Rushing out of the chamber, he barely made it a few steps before his knees buckled. He slumped to the stone floor, breath heaving in and out as exhaustion weighed on every limb. The task was done—for now. He had just finished feeding the chrysalis. That alone had drained what little energy he had left.
Leaning his back against the rough cave wall, he closed his eyes. Just for a bit. Maybe a few minutes.
The sound of dripping water echoed faintly through the caverns, a slow, rhythmic lullaby that pulled him toward a fragile sleep.
The gnawing sensation in his gut brought him back to awareness. Hunger. Again. It came in waves now, more frequent, more demanding. And with it, that strange tingling spread along his spine and through his fingers, a numbing, electrical pulse that never meant anything good.
"Time to refuel," he muttered to himself.
He rose unsteadily, bones stiff, muscles aching, and made his way toward the cave entrance. The darkness outside gave way to the hazy, ash-colored skies of the outer Demon Realm. Spreading his wings, he leapt from the cliff's edge and took to the air.
He flew for a while, scanning the cracked land below. The usual hunting grounds were eerily quiet—barely any monsters stirred. Not a howl, not a snarl, not even a shimmer of movement in the tall, dead grass. That was... odd.
Something had driven them off. Or killed them. Either way, this land had gone dry.
He hovered midair for a moment, considering his options. He needed something with enough vitality to sustain the next phase of the chrysalis. Weaklings wouldn't do. He needed real prey.
One place came to mind.
His stomach twisted at the thought.
The Valley of Death.
Even the name sounded melodramatic, but it had earned its reputation. Last time he'd passed through there, it was with Raven Xin and the entire Emergent Army. They'd suffered casualties, sure, but it had been manageable with the numbers they had. Now? He was alone.
Still, the creatures that dwelled there were exactly what he needed—dense with mana, overflowing with the kind of primal rage he could draw from.
He sighed and hovered lower, landing on a jagged outcrop. The cave wind blew against his face, carrying with it the scent of sulfur and ash. With a resigned breath, he reached up to his visor and pulled out Bloodhound—a relic he hadn't used in weeks. Months, maybe. Living in solitude had dulled the urgency of war, of tactics, of precise tracking.
But now, he was going to hunt.
The blade shimmered in his hand, its red veins pulsing faintly as if awakening from slumber. It still responded to him, still remembered. Some things hadn't changed.
He secured the weapon at his side and took off again, flying low and fast toward the valley's jagged horizon.
He had been living alone in the Demon Realm for a while now. It wasn't that different from before, really. After the collapse of the Emergent faction and the scattering of their leaders, he had chosen isolation over the chaos that followed. The realm itself had quieted after the war, but its dangers hadn't vanished. Monsters still roamed, storms still raged. The only difference was that now, no one was watching his back.
And that suited him fine—most of the time.
But solitude had its price. He was growing tired. The chrysalis was his only company now, and even it didn't speak. Not yet.
Soon, though.
He glanced down at the landscape as he flew. The terrain shifted beneath him—jagged rocks turned to red dust, then to blackened earth split by glowing fissures. The Valley was near.
His fingers tightened around the hilt of Bloodfang.
There would be monsters. There would be blood.
And there would be food.
But if he wasn't careful, he'd be caught in no time.
The Valley of Death wasn't forgiving. The predators here didn't hesitate It had Lessor, minor, dusked...and One Prime ranked hollows. Everything with claws and teeth was hungry, just like him—and far more territorial.
He needed a plan.
Something strange flickered in his memory—an old scene he'd witnessed once while perched on a crag during one of his rare moments of peace. A bird had hovered above a shallow river, still and patient, until it suddenly plunged into the water, snatching a fish in its talons before vanishing back into the sky.
It had worked then.
Why not now?
