Giant Creature

On an unknown planet, inside a narrow, seemingly endless passage.

Jay and Kara had been walking for nearly ten minutes. Yet after rounding another corner, all they saw was the same unchanging, endless tunnel. It was impossible not to wonder whether they had simply been going in circles this whole time.

At first, they had flown, which was indeed much faster than walking at a snail's pace. But under the effects of the Red Star's radiation, both of them soon began to struggle. To conserve their energy for unexpected situations, they decided to continue on foot.

After walking for quite a while longer, the passage ahead finally opened up. At the edge of the tunnel exit, they saw a massive circular pit over thirty meters in diameter and roughly twenty meters deep. Its floor was covered in metal plates, resembling some kind of plaza.

The two jumped down one after the other. Their combat boots struck the steel plates with two sharp clangs that echoed off the walls of the deep pit. Feeling the faint vibrations through the soles of his feet, Jay crouched down and tapped the floor with his knuckles. "I'm guessing the way forward is underneath. It sounds hollow."

Almost the instant he finished speaking, a strange sound abruptly rang out throughout the pit. It was sharp and grating, like someone scraping against the bones in your ears. Four iron plates extended from the corners and tightly sealed the top of the pit they had entered through, like a lid covering the entire hole.

Everything happened too fast for them to react to the sudden change. Then the ground beneath their feet began to shake violently. The steel plate they stood on buzzed and trembled as four cracks crawled across its surface like serpents, dividing the floor into four sections. The metal split rapidly along the seams, and an incomparably thick tentacle shot out from the gap, catching both of them off guard and sending them flying.

Jay's back slammed hard into the wall behind him. The force of the impact felt comparable to being hit by a truck with the accelerator floored, yet the wall did not budge, not even leaving behind a crack. That spoke volumes of the alien metal structure's durability.

But that was hardly good news for them. It only made escaping more difficult. Jay saw a massive silhouette rise from between the split metal plates. The thing fixed one enormous eye—larger than his entire body—on him. Its body was covered in uneven, dark-red scales, while several long tentacles shot out from beneath it, swaying like branches in a gale, only far deadlier.

Overall, it looked like some monstrous fusion of an Earth octopus and jellyfish, except much larger and with far more disgusting skin.

Worst of all, Jay realized that their way out was blocked behind this massive creature. It was a passage about the same size as the one they had come through, but its entrance was unfortunately obstructed by the creature's bloated body.

The creature arrogantly swung its imposing tentacles. Jay reacted quickly and dodged one strike, which lashed into the wall behind him with an impact that seemed to reverberate through his bones. It felt as though the entire space had shaken, making it abundantly clear that no one would want to take that blow head-on.

Kara suddenly leaped onto the giant creature's bald head and hammered its forehead with her fists. The enormous creature let out a strange, muffled groan from somewhere inside its body, seemingly in pain. A thick tentacle curled upward like a long whip, moving with speed utterly disproportionate to its size. The whip-like afterimage flashed across Kara's vision before she could react. With no time to dodge, she instinctively raised both arms to block and was sent flying with a heavy blow.

Jay guessed this unknown creature must have some way of seeing in every direction. While dealing with Kara, it did not let up on Jay at all. One tentacle curled high into the air, twisting nimbly like a soft, flexible whip before lashing down at his head. Jay sidestepped, and the afterimage passed by his shoulder before smashing into the ground, causing it to sink sharply.

Half sprawled on the ground, Kara raised her head and tried to use Heat Vision to cut through the creature's body. But the scales covering the monster were nearly indestructible. Her twin high-temperature beams only left scorched black marks on its skin, unable to pierce through at all.

Even the high heat of Heat Vision could only leave it with superficial wounds—mainly because Kara had also been weakened by the red sunlight radiation on this cursed planet. Yet that seemed to enrage the creature. It let out two angry growls, and all its tentacles shot out at once, flailing wildly like willow branches in the wind. Every strike came with a hissing sound as it tore through the air.

The entire space was soon filled with rapidly dancing tentacles. Their blurry afterimages seemed to weave an impenetrable net. The two could only rely on Super Speed to evade. After dodging several attacks in succession, Jay was finally struck in the back by one of the tentacles and crashed heavily to the ground. He sprang back up, but a black shadow was already bearing down on him—another lash was following close behind.

The instant he looked up, the tentacle filled his entire field of vision. Dodging was no longer possible. Gritting his teeth, Jay turned slightly and seized the incoming tentacle at the right moment. He pinned it beneath his arm and poured nearly all his remaining strength into his arms as he yanked back, actually managing to hold the giant monster in a stalemate. Under the explosive force of Jay's arms, the creature's massive body began to tremble slightly. The tentacle stretched taut under the opposing forces, like a rubber band pulled to its limit, on the verge of snapping.

If not for the Red Sun's radiation, Jay would have been casually swinging this giant creature around like a windmill by its tentacle. Unfortunately, things did not always go as hoped. Even with all his strength, he could only barely match this one tentacle. At the same time, another tentacle crept up behind him like a living thing and lashed hard across his back. Jay let out a muffled groan, his grip weakening involuntarily as he stumbled to his knees. Three tentacles wrapped tightly around his body and hoisted him into the air, unmoved no matter how he struggled.

Turning his head, he saw that Kara was in much the same predicament. Several tentacles had bound her as well, leaving her suspended in midair with her long legs dangling. For one brief instant, he thought she looked rather cute, which was practically a crime.

The monster seemed furious at the two little pests who had caused it so much damage. It tightened the tentacles binding them with force enough to crush any metal on Earth. Jay felt a slight suffocation in his chest. His body could withstand such pressure for the moment, but under the Red Star's effects, he was not sure how much longer he could hold out.

"Jay," Kara suddenly warned, "below."

Jay froze, then activated the infrared vision that was still functioning and looked through the ground. Beneath the floor where the giant creature stood, some kind of extremely cold substance seemed to be buried. At the center of the underground temperature spectrum was something like a freezing vortex, containing an abyssal cold.

Like some kind of mechanism—or a hunter's trap.

It was risky, but at this point, they could only treat a dead horse as if it were alive. Jay exchanged a glance with Kara, and each read the same intention in the other's eyes. Their gazes simultaneously locked onto the ground beneath the monster, and their Heat Vision fired at once. The four beams converged and instantly blasted apart the solid floor. Pale-blue frost burst out like a volcanic eruption. An extreme cold several times lower than Freeze Breath spread through the space at a visible speed, dispersing the heat of the Heat Vision in an instant.

The monster screamed in terror, no longer caring about the prey it had captured. Its tentacles loosened unconsciously. Jay and Kara hurriedly gathered all their remaining strength and floated upward. Hanging in midair, they watched the creature below scream as ice crystals spread over its body. Within a dozen seconds, its flexible tentacles had all turned into dazzling ice-blue crystals, frozen in midair.

They had gotten lucky. Whoever had "raised" this monster here had apparently left behind a mechanism capable of subduing it instantly.

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