Out of Space
Chapter 263: Die Hard

Recommended music - Black Sabbath - Paranoid

Sin City, Palace Ruins

It was having the best time of its long immortal life, eating its fill after hundreds and hundreds of years sealed within the darkness and now the foolish mortal had agreed to its pact of sharing his body with it.

It recognized the mortals when it first set eyes on them when they awoke him when they somehow found an idol that contained some of its conscious. It had not laid eyes on these mortals for over a few thousand years and at first, it was surprised by their appearance in this realm. It remembered the greed of these mortals and habits, it lured them with sweet promises of wealth and immortally, and to its delight, these mortals' tastes hadn't changed a slightness bit even after so many millenniums!

The desperate mortal offered himself to be the champion of its power and once the pact was formed, its shadow god body flowed into the fat mortal's willing body and invaded every essence and cell of its new host. It still remembered the horror and screams of the terrified mortal when he realized what had happened but by then it was too late.

The link between realms was connected and its power flowed into the body of the mortal when the enemies of the mortal came and used some spell that destroyed its host. It decided to discard the weak flesh and instead reform its body to its original looks but it came with a price, for it to maintain its god body, it must have the energy to sustain its form or its body will vanish from this realm and be returned back to the darkness!

Hence it feasted upon the delicious soul energies that were around it which enriched its power and consolidate its form, becoming more and more tangible in this realm. If only it has the power of the Sun Gods! It will be able to break out fully from its prison!

It slept deeply, confident that no weak mortal could ever hurt it as it burrowed under the ruins of the mortal structures that they like to hide in while it waited for the sun to dip below the earth where its power will be the greatest in the dark.

His followers had found traces of a Sun God power's in the area and it craved for it madly. It was coiled under the ruins when suddenly it heard a strange buzzing roar that grew louder and louder. It woke up and saw through the cracks of the ruins, that the sun was still high up in its zenith.

The buzzing roars came again before disappearing, making it wonder what matter of creature was making such a racket but it did not want to leave its comfortable burrow due to the sun outside.

As it decided to ignore the noise, the roar came again and suddenly the ruins and ground around it rocked madly and gouts of flames and smoke blanketed it.

It reared its body upwards in pain that it hasn't felt for hundreds and hundreds of years as dipping liquid fire flowed down from the cracks and holes of the ruins and stuck onto its body, scorching its god body. It squirmed madly in pain and anger, its massive body shattering what remains of the Palace roof and its walls, exposing itself to the sun.

-----

"Tally ho!" Seagull Two's pilot cried out as a thrashing snake appeared from the ruins with napalm stuck on its body, burning and cooking deep into its flesh. "One well done snake coming right up!"

The pilot aligned the bomber directly overhead the squirming snake and the co pilot cum bomber released their load of bombs and napalm canisters before the pilot looped the bomber around to admire their handiwork.

More blossoming balls of flames and smoke erupted around the Serpent and it cried out a mightly snarl that the pilots at hundreds of meters in the sky could hear. "That thing is pissed for sure!"

"Three going in!" The last bomber roared over the Serpent and black dots could be seen trailing behind it. The black dots fluttered downwards towards the ground and a series of explosions went up, kicking up more dirty smoke and balls of fire into the air.

The Serpent screamed madly as it rolled and thrashed over the ruins of the city, further flattering the already destroyed landscape. Several parts of its body were on fire and no matter how it tried to rub the flames off, the flames stuck on to its body stubbornly and before long, the snake laid still, its tail twitch constantly as it panted heavily.

"It is done for?" Goldan asked as peered over the side. His co pilot and radio operator both had a pair of binoculars glued to their eyes as they observed from the cockpit and side windows at the serpent gasping for breath and twitching weakly on the ground. Large swaths of skin on the snake were charred black or missing as the skin was cooked off by the napalm. Several parts of its body, pink flesh, and starking white bones could be seen, as the napalm had melted and cooked its skin and flesh while the cast iron bombs also blew chunks of its body away.

The serpent laid panting heavily as the wounds looked mortal to the pilots as they buzzed around to make sure of their results of the bombing while waiting for the smoke and flames to clear. "It is dead?" Goldan asked again.

"I am not sure," His co pilot replied. "Can't really tell..."

"It seemed to be still moving!" Their radio/navigator operator called out. "Damn thing survived all that firepower!"

"Hey, its sort of a god after all!" Goldan retorted. "Can't expect it to be that weak!"

"Yeah, I hoped that it is that weak," Their radio operator replied back. "So that we can pack up and go home! I missed my bed and my burgers!"

"Hahaha!" Goldan laughed. "Yeah, it will be awesome to kick back with an ice cold beer!"

"HOLY SHIT!" Their co pilot suddenly cried out. "Seagull Three!"

