[Khozuik].

It’s back hunched, broad and fat is also sprouting with long, arched spikes similar to the ones fired out of its back. With this I know for a fact that every Demon I’ve encountered is one that reached the end of the line and each one of them that did possess one deadly weapon or another within their bodies.

‘I have none.’

It may have been a better outcome should it have been offered, a natural weapon as strong as theirs is something I’d need to climb the ladders in this place, instead I’m here, an arm sacrificed, shoulder splintered and precious Essence wasted on a fight that didn’t reap a single [Soul Crystal].

‘This will be difficult.’

The dread whelming within brews growling desperation as its spiked back aggravates me. It plans to sell me as a human, I can only imagine the outcome of a successful sale would entail even more torture.

‘I have to escape somehow.’

But it’s roped my remaining limbs together so I too walk hunched over, it’s cautious enough to link these ropes to the tail in its hand several feet away. Even if I had a second arm it’d be difficult to make an attack on it.

The dread pit deepens and I babble, “Which one of the three changed you? When you arrived.”

It’s the only thing I can think would start a conversation, a friendly kind anyway. Then of course I’ll beg that it spares me.

Its response to my noise is a grunt and a tug on the rope that nearly trips me over, it blasts into my head images, “Silence.”

“I didn’t get transformed, I bit into its boil and ran away in the chaos. But if he didn’t try to eat me I guess I’d be in the Fire divide.”

I wince as now it barks them into my head, “Be silent, understand your noise, no!”

‘Wait, it doesn’t understand me? So I’ve been speaking to myself?’

But then of course why would a Demon understand English? It could be why it doesn’t use its mouth much, it's a telepath blasting images in my head to communicate its commands.

‘Now if only I could do the same.’

Furrowing my brows I burn a hole in the back of its head glaring until it hurts and I give up on the endeavour. In hindsight, it was stupid to try because everything about me is on my stat sheet.

It must have been a coincidence I suffered beside someone of my tongue. That Deader…I will miss them.

The thought frightens me still, the fact that I may have woken alone, trapped with no mournful conversation offered for a duration of suffering as long as I’d endured. It would have been further insanity, one many Deaders continue to suffer as the Wall swallows them whole.

As the spiked demon continues to drag me along, I yelp as a large man walks beside me. His face is a cross between an orc and a human, if I were to judge I’d say he’s more orc than human. Large tusks poke out of his lip and as he smiles down at me I catch sight of the large row of dangerous dentures. He ventures forth, armoured and armed with a heavy blade. The demon doesn’t seem to see him, but the half-orc man doesn’t mind the demon, he merely beckons on me.

I try to speak but find myself without a voice. Darkness swells around me, the demon fades and I sense my body spill over. A loud roar startles me back up, except I’m unbound and wielding a long pole weapon. There’s a cave ahead of me, I’m sweating and the armour weighs several tons. Still, I run in after the screams, chasing into the dark of the cave until my arm jerks and fires something into the darkness.

The light of what I threw flickers and flares until I’m left in the dark again. I turn, looking around for an exit or even the entrance but I find neither. “Hello? Where am-!”

The half-orc man’s corpse is at my feet now. Crusted with some kind of rust, puss spills from his wounds, claw marks trace along his face, his teeth are gone. A bony hand snatches my feet and the rot takes me.

“Aaah!!” I wake up screaming, spilled over in the dirt, my skin dragged along the sand as the demon, the [Khozuik] continues to pay me no mind.

‘What was that?’

Where did I go? Did the demon cause that? I grit my teeth and pull myself back up, my heart thumps away behind my chest. That’s the second time something like that has happened. Are the horrors not over? I thought the Walls…no, I’m somewhere new now, I left the walls.

Setting past fears aside I focus on the current ones as the [Khozuik] and I come upon a city in the distance. Large with widely spaced and hive shaped buildings that may as well be collapsed, above there’s a horde of demons circling over the city, screeching and clawing at each other every so often but otherwise only circling the city’s skies.

It’s walled, barricaded actually, by a wall made of the same material except where it's broken with holes and stuffed with rotting bodies. I can’t make out what the bodies were from where I stand, but there’s a whole mess of different biological features.

The [Khozuik] grumbles at another Demon squatting at the side of the gate, a fat beast with a second mouth on a rounded potbelly and we wander through the city.

‘A Demon city.’

It’s a bit hard to digest that they’re this organised.

‘But then I never thought Demons existed.’

The [Khozuik] drags me through a levelled and partly cobbled ground in the city. It makes no sense at first glance, cobbled sand, but I’ve lost an entire arm to a giant insect and I’ve been caught by an ugly monster so I’m taking things as I see them now.

The city is filled with horrific sights, and for the first time since the line I’ve come across humans. There’s barely anything dignified about them as various Demons pull on them the same way the [Khozuik] pulls on me.

Enslaved, the humans we pass by are being used, eaten or made to labour. Reais isn’t a good place to be human, actually, it isn’t a good place to be anything, worse still a Demon.

The city is a bastion of the same horrific scenes but even more so with the victims being grotesque Demons themselves. A majority of the humans are under some kind of haze; they don’t seem to feel anything that’s happening to them, only grunting and coughing with the momentum of pain and the others are just dead.

It’s an unnerving sight to behold but even more so is the [Khozuik] wide grin and glint of glee as it watches me watch them.

‘I’m going to die again.’

Recognizing the fact sets me in an oddly calm mood, my agitated nerves relax and it feels like I’ve found that haze.

The [Khozuik] drags me into one of the taller and whole buildings left in the city, already I can tell its importance if only from the strong presence of security. The building is a massive mansion, filled with skittering and clacking from the insect demons.

