The snake slithered closer to the heat signature, slowly moving towards what it thought was normal prey. It didn’t get too far, though, before it felt a presence that made it freeze solid.

It could not turn to look at what was gazing at it from behind it, but it knew instinctually that it was now within the sight of a being far more dangerous than itself. The smarter move would have been to simply run, but the wild actions of a beast are rarely so logical, especially when overcome by the fight/ flight/ freeze response.

The snake turned and lunged at the being that looked at it, hoping to scare the predator off, but its attack wiffed as it passed mere inches from a bipedal creature that it was sure was a human. This was beyond odd to the snake, as most humans would not have been able to dodge so easily.

It had consumed more than a few of the hairless pink creatures over its lifespan, and those that were a danger usually chose to not fight beings like itself. In fact, they usually never came around here, to begin with.

It never knew why beings as strong as those humans didn’t come here, but maybe they were off doing the dumb thing where they sought stronger, tougher prey? That was why it was so discombobulated by the human it nearly hit, though, as something this strong would normally not be here, instead picking a harder hunting ground.

It landed on the ground and coiled up, defending itself with a more tight posture, but as its senses adapted to the change in scenery it felt the chilling sensation of something piercing its skull and entering its brain. At that moment, it knew that it had met its end, but as the cold sensation faded, it was replaced by something that felt much, much worse.

It began to twist and writhe as pain assaulted it in such an intensity that it broke its mind, and its flesh began to shift, bubble, boil, and mold into something that it normally would never be. Bones shattered and re-knit themselves, organs ruptured and remade themselves, blood vessels tore apart and wove back together in a new way, and as seconds of agony turned to minutes, then hours, it lost what little bits of a mind it had and slipped into death.

…

“Huh…”

She couldn’t help but feel bad for the snake she had jabbed her finger into as it turned into a twisting mass of meat and bone. She had been told that she could do this to snakes, but never had she been told how utterly grotesque the process would be.

She watched, half in amazement and half in horror, as the mass of organic matter began to settle into a gigantic tumor-like form, then stop convulsing. Was it.. dead? Did it not work?

Well, she couldn’t expect every first time doing something to work perfectly. She wasn’t some perfect, OP, carbon-copy/ cookie-cutter generic fictional protagonist, after all, so failure was in her vocabulary.

She moved closer to the blob and poked it a few times with a stick, but the blob merely sat there and did nothing. She could tell from the smell and sight that it was dead, so a failure it was, then. Plus, her Quest had not updated yet, so that was another nail in that coffin.

Picking herself up, Lyrhea looked around and tried to find the next nearest snake. It would likely take a bit of time, but so long as that damned Ranger didn’t come back she figured that she had enough time to search with minimal danger being present.

Besides, what were the odds that a fall that far would be survivable?

…

“C’mon, Rudy!” yelled a teenage girl as she tried tugging at her boyfriend’s arm. “We both know it's too dangerous here! This place is far out of our ability!”

She was tugged further in by her boyfriend, who was either brave, naive, stupid, or all three.

“Yeah, we’re weaker, but if we take down a Toxic-Fang Constrictor we’ll show everyone back home just how great we are!”

“But we’ll die if we are killed! Please, we need to go slowly!”

“I’m no coward, Betty, and I’ll hunt one of those giant snakes and take its Heart-stone to fashion a ring for you!”

The girl, Betty, shook her head.

“I don’t need one for a ring! We need to survive! We’ll get scolded something fierce if we don’t head back from here!”

“Shush!” Rudy whispered as he lowered his posture. “look there, there’s one. Just you wait, Betty, I’ll… wait, what is it doing?”

Betty tried to pull her boyfriend, but he dragged her down and gestured for her to look at what he was looking at. She peered over a bit of rusted metal to see what looked like a rather lithe woman parkouring off of various pieces of the ruined city while dodging the strikes of what seemed to be a whole damn nest of Toxic-Fang Constrictors.

“Holy jamoley!” Rudy whispered as he locked his gaze on the woman. She bounced around like a circus performer, moving with grace and ease to such a level that it would put a few Rogues that he knew to shame. Hell, even one of the strongest Fighters he had even laid eyes on would find it damn hard to land a blow on her at this rate.

“She’s… dancing?” Betty asked. “No… she’s toying with them!”

“That is what I want to be one day.” Rudy said, completely misunderstanding what Lyrhea was and what she was doing. “She must have some amazingly rare Class… maybe a powerful Patron, too…. She’ll need help, though, so I’m going in!”

Rudy yelled that last part as he rushed towards the writhing mass of snakes, ultimately tripping over his own feet and finding his eyes looking upwards from the ground as a few snakes eyed him with lethal intent.

She tried to scream and move away, but the Predatory Gaze of the monsters locked him down. They nearly took him down, too, but a quick intervention from the nearby dancing snake-person saw those monsters contorting in agony as she finished ramming a finger into each of their skulls.

The woman landed after an aerial somersault and grabbed Rudy by his neck, yanking him off of the ground and back to his feet before kneeing him in the gut. His cloth armor was not nearly enough to stop the blow, and he doubled over in pain as Lyrhea stood over him.

“Dumbass.” Lyrhea muttered as she walked towards the growing blobs of muscle, meat, and bone. “Pick your fights more carefully, you idiot. They could’ve torn you apart a thousand times over with your shit equipment and equally shit tactics. You’re weak, frail, and pathetic. Go fight some smaller game and build up your strength, or you’ll be nothing more than fodder for other things.”

The woman, Lyrhea, paused as the tumor-like blobs stopped moving before walking off as they ceased living.

“Damn… more failures. Well, there are plenty more snakes in the Garden, I suppose.”

Rudy looked up at the woman as she walked away, and he felt something burning within him that he had never felt before. It was.. adoration? Devotion? Obsession?

[“Hey, kid.”] came a voice in his head. It was sinister, feminine, and laced with venom.

“A.. a God?”

He could practically hear the God smile widely.

[“Yep. Wanna serve the same God that your new crush serves?”]

“Y-yes!”

[“Good boy. Just need to do a single favor for me.”]

“Anything!”

[“See those mounds of meat? Go get the Heart-Stones from them and grind them up. Then put that mix into the water of your village. Do it for little old me, will you? You’ll do it for me, your Goddess, right? You’ll get on my and that Chosen’s good side, right? Earn our love and affection and whatnot, right?”]

“Of course, my Mistress!”

He heard a slight laugh, one that was light, pleasant, and lovely.

[“Good boy. Now, do as I say, and you’ll get your just reward at the end of it. You want to be with your new Goddess for eternity, right? Share my realm with yourself, and, maybe, be inside me, right?”]

As Rudy confirmed his choice, the God laughed again, though this laugh felt a bit darker.

[“Good boy. Now hurry along. You’ve got great works to help bring into reality, little one.”]