It could not have been said to be human.

  The creature prowled on all four; its broad legs rippling with sinew of corded muscles. Its body was large — the span of several metres, and boasting a height that towered even the tallest of mortal men thrice over.

  The spiked tail accompanied by primal manes of alabaster fur marked it unmistakably as a beast — if perhaps one of unnatural size and aberrant design.

  A leonine monster out of a madman’s nightmare, wrought of leathery pelt and granular scales. No one — not even a child — could mistake it for anything remotely human.

  All the same, when Young Master Hei Feng swung his glaive to decapitate the creature’s head, the youth hesitated.

  Because planted upon the face of that gigantic Spirit Beast was not that of an animal leer as one might expect.

  Though it was stretched over the bulbous stalk of its head — enlarging its infantile proportions to nightmarish size — there was no mistaking the angelic, animated countenance of a newborn peeled across its skull.

  The face of a human child.

  For that split second — when the guileless smile and innocent eyes of the Marbled Manticore turned to greet him — weakness seized his arms, and the Young Master’s beheading blade wavered.

  The beast dodged. Feng’s faltering strike failed to track it. The razor edge of his glaive slid across the marmoreal hardness of the monster’s hide, missing the soft tissues of its neck.

  The attack drew blood, but failed to fatally wound.

  The killing stroke was wasted, and the creature took advantage with ghastly delight.

  It opened its mouth.

  The wide gaze and cherubic physiognomy of the Spirit Beast ruptured. Blue eyes burst into glutinous jelly. Gentle smiles and soft features knotted and spiralled into themselves.

  The giant infant head squeezed and constricted inwards before it unfurled forth like the blossoming petals of a flower. What bloomed from its skull was no floral wonder, but a colossal six-petalled bouquet of glutinous meat, framed by milk-white bones and savaged sinew.

  The chaste facade of a newborn child was gone, and in its place was a nightmare of revolting flesh and tentacled tongues.

  At the centrepiece of that abyss of horror — the mammoth gullet of the Spirit Beast mere inches before his face — Feng saw the hazing glow of its belly. Burning inside, the maddening stench of sulphur, storms, and sweet rot assailed his heightened senses.

  All of that — his eyes watering, his nose overwhelmed to numbness — paled in comparison to the chorus he heard within.

  Not a roar. Not a cry. Feng heard an echo. Screaming, braying, praying, laughing. The mixing of humans, livestock, and everything else between churning in an unending vortex — sucked, poured, and remoulded within the bellowing pit of its cavernous stomach in perpetual cycles.

  The suffering of its devoured victims, trapped in the essence-sucking embrace of the monster’s eternal digestion. Ever hungry. Ever dying.

  Innocents doomed to Immortal torment.

  “How beautifully repulsive.”

  Her voice again, here to taunt him.

  The Young Master snarled, hesitation giving way to rage, but he was too late. The serrated tentacles of the beast lurched upon his limbs, barbed hooks digging into his robes and skin. They pulled him in, threatening to swallow the youth whole as the enormous petal-flesh of the Spirit Beast’s ‘mouth’ began to fold around him.

  “Will you not join your soul with theirs in everlasting caress, Zhong? Will you not add your screams to their chorus?”

  Zhong — No, Feng! His name was Feng! — closed his eyes and breathed. Rot filled his lungs. His organs wilted under the rancid heat and malignant energies of the Spirit Beast.

  Yet, though his physical body suffered, his spiritual medium thrived.

  Sweet Decay… Nectarous putrefaction of Dead Gods…

  Bringer of Qi.

  Qi — the vital, Immortal energy of the world, the Astral gifts of an uncaring Cosmos who bathed the Dying Heavens in spiritual radiation — suffused his veins.

  His muscles tensed, his body glowed, and as Feng exhaled, he struck with a wrath far beyond mortal strength.

  A dozen blade swings were executed in the blink of an eye, parrying back the enclosing steel-jawed trap of the monster’s unfurled maw. Clashing sparks and metallic clangour assaulted the Young Master's eyes and ears as Sect-forged metal battled against Beastborne fangs.