Only this time, the fish were monsters and the valley was a river...A harrowing one at that
Belial shot upward, disappearing into the grey mist swirling above the valley, wings beating hard against the choking air. He hovered high for a moment, scanning the cracked ground below. A lumbering beast stalked through a ravine—a reptilian brute with plated armor and glowing blue veins running down its spine. Perfect.
like a flying predator, he didn't hesitate.
With terrifying speed, he dove.
The wind whistled past his ears as Bloodfang angled forward like a spear, hunger coursing through the weapon. The Dusked hollow didn't even have time to react before the blade pierced clean through its skull with a sickening crunch.
Blood sprayed upward in a hot mist. Belial didn't slow—he gripped the creature by the back of its shattered head and flapped hard, wrenching it from the ground with a sickening squelch of torn muscle and shattered bone.
But he wasn't alone.
Another beast, leaner and faster, had been stalking the first. It leapt just as Belial took flight, sinking claws into the carcass. The sudden weight pulled him down.
The creature hissed, baring a row of jagged teeth, and lunged for him.
Belial snarled and kicked out with his boot, slamming his heel into the monster's face. It reeled but didn't let go. Instead, it lunged again and sank its fangs into his leg.
A bolt of pain tore through him.
He roared, twisting midair, and slammed his elbow into the creature's skull. It shrieked, the bite loosening, but not before ripping away a ragged chunk of flesh from his calf.
Blood streamed from the wound as the beast finally let go, tumbling back to the earth below.
Belial gritted his teeth, wings straining against the added weight of the corpse he still held. Every flap sent another spike of pain up his leg, but he didn't let go. Not now.
He rose higher, the dead monster swinging beneath him like a bloodied prize.
One down.
The pain could wait.
There was no room for weakness.
...
Far away, deep within the ruins of a broken mountain, something stirred.
A trail of blood painted the cracked stone floor, thick and dark, still steaming in the cold air. The silence that lingered was deceptive, broken only by the occasional drip of crimson sliding off jagged rock.
The source of the blood was no longer moving.
A monster, grotesque and malformed, lay twisted and twitching at the foot of the cavern wall. Its body spasmed with the last misfired signals of a failing nervous system. A gaping bite mark marred its bloated neck, pulsing weakly as blood continued to squirt from the ruptured arteries. Its eyes were wide, but no longer seeing.
It was already dead.
From the shadows beyond, something stepped forward.
It was tall...at least three meters, and humanoid only in the vaguest sense. Its limbs were too long, joints bending at strange angles, and its skin hung in folds, pale and slick like the underbelly of some deep-sea creature.
Its face...or where a face should have been...was blank and eyeless. No nose, no sockets. Only a mouth full of long, glistening teeth that jutted outward like splinters of glass.
The thing paused in the dying light filtering through the cracks in the mountain above.
Blood stained its hands.
It lifted one arm, sniffing at it like a dog, then ran a long, gray tongue across the length of its forearm in a slow, savoring lick. The gesture was disturbingly calm, almost reverent.
And then it let out a sound.
A screech.
No...not a screech.
An echoing, unnatural signal.
The walls trembled as the sound bounced from stone to stone, a piercing shriek threaded with layered frequencies, like broken radios screaming all at once.
It was calling.
Or tracking.
And then it stopped.
The creature tilted its head ever so slightly, its jaw cracking as it extended open wider than should have been possible. Strings of saliva hung from its teeth, and a low, clicking vibration began to rumble in its chest.
It had found what it was looking for.
It turned toward the mouth of the cave, the empty sky beyond, and began to walk—slow at first, methodical, with an unnatural grace that belied its monstrous form.
Each step left behind a large print on the stone, cracking as if the creature's presence was anomaly.
Outside, the winds howled through the broken peaks. A flock of carrion birds scattered, fleeing a presence they could not see, but instinctively feared.
The creature paused once more, standing tall against the desolate horizon. Its eyeless face turned toward something unseen, far beyond the range of mortal senses.
It opened its mouth.
And it whispered a name.
Not in words, but in something primitive....Something foul and deep.
Ne...ro....