I glared down at the hunk of raw meat in my hand and did my best to imagen it as something else-anything else!

  After a very short breather, Pride assisted me in finding something to wear as cloths, given mine were torn to shit. In the end I took the shredded legs off my jeans so I was now wearing jean shorts. Very cow girl chic, if I did say so myself. My shirt was basically a loss all together. All I could do was tear it up and use the scraps as a sort of wrap around bra more than anything... I looked like a dam hooker standing there in my freaking mid-calf high boots, but there wasn't much more I could do, other than run around nude.

  Almost as an after thought, pride had pulled the rap off of the former demon king and brought it to me. I really did not want to wear anything that a corps had been rocking for the last few centuries, but Pride insisted. Apparently it was enchanted, and even old and damaged as it was, it could be useful.

  A quick look with my appraisal did tell me that it was called 'Black King's Mantle' and it held several enchantments I could not see due to its ragged state. The only thing left to it was a slight concealment spell that I really didn't hold much faith in.

  Still, Pride insisted, saying that if we could find a craftsmen skilled enough, we could get it repaired. I was mostly thinking the hellhound was a bit of a hoarder, but I didn't have the energy to argue, and so I gave in.

  Then we left the throne room, or what ever that massive empty space had been. Pride gave his former master one last look, then followed me out and away.

  It didn't take too long to come across the caved in tunnel I had fallen through, the hole above gaping and dark. Pride did not stick around there, instead taking me down another corridor. According to him, this place was essentially a maze, which I already knew from the Stellarian Priest. But, Pride explained that we were not in some underground tunnel system, which was news to me.

  As Pride explained, while we navigated the corridors, this was actually another dimension of sorts. It was created by Tristan to provide a safe haven for his demonic children, where they could live and grow in relative peace.

  I thought it made for a pretty poor home... But Pride explained that It had not always looked like this. Originally it had been a small but vibrant world, with green grass, a winding river, and even several mountains. Basically a tiny, contained world where the demon's constructed a palace and a small city, a place to return to when not culling the over running monster population that Tristan had created them to keep in check.

  It wasn't till the world turned on their former hero and his demonic 'minions' that he had to hide in this dimension and bring the demons with him. Over time, the space began to change and shrink, degrading as Tristan started to loose power, giving his everything so that his demons might survive.

  As the end approached, and the once sealed gate ways into the demonic dimension began to degrade- letting just about anyone in, unsupervised- that Tristan turned the palaces and the valley into the dungeon like place it was now, in an attempt to confuse their pursuers. The demons hid as best they could till Tristan decided that he was at his limit, and had done all he could to be sure they would not die off till someone could be found to take his place... Me, apparently.

  Tristan sent his people back to Zearsa, with orders to find safety where ever they could, and wait for a successor to be found.

  "I decided, against Lord Tristan's orders, to stay by his side..." Pride told me as we cautiously navigated through cold and dusty corridors, suspiciously devoid of even the weakest of monsters.

  Apparently, now that Tristan's powers had completely left his desiccated form and transferred to me, the dimension will, eventually, collapse. According to Pride, in less than a hundred years, this place will no longer exist.

  It was around then that we finally began to run into monsters. And these were not the goblins I had seen on the floors above. The vast majority seemed to be bug like in design as a whole. A mix of massive beetles, spiders, and once, a strange furry creature with what looked like pincers and bulbus eyes. I was not fully convinced that last one was a bug, but we were too busy for me to take the time to ask Pride about it, or even use my Appraisal on the damn things.

  I was quite a bit stronger now, than I had been when I was human, but, without Pride, I would have died a dozen times over. Sure, I could probably punch out a goodly sized gym rat, but I was no where near killing beetles the size of an SUV with a carapace so hard diamond might not have gotten through it.

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  But Pride was more than I initially thought. Sure, he was a rottweiler the size of a bear with big scary teeth and glowing red eyes, but apparently that wasn't even the half of it.

  That was just his cute puppy dog costume.

  When Pride was gearing up for a fight, I could see his true form take shape. Hellhound was, indeed, an apt description of the dog like demon I now found as being my sole companion in this damn scary world. He grew in size so that he almost couldn't even fit in the tight corridors, his skin would take on an almost rocky obsidian look, cracked with fiery lava swirling in his joints. He literally looked like a deranged hell dog climbing out of a volcano.

  The first time I saw that form I was so horrified that I was frozen, leaving the hellhound to take on three beetles and a flurry of tortoise sized spiders all on his own.