  The flesh-petalled cage was thrown open once more, and Feng leapt free from the clutches of the monster’s maw.

  The tentacles tugged at his limbs, but their serrated teeth failed to find purchase upon the iron-hard skin of the Young Master. With contemptible ease, Feng slashed all three grasping tongues in a single stroke of his glaive, freeing himself completely from death's putrefying embrace.

  Blood poured from the monster’s wound. The hanging flesh of the Spirit Beast’s mouth furled back upon itself, folding deformed layers upon layers until the angelic facial features of the infant from before graced its ‘face’ once more.

  Innocent eyes and smiles greeted the Young Master. A babble of baby speech and giggles erupted from its mouth. Spine-chilling notes of pure happiness musically graced the forest meadow where they fought.

  Feng gritted his teeth, pushing down the fear that made his traitorous hands shake. The Spirit Beast noticed, however, and the horrific chime of its baby-like laughter rang ever louder within the darkness of night.

  There was no one else around. Only the baleful glares of stars and the shifting hues of auroral clouds gave witness to his desperate battle.

  “Were that you were worthy of such lovely loneliness, Zhong.”

  There was no one else around; he tried — and failed — to convince himself.

  The Young Master breathed, forcing a semblance of calm to return as his qi flared. The Aspect of Fire was invoked within his Dantian and Meridians. Blazing flames suffused his form, and the bloody spittle across his robes and skin was scoured into ash within heartbeats, leaving him clean and ready.

  Feng levelled his burning glaive. The moment he did, that damnable voice — velvet and warm like silk in summer’s breeze — spoke huskily into his ear once more.

  “You will not win like this, my foolish God.”

  The Young Master jolted at the unexpected closeness — the teasing touch of her lips brushing against his ear, the affectionate warmth of her breath tingling against his cheeks — before hissing out in frantic exasperation and fright-fuelled anger.

  “Leave me already! I do not have time for your games!”

  A throaty chuckle echoed in his mind, rich as honeyed wine. The sweetness of it cloyed on his tongue. The meadow was void of company, save for the two combatants engaged in their clash. There was no one else around. There was no one else around.

  Feng repeated it to himself. It did not avail him the phantom visage of that accursed woman from appearing at the edge of his vision.

  The Spirit Beast did not react. Why would it? It did not see her. Could not see her.

  Blood of hair. Jade of eye. The haunting beauty of that invisible phantom was his and his alone to bear — as it had been since the day he first drew breath.

  An ethereal ghost, bound to his lifeless Heart. Companion and irritant both, she plagued his every step towards Mount Tai, regardless of his wishes.

  The Devil within him spoke once more.

  “Calm yourself, Zhong. See the beast before you. Its primitive voracity is not beyond your means to overcome. Your Divine Hunger triumphs that of mere Beasts, my foolish God.”

  More lies. More absurd affectations. She spoke of Gods, but they were all dead. The breath of a living deity had not graced the continent of Qiangyu for nearly a millennium.

  “Spare me your worthless drivel,” Feng snarled at the empty air. The Beast before him cocked its childish head, curious at his deranged behaviour. “Seek your entertainment elsewhere. I grow tired of your lunacy.”

  “Perhaps a more practical consult would suit your preference? Some weaknesses are universal, no matter the creature. Aim for its eyes, joints, underbelly, and extremities. Enfeeble its movements so that you may take its head.”

  The Young Master frowned. Rare was it that the wraith gave sound advice. He directed his gaze away from the nevermore-woman and back to the giant, leonine Spirit Beast.

  Its size was cyclopean, easily rivalling the largest of village halls or huts. The beast’s mobility was not hampered by its gargantuan bulk either, moving with a swiftness that bordered upon supernatural limits.

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  Each brief exchange they had earlier was a whirlwind of lightning claws and bludgeoning flesh. An ordinary man held no chance of slaying a monster like that.

  But the Young Master was no ordinary man. He could not be said to even be truly human.

  He was a Cultivator — A man who dared walk the Path towards Mount Tai.

