1 Hour Earlier:

Brooklyn is currently trudging through the dark labyrinth of caves, her main flashlight broke during the centipede fight meaning she had to resort to using her back up crank flashlight.

After Joy saved Brooklyn from certain death by hijacking her brain and moving her body up to the maze. Brooklyn was left with an itch that simply wouldn't go away along her thigh and hips, presumably from sitting in radiation. The itch got so bad that she had to take off her black military pants just so she could scratch it more effectively.

The radiation has left Brooklyn with some very serious skin damage, but once she gets out of here she should be able to heal it using a Healing Tonic, she had brought some along with her in vials, but they were destroyed by the Nest-ipede.

The crank flashlight starts to flicker out into darkness.

The pantless Brooklyn sits down on a cool rock nearby that helps ease her itch and starts to crank the flashlight as hard as she can while also periodically scratching her backside.

The rock she is sitting on has marks along the ground next to it, that suggests it has been moved recently.

She doesn't know why a random rock in a labyrinth that seems to be devoid of monsters would be moved but it probably has to do with that white monster.

After having cranked her flashlight enough that the light stopped flickering, she tried to move the rock but she wasn't strong enough to move it out of its spot. She could just use her geomancy powers but it's probably not a good idea to exert her energy on a suspicious looking rock especially after taking mild radiation damage and being in a maze where a monster could appear around a corner at any moment.

With that Brooklyn leaves the Rock alone and continues making her way through the maze looking for an exit.

===

9 Hours Later: (Present Time)

Joy awakens from his evolutionary slumber into a Radioactive Tentacle Monster.

It goes about as well as you thought.

‘HUNGERPAINSTARVINGFOODHUNGERPAINSTARVINGFOODHUNGERPAINSTARVINGFOODHUNGERPAINSTARVINGFOODHUNGERPAINSTARVINGFOODHUNGERPAINSTARVINGFOODHUNGERPAINSTARVINGFOODHUNGERPAINSTARVINGFOODHUNGERPAINSTARVINGFOODHUNGERPAINSTARVINGFOODHUNGERPAINSTARVINGFOOD!!!!!!!!!’

My mind is completely filled with these thoughts leaving room for almost nothing else.

I scan the room for possible food sources, however the only thing in my Hole is Cake the Crab.

That small space in my mind however, is just barely enough to stop me from eating Cake alive though as Cake looks at me with sparkling black eyes. I swear if Cake was a bit less cute I would eat her, I might still eat her. I need to get out of here and get food!

‘Stay here.’ I mentally send a short order to Cake using what little will power I have left over the hunger.

*snip*

I burst through the tunnel and easily pushed the rock out of the way using my increased strength and speed.

‘FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD!’ I scream internally as I completely give in to the sense of hunger.

My body begins to glow very lightly and a faint mist escapes, I activate Anti-Gravity and start to move so fast that I can't even keep up with what's around me anymore as I turn corners heading toward the closest monster filled area around me.

The millipede nest.

I rush around the corners of the cave maze heading directly toward the millipede nest using my long distance radar sense to figure out which way is the fastest like a GPS.

I turn a corner that turns into a long hallway that leads to the nest directly, I use Flesh Flash to turn the corner. My tentacle latches onto the rock and lifts me off the ground as I turn the corner and the tendril catapults me down the long hallway.

I was moving so fast that when I turned that corner using Flesh Flash that when it sent me launching down the hallway, I didn't land back on the ground for 10 Seconds, using that speed I wrap my tendrils around my ball body to better use that burst of speed to get down the hallway.

‘FOOOOD!!!’ I mentally scream as I make out a large group of millipedes.

The tendrils that have clung to my body start to untangle themselves and I activate each of their draining spikes.

Spikes come out of the tip of each tendril like a stinger and each of them make an impact with a millipede, the millipedes are caught completely off guard by my speed and die almost instantly due to a mixture of radiation damage and being drained.

The starvation is still present even after draining the four millipedes and I start to make my way deeper into the nest.

The millipedes deeper in the nest start to pour out of it and head toward the recent battle.

‘FOOOOD!!!!’ I scream at the incoming wave of millipedes before diving into the mass of bugs.

I start to pierce millipede after millipede with my draining spikes, the millipedes chew and thrash at my radioactive skin causing them to start bleeding black blood from their insectoid mouth.

