I'm really not the Saviour! (我唔係救主囖!) [danmei/BL xuanhuan]

17 - Roadtrip!

Edits to the first 16 chapters are finally done. Mostly this was fixing typos, but I've been trying to integrate some of the information I've been putting into the footnotes. Footnotes should now mostly be confined to showing the characters and tones for certain words.

CW: Cannibalism

***

It was dark.

The air was lifeless and thick. Gong Lau Yan felt as though she were pushing through something tangible as she slipped into the demon realm in her humanoid form. Tsaam Lei went to follow, but she flicked his nose and he tumbled backwards.

"What does the guardian spirit of Tsaam Lam think he's doing?" Gong Lau Yan whispered loudly. "Stay there and keep watch."

The little red fox made a face and curled his nine long tails around himself as he lay down. "Hurry back. I don't like how it feels over there."

"Of course, of course."

There was not a single cloud in the dark grey sky, nor a star. A dull red glow pulsed on the horizon line in all directions. Gong Lau Yan focused on her immediate surroundings. She appeared to be standing in the remains of a building, broken rubble scattering with her steps.

There was no sign of anything living. Nothing moved, or made a noise. No plants grew between the broken walls. Her skin prickled.

There appeared to be a trail worn through the rubble, presumably where demons travelled to use the portal. She zipped along it without once touching the ground, staying low so that she might drop out of sight at a moment's notice.

It was lucky she did. A group of demons appeared suddenly up ahead, and she immediately hid behind some more rubble before they could see her.

There were four of them, relatively small creatures that humans had taken to calling 'lesser demons'. They were all wearing cloths to cover their heads and lower faces, but they removed these now, and Gong Lau Yan could see them clearly.

They were bipedal, like humans, but their appearances were hunched and scrawny. Two of them only had a single eye, located off-centre on their faces. One lacked teeth, the others had sharp fangs that awkwardly stuck out of their mouths. They had no external ears, and their skin was red and raw-looking. They looked about with milky eyes and spoke in hisses to each other.

They sat down on some rubble, drawing rough pouches from their waists.

Empty.

Empty.

Empty.

Empty.

The demons hissed to each other again. There seemed to be words, by they were so broken by the sharp fangs and flattened by the empty gums that Gong Lau Yan couldn't make anything out. Then they shuffled until they were sitting in a circle, and thrust their hands in the centre.

Some of the demons had claws like a chicken's. One had a human-like hand, but with more finger joints than a human would have. Another appendages that looked almost like crab claws, except they were fleshy, not hard.

One of the demons began to point. Gong Lau Yan slowly came to the conclusion that it must be counting digits. Around and around it went, once, twice, thrice, she lost count herself, but at last, the demon stopped. The count had ended at one of the one-eyed demons, one who had claws like a chicken's. There was silence.

And then, one by one, the other three demons moved close, and hugged the fourth demon.

There was no other way to describe it.