Two days passed, but it was not too much of a surprise. Isobel only had a single message left, so she was probably saving it for complete confirmation, and Theora’s call would still need to travel a long distance until it would arrive at the Ancient Devourer. And then, they’d need to make sure the readings were right. A little twitch in the Devourer’s trajectory wouldn’t be enough.

That said, Theora was reasonably sure that she’d made herself known. 

However, she could no longer afford to fall asleep, so she simply stared into the stars, letting her thoughts run idle while counting them. Counting stars the way Dema counted freckles, just to remember her by. Did her freckles look like the night’s sky to Dema? A little bit alluring, and beautiful. Maybe it was too much to think of herself that way, but Theora did find a little bit of solace in the thought that she might be loved.

Theora had, truthfully, long-since discarded the idea that Dema was faking it all, that she was acting only to trick Theora. There was no strong reason for this decision of extending such trust — Theora had simply made that choice, and that was that. And if she was wrong, she’d likely never find out, so what was the harm in imagining that a cute little demon could like Theora’s face.

There was also no harm in imagining that Bell would never actually proceed with her Main Quest, even now that Theora was gone. That Bell, despite her honest and straightforward nature, was lying to herself when she claimed she could go through with it, just like Theora always had.

The magic mould shielded her from the sun, so by now, Theora had completely frozen up again. Despite being frozen, she still lightly tapped her fingers against her thumbs, skin and bone and flesh cracking at the same time as she glued them back together with the force of her will, if only just to have something to feel or do. She’d already done her best to fetch a piece of mould for Dema.

It almost startled her when the line opened again one day.

“Final message. Ancient Devourer changed course. Mission Success.” There was a crackle. All forced calm came loose from Isobel’s voice. “Love you, mo—”

The connection broke.

Mission Success.

And with it, there was nobody left. 

“Love you too,” Theora whispered through cracking lips into the soundless nothingness.

Mission Success. That meant Theora was, all things considered, exactly as Dema had said, a snack. She just wished Dema was the one to have eaten her, not that big bully she hadn’t had the time to even befriend.

Now it was time for the final wait.

 

As a little child, Theora’s world had been full of wonder. She’d thrown a [Joyous Punch] one day, but it was weak. The adults were stronger than her, especially those who taught her to fight. Over her teenage years, she became peerless at home, but there were stronger people in the regions outside. Being the strongest person in a town of scholars wasn’t too much of an accomplishment, she felt.

If she travelled for a few days to a town of heroes, she’d quickly find herself outmatched. And then, through her best efforts, she might, after a few months or years of training, become the strongest in that town of heroes. But there existed grander, larger places even than towns of heroes. There’d be another region or another quest or another time where Theora would find someone to look up to again. Someone who would peer down at her with indulgence after she went all out, someone who didn’t even have to bother with dodging her fist. Maybe a calm smile on their face.

Someone like Gonell. That was the vibe a lot of them had. The stronger ones, they had always been gentle. At least, the ones that Theora respected.

The others, perhaps, would not smile, but glare in anger — although Theora had lived a life sheltered enough to never face an enemy she could lose against. So, Theora had always been the one to glare.

She almost never thought about any of that anymore, but somehow, now that she was so far away from home, these thoughts slowly flooded back as she forced some activity through her frozen nervous system.

It took a month until the presence of the Ancient Devourer came within her range, and it was truly, unimaginably large. Days passed before Theora could gaze upon it in its entirety. Her sense had to dull and dim against that sheer power before she could actually assess it properly instead of being blinded by its brilliance.

This power was larger than the sun, for sure. It was larger than her planetary system too; not necessarily in volume, but in its self-collapsing density — but not in a sense of mass. It didn’t exert a strong gravitational pull; it just was, in a way, unbelievably present. This thing would have had no issue gobbling it all up. No issue drawing the little rocks called ‘planets’ into its gigantic mouth.

Eventually, it came into view. A tiny blotch at first, but it inched closer by the day, and by the hour.

Some people had jokingly called it a mollusc.

