Fiend

The **Fiends** (*Romaji*: **Warunikugi**; *Kanji*: **悪肉鬼**; *Literal English*: **Evil Flesh Demon**) are an anthropovorous and thus cannibalistic subspecies of humanity.

## ***Origins***

Fiends are the creation of Shrike.

Shrike was a Greater God of Crucifixion, Impalement, Punctures, Sodomy, Shanking, and Stabbiness. In the distant past, Shrike attacked Vulture. Needless to say, Vulture defeated Shrike with ease. However, before Vulture could kill Shrike, Shrike deconstructed itself into shō'inki and shō'yōki which both proceeded to fuse into random people. Immediately afterward, those people mutated into the first of the fiends!

Subsequently, within the fiends' collective unconscious, Shrike began to await his return via either the death of every fiend and thus the release of his shō'inki and shō'yōki or the consumption of every fiend by another fiend and thus the reunion of his shō'inki and shō'yōki.

## ***Physiology***

As a subspecies of humanity, for the most part, fiends are humans. Even so, there are extreme differences and important distinctions between fiends and humans.

### *Anthropovorism*

The biggest difference between a fiend and a human is the difference between a fiend's gastrointestinal tract and a human's gastrointestinal tract. Specifically, unlike a human, a fiend is designed to consume ki and then both convert the ki into nutrients and use the ki to sustain themselves. However, because fiends are not ki-based creatures, fiends can not just absorb ki. Instead, as organic creatures, fiends have to consume an entity which emanates ki and then use its digestion to dissolve that entity into the ki that it needs to survive.

Unfortunately, like ki-based beings, fiends are compatible with some entities' ki and incompatible with other entities' ki. Specifically, like vampires, fiends are compatible with the ki of entities like themselves and incompatible with the ki of entities unlike themselves. In other words, to put it simply, a fiend is limited to consuming humans because its digestion is specialized towards dissolving humans into ki and then using that ki to produce nutrients and sustain his or her body's operations.

**Growth, Maturation, and Recovery**

Like all carnivores; fiends grow, mature, and recover through consumption and digestion.

By eating a human at least once a week for an entire month, a fiend can recover from any and every wound that has not yet managed to kill them. And by eating a human at least once a day for an entire week, a fiend can strengthen every aspect of their body.

#### **Starvation**

With some exceptions, all fiends have to consume at least 1 human a month to avoid mental and physical deterioration.

After a month without consuming a human, a fiend's bodily and mental abilities will become 3/4 of what it used to be. At this stage of starvation, a fiend will begin to suffer from anxiety about starvation and paranoia about whom is aware of their status as a fiend. After 2 months without consuming a human, a fiend's bodily and mental abilities will become 1/2 — 2/4 — of what it used to be. At this stage of starvation, a fiend will begin to suffer from hunger-induced insomnia and rageaholism. After 3 months of without consuming a human, a fiend's bodily and mental abilities will become 1/4th of what it used to be. At this stage of starvation, a fiend will become a heartless and thoughtless predator without any regard for anything but consuming a human for nutrients and sustenance. And after 4 months without consuming a human, a supermajority of fiends will die.

### *Blood* ~ Blood Type Ability

In stark contrast to a human's respiratory system, a fiend's respiratory system does not exist for the purpose of cellular respiration. Because fiends sustain their bodies with ki rather than with respiration. Instead, a fiend's respiratory system exist for the purpose of facilitating the fiend's Void Ki Style!

Whenever a fiend breathes in oxygen and intakes that oxygen into his lungs, the fiend's lungs will deprive the oxygen of its ki in order to endow a Void Ki Style enchantment onto the oxygen and then infuse the Void Ki Style-enchanted oxygen into the fiend's blood. Subsequently, the fiend's blood will deliver the Void Ki Style-enchanted oxygen throughout the fiend's body and thereby enchant the fiend's body with the Void Ki Style enchantment endowed within the oxygen.

As such, every fiend exhibits an enchanted body which allows the fiend to use a power known as a **Blood Type Ability** (*Romaji*: **Ketsuekigata Nōryoku**; *Kanji*: **血液型の能力**). Notably, every fiend exhibits a different and unique Blood Type Ability. And a fiend's Blood Type Ability is distinct from the fiend's Void Ki Style abilities.

### *Claws and Fangs*

All fiends exhibit the ability to dull and sharpen their fingernails and teeth; as such, fiends are able to gain and lose claws and fangs at-will.

At their sharpest without supernatural augmentation, a fiend's claws and fangs are able to cut or puncture even the most durable of steel if the fiend is able to exert the necessary amount of force.

### Ki

Another difference between fiends and humans is their affinity with and usage of ki. As fiends are natural-born ki-users, while humans have to both learn how to use ki and train to use ki as well.

While humans are born without perception of or usage of ki, fiends are born with the ability to perceive and use ki. But a fiend is always born with an affinity for the Void Ki Style and thus is limited to the Void Ki Style, while a human may be born with an affinity for any of the Ki Styles.

### *Procreation*

Fiends are unable to procreate with one another; instead, fiends are limited to procreating with either mainstream humanity or another subspecies of humanity. Consequently, when it comes to reproduction, fiends are dependent upon and must interact with non-fiends.

By tradition, only female fiends engage in procreation with other races. The reason for this is that a female fiend can conceive a child and then cut ties with with the father before the father realizes that the female fiend has become pregnant. While a male fiend is unable to attain and leave with his child without the mother being aware. However, occasionally, a fiend will form a family with a non-fiend. Though such cases are rare and tend to end in tragedy.

### *Senses*

All fiends exhibit a superhuman degree of sensory abilities which allow them to feel, hear, smell, see, and taste as well as any organic creature on Earth.

## ***Culture***

Fiends are foreign to Fusō, and their immigration to Fusō has just begun. As such, they do not have any settlements or territories within Fusō. Instead, they live as a combination of itinerant merchants and nomadic predators.

As a whole, fiends are a solitary but social people who gather into guilds in order to assist one another in developing and maintaining routes of trade but also will only hunt by themselves for none but themselves.

### *Guilds*

Fiends are a solitary but social. As such, for the most part, fiends do not associate with one another.

However, in order to develop and maintain their routes of trade, fiends are willing to gather into and form guilds. Fiendish guilds are more like secret societies than trade unions, as fiends do not allow anyone other than other fiends to have any knowledge of their guilds. Because fiends organize and run their guilds as secret societies, a supermajority of fiendish guilds honor and worship Owl in hopes of being granted obscurity and secrecy.

### *Hunts*

For the most part, fiends do not hunt alongside one another. In addition, fiends do not hunt for one another. Instead, fiends hunt by themselves and for themselves.

Fiends do not view hunting as a battle or game; instead, fiends view hunting as a dirty but necessary action that is akin to excretion and urination. As such, in general, fiends do not converse about their hunts. And many fiends considering teaching a child about hunting to be just as awkward and difficult as teaching a child about sex.

Notably, because a fiend's hunt is just as much about not getting oneself caught as it is about catching one's prey, many fiends pray to Owl for inconspicuity and secrecy. As such, from a fiendish viewpoint, Owl is a goddess of hunting rather than a goddess of shadow.