The absorption process went very smoothly.
The greatest risk was resistance, and this resistance was not the same as being forced to agree verbally or bowing your head and enduring it. As long as you resented it deep within your soul, instinctive rejection would inevitably arise.
So Buken had sincerely given everything he had left to Kallen, letting go completely.
Throughout the process, the Hunger Addiction Sculpture never intervened; this was also the easiest meal it had ever had with Kallen.
Yet while it had kept its agreement, it also had not.
It swallowed all of Buken's Soul Power, leaving none for Kallen;
but it did not touch any of the immense spiritual power Buken had bestowed.
Hunger Addiction shared a soul vessel with Kallen. The more Soul Power it swallowed, the greater its share here became, and the harder Kallen would find it to suppress it;
in other words, what it needed most was Soul Power. As for spiritual power, or even something as extreme as "boiling bones for soup," it could leave all that to Kallen, letting him continue strengthening his reserves of power and physical constitution. He was "working for it" anyway.
However, Kallen was not angry about this, because Hunger Addiction had at least made its position clear. It did not intend to forcibly separate from Kallen. Or rather, through a highly intelligent operating instinct, it had devised the most cost-effective course of action and development for itself.
It wanted to completely "merge" with Kallen from the inside out. Their struggle would remain confined to fierce, small-scale clashes on the Soul Level. It did not want to create another tangible force within Kallen and then split itself off, allowing the two forces to tear this body and soul apart entirely.
Kallen's attitude toward Hunger Addiction had