In the mist a sandstorm on a ruined world where the ground was scorched and the skies had darkened from volcanic ashes so deformed from its prior self that one would never think it ever housed life, to begin with.
On this deprived planet a creature, humanoid in appearance, covered in a black shell-like hide that covered its entire body as if it had an exoskeleton with small malleable scales that would envelop its joints and were almost indistinguishable from one another or its hide, its mouth for breathing and eating separately with the one for eating similar to humans but and the mouth meant for breathing appeared as two holes on the sides of its jaw which would close by the scales covering them and appeared much like gills but in a manner similar to insects.
Its eyes were similar to a human's but hidden within its shell they appeared as small holes on its face as the world around it was harsh so they had to be protected however it could change the structure of its body at will thus its eyes and its armor would always change depending on its needs, all within seconds which is why it was able to survive for so long.
It ran for shelter in a cave on this wasteland of a planet whose sun had turned red.
As the sun was coming up which cause the land to burn due to the heat. The creature ran as fast it could causing the ground to crack under its weight and strength then leaped into the cave to avoid the light of the sun which was rising given its rays were strong enough for the storm to turn red from the heat as if it turned into a firestorm, now having reached safety it rested in the shadows of the cave uttering to itself
“How much longer will wait till my end?"
Reminiscing times when the sun had not turned red and the world was home many, all while sitting in the darkness alone clenching its fist near its chest as if trying to get a hold of its empty heart.
“Ought to rest, hope there isn’t a cave-in like last time……”
Now closing its eyes, the creature rested though awake and completely aware of its surroundings. Thinking
“So long has passed that it doesn’t even haunt me anymore ………….”
After the sunset and the storm passed it set out wandering the land, looking around it observed the ruins of the world that died long ago. It ran and leaped around at great speed until coming to a halt near an active volcano, it gathered all it needed to survive from the soil around its growing roots as if it were a plant, though it wasn't something so gentle.
It waited while it absorbed nutrients from the soil it thought to itself
(I spent most of my life hidden from them (humans) learning as much as I could about as many things as I could over the years just cause I could and for what……. had some fun times too pretending to be one of them, I could not be near any of them for long so I took pleasure in their entertainment ………. Those were good times... now I am just waiting for the end).
As soon as it had gathered all the minerals it needed its roots returned to it, starting to head towards the lava while running as fast as could without damaging its footing to absorb its heat thinking
"Well before any of that, I did end a lot of lives until I was able to learn how to contain and hide myself and even had to erase every bit of knowledge related to …."
however as soon as it came close to the lava the world started to shake, the volcano started to erupt and gravity gave, as it looked around confused as to what was happening it could see the boulders rising to the sky and lava floating in the air, it sighed as if numbed to reality around it coming to a halt and looking on in a lonesome manner as the world in front of it was crumbling.
Some of the lava suddenly unnaturally rose towards it causing it to instinctively jump away and it splashed into something, completely submerged.
The next thing it knew it was in a sea completely sealed off with ice with remnants of land around it, confused and completely giving into its instincts of survival it took a quick look around to assess the situation, grew gills on its neck to breathe and flippers on its hands and feet as it rushed to the surface thinking
"What the hell is going on? How did I get here? There wasn’t any ice left on the planet… another planet. A rift in space that’s the only thing I can think of now”
As it came close to the ice-covered surface it prepared to strike it as it could see through it having come to the conclusion
"the ice is thin enough for me to break through ...... need to get to the surface and take a look around, the water doesn't have much oxygen in it either if I want survive, I must look for minerals and a strong heat source"
its eyes were always looking around trying to understand the structure of the ice to make it easier to break but before it could a massive whirlpool appeared out of nowhere soon sucked it in while in thought
“What?!?!”.
Without even having to look around it knew it was in space as it felt as it was going to burst, though most living things would die from being in space, it did not as it was malleable, evolutionary, and even more adaptive.
Every place around its body from where air could escape was shut and it strengthened every fiber of itself using every bit of excess mass it had to prevent itself from exploding as it was being thrown around from place to place while still remaining in space coming across stars and planets even witnessing a world being devoured into a black hole it thought
"What madness is this.......even though I was lucky enough to be transported to a planet last time I can’t hope to survive now ........... Even so, I should become dormant and wait (it’s easier that way)”.