  His strength triumphed over even a hundred mortals. His skin was harder than steel. His very soul was forged from the Tribulations and flesh of Dead Gods, turning his existence into a sliver of what those holy tyrants once wielded to rule their kingdom of enslaved men.

  Monstrous or not, the Spirit Beast was not beyond his ability to defeat.

  Yet the knowledge of that fact did not make the task easy.

  A violent shudder ran through the creature. The youthful paleness of the Manticore’s flesh suddenly hardened to that of a rough leathery hide, before hardening once more into cyclopean marble. At the same time, the infantile face of the creature wrapped and twisted to that of a leering adult male, before transforming yet again into the timeworn creases of an elderly woman.

  In the course of its metamorphosis, the gaping wound that Feng had previously left on its flank was swallowed into its skin, leaving only recovered flesh. A menagerie of oxen, sheep, donkeys, and humans of all ages bulged and writhed beneath its marbled belly, faces distending out in silent screams of horror before roiling back into its stomach.

  The voice in his head hummed appreciatively.

  “Cyclic permeance. It uses the dissonant properties of its over-bloated Dantian to oscillate its Qi breathing. Youth grants it speed. Age bestows endurance. And each rhythm pervades its injuries with spiritual energy, healing wounds and rejuvenating its stamina.”

  Feng had not known this. He had assumed the repertoire of stolen faces was simply a means of luring unsuspecting prey through mimicry. Who knew how many villagers had died to the tearful deceptions of that detestable infant mask?

  Still, if the accused phantom’s information was correct — and she always was, in earthly matters at least — that meant the creature was a lot slower now; Speed exchanged for healing and durability.

  The Young Master drew the tip of his polearm low. Qi swirled upon his muscled frame. The temperature in the meadow rose. The grass beneath his feet began to dry, shrivel, and then blacken with phantom burns.

  The Young Master breathed out.

  [Art of the Beheaded Phoenix — Fiery Comet Step]

  Feng burst forth in an explosion of flames, his form blurring like a shooting star. A searing blaze lanced across the meadow as the distance between himself and the Spirit Beast vanished in an eye blink.

  The red-hot edge of his glaive raked its terrible fury against the creature's marbled exterior, sliding between the soft connecting tissues of its frontal legs and torso. The Manticore let loose a cacophonous scream that blended animal fear and human rage. Its counterattack nearly tore Feng’s head from his shoulder, claws missing his neck by mere inches.

  The Young Master’s breath faltered. His qi nearly spun out of control.

  The woman in his head merely tutted. “Have some care, Zhong. There are two of us in here.”

  Fear gave way to irritation at the false name, as was perhaps the she-witch’s intent. His mind centred and focused once more, he whirled around and swung again.

  This time, the blade dipped low, successfully cleaving off the toes of the creature’s back foot. Gnarled phalanges rolled off, their pinkish hues shrivelling to a funeral grey the moment they were severed from the body.

  “Above.”

  Upon hearing the warning, Feng reversed his grip, letting the blade edge face skywards. His third strike aimed for the heavens, severing the whipping tail that thought to catch him off guard by striking from on top.

  Three wounds in the span of three heartbeats. Despite himself, the Young Master grinned viciously. Feng leapt away, and when the creature tried to pounce after him, it stumbled on its wounds instead.

  The facade on its face began to change once more.

  “Arrest its regeneration.”

  Pulling a pair of hunting dirks from his robes, the Young Master tossed forth crude tools of sharpened iron. The first slammed into the injured paws of the leonine creature, pinning its wounded limb in place. The second found its way into the deliberating flank wound the Young Master had given mere moments ago.

  The folds of its mending flesh curled and split unsuccessfully, its regenerative attempts foiled through the dint of the dirk’s interruptive mass.

  “Finish it.”

  Feng charged forth, blade wreathed in avenging fire as he swooped in for the final strike. The beast’s cumbersome bulk was unable to evade the attack. Its death seemed inevitable.

  Then, its face completed the metamorphosis, returning to the mocking parody of a cherubic infant once more.