"What?" Goldan quickly looked over and saw Seagull Three going into a death spin, one large portion of their portside wing had gone missing. That was when he saw a dark shape flopping down into the smoke and flames, kicking up more smoke as it crashed down.

"MAYDAY MAYDAY!" The terrified cries of Seagull Three's pilot sounded loudly in their comms as they called for help. "We are going down! Repeat! Mayday! Ma- AHhhhhhH-"

A ball of flames rosed up from the thick smoke in the city where Seagull Three was last seen dropping down into. "What happened!" Goldan cried out. "Two, what did you see?"

"One, this is two, go high!" The urgent voice of Seagull Two cried out. "That damn snake jumped up and bit off Three's wing! Go high now!"

"What the?" Goldan glanced his altitude meter dials and saw they were at roughly 550 meters in the air. "How is that possible!?"

He quickly followed Seagull Two's advice and increased the altitude of the bomber while pulling further away from the city. "One, any chutes?"

"Negative!" Seagull Two replied, "No chutes, we lost Three with all hands onboard!"

"Fark!" Goldan cursed. The atmosphere in the cockpit suddenly turned heavy. "Two, form up on me, we are returning to base. The damn thing is still alive but wounded at least."

"Two, roger, RTB," Came back the solemn reply.

"We will be back, and the next time, we will burn that farker down!"

-----

It burnsssss! Thought the Great Devourer, as it rolled about on the small crater formed when it landed on the ground. It had laid still, biding its time as it eyed with anger and pain at the strange flying creatures in the air. It sensed the soul energies of weak mortals within the flying creatures and waited till one of them came low enough.

It used all its strength and shot itself upwards into the sky in a rush of anger. It snapped at the flying creature, hoping to catch it by its body but missed, only managing to clamped its jaws at the wing which broke, sending both of them tumbling down to the ground.

It felt the wounds on its body slowly regenerating, while the magic flames that kept burning on its body slowly dissipating away. The magic fire was the most damaging to its body as it couldn't douse it and if it did not spend its stored energy to regenerate its body, the flames would have eaten through its body!

It growled angrily as it had to spend all those soul energies it stored up to regenerate its body, meaning it had to hunt again and regain back the power to fully materialized its body again!

It looked around trying to replace shade as the sun rays started to cut through the smoke that was slowly drifting away by a breeze. It knew it could not stay in the same place now that those flying creatures had attacked it while it was sleeping. It has to replace a new burrow to recover its strength and take shelter from the sun till night falls!

Hissing in annoyance and angry, it slithered across the ruins in search of a new den in the Great Ocean Plains to recover and plan its revenge, unaware that several hundred meters overhead, a sky pattern camouflaged UAV hummed and constantly sent out micro pulses of data, streaming a live video feed to the men and women in Operations Command at Orwell's Point.

-----

Orwell's Point, Marine Stronghold, Operations Command

Joseph frowned as he watched the slithering snake crawling out of the ruins and headed westwards from the city. "Think that thing is heading to the Uncharted Forest?" He directed his question to Magister Thorn and Dr. Sharon.

"Hard to say," Thorn rubbed his beard. "It should be looking for shelter now."

"Yes," Dr. Sharon said. "That Thing will be looking for a place to recover first and wait till nightfall before it goes hunting."

Joseph turned and looked at Dr. Sharon, "You sound very sure..."

"Yup," Dr. Sharon confidently nodded while tapping the side of her head. She had tied her non regulation shoulder length hair into a high pony tail. "Something tells me that, that is what it will choose to do next."

She didn't mention that the confidence came from the voice in her head. Lately, she seemed to be able to understand the tone and expression of the voice in her head even if she can't decipher the language. The voice had also seemed to be more considerate and no longer kept her awake all night by chattering away non stop.

"Look, we if look at it as a person," Dr. Sharon quickly explained her reasoning. "If you are wounded and you... don't like the sun or day. What will you?"

"Shelter to heal up and rest," Joseph nodded. "But that thing, does it follow our common sense?"

"Why not?" Dr. Sharon asked back. "A wounded animal will always replace shelter to heal back or it will be food for any predator. I am certain that Thing has the same mentality!"

"Alright, assuming it is looking for shelter," Joseph said and he looked down on the map table. "Where can it go? Its all... flat land everywhere..."

"Well, snakes know how to burrow underground right?" Dr. Sharon asked. "I might not know much on zoology but it should be able to do it easily right?"

"Zoology?" Joseph shook his head at the unknown word, "Well, I guess so that it can dig underground..."

"So we just wait till it digs underground and send in the remaining bombers to hit it again," Dr. Sharon suggested. "Don't give it time to heal, if it is like the Hero, the more time we give it, the harder it will be to kill!"

Joseph nodded and thinking of the precious bomber they had lost to that thing, he was determined to kill it even more.

"We will make it die hard!"