Edmond's stomach growled ceaselessly during his travels due to the lack of prey.
'This won't do! I need to consume flesh down to the bone and then grind up the bones between my teeth letting the sweet marrow drip down my throat.'
Edmond was tweaking and hearing the voice more often.
'Though I do need to find something quickly. Starving should have been the least of my worries though.'
If he was truly placed in this hell for his past transgressions, then there must have been some force that kept him from passing on that easily.
Maybe he would just be reborn to a new body in the same hell.
He had not seen how long he could go without food, so he really could not gauge the severity of the situation based on his hunger alone.
It was even possible for him to consume mountains of corpses in one go, so maybe his body was able to go without a morsel for months at hand.
'How long have I even been down here? I miss people. I miss my love and my students. I wonder if they managed to survive that calamity.'
When he remembered the chasm that opened and took him and Evangline into its depths he could not help but be reminded of the last survivors on the planet.
'Colten, Zylo, Muni, and that rascal, Null and his girlfriend Sophina. I wonder if everyone is still alright.'
'No. They would have starved by now and been reduced to rotted skeletons. Hits close to home, no?'
He ignored the words of the other voice; it was both his and not his at the same time.
It fed on his worst emotions and laughed at his misery, but it was the only thing he had in this new home of his.
Scrambling across the heated floors of the volcanic environment with no idea where he was going was all he could do.
Screech!
'Huh?'
In the distance, Edmond could hear the screech of a hellbat.
Even during these desperate times, he considered a hellbat to be a scrumptious meal.
He followed the sounds and soon found an area that ended in a cliff in front of him.
With his keen vision he saw something more dumbfounding than the first city he visited.
Below the cliff lied something even grander than the shoddy city that the demons lived in.
Proper buildings such as houses, stores, and restaurants stood amongst the mass of imps and various demon kind— there were even some lava creatures among the crowds.
There were so many going about life as if they were not inside of an infernal prison it was baffling.
The intelligence of these creatures must have reached a standard beyond the bloodthirsty imp hordes and such that he met before.
He even saw one of the hellbats in the sky fly down before morphing into a humanoid form.
'This is it!'
Among the mass of buildings were castles built— a total of three enormous structures.
'There must be more higher evolved demons inside those castles no doubt. Just like the demon leader of the last city.'
He thought about the happenings in the last city and wondered if he should just drop in all willy nilly or formulate a plan to initiate contact with the creatures below.
It seemed that the demon leader had taken an interest in him for some reason thus his willingness to confront him in a straightforward manner.
He even spoke something that Edmond could not clearly understand before being burnt to death by his purgatory flames.
It seemed like the language that the creatures of hell used was a mix of gargles and hissing to him— he could make out a basic understanding that stemmed from his natural born state.
If he paid close attention to what the demons said, he could probably pick up the language quickly as it was simple in nature.
It was unfortunate that his desire to grow stronger influenced his actions more than his curiosity in the end.
He craved the strength to rival gods and devils alike, so why would he bother with things like language?
True strength spoke louder than mere words.
With his purgatory flames he could kill most of what came his way; if not with flames, then his deadly claws would rend the lives of those that stood against him.
He would fight tooth and nail like when he first arrived.
With that in mind, Edmond stepped over the cliff and fell rapidly to the bottom without regard for his life.
Splat!
And with a gory splat, he successfully landed breaking most of the bones in his body, but he paid the injuries no mind as he healed just as quickly.
'I'm thankful I have such a rapid recovery speed. Even lethal wounds to my brain don't seem to be able to kill me.'
His head only felt fuzzy, and his body numb for a few moments before he was in mint condition.
Thankfully, none of the residents of the city seemed to take notice of his freefall and continued about their business.
Once he got back to his optimal state, he headed into the city looking for food.
He was still starving!
'Urgh. I don't even know how to speak the language much less have any money on me. Will I have to cause trouble this early on?'
As much as he worried, it seemed like there was something wrong with how those around him acted upon seeing him.
'Oh shit! I forgot there was something wrong with how they viewed a special creature like me.'
He saw greed flash on the faces of the demons and imps before him, but they did not act on their emotions and just continued to stare intensely.
'Seems like there is order in this city unlike the other one. I must get to the bottom of my unique form. I'm sure I was born to a lowly imp though. I wonder what triggered the special mutation in my genes.'
As he entered a restaurant, Edmond promptly found a table to sit at and waited for a waiter to take his order.
Because of his unique status as a high-born, the staff at the restaurant considered him an esteemed guest and quickly came to assist him.
"Esteemed guest, what can I get for you," the waiter asked while handing him a menu.
Of course, Edmond could not read the contents of the menu and simply pointed at all of the items on the list.
"Right away, sir! I will inform the cooks to prioritize your order at once!"
Edmond gave him a wave and half a smile.
As soon as the waiter left, he returned with plates and bowls of food that covered the entirety of the table.
It seemed that most of the ingredients came from the dead demons and imps as there were no other creatures to live off of in hell.
'Well, I guess this beats having to tear apart the tough skin myself.'
He quickly devoured all of the food and felt slightly at ease from the meal.
'That definitely beats the bloody mess I'm used to.'
With his meal finished, the staff sighed in relief upon seeing a satisfied expression on Edmond's face and let him be on his way.
They were not going to charge him at all for the meal lest they anger him.
But that begged the question as to why a high-born chose to visit a normal establishment in the first place.
In addition to that, he seemed even more special than the rulers of the city themselves!
After all, only one of the demon leaders of the city had a horn upon their head like the high-born child.
It was a well-known fact that when a demon became strong enough, horns would sprout from their heads proportionate to their respective strength.
This too was an innate fact stemming from the makeup of the demons themselves.
An overbearing presence could be felt from those caught in the disparity of strength from a high-born demon.
And from the fact that Edmond had two lengthy horns sprouting from his head, those around him felt an overbearing weight suppressing them to some degree.
'It seems I found something worthy of my time here. I could get used to this,' Edmond was still enjoying the taste of the food he was served while walking amidst the crowd.
Unbeknownst to him, the leaders of the city were informed in due time of his arrival and were meeting to decide his fate.