  The marbled endurance of its body gave way to youthful vigour.

  “... Smarter than it looks. Dodge, Zhong.”

  Instantaneous as her words were, they still came nearly too late.

  The beast moved with sudden alacrity, sacrificing defence for sheer mobility instantly. The youthful face of the Marbled Manticore unfurled into a rippling, betentacled maw. Reknitted tendrils of putrefied organs lashed out — not for his limbs, but for his weapon.

  Close as he was and caught unprepared, Feng was unable to react in time. His grasp on his weapon held firm; a fatal mistake, as his right arm was pulled in — engulfed into the singular, sucking void of the creature’s mouth.

  A hundred steel needles lacerated his captured limb, surgically severing tendons and chipping bone. Even his reinforced flesh stood little chance of withstanding the assault of the Manticore’s razor teeth.

  Agony riddled his being. The mouth of the creature folded halfway back into its human guise, his arm still trapped within its mashing gullet. A horrific amalgamation of flapping rancidity and cherubic innocence looked up at him.

  The face of a human babe laughed at him.

  “What impudence… See how gleefully it tries to devour you. Does your pride accept such wilful mockery?”

  No.

  “Then bare your fangs, Dragon.”

  Feng opened his mouth.

  The first bite took the Beast by surprise. The Young Master’s teeth sank into the mocking parody of an infant’s face with horrific zeal. The baby blue of its eyes popped in his mouth, filling his tongue with gluey clumps of rancid flavours.

  He swallowed the putrid offal. The terrified wails of infants filled the air.

  Feng’s mouth watered.

  His second bite saw his jaws sink into the tender cheeks of a human child. His fifth tore the newborn’s tongue off its screaming facade. The tenth saw his teeth crunched against cartilage and bones, powerful molars grinding soft youthfulness into delectable dust.

  Feng devoured the deformed infant's face piecemeal by piecemeal. Within the creature’s gullet, his ravaged right hand held tight to the insides of the creature’s throat, denying its escape.

  On the twentieth bite, the corpulent, pinkish mass of its brain came into view.

  Now, with each bite, he heard a scream — not from the gnawed lips of the face that he had already torn and swallowed, but from the reverberation of its entire body. A dozen different animals and humans, all praying and begging for death. Feng ate, and ate, and ate…

  It all tasted like real human flesh, he thought in delirious ecstasy. How long has it been since he indulged in such a bounty?

  He ate, even after the creature had stopped moving. He ate, even as the night fell away and the Sun rose. He ate, even as an impossible amount of body mass entered his stomach, seemingly disappearing into a void not unlike his prey’s.

  The devoured meat — monstrous flesh clad in human guise — fuelled his spiritual growth. Feng felt his qi rise.

  And then… a Breakthrough.

  It came as a starlight burst within him. Searing pain and power engulfed his soul, but it mattered little as Feng felt himself ascend.

  His cultivation standing surged from the First Step of the Third Realm to the Second Step.

  One foothold closer to Mount Tai.

  The holy act of Cannibalism, performed in His Perverse Majesty’s name. How sweet were the rewards of Fleshborne Divinity, when the mere act of feasting reaped him yet another Step towards Immortality.

  Such was the Imperial way, the way of the Eternal Banquet — the Emperor’s Dao made manifest.

  “Where Divine Decay wanes, the Flesh of Men will suffice.”

  Feng did not stop. His hands, now gore-soaked, tore open the inflated belly of the monster’s corpse. An explosion of offal and meaty matter spewed forth: several bodies’ worth of enormous guts, misshapen organs, and fetid blood.

  It was an impossible amount of flesh, even considering the prodigious size of the beast.

  Feng was engulfed in gore. He laughed, and laughed, and laughed…

  Then stopped, when he felt something move and bump against his leg. Feng looked down.

  Floating within a sea of rotting offal, he saw the moving corpse of a newborn.

  A human infant.

  Its body appeared healthy, brandishing a vibrant hue with nary a wound across perfect skin. Yet it wasn't breathing. It couldn’t breathe.

