Dreadbeasts

Dreadbeasts are misshapen beasts, mangled by corruptive hunger aura. Wei Shi Lindon and Yerin must battle numerous of them in book 2, Soulsmith. They were used as research subjects long ago, resulting in the accidental creation of Dreadgods.

Ozmanthus and Dreadbeasts

Dreadbeasts have probably existed since the dawn of hunger aura, which is generated by bottomless human ambition, gluttonous greed. Dreadbeasts were not created by Subject One’s research team, but he experimented upon them in his research. They existed long before the rise of his Dreadgods, even before historic clan Founder Ozmanthus Arelius created his broom, according to Suriel’s report:

He never lost his admiration for those who kept the world clean, and one of the most hideous plagues in the world was the population of dreadbeasts that roamed the countryside, feeding and spewing out more of their kind. With his weapons, he would clean the countryside. He found an ancient labyrinth, built by the original Court of Seven before their ascension. He researched their understanding, growing in knowledge and power. And he built weapons. (-Reaper, ch 2)

Dreadbeast defined

Much Maligned Monsters

The lesser dreadbeasts, even those with the power of Lords,
had all looked like creatures from a horror story. They were
twisted and mutated bodies, broken from the inside out.

-Reaper, ch 11

Dreadbeasts are corrupted sacred beasts, whose spirits are mangled up with their bodies, unlike the distinct spirit found in humans and in sacred beasts. They can’t leave behind a Remnant because their spirit is mangled into their body. Hunger aura corrupts them — it corrupts everything.
They inhabit the Desolate Wilds and the surrounding areas because they are lured towards the Labyrinth in Sacred Valley. The labyrinth is brimming with hunger aura, but its suppression field weakens draedbeasts, dreadgods, and humans.

Words from Will

From the Author

Questioner: Do sacred beasts have "physical" cores like dreadbeasts, or are they like sacred artists' cores?

Will Wight: Dreadbeasts have their spirits all mangled up with their bodies, so they’re weird. Sacred beasts have spirits like humans do.

-https://abidanarchive.com/events/1/#e313

No Remnant

Dreadbeasts don’t leave a viable Remnant (a spirit) behind when they die, probably because their spirit is mangled into their bodies. “Eithan, you and I handle the Remnant,” Lindon called. His pure madra cycled faster. Eithan was peering in the direction of the Hydra’s body. “No need. It’s a dreadbeast.” (Reaper, ch 11)

Hunger Aura

A pure white aura that felt to Lindon’s senses
like an endless, gnawing greed for more.
Hunger aura.

-Reaper, ch 7

Hunger aura is a major problem, because it’s unnatural and corruptive and free-ranging. It corrupts anything and anyone it touches. And hunger aura, itself, is the unnatural by-product of corruption in humans — the bottomless need, greed, and endless ambition shown by self-interested sacred artists, especially Monarchs. Hunger aura does not exist naturally. (Reaper, ch 21, ch 24)

Hunger aura is not a natural force. It is a corruption of the natural order of Cradle. A manifestation of ambition, of selfish desire, created by the presence of Monarchs. Back then, "hunger aura drifted all over the world, and where it moved, all other aura weakened. It corrupted everything; Remnants, natural spirits, sacred beasts. Even humans." (Reaper, ch 21)

Dreadbeast + Hunger Madra=Dreadgod

See more detail at Subject One — the original researcher who became a Dreadgod. This is what we understand so far. It’s still a bit unclear.

About 2000 years ago, roughly, Dreadgods came into the world, the result of research and experimentation conducted in the Labyrinth in an attempt to control the planetary problem of corruptive hunger aura, itself the unnatural by-product of bottomless need, greed, and ambition. A second research goal was probably to “cure” the poor dreadbeasts.

Each Dreadgod was originally an unremarkable Dreadbeast when the research team infused it with hunger aura. The beast began to cycle the hunger aura and thus hunger madra was born of this infusion, apparently. It never existed before. Subject One is called the Father of Hunger Madra.

For some reason — probably because of the voracious nature of hunger aura and hunger madra — the dreadbeast quickly grew beyond its peers. It eventually escaped the researchers and entered the outside world.

Subject One was the first one to become a Dreadgod because he put the hunger binding into his own body, to test his research, as he was the lead scientist, and because the lure of powerful hunger madra was tempting (Reaper, ch 21). Thus, the researcher became the subject of a failed experiment. Subject One is confined deep in the Labyrinth at Sacred Valley. The other four Dreadgods (née dreadbeasts) did escape, but they always strive to come back to the Labyrinth, because it’s rich in hunger aura, and home to Subject One.