Why...Bath's self-awareness returned as he sensed violent tremors in the flesh around him, as though something was traveling through the surrounding flesh toward him. His form, engorged on the surrounding flesh for an area of around 6 square miles, continued to expand outward. Since his range had a radius of 3.6 miles, he could fit just over 40 square miles within his shapeless, meat-sack body. His strategy so far had been to stay still, expand outward and suck everything dry, move to a different location, and repeat.

A few seconds after he felt the initial vibrations, a bullet-shaped object ripped through his body. Startled, Bath focused his essence around the foreign object in an attempt to crush it.

Pop!

He paused his assault once he realized that this object was human-made, some kind of ship. Dessert, Bath thought, his inner voice ravenous.

"Bath!" a voice boomed from within the craft.

Lisa's voice.

Bath's initial assault had cracked the hull slightly, giving Bath a point of entry. In a moment, he manifested an avatar of himself within the craft.

Why is this so...Bath's eyes darted between Lisa, Dean, and Virigard. He subconsciously licked his lips, his mouth dry, tongue burning despite the copious amounts of saliva running over it. Normally, he would control the automatic physical responses of whatever form he assumed, but he found himself unable to think straight, unable to do anything requiring that kind of finesse. So difficult?

He wanted nothing more than to eat everyone present, devouring them quickly, like the small morsels they were. Why shouldn't I? He knew he couldn't, but when he tried to remember why...his memory was fuzzy. This compounded the confusion he currently felt: Why can't I think straight? This...is unlike me.

Lisa's skin paled as soon as Bath appeared, his eyes blood-shot, his body stock-still. As his eyes darted between herself, Dean, and Virigard, Lisa had the distinct impression that he wanted to eat them. Her eyes widened in shock. He wouldn't, she thought, this is a 'trap,' not a brainwashing serum.

He didn't say anything, just looking at them, as though imagining how they would taste. Nobody had the presence of mind to remove their eyes from Bath's terrifying face.

After a full twenty seconds of intense staring, Bath spoke, his voice cool and callous. "Why have you three come?"

Lisa swallowed. His voice doesn't match his demeanor at all. She practically expected him to growl at her. Just as she was about to speak--

"Okay, that fucking settles it," Dean replied fiercely, his expression suddenly turning uncharacteristically vicious. "I knew Lisa wasn't a god, and I had my doubts about you...I thought that maybe, you might just be the real deal." He glanced down at his chest, focusing on the small, silver cross hidden beneath his jacket. He took in a deep breath before reestablishing eye contact. "But, like, you're looking at Lisa like she's dinner."

Dean wasn't an idiot before receiving his scholar boons, and he certainly wasn't an idiot after. In conjunction with his artist boons that assisted him in making connections between different things, he didn't find it all that difficult to make his next statement. "Lisa, he's an alien, right? The thing under the mountain was meant to trap him?"

Lisa opened her mouth in denial, before closing it again. "That's why we have to kill the tortus," she stated firmly, eyes flaring with killing intent. "You see what it's done to him, right? How can you stand there when COTD's Dragon is in trouble?"

"What do you speak of?" Bath asked. "What is doing this?" Do they know what's clouding my thoughts, this wretched poison? In truth, the only thing that disturbed Bath at this point was that his thoughts were muddled: he didn't give his intense hunger a second thought.

Lisa's eyes narrowed, her lips tightening. "Bath, you're under the influence of the tortus, this fleshy monster beneath Whitesun," she explained. "It's responsible for your inability to think straight. Moreover, it's healing itself by taking in rock from around itself: The ground around Whitesun is caving in."

Bath's eyes became further bloodshot, the whites of his eyes shining red around his yellow irises. He gritted his teeth, his expression immediately becoming savage. Beyond the craft, the rest of his body ceased feeding.

His mouth curled up over his teeth as he snarled, giving him the appearance of an attack dog. "I..." He was seemingly too incensed to speak. In an instant, he was gone from the craft, as though all along he was nothing more than a haunting specter.

Suddenly, the craft shook, expelled from the fleshy mass that was Bath. It hurtled through open air until landing on soft, stringy flesh--that of the tortus. Lisa, Dean, and Virigard all remained silent, deeply disturbed by what they'd just witnessed.

"What now?" Dean asked, voice small. "This is just great. This ship is cracked."

"Shit," Lisa hissed, turning her face away. "I can't fucking believe...it's a trap, damn it!" Do I mean so little to Bath? she wondered pitifully. When all's said and done, is it like Dean said? Am I dinner?

While both Dean and Lisa were speaking with Bath, Virigard had opened up her own chip reader. Now, as the two were moping, she was on the encyclopedia app.

"A Doom...redirect to World Devourer?" Virigard frowned, following the link. "World Devourers are the prime enemy of the civilized world."

Huh, that sounds pretty bad, Virigard observed, reading on. "The total destruction 30,120 worlds has been attributed to World Devourer activity. The majority of these worlds are located within the rim of the Core; this number does not account for worlds destroyed before the past twenty-nine billion years."

Virigard glanced at Lisa. So...the Creator is a World Devourer? "Asil, is Bath the enemy of civilization?" she asked, expression downcast.

"Enemy of civilization?" Dean grumbled, eyebrows rising up. "What are you talking about?"

Lisa exhaled sharply. "He isn't," she assuaged. "He's the Dragon; how could he be the enemy of civilization?"

