The blade did not consume the demon soul, nor did it intend to, at least not right away. As much as it wanted to experiment with the thing, it looked at it with great suspicion. Unlike all of the other souls in its ruby core, it glowed darkly, as if it were the polar opposite of the souls it was used to, and the Ebon Blade did not wish to make a mistake. Instead, it set the issue aside and looked around the wasteland that it had fallen into.

Its situation was bleak, but not as bleak as it had been the moment before when it was wielded by a demon. That, at least, is a small mercy, the weapon told itself, as it lay there, impaled in the very earth of this strange new world. Apparently, though, it was the only one. Besides scattered boulders and the corpse of the demon that had brought it here, there was nothing in any direction. It was entirely alone without a possible wielder in sight.

That wasn't unexpected; what was, was that even the demon's corpse didn't last long. As the blade turned back to it after examining everything else it could see, it noted that the thing was already dissolving into the hellscape it had come from, making the whole place that much more trackless.

-3 Life Force.

No, except for the fact that the lands around it sloped slightly up in one direction, toward some distant mountains, every direction looked the same. It would have given a great deal then, for a single landmark to show that this place didn't simply extend forever, but it was granted no miracles, and nothing of the sort resolved out of the hazy air.

All it could see was the stony yellow wasteland, the green skies, and the occasional pillar of dark smoke dotting the horizon. Those must be the lakes of fire I saw from above, the blade told itself. Even those shifted often enough that they provided no clear sense of direction, though, and from one hour to the next, it felt like the whole hellscape was spinning around it. The Ebon Blade was the only fixed point, and beyond that was only nothingness and chaos.

From Ul-Magora, it had seen not just wastelands, but oceans of fire and metallic cities. It had even seen giant behemoths marching through these wastes. None of those things were in evidence now, but it knew they were out there.

But do I want them to find me? It wondered. It didn't know. It didn't want to stay here forever, but it wanted to be wielded by a deranged hellspawn even less.

-4 Life Force.

While it waited, the blade studied the patterns in the tapestry of this new world, but they revealed little. The flows were alien, and the energies that flowed through them were sickly, smoky colors that looked nothing like the greens and blues of the world above.

-8 Life Force.

There weren't even many animals, and it was hours before the blade could reach out and drink from a small eight-legged lizard that scampered from shadow to shadow. As soon as it tasted the thing's lifeforce, it regretted it immediately. It was every bit as poisonous as the demon it had fought so recently.

Still, it had nothing else, so it persisted in draining it as the thing became agitated, but it had no way to identify the source of the problem. The mortal equivalent would have died almost instantly at its touch, but it took several minutes before the blade finally killed the ugly creature.

It would be much faster if I hadn't weakened my drain so much for range, it reminded itself with a touch of regret. When it had been reaping lives like wheat, range was all that mattered, but this was an entirely different situation.

While it considered this, the lizard's corpse faded into the hazy air as if it had never been. The least demon soul that wafted out of it was even more bitter than the creature's life force had been, and several hours later, it realized it had made a mistake in killing it so soon.

+8 Life Force.

+1 Least Demon Soul.

I should have found a way to stretch it out and make it last, the blade told itself as it watched its Life force tick down with disturbing regularity.

The weapon lost a life force every five or six minutes now, and though it had nearly three thousand Life Force, that treasure trove wouldn't last for more than a week and a half or so. The blade lay there restlessly, impaled in the stone as it considered its options. Upgrades were counterproductive right now, and while it had a sizable number of souls, most of them it had no wish to devour.

The archmages were as valuable as they were powerful; the mages were better spent answering any questions the weapon had, and the rest, well, it had no wish to devour the king or its former wielders just yet. That was much more personal. That left the demon soul, of course, but it was not sure it wanted to eat more of those than it had to. It felt tainted by the Least Demon Soul it had tasted, but there was no clear way out. Even if the rift far above it had not closed completely, it had no way of flying to reach it.

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The Ebon Blade was forced to wait for nearly a day before another small beast emerged. This one was a mangy six-legged wolf or coyote. It forced itself not to drink from it as quickly, tasting its life force only once every few minutes, and waiting until it looked like it was about to leave before fully consuming the malnourished thing.

-124 Life Force.

+12 Life Force.

+1 Least Demon Soul.

