Chapter 490: How Hungry Are You?
Chapter 490: How Hungry Are You?
Nadia’s speed was nothing to joke about.
Because she had complete control over gravity, her flight wasn’t simply flying—it was manipulation on a fundamental level.
She could use multiple points of focus in the ground to push herself upward, creating a constant upward force that made her float effortlessly.
Then she could use another set of points further away to pull herself forward, like invisible hooks dragging her through the sky. Push and pull at the same time, from all directions, allowing her to accelerate to supersonic speeds in seconds.
People on the ground couldn’t see her. All they heard was a massive whoosh, a sudden burst of wind that rattled windows and knocked hats off heads, and then she was gone.
So it didn’t take long for them to reach their destination.
It was a normal house on the northeastern edge of the city. Unremarkable. The kind of place you’d pass a hundred times without noticing.
But when Nadia descended into the neighborhood, people noticed her.
Cameras flashed. Phones rose. Murmurs spread like wildfire.
"Is that—"
"Lady Nadia!"
"What is she doing here?"
Mika and Nadia ignored them. They walked up the cracked driveway and through the front door, which swung open at Nadia’s touch—unlocked, as if inviting them in.
Mika spoke as they entered.
"This house was a meeting point for the higher-ups. One of the subordinates dropped off his boss here once. Saw a bunch of top officials waiting outside before they went in." He glanced around the foyer. "If they held any closed-door discussions about the final bomb, they were here."
Nadia didn’t wait. She moved through the house quickly, efficiently, checking every room, every closet, every corner.
The kitchen: empty. The living room: furniture covered in white sheets, thick with dust. The bedrooms: bare mattresses, empty closets, no signs of life.
She returned to the foyer, frustration tightening her jaw.
"There’s nothing here, Mika. No documents. No laptops. Not even a scrap of paper." She shook her head. "It’s like no one’s lived here for years."
But Mika just smiled like he expected that.
"Follow me."
He led her through the house, past the empty living room, past the dusty kitchen, until they stopped in front of a door at the end of the hallway. He pushed it open.
A bedroom. But unlike the others, this one was different.
The air was faintly sharp—the lingering trace of cleaning chemicals. The floor had been swept recently. The windows were spotless.
"Even though the rest of the house looks abandoned." Mika said. "This room is extra clean. Not much dust. Faint smell of cleaner." He stepped inside. "Someone scrubbed this place thoroughly. Probably where they held their meetings."
Nadia followed him in. A few sofas arranged in a loose circle. A low coffee table. That was it. No papers, no whiteboards, no evidence of any kind.
She frowned.
"Even if this was their meeting place, how does that help us? We could bring in a team, check for DNA samples, try to track them down—but that would take days. We don’t have days. We don’t even have hours."
Her fists clenched. "What are we supposed to do?"
Mika turned to look at her. There was a glint in his eyes.
"...We’re going to hunt for spiders and lizards."
Nadia blinked.
For a moment, she thought her hearing had malfunctioned. The stress of the day, the lack of sleep, the emotional turmoil—surely she had misheard him.
But Mika was already moving.
He walked to the corner of the room, where a small spiderweb stretched between the wall and the ceiling. He reached up, plucked a large spider from its web, and held it gently in his palm.
Then he went to another corner and found another.
Nadia watched, utterly baffled, as her son collected spiders like a child collecting rocks.
But he wasn’t finished.
He walked to the wall, studied it for a moment, then punched through the plaster.
Bang!
His hand emerged holding a small lizard, its body wriggling in his grip. He punched another hole, another lizard.
He now held two spiders and two lizards.
Before she could ask what on earth he was doing, Mika looked at the small animals with a hint of regret.
"Sorry about this, little guys...but this is necessary."
Then, before Nadia’s horrified eyes, he tossed the spiders into his mouth. He chewed quickly, three quick crunches, and swallowed.
Then he grabbed the lizards, bit their heads off—another crunch—and swallowed those too.
Nadia’s hand flew to her mouth. She felt her emotions surge—the precursor to another earthquake—but she forced it down.
She held herself together by sheer force of will.
But she couldn’t help stepping forward, placing a trembling hand on his shoulder.
"Mika." She said, her voice cracking. "Were you really that hungry? Were you not joking when you said you wanted a burger?"
She looked at him with pity, with genuine distress.
"If you were that hungry, I would have let you eat first. I-I would have taken you anywhere you wanted."
"You don’t have to—to eat spiders. And lizards, you know."
She looked at him like he was a starving orphan she had failed to save.
Mika on the other hand looked at her in genuine surprise for a second, then shook his head with a soft laugh.
"It’s not that, Nadia" He finished chewing and swallowed. "I wasn’t really eating them because I was hungry."
"Instead it’s for..."
But he didn’t finish and instead closed his eyes.
Nadia wanted to ask more, but she could see he was concentrating.
His brow furrowed. His lips moved silently, as if he were having a conversation with someone only he could hear.
So, she waited.
Seconds passed. Then tens of seconds. Then—
He opened his eyes. They gleamed with satisfaction.
"I got what I need, Nadia." He gestured toward the door. "Get us out of this house."
Nadia didn’t hesitate. She grabbed him securely and flew them out at full speed.
Once they were airborne, Mika gave new directions.
"Lift this house along with the ground underneath it and scatter it apart. I want every single individual brick separated. I want the ground underneath scattered so I can see every single component."