"But he's a World Devourer, right?" Virigard asked. "Didn't you say so?"

"He's...he isn't really," Lisa murmured. She sighed. "He thinks he is. But I don't think he is, not really."

"What the fuck is a 'World Devourer'?" Dean asked, clearly frustrated by the exchange between Lisa and Virigard.

"It's the enemy of the civilized world," Lisa drawled melodramatically, rolling her eyes. "Bullshit. Propaganda." She sighed. "I don't know. The records all indicate that World Devourers are mindless, ravenous harbingers of destruction. They swoop through gates, devouring everything they come across before heading off to a new world. Some reports claim that they spontaneously generate out of nothing, attacking planets without any warning." She shook her head. "That's why Juserin's adopted ancestor purchased this trap: it's a way to buy time to escape once a World Devourer appears." Lisa chuckled darkly. "That's the kicker, isn't it? The best the universe could do, or the best Juserin the 19th or whatever could do, was buy a trap, so that people could evacuate."

"..." Dean looked on silently, while Virigard inclined her head in acknowledgment.

"That's why I said that Bath isn't a World Devourer: wherever World Devourers go, everything in their wake is rubble." Lisa exhaled deeply, closing her eyes. "Do you both understand?"

"What are you implying?" Dean asked hesitantly, his expression inscrutable.

"In the encyclopedia, it says that once a World Devourer is discovered, its current location will be razed by vacuum bombs," Virigard noted, swishing her tail. "What's a vacuum bomb?"

Dean gaped. "Wait, who drops these bombs?"

"Vacuum bombs create super-massive black holes wherever they're deployed," she explained, voice soft. "I assume that Ildr deploys sapients to carry out the task. It's probably tricky, considering the difficulties inherent in transmitting messages from a planet as far out as this to the center of the universe, but...dropping the bombs is effective in containing the threat, even if they destroy everything along with the World Devourer."

"You're saying..." Dean shifted in his seat, once more facing the control panel. He felt like he followed most of the conversation, having read the Daily Black and White's report on Ildr a month or so ago. "If anyone, ever, found out that Bath's a World Devourer...we're all dead."

"No," Lisa snapped, shaking her head. "Like I said, there's time to evacuate. Since Bath isn't a mindless beast--" Dean shot her a look, which she ignored, "he can arrange for our swift getaway. Of course, closer to Ildr we go, the faster the deployment of the bombs...eventually, we'll go to planets who keep these bombs in stock. That's when the real danger will begin."

"So...nobody can ever know the Creator's maybe a World Devourer," Virigard piped up, summarizing the conversation.

"Yeah, essentially."

"Back to the present issue at hand, what are we going to do?" Dean interjected, gesturing to his control panel. "The razor legs are smashed, so I don't know how we'll move, moreover the ship's structural integrity is compromised." He groaned, continuing with, "At the very least, we won't suffocate, since the oxygen still works, and the pressure at this depth isn't enough to kill us with the air lock broken."

Lisa sighed, readjusting her position so that her legs bent up against her chest, her arms wrapped around her shins. "We'll be fine."

"There's no way we can make it past the rubber layer on our own," Dean argued. "I'd say we'd have a good shot if the spongy rock is all we have to push through, or this fleshy layer, but even this ship barely made it through that middle layer."

"I know," she said, her voice cutting through the tension like a blade. "Stop worrying."

Virigard nodded. "Alright."

Dean gave the two of them an absolutely incredulous expression. "Am I the only sane one left?" he murmured.

"Dean, for being the COTD's Knight, you have strikingly little faith."

He scoffed. "What, in you, Bath? No offense, I really like you, Lisa, but you aren't a goddess. And since neither is Bath, I don't even know why I'm here. Why any of this is happening."

Lisa snorted. "Why do you think any of this is happening? You know what main characters from movies always say?"

Dean rolled his eyes. "What?"

"I can't help everyone, so I'll settle for helping the people in front of me." She gave him a pointed look, clutching at the white fabric of her elaborate dress.

"So this is about doing better," he said acerbically. "No, it isn't enough to just help a few people; we have to help everyone."

Lisa paused. "Yeah, that's pretty much it. Got a problem?"

"No," he sighed, relenting. "I guess I understand why you've done everything so far."

"So have a little faith."

"In who?"

"In me."

Dean tsked. "Well, you haven't led me astray yet," he said eventually, thinking of the advice Lisa gave him when he was just starting out as a leader.

"Thanks, I guess," she muttered.

"So, what next?" Dean asked. "You said to put my faith in you, so what's the plan?"

Lisa chuckled lightly, her expression serene. "We wait."

---

"This...tortus," Bath snarled, ripping into the flesh around him with every ounce of his being. "Controlling me!"

When Bath struck out, he did so with the intent to annihilate. Instead of before, where he contentedly leeched the flesh of the tortus dry like a suckling calf, he was like a fiendish demon ripping free from its mother's womb. He lashed out like a primordial fire: wherever his whip-like body struck, the flesh beneath pulverized and fell away.

This is an animal, he thundered internally. Impudence.

He optimized his body's surface area by condensing his form into thin tendrils, each of which he filled with highly explosive liquid that exploded upon impact. He progressed through the body at a breakneck pace: while he hadn't been fully capable of understanding Lisa's words, he gleaned the fact that this tortus was healing itself by absorbing rock.

If I'm going to put this hideous truffle in its place, he thought, I need to take decisive action.