“Lord, why are we here?”

“This is power plant number 2, we are responsible for it. You are responsible for it so let’s see how much power is being generated.”

“Lord, it’s generating about 40% of usual output. It will boil over otherwise.”

“Take it up to 90%, I had it at that last week.”

“Last week didn’t have the Black God’s Solstice. We must keep it under 50%.”

“Black God? Pft. I only follow the Skull-Altar. Take it to 90% now or I’ll do it myself.”

“Ok Lord.”

The man sighs and twists a valve, a gauge shifts from 40% quickly up to 90% and doesn’t stop. The man has a droopy face while the Lord has a quickly disappearing smirk.

“What is going on? How could you let this happen? Don’t you know what this means? This is during the Black God’s Solstice. He’ll be appearing soon” the lord screams at the man who did as he’s asked of.

“Yes Lord” he moves the valve back and nothing changes, the Lord is enraged further when they notice the gauge going down quickly.

The man raises an eyebrow while the Lord is smiling, “Good Job!”

“Thank you Lord.”

The gauge continues to drop before finally it stops at 0 and both of them look at each other with terror in their eyes.

“You did this, why did you adjust it.”

“Lord, this isn’t from our adjustments. This is from something else.”

“How will we know? You are responsible for this. You must know how to fix it.”

“Well let’s go have a look.”

The two men walk away from the control panel and board a nearby craft that shoots through the air with a silver glow. It slices through the thick atmosphere with ease as though it’s made for it, the silver glow approaches the mountain that once stood.

---

I watch the white glow circle around the flat surface that once was the volcano, it seems confused as to what happened yet that would also signify intelligence. It doesn’t matter what it is because I need to find where the people are.

I kick the ground, my energy gathering at my huge muscular legs and cross kilometres at a time.

I watch the white thing in the air circle around before lowering itself strangely, it hovers in spot and a light appears.

I hurry my step and wonder if that’s what the target is, it’s possible that it’s life but it could be some sort of machine.

I’m only 2 jumps away from the white glow now, I’m able to see it better now but it doesn’t explain it. A silver object floating in the air, a light shimmer appears on the surface while a light is pointing directly down.

I ready myself to jump at it, I’ll only have a single shot.

I gather more energy in my legs, wails and cries begin to emit from my feet as I hold it before finally releasing myself in time to hit the flying silver thing.

I fly through the air, I misjudge my angle as the air changes around the volcano, the air is incredibly turbulent and am going to miss the silver craft.

The craft shifts downward.

This gives me a chance, I spread my body out and slow down.

I hold out one of my arms, the long sharp metallic claws stick out and dig into the flesh of the craft bringing it down to the ground as it struggles to hover before finally collapsing down. The whirling of several engines slows down before finally.

They land on the ground with a loud thud, dust gets kicked up.

I don’t let go, the craft comes to life a few times before being unable to start.

It’s only 3/4 the size of me but I got lucky and must have struck something vital in this machine.

I begin to dig into the craft with my other hand hoping there’s people inside, I peel back part of the roof revealing a cabin and two cowering people. I pick up the first person, it begins to shout about something but I cannot understand it.

I bring it up to my mouth and absorb its place in the universe, what was its most primal energy becomes my energy. It will live on inside of me, yet it will also feed me and eventually disappear just like this universe.

I pick up the second person but it seems to react differently, it doesn’t plead, it doesn’t do anything but lay there. I have acquired knowledge of their language but will take time to parse the memory so I can address this person.

“You there!”

“Lord?”

“Lord?”

“No? I guess Lord is dead. That’s good, are you killing me too beast?”

“I don’t need to but perhaps eventually. Tell me what happened to the lands?”

“The forces of evil won, they acquired the businesses, the government, the land and then finally the land itself. No one could stop them. I am only a public servant.”

“There are people?”

“Yes there are towns and people everywhere, there are several cities and thousands of towns. There is also the space-sector but transportation is cut off.”

“Interesting.”

I see in the memory, fragmented glimpses of a life of debauchery and luxury, a life given to him by others simply for lowering himself to serving their favour. No matter the limits…

I gather some energy in my hand before placing a seal on the mind of the person in my hand, he doesn’t struggle.

“You cannot speak of me, you will serve me until I leave but I do not expect the impossible.”

“Ok… I guess I’m your first thrall mighty… godly claw beast sir.”

“Call me K…. God K.”

“God K. K.”

“Only when you need to speak with me otherwise ask for permission to address me.”

“Got it. So what now? You destroyed this service vehicle. We cannot get back without it.”

I look over the destroyed vehicle and concede the point, even if I have not come across many machines in my time, I can still tell that the machine is broken beyond repair. I take my time to look at everything as the man kneeling before me is laying head down almost reverent.

The small gap in time allows more memories to be absorbed, adjusting me to the knowledge and way of life in this plane, a realm that seems to be filled purely with evil that has existed since before recorded time.

“How far away is the Unholy Crucible City?”

“God K Lord, it would take over two years to reach there on foot but the conditions on the surface have decayed to the point as to no longer support life. God K Lord truly is strong to survive on the landscape that even lesser Gods would have trouble under.”

“Let us walk there, you lead the way.”

I release the craft from my grip, it crashes onto the ground with a loud bang opening a bright crack revealing the magma has built up pressure again, the volcano will probably explode again soon. My powers allow me to take the energies here and as more build up, it would allow me to absorb an enormous amount of energy but I opt to ignore it.

“Umm, I haven’t walked on the surface since I was a child… but I will do my best for God K Lord.”

The man says as he scrambles about on the ground beneath me, I pick up the now dead previous Lord and take off his helmet revealing a normal human face that almost immediately dissolves into a lump of acid.

A small glowing orb floats out of the black liquid remains of the body which is disappearing into the rest of the suit, I tip the fluid out while the glowing orb is absorbed into one of the layers under my skin.
The man is watching this but doesn’t say anything, he has returned to his work of figuring out where to go before he stops and points in a particular direction.

“I’m fairly certain we’ll find the old entrance in this direction. It might only be a month or so away, it was created with survival in mind. It wasn’t big enough to support the ships though so it was abandoned.”

I nod my head and store away the suit, the interior of the craft is melting into goop before my eyes but I ignore it and look to that direction, there’s nothing of note that I can see but it’s just endless dirt and hills.

“Let us go.”

I begin to walk, the person beside me doesn’t know whether to keep up or walk behind, switching between the two several times before opting to stay behind. The two of us begin to walk across the barren landscape until…