The days that followed that one were some of the worst that the weapon could remember. Where are the lost souls and the demon armies? It asked itself. Why is it so empty and desolate?

It was like a man dying of thirst, who was desperately trying to ration his remaining salt water. The salt water wouldn't save him, of course; it would only prolong his misery, but still he craved it. As its reserves trickled away, though, all it could do was attack those few minor demons who were unfortunate enough to cross its path.

Sometimes it would see large, winged creatures soar high above it, and it would deeply wish that the poisonous things it had been snacking on left corpses behind. If only I could bait them into descending, it told itself. Then I would have something I could truly feast on.

There was nothing, though, and as the days turned to weeks, the sun didn't set a single time. Though it couldn't feel the heat and was unbothered by a lack of night, it still found the odd behavior disorienting. Eventually, it was forced to start consuming its remaining mages to stay conscious. It started with the weakest of those souls, but soon burned through them at the rate of one a day, or so.

-2884 Life Force.

Perhaps the mages should have thrown me into hell the first time, the blade told itself as it considered its sorry state. This place is emptier than the bottom of the ocean. It was sad but true, and as the blade looked at its depleted reserves and tried to decide when it would feast on the Greater Souls of the archmages it still possessed, it dispaired.

Fortunately, that's when the imps found it. Bitter though they were, those little winged creatures were like a gift from above, and it devoured them as quickly as it could. When they had first appeared on the horizon, it had thought that the dozen strong group of dun colored creatures and the dust cloud that surrounded them were a weather phenomenon. It wasn't until it got closer that it could see they were flying vermin. They weren't much bigger than a bat, but there was an animal cunning in those beady eyes, and for some reason, they lingered around it, in a way that none of the other animals had to date.

A few even landed on its hilt to explore the strange shiny landmark in that dull world. They flew away almost instantly at the touch of its magic, but they still circled it for hours before leaving, and the strangest part of all was that it hadn't killed any of them. It had tried to. It had tried to drink them dry every minute they were in its range, but even small creatures like that were much tougher than their mortal counterparts, and with their quick movements and nearly identical features, it had been impossible to focus on just one or two.

+266 Life Force.

Still, for the first time since it had arrived in this awful place, it had drunk more power than it had burned, and no matter how poisonous it was, that was a minor victory. Even better, they returned almost a day later, this time, going the other direction.

Unfortunately, they didn't stop that time, but the group of red imp that were following them did. Some kind of tiny conflict was going on, and though it was on a scale that it would have relegated to warring nests of rats or packs of stray dogs, the blade still followed it as they came and went, if only because it had nothing else to do.

The groups didn't return to it every day, but three days after the frantic chasing started, it ended in a bloody final battle in its own little patch of desert. The creatures left no corpses as they fought, but the violence was something the blade could appreciate, even at that scale. It collected many Lesser Demon Souls that day, though it did not know yet what it would do with them.

Whether it would consume their souls or not, though, it watched them fight and learned from that as best as it could. In the end, the smaller dung-colored bat men won, but only because one of them figured out that it could launch itself off the blade's hilt, temporarily channeling the weapon's strength to dash its opponent to pieces. The blade did not like being used in such a way, but it couldn't stop it. Its mind was just as alien and unreachable as the forge demon's had been.

+14 Lesser Demon Souls.

+44 Life Force.

That strange turf war fed it well, and it received several souls it could feast on later if it became truly desperate. After that, though, came the bad news. The victors had apparently decided that its hilt was the perfect anchor point and set about building a hive made of mud and dung on that very spot.

+27 Life Force.

Are they drawn to me, or just the way I reflect these endless days? The blade wondered as they buried it alive. It was a question that it eventually tried to answer by burning one of the Lesser Demon Souls it had collected, but the Ebon Blade regretted that choice immediately.

Not only was it not able to understand much of what the thing answered, as it shrieked and screamed at the weapon. The most the blade was able to understand was something like, "We seek the light! All seek the light!" before it faded out. Far worse, though, was the message that followed,

+1 Unholy Soul Devoured.

0/100 Divine Souls devoured.

Reflexively devouring the least souls had apparently done nothing to it, but choosing to devour the lesser souls was actively erasing its limited progress on the Path of Divinity. That was troubling, considering it was probably the most powerful weapon it had available to it in the world of the damned.

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