Giant Creature

On an unknown planet, inside a narrow pipe that seemed to have no end.

Jay and Kara had been walking for nearly ten minutes. After turning another corner, they saw only the same unchanging long pipe, making them wonder if they were just going in circles.

Initially, they had flown. It was indeed much faster than walking slowly. However, due to the effects of the red star's radiation, they both felt extremely strained after only a moment. To conserve energy for any unexpected situations, they decided to walk instead.

After walking forward for a while longer, the passage finally opened up ahead. The two stood at the edge of the pipe's exit, and before them lay a large circular pit with a diameter of over thirty meters and a depth of about twenty meters. The ground was covered with metal steel plates, resembling some kind of plaza.

They jumped down one after the other, their combat boots landing on the steel plates with two clear, crisp sounds that echoed off the pit's walls. Jay felt a slight tremor from the ground beneath his feet. He bent down and tapped the floor with his knuckles, saying, "I guess the path ahead is below. It sounds hollow."

Almost the moment his words fell, a strange sound suddenly echoed throughout the entire pit. The sound was sharp and piercing, like someone scraping your ear bone. The top of the pit they had just jumped into was suddenly covered tightly by four iron plates extending from the four corners, like a pot lid concealing the entire pit.

The process happened extremely quickly. Before they could react to the change, the ground beneath them suddenly vibrated violently. The steel plates they were standing on emitted a "humming" sound, and four cracks snaked across their surface, dividing the floor into four sections. The metal floor quickly cracked along the seams, and an incredibly thick tentacle suddenly emerged from the cracks, unexpectedly sweeping both of them off the floor.

Jay's back hit the wall behind him hard. He felt the impact was comparable to a truck at full throttle, but the wall behind him remained motionless, not even a crack appearing, demonstrating the reliability of the alien metal structure.

But this was not good news for them; it only made their escape more difficult. He saw a huge silhouette rise from between the cracked metal plates. The creature stared at Jay with an eyeball larger than his entire body, its body covered in uneven, dark red scales. Several long tentacles emerged from its bottom, like branches swaying in a strong wind, only more deadly.

Overall, it looked like a creature that was a fusion of an Earth octopus and jellyfish, only much larger and with more disgusting skin.

The worst part was that Jay realized their path forward was blocked by this behemoth. It was a pipe of similar size to the one they had come through, and its entrance was unfortunately blocked by the creature's massive body.

The creature arrogantly swung its imposing tentacles. Jay quickly dodged an attack. The moment the wall behind him was hit, it let out a bone-chilling impact sound, as if the entire space was vibrating, making one never want to be hit by that whip.

Kara suddenly jumped onto the creature's bare head, pounding its forehead with her fists. The giant creature let out a dull, strange groan from somewhere on its body, seemingly in pain. A thick tentacle coiled upwards like a long whip, moving with incredible speed, completely inconsistent with its size. A whip-like afterimage suddenly appeared in Kara's vision. She had no time to dodge and, without thinking, raised her arms to block in front of her, being knocked flying with a dull thud.

Jay estimated that this unknown creature might have the ability to see in all directions. While dealing with Kara, it didn't slacken its guard on Jay at all. One tentacle coiled high up, twisting flexibly like a soft whip, and lashed down fiercely towards his head. Jay dodged to the side, the afterimage falling past his shoulder and making the ground sink heavily.

Kara, half-crouched on the ground, raised her head and began to try to fire her heat vision beams to cut the creature's body. However, the scales covering the monster were almost indestructible. Kara fired two high-temperature beams, which only left scorched marks on its skin but could not penetrate at all.

Even high-temperature heat vision could only inflict minor, superficial wounds – of course, mainly because Kara was also weakened by the radiation from the red sun on this unfortunate planet. But this seemed to anger the creature. It let out two angry growls, and all its tentacles shot out simultaneously, flailing wildly like willows in the wind, each strike accompanied by the hiss of tearing air.

For a time, the entire space was filled with rapidly moving tentacles, the blurred afterimages almost weaving a net so tight that not even water could penetrate it. The two had no choice but to use Super Speed to dodge. After dodging several attacks in succession, Jay finally made a mistake and was hit in the back, falling to the ground with a dull thud. He quickly got up, a black shadow already descending towards him, another whip following closely behind.

The moment he looked up, the tentacle occupied his entire vision, and it was impossible to dodge. Jay gritted his teeth, shifted his body slightly, and seized the opportunity to grab the swinging tentacle. He clamped the tentacle under his armpit and poured almost all his remaining strength into his arms, pulling back fiercely, actually managing to stalemate the giant monster. The monster's huge body trembled slightly under the explosive force of Jay's arms. The tentacle straightened under the pull of the two immense forces, like a stretched rubber band at its limit, about to snap at any moment.

If it weren't for the red sun's radiation, Jay would have easily grabbed the tentacle and spun the behemoth in front of him like a windmill. Unfortunately, things don't always go as planned. With all his might, he could only barely match the strength of this single tentacle. However, at the same time, another tentacle, as if alive, reached behind him and struck his back fiercely. Jay grunted, his grip involuntarily loosening, and he stumbled to his knees. Three tentacles wrapped around his body, lifting him into the air, and no matter how he struggled, there was no sign of loosening.

He looked sideways; Kara was in a similar situation. She was also bound by several tentacles and suspended in mid-air, her slender legs dangling. He felt that for a moment, her appearance seemed somewhat cute, which was a sin.

The monster seemed very angry at the two little guys who had caused it so much damage. It tightened the tentacles binding them with force, the pressure enough to crush any metal on Earth. Jay felt a slight suffocation in his chest. Although his body could withstand such pressure for a while, he wasn't sure how long he could hold on under the influence of the red star.

"Jay," Kara suddenly reminded him, "Below."

Jay was stunned, then activated his infrared vision, which was still functional, to see through the ground. He saw that beneath the ground where the giant creature was standing, there seemed to be some extremely cold substance buried. The center of the underground temperature spectrum was like a cold vortex, containing an abyss-like coldness in the middle.

It was like some kind of mechanism, or perhaps a hunter's trap.

Although it was risky, at this point, they had no choice but to try anything. Jay exchanged a look with Kara, and they both read the same intention in each other's eyes. Their gazes simultaneously pointed to the ground beneath the monster's feet, and their heat visions shot out. Four beams converged into one, instantly blasting open the solid bottom, and pale blue cold air erupted like a volcanic eruption. An extremely cold domain, several times colder than Freeze Breath, eroded space at a visible rate. The high temperature of the heat vision was instantly dispelled without a trace.

The monster let out a terrified scream and no longer cared about the prey it was holding; its tentacles involuntarily loosened. Jay and Kara quickly gathered all their remaining strength and floated up. They hovered in mid-air, watching the creature below scream as it was covered in ice crystals. Its flexible tentacles were all turned into brilliant ice-blue crystals within seconds, fixing it in mid-air.

Lucky them. It seemed that whoever "raised" this monster here had also left behind a mechanism that could subdue this behemoth instantly.

"Achoo!" Kara sneezed and rubbed her nose. "I'm starting to get a little cold. Let's get out of here quickly."