The floor is levelled and finely cobbled, the open doorways are crestened with rich curtains and there’s a surround sound of screaming as some rooms echo torture.

The [Khozuik] stops at the end of the long and wide corridor, arriving at stairs on either side that curve along the wall to a massive…lair.

There are other demons, minor ones sorting out through shelves of books, piles of scrolls, a table cluttered with plucked out [Soul Crystals], all gleaming with rich and ripe Essence for the taking. It makes my mouth wet and a hunger ache in my centre.

There are a cast of other things, even a throne and long war table but what stands out the most is the creature sifting through it all. A large demon, a centipede-like bottom half crawling with at least fifty legs all together, along a segregated torso, and a wide beetle head and horn.

The mesh of various insect species exuded power near the level of the house-sized demons at the end of the line. The [Khozuik] grumbles something and yells out, his voice echoing through the minds of every demon in the lair.

“You like this.” Is my rough translation.

All the little demons that skittered and crawled about the room come to a standstill and stare up at the meshed demon. An identification hasn’t popped up on it, just like it didn’t with the Tusked demon and it’s partners, I suspect it has something to do with the strength they exude compared to my own.

It chitters something with its mouth and sends out a telepathic impulse to leave and the minor demons stampede out of the room en masse, leaving the [Khozuik] and I with it.

The Mesh demon shifts and commands us forward. The [Khozuik] nods and hauls me down the stairs to get a better scale of the Mesh’s demon’s size. It looms over me twice or three times the size of the demons I fought out in the desert.

The [Khozuik] speaks, “Human.” And the Mesh demon studies me closer, it radiates with a foul power, that causes me to flinch and drip with anxiety. Somehow it’s even more terrifying than the Tusked was.

‘This is it. I’m dead.’

“No. Demon.” the Mesh Demon answers curtly, its mind's voice leaking out so I can eavesdrop.

“Can work like Human.” the [Khozuik] insists.

The Mesh demon looks away, its attention on the unfurled scroll floating in front of it.

The [Khozuik] repeats himself, “Can work like Human.” and the Mesh demon turns, beginning to reverberate hostility but I’m already overwhelmed by its passive power. I collapse. The wave of hostility diminishes and my gutless eyes peer open to find the [Khozuik] kneeling before the Mesh demon.

Its voice resonates again, “Where did you find it?” The Mesh demon's telepathic speech is somehow easier to translate and find deeper meaning.

“Battle. Kill two strays. Have their Soul Crystal.” he says, revealing the crystals in his clawed palm.

The Mesh demon falls silent and still as a statue for a moment and then snaps to face me, its gruesome face chittering and heaving rancid breaths.

“You are a strange one…there is something else, besides you.” I don’t understand what it means by that, but it could be a translation problem. It continues, “But you are capable, you would have been efficient if my servant here didn’t find you. Do you want your arm? Do you want your life?”

It’s a rapid pause-start string of sentences that bombard my mind with such ferocity I understand clearly the implications of each of them. Language and telepathy attune to its power.

Already I can tell it wants me to serve its purpose, deep in my gut I can tell, like instinct.

‘Or experience.’

The radiating sixth sense could be from the trickling flashes of my life before now.

None of that matters now though, the Mesh demon narrows its gaze, I can feel it piercing my mind and I wonder if it heard all that.

“I do.” I mutter out from my mouth, lacking the widespread telepathic skill of demons.

Still, the Mesh demon pulls away from my face and offers it, “As you have thought, I want your servitude. Reliable commanders are needed. You could be one.”

It confirms that my thoughts are heard and I can’t help feeling startled, especially given the fact that I’ve thought it looks hideous.

“Commanders…for what?”

“My will, whatever it be.”

I take in fresh breaths of air, free air. There’s no reason to refuse the offer and die, if this demon can heal me and wants me to work for it, I’m sure there would be rewards, as much as there will be inconveniences. Servitude is never without them.

But as far as I see it, this counts as a good thing. Whatever rewards there are to be had I’m sure I’ll get stronger. If the [Khozuik] can be used as an example it means there’s a chance I’ll get some form of compensation. The [Khozuik] Doesn’t look too unhappy serving the Mesh demon anyway.

“Alright, I’ll be your commander.”

“Perfect.” the Mesh demon purrs, “I am Calridian, Lord Demon of this city. Do you have a name?”

Name: Nil

“I…cannot remember my name, but I suppose Nil will suffice for now.”

It seems to smirk, but that’s physically impossible for it so it terrorizes me with the attempt. “Then Nil, do not get ahead of yourself, you must prove your worth to me still. Your hidden…potential isn’t enough alone.”

‘Of course, it isn’t.’

“Gerim, release it.”

‘It?’

Gerim, or as I’ve known him, the [Khozuik] gets to untying my bonds and giving me freedom once again, “Let it consume the crystals it earned.”

My ears perk at this but Gerim isn’t pleased. He growls right back, surprised and outraged for a split second before he’s reminded why he’s a servant. Calridian merely tosses a gaze at him and his noise comes to a halt.

Reluctant, Gerim places two of the three harvested crystals in my hand and keeps the third. But I want the third.

“Uh…I would have killed the last one too if it wasn’t for his interference. He stole my kill.”

A rumble akin to what may equate to a chuckle erupts from Calridian, “Next time kill them faster. Gerim will be your mentor, you can pick up the language from him. But Gerim, let it rest here for the moment, until it's whole again, lecture it on the important need to knows and feed it. Once it is ready, bring it to me.”

I’ve got a biting urge to point out that I am in fact not an ‘it’ but then I haven’t the slightest clue what I am if not an 'it'. For the moment I swallow my discontent, Calridian has been generous.

Gerim grumbles and telepathically commands me to follow it. I do and we leave Calridian back to face his work.

‘I guess I survived.’