He felt as if his brain was on fire, that strange burning he’d made up his own description for. On the plus side, the feeling was less extreme than the last time he’d performed this technique. Perhaps there were some channels in the mind he was opening up and it would only become easier each time he did it? Sage focused upon these as well as a few more questions to distract himself from the debilitating sensation. It built to a greater and greater intensity before disappearing entirely.

He was trapped in darkness. Then he poked his head against a barrier and it burst in front of him. The sudden light and cold air were shocking. He stepped out into the world and felt the restraint around him shattering apart. Turning back he saw the broken lower half of an eggshell, and the edge of one poking out over his shoulders. His body was quite heavy, and his four limbs had limited range of motion and moved quite slowly.

He spent his days walking about, grazing from the grass and bushes. Sometimes, something would come close and he laid down. He pulled his legs and head in, and then covered his head with his elbows. The other things would push him around and flip him over, but they couldn’t break in. When they got bored and left, he’d flip himself back over and find more to eat. At night he returned to his burrow, the shell for his shell.

One day he found some very delicious things to eat. They made him grow smarter, and bigger. His shell got thicker, his beak was sharper and he got much faster. Now he didn’t just eat grass and bushes, he could also catch small animals that got too close. He snapped them up in his jaws and bit them harder and harder till they stopped moving. He fought with other creatures over the most delicious things to eat. Glowing fruits, pulsating leaves, crawling grass. They were all so tasty, but he had to beat up the others to claim them. Sometimes he won, sometimes he lost, but he always carried his shell away for another day.

One of his favorite foods was to break into the unmoving shells of the two legs. Their shells were not strong enough to keep him out and the two legs were so easy to snap through. The only problem was that some of them were so fast and they came after him in swarms like when he’d used to run into anthills. He had to be careful to break all the shells and not let any of them get away or they’d get the other anthills after him. They were quite annoying, but very tasty.

The best day of his life came, he found a very warm tunnel, but he could smell something truly tasty mixed among gross smells. He braved the heat and snapped up a few foxes that were struggling with the heat and the smoke in the air. He pushed harder and harder, chasing that taste that would be better than any other he’d ever had. He just knew it. It took a long time, but then he saw it.

It was shaped like a heart, one like he’d torn out of dead creatures many times. Yet, it was made out of a glassy black stone. Jet black, yet at its center, he could see a dull glowing red light. He continued to move towards it, and soon found that the light at the center was a flowing magma. For some reason he also knew the names and appearance of these things even though he knew he should not. Without wasting any time, he reached out and snapped up that piece of obsidian, unhesitantly swallowing it down into his gullet.

A fiery power flowed through him, radiating outwards from his stomach and burning through out towards his extremities. Every part of him felt on fire, and he curled up on the ground, retracting into his shell and weathering the storm that raged inside him. He had no idea how long it took, but when he awoke he was different. The world seemed much smaller.

The two leg’s shells were much smaller, he pushed them down and snatched up the little snacks. They were so small they barely filled the gaps in his teeth, but there were always so many of them in their little dens. He had such fun smashing them all, especially when he learned how to release some of the fire inside out of his mouth. He cooked them all and found his new love: cooked meat.

He gorged himself and then slumbered for a time. When he awoke he would be larger than he remembered and he’d find more to eat. The cycle repeated again and again. Happily, the little two legs could always be counted on to have big hills and he’d smash their little shells apart and pluck them up by the dozens. They always left little trails through the forest for him to find, and he could just follow one to the next den and eat them all up. All the other creatures ran away whenever he approached, but these little two legs waited for him to approach, hiding in their shells.

He’d been sleeping peacefully when something extremely tasty approached. It was so delicious that it awoke him from his slumber. The fire inside him called out for it. It needed it. He needed it. He chased the little snake, but it just wouldn’t stop!

Ahhhh!

Sage was plunged into the memories of the volcanic tortoise, experiencing its life from start to finish, zooming through its most vivid memories, and at the same time, the huge monster was experiencing his. The two of them instantly shared everything there was about themselves. They learned everything there was to know about the other, that sudden transfer causing the pain and discomfort they’d felt.

Worse yet, Sage immediately realized it was a failure.

That giant tortoise was not a kindred spirit. There was no affinity formed between them. Whatever it was that would make them bond was not there. A failed Soul Resonance. He’d forcibly read the beast’s mind, knowing all its secrets and spying upon every one of its most precious memories. Their connection did not create and deepen a bond between them. It created an animosity of the greatest scale. He’d invaded its mind and not only took all that it was, he forced the entirety of his own memories down its throat. For such a simple creature to be bombarded with so many strange parts of human society and other concerns it had never even imagined…

The beast was enraged.

It stomped its feet rapidly, causing the ground to rumble. It created an earthquake that ripped a fissure into the ground, then threw its head into the sky and flames erupted from it. A column of fire shot thousands of feet into the air. A miniature volcanic eruption blasted into the sky, spewing soot, fire, and smoke over the area. At this moment of calamity, Sage recalled the devastation this beast had wrought upon human civilization in the past and the name he heard them call it by.

Living Disaster.