Serenity wasn’t about to try entering a city of demon termites in his chimera form. That seemed remarkably foolish; if they welcomed other demons, he’d see something other than termites.

He could try taking the form of one of the worker termites, but after the experience in the first city he didn’t really want to try that again. Termites were a social species and that meant he’d be walking himself into a whole set of expectations he didn’t know about.

On top of that, he simply didn’t want to experience life as an insect. Especially not a demon insect; he didn’t know what the termites were connected to, but after finding out about the pain a demon of pain experienced, he wasn’t encouraged to test any others.

No, he’d have to go around. This city wasn’t exactly on the direct route to Mornmot; he didn’t have to get close to the city center even if he went straight through. It wouldn’t add nearly as much time as either of the other two cities would have if he kept close to the city when he went around.

Serenity took another good look at the mass of insects inside the city and decided he was going to take the long way around. Possibly the really long way; there was another city not too far to the east, wasn’t there?

Yes, there was. If he made sure he got into the zone between the two cities, he ought to be able to avoid the demon termites. Of course, that assumed that termites didn’t also control the other city, but it was the best possibility Serenity could see right now.

The fourth city was close enough to the third that Serenity didn’t see an area without ruins between them; they were linked by a dense network of old, ruined roads with buildings following the roads instead of the single route he’d seen previously.

Even though there was no lack of ruins, there was a lack of demon beasts; he didn’t see a single one during his trip between the cities. When he saw demons, they were fighting. One side was usually the giant termites, while the other side seemed to be mantids. The termites looked remarkably similar to the insect but the mantids were covered in sharp edges of chitin which made them look more like a metal sketch of a mantid than a living creature.

Serenity was beginning to think that the termites might technically be a demon beast instead of a demon, but he didn’t want to stay and find out. He skirted the skirmishes, giving up time to avoid being seen.

The detour cost him all of the time he’d gained in the Forest of Lost Regrets and then some. Serenity was happy to give it up; fighting an insect species in their hive was a terrible idea and becoming one might be worse. At least he wasn’t behind schedule; he’d expected some delays. Rissa was aware of the situation, as well.

She wasn’t entirely happy about it, even with the things he hadn’t told her. She wanted him to stay out of danger and here he was walking directly into a nest of demons.

When he finally left the contested area, he was presented with yet another city. There was no way to escape them now; even the map he had showed the rest of the way to Mornmoth as covered by settlements of one sort or another.

More than once, Serenity caught sight of a battle between termites or mantids and the denizens of the next city. They were small, only half Serenity’s height, but they fought with all the fury of something much larger than themselves. As far as he could tell, they were hunting the other demons or demon beasts for sport; if they were seen first, the termites and mandits would run rather than fight them.

The new demons looked more or less like a miniature bear or perhaps a giant badger, but the spikes that extended from their head, joints, and spine were clear markers of their demonic heritage as was their lurid coloration. Serenity saw a whole range of colors and patterns on them. Some looked like the sort of patterns he was used to seeing on animals, even if they were done in wildly contrasting colors like a poisonous frog, but others sported strange geometric patterns or patterns that almost meant something but actually didn’t when Serenity looked closer.

They fought among themselves as well, but those fights seemed to be more like blowing off steam or dominance battles; a couple of quick attacks and one would get smashed into the ground only to stand up moments later and leave the area.

The big thing was that they were clearly solitary and didn’t see anything wrong with a short fight. No matter what, they didn’t try to avoid each other and would even head towards each other if they noticed them, but if the two demons that ran into each other were clearly of different levels of power, usually indicated mostly by size, it seemed almost more like a violent greeting than a fight. The more powerful one swatted the less powerful out of the way, probably giving mild bruises at the most, then the less powerful one walked away.

That meant that he might be able to pass through their city the same way as he’d gone through the second city. With luck, he’d even be able to do it in his chimera form. If they gave him the same privilege of a token fight that wasn’t necessarily to the death, he might have to fight while in the city but he’d make it through.

If he had to fight seriously against every demon he saw, it wasn’t worth it. He’d never yet seen one of the spiked demons pass by another without at least the token swat and he’d never seen them avoid anything.

Serenity was confident he was stronger than any of the demons he’d seen so far, so he deliberately found one that was on the smaller end, then headed towards it as if he hadn’t seen it. When he got closer, at about the same time as the demon turned towards him, Serenity turned towards it. It barreled towards him and Serenity timed his strike to swat it to the side before it hit him.

