The Nalfeshnee

In the outskirts of Olai City, Ander Village. *Roar—!* Beating its chest, a demon with a terrifying countenance—resembling an ape with a collapsed face and long tusks—let out an enraged bellow. It was a barlgura! As the living incarnation of the Abyss's savagery and frenzy, these chaotic beasts loved to harvest grotesque trophies from their fallen foes. Around the wrists and neck of the barlgura standing before them hung chains strung with bleached white bone—skulls of humans, orcs, elves, dwarves, and countless other humanoids. "Puny bugs, crush you!" The barlgura bounded high into the air and crashed down, slamming its massive fists toward the nearby crowd. *Boom!* The earth fractured, sending stone shrapnel flying amidst billowing dust. Splatters of torn flesh and blood burst outward, staining the barlgura's fur crimson and drenching its massive fists in gore. Where it struck, a massive crater cratered the earth, filled with the mangled, unrecognizable remains of players. "This gorilla monster hits way too hard!" "Aim for its neck!" Undeterred by the grisly demise of their comrades, the surviving players didn't give an inch. Circling around the barlgura, they raised their guns and fired continuously. *Bang!* *Bang! Bang!* A dense barrage of bullets poured out, striking the barlgura's thick hide and blossoming into patches of blood. Stung by the pain, the barlgura twisted its hideous face in fury. Shielding its front with disproportionately thick arms, it roared in irritation and charged straight at the players. *Howl—!* "Dodge! It's coming back!" "Holy crap, this ape is so tanky! It's eaten hundreds of rounds and still won't drop!" The ground shook as the enraged barlgura tore into the throng. Swinging its massive fists, it pounded several players into meat patties in the blink of an eye. "Keep shooting, don't back down!" "The gorilla's almost done for!" *Roar! Roar! Roar!* Howling in exhilaration, the barlgura grabbed a player in its hand. Veins bulged along its muscular arm as savage, abyssal strength surged forth. *Crack!* Before the player could even call for help, bone and muscle shattered under the pressure, reducing him to a paste of mangled gore. Immediately after, the barlgura shoved the gore and splintered bone into its maw, chewing greedily. "Humans, snack, delicious!" Yet the players showed no fear. They kept firing, even finding the leisure to chitchat curiously. "It ate another one." "Does human meat really taste that good? Damn, I almost want to carve off a piece of myself to see." *Bang!* Finally, a bullet grazed past the beast's arm fur and buried itself deep into the barlgura's neck. "Hit!" *Awoo—!* "Humans! Die!" The barlgura's eyes flashed bloodred. Gaping its jaws to exhale a foul breath, it took a running leap. *Boom!* The ground quaked again. The spot where the marksman had just been standing was reduced to a ruin littered with butchered flesh. The barlgura twisted its head in confusion, only to find the stinging pain never stopped. Bullets continued to rain upon it, and the humans showed not the slightest trace of terror or rout. It had already slaughtered nearly a third of them, hadn't it? Something was wrong. Were these still the frail humans of its memory, who knew only how to scream and run? Waddling over land like an ape, the barlgura's colossal frame made it a natural target. Soon, bullet holes riddled its hulking, grotesque body, oozing highly caustic purple-black ichor that bubbled with foul-smelling froth. By now, the barlgura swayed unsteadily with every step. The lead lodged inside it almost outweighed its own flesh. Any ordinary creature would have perished long ago. "Quick, keep on it!" "The last hit on this ape is mine!" "Charge!" The players' ecstatic cheers reached the barlgura's ears, igniting an uncontrollable fury in its heart. Having climbed the ranks of the Abyss from a lowly mane all the way to a barlgura, it had destroyed countless human settlements, treating them as delectable snacks. Yet here, it was being hunted like game by these puny creatures! This was utterly unforgivable! *Roar—!* The barlgura let out a deafening roar and charged into the crowd soaked in blood, channeling the last of its strength to violently obliterate everything around it. "Phase two!" "Boys, spread out and kite it!" *Boom!* "Destroy!" The barlgura's fists swung relentlessly. The earth caved in around it as rocks shattered, trees snapped, and buildings collapsed into rubble... Having shed whatever meager intellect it had left, the barlgura had regressed entirely into a living conduit of abyssal savagery and frenzy. Its world-shattering destructive aura was enough to terrify any mortal soul—except the players. Keeping their distance, the players continued to loose fire from afar, pulling aggro from different directions. *Bang!* A final bullet punched through its thick hide, boring into the frenzied, tainted flesh. *Awoo—!* With a final wail, the barlgura crashed heavily to the ground, shaking the earth. The death of a demon often came with bizarre phenomena. Before the eyes of the players, its corpse ruptured into dozens of identical one-inch-tall demons. *Roar! Roar!* These miniature demons immediately fell upon one another, tearing and clawing until only one remained. Beating its tiny chest in fury, the last little barlgura vanished into a puff of smoke. A demon born of war and slaughter had met its end in slaughter, returning at last to the blood pools of the Abyss. Watching the tiny demons brawl, the players felt no horror at the eerie spectacle. Instead, their eyes lit up. "That's so cool! Where can I buy a pet like that?" "Holy crap! I got the final blow?" "Die, lucksack!" "Stop shooting demons, guys, let's gank this lucky bastard first!" ... What happened in Leo Village and Ander Village was by no means an isolated incident. In the small border town of Marle in the empire's southwest: "Death to the minotaurs!" "Long live the pure-love warriors!" The players' cheers rose and fell in waves amid the roar of gunfire and drifting gunsmoke. The nearly ten-meter-tall goristro collapsed with a thunderous roar, its colossal bulk crushing roadside buildings in its fall. ... Inside a fortress in the empire's south: A chasme's wings buzzed violently, producing a terrifying drone as its proboscis easily skewered a human chest. "Squash the mosquito!" "Trap it!" Yet the players hurled massive capture nets, ensnaring the chasme while relentlessly dousing the demon with holy water. The chasme's drone grew weaker and weaker until its wings ceased vibrating altogether. ... Across the vast Savedra Plain in the south, more than two million players formed a hundred-li wall of flesh and blood against the abyssal vanguard. Unlike the more cautious veterans, the newly recruited novices had zero fear of death. As the saying went, the barefoot had nothing to lose against those wearing shoes. With no experience points to lose, there was nothing to fear; throwing their lives away was completely fine. If a worthless life could trade for a demon kill, wasn't that a massive profit? Thus, strange spectacles unfolded across the land: bands of humans in tattered clothes, wielding the crudest firearms, chased down fiendish demons from the Abyss. The moment a demon was spotted, they swarmed forward like adrenaline junkies, willing to pay with their lives just to drag the fiend down with them. Many demons even began questioning their demonic existence. Were these crazed, bloodthirsty creatures—wilder than even hezrous—really humans? Covered in gore, their eyes gleaming with fanatical zeal as they closed in... just who were the real spawn of the Abyss? In the southeastern town of Bayne, 1,541 players paid a bitter price of over 700 dead to riddle a powerful demon trying to infiltrate the empire into a sieve. The strategy demons had always relied on—slipping across borders, slaughtering populace, and sowing panic—had completely failed. Practically every demon that infiltrated the southern empire was hunted down by players crazed for gold and contribution. And what of the demons that slipped into major metropolises like Isdalia and Northwind Keep, plotting to incite even greater terror? Their fates were even more miserable. For what awaited them were the empire's elite forces—the emperor's inner circle. "It's a demon!" "Run!" Amidst the panicked screams of the crowd, a black-robed figure suddenly expanded, transforming into a most hideous, warped fiend. The demon looked like a monstrosity birthed from a cross between an ape and a boar. Behind its bloated, corpulent frame sat a pair of absurdly tiny feathered wings. Three pairs of jagged tusks jutted irregularly across its snout, and cunning glinted within its bloodred eyes. It was a nalfeshnee, an exceptionally powerful high-ranking demon. Feeding on hatred and despair, they savored the fresh meat of humanoids, always keeping victims abducted from the Material Plane stocked in their larders to be carved and devoured alive. Ironically, while these demons fancied themselves refined and elegant, their cutlery was perpetually encrusted with dried gore and rust, and their visage ranked among the foulest of all demonkind. At that moment, the nalfeshnee looked down at its claws and muttered in a gravelly voice, "The Polymorph actually failed..." Looking down at the scattering crowd, its lips curled into a twisted grin. "Fine then... In that case, let the feast begin." *Bang! Bang! Bang!