-what Is that?.... cried the crow.

Oh. That is a flame!

The feast is prepared. And it is so... so... hungry-

- TALES BY MOONLIGHT.

I drove towards prey.

My loping strides eating the distance, I chased it primarily by the fear it gave off, and other lesser emotions I was too distracted to pay attention to. I don’t know what the rest of the colours I could see meant. Unlike the Bultigin that had only the yellow colour of fear, this had several.

And frankly I didn't care so much about what they meant. They were extra toppings on an already delectable dish. That fear should shine bright. I was not a greedy man, I would make do with one colour. I would make it so.

I got closer to it, its rapid beating heart a symphony.

I laughed in delight.

My body felt fantastic, I have always been athletic yet my new body strength and endurance put my previous meat sack to shame. As an experiment I stopped breathing, yet saw no decline in my performance. Instead, I became a whisper, I glided along the ground. I stretched my arms out, delighting in the way the wind blew against my skin. I was now a few feet behind the creature, and it had no idea I was that close.

I could just go a little bit faster, and I would touch it, I didn't though. Even while starving there was something so compulsive about the chase. You see, the yellow colour of fear the creature was giving off, was increasing. It couldn't hear me, but it knew.

That I was close.

An instinct perhaps made it look back, its eyes widened and mouth was opened to scream. when I thrust my arm out, underestimating my strength I pierced through its mouth and with a weird fascination watch my arm extending and pierced a tree, a few feet away. Tendrils shot from my arm to envelop the creature, a few seconds later it was Ash.

The ash rained down my arm, as I pulled it out the tree. Where it shrank back to normal size. My eyes were clouded, I was feeling the essence of the meal I just ate. Like finding a fire in the midst of a blizzard. The warmth conforted me.

But it was for too short a time!

The chill winds blew, and the hunger returned even worse.

Guttural cries surrounded me, looking around I saw a group of creatures like the one I killed. That sneaky bastards had been leading me into a trap. Of course, I realised that for a while, my senses giving me an almost three-sixty panoramic view of my surroundings.

I was getting their hopes up only to kill it. I needed their fear, the light in their eyes fading ever so slowly, as I fed on them.

I charged toward the one closest to me. It barely recognised the danger before I crushed his head, tilting my arm I shoved it into the stump of his neck so deeply that my arm was now in its bowels. I raised it up like a grisly trophy, savouring the rush of fear that erupted from the masses of creature around me. Tendrils erupted from my arm as I drained it dry, a cool heat radiated from my arms into my heart and I almost moaned in pleasure.

I willed it, and my fingers merged. The edge of my arms sharpening into blades. My arms elongated nearly touching the floor. I looked more like an ape now. Back hunched, head faced down, a black tongue with scales emerged from my mouth.

I could taste the carnage that was to come.

There was seven more left. Let me call them goblins, for they certainly fit the archetype. Green bulbous head on a thin neck, less than four feet tall, armed with crude machetes and clubs. I swung my now bladed arms in a circle, catching three of the goblins in that swing, effortlessly bisecting the creatures. Tendrils rushed out of my arm, not allowing both halves of the bodies to fall to the floor before it was consumed. New waves of pleasure filled me.

I opened my arms as I zoomed to the last four, their fear was now total, they were clustered together, panicking. Foolish decision, "come to me" I grinned my smile stretching unnaturally to my ears.

My tendrils got to them faster, they had a mind of their own, four huge line shot from my chest piercing the goblins, their dying cries to their god was annoying for it gave them a bit of comfort at their passing. I turned away, disinterested in fallen prey, their screams had attracted others of their kind.

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I leapt upward, slinging my arms to the nearest tree branch, I pulled myself onto the tree and observed the rustling greens. counting my new meal running into my abyssal gullet, and they were substantial. In the hundreds. Five hundred and thirty-two my internal calculator corrected me, again I marvelled at my senses.

Could I eat all this meal?. Surely it would be too much, I still don’t know the limits of my new body, and it would haunt me if I let food escape from me. Already few had gathered below me, curiously checking the ashes on the floor.

No better ways to find out than to try.

I noticed a particular goblin, it was taller than the rest, and had a long mane of red hair that was tied at the waist, it was given out orders I think, the guttural shouts it gave seemed to motivate the others. I thought to myself, how would it taste?.

I silently traversed the trees, until the goblin in question was directly below me, I shimmered down the tree, head down first, my hands and feet easily piercing into the trunk, my face was directly behind the creature. I drew in a deep breath, it was female.

