Chapter 2

The feeling of the taste of blood in the mouth as the slightly thick liquid flowed down the throat turned out to be a completely new, euphoric experience for Krystian. With each sip, a pulsating feeling of euphoria spread throughout his body, filling him with indescribable excitement. A sense of power and satisfaction flowed through his veins, making his senses come alive with an intensity never before known. Breathing deeply, he felt the adrenaline pulsing through his veins, wrapping him in an extraordinary elation. It was like a fire dancing inside him, igniting every corner of his being.

,,It was Amazing!!....hahahaa..."

But he wasn't satisfied with just blood. His sharp, pointed teeth, which now that he could feel their shape as he licked the rest of the blood from his own teeth, sank into the body of the bat-eagle hybrid. The smell of meat harmonized perfectly with the smell of blood, which whetted his appetite even more, although Krystian himself found it incomprehensible, as his current state did not include any self-control.

He began to greedily devour the body of the hunted creature, which tasted similar to chicken, although the way he swallowed it did not give him a chance to taste the meal thoroughly. It was more like a hungry wolf that, after days of starvation, finally caught a poor hare.

Krystian devoured the creature like a hungry beast, and his sharp teeth crushed even the creature's feathers and bones. After a while, all that remained of the little creature was a dried stain of blood on his hands and around his mouth.

After eating the creature, Krystian looked at his hands, despite the rather unusual position - he was on a tree branch several meters above the ground - and was lost in thought.

After a simple examination of his body, senses and partial checking of his own abilities, he was sure that he was no longer human.

Although this thought might trigger negative emotions in a normal person, for Krystian this discovery worked in a quite different way. He had always dreamed of being more, and now that he had the chance, even though being a vampire - although he wasn't sure he really was one - might involve something that in the past he would have found disgusting and wrong.

Killing and drinking a person's blood. Or any other intelligent humanoid species. He wasn't sure if any intelligent species inhabited this world.

However, the fact that he could take the life of another human being, even in theory, but knowing that it was highly probable and that he might have to do it repeatedly, would under normal circumstances make him feel sick, disgusted, and have many negative feelings.

But now, despite being slightly surprised by his own emotions and thoughts, such a thought aroused a number of new feelings in him. His body was shivering, his stomach was growling, and he even felt a slight pain in his stomach, and his lips were smiling instinctively. Moreover, the emotional part, the mere thought of biting and drinking a human's blood, excited him, and his instincts told him that humans were food. As ridiculous as it may sound.

,,I guess there's something wrong with me... Fuck... *deep breath* Since I'm here, I can look around, the view is quite beautiful... I'd better focus on something else."

Despite many self-critical thoughts, after a moment of coming to his senses, he decided to distract himself and focus on things that were much more important to him.

This means determining your own location and planning your next steps. He perfectly understood that staying without movement and plan, in a place where there could be many more creatures much more dangerous than the previously hunted creature, was not the best idea.

He now found himself at the top of the tree, with his head and part of his torso extending above the tree canopy, which allowed him a more expansive field of view. And his superhuman eyesight and ability to see at night allowed him to look around the area much better. They allowed him to better understand his current position.

Krystian was in a really dense forest, and there were really many trees around him. And their branches and leaves were thick enough to prevent him from seeing the ground from his current position.

However, thanks to his superhuman sense of smell, which, after focusing on the said sense for a moment, allowed him to smell moisture in the air, wet air mixed with the smell of algae and, interestingly, the slightest hint of rotten meat. The scent was enough to direct his eyes in a certain direction.

He couldn't tell exactly whether it was north or something else, but he had to turn several dozen degrees while maintaining his balance on the thick tree branch.

He couldn't see the water source itself because of the density of the forest, and the space around it seemed even more bleak in the darkness of the night. However, using his senses, he was able to determine the location of the water source and the fact that the scent was flowing towards him from multiple directions, suggesting that the water source must be a river.

Following his sight and smell, where the intensity of the scent was getting weaker and weaker due to his distance from the source, he noticed a barely visible source of light. However, the dense forest meant that even the gentlest rays could not penetrate the layer of branches and leaves. The view was distorted and dim, and the light seemed to twinkle between the branches like a distant star in the dark sky.

It was barely visible, but it didn't disappear after a while. It was too far away to determine whether it was a fire or a biological entity with a glowing yellow nature. However, seeing this minimal light, he hoped that by following the planned path, it would turn out to be not some dangerous monster, but fire or some civilization.

Jumping down from such a distance, despite his partial understanding of his body, did not seem like a reasonable option to him. So he tried to get down from the tree, going from branch to branch. It wasn't very impressive and it took him a few minutes, but after a while he landed on the hard ground.

When his feet hit the ground, they made quite a distinct and audible sound. This sound scared the nearby animals, who now did not escape his attention.

After landing on the ground, he noticed something really interesting - a group of small fist-sized humanoids. Their physical appearance was more that of really fat little people with sagging bellies and overly large skinny limbs. The faces of these little creatures reminded him of goblins depicted in pop culture - pointy, really long noses and ears. Additionally, they had an angular, greenish face with a really pointy beard, and their mouth took up more than half of their face, and their eyes were really small, similar to mouse eyes.

What was surprising was that these little creatures, after hearing the sound of Krystian's feet landing on the ground, started kicking the ground in panic. Within seconds of their presence, only a few small holes remained.

,,It's definitely not Dwarfs or Gremlins...I wonder what they taste like...Eee...Okay, that was weird. River....Ta.ta...a..I must find the River."

Still not reconciled with his new tendencies, Krystian started running towards the source of the moisture in the air, he wasn't sure what he would find, but his senses were still alert to potential threats.