The whipping continued without end. Strike after strike. My divine punishment rained down on the abominable beast.
Grunts. Sobs. Screams that only made me whip harder.
Nothing could save it. I wouldn’t stop until it was reduced to alien meat soup with a side of justice.
After what may have been five minutes or five hours (hard to tell when you're screaming and glowing), something shifted.
The tentacle started twitching violently. And then...
Boom.
It exploded into a thousand glistening, steaming chunks. My beloved weapon... was no more.
But I wasn’t done. No, no, no.
I looked at my arms, the same ones that once trembled in fear, and whispered: “Your turn.”
I poured the energy inward.
My beautiful, muscular arms ignited with a brilliant green aura. Like radioactive spaghetti had wrapped itself around my biceps.
I was ready to desecrate the beast. Personally.
And then, pure chaos.
A duel to the death. Bites. Punches. Tentacle slaps. And, occasionally, a nice taste of alien sashimi.
But it didn’t last long. Every hit I landed sunk deeper. The green glow in my fists wasn’t just for show. It shredded through its thick hide like hot knives through wet nightmares.
The damage piled up. I could practically see the imaginary health bar blinking '1%'. Danger zone. Boss music fading.
I braced myself for the classic Phase Three: Regret and Tentacles.
But… nothing happened. It just stood there. Staggering. Whimpering. Even... crying.
Damn. I couldn’t help but feel bad.
They were just a sweet, squishy couple with dreams. They found an endless food source (me) and were finally gonna raise their nightmare pups in peace.
Build a home. Split the chewing duties. Maybe start a cult. Who knows?
But I ate their babies. And now I was about to kill them too.
And, yeah... probably eat them as well.
You know, for closure.
I didn’t hesitate. Not this time.
I closed the distance in a single step, raised my fist, and drove it deep into the beast’s chest, roughly where a heart might be, assuming it had one. Anatomy 101. Keegan edition.
It froze.
And then… it looked at me.
Not with rage. Not even hatred.
But with something worse.
Sadness.
Regret.
Resignation.
I felt it. Like our souls brushed against each other for the briefest, most uncomfortable moment in existence.
A weird, meaty connection.
I'm sorry, I whispered, almost against my will.
“I’ll make good use of the meat. No waste. Promise.”Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
The light in its eyes flickered out. And for the first time in that godforsaken wasteland…
I felt like the villain.
I yanked my arm from its chest, slick with whatever passed for blood in this dimension, and the beast collapsed. Lifeless.
I let the energy fade from my body. For the first time in what felt like weeks, I allowed myself to breathe. To stop. To feel... mildly victorious and completely insane.
"That was crazy, wasn't it, Waldo?" I asked my dear friend. He returned my words with his usual cold, stony stare. That guy’s emotional range was astounding.
No time for ceremony. I had won.
Now... it was time to prepare the meat.
How would I cook it? Smoke it? Sear it on a sun-baked rock? Maybe channel energy into a heat blade?
Nope. I hadn’t unlocked fire breathing yet. Still working on that questline.
Well, too bad. I just started eating it, raw and freshly picked from the source.
So I did what any starved, unhinged survivor would do.
I tore a chunk off the shoulder and sank my teeth in.
Warm. Stringy. Slightly electric. Like steak, if steak came from a nightmare.
Five stars. Would kill and eat again.
All that was left were bones. Shiny, steaming, and vaguely accusing.
With a long, echoing burp, I called it quits.
That was the sound of victory. And probably indigestion.
“Okay, Waldo. Let’s get out of this nightmare pit,” I said, slipping him back into the tattered remains of our trusty backpack. The fact that it was still holding together? A miracle worthy of worship.
I looked down. And froze.
The cold crater air brushed parts of me that should never feel interstellar wind.
No clothes. No pants. Not even a single thread of alien fabric to preserve my dignity.
My little friend was out there, alone, brave, and very, very cold.
Great. First I conquer a fusion abomination, and now I’m streaking across the galaxy. Hero’s journey, huh?
It was decided. Like any sane survivor with no pants, I had to kill something and turn its skin into underwear.
Functional. Fashionable. Feral.
I held the backpack holding my beloved Waldo firmly and began climbing. It was time to get out of that damned pit of death.
Once I reached the top, the twin suns greeted me with their radiant warmth.
Some parts of me appreciated it more than others. Specifically the ones that had been... publicly exposed.
Finally, I could return to the sacred routine: walk, find a puddle of possibly cursed elixir, drink, absorb floating energy at night, repeat.
The routine of champions.
I started walking again, wondering what cosmic horror or inconvenient miracle I’d find next.
I hoped for a sexy alien girl. But judging by the local fauna, I’d probably just find something that drooled acid and screamed at sunsets. And I wasn't into that kind of thing.
And so, the walk stretched.
And stretched.
And stretched some more, until I was convinced the wasteland was procedurally generated.
I continued my routine with absolute discipline, and I could feel my body improving more and more.
“Do you think I’m on par with the players on Earth yet, Waldo?” I asked.
Waldo gave me a grimace that could only mean 'no, and you're insane.'
“Fair. But they’ve never fought a meat fusion or drank glowing egg juice. I’ve got that going for me.”
Fueled by Waldo’s silent judgment and my own delusions of grandeur, I cranked the difficulty to nightmare mode.
I ran dozens of kilometers a day, lifted boulders like they owed me money, and punished the ground with more push-ups and squats than any man should survive.
I was training.
Or going insane. Possibly both. Definitely both.
You’d think that kind of overtraining would obliterate my muscles. But thanks to my sacred, glorious, completely overpowered regeneration, I healed faster than a shonen protagonist in a filler arc.
Thankfully, the muscle growth stayed under control.
I wanted to look powerful, not like a Chernobyl chimera that bench-presses small cars and glows in the dark.
I was sexy. A Greek god sculpted in radioactive marble.
Also, a handsome boy. Somehow, both.
I had no choice. I had to pose.
The world deserved to witness the majesty. Even if that world was just Waldo and a dead breeze.
I flexed everything. Arms, abs, back, even my glutes.
If someone walked by, they’d think a Greek statue had come to life and was aggressively auditioning for an underwear commercial.
Gosh, I must’ve looked amazing.
Waldo didn’t say anything, but I could feel his silent applause.
I kept walking. Training. Drinking. Posing.
Days turned to weeks. Maybe months. Time blurred like sweat in my eyes.
How could a human survive like that? No clue.
I just did. Because that’s what lunatics with rocks for best friends do.
I only had my routine. And Waldo.
Maybe Waldo was my anchor.
Maybe he was my reason to live.
Or maybe I was just completely broken. Who’s to say?
Then, finally, something changed.
The dirt beneath my feet wasn’t soft and stinky anymore. It was dry, cracked, solid.
And far in the distance... mountains. Towering. Snow-capped. Unreal.
I continued my journey for a while longer, until I reached the foot of the mountains.
They stretched high into the sky, putting the Himalayas and other mountains on Earth to shame.
Of course, I had to climb it. I’d gone too far in a straight line to turn now.
Even if “straight” was a relative concept, like sanity or hygiene.
I took the easiest paths I could find, then purposely picked harder ones.
Everything was training. Even slipping and cursing. Especially slipping and cursing.
But at one point... my senses picked up something.
A few dozen meters away, I could hear several breaths.
Breaths I'd heard before, and which I knew very well.
At least ten of them. The same species that had turned my insides into a buffet.
Guess who’s back on the menu, boys?
I stared toward the cave. My fists clenched. My hunger twitched.
“Waldo, get the kitchen ready. We’re having a feast tonight.”
It was time to hunt.