The sand beneath him sank 3 meters deep, but he remained firm, not budging even a bit. Immediately after, his tail struck out at extreme speed,
Swish!
instantly penetrating the demon's eyes before it could digest that the newly evolved bone-rank demon before it had some how tanked its attack with his bare hands.
Veal activated his ability. His tail vibrated, and splat! the demon's upper skull exploded into a bloody mess, staining his face. The demon's body dropped to the ground.
Bop!
But it was not completely dead. Its hoof kicked madly and It wouldn't be a surprise if it survived without its head for weeks. That was just how strong the vitality of a bone-rank demon was. To instantly kill them the heart must be completely destroyed.
Veal held the damaged horns in his hands tightly, gazing down at the headless demon with malice, licked his bloody lips, and smiled. The sight of the demon thrashing around in agony filled him with joy.
He crouched above it, rammed the broken horns in the demon's belly. Its fur easily penetrated. Its blood sprayed out like a geyser, splashing over his naked body. His smile widened.
The demon's kicks grew wilder.
He then dragged the horns upwards, tearing the beast open, its internal organs spewing out one by one, and it kicked more.
Veal admired the scene for a moment before continuing.
He grabbed its skin and pulled slowly, skinning it bit by bit while humming a hymn of vileness that his ancestors sang while doing unspeakable things to their enemies.
Midway through the flaying, the demon finally died.
"Shame," Veal whispered. "We were just starting to have fun."
He opened his jaw wide and devoured it bit by bit. With each bite, his body refined the essence. Deep inside him, a rib cracked and reformed into something harder, denser, while pulsating crimson.
Cra-crack!
Pain!
Extreme pain washed over him, but he endured it. A few minutes later, it finished reforming, now shimmering crimson far greater than before.
This is the process of advancing within the blood ranks, using blood and flesh or something equivalent to reform one's bones into demon crimson bones.
An extremely painful process that only those with a firm or insane mind could endure.
He felt his strength increase a little. He gazed around for a second before continuing his journey forward, naked and covered in blood. Suddenly, he paused, shook his head, before continuing.
He was so caught up, he forgot to strip information about the layout of the demons who occupied this desert from the demon before he destroyed its head.
…
A thousand kilometers ahead of Veal stood a castle built from agony. Its walls were made of compressed demon bone, blood-tempered sand, and shattered skulls.
Around it, hundreds of crimson bone demons. Some were armored in bone-plated exoskeletons, others naked and steaming with hate.
They slithered, crawled, marched, or floated within a close distance to the castle as if they were guards.
And among them were thousands of bloodling demons, thin and weak, muzzled, dragged in chains like cattle.
Their deformed bodies were covered in cuts, bite marks, and burn scars.
The crimson bone demons whipped them forward, laughing, roaring, and some even devoured them on the spot.
Inside the castle, a path of blood led to a throne hall carved from the spine and skull of a huge vital blood demon, and sat atop this throne, with legs draped over the skull armrest, was a vixen.
Breathtaking.
Tall.
lithe.
Lethal.
Her skin was pale lavender with veins of red thorn trailing down her limbs like living tattoos. She had six tails, each long, whip-like, and covered in blooming black thorns. Her crimson hair cascaded like wildfire, with living flowers blooming in it. With foxlike ears atop her head. She was clad in a few pieces of thorn armor that only covered her seductive sacred parts.
She was the Thorn Vixen, a vital rank demon of the Blood Thorn Vulpid race, and one of the four demons who ruled this section of the Demon Cradle.
Her glowing amber eyes shone as she sensed the death of one of her hounds.
"Who… is so bold?"
Her voice, soft but cold, rang out as she wondered which one of her three enemies had made a move. Three seconds of silence passed. Then she whispered once more, this time giving a command,
"Investigate."
After which, from the shadows behind her throne, a buzzing sound erupted.
Beezzt!
A tiny demon, no more than a cm long, flew forth. bee-shaped covered in hundreds of twitching eyes. Despite its size, its aura pulsed with the rank of a vital blood demon. It then vanished through the entrance of the castle, moving at 300 meters per second towards the direction of Veal.
Whoosh!
After which, one of the Thorn Vixen's tails flickered and vanished. The next moment it reappeared with a wolf-like bloodling demon wrapped in its thorny embrace.
The mindless demon had no reaction for its mind had already callapse.
Her mouth then opened wide enough to swallow the demon's head. Her razor-like teeth dripping with slime, then,
~Splat ~Crunch!
…
Veal, who was moving silently at maximum speed, froze as his instincts warned of an incoming threat akin to ants being warned of an incoming storm and without a second thought, he turned to his left and shot off at maximum speed on all fours.
Whoosh!
Only After crossing the distance of three hundred km, did the Warnings went away. Many ideas went through his mind, and he deduced that the threat had something to do with the bull demon that he had killed.
"It must have been the subordinate of a vital rank demon."
He thought as he maintained his speed going forward. Based on the threat that he had perceived, he knew he could not face such a demon now. He traveled for another 149 km before he came upon something that buzzed his mind with lust.
A few km before him.
A raging sandstorm that stretched a km across, no matter how much it stirred, it never crossed the distance and reached where he stood.