  I was so freaked out that it took him returning to his former shape, and coaxing me for ten minutes, before I would stop shaking...

  Okay, look, I was a hard chick, alright? I have seen some shit. I have seen robberies, murders, hostage situation, and worse besides. Taken part in a few as well. I was not an easily intimidated person.

  And now I had the damn 'unwavering' skill on top of that too! But even with all that working for me, I was still afraid.

  Being a hard ass on Earth, apparently, did not make you one here.

  We did not have elephant sized bugs and dinosaur sized lava dogs on Earth either!

  Eventually I calmed down enough -Also, my Unwavering skill leveled up (joy...)- Pride told me that hell hounds were shape shifters. They could look less threatening and even change their shape. As the progenitor of the race, and being extremally old, Pride was better at it than many of his kind. But it was a way for the hellhounds to exist amongst the skittish other races while still being able to fight monsters.

  I would just have to take my big, scary, dog's word for it.

  But, owing to my weakness, I was now having to munch on every monster Pride took out. Or, on one single occasion, I took out. It was gross, vile, repugnant, detestable... damn it, I never finished grade twelve and couldn't think of more words to describe how much I did not want to eat even one more bug bite!

  "Mistress, just eat it." Sighed Pride, as he too, wolfed down a meaty chunk of fluffy bug. He was getting irritated at the amount of disgusted noises I made every-time I had to do this. I could tell, because he was calling me 'Mistress' rather than Nyx.

  But I wasn't used to scarfing down raw chunks of still warm meat, alright!

  What made it all worse was that, in all actuality, the meat chunks didn't even taste all that bad. I was a demon now, and it made sense that I wouldn't find monster meat yucky given that was exactly what demons were made to eat... Still, I could not help but feel like slices of spider thorax should not taste like sushi. It was just so wrong.

  Still, I had to put on my big girl panties and just get over it. This was my life now, and I was pretty good at sucking up what the universe liked throwing my way.

  With a cold shiver, I stuffed the fist sized meat ball into my mouth and tried to chew as fast as I could. It tasted good and I hated every second of it! Damn it.

  Once my gory meal was done I let out a sigh of relief before glaring at Pride. "Do I seriously have to eat every one?"

  "Yes." Huffed Pride, gnawing on a bone that was an odd green color that made my fluffy bug meat want to come back up. Hurl! "You need the stat boosts, do you not? Just be happy that you only need such small portions to gain the experience. Most demons need almost ten times as much to obtain the same benefits."

  It was true that eating was how I gained stats. Even now, nearly ten hours after my change of species, I was steadily growing thanks to Pride's efforts. A glance at my own stats showed that I had gained anywhere from seven to fifteen points in each of my base stats. I even Got a few in categories that my current appraisal skill would not allow me to view at the moment, like: stealth, hardness (What the heck?), and fortitude. I assumed that these were more specialized statuses, but what did I know.

  So far I had not gained any further, nifty, skill sets, as I had when I ate the Tristan Jerky. Gosh, there was just no good way to describe that was there?

  "I am exhausted." I said, not lying in the slightest. After everything I had been through, I now spent ten hours fighting bug monsters and over stuffing myself. I was pretty sure that I had gone well over twenty four hours with out anything that could be called real sleep. "Is there no safe zone we can take a couple hours break in?"

  I had been thinking of the chambers I had fought in in the upper levels. Back then, the other summons and myself would clear out a chamber, and we would normally be okay to rest for a few hours before having to move on to the next. But we hadn't come across a single chamber yet. Just these unending, winding, corridors, that I really hoped Pride remembered how to get around in.

  "We should be coming up on the stairs that will take us out of this lower level very soon." He said, licking the purplish blood off his paws and muzzle. "There will be a small spring there that we can drink from. After that, It should not be too much longer before we can leave this place."

  "Are we leaving the same way the others did?" I asked, thinking of Grace and Jake, hoping they- at least- got out alright.

  "No. Or, I do not believe so, at least. The exit that I am taking us to is not within the boarders of the Stella Empire. At least, it wasn't part of the empire when last I knew them." Deciding he was as clean as he was going to get, Pride got to his feet and jumped over the leg of a spider. "I am sure much has changed. It would do us good to find someone with knowledge of this world as soon as possible. Traveling blind will not be to our benefit."

  Easier said then done.

  I followed Pride with a little more vigor than I had been before, the thought of water giving me the boost I needed for the next leg of this run.