Demonic Devourer's Development

The occasion called for a dramatic entrance. Under the shroud of darkness, I flew to the middle of the village, where I ordered Pest to turn it off.

There was no need for me to announce my appearance—the glow of the stone in my chest made it for me. Its rainbow radiance, only partially concealed by my half-transparent flesh, was as bright as the moon compared to the stars next to the barely there lights of the bioluminescent flora.

From above, I watched as the humans turned their eyes to me, shouting in surprise, astonishment, anger, and terror. I must've been a sight. My current form was my natural one, and I had enough features to be fearsome. Four arms, claws, beastly snout full of teeth, simmering wings behind my back—the only feature you could call pretty, which made it look very out of place.

I drank in these reactions, revelling in these humans' attention. Soon their souls all will go straight to the Heavenly Judgement, and their meat—in my stomach. But before that, I wanted to say something from the depths of my heart. Something that brewed there for a while.

"Listen!" I pointed at the crowd that began to gather under me with my upper right hand. "Today is your unlucky day. I don't care what your problems are or were! I don't care why you live there instead of moving to the surface and stopping your disgusting breeding practises! I don't care if you have lost half of your brains to incest and another one to the monster genetics! I don't care if you even know the word "genetics" or not! You must be sad to lose your magic stone—well, you can see that I have it now, and you don't. Too bad, this is just the beginning!"

"What are you?!" someone shouted from below. "What do you want from us?!"

"I am the reason why this day is so unlucky for you. Because the only thing I want from you is becoming my food, and my stepping stone on the road to power! Only power can bring you on top of this world, and only more power can keep you there. And it doesn't matter how you get it. Morality is a concept the cave slugs like you need to not to kill each other in the fight for that power. Without it, societies would crumble and kingdoms fall." The words spilt from my tongue without coming through my brain. "But that's the thing—those who abandoned it don't care, anyway! And so don't I. This! This is why I'm going to kill you all now. You are just too convenient for me. And I will kill whoever else is convenient, and whoever else I want, no matter what consequences it will create!"

"We will see who will kill who!" someone particularly brave exclaimed. I didn't bat an eye at them. They could show bravado as much as they like, it would change nothing.

"If you want to kill us, why do you tell all this?"

This time, my eyes zeroed on the speaker. His voice was familiar, and so was his face. It was the same boy I interrogated before. He stared in my face with a mix of terror and recognition… I assumed he recognised my voice as well.

"Good question. I had to tell someone, I suppose. Even monsters like me can have a weight on their chest." I spread my lips in a grim smile that made a few people below go pale. "Hmm, you have some smarts and don't look as inbred as most people here. If you will prove yourself useful, I might even leave you alive. There's not much meat in a pipsqueak like you, anyway."

Maybe he knew the way to the surface, or at least the river. Was worth checking.

"Please, don't kill us! We all will be more useful alive!" the pipsqueak shouted. "We can give you things, and do whatever you want, but we want to live!"

I gave the people beneath me a blank look. Nope, still inbred, malformed creatures who only survived thanks to the power of the rainbow stone. I was sure that without it, the monsters or the many illnesses they should've been catching here would've killed them all ages ago.

"Y-yes, we will do whatever you want, but don't kill us!" a woman joined in, only to be immediately slapped by a man next to her.

"Shut up! Shut up, you two! We can defeat this monster, whatever it is. Gather your spears, everyone!"

The man raised his own spear, but before he could say anything else, I flicked my hand, sending five wind blades from my fingers. He never saw them coming, and neither did anyone else. With their poor eyesight that couldn't see how cold the blades were, it must've been as if the man's chest exploded with blood on its own accord.

Horrified gasps followed.

"No, I don't think so. Time for talking is over. Now it's time to eat."

The rest was pretty much a one-sided massacre. These humans were plenty and strong. I'd say that each of their hunters and warriors would equal to Yvenna in raw combat power, though they lacked in her sheer ferocity. But killing them for me was as simple as flicking my fingers, while their spears couldn't wound me even if they hit.

It took time. After the first wave of defence died an ignoble death, those who didn't flee like rats yet started to. I intercepted plenty at the gates, but the rest found hiding nooks in houses and natural crevices of the cave. I had to methodically sniff out and kill each and every one of them.

To give him his due, the pipsqueak hid the best of all of them. It took me a while to even think of looking to where he was, but I was intent on finding him, even if I was still unsure what to do with him after all.