"Just give up your soul and stop wasting our time!" A demon with a third eye on his forehead shouted.
Around him were 3 other demons standing guard, protecting him in the middle of the formation while they chased after a single demon.
"You are outnumbered, you have no chance to survive this!" The third-eye demon shouted once more, louder this time.
'Can that stupid demon even understand me? He should hear and understand my voice, but these demons that had just arrived from the upper zones are usually still as dumb as a rock.'
The third-eye demon didn't actually hope to converse with the demon that had clearly just come from the upper level of the world, a place where newborn demons fight each other to gather souls for their evolution to adulthood.
He was just hoping the demon would try to converse and stop his running for a moment, which was enough for him and his team to catch up and swiftly kill the demon.
The demon in question, who was currently running away, did, in fact, hear and understand the third-eye demon's words.
But understanding and choosing to respond was a completely different thing.
Using the help of his wings and a snake-like tail to help him maneuver around, Kayn was silently observing the third-eye demon and his gang of demons.
He had fought and defeated several other adult demons while on his way through the frozen expanse, but it was his first time fighting a group of demons working with each other.
'I thought it would be impossible for demons to work with each other, but I guess higher intelligence does play a huge part in creating a mutually beneficial relationship with one another.'
Seeing the tall demon with four arms, wings, and a snake-like tail continue running without responding to a single word he said, the third eye demon clicked his tongue.
'I guess I couldn't spare the effort for this one.'
The third-eye demon suddenly stopped moving on his own, but his eyes still locked onto the running demon.
The three other demons, who had seen this scene before, realized what the third-eye demon was about to do, and continued chasing after the running demon, leaving the third-eye demon behind.
The third eye on his forehead then glowed faintly as the third-eye demon raised his two hands and started drawing runes in the air in front of him.
Kayn felt something shift behind him, and he recalled what that feeling was from his previous fights with other demons.
'Mana… They are casting magic.'
Kayn looked backward and saw that only the third-eye demon was drawing the runes and preparing a spell while the three other demons continued chasing after him.
Kayn's improved eyesight focused on the floating runes in front of the third-eye demon and began reading them.
"Mana. compress, ground, spikes…" Kayn muttered as he kept his feet moving around.
'I guess it's a pretty straightforward spell.'
Deducing what the spell would do, Kayn simply waited at the last moment when the third-eye demon finished drawing the runes and the runes disappeared into the air.
The moment the runes disappeared and the spell was about to manifest, Kayn spread his wings and coiled his feet before pushing down hard to the ground with them.
His feet propelled him upward, while his wings kept him floating as the ground beneath his feet trembled.
Spikes made out of compressed demonic mana jotted out of the ground, their color as black as the demons' blood.
The spikes were about 2 meters tall, enough to pierce through Kayn's torso and make him stuck on them as the three demons caught up to him and finished him off.
'It was quite a clever strategy for a creature that was initially only relying on its instincts to hack and slash its opponent.
Alas, I was born human.'
Kayn might have lost his mind before when he first transformed into a demon and was assaulted by intense hunger, but after he became an adult demon and regained his thoughts, his human mind also returned.
With Kayn gliding above the ground, the spikes completely missed their target as Kayn waited for the spell to end.
The three demons chasing after him were surprised at what had happened, as this had never happened before, but they didn't waste any time stopping as they continued chasing after Kayn.
Kayn didn't stay running this time. Kayn opened up his mouth and shot fireballs towards the three demons.
Kayn's fireball flew fast, but the three demons were also adult demons. They weren't weak adolescent demons.
The three demons spread out in different directions, avoiding the fireballs as they exploded on the snowy ground, causing clouds of mist to form in the air.
Seeing his fireballs miss their target, Kayn didn't stop shooting.
He shot more and more fireballs, aiming towards the three demons and making sure they didn't move closer towards him.
But the three demons were fast, the fireballs just couldn't hit their mark.
As more and more fireballs hit the snowy ground and produced clouds of mist, the area around Kayn and the four demons began to be filled with mist that obstructed their vision.
"Find him! He couldn't have escaped so fast! His wings couldn't make him fly away, only glide!" The third-eye demon shouted, commanding the three other demons.
While the four demons split up to try and find him, Kayn was taking a quick look past the mist by jumping up and located the third-eye demon in the dense mist.
He didn't use his wings to stay afloat this time, but instead, he fell back to the ground and faced the direction from which he saw the third-eye demon.
Kayn then lifted one of his four hands and began gathering mana on the tip of his index finger.
He began drawing runes on his own, and they read,
"Mana, reinforce, size, speed, circular input port."
Once the runes were finished, they disappeared into the world as a black circular construct made out of mana appeared in front of Kayn.
Having invented the spell on his own, Kayn knew exactly what to do with the circle.
Kayn opened up his mouth wide and began gathering the fire swirling inside his mouth.
Instead of focusing on quantity like before, Kayn compressed the fire, making a fireball that was as strong as 5 fireballs combined together.
When he felt he had gathered enough fire, Kayn shot the fireball through the black circle, still aiming towards the direction of the third-eye demon.
The moment the fireball passed through the circle, the circle broke down as it melded towards the fireball.
Kayn felt the mana in his body draining as the spell did its work.
The compressed fireball grew bigger as more mana was injected towards it, acting as the fuel to the fire as it developed in size and speed.
When the spell was finished, the fireball was now as huge as Kayn's torso, and it flew at twice the speed of the ordinary fireballs.
It cleared the condensed mist as the heat was too intense for the mist to exist around it, which means it also cleared Kayn's vision as he saw the fireball make its way towards its target.
The third-eye demon had already moved a few steps away while Kayn was finishing up his spell, but due to the size of the fireball, it didn't matter much.
The third-eye demon felt the sudden intense heat coming in his direction and turned his head to see what had caused it.
But he was a split second late as the fireball flew at a great speed, and the size was simply too huge for him to avoid.
Just a portion of the huge fireball hit the third-eye demon's body, but it was enough to trigger the fireball to explode.
A resounding boom, one that could be heard from hundreds of meters away, echoed as the explosion occurred.
The fireball that was already huge when it was compressed, exploded even bigger as the enhancement spell that Kayn did made it even stronger.
The fire rose into the air and spread around the surroundings, clearing a part of the surroundings of the dense mist while creating even more mist from the explosion.
When the explosion died down, the mist was even thicker than before, as the three other surviving demons could only guess what had happened, the mist completely blocked their vision.
On the other hand, the person responsible for this, Kayn, was moving towards the center of the explosion and found what he was looking for.
The third-eye demon's body was no more, as only incomplete charred remains were scattered on the ground.
Above the scattered remains, though, was a black orb that Kayn hurriedly grabbed and put into his mouth.
The refreshing and empowering feeling of a soul entering his body returned once more as Kayn felt the addictive sensation once more.
Other than getting stronger from eating souls, Kayn now wanted to consume more and more souls because of that slight, temporary sensation when his body felt the ecstasy of eating a soul.