Bloody succession

Days have passed.

After my hunger and thirst were satiated, I actually managed to sleep for the first time in this strange world.

Hoping to wake up in that bed once again...

Alas, there was no such thing. I continued to wake and exist in this putrid body that stunk of iron at all times. Then a week had passed.

I still couldn't bring myself to purposefully eat the flesh provided to me. That was the last thing that proved I was a human, that I wasn't the same as the monster that I appeared to be.

It was useless.

The hunger drove me to madness eventually. All the same I would indulge in the flesh and blood placed before me, otherwise I would cease to exist.

That interaction with the butler repeated a few times. He knocked, I would uselessly try to ignore it. In the end the door would open by my own hand and my belly would fill once more.

...

I was used to the infrequent meals.

I only ate once a day. 

However, no matter the time that passed, I never adjusted to the hunger and pain that it wrought upon my being.

Gradually, I was beginning to lose sight of myself. I became more readily accepting of the situation, more readily able to engorge on the meal provided to me, even though I knew what was being offered.

I convinced myself that there was no other option. No other foods. No other nourishment. Just the endless corpses of humans with which I could satiate myself in this desolate hellscape.

I begun to accept that inevitability. The reality of this situation.

There is no escape for me. This is my world now, if I wanted to live then I had to live like the people in this world expected me to.

Really, nothing has changed at all...

Two weeks had passed in the blink of an eye, and as much as I was beginning to hate myself for thinking it. This environment was beginning to become more and more commonplace. Say what you would about the human condition, but it was easily adaptable. It could be molded to the circumstances over time, that was how one continued to survive in this world.

Though there were still issues...

I couldn't choose to eat that.

Only when the hunger and madness had truly driven me to the edge of my sanity would I ever ingest it. As such my subordinates were beginning to question things. I could feel myself growing weaker by the day.

Neither was a particularly good thing.

It was only a matter of time before the legs begun to collapse on this house of cards.

"Still not eating?"

"Could it be?"

"How can we call ourselves the bloody band if our leader won't keep up his strength?"

"It's looking like..."

"Yeah... New management. Only a matter of time."

Those were the whispers spread through the castle grounds. My body was beginning to grow noticeably thinner. Not so much that my grotesque appearance was any less apparent. All the same the throne that I often inhabited actually accommodated me now. An obvious slipping of my grasp on power.

It was only a matter of time until...

"I demand a challenge for title of Baron."

A large man with rippling muscles as if sculpted by one of the greats stood before my seat. This man... I had noticed upon entering the dining hall a few times, the more impressive and therefore stronger people stood towards the top of the table. These ones in particular had more peculiar appearances, much more akin to my own body than the other members of the estate.

One had a mask of pure white that extended from his face, as if the bone had become an exoskeleton. Another had string like organic matter that surrounded his frame, as if the tendons in his body had become whips that he could freely control.

This man with the exceedingly huge musculature was in the same wheelhouse as these strange creatures.

...I can't cede to this threat. That was as good as death for a previous ruler. Who would leave a previous emperor be? It was the easiest route to civil war, much easier to kill the competition. In a society that eats human flesh to survive, killing me is the least they would do... I can't exactly surrender. Nor am I confident about defeating him.

In which case; the situation calls for...

"You dare to provoke your master?"

"Bloody Baron, you have become weak, unfit for your namesake. Unable to stomach food, noticeably growing thinner and more frail with each fleeting day. You are a shame on blood cultivators. It's time for a new Baron. The Baron of flesh."

"You only have the chance to retreat from this jest once. I will not allow a second time." The room rumbled lowly at my reprimand.

"There is no jest. Only the true ambition of one that calls himself a cultivator." Cultivator? Like the Taoist concept? That would account for their strange appearances and abilities... As the Baron of blood, that made me a blood cultivator, I guess? What did that make this guy? A muscle cultivator, or was his stature unrelated? How does a person even choose what to cultivate?

...The only thing I can think of.

Diet.

Meal time was sacred, the screams stopped and not a single person was to be interrupted. That execution played out because of such an interaction. That was the first time I had...

No, even before then.

That wasn't a dream.

That bloody bathroom and the arena. How many people had been squashed by these meaty hands... By me?

...

Not the time. I need to focus and understand.

Most meals are fairly similar, meat, specifically steaks that are prepared in various ways.

Though... Now that I look again, that guy with the white mask is eating meat on the bone. The one with tendrils was eating a particularly chewy, tough-looking, sinewy meat. There were slight differences, but they were there.

Was that why the meat I was given was always so filled with blood and juice?

Urgh.

The mere thought alone gave me nausea.

"See! Even now our great Baron is sick and feeble. The strong survive, let the weak join the ocean of blood at the bottom of this Bloody Goblet and nourish the land once more!" Very few people joined his cheers. They didn't know who to back... yet.

The first sign of an advantage would be the moment where everyone turns. The longer I drag this out, the worse my chances become. I would rather fight a single enemy and get rid of any possibilities of betrayal in the future, that makes my choice all too easy.

After all, I am the Bloody Baron. A single swing of my fist can dismantle a person. If I have to kill to protect my own position, my own livelihood, then I'll do what I must. Unlike that last guy and those women in that red expanse, their blood painting the tiles. I didn't feel any sadness for this man. He had asked for it.

Better you than me.