It’s bitter. I’d forgotten what taste was with my time spent here, my tongue dry and cut in lines from dehydration, starvation. But I’ve gotten my first bite and with it comes a spurting fountain of scalding blood that does more to relieve my throat than burn.

Teeth sink even further as I gulp, the burning liquid flowing down into me, hot but it's what I need. My body afloat, my legs flailing in above my head as the continuous blast of energies swirl around me.

A reverberating roar threatens to throw me off but I tighten my grip, eyes shut and unbothered by the struggles and screams echoing. My only concern fixed on absorbing the bittersweet nectar of...of…

Snapping to my senses, I find myself at the centre of a whirling cyclone of fire, brimstone and lava. My hands squeezing into the Tusked Demon’s thick flesh all while it roars, exclaiming pains caused by my little feast. Swallowing the last slugde of blood I fear losing my grip and getting tossed into the cyclone, but find its fat arms can't reach me.

Blasts of chaotic red mists spilling from where I’ve bitten into slams against its attempts at grabbing me, its own power used against it.

Before I can stop to wonder how any of this is possible its head begins to heat, until it burns my lips off. I have no choice but to let go of its skull. The burning winds pick me up, hair whipping about as I’m tossed about through the torrent of fiery elements and launched out in another direction.

I am whipped into the ground several paces away from the chaos of fire and demons, the hard igneous rock caves under the weight of my fall and I groan, muffling a scream for all the pain. My lips burnt, fingers strained by the vice grip I held on the Demon’s head, and my back more or less used to break rock.

Gritting through the pain, I find that the lines of organized ‘pre-demons’ has devolved into chaos. Everyone is taking their chance now to escape a fate similar to those before them. Dragonborns skittering off, dwarves trying best not to get trampled or caught by the pig winged demons whipping and killing indiscriminately.

But few are successful, the Giant Demons have summoned their minions and ilk to suppress the chaos. Insects of grotesque shape and shapeless green blobs of acid Demons launch out into the mess. The green blobs swallow us pre-demons or Deaders, bipedal insects pick apart more of us, tearing limbs, and smacking down runners with parts from their last kill.

Moreover the clear use of magic. Blasts of acid reach hundreds of Deaders at once, melting them to nothingness as hordes of flying, frothing mice drop balls of acid into the chaos. The Deaders and Demons alike scream through rage and struggles, but despite the overwhelming number of Deaders, it’s clear who’s coming out on top of this sudden skirmish.

Scrabbling to my feet I smell burnt flesh, not unusual considering what’s unfolding before my eyes but the steam of this is right in front of me. It takes me a second to realize the flesh is mine, my burnt off lips growing back to reality like nothing ever happened to them and steaming as it does so.

'That’s...impo- No...anything is possible now.'

Staring back at the scene of chaos, the Tusked Demons still enveloped in a torrent of flames, its comrades beside it don’t bother paying it any attention. Instead they grab at Deaders, the blob of acid eating up the most of us with its tendrils and the Insects sent out in hordes, capturing and returning Deaders to the waiting Mandibles of the long centipede-like Demon.

The acid rain is a stone's throw away from where I’ve landed, and so is the chaos, some Deaders have made it past where I stand even now, running deep into the Deserts behind me. It would be foolish not to follow their lead.

Turning tail, I press my feet against the ground and burst forth faster than I intended or expected. Caught off guard I come to a halt and tumble into some other Deader.

“Muk tul ya!” They scream and shove me off. They scramble to stand but not before their crystal, embedded in their chest same as mine catches my eye. They’re a reptilian creature, a long snout with rows of teeth protruding from the sides.

'I can beat it.'

The thought isn’t mine and I know it at an instant. Intrusive thoughts and memories were commonplace on the Wall, but this isn’t even a thought brought on from a past life. The growling, demanding sensation that rushes through with the thought...this is hunger.

Though my stomach sits warm with the blood and power of the Tusked Demon, I'm still thirsty. My chest burns as I stare dumbfounded at the lizardfolk’s glowing pink crystal. A sense beyond me tells me it’s nowhere as filling as what I tasted from the Tusked, but I should have a taste anyway.

“Grrr.” Growling down at me, sneering with its fangs peeking clear behind curled lips. The lizardfolk seems to have gotten the same idea.

Within a heartbeat, it lunges at me and we spill into a roll, inhibitions lost, civility abandoned. All that remains is a thirst, a hunger for flesh and the power of the crystal beating at our chests.

My crystal beams a crimson light, filling me up with power, strength beyond what I know. Empowered, I set my grip on the lizardfolk’s neck and slam it into the hard, burnt igneous rock hard enough that cracks spread through it. It coughs, gasps and rasps to breathe again, clawing at the arm pressing it down. Ignoring the gashes its claws leave, I straddle it, rendering it immobile under my weight.

Directed by instinct I raise my free hand and it flushes with the cyrstal's power, with it I slash across the lizardfolks face, spilling blood and tearing out chunks of flesh. Shredding through bone and tearing it apart to the point its snout is no more than an overgrown nose.

