The moment passes, movement returns to this massive creature. It is so large it feels like it makes out a good chunk of the asteroid, but I cannot tell.

With the return of movement, so does the body I’m in move.

Oh, uh, great? Maybe it didn’t notice m-,

The body is pulled towards the pile. Slurped inside bit by bit like a spaghetti noodle. For a hot moment, I consider getting off. Escaping. That moment passes too. I dig my tentacles further inside it. Whatever happens, I’ll survive! I know I can, I’ve survived everything before this, and I’m not about to let a pile of noodles be the end of-,

The world goes dark as the body is pulled inside fully. I grip on with my full strength. A dull pressure grows around me. The pile shifts. Every so often. A body moves. Another pushes down. I try to keep to the already harmed body. But the bodies around me move quickly. Powerfully. Like pistons, pushing me, crushing me, eventually dislodging me from the flesh I had reaped. I grope after something else to grab, finding only slippery flesh. Moving too fast to catch. Too quick to claw my tentacles into.

This-, this might be bad, I’m not sure if I can even move at all, there’s pressure all around me, and all of a sudden I’m glad I have no need to breathe, or this would have crushed my lungs to dust, robbing me of my breath, but even then, I’m in that dull sort of pain, I can feel several parts of my body being destroyed, some crushed and pressured until it simply pops, whatever liquids and flesh inside of me spilling out into the endless worm-like expanse of bodies, other parts of me, specifically my teeth, being ground into dust, crushed like pebbles in a grinder, and I’m no different.

There is no pain, merely pressure. And that’s almost worse.

With every second that passes, more of my body is destroyed. My regeneration cannot keep up. Any crushed part is replaced by the flesh of the creature, leaving no space for regeneration. My own teeth are forced to stab into my flesh, dotting out my limited sight. My consciousnesses disappear in pops, crushed like ripe grapes. I didn’t know they could do that. I couldn’t imagine it. I still can’t. Here I am, the uncrushable octopus, being crushed to death.

How many consciousnesses do I have left? How many secondary tentacles have been crushed? How many mouths ground to dust?

How many seconds have I got left, seconds until my demise?

I wish I felt pain. Death without it will be too unfulfilling. Incomplete.

There is no fight left in me, no hope, merely a scathing understanding that this is the end, and without any physical pain, without any real understanding of what death will mean, I’m left without panic. Without mania. Without a true need to escape.

My fighting grows dull. The pressure increases. Bodies crushing past me, dry hide rubbing against me like sandpaper, crushing more and more of my body. I’m dying.

I don’t have many tentacles left, I don’t have many eyes left, I don’t have many consciousnesses left, each of them popping and splattering and being crushed and destroyed as I die, my death becoming a mosaic of life fluids I barely consider my own, ten consciousnesses become nine, another grape popped, eight, seven, my mind blotted out by nothingness and death, six, five, my eyes have all punctured and I am left blind, four, I have no power left to move, three, I’m not sure if I can feel at all anymore, two, could I still be considered alive if I feel nothing, one-,

Buy Skill Resistance? Cost: 10 (you have 688)

...Yes.

688 -> 678

As always, I can barely feel the skill take effect, but in some little way, seeing that screen, seeing my world light up in colour… Gives me hope.

-I have no idea what the fuck that is, but upgrade it! Now, stat!!

If I know anything, this is my one fucking hope, and I’m ready to use all my points just to upgrade it!

Upgrade Resistance? Cost: 20 (you have 678) Upgrade Resistance? Cost: 50 (you have 678)

Upgrade Resistance? Cost: 70 (you have 678)

Upgrade Resistance? Cost: 100 (you have 678) Upgrade Resistance? Cost: 150 (you have 678) Upgrade Resistance? Cost: 225 (you have 678)

-Do it, quickly!

678 -> 73

The pressure lessens. The discomfort ends. My limbs begin the harsh road of recovering, regenerating. I become more, pressing against the bodies surrounding me. They can no longer crush me. I have become resilient, strong. Defensive. As much as the creature tries, as much as it squeezes and presses and crushes, I lose nothing more. I recover. More and more consciousnesses blip into existence, tentacles sprouting from crushed and destroyed stumps. In a mere five minutes, five minutes I spend watching the creature slither by, I am fully recovered.

Back, and with a vengeance, too!

This bastard thought he could get away with just crushing me, eh?! Well, see who just bounced back! Watch this!!

As one does, I bite. And for once, I get through. The hide is tough, but now my teeth are tougher, and with my tentacles now able to withstand the currents and the pressures, I can stab them into it as well. Well stuck to it, I don’t give a single thought to the idea of remaining outside. No, as you do, I creep inside it. I’m not even sure if it notices me doing it, maybe it assumes I died, but that doesn’t matter. I start chewing with immense fury.

Memories of before flash in my mind. This damn creature didn’t recover its flesh at all. Maybe only I do that?

Unimportant! For now, that’s a good thing! It means I can keep eating at it without being afraid it might recover before I eat it fully!

Hehehe, all things considered, it might not even notice me before then…!!

Alright. Time to get to it!

Flesh twitches beneath my carnivorous teeth but I keep eating. I never bite beyond the inside of the skin, and, apparently, that’s a good choice. Whatever this is, I’m getting to it. I don’t know how much I’ve eaten so far, but I’m sure that it’s a lot. All I leave behind is a hollow tube of skin and meagre flesh. Maybe it can feel it, but it can’t do anything about it. At times it’ll try to crush where I am, but it does nothing. I just keep eating. More and more, until the thing I’m in opens up into a wider area.

I find myself in its main body. I think? I guess it could be called that, if only because it’s wider than its arm (that has to be what it is) and it seems to branch out into all the other arms. In every other way, it’s just a large core of white flesh. What even is this? Is this really its brain, its mind?

This is the head of the creature that almost killed me?...

Fuck. Now I’m gonna eat it in anger. Grr. Not even intelligent!

And for a minute or so, the brain seems to contain nothing but flesh, flesh and more flesh.

And then I find the real core.

It is small, glowing and it fits in the palm of my smallest tentacles, and for a second I wonder if it was just there by chance. But the second I disconnect it from the ball of nerves and muscle tissue surrounding it, the whole creature I’m inside, every part of it, seems to stop. The muscles stop twitching beneath my touch and it almost feels like the entire body collapsed with a rumble and a groan. I eye the small crystal I hold. It’s vaguely purple-ish, faintly glowing, and… Almost pulsating? Yo, that’s kind of weird.

Anyways, I pop it into my mouth. Strangely, right as I chew down on it, I get the sinking feeling that it was a really bad idea.

Memories and feelings seem to flash before my eyes. A planet in the unknown regions. Beyond civilization. Beyond the conflict. It was young, helpless, knocked far from Ilsa when it all happened. And here it is.

I chew down again. Wack. That’s not my own memories.

73 -> 12 873

...Uh.