(I did not want to make this chapter an info dump, the next one probably will be one :( . I do hope you enjoy this chapter, its kinda different and less psycho but I tried to flesh out the MC's character some more. He should be understood as an arrogant destroyer that hates humans, I even did a whole paragraph where he calls a human only 'it', tell me where I should improve there. Oh right, another thing, could you suggest some names that would fit a Deity of fire and destruction? I would be really thankful for that. Anyway, enjoy this chappy, I hope the grammar and spelling is good enough -so that I don't need to proofread it :P-. ENJOY! :D ) 

I felt so... so... so powerful! Invigorated and full of desire! It was a foreign feeling with a tint of nostalgia. From my memories I could deduce that I had once lived, and something dearly was taken from me. By humans...

It mattered not now... now I needed a second to enjoy my freedom. I wanted a moment of peace, as contradicting as it may sound for a being that is nothing less than destruction and chaos incarnate. For a single instance I wanted to breathe a cold gust of air, be freed of the oppressive vastness of the darkness.

My hands, they were different. I didn't know how my body looked before but I had a hunch it did not look like what I was now. It was a bizarre feeling, being reminded that this is your second life, so dream-like and yet the truth. I was conflicted with my emotions, at least those few that squirmed inside me apart from anger. But soon enough the fire inside me blazed through my mind, a pyroclastic flow of cleansing hate drowned out all emotions.

What was I even thinking?! It was pathetic, really. Starring at my hands like some mongrel, like some human! I was no human anymore! I was something beyond the limits of what humans could achieve, I fused with the raw essence of fire, darkness and pain, I was as far from a human as it could get. The truth was a simple one. I discarded my humanity long ago, I might have never had one to begin with! I was destruction, carnage, but not human. Sad? No, it was exhilarating!

Below my feet was a whole new beginning, a whole new world to... to... blight? To bring to ruin? No... it was not the world at fault. When the child sins it is not the mother's fault. Likewise when humans sin it is not the world's fault. I would be their judge then, not their destroyer. A king that judges equally but those not hector his vassals. A good idea, an idea with backed-up foundation.

I was superior, this assumption did not birth from arrogance but rather the might that cursed through my fleshed out body. My veins gleamed red with the thick plasma of energy inside me, I just felt the power, the ineffable power of a God! A mountain turning into a valley, into dust and ash; a sea turning into a desert; nothing was impossible with my strength, my unsurmountable strength!

My body in itself was an image of power. Ashen crust with crimson veins of coiling lava, of pure cataclysm, and a core of abyssal magma. I was the embodiment of wrath, a living force of nature, act of God. My touch would ignite the fabric of reality and my breath could incinerate space itself, my gaze was judgement day itself and my words a call for the heavenly trumpets. Life, death, those concepts were to frail for one such as myself. As I was the law of creation itself!

What was there to fear, what was there to fret? All my little lambs would receive their punishment, all those sinners will repent!

I cracked my lips apart, hard pieces of black bedrock hailed down with power that could be mistaken for dark shooting stars. Crooked and jagged I forged myelf jaws with rows of obsidian fangs and an endless maw with hell itself residing within. I felt my charred lips form a devious, diabolic grin; my umbral fangs simmered with unbearable bloodthirst. I did not know where it stemmed from but there it was. The urge to make myself look human persisted through my hate, as much as I hated it I WANTED human resemblance in this form. It hurt me, it was agonizing to share even a single trait with those... those filthy beasts. Albeit I took pleasure in the thought that this way those pesky humans would at least understand WHAT judged them. I was their judge, nay, the jurisdiction of life itself so to speak, and I had to make them understand.

And there awaited the first defendants, waiting paitently for me to pass judgment, how kind...

Beautifully I descended in a torrent of dark blood and flakes of ash. 300? No, at least 500 were to be spoken guilty. Ahhhhhh, I could taste their blood on my lips already. So nurturing and warming, slightly coppery but with a rich and spicy aftertaste like game. Oh, the taste of the wild, of meat, how I missed it. I hadn't tasted it yet but I instictively knew I would savour it to the last morsel.

"Ah! How most irreverent of me! I haven't even introduced myself.". How impious would it be if the butcher forgets to greet his goods? The wrath inside me was visceral, deep rooted, but I did my best to connive my hate as to greet my guest with a smile like a good host does.

"Demise, I am nothing more and nothing less for you lot. You can call me as such.", I dropped a light curtsy with a fiendish smirk. Now kneel, my prey... your fates are sealed by death...

Oh God, why do I have to be punished?! Those insects had yet to realise what was happening! Their ugly faces contorted in bemusement, their squinting and purulent eyes posed questions into the air. Their lips smacked shut, openned and they looked at each other for answers. My... my patience was running dry with those imbeciles, those incompetent fools. Had I made a mistake in trying to talk with them? Hahahahaha... how silly of me, I couldn't even speak their primitive language! Pahahahaha! Hum... How does a God communicate with his believers? How does the wolf talk with his victim? Yes... how could I convey my verities to them?

*ZOOOOM*

'No no no NO... NO!', my train of thought, which I so toilsome tried to maintain, was actually disrupted by... by an arrow, a wooden toothpick. NO NO NO!

There, obliterated down to its moleculess the arrow was nothing more than ash. I crunched, cracked my volcanic claws and writhed my quaking visage towards the insect that damned itself with a life full of torment. Slightly amused I watched it tremble, hold dearly onto its bow as if the weak wood could protect it from what was about to come.

Quicker than anyone could react I latched onto this blasted creature, my talons gripped vice-like onto its jawline and tearing its bones apart. While it squirmed with pitiful whimpers under my grip I slit its throat open with a simple swipe of my shard-like claws, hence its miserable whining turned into a cherry gurgling. My sight landed on the auburn blood, and how it viscously welled out from the grievous cut and slid down along the human's neck and collarbone. I smacked my obsidian lips as thunder errupted inside my core, my bottomless stomach needed its fodder.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

With ragged breath I approached the man's lifeblood, each drop counting down the human's remaining time. My maw widened, my jaws creaked apart and revealed a burning gorge, its terrible heat bringing about a gust of aridity. What could only be my eyes stared deeply into the pitiful man's soul. I saw its sins, the killing of hundreds, raping innocent women, innocent girls, and worst of all... trying to put a scratch on me! This was a sin that could not be condoned. I let my flames consume him from the inside out, burn his memories and soul to cinders. I snickered at the sight of those dead and dark eyes, the only light the embers that were burning inside, yet I took pity on this foul creature. And so my jaws snapped, those black fangs of mine rushed into the bastard's flesh and eviscerated him like a pack of wolves.

Thick and refreshing blood flowed into my mouth, so sweet and ferrous. By the Heavens! It was truly delicious!

In a warm and calming rain of blood I shred the man's body to pieces, for his brothers to admire. However, those maggots were actually impudent enough to try and shot me with another salve of those black arrows. Blind, humans are blind! They are not only incredibly stupid they are also blind.

I ignored their fallacy, the thought that they could hurt me -What a joke!- and further delighted on the corpses remains. I wolfed the body down and let it plummet into the endless abyss that were my insides. For a few moments the fire inside me seemed to smother, calm and collected it devoured the flesh that was chucked at the it. With the flesh ininerated and the lifeforce gone the fire began to rage in fury and hunger for more. With great effort I kept my growing desire for more carnage at bay, but only for a moment. 

I took a second to extract the information out of the fire, those parts that were not lost in the crimson ocean. In a moment's fraction I was in the possession of the man's knowledge. Language, culture, social hierarchies and the government. Personal memories and experiences were unimportant, In fact it would disgust me to re-live this man's memories, the fact was true for every human I would cross paths with.

It was my first time trying to siphon memories out of the flames that were not my own, but it worked just fine. What a pleasant surprise.

My flames puckered up once I was done with skimming essential informations from the tangle of knowledge, with soft crackles it plead for sweet release, how could I refuse my own self?

A defeated sigh escaped my infernal throat, it was more of a deafening roar, really. Whilst shacking my head I let all hell loose on the armed humans around me. Onto those weak-willed and disgusting creatures, those that called themselves bandits. What I hated more, much more, than humans were humans that killed other humans. My soul palpitated in bursting ire whenever I thought about the atrocities those demons commited. Not only did they butcher their own kin, they even tried to lay their filthy hands on me. I AM A GOD! HOW DARE THEY?!

"WORTHLESS! ALL OF YOU!", the blusterous bawl involuntarily escaped my lips.

I let the air around me ignite in a myriad of hellish flames and an explosion of wrath. My vision was red, I needed the bloodshed, the carnage, right now. I felt my self being drawn towards the dead and the damned; the blood, it whispered dolce cruelty into my ears and all I did was smile with the voices in my head.

Breaking the will of the fire that took the run-down houses their home I commanded them with a snap to rise into the air and demand payback from the mortals that wanted to use their power. 

Pillars of pure hell surged into the starry sky and became stars of their own at the red painted firmament. Snarling fire drowned out the cries for help of the dozens of humans that were swallowed whole inside the obelisks of crimson. Brazen some tried to defend against the usurping inferno, but everyone, everything turned to hollow husks, masks of agony their faces and charred boughs their limbs. The unfortunate ones that escaped the tidal wave of fire were personally ended by no one less than my humble self.

I gripped them at their fragile skulls, drove my claws deep into their marrow and let the fire eat them apart. They tried to cry, how cute, but their welling tears dried as their eyes bursted, combusted, by the raging heat inside. Plumes of smoke left their orifices like liquid, ghastly they took on the form of the deceased and tried to escape heavenwards, clawed with their wraithlike hands at the sky in an abject attempt to flee. Sparkling and quaint I let the fires singe their world deep-red, consume the souls that were bold enough to try the escape. The banshees whailed but the fire took no pity on them. Death takes you all equally.

In seconds my flames licked the world clean of this plague, what was left was the shivering lot behind me.

My breath calmed down, the fire died out with a last sizzle. Cold wind dispersed the ashes, made the statues of death crumble and fall apart, their screaming faces the last that would be remembered of them.

"Innocent.", I judged them and began to trod away. Inferno was approaching and for now I kept enough of my sanity to not slaughter wantonly. Something stopped me from destroying this whole world, let it burn in my hatred. Maybe I still had hope for the humans, for those forsaken beings? Memories of red steel made my thoughts waver, appealed onto the fire to consume everything. 

No, I will judge them accordingly, but for now they survived... I wonder for how long they can keep the temptation of sin from tainting their hearts, but they should beware as I will stand at their door to declare judgement on that fateful day.

The scarlet fires followed me, and a hand reached out.