After Millenniums passed while it remained in a dormant state as it was thrown around in space, it was pulled in by a planet that was lush with greenery and seas larger than the lands.
As it fell its consciousness returned and immediately made a massive shield made from its own mass using up most of its armor while only leaving a thin but strong layer to cover the rest of its body.
When it crashed into the ground onto mountains causing a significant quake and its shield was cracked
It uttered as it rose
“The gravity here is weaker”
Looking around it began to gather its specs from the shield around its growing tendrils using its body to grab them and regenerating at great speed and its eyes were now revealed as the air was much clearer around here, however as it gathered all its specs and was regenerating it started feeling great pain throughout its body and slowly walked out of the crater only to fall back down to its knees. Its body began to shift to adjust to whatever was causing the pain as it was still restoring itself which only caused it to intensify the pain thinking to itself
'What is going on…...damn it......... the air is killing me........'
Through the agony, it restrained itself from yelling from pain.
After almost half a day of intense pain throughout with it continuously changing its form trying to resist whatever was causing it was finally able to calm down as the pain subsided though remaining. Though it was highly adaptive it was not able to do anything about this sharp pain that it felt throughout its entire body which was only made somewhat bearable by changing its lungs and blood realizing
“It’s not just the air, something in it……. something I can’t filter”.
As it left its crater which was formed from its impact, it looked around with every sense that it possessed which consisted of almost every one of the plants and creatures back on its planet once such as Echolocation, Hygroreception, Infrared as well and then it hit home that there was LIFE here
"hahahaHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA"
a burst of laughter echoed off the mountains
After spending the rest of the day trying to adapt its sense to this new world while resting, absorbing the sun’s radiation to recover alongside the minerals it had harvested back on its planet.
Having fallen onto mountains where there are neither caves nor plants. There wasn’t much else it could do thus it decided to head for the forest that surrounded the mountains.
Feeling as if it was being pieced in its lungs it slowly wandered toward the forest looking to consume whatever it could, though unlike most creatures it did not need to eat with its mouth as the tendrils that it used to gather its pieces could also permeate and tear apart whatever it intended to eat both from the inside and outside and then dissolve into it.
Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.
Given this was unnatural had decided to restrain from doing so but due to its pain it was intended to attain what it lacked to adapt to whatever the pain was being caused by as quickly as possible.
Coming across an odd flower as it descended which had both golden and silver petals which shone reflecting the moonlight off itself. The flower piqued the creature's interest thus it carefully left while committing this place to memory after hesitating for a moment.
The creature moved further down the mountain
Upon reaching the base of the mountains which had a small clearing not too far from it, the creature decided to head there as it had noticed animals rushing towards it, soon after it was attacked by wolf-like animals which were quicker on their feet than the wolfs of the creature’s world even though there was still some distance away.
The wolfs had gusts of wind surrounding them and it seemed as if it was under the wolf's control as they approached it looked at them and it uttered
“WHAT THE FUCK!?!”
The creature shocked by what it had seen was first attacked by a strong and sharp gust of wind which pushed it into the air followed by being bitten on each of its limbs by four such wolves while twice as many watched.
While the creature was in pain and shocked such attacks were ineffective against it but since it was in a weakened state, they were enough to bring it down to the ground.
One by one the creature sent them all flying away as it spun around on its back and then pushed itself into the air using its hands while spinning to land on its feet.
The Wolfs growled at the creature backing off a little as it did not even appear to have been even scratched by their attacks. The creature thought
“How is this possible? ……… MAGIC?!?!”
Now all the wolves attacked together first with gusts of wind strong enough to slice through leaves to prevent falling down once more it planted itself into the ground and guarded with its arms crossed, the wolf all attacked from two to four at a time without getting in each other way the creature dodged their attacks sideways and bending both forward and backwards such that the wolfs could not touch it while tossing them away by pushing them with its hands whenever it could leaving deep impressions onto the ground while thinking to itself
“This is not good,”
