Even an Elemental Spirit Can Become a Demon Lord

(I won't get in trouble with the official censors for using this picture, will I?)

While everyone else is reborn as some overpowered hero in another world, this one becomes an elemental spirit, a being with a nature much like a cell, and struggles to survive.

Though he has plenty of complaints about becoming nutrients for all kinds of creatures, he keeps fighting to live, climbing from the very bottom of the food chain to the top.

Just as he is about to begin his new life in another world, he keeps getting caught up in all sorts of trouble, and must make a choice in every incident.

At the very end, the elemental spirit once deemed mere nourishment will overturn everything anyone knows and become an unshakable ruler of his own domain.