Nadia raised her hands and to the absolute shock of the neighbors watching from below, the entire house lifted into the air along with a massive chunk of soil and foundation.
Then—she spread her arms.
The house exploded!
Bricks separated. Pipes tore apart. Tiles shattered.
The building that had stood for decades dissolved into thousands of individual pieces, floating in the air like a three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle.
Mika ignored the chaos. His eyes swept across the debris, moving faster than any human should be able to track.
Then—he smiled.
"I found you."
He launched himself off the floating platform of rubble, using the scattered pieces as stepping stones, leaping from brick to beam to broken wall until he reached a pipe that had been torn from the bathroom.
Inside the pipe, scrabbling against the metal, was a rat.
Large. Gray. Terrified.
He grabbed it.
"Squeeek—!"
Nadia flew to his side, her eyes widening as she saw what he was holding. Realising what he was about to do, she tried to stop him
"Mika do—"
But he snapped the rat’s neck.
Clean. Quick. Almost merciful.
Then he tore the head apart—pulled it open with his bare hands, ignoring the blood, ignoring the mess.
He then reached inside and scooped out a single, tiny, glistening piece of tissue.
The rat’s brain.
He held it up to the light.
"This is the final piece of the puzzle."
And to Nadia’s utter horror, he brought it toward his mouth.
"No." Nadia whispered. "Mika, don’t—"
He popped it into his mouth and swallowed.
Her face crumpled and she felt another wave of maternal guilt crash over her. She was convinced she had failed him—that he must have been starving for him to resort to this.
She also mentally noted to scold Yelena later for not feeding him properly and to cook him an enormous feast the moment this was over.
Meanwhile, Mika closed his eyes again, concentrating. When he opened them, they were bright with certainty.
"Fauna’s hospital." He said.
Nadia blinked. "What?"
But then her confusion transformed into dawning horror.
"You mean—"
"Exactly." He nodded. "The details are fuzzy, the rat’s memories aren’t perfectly clear. But the bomb is definitely at Fauna’s hospital."
Nadia’s expression shifted from shock to focused determination. She quickly pulled out her phone, and called her subordinates.
Orders were given. Teams were redirected. The inspection and evacuation of Fauna’s hospital began immediately.
She stuffed the phone back into her pocket, grabbed Mika, and launched into the sky.
They flew at max speed, the wind screaming past them, the world blurring below.
As they flew, Nadia glanced down at him.
She had so many questions. About his abilities, about his secrets, about the boy she thought she knew.
But one question burned more than the others.
"How did you do it, Mika?" Her voice was quieter now, almost gentle. "How did you figure all of that out just from...eating those creatures?"
Mika looked up at her, and there was a hint of amusement in his eyes.
"I didn’t really eat them, Nadia. Not in the way you’re thinking. I consumed their brains—but it was my mind doing the consuming, not my stomach."
She frowned. "What do you mean?"
He settled more comfortably in her grip.
"The spiders and lizards have been in that room for months. They’ve seen people come and go. They’ve heard conversations."
"They don’t understand what they’re seeing, but the raw sensory data is stored in their brains."
"When I ate their brains, I was able to...extract that data. To absorb it into my own consciousness."
He paused.
"It’s not like watching a video. It’s more like having fragments of memory implanted directly into my mind. Disorienting, at first. The memories of a spider are very different from human memories."
"But if you focus, you can piece together something coherent."
Nadia’s head spun. "And the rat?"
"Well, the spiders and lizards gave me limited information with how small their brains were. Instead the rat I consumed was there during the actual meetings since it had a burrow in the room."
"It heard the higher-ups talk about the bomb—where it was going to be placed, why they chose that location. The details were scattershot—but there was enough to point me toward Fauna’s hospital."
He smiled.
"So I used the spider and lizard memories to find the rat, and used the rat’s memories to locate the bomb."
Nadia processed this shocking revelation before asking,
"So...as long as you consume the brains of small organisms, you can absorb their memories? Their knowledge?"
"Essentially, yes."
"When did you discover you could do this?"
He thought for a moment an said, "Once, when I was a child playing in the garden, an ant bit me, and I was angry and also curious." He chuckled at the memory. "So I squished it, put it in my mouth, and chewed. Like any dumb kid would."
She stared at him in disbelief
"And then I felt this strange sensation like my brain was hungry for something. Instinctively, I pushed the ant’s brain into my own and let it be consumed."
"And suddenly, I could see everything the ant had seen. Walking through tunnels. Carrying food. Being bullied by the other ants." His expression softened. "I almost felt bad for killing it."
Nadia’s mind was reeling.
She had thought she knew Mika. Thought she knew the boy she had raised—his abilities, his limits, his secrets.
But now she was learning that he had possessed this power for years, and she had never known. Never even suspected.
How many other secrets was he keeping? How many other abilities had he hidden?
She really really was curious right now and wanted to ask.
But instead, she felt something else. Something that made her face heat.
’If he can consume memories...could he eat my brain? Could he take a bite and see everything I’ve ever thought?’
The image flashed through her mind—not of Mika eating her brain, but of Mika seeing her thoughts.
The dirty thoughts. The inappropriate thoughts. The way she had been looking at him lately, the way her body responded to his touch, the way she sometimes imagined—
She shook her head violently.
Mika noticed. "Nadia? Are you okay?"
"I’m fine." She said quickly. "Just...thinking."
She hesitated. Then, quietly, "Can you...can you do that to humans? Eat their brains and take their memories?"
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