I continue to take damage from the millipedes and drain away all of the life out of millipedes that I have dug my spike into.

I don't stop until a message pops up in my head causing me to snap out of my hunger.

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

[You have negated the effects of Extreme Starvation]

Over half of my tendrils have been eaten by the swarm of millipedes surrounding me and the rest of my tendrils are inching ever closer to being fully consumed as well.

I continue to do everything I can while I start to figure out if it's even possible to get out of this situation.

My Core/Brain works over time to figure out how to get out of dying as I continue to spike millipede after millipede.

How do I get out of this?! Think! Think!!

Sticking a spike into their brain and taking over them isn't going to work due to the sheer number, controlling a few at most won't be able to do anything against a hundred others.

I can't escape either due to the amount of millipedes acting as a wall for my Flash Flash ability.

Wait! Didn’t I gain a new ability, something about a grenade.

[Flesh Grenade: Allows the creation of Flesh to be turned into a small explosive; it is best used on clusters of enemies or enemies behind cover.]

Buying Deep Learning was definitely the right decision even if a robot demon that sounds exactly like GladOs makes fun of me at all times.

“An extremely dumb cephalopod walks into a bar and orders a drink. Instead, it got chopped up into little bits and served on a plate at the local sushi bar.” The robot demon that sounds like GladOs finishes off her joke by stating, “You are that cephalopod.”

I ignore her joke at my current situation and stab into another millipede as I activate Flesh Grenade.

One of my half eaten tendrils starts to glow brightly around the base where it connects to my main body. The tendril starts to split apart due to radiation and it gets snatched by a millipedes small mouth.

The small half tendril starts to bubble and expand while still glowing brightly where it disconnected. After a few seconds the limb breaks apart and explodes into small spikes and black goo.

*glagngag!*

A loud gooey explosive sound escapes the tendril as it explodes, crippling the millipedes all around it. The loud noise startles the rest of the millipedes around me and I am able to escape out of the mass of bugs.

I am too weak to move up the ceiling or on the wall due to the amount of appendages I have lost but, at least the millipedes seem to be getting moving back to the nest. I check my health.

[Stats:

[Health: 27/500

[Stamina:55/500

I need to get back to Hole Base and heal up, I'm sure Cake would be willing to take care of me and if not well I could just make her…

That was a weird thought to have, I think as I start to slowly crawl away from the horde of millipedes.

As more and more millipedes move from the middle of the tunnel to the sides, I can see a large centipede start to move its way from side to side toward me, the Centi-Queen.

The large centipede that fought that woman before retreating shows up with some of its legs have healed although with visible scars left over from the battle that will never heal.

This is the only monster in this cave that I have met, that was smart enough to retreat when it was losing a battle…and I walked into its home after killing dozens upon dozens of its children and injuring basically all of the millipedes that fought me atleast of varying degrees. That Queen most certainly has a huge vendetta against me, now.

I try to prepare another grenade to throw at the centipede, but the ability has a cooldown and I can't do it again. I am too weak to fight the queen and her one hundred injured millipede children. There isn't much I can do in this scenario except…

Flip the Centi-Queen off and Flesh Flash away!

The Centi-Queen launches her mandibles at me but I manage to dodge out of the way using Flesh Flash and head back down the long rock hallway to make my tactful retreat.

I am still slightly glowing as a small amount of mist pours out of my body allowing me to be seen by the pantless woman at the end of the hallway, as she cranks her flashlight and then it turns on and she points it at me.

I am now trapped in between a human geomancer who could beat the Centi-Queen easily while not injured. And the Centi-Queen and her hundreds of millipede children, while at the same time completely blind by a blazing flashlight.

The possibility of death floats through my mind, but I end up going towards the succulent human since hopefully my message let her know that I am friendly to my food.

FOOD?! Did I really just think of my ex-species like that?! It must be the post-starvation talking.

...Right?!

I continue blindly rolling toward the human’s last known location, as her flash light continues to block out all of my vision.

How can a flashlight even be so bright!? It is quite literally blinding!

I can still feel the cold ground against my radioactive heated body and I can feel my regeneration taking effect although it's gonna be a while until my body fully heals from being shredded apart.