Sputtering, drowning in its blood the mangled lizardfolk still manages to struggle. My eyes narrow at it, annoyed at its kicking and clawing. My hand fills with strength again and I squeeze, pressing down on it until its eyes bulge, tongue flaps out and blood spurts in my face.

With an audible burst, my grip destroys the lizardfolk’s head, the remnants of its throat in my hands. Filled with thirst I lick it off my fingers, grab the bloated, severed head and squeeze it above my open mouth. Unlike the Tusked its blood is smooth and thin, almost too thin. It slides down my throat and I lose myself in its taste, awakening only when there are only a few drops left.

Disappointment whelms within me as I toss the drained head away, but I remember I’ve got a whole body left. A heat thrums beneath me, and licking my lips I pick at the glowing pink crystal but stop before I go any further.

“W-what are these…”

Staring at my hands I have trouble recognizing them, my fingernails are no longer, in their place are strong, thin and pointed claws. I blink and remember slashing away at the lizardfolk’s face with these claws, even now bits of flesh hang onto them.

Despite the horror, I sense a growing compulsion to lick it off, thoughts in my head screaming at how I’ve wasted so much...blood. Licking my lips I find something else, another bit of alarm. Bringing a clawed finger to my mouth, I can tell at the touch that whatever’s protruding through my lip, out from my gums, is no regular tooth.

Taking a deep breath to regain my composure and control over my thoughts I stare at the claws protruding out my fingers and feel at the fangs hanging out of my mouth.

The thrumming stream of power flowing to my hands and my jaw from the crystal in my chest tells me that it’s the source of the change.

“Ah!” I startle, the lizardfolk’s body jerks and twitches underneath me even without the direction of its head.

'It’s not...dead yet...not completely.'

It’s hard to focus with the raging roars behind me, the stampede of Demons and Deaders, the whipping and pained screaming of acid, fire and disembowelling. But I manage and let the flow of power be all I sense.

Earlier it was all by instinct, an instinct I hadn’t realized I had. But now I’m refining it. It’s a stream of power, pumping throughout my body. My eyes close and I poke at it, tell it to curl back and it does. It recedes away from my extremities and pools at the centre, my limbs fall limp at my side, and my chest hums and burns.

I have a look at my hands again. The claws are gone. But my chest is glowing a bright crimson, beating with my heart. With a breath of relief, the power bottled up in the crystal floods back out, energizing me once more.

'I can control this thing.'

Focussing on the power within the crystal I draw it out, commanding it to flow down into my arm. Watching as it passes I notice my arm bulk up, veins bulge and muscle expand with each pump. Sending it down into my hands, to my fingernails I wait, filled with anticipation to see those claws rise again.

…

Nothing. Why?

It puzzles me why but I feel an ache in my chest, all the same, I can’t sustain the flow of power from it. The crimson light dims, turning a shade lighter, I panic.

'I should have taken the Crystal before the blood!'

Without pausing to think through it I plunge my arm through the still heaving chest of the Lizardfolk underneath me and snatch its pink crystal out. It’s a lighter shade than it was earlier, I suspect the power from it is what’s keeping the lizardfolk's body alive.

Not anymore though.

Once the crystal is free from its chest the Lizardfolk’s trembling and head-breathing stops. Nothing of life remains in it.

Getting off the Lizardfolk, its crystal in hand glowing a soft pink, a question blurs my view.

[Pink Soul Crystal]- Lvl.1(0.9esq)

[Absorb] [Destroy]

I’m quick to notice the change in my stat. My Pink has transformed to a Crimson, likely more from what I absorbed from the Tusked demon and so has the Esq beside it. And now, the crystal in hand has a rather meagre 0.9esq. It’s nothing compared to the boost the Tusked gave me, but there’s a pattern forming now and I figure this esq is as important as the colour of the crystal.

With little time to think about it, I decide to absorb the power remaining within it and it fades from solid to gas in my hand. The pink gas lunges right at my chest and I can’t help the moan of delight as it rushes into my Crystal.

“Oh wow…I’ll need more.”

However, with the chaos getting closer, Deaders running past me, some stopping to engage others, devouring the corpses left behind in ravaging hunger and thirst. I know I can’t stay here.

'There’s only one way to go now. Forward'.

Ahead is the Desert dunes, a sandstorm spinning out in the distance. This is the domain of that Insect Demon, the one sending out minions to disembowel my fellow Deaders.

'No...not Deaders...this is...this is Reais.'

Reais, the home to all that is demonic and until I can get back to where I came from, before the Wall, before any of this madness. This will be my home.

“I’m a Demon.”

Resolved, I start off running into the harsh desert, careful to keep my distance from the other escapee Demons, they’re hungry and thirsty like I am. They’re likely to attack whoever’s next to them like the Lizardfolk did. I’m not so confident about my chances in an all-out brawl, especially not with those big ones.

The main bit of the desert is still some ways away, but even from this distance, I’m beset by painful waves of the hot sand, scratching and peeling at my exposed skin.

Grunting to myself I ponder, 'Does Reais have any clothes or am I to wear the skin of my foes?'