Fire and Death.
That was all he saw as his gaze swept across the village, bathed in flames that slowly devoured everything in their path. Sparks drifted upward into the ashen, smoke-choked sky.
Corpses lay strewn across the blood-soaked ground. Men, women, and children alike had been brutally slaughtered. Some had suffered far worse than others, their bodies mutilated with such horrifying savagery that he could scarcely bring himself to describe it.
Yet there was still life.
Some still clung desperately to their final breaths, their breathing shallow and ragged as they slowly bled to death. Others writhed in unbearable agony as they were devoured alive, feasted upon while their flesh was torn apart piece by piece.
His eyes then drifted toward those responsible for the massacre.
At first glance, they looked human. They possessed the pointed ears of elves, yet what truly set them apart were the curved horns rising from their heads and the strange markings etched across their faces like twisted, unnatural tattoos.
It did not take him long to realize what they were.
Demons.
The very race to which he himself belonged.
He tightened his grip around his staff, instinctively preparing himself in case they attacked. Though none of them had noticed his presence yet, he could not understand why. By now, they should have sensed him.
And yet, they hadn't.
Was it because they were indulging too deeply in the flavor of human flesh, or was it that they had sensed him and simply decided he wasn't worth their attention? If it was the former, he didn't know. But if it was the latter, then he hoped it stayed that way. He was more than willing to put several kilometers between himself and the village if that was what it took to avoid trouble.
One of the demons—a male demon who had been feasting on a baby, or what little remained of it—suddenly turned his gaze toward him.
"This is our feast. Go somewhere else."
His voice was emotionless, devoid of any obvious hostility, yet the threat behind those words was unmistakable.
No.
He wasn't merely feeling threatened.
He was being threatened.
The demon returned to his meal before reaching down and picking up a dying man. Without hesitation, he began consuming him as well. The man tried to scream in agony—or at least it seemed he did. Though still conscious, he lacked the strength to produce anything more than weak, broken sounds.
Soon, he was dead.
The same could be said for the rest of the demons.
They continued their feast with complete indifference, consuming the living and the dead alike.
I should be going now.
He turned and left the village. There was nothing for him there.
Beyond the village's boundaries stood a vast forest, thick and green. The ground remained damp from the rain that had fallen the day before. Wet leaves blanketed the forest floor, accompanied by scattered twigs and broken branches.
He walked through the forest, and whenever his foot stepped on a leaf or twig, the sharp crack would briefly shatter the silence surrounding him.
Eventually, he sat beneath a particularly old tree, its trunk wider and taller than the rest. Dematerializing his staff, he released a long breath and leaned back against the rough bark.
His eyes wandered aimlessly before settling upon a swarm of black ants dragging the remains of their prey—a spider.
He tilted his head.
"To think these ants managed to kill a creature more than twice their size..."
His mind immediately began analyzing the sight before him, processing possibility after possibility until he arrived at a singular conclusion.
"All possibilities lead toward these ants eventually evolving into a species that would threaten demon food sources in the distant future."
His expression remained unchanged.
"They have to be eliminated."
He began uttering an incantation.
A curse.
He was casting a curse.
He had afflicted the ants with a slowly killing curse, one that would gradually kill its targets and anyone they came into contact with, spreading itself like a plague. However, since his current targets were merely ants, he had modified the curse's application, ensuring that only ants would be affected by it. The curse would spread from colony to colony, crossing vast distances and even reaching other continents.
He was taking no chances.
The best way to reduce future competition for food was to ensure that every ant colony was wiped out within the next ten years.
"I am feeling hungry."
He rose to his feet, dusting the dirt from his robes. Summoning his staff back into his hand, he began searching for something to eat, eager to satisfy his hunger as quickly as possible.
For a demon, hunger was their greatest weakness.
It could drive them to act irrationally or reduce them to frenzied, rabid beasts if left unfed for days or weeks. The longer the hunger persisted, the more a demon's mental state deteriorated, slowly stripping away reason and restraint.
Demons were omnivores.
They could eat almost anything, including other demons. Their meals ranged from humans, elves, dwarves, dragons, and horses to fruits, plants, and virtually anything else that wasn't themselves. Over the course of his life, he had tasted all manner of meat and fruit, even the flesh of his fellow demons.
He didn't particularly enjoy the taste of demon meat.
His favorite was human flesh.
Dragons came second.
Fruits came third.
It would take extraordinary luck to find either of the former two wandering within this forest. The chances were exceedingly low.
So, for now, he would have to settle for fruit to quell his hunger.
He searched throughout the forest for hours, moving from one section to another. Time passed with little success until he finally came across several berry bushes.
The berries looked plump and ripe, hanging heavily from their branches. Their skin was smooth and unblemished, their rounded shapes almost inviting. A sweet, enticing fragrance drifted through the air, drawing him closer. To his hungry senses, they seemed almost irresistible, silently beckoning him to consume them.
He reached toward the nearest cluster.
He plucked a berry and placed it into his mouth, chewing it slowly to savor its flavor.
Once the berry slid down his throat, he spoke.
"These are perfect. More perfect than any berry I have ever consumed."
They truly were.
Over the last thousand years, he had tasted well over a thousand different varieties of berries as he wandered from land to land. Yet never had he encountered anything quite like these.
"Hm?"
His demonic senses picked up something.
The vibrations of footsteps.
Bipedal footsteps.
And from the sound of them, there seemed to be eight individuals in total. One was running, while seven others were in pursuit.
Compared to most other races, demons possessed exceptionally acute hearing. From the vibrations traveling through the ground, they could determine how many creatures were present, discern their approximate body structures, and even tell whether they were alive or dead. They could accurately pinpoint locations from sounds that most races would never notice.
Their hearing was among their greatest senses.
They needed it.
As apex predators, heightened hearing was far more valuable than keen sight or smell. Both vision and scent could be concealed, distorted, or countered through various means.
Sound, however, was far more difficult to deceive.
A grin spread across his face.
Food had come to him.
And not just one meal, but many.
This truly was his luckiest day.
Still, he would have to kill them quickly before another demon discovered them and claimed the prey for themselves. He had sensed them first.
They belonged to him.
He would not allow a single one of them to escape.
Without another thought, he burst into motion, dashing through the forest toward his food.
The trees became blurred shapes at the edges of his vision as he sped forward. Leaves and branches rustled violently in his wake, while the vibrations of the fleeing prey grew clearer with every passing moment.
Closer.
Closer.
Soon, they would be within reach.