Preview: “Shrieek? Shrieek?! SHRIEEK?!?!” A Demon worm happily digging underneath felt stinging pain out of nowhere and felt its strength going away. It tried struggling but to no avail, it only hastened its death and served as nourishment for the Demonic Sunflower’s roots.
The Demon Worm is one species of the Demon race, they are known for being good at digging, having a disgusting taste, horrendous features, unappetizing smell, low intelligence, and most importantly they are horribly weak. They live under the ground on the First Level of Hell in the Muddy Swamp Region. Usually living a life of digging and hiding away from the surface which is packed with "stronger" demons, they did not know that their life would soon take a drastic turn..
As the Little Sunflower kept absorbing the nutrients from the Demon Worm's flesh and blood seeped into the roots then into its stem, which is its body. The sunflower was enjoying the juice when suddenly, thoughts formed like bubbles in its newborn mind. Mmmm.. Delishhh!! More, I want more! Foodd!!! thought its young mind. As this thought formed, another branch of roots extended out- this time even longer! 100 meters, 150 meters, 200 meters, and SQUELCH!. Something sounded like a lemon being squeezed reached its roots and in the next second, waves of delicious nutrients seeped into its body, nourishing and strengthening it.
The roots that extended out felt unsatisfied and were greedy for more until the system of roots extended up to a whole 1000 meters underground! More than 200 unlucky worms got hit by a disaster out of nowhere and became nourishment for the sunflower’s growth.
The Little Sunflower grew rapidly under the continuous stimulation until it stopped at a waist height. As the sunflower’s growth stopped, it finally stabilized and the ravenous hunger that was torturing it finally subsided. At this moment, the sunflower’s mind relaxed and thought I want to eat! The first thing that came to its mind was food, not anything else, but food!. As it curiously spun its body around to seize its surroundings, it seemed to hear cries of despair and the smell of death crawled upon its roots. Its incredibly sharp senses allow it to see and hear despite not having the necessary organs. It kept looking around but could not find the source, finally; souls in the shape of worms started to rise from the ground below and the source of the sound and smell appeared!
The Little Sunflower seemed to see this scene taking place in front of it and exclaimed, FOOD! It directly pierced the souls of the poor things with its unoccupied roots and started to suck them dry. The souls did not even have much time to make a sound before they were reduced to nothingness.
After the Little Sunflower finished absorbing the energy that the souls provided, it realized that some fragmented memories appeared in its mind and immediately after pain followed. As it just barely bloomed and with a relatively weak body, absorbing the impure souls of so many lowest-rank demons polluted its weak newborn mind. But this wasn't a problem as plants and flowers are best at purification, directly turning trash into something useful! The pain gradually subsided and the memories surged into its mind. Gradually, the fragmented memories combined like pieces of a puzzle to form a word! Muddy Swamp Region! As images filled its mind, the rough outline of the place appeared in the Sunflower’s mind, with the underground region being more detailed and the surface quite vague.
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Unfamiliar information about the place appeared in the sunflower’s mind as the background of it
The Muddy Swamp Region is considered a relatively peaceful place in the First Level of Hell. There are several reasons for such peace, one of them is that there are no powerful demons nearby that occupied this place and claimed it as their territory. Another reason is the terrain, most demons prefer the hard, hot and rocky environment as their home and rarely would they take the initiative to live in an environment that they are unfamiliar with.
But at this moment, in the eastern edge of the Muddy Swamp Region, a dark red low-rank Fiery Hound is desperately running on its all fours while stepping heavily on swampy ground beneath it. If you look closely at it, you will notice the long wound stretching from the side of its stomach to its hind legs. As it keeps crashing into thorny vines coated in poison and ground full of dangers, a flaming trail is left in its wake. Even the moist and wet lands in Muddy Swamp Region couldn't stop the mad charge of this hound as it pushed forward. But at this moment, it suddenly sensed a large presence of souls appearing simultaneously in its perception. It couldn't have cared less if it was just that, but the weird thing was, as quickly as this large number of souls appeared, it suddenly disappeared!
The whole event dumbfounded the hound and made it crash into a demonic tree. The tree made a creak! sound and it directly snapped into two from the heavy force that suddenly struck it. As the hound stood up from the debris, it used its strong sense of smell to locate the source of the abnormality and went after it.
As it ran towards the location, it suddenly noticed another sign of life appearing in its perception and guessed it might be the cause of the abnormality. It immediately rushed towards the location.
It gradually saw a rough outline of the Little Sunflower and started to slow down. It cautiously approached the Little Sunflower, afraid of being discovered and tried its best to think where he had seen a creature like this before.
But try as it might, it could not find any creature that resembled this one besides the Underworld Plants. But the Underworld Plants usually don't radiate such bright and obvious signs of vitality, much less have the power to kill hundreds of souls at once! These are souls! Not Physical bodies! They are slippery as a loach and are usually hard to kill as they are just a form of energy. No matter how tough his flaming claws may be, he would never be able to damage a soul unless he has the ability to consume souls like Mid-Rank Demons or directly kill them like High-Rank Demons..
The Little Sunflower just finished digesting the information from the memory when something appeared in its perception. Vibrations ran through the earth and the substances in the atmosphere became tinged with the smell of sulfur. It immediately became happy because another food was offering itself to it.
According to information from the fragmented memories, this world seems to be called “Hell” or “Underworld” and it has 8 levels. It seems to be in First Level which is filled with Low-rank demons and the only rule set in this place was- The strong eat the weak. So the moment it noticed the Hound in its perception, it immediately launched a silent but deadly attack to take the initiative. Its roots hidden under the ground started to wriggle and moved towards the place underneath the Hound and Crack! The earth beneath the hound directly cracked and countless roots immediately surged out, intending to kill this hound before it could even react.