The souls of the slain flowed over the South Gate of Mt. Mortis, where the dead roamed. Among those spirits that ran across the wide lands of Rigor Mortis were a collection of animal spirits that had been punished for their sins in life. These were wild and unruly animals who were killed by acts of God that struck them down suddenly in their rebellious nature. Some wandered off cliffs venturing too far beyond their safety in curiosity, whilst others were strike by natural elements like lightning or fire because of the energy they created with their destructive and reckless behavior attracting those things to them. Others had even fought each other to the bloody death even when it was of no benefit to either, and so they died dishonorably in battle, which sent them to the fiery depths.

Now, their punishment for whatever crime by breaking Beast Kingdom law was a sentence to Hell, which was the Mountain of Death. Their pastureland was no longer beautiful and green, as it was in life, because the land had been destroyed. The same effect of what they had done in life is what they would be trapped in during death and whilst they remained in hell. If one died in a fight, the body would remain on the ground, still in pain, still conscious and gazing up at the pitch black sky, never dying and never sleeping yet still feeling all the pain of death. There were so many of these animals that there were bodies lying all over the ground -- more than were actually standing.

Of the ones still standing, they looked on at the empty, barren land filled with no food and no water for as far as the eye can see and only dead bodies of their brethren that were rotting away and still somehow conscious. They could not be eaten because they could see which of them would eat the other, and they were all actively consciously coherent enough to see each other and what was around them. They were all aware and visibly capably of witnessing the land filled with nothing but dead animals -- which were themselves and all each other. The living ones that survived those types of crippling deaths were only standing for long enough to see which of the others of them did not die dishonorably, which none of them knew they had in life because of the circumstances of death being in different locations and at different times instead of piled up together in a single area altogether overlapping continually.

There were those who died of famine and so would live on in Hell enfamined for as long as they could not find any source of food for themselves. They were cursed with gazing at a barren land, being able to move and also having to look at their fallen brethren -- some of which they hated -- and know that they were watching to judge them if they began to eat them.

All too quickly, the Beast Kingdom realized it was in Hell, and there before them the spirits of the raging bulls congregated from the fallen into a greater flesh, being drawn together grotesquely through both consumption and symbiosis something like the earth breaking down nutrients. A relatively large bull -- one that was larger than a normal bull -- was off in the distance consuming other bulls, drawing its kin to itself through ingestion and symbiosis. This made the creature into a foul abomination that comprised itself of the dead carcasses of its friends in order to give itself more power. With horns on its head made for goring and extending out to skewer flesh and raise it up like a shovel and a tail like a spear or a pike to raise what was behind it into a giant mouth lining the fullness of the spine to eat, the enormous, hideous one-eyes bull trotted the land devouring all the remains it could in search of nutrients to keep it alive with no concern for anything else except acquisition of its nutrients. Though it was large and intimidating, it looked frail and thin, as though it were in a famine. It bore several limbs and hooves that mulched whatever remains were underfoot, and a peculiar single eye on its face gave it a feral focus like that of a reptile. Tended to its own and did not touch other creatures, except to crush them in hatred and not consume them at all.

There was much animosity in the Beast Kingdom, and the beasts that were still conscious, yet disabled by their deaths wailed and moaned and cried when they saw this monster being so cruel to them and knowing that it could be any one of them they were not only crushed, but potentially eaten just at a whim. Such a terrible fate of both unknowing and witnessing helplessly brought a terror on them that made many of the creatures go mad, rabid and feral all at once, as many creatures were accustomed to doing naturally. They burst with secretions and strained with aggravated tension, no longer having control over their bodies. They wriggled around completely involuntarily and impulsively and this collector came and devoured or destroyed them as it may.

Among all the goings on of the barren wasteland of wriggling and writhing beasts who were struggling to survive, especially over one another, there were those who were fat and plump and not in the same situation as the rest of them. These were those that were going to be sacrificed to the fire -- the degenerate Fallen Angels of the Aries, which had been roaming across the land as they may, butting heads with anything that should have come in contact with them at any given time, including each other. Each of them had a single eye betwixt their skulls that protruded from it and covered the wholeness of their faces, signifying a single one-sided vision and a cognition determined to accomplish the first thought to accomplish the single independent vision.

The Pumpkin Head hovered over the barren land filled with the wasted carcasses of the dead and half-dead animals all trying to cling to life or prevent losing it to the creature trampling them down and shoveling them up. He knew from the look of it that this beast was none other than one of the Zodiac beasts, just as Lord Aries was. Yet, there was something about this one that did not exude the same sovereignty as had been with the previous -- it was tainted and it showed in all that it did. The mad monster ruthlessly devoured what was present before it and seemed to have no vision in mind beyond that. Whatever the reason, it had been driven mad and now the creature was in a craze both unknown and unable to be initially determined. The Pumpkin Head continued to hover on, getting a better view of the area based on what was present. It could see just how many different creatures littered the barren field in all their diversity. Whatever afflicted them, none had been spared, for every animal and every creature was found with the slain. Even those that were still alive and clinging to life were numbered among them, and somehow, the sight was both sad and infuriating.

"..."