  The infant had no face; no nose or mouth to breathe with — only a smooth, featureless canvas of unblemished skin.

  The torso of the child-corpse suddenly bubbled. Its undeveloped insides expanded and burst from its tummy. Blood and guts moved like living matter — innocently wiggling and grabbing for his robes like a child seeking their mother’s skirts — before churning and remoulding itself back to perfect shape.

  It wasn’t just the child that emerged. All around him — expelled forth from the severed belly of the giant Spirit Beast — were hundreds of lesser animals and humans. Livestock, men, women, children.

  All were missing their faces. All melted and glued themselves back together in endless cycles, moving like a collective mass of living, regenerative meat.

  “Cycles of eternal digestion… The flesh torn and bones ground, swallowed into the alchemical Dantian of its stomach. A Soul Furnace that reanimated its victims in perpetual digestion— save for the face, which the beast takes for mimicry.”

  “It is rather unpleasant, is it not? Are you not satisfied that I convinced you to hunt this beast now? How many more would have been subjected to such a fate, had you turned a blind eye like your entire Sect did?”

  “How many more would have died for your inactions, Zhong? You, of the Morning Star. You, who once devoured tyrant Gods?”

  Feng stumbled back, closing his eyes from the nightmare. Each breath was heavy with the stench of iron and guts.

  He wanted to throw up. An inordinate quantity of meat nearly spewed forth from his mouth. By sheer force of will, he held his gorge at bay, forcing the mountain of undigested flesh back into his body, such that his Dantian might harvest the qi within.

  Feng swallowed the last of his vomit, eyes tired and resigned. After a full minute to compose himself, he brought up the glaive and decapitated the still-twitching Marbled Manticore.

  Its half-eaten head rolled off to join the quivering flesh, becoming one in its endless cycles.

  “I am leaving,” the Young Master announced.

  There was a sigh.

  “Will you not bury the bodies, at least?”

  “These people are not my concern. They were mere worms. Peasant villagers. Uncultivated mortals, unworthy of my attention to begin with. I will burden myself no more with their inconsequential suffering.”

  “Very well. To ignore is your right, Zhong.”

  His task was done. He had no more time to indulge the amusement of that wretched phantom. His Fiancée was coming. He needed to get ready. The fate of his Sect was at stake, bound to the success of his upcoming wedding.

  He could not afford to disappoint his wife-to-be, lest he risk all he held dear.

  “No more distractions,” Feng vowed to himself.

  ~~~

  That night, the Young Master returned — shovel in hand and incense for prayers.

  He mutilated the wriggling bodies again and again, brutalising the sea of coalesced flesh until their cyclic regeneration finally ceased. Though it took hours, the Young Master then separated the human corpses, one faceless carcass at a time.

  He buried them all in distinct graves, whispered their funerary rites, and laid them to rest with hopes for peaceful departures.

  The putrid air of the meadow gave way to the fragrance of burning sandalwood. The darkness of the night turned a little less dim.

  The weight in his Defiled Heart, inexplicably, lessened. He heard her gentle chuckles as he walked away from the serene graves.

  “Do not ever lose yourself, my foolish God. I chose you for your selfish kindness, and our Pact is yet fulfilled.”

  “Mount Tai lies undevoured still.”

  To Devour the Crawling Gods is a semi-horror/slice-of-life, progression fantasy novel, set in a harsh and unforgiving world populated with the bodies of dead Lovecraftian Gods. The story takes place in a bleak Empire governed by the rule of the strongest. It is a world filled with Cultivators, men and women who seek Immortality through the consumption of Divine Flesh, or – should the opportunity arise – through the cannibalism of their fellow practitioners.

  The novel seeks to explore a world where the pursuit of Immortality has stripped Mankind of all its conventional sense of human dignity, humility, and rationality. Here, pain and suffering are worshipped on the altar of ambition, and those who cannot withstand the absurdity of the new world and its Eternal Banquet are doomed to die in obscurity, or as the next meal of those still mad enough to struggle to survive.