Infanticide

The freshly hatched demon moth flares her nose as she takes a deep breath of the air permeated by the green smoke coming from the still hot volcanic sand, filling her lungs with the burning sensation of poisonous sulphur. But thanks to the nature of her race it felt quite pleasant.

'Time to get to work.' Walking over to the nearest egg, the newly named Juniper grabs a decently sized black volcanic rock on the way and carries it with all her four arms over to the defenceless target.

Once there, she raises the rock above her head before slamming it down on the black and red shell of the unfortunate egg, easily cracking it and causing the small creature inside to awaken, feeling the incoming threat that Juniper represents to its own survival.

With her mind dead set on committing infanticide moments after starting her new life, the young moth locks eyes with those of her prey.

As the little demon looked into the green eyes of Juniper, he somehow managed to gaze beyond them and witness the twisting and distorting of the mind that once called itself Jinny.

Not giving the grotesque and slime covered demon baby, that froze up after locking eyes with her for some reason, any time to react meaningfully, Juniper smashes the rock down a second time, right on top of its head.

Thanks to the rocks size and Juniper's four arms working in tandem, it only took two hits for the demon to stop moving and a white light to escape its brutalized body. Quickly grabbing the soul of her first prey, she chucks it into her system where the soul counter jumps up to 1.

Leaving the rock lying on the crushed skull of her prey, Juniper pulls up the creation menu of the system while brushing her forehead with one of her additional arms.

"Phew, that was quite exhausting. Did my old stamina transfer over or is it just the drawback of being a premature born demon baby?" Muttering to herself as she looks at the empty page displayed on the system screen, she pulls up the image of a simple, blade tipped spear in her mind before willing it onto the page.

And just like that, without the need to painstakingly draw anything herself, the image appears in the system creation menu.

Pulling it over to her profile picture and placing it in its hands, she looks at the save button and sees (1 Soul) behind it, telling her how many souls it takes for the creation of this item.

Smiling, she presses save and felt the weight of the weapon appear in her hands.

Looking at the brand-new spear that appeared out of seemingly nowhere, Juniper clasps her chitin covered fingers tightly around the solid wooden pole as all the violent and gory thoughts that she had throughout her life, but remained unanswered in the name of following the rules of society, flash by her mind.

'There's no longer a reason to hold back…in fact, now there are plenty reasons to even fully indulge in all those previously questionable desires.' She thinks as he lips spread into a dangerous smile that showed her fanged teeth.

Glancing away from the spear, onto the dead body of her fellow demon, she makes the decision to grab it, throwing it into her inventory before quickly running up to the next egg.

Placing her entire weight behind the attack, the spear easily rips through the hard shell of the egg and bites into the flesh of the little demon inside, earning her a gurgling screech.

Two more tries aiming at different spots of the egg and Juniper is able to claim her second soul as it floated out after its owners demise.

Also taking the egg with the corpse inside for the simple reason that she could, Juniper moves on to her next target.

She has about 30 minutes before the other demons begin to hatch, she planned on useing that time to kill as many of them as she could, collecting their souls and bodies alike.

Her main targets were the eggs further away from the beach as they had a higher chance to hatch and possessed stronger souls than the others, as well as to reduce the number of enemy demons with whom she will have to deal with in the free for all that is soon to follow after the hatching.

A while of running around and killing as many unborn demons as possible later, she just executed another demon still in his egg when she noticed how the others around her begin to shake and crack as the creatures within attempt to free themselves from their shell's.

'I managed to get up to 32 souls, a very good haul and I should be able to get a few more in the coming battle royale.' Satisfied with the number of souls she managed to grab without any competition, she makes her way to a red-skinned demon who is crawling out of its shell and ends its life with her spear through its skull.

'Not sure if it is the fact that I have become a demon, or if I've always been this messed up, but killing these demon babies does not bother me… like… at all… 'Pushing that train of thought aside for now and turning her eyes, behind which a mass writhes and twitches that could no longer be identified as the person she has once been, Juniper kills another four baby demons before the others manage to fully escape their shells and devour them.

They were quick to notice Juniper's actions and most of them try to keep away from her while falling over the unhatched eggs on the lower part of the beach to feast upon the souls of their yet to be born brethren's, much like Juniper had done herself just a while ago, just that she didn't eat the souls.

Swinging the bladed tip of her spear at the neck of a less intelligent member of her race that opted to aim for the rather weak looking bug girl instead of competing over the dwindling number of unhatched eggs on the beach, she kills the little demon easily and grabs her bounty.

'Demons sure do have it brutal.' She ponders while observing how more and more little demons begin to fight against each other to get more souls to satisfy the addiction that came with their race.

A few more tried to approach Juniper as her appearance was not that threatening and she was rather small compared to others thanks to the fact that she was prematurely born.

They learned quickly enough that that was the wrong choice when the supposed weak prey swung its weapon and rips through their flesh without them even being able to come into reach for a counterattack.

With most demons now avoiding Juniper and making it hard for her to get any more souls, she glances at the 41 in her storage and ponders on how to use them for the best possible effect.

A deep rumbling coming from the ground brought her back to reality and she realized that she had completely forgotten about this event.

With the sudden change in situation, she shelved her thoughts and instead looks at the still impressive horde of little demons that is numbering in the tens of thousands even after the battle royale that decimated enormous chunks of them.

Turning her gaze away, she begins to sprint towards the volcano where black smoke starts rising from the peak.

Her action is mimicked by the others immediately as an unspoken truce took effect.

As one mass the demons rush up the mountain, those that could fly, mostly insect type demons, flew while the others climb over rocks with the help of their sharp claws.

Juniper, despite having wings, opted for ground manoeuvring as their awkward location at the back of her head made her doubt their ability to act upon their purpose.

Once at the top of the volcano, Juniper together with other demons start to climb down the walls into the crater.

Hanging on the rocky wall while burning lava bubbles below, the demonic moth got busy scratching and knocking against different parts until the excited squeaking of a little demon near her drew attention to itself.

Moving over to assist the coal black skinned thing with patches of yellow on it, Juniper and other demons break the stone wall apart until it revealed a gaping maw leading into a cavern.