As the nameless demon felt the concentrated demonic essence of the snake demon within himself, he quickly found a place that was as close to safe as one could get in the Nine Hells.
Atop a tree.
Granted, most trees in Hell were dangerous, but at night, the trees slept soundly.
He used his knowledge of the demonic ways from Jace's memories of the novel, and forced the concentrated demonic essence to move throughout his body.
As the demonic essence soaked into his being, he felt...relaxed.
He could feel himself growing stronger.
Perhaps he would have been stronger if he ate the entire corpse, but life mattered more than strength.
As the false sun of the first layer rose once more, he knew that the demons he faced were going to be different from before.
Any who survived the first night, would undoubtedly be the cream of the crop.
He trekked towards the direction where the false sun had arisen from, knowing the center of the first layer would be there.
Once he got to the center of the first layer, he should be able to get the second layer through the Hell Gate.
As he contemplated his future, he felt a gaze on him, from behind.
He dodged by leaping to the left without hesitation.
It was proven to be a wise decision, as stream of clear liquid shot through where he had been mere moments ago.
He observed his attacker for a moment, before smiling.
A demon in the likeness of a frog, which had buried itself underground.
The clear liquid it had shot, hit a tree and quickly melted it, as the tree let out horrifying screeches.
The nameless demon shot towards the buried frog, before rolling out of the way, predicting the demon's acid shot.
He used his barbed tail to pierce through the frog looking demon's brain, killing it instantly.
He felt his tail sizzle, as acid leaked out of the frog demon.
He poked it's corpse for a few moments, before it melted away, eaten by it's own acid.
The only thing left, was a small stone, unharmed by the acid.
The nameless demon used various methods such as throwing rocks, using sticks and flapping his wings, to finally get the stone out of the acid.
He held it in his hand, inspecting it.
It was shaped like a tetrahedron, with the tip leaking acid.
The demon pointed the tip away from himself, before carefully inputting demonic essence into it.
A jet of acid spouted from the stone, ending another miserable tree.
Content with having another card in his deck, the demon continues his journey to the center of the first layer.
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After a few days of travel, the demon was now sure of the fact that he was being followed.
Hunted.
His new soul could feel a predator looking at him, meaning a demon was staring at him.
He had not slept even a bit for the past few days, as he stayed alert.
Finally, he decided to end this twisted cat and mouse game.
He waited for the artificial sun to go down, and climbed atop a particularly dangerous looking tree that was asleep.
This was the Man-faced Tree, a tree spoken of in the novel as a particularly vicious demonkin that terrorized entire regions.
The nameless demon closed his eyes, pretending to sleep.
His tired state led to him nearly falling asleep multiple times, but he remained awake through his fear of the demon following him.
Fear.
It was truly a wonderful motivator for the nameless demon, as he pretended to drift off.
His newborn soul trembled faster as the demon that had been stalking him approached.
As soon as the demon came close enough, the nameless demon activated the acid dispensing tetrahedron, a jet of acid splashing onto the Man-Faced Tree.
The tree awoke with a roar of pain and rage, before it felt the presence of the demon that had been following the nameless one.
Due to the demon following him being stronger than him, the tree first focused on the larger threat, as it's blackened roots tore out of the ground to spear the unknown demon.
The nameless one finally caught a glimpse of his stalker.
A tall bipedal demon with gangly limbs, it's arms reaching it's knees, a maw filled with sharp teeth and a long serpentine tail which seemed to have it's own will.
The Man-Faced Tree let out another scream that sounded like a human's, before it's roots wrapped against his stalker's feet.
The nameless one simply turned away and left, not wanting to be the Man-Faced Tree's next opponent.
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After this incident, the nameless demon learnt to not sleep all at once, but to take short naps wherever he could.
He was getting closer, he could see it, as the false sun seemed to be much bigger.
However, another problem had arisen.
Only the smarter demons had survived till now, and most were no longer trying to hunt him.
Meaning he was running out of food.
He could sustain himself for another three months with just his demonic essence, but that woud leave him weaker and weaker every day.
He wondered to himself, 'How do I find demons?'
He knew there must be more demons around him, but beyond his perception.
It was a simple plan he came up with.
The same way he dealt with the the creature that had been stalking him.
Acting weak.
If he could not find demons to eat, he would ensure they found him instead.
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'The plan seemed to work a little too well', he thought to himself as he killed the fifth demon of the day.
All he had to do was cover himself in some light scratches and act timid, and just about everything around him tried to eat him.
As he calmly chewed on some eyeballs, he remembered a fact that was mentioned in Jace's memory.
'The false sun in the sky is made entirely out of concentrated demonic essence.'
The 'first layer of Hell' wasn't just one united area, it was seven different areas, each belonging to a Devil.
These seven pieces of land were further divided into smaller grounds, for the families under the Devils to manage.
The richer families would set up such artificial suns to increase the amount of demonic essence in their land, thus leading to stronger demons under them.
The Hell Gates were also set up by them, otherwise the only way a demon could leave a layer, was during a full on invasion of another realm, when the barrier between the Nine Hells and the attacked realm was shattered.
Unfortunately, this was an extremely rare event, that happened when all the Devils came to a consensus.
Right now, the nameless demon planned to cross the Hell Gate quickly and join whichever family owned this part of the first layer.
With the extremely large artifical sun as a reference, it had to be quite a powerful family.
Another observation of the rising sun led to him estimating that he had about another week's journey on foot.
Flight was too dangerous a mode of transport in the first layer.
As he approached the center of the layer, he knew what he had to do.
Be as shameless as possible.