The badger-demon tumbled through the air and fetched up against a rocky outcropping. Serenity might have hit it a bit harder than he’d thought; he’d somehow expected it to be more massive than it was.

The demon righted itself, then immediately charged Serenity.

Serenity was expecting the charge. He’d hoped otherwise but hadn’t really expected it would work. As the demon closed in, he threw a duplicated knife with his left hand, then his ax with his right, attempting to predict the demon’s movements. The point wasn’t really to kill the demon with either, but to constrain its movement. The fact that it was charging made it positively simple.

The badger-demon managed to avoid both thrown attacks, but that meant it ran straight into the Death Magebolt instead. It skidded to a stop, dead, a few feet in front of Serenity.

Serenity sighed and recalled his ax. He only really had two options: he could go around or he could go through. Going through the city was clearly going to require taking the form of one of the crazy badger-demons; all of the problems he’s already noted with traveling in Sovereign form or trying to hide otherwise still applied, with the added bonus that he suspected these demons might try to attack him even as a cloud.

It was enough to make him wish that he could make line-of-sight teleportation a useful reality. There was simply no way; his spells were just too inefficient to make them viable for long-distance transportation. They simply cost too much mana to go any real distance; even the portal and teleport from near Djen’s back to the Lowpeak house was enough to notice, and that was less than an hour’s walk. Transporting Andarit and himself from the Palace was farther, but not that much farther; it would have taken more mana than he had available after the dungeon.

It might have taken more than his maximum; Serenity wasn’t certain. Mana cost for the spells he knew went up geometrically with distance. There were spells that didn’t, but Serenity didn’t know them. Even if he had the spell, he wasn’t confident that teleporting past everything was the best decision. Traveling through the strange demonified cities was telling him something about what these demons were and weren’t. The information might prove important once he got to Mornmoth.

He could go around this group the same way he’d skipped the termite city, but that wasn’t a great option either. He’d have to go through at least one city in this ring or try to slip between cities that showed on the map he had as one giant blob with labels. His odds of finding a city as relatively friendly as the second one didn’t look good.

This city was a far better choice than the termite, mantid, or demon thorn cities. These demons were based on mammals with a body plan and weapons he was familiar with.

Serenity grumbled to himself as he started the hunt for a demon to kill for its shape. This wasn’t his preferred course of action, but it was acceptable. There were no better options since Lowpeak’s portal didn’t do offplanet travel and couldn’t connect to anywhere that could.

Unlike the Demon Thorn of Pain, the badger-demon didn’t ignore the nearby smoke of Serenity’s Sovereign form. It charged towards him, clearly intending to attack. As it dove into his shadows, Serenity’s substance swirled uncomfortably.

Perhaps he was less invulnerable than he’d thought. It was good to know, but Serenity didn’t need to find out more.

He engulfed the badger-demon.

[Form gained: Minor Demon of Wrath]

Serenity felt himself solidifying as one of the badger-demons. Taking it over wasn’t a fight, but becoming one felt nearly as inevitable as his transformation into the Sterath BattleLord.

He was … angry. Yes, he was angry at the world. It wasn’t an unfamiliar sensation at all; if anything, it was far too familiar. He’d felt that way for years, decades, maybe even centuries. Rage was the strong form of the emotion and couldn’t be maintained forever, but anger? Anger could last.

Anger could burn.

Anger could also be channeled. Vengeance was a master of that, long before Serenity existed. It was easy to channel it into battle, even sparring; channeling it into the focus to learn difficult magic quickly and well was harder but entirely possible.

Serenity felt his anger boil in an almost physical fashion around him. He could feel it on his skin, in his muscles and bones, as well as his mind.

He heard the Voice say something but did not pay attention. What was the Voice to his Anger?

Anger might have once even brought Vengeance back to life.

And I know what comes of giving anger its due. Out of it comes Death. I am Death, but Death does not define me. I will NOT be limited by my anger!

Serenity was not Vengeance. He was not defined by his anger. He was more than that; he knew that this was from the demon he’d absorbed.

It made him angry that it was trying to control him, that he could not permit himself to give in to that anger.

It made him angry that he could not seem to figure out how to shift to another form. Something happened when he tried, but it only made his anger stronger. He was not in his chimera form! He still looked like a damn spiky badger!

If he couldn’t shift and he couldn’t calm down, he was going to have to do what he’d done as Vengeance and control his anger.

It wasn’t going to be easy.