Hotel Between Worlds

Darian gave Elara a quick farewell before logging off, but this time, he didn't immediately disconnect.

It wasn't because the creature had suddenly turned docile, it hadn't. Rather, the monstrous beast before him seemed to have fallen into some sort of daze for reasons unknown.

It stood still in the night wind, dozens of chaotic eyes overlapping across the flesh ball fixed intently on its prey with an eerie gaze. Strange as it sounded, Darian could genuinely sense something like confusion in those eyes as if the mouth and stomach had been arguing over dinner for half an hour and still hadn't settled anything.

Elara's voice was still echoing in his mind, calling out anxiously, but Darian's full attention was locked on the terrifying beast before him. Her voice felt distant, muffled as if coming from behind a thick curtain. He tensed his muscles, heart pounding like a war drum. Every twitch of the beast's flesh and pulse of its veins was crystal clear in his vision.

Even though he had mentally prepared himself back when he "resurrected" in the abandoned temple, facing death once more still brought an overwhelming tension.

The only difference from last time was that the fear mingled in that tension had diminished greatly, replaced by something strange and unfamiliar excitement.

Then, suddenly, he sensed it.

Muscles coiling, thick blood surging, hunger rising like a tidal wave from deep within. A primal command surfaced in the murky recesses of his mind: Feed. In that split second, a powerful premonition took hold, sharply outlining the danger ahead.

The monster was about to strike feinting from the left, but the true killing blow would come from behind, a barbed, bladed tail swinging around like a whip.

The beast lunged, its gaping maw opening wide from the end of one of its grotesque limbs and snapping toward Darian's left side but even before it leaped, he was already moving. Without thinking, he instinctively twisted his body, just as his inner warning had urged, then sprang forward in a sudden burst of speed so fast it surprised even him.

He noticed that his previously sprained waist had fully healed at some point. Ever since his "resurrection," his body had been in an almost unreal state of peak condition.

The beast missed, and the venomous tail that struck from an impossible angle barely grazed his back. Darian felt the pressure of air whip past him, and the brush with death made his hair stand on end. But more than the terror, what filled him was disbelief:

Did I really dodge that? What just happened?

There was no time to dwell on it. The next wave of danger surged from behind. This time, there wasn't enough time to dodge. He landed and rolled, barely regaining his footing, when he saw a massive claw swinging down toward him with crushing force.

In a panic, he could only raise his arms instinctively. those fragile human arms to block the strike that descended like a meteor.

Bang!

A deafening impact scattered grass and dust for several meters. Agonizing pain flooded his entire body, as if a dozen bones had shattered at once. Darian grunted, staggered back two steps, breath knocked out of him.

But he had blocked it.

He had actually blocked that blow.

Staring in disbelief at his own hands, he saw his left arm twisted at an unnatural angle, the bone clearly broken. And yet, the pain was already fading rapidly, and the dislocated bone seemed to be slowly realigning itself.

He vividly remembered the monster's first attack—the sheer power in its muscles, every fiber capable of effortlessly crushing human flesh. He was absolutely certain that if it had struck him with full force, blocking would've been impossible no number of broken bones could explain surviving that.

But the beast gave him no time to think. After only a second or two of landing, the starving creature let out a distorted, furious roar and pounced at him again.

The air howled like a blade as the creature flew at him like a mountain falling from the sky. Darian reacted just in time, rolling aside gracelessly, then leaping up to dodge a sweeping tail strike that could cleave stone. But just as he regained his footing, the tail recoiled and swept his legs out from under him, slamming him to the ground.

Then, the beast's body split open from the middle, and a grotesque, writhing tendril like a tongue or tentacle, shot out through the darkness and wrapped tightly around Darian, dragging him back in one fierce yank.

He pushed against the tendril with all his strength, trying to keep it from crushing his chest—not yet, not so soon. He watched helplessly as he was pulled toward the monster, its body gaping open in the center. Inside the abyssal maw, countless sharp teeth twisted and scraped against one another like the grinding gears of an insatiable hunger.

