[0:99 - The 55th day in the third month of the high lord's year]
*Skreee!!!*
Loud and shrill, the voice of a low-ranking demon could be heard echoing throughout the wasteland. Bouncing off the scattered stone formations it hoped from surface to surface as it chased after the human who had trespassed into its territory. Blood, not its own, dripped from its crimson-colored claws and stained the shattered rock as it leaped over and its dirty yellow void of anything resembling human emotion eyes glared at its wounded prey.
The human, a passing explorer, held a rag over the wound on his chest as he sprinted away from the demon chasing him. His breath was ragged, his lungs felt like they were on fire, and sweat poured down his body as fatigue started to overtake him, but he kept running. The sack strapped to his back, filled to the near brim with demonic crystals and a single discolored egg was too important to let a fatal wound stop him.
The demon on the other hand. It didn't care about the sack or the black-haired ragged man's resolve. It was hungry, and it was enraged. The human who it had already marked was being chased by a rival of its and before it long its most hated enemy would catch up. It had to take down its prey before that blue-blooded bastard could.
As the chaser and chasee got nearer to a ravine the demon sped up, tired of the chase. White glowing lines spread across the powerful legs that had carried it thus far and it shot forward with a thundering boom. The rock under it shattered into hundreds of shards as it vanished from eye view.
The man had two seconds. One to hear the boom that shattered his eardrums, and two to blink owlishly as his view was turned upside down. Confusion overtook all thoughts and feelings as he looked at his running form. Why was his body over there?
Unfortunately, his thought process was cut short when a clawed foot with dirty uncut nails crushed his head into a gooey red paste. Meanwhile, the man's headless body slowed to a crawl and then unceremoniously collapsed on the blood-stained ground. The sack on his back fell to the side and the lid snapped open. A single discolored egg fell out along with a pile of shiny black crystals.
The demon paid them no mind. Its focus was on sating its hunger, so without hesitation, it crawled over to the man's body and started feasting. Razor-sharp claws that could slice through steel shredded the clothes he was wearing revealing a bony and malnourished form. The demon looked over its current meal with slight disappointment.
Food wasn't scarce for one such as it, but good food was. Most of its diet consisted of various bugs, reptiles, and other demons so to find a human was very rare. The tasty piles of meat didn't come around here often, and when they did it often resulted in mass conflicts between demons that almost always left no human for any of them. To find and kill a lone human was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the demon. It should be happy it has this chance at all.
But greed is a common trait among their kind.
It didn't want this skin and bones looking human, it wanted a fat one, one that had skin that stretched round over its big belly like in the stories it read. That kind of human would keep it fed for a long while, the kind of human that it could use to bribe weaker demons to do its bidding when needed. If it had that kind of human it could easily take over its tiny section of the land. If only this human was bigger.
Alas, fate isn't so kind to them.
And to this particular demon, fate was the least of its worries.
*Boom!* *Boom!* *Boom!*
A series of rapid booms spread across the wasteland. The ground rumbled, pieces of rubble and small rocks vibrated violently, and the demon whose mouth was inches away from its catches ripped open its chest cavity and turned into an ugly frown.
Its pointy-red ears perked up as it heard the familiar stomping of its most hated foe. A hateful expression crossed its face as it growled in the direction of an oncoming dust storm. Its piercing eyes glowered through the storm as it spotted the shadowy form of the blue bastard that often stole what was his.
The demon speeding toward it didn't deserve a title to be called by. That would mean the red-skinned demon acknowledges it as a worthy foe. It didn't. The fat bastard wasn't a challenger, it was a thief. A scavenger, a vulture that could only feast upon the catches of other demons it ambushed. It wasn't strong enough to find its own food, so it stole from others, more prominent demons like the bastard did to it almost weekly.
*Boom!* *Boom!* *Boom!*
The booms grew louder. The ground shook more violently. And the red-skinned demon engorged itself on its catch as fast as it could. It hated that bandit with more emotion than most demons had, but more than that it hated wasting food. And leaving its catch, a human no less, to that worthless excuse for a demon was paramount to suicide. It would literally rather die than willingly give away its food to that miserable good-for-nothing bottom feeder.
It felt a sense of sadistic glee as the booms and shakes sped up rapidly when it dug into its meal. That parasite was getting antsy, it was getting desperate, and the red-skinned demon found immense joy in making that vulture anxious.
Meanwhile, opposite to the red-skinned demon, a large figure shrowded in the coverage of a dust storm that it often created to hide from enemies was getting angry. The meal that it was going to rightfully steal from that stuck-up piss yellow-eyed annoyance was being eaten, and by the demon it planned to steal from. And it was a human! A Human!
It had only seen three humans in its 100 years of living, twice before while under the rule of the late behemoth. And both humans had been given to their king as an offering so the hungry demon had no chance to partake in their meat, but this was a free human! Its king was long gone and the wasteland was under the shaky rule of several warlords who never came to its part of the land. It could finally have a taste! And this red bug was trying to take away this chance from it?!
How could it let this slide!?
Angered, and more determined than ever, white glowing lines appeared on all four of its thick leathery legs. It leaped as long as it could, slicing through the wave of smoke and dust it produced when it ran as it finally laid eyes upon the human and an enemy it had to battle.
It would normally take the chance to combat another demon, especially one which known to be a bit stronger than the demons it tried to steal from. It wasn't weak, but it was young and inexperienced so even in a physical match it often lost because of its cowardly nature and fear of death.
But just this time it would fight for a reward, one worth as much as lordship over this land.