Fear was not a stranger to Rico. For the last few months since he saw Circe Boreas inside the temple of their Primogenitor, he had never gotten a single moment of peace.

He had felt eyes watching him every single day and no matter how anyone else thought it was just him being unnecessarily paranoid, Rico knew he was been watched and measured. He had seen the look in the eyes of Circe, that rage and loathing was familiar to him.

The events that transpired next shifted his focus away from his fear of Circe as Trion went mad. He watched his siblings butcher and eat each other to grow strong and that event had scarred Rico for life.

Trion was a world filled with bloodthirsty fiends and he knew that survival meant becoming one with the pack, and so he had joined the massive blood feasts and consumed flesh alongside the creatures that were once his brothers and sisters.

Rico had once been afraid of Circe, but traveling beside these Dominators who knew nothing but slaughter, their eyes red, with fangs tearing through their lips made him feel he was beside starving wolves than humans.

Entering this war was not his choice, anything else and he would be killed and eaten. The only consolation through the madness was the presence of his father by his side. The man might be useless for many things, but it was undeniable that he loved his son.

Through the days of unending battle they had not left each other, but now he was alone.

Since the time Circe returned, all he knew was fear and that fear had grown with every new change that happened. That fear had been growing until every single moment of his life was filled with fear.

The silence outside when previously there had been the rumbling from the Demon was the final straw, and Rico almost went catatonic, it was unknown how long he remained like that, but the tears that he had been shedding had long dried.

Rico shivered and opened his eyes, idly noticing that the hand he had been biting on had nearly been cut off, for his teeth had broken bones and mangled the flesh, another thing of note was the ring on the hand, it was not his but his father's.

He recollected that he had been holding the hands of his father a short while ago as they escaped, but in the madness of what followed and his desire to escape, he had forgotten that he was holding his father's hand, but he did not recall when the rest of the body that was supposed to be attached to this hand had vanished.

Rico gasped and shook his hand furiously, he had been holding tight to the hand and he let go of it, detesting the taste of the flesh of his father in his mouth, but the hand did not let go of his own, even though he had nearly chewed it in two. He cried out in shock when the hand seemed to squeeze his own tighter, and a loud laughter replied to him.

The laughter sounded as if it was coming from the clash of two mountains, and it drove the reality into his brain. A reality that Rico had been trying to escape mentally.

Since he knew he could not escape physically, his mind had sought to forget his predicament and he had focused on the severed hand of his father holding his own, but this laughter drove away the shelter his mind had built and Rico looked up and saw madness that saw his fear as food.

Pressed against the crevice he had hidden himself and covered with bodies was the eye of a demon. The eye was slitted horizontally like that of a goat, and it was so massive it was bigger than his entire body.

The Demon had been pressed against the crevice looking at him all this while and apparently, it found the madness engulfing Rico to be amusing.

A food odor filled the crevice, as a glorious Earth god pissed himself and moaned for his father.

The eye watching him seemed to shiver as if in pleasure and an indescribable light from it filled the hole, and Rico began to scream, wishing for anyone to save him, even Circe.

The demon slowly pushed the bodies away, savoring every moment of despair and madness arising inside Rico who had to watch as a massive mouth filled with needle-sharp teeth slowly descended towards him, and a long black tongue tasting his fear with relish.

He screamed and covered his face with his hands, he could not look at death approaching, his mind could not take it anymore. Rico suddenly felt a sharp pain on his shoulders and waist. In his madness and fear he did not understand what was happening until his eyes were forced open and his eyelids were ripped off.

Rico could no longer close his eyes and so he was able to witness everything and scream.

He had been completely dismembered. His limbs were all taken away, and he was not healing. The demon had severed his eyelids and from the pain he was feeling in his face, his nose, and lips as well.

He gasped in shock as a metal hook was slammed through his back, emerging from his chest and he was hoisted up and tied around the waist of the demon, who stood more than a thousand feet tall.

Beside him were hundreds of screaming and limbless Dominators, and even though the face beside him did not have eyelids, nose, or lips, he recognized his father.

Judging by the fact that he was laughing aloud and praying to unknown demonic entities, the man had gone insane.

Barely an hour ago, Rico had been within the midst of a million Earth gods, drunk on the blood of Mages and Demons. A Dominator at the Earth god level was a fearsome opponent, and they slaughtered the demons and the mages on the field of battle in the hundreds of millions.

No one could withstand the might of endless waves of Dominators as they poured down on the two continents of battle wreaking havoc. In a week they had swept through an entire continent, shattering every fortification, and breaking down any progress made by their enemies for the last million years in a matter of days.

If not for a sudden endless amount of demons that delayed the wave of slaughter, the entire war would have been won in a single week.

Massive hives numbering in their millions and each holding tens of millions of demonic spawns had been hidden inside the second continent, and when the Dominator rushed down in their blood-crazed fury, the hives were opened and billions of demonic spawn erupted from those foul wombs.

However, It could only slow their incursion, and also served as fuel to the Dominator's frenzy.

Rico was part of an advanced group that had pushed deeper into the continent. Unlike the corrupted Dominators beside him who acquired their powers by cannibalizing their family, he had done the same but he stole only a heart and slowly grew his powers to the Earth god level.

Although he was swept up in the frenzy of slaughter, he was also clear-headed enough to know when the odds had begun to shift against them.

The first sign came when they pushed more than a thousand miles into the second continent and they had not seen a single enemy.