Just as he was about to be swallowed whole, Darian slammed both feet down with all his might. The rock beneath him cracked with a sharp crack, and the resulting recoil actually sent the monster stumbling backward.

No time to question where that strength came from, he used the brief opening to roar and rip himself free of the tongue-like tendril. Snatching up a sharp shard of stone from the ground, he hurled himself toward one of the monster's wildly twitching, murky eyes.

The tendril snapped, and the monster let out a blood-curdling roar. Blood sprayed from the tear in its midsection as it stumbled, trying to regain balance. Dozens of eyes stared at the prey before them with wild hunger.

So fragrant... So fragrant...

The scent of blood invaded his nostrils, igniting the nerves of the starving predator within. Something long-dormant was stirring again... some buried instinct.

It smells so good.

Darian's heart was pounding wildly, his blood felt as though it was boiling. A euphoric thrill welled up deep within him. He struggled to understand what that feeling was, until he finally realized:

It was the joy of imminent consumption, the reward of hunger about to be sated.

That beast...

That pile of flesh...

That corrupted spirit...

Prime meat.

The sharp stone crumbled into powder in his tightening grip. He panted heavily, feeling as though the world around him had suddenly slowed down.

He lunged at the monster, and the monster lunged at him. prey embracing prey.

In a daze, he felt as if he hadn't eaten for over twenty years, or at the very least, had never tasted real food before. He wrapped his arms around the grotesque limbs of the creature, and the monster, in turn, embraced him back with even greater force, crushing one bone after another in his body.

But Darian felt nothing.

He had already sunk his teeth into the creature's flesh not like last time, when it was a final act of angry, desperate resistance before death.

Now, he had a different mindset.

He wouldn't die.

He would come back.

This monster could kill him once, twice, or a hundred times but he would keep coming back.

And each time, he would understand a little better how to deal with it.

It might take a long time.

But he would savor this fine meat piece by piece.

The dozen or so eyes on the creature's side trembled violently. A few of them, as if sensing something, finally began to focus on Darian.

A giant maw filled with sharp teeth had already clamped down on his body from the side, yet those eyes gradually began to show a trace of fear.

Darian could feel his body being torn apart by the monster. He knew he had lost again this time.

As expected he was going to die, devoured by the beast.

At least for now, he couldn't win.

Still, he had held out far longer than expected. he had thought he would die the moment they clashed, but somehow, he had managed to go toe-to-toe with the creature for a while.

"Elara…" he tried calling out in his mind before his consciousness slipped into darkness.

Elara's voice answered almost instantly, "Darian! Darian, are you okay?! I've been calling you and you weren't responding…"

"I'm fine, just told you too early... Now I'm about to die."

Then he stopped responding to Elara's frantic yelling and quietly awaited the arrival of death.

However, just before the crushing darkness could swallow him, he suddenly heard a voice nearby

A real voice, clear and unmistakably present in the valley.

"Don't be afraid! I'm here to save you!"

Darian's mind was already blurry, but at that moment, he was jolted into sudden clarity.

A thunderous shockwave blasted through his brain

Someone?

There's someone here?!

He struggled to open his eyes and looked in the direction of the voice.

He saw a figure rushing toward him from afar. vaguely, it looked like a raggedly dressed girl.

But in the next second, he saw more shapes flying behind her in the night.

What was that?

A tail?

A fox?

Human?

No more like a subsonic headbutt.

Darian watched in despair as the girl shouting she'd come to save him accelerated midair like a homing missile. She had her head down, charging forward and just as the monster biting into him shifted slightly (possibly on purpose), he became her direct target.

"Ah, sh..."

He barely had time to squeeze two syllables through clenched teeth.

The girl hadn't even noticed what was in front of her.

The subsonic headbutt landed squarely on his chest.

And then, he no longer had a chest.

From the neck down, gone.

As if he'd been vaporized.

"Girl… you f... hit the wrong guy…"

And just like that, Darian was saved to death.

(End of Chapter)

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