I also don't know why I can't feel any pain although I am most certainly not complaining about being immune to pain after being shredded apart, maybe I just gained better monster adrenaline from my evolution...ehehe, better not think too far into it otherwise that monster adrenaline is gonna end and I'm gonna be in a world of hurt.

In that moment of clear headedness my body seemed to produce less super adrenaline and I got a taste of the pain I should be experiencing.

PAPER CUTS EVERYWHERE! PAPER CUTS ON PAPER CUTS ON PAPERCUTS AND THEN POURED IN LEMON JUICE!

That taste of pain jump started my adrenaline levels back to hyper levels as I hear a lot of things start to fall behind me or infront of me or to the side, which direction am I even moving in?!

Am I even on the ground anymore? I can't feel the ground anymore. I can still feel something though it’s like something picked me up...and threw me!

I know that I am not on the ground even if I am blind, as I feel the air rush past my torn apart chew toy of a body.

I get flashbacks of Mother throwing me.

Mother, you can't be alive! I...

The flash light begins to flicker out which allows me to see that the tunnel with all the millipedes has collapsed on top of them and the pantless woman has slight burn marks on her hands.

She must have tried to pick me up, and burned her hands by holding a radioactive bleeding monster. But, at least that means she might not try to kill me...

The woman uses her Rock Powers and a cage forms out of the ground and surrounds me.

The cage wouldn’t normally be strong enough to contain me but, after being turned into a chew toy by the millipedes. I am too weak to rip apart the stone bars and definitely too weak to fight her.

Please, I didn't mean to hurt you actually it's your fault for picking up a glowing monster! I don't want to be a pet! Or be killed! Or having that flashlight pointed at me!

Luckily for me she doesn't point the flashlight at me but the others options are most certainly still open.

She uses my slightly glowing body to find me in the cage and looks at my badly mutilated body that is seeping black blood trying to repair my body.

“Xugha. Oila.” The woman says to me as she stares at me in the cage and scratches her butt.

Those nonsense words barely register in my mind as the cage starts to compress around me and squeeze my body. I need to figure out how to appease the juicy human in front of me to stop her from squeezing me until I pop.

I stretch two tendrils outside of the cage and form a heart to hopefully show the human not to hurt me.

“Oila.” The woman says although I have no idea what it means, I can tell it's the same word as before.

The heart trick seems to work and the compression stops.

My body no longer looks like a ball or a pill but a cube, that is how much she has compressed me inside this cage. I keep up the heart tendrils and add a few more since it seemed to have worked. I don't know how this is working but, all that matters is that I get out of this alive.

===

Brooklyn captured the Albino Suctioner after hearing a loud sound come from this direction and finding it being chased by a large amount of Legipedes.

She was immensely curious about the albino suctioner since most suctioner’s die out in the wild and have about the same intelligence as a wet brick.

But this suctioner was special, she could tell by the way it moved that it must have come from an immensely rare species as almost all suctioners appear in swamplands and not in an active volcano and before that almost all of them are a dark green in color and not pure white like this one.

Brooklyn goes to pick up the very slightly glowing monster that she disoriented using a weak flashlight, but she didn't think too much into that glow and when her hands started to touch its open wounds the mist from the monster started to burn her hands.

She quickly threw the monster away and created a cage around it that slowly compressed its body to incapacitate it.

How does Brooklyn know so much about Joy’s species anatomy. Well quite a few suctioner species are kept as pets and her first pet that she got for her younger sister was a suctioner. Although her younger sister always said that it was a disgusting monster, Brooklyn thought differently; however, suctioner’s were cute in her eyes so she took care of it instead.

She watches as the albino suctioner pokes two of its tendrils through the small gaps in the cage and forms a heart symbol.

Brooklyn’s heart momentarily flutters at the monster’s actions although not enough to sate her curiosity about the albino suctioners use of basic symbols that are far beyond any monster found in a random cave. There have been monster’s created in a lab that are able to do something similar after being trained by humans their entire lives but, one of them would never be found in a deep dangerous cave.

Brooklyn gets a wierd sense of deja vu from the monster, but chooses to ignore it.

The ever-present itch continues to attack her backside and the monster continues to pump out slightly glowing heart tendrils.

She beings to wonder what else this curious albino suctioner can do...maybe.

'Maybe it can help with the itch.' She thinks as the itch begins to wear at her psyche before trying to communicate with the...

...weird white tentacle monster.