The tendrils of this creature, if they could be called that, came first. Bioluminescent structures the size of planets, with reddish continents patched between areas of blue or green; some parts gleaming brighter than others, some cast in darkness. One tendril, two, then more. They didn’t reach for Theora; they surrounded her and the magic mould she was hovering at the precipice of, and they warped slowly, bulging, as if expecting a structure of a size similar to themselves.

As they moved past her, Theora waited. She wanted to use the Orb as late as possible. It would only grant her 24 hours of flight, and she had to use them wisely — not by trying to poke a tendril of planetary size.

Apart from the tendrils, it didn’t look like a mollusc. It was made of wings, mostly. Theora could sense through its aura that it was large and flat behind the tentacles the size of worlds reaching out in the front. If it was comparable to anything, it was comparable to a manta ray — except for one thing. One thing that, as Theora realised, made her shudder. She pushed the thought away for now. Didn’t want to think about it.

Finally, she could see the Ancient Devourer properly with her own eyes — its glow had grown strong enough to allow a peek. There was no fog in space that would have communicated how truly massive this being was. It did not have a big set of eyes. No face of sorts, no mouth. It didn’t need any of that, not at the scale of stars, at least.

When it was close enough, Theora snapped her last Orb to go for a visit. She landed somewhere on its flat back. It only looked flat from afar, though. It took hours to even get there; there was no gravitation to attract her to its surface because—

Again, she did not want to think about it.

Up close, the surface was mountainous, made of countless little tendrils, thick and short, grazing as if in the wind, like fabric or like grass. But their movements betrayed the metaphor of wind in slight and subconscious ways. When Theora stepped on them, they motioned out like disturbed water — as if she was a breeze emanating from a single point in a wide meadow. The tendrils didn’t change location, they just flopped to a direction away from her, then calmed back down.

This thing had no gravitational pull; Theora had simply landed feet first out of habit, because that’s how one was expected to interact with structures of planetary size. She shifted perspective; turning around so she could touch the little thick red polyps with her hands, her frozen body cracking at the motion, as it shielded her from the sun.

The things were soft. 

If Theora could take a deep breath, she would. She would attempt to steel herself and brace for what she was about to see, but she couldn’t; not without cracking her ribcage and making Bell sad for hurting herself more than necessary.

And so Theora dove her head between the tendrils without preparing herself at all, and peered into what lay beneath. The thing she didn’t want to see and yet forced herself to behold — nothing.

Endless nothing. There was nothing inside. The tendrils were all there was of this creature. Inside, there was an empty space. Her heart lurched; the Ancient Devourer was just like herself.

It was an empty shell.

Theora soared over endless landscapes. Places where the tendrils were thinner than a finger, and others where they were thicker than Treeka. And there was debris between them. Echoes of what the creature had eaten before. Rocks, continents, ruins. 

Theora needed to find a good place before time ran out on her Orb.

The tendrils were able to change shape. After a while, they started following her with their gazes. Some of them grew little complex organs. Some looked like abstract insect eyes; some might have been other kinds of sensors. The Ancient Devourer was becoming aware of Theora’s presence, and kept staring at her as she moved.

Finally, she saw a structure that seemed like a good place, maybe. It was still far on the horizon, but it stood out, because it looked like a city, and it was gold-coloured. She realised that there, tendrils of all sizes and shapes were mixed between themselves; not as uniform as other parts of the Devourer’s skin. If it had minds, one of them was perhaps there.

As time went on, the Devourer grew less patient with Theora’s presence. It started activating Skills.

Skills to draw her in. Skills to push her away. The Orb was able to overpower them, for now, but it was only a matter of time. It splashed out types of acid and webs to keep Theora controlled, it tried to capture her, but for now, it was merely testing the waters. These attempts were not serious, although they would have been enough to fetch a planet. The creature knew Theora was a little stronger than a planet.

Hours passed, and Theora got closer and closer to the ‘city’ — she was close enough to know that the comparison was very flawed. Perhaps it was, instead, a forest, if a forest had many trees of vastly different sizes. She kept soaring past its distant outreaches — every now and then, a very large tendril would appear to attempt something, but she’d outmanoeuvre it. She kept moving past, like she was a tiniest fragment of life — a louse or a mite — moving past the feet, calves, thighs, fingers, arms and torso of a sitting person, slowly, to make her way to their face.