She was screaming out commands, I felt I could understand them...like a piece of scattered music you dimly remembered from a feverish dream, shaking away that thought, I extended my neck like a coiled viper, she was two feet away from me, when I got so close I could taste I skin, I whispered into her ears.

Her stiffening in shock, was an added bonus.

“cry out in adoration before me" I chuckled

like a badly tuned marionette she turned her head to me, almost seemingly compelled to, she was spell bounded by my voice. A voice which had gotten deeper in tone, and commanded a level of power so vast, it could make reality bend to it wills. I let her scream, before opening my jaws, biting off her head - good goblin.

Pleasure became me!

This was the first time I tasted prey with my mouth, I let the tendrils eat all my catch before. I dimly noticed I had fallen to the ground, my mouth was fixed to the goblins neck as I squeezed her into my embrace, more waves of delight kept pouring into my maws from my voracious suction, cries of the goblins surrounded me, I was lost in pleasure so deep it defied my understanding of it.

I shivered in throes of orgasmic delight. I felt dull aches all over my body a little while later, the goblins had lifted machetes and clubs raining blows on me for all they were worth , I could care less, as the grisly content in my mouth moved down my throat it was all I could do to not scream out in ecstasy.

More of their kin surrounded me, I perceived three other similar goblins that shared the same hair, they issued cries and torches were bought forward. Before long I was on fire, and that was enough pain to draw me out of my bliss, or perhaps because my prey had become mushed skin, my tendrils finished the rest. I stood up in flames.

“foolish. They wash our body in flames, we bath in stars”

Sensing my body down to the cellular level, I was being damaged, but the cells that held me together was very resistant to flames, each individual cells were very lively, like little snakes, they coiled and stretched, actively fighting against depletion even going as far as absorbing the heat as fuel, I could stay in fires of this intensity for weeks and would emerge stronger!.

With an abominable howl, I leapt at the goblins, my eyes red with slaughter. When I was held down by pleasure, their fear became almost non existent. I was displeased.

for how long I killed, I could not say, it was one whole haze of pleasurable conquest. Their fear returned, it came back in full.

I became a roaring lion, a swirling tornado. My tendrils and bladed arms tearing apart prey. I got more familiar with my body, instinct driving me to perform specific actions to increase my performance.

They fell. In singles, then doubles, and then tens. I became faster. My body was not fast enough, and I called on the winds to be my blades. And the winds answered. A bloody tornado formed around me that soon turned grey as the very essence of life was fed into me.

Ash floated in my wake.

I tore through everything in my path, trees and stones crumbling to dust, the air screamed as I pierced through them. Fires consumed what was left, the flames waving their reverence after me, they stretched around me like a cloak of fire. An orchestra of destruction, and I was the conductor.

I was terror incarnate.

I awoke from my daze to see the forest on fire, trenches littered the ground, an acre size field of forest had been levelled during my feeding frenzy.

Ash blew around like incandescent fireflies.

I was in their midst.

Turning my head, I looked at the world.

The world had become small.

No it was the same. It was I that grew.

I was at least fourteen foot tall, packed with inhuman slabs of muscles that slowly shrank and got denser, blood finally flowed in my veins, dense pool of mercury that carried pure life force and energy.

I was naked, my skin glabrous. The wind blew a wave of white down my shoulders, they were my hair.. silvery white and waist length it’s flowed down my back with mystical grace.

I was a giant, my feet pressed against the ground as I walked, my body mindlessly brushing across burning trees, crushing logs beneath my tread. It could have well been caked powder, i revel in my might.

A transcendent stillness came over me Unwittingly I began to hum, a familiar tune my mother used to lure me to sleep, all but forgotten, after all I was barely two years old when she passed.

A brief moment of levity came over me and I was horrified at my presence.

This was lost however as I felt a deeper connection to the cosmos, my being was awashed-up with glory, as the stars themselves sang of my beauty. A choir band that stretched for infinity.

The shadows of the fire washed against my skin, the starlight became jealous as they poured a stream of glory on my body.

I looked up, outside the chaos of this dying world and saw the alignment of the stars changing. They were readying the hallways, brushing away the dust from my throne.

A shock wave ripped the ground around me for miles, flattening what was left of the forest and burying the village under the earth. Streams of starlight pierced into my bones, it merged into each of my cells, painting them in vivid shades of crimson, and I arose from the ground my feet disdaining the earth.

The skies split apart and the firmament was opened. The last of the gates has been crossed!

My ascension was nigh.

I glorified in my perfection. Drunk in bliss. I heard a roar. my elation was ripped from me as a huge fist emerged from my chest in a shower of blood...