CH728 Demon’s Perspective

Stepping through the great gate to a new world, the first thing the demon tried to do was assemble itself before almost instantly dying.

That gave it a slight pause. It had gone through to two unclaimed worlds before, one that already had an owner and one that didn’t but neither time in the past had it met its end so quickly. Perhaps that should have been a cause for concern when it hadn’t even seen what had killed it but it paid that fact no real mind, instead trying again, only to get the exact same result.

Now that was a genuine problem. Twice it had died and twice it didn’t know why, not even giving it enough time to glimpse the world its god would soon own. It pressed out more from there, trying to come out of the gate from different angles to see if it would have any success but with each instant failure it had realized it had to accept a certain fact, everything going through that particular gate was doomed.

Supposedly such things happened on occasion. Its kind weren’t ones who would casually chat and what little language they’d held before they’d had a new tongue bond to them didn’t make that any easier but certain facts did spread, with that one forcing it to realize that it had to treat that planet with slightly more caution that the others it had personally watched fall and it forced its way back through the network, ignoring the tens of thousands of others of its kind that were racing to their doom as it instead began looking at each of the remaining gates with a more critical eye, going through each one.

It died at three more no matter what it did, marking that world as considerably more dangerous than what it was used to, with the rest having various levels of risk among the ones it could access. Though on different paths, he knew the aquatic members of its kind were claiming portions of that planet too which left it a bit of curiosity if those gates were more or less safe but ignored the question in the end.

Of the nearly one hundred and sixty paths left to it, there were fifty where it died often enough in its first five minutes out that it decided to ignore those options too for what dangers they held, narrowing the demon’s choices down to whatever seemed the safest until its decision was made and grabbing itself new limbs, went out to take the world for whatever food and strength it held.

It raced out with the rest of its kind, following its instincts as it went while keeping its main eyes ahead. It died going straight so instead it turned right, feeling its teeth rip through one of the world’s current owners as it did when they stood in its way.

It wasn’t long after an attack killed some of its limbs and while it considered taking a different path to avoid it, the further out from the gate it went the harder it was becoming to escape unscathed, with certain paths being revealed as safer the entire time it went despite what it viewed as the more sensible options.

It could see that the farther out it went with all of the limbs it had gathered, the better its odds were of coming under fire, with the risk growing ever greater as it tried to gauge the optimal path for itself to travel.

Giving them all up was a non-option. Even if it would have been safer in the short term, it would have been left practically blind as a result, but it appeared some trimming was necessary as it let bits of its collective flesh feel the bite of their waiting food’s steel or spells. It could always gather more if need be but itself, its core, was too valuable to allow to come to harm on something like that and it continued to push through, killing the entire way.

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By the end, it was down to twelve limbs at its disposal but that was more than enough. It had broken through, leaving the far simpler task of taking down any of the surrounding meals that had a bit too much fight in them. For those it stopped caring about safety, more than happy to overwhelm them and feel them squirm in its jaws as it went farther out into that new world.