off, one by one.
Johnny didn't look away this time. Asgard had taught him its first lesson the hard way: mercy is a language the powerful refuse to learn. He spoke back in the only tongue they respected.
The feeding was fast, efficient, and terrible. Bones clattered to the floor. The air grew copper-thick.
Heat flooded Johnny's limbs again, brighter now strength stacking, balance tightening, senses opening. The godforce ember inside him flared, just a little, like a coal teased by wind.
He rolled his shoulders and set his stance, spear humming softly as its charge cycled.
"Good," he said to the darkness ahead. "Round two."
And the Devourer walked deeper into Asgard's golden maze.
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