Theora’s clothing had barely regenerated; it was far from its usual glamour. But the frills and folds and tears floated behind her, chaotic but unmoving in the void. Like back then at the Zenith of the End, she moved in solitude towards her final task, a betta fish, ready for a fight.

 

Time was almost out. Theora knew, because she kept counting the seconds while thinking of how much this all reminded her of home. Back when she was small and overconfident, there was a saying that her mentors had liked to remind her of.

There is always a bigger fish.

Back then, these words had failed to instil Theora with the reverence and humility they were meant to teach. If anything, she’d found the prospect of finding someone stronger exciting. After a while, that excitement had waned, of course, because it hadn’t actually taken too long for her to become the most powerful being on her home planet. The idea that she could simply leave the places she already knew and move far out to distant lands to find something bigger than herself had grown more and more faint, and flickered away into nothing but a cute little remnant of her past.

Eventually, the Ancient Devourer made its intentions clear.

It was here to have a meal, and nothing else. Watching Theora for a while had been interesting, perhaps, but the curiosity had worn out, and now, it was time for a little snack. The tendrils reached out, started to spin a net, and Theora felt it activate more and more Skills that would prevent anything from leaving. The creature was now also setting up a gravitational pull that would, soon enough, draw her in and gobble her up. And once she was inside, it would use its strongest Skills to make Theora part of itself.

Theora wasn’t looking forward to that. Amyd had made a Legendary Skill only to gobble Theora up, and it might have worked if she’d not had Dema to protect back then, but Theora wanted to believe that Dema was safe for now, so technicalities like that might not help much this time around. It didn’t matter; she wasn’t here to think about being eaten, she wanted to try something else.

Finally, Theora entered the forest-town. The largest tendrils looked like something akin to soft, leathery, emerald-green skin, with saturated purple and crimson areas and lines painted over, and many little hills and indents, each larger than Theora herself.

She found a pretty place. A valley of glowing, golden tendrils ending in a curved wall. When she stopped in the centre, looking up at the thick pillars, the Ancient Devourer produced many eyes and organs to peer down, indulgently.

A few glowing knobs appeared around Theora, illuminating her shape to be perceived.

Regrettably, the Ancient Devourer then increased the gravitational pull meant to draw her in. She had to resist with her willpower by now; the Orb was no longer enough. This had gotten serious. This had gotten sad.

This had gotten slightly unkind.

It ticked Theora off.

She had come all the way here just to talk, and yet the Devourer was still trying to eat her all the same. Granted, she’d made herself a snack, but that was only because it would have eaten her home world otherwise.

“You are not nice at all,” she murmured with cracking lips into the soundless void.

Again, the creature increased its pull. It was sucking her in with so much strength, it became difficult to focus on anything but staying afloat on the soft golden tendril carpet.

And with that, Theora had enough. She’d come all this way. She’d lost everyone. Everything. All because she was too tasty. It really wasn’t fair. It was unkind.

It ticked her off.

And so, she glared. Her icy brows crumbled. “Back off,” she commanded, by flaring her power.

A shockwave went out. Thousands of the Devourer’s Skills activated at once, acid streams and gravitational warps, illusions and violent assaults, beams and nets and thoughts declaring absolute control. They puffed to nothing. Crumbled apart against Theora’s impenetrable shell.

The eyes flinched and fissured, closing themselves for protection. The walls jerked back, tendrils ripping apart in its attempts to get to safety. The ground retreated, far away. The creature was trying to run. Only now, it understood. Now, it truly saw.

It was too late.

The behemoth had strayed far, far from home, into deep waters — travelling for aeons, complacent in its confidence. Sympathising with its plight made Theora recall long-forgotten pasts, gave her flashes of her hometown, tore open old wounds she did not wish to remember.

Perhaps the Devourer never had the right mentors, or it might have realised in time.

It had found a bigger fish.