Great tension rose in the Pumpkin Head just from exposure to the thought, and so then the beginning of the perpetuation of its energy gathering began right at the single thought, and from there exponentially would the fiery wrath of the Pumpkin Head, also fueled by the sheer sadness and shame for all the creatures of the earth to power it. They would each be swept away in one fell swoop with a single burst of fiery wrath; they were nothing more than chaff and something detestable at this point, and they were unfit for anything, even to be considered as life, though still living. Watching the beast consume them was even more unholy a sight, bringing the Pumpkin Head more power as his wrath burned on with every thought, each like a large log thrown into a furnace.

Yet, before the Pumpkin Head drew in enough energy to clear the entire area with a fiery explosion equivalent to the magnanimity of the wrath being generated by thought alone and exposure to something purely and truly hated, another beast -- or, legion of beasts -- came forth from the horizon where Lord Aries had just sent Pumpkinhead away from. They looked to be in his image, yet also not so. They were ugly and deformed, much like the enormous bovine creature that scooped up and devoured the tainted meat from right off the ground.

"..."

The wrath of the Pumpkin Head came only to halt due to the desire to observe the engagement between the two fallen beasts. It hovered overhead, now, instead of close to the ground, and gazed at the two monstrous beings of the Zodiac tainted by their own hearts and minds and began to judge them mercilessly, eyes boring down on them as if to rot out their hearts and minds and dry out their carcasses. A blazing heat sweltered the land and the rotting corpses began to stink. Even the maggots began to boil and bubble over whilst still in the bovine's mouth, making them extra juicy for devouring and all the little filthy leeches would squirt through the sharp teeth of the one who devoured them, putrifying its breath and its innards.

The Pumpkin Head looked on at the ugly madness silently, judging all the way through.

The rampant creatures that tread over the defiled lands littered in death and bloodshed each stampeded wildly over the earth, trampling it down and crushing the heads and bodies of all which they should come across. If one of them fell, so too would they be crushed and trampled underfoot by the first few, and then lapped up like logs on fire by the latter that were still so voraciously famished. The famine over the entire mountain of death made all of them like ugly disgusting little piggies for whatever sort of feed that would sustain them, including each other.

The Fallen Angel Aries demons lashed their whip-like tendrils out toward the distance violently and indiscriminately, snatching up whichever carcass they could get hold of, be it their own or one of the rotting animals of the Beast Kingdom, then withdrew them into the large gaping black hole-like stomach-mouths that were ever open and brimming with scorching fire as hot as the very breath of hell itself. The smell of stinking and burning flesh went up as smoke from their mouths, spewing out charred chunks voraciously with the ravenous consumption, like those who had not eaten in weeks sitting at a table and gorging themselves on a feast of dead animals -- a full banquet. Their table manners were atrocious and they devoured with mouths agape and noise of all sorts gargling from the pit of the flames curdling at the back of their stomach-mouths, which were never satisfied. Only the sounds of cracking whips like those on the backs of slaves and this crackling fire filled the air beyond the thundering of their ever lustful feet to the food. The Aries demons only fueled their own feet further by snatching up the rotten meat, allowing them to continue moving ever forward where the single eye in the middle of their heads lead them. Should one have turned at all, they would eternally tread straight forward in the exact direction that the single eye pointed them, turning neither left nor right. Whatever could not be snatched up was still only crushed and trampled, and no one looked back for any reason nor stopped.

Soon, the once large herd was divided because each sought out meat for their own selfish gain, especially if it meant to consume in the stead of whomever was right beside them. They would feed themselves and gorge themselves before tending to another and had not a mind to do so.

It wasn't until confronted (in a smaller, divided herd) by the large, ugly and grotesque monstrous bull that they were yielded, yet not of their own volition. It was due to the greatness of its size and that its very large hoof stood atop the feed like a large towering wall, preventing them from getting to it, almost as if protecting some of the morsels for its own sake. A horrendous noise bellowed and screeched from the mouth on its back as it gazed down at the minuscule Aries demons, seeing them as its new sustenance -- fresh and alive. It hated them, for they were devouring its rotten meat, which it claimed all for itself. Scraping up the dead bodies with a single sweep of its mighty hoof cross the breadth of the ground under it, carcasses went flying along with the blood and organs that still remained in whichever of them hadn't already dried up. Naturally, some of the Aries demons continued on toward even that torn and defiled meat. The Taurus, however, lowered its head and bore its horns right at the flock, ready to mow them down with a single rush and skewer all the lesser Aries demons in order to shovel them into its back-mouth and rush down any of the others that were running rampant over the land that this enormous bovine had claimed -all- for itself. It was unwilling to share and it saw everything that moved as prey, a threat or food, or some combination of them all.

The wild raging bull took off and skewered them, goring each of them as they appeared before its single eye, seeing nothing but targets like a bullseye target.

The Aries demons tried to fight back, lashing their whip arms out to try to restrain the legs of the beast, which were skinny and decrepit, despite being very large and tall. They ended up latching on (if they did not get skewered) and clotting up around the joints like clots of blood in a sickly body, likely to slow down the bulls running like gum in gears. Those that were crushed would not get up, yet others who were able to see what came from a distance took to the skies with their bat-like wings of leather fluttering profusely out of fear and malice. They hovered overhead, yet still only saw straight ahead and nothing else. Wherever they could, they would lash their tendrils out to snatch up the dead bodies of brethren and devour them, using them for fuel, or to attempt to subdue the raging bull with them and pull the horns like reigns, hopefully steering the monster off course.