The low-ranking Lesser Demons that clung to the mutated bird-beasts did not have it easy either.
There were too few fragments of human cells inside those bird-beasts. A few bites, and they were gone.
They burrowed out of the bird-beasts, into the grass, into the soil, into cracks between rocks.
There were fragments of human cells in the grass, in the soil, and even in the cracks between rocks.
But there was only a little in each place. One bite, and it was gone.
They burrowed everywhere and gnawed at everything, like a swarm of hungry ants searching for food in the desert.
When they could not find any, they starved. Their soul-bodies grew fainter and thinner, until they were like a layer of mist that would scatter with a gust of wind.
The scattered fragments gathered again, then scattered again, then gathered once more.
But the human world lacked nothing less than vitality.
The cell fragments floating in the air, the scattered living souls, the obsession with life that existed everywhere—they were so dense they seemed almost tangible.
With every rise and fall of the demons' soul-bodies, with every turn of their thoughts, vast amounts of life energy uncontrollably seeped into their souls.
It was not that they wanted to eat. Those life energies crawled inside on their own.
Because the instinct of life energy was life itself—to find a host, to reside within some vessel.
Though demons' soul-bodies were not alive, they were "empty," empty enough to hold many things.
That life energy seeped into the demons' soul-bodies like water soaking into sand, wind passing through a forest, light shining through glass.
It thought it had found a new home, thought it could continue to "live," but it did not know that a demon's soul-body was not a