* The Northwind Keep tiefling guards responded swiftly, spreading into formation and firing continuously at the nalfeshnee. Yet a crimson light flared within the demon's turbid, beady eyes. In an instant, every single tiefling fell under its sway. It was the power of the mind! And not just any power, but the psychic malice and destructive urge of the Abyss itself, something ordinary mortals had no hope of resisting. "D-Death..." "Surrender to the Abyss..." At the exact same moment, all the tiefling guards turned their barrels toward their own foreheads and pulled the triggers. *Bang!* A synchronized volley cracked out. Brain matter splattered, skulls fractured, and the tiefling soldiers collapsed one after another. "Watching your own death while powerless to resist... What a delightful sensation." The nalfeshnee squinted, drawing a deep breath as if savoring the aroma of pure despair. Then, turning its greedy gaze upon the fleeing citizens, it swept its claws forward. *Fear Aura!* Waves of chaotic, eerie light radiated outward, engulfing hundreds of people and plunging them into soul-deep terror. The corners of the nalfeshnee's mouth curved upward, its boarish tusks trembling with manic excitement. "Heheh, what a feast!" Just as it prepared to feast on the flesh and despair of the hundreds before it, space distorted, and a teleportation portal tore open. A tiefling clad in armor and clutching a sword emerged before the nalfeshnee, planting himself firmly between the beast and the terrified populace. Someone broke free of the terror, crying out like a drowning man clutching a lifeline: "It's Duke Mezrolash!" The newcomer was none other than one of the empire's three dukes, leader of the tiefling race—the Sword of the Oathbreaker, Mezrolash. Sweeping his gaze across the fallen tiefling guards, his eyes turned frigidly cold. "Brazenly disrupting the empire's order and slaughtering its citizens..." Raising his longsword to point at the demon's head from afar, the tiefling declared in a low, resonant voice, "In the name of His Majesty Cassius, I sentence you to—death." "Oh? A mongrel spawned from devil and human? Even if your ancestors stood before me, they would be nothing more than my food!" The nalfeshnee burst into arrogant laughter, the crimson light flaring in its eyes once more. Yet Mezrolash simply pulled down his visor and charged straight toward the demon, completely unaffected by the mental assault. A ring of dark light swirled around his frame—the Oathbreaker's Aura of Hate. Slightly startled, the nalfeshnee swung its claws again, seeking to project a wide-scale Fear Aura. Yet Mezrolash was faster. Raising his blood-stained longsword, the tiefling called down a pillar of black radiance from the sky directly atop the nalfeshnee's head. *Channel Divinity: Dreadful Aspect!* Mezrolash channeled his darkest emotions, detonating them in a magical breath of pure menace. Even the nalfeshnee was struck dumb for a moment. Memories rushed back of its time in the Abyss, dominated and subjugated by greater demons, filling it with acute terror at the thought of losing its power. "Th-This is..." The hideous demon froze in place. Showing no mercy, Mezrolash seized the opening, swinging his blade once more to unleash horrifying Oathbreaker spells. *Contagion!* A flash of white light struck the nalfeshnee's head, slashing across its eyes. —*Blinding Sickness*. Agony gripped the demon's mind as its eyes turned milky white, robbing it of sight. "I can't see!" The nalfeshnee panicked. Then a beam of red light cut across its torso, carving deep, burning gashes that wrung an agonized wail from its throat. —*Filth Fever*. A violent fever surged through the demon's body, sapping all strength from its limbs and nearly bringing it to its knees. A ray of black light pierced its abdomen, tearing through its bloated belly. —*Flesh Rot*. The nalfeshnee's flesh began to decay, making its already repulsive frame even more nauseating. "You're nothing but a mongrel bred from devils and humans..." the nalfeshnee wheezed heavily. Before it could finish, a dark green light severed the muscles of its legs. —*Slimy Doom*. Its thick legs began bleeding uncontrollably, muscles trembling violently as purplish-black pus oozed forth. Finally, unable to support its own weight, the nalfeshnee collapsed to the earth. Its world was plunged into utter darkness and pain, completely blind to the outside world. Thrashing desperately, the nalfeshnee clawed at empty air, wailing shrilly. "No, impossible! My power is beyond your imagination! It comes from the great will of the Abyss—" *Schink—!* The demon's voice was cut short. With a single thrust, Mezrolash drove his longsword through the nalfeshnee's beating heart. A crimson radiance emblematic of the Oathbreaker's profane might burst forth, impaling the grotesque demonic body. *Divine Smite!* Mezrolash slowly withdrew the blade stained with purple-black blood. Stepping beside the fallen demon, he crouched down and whispered: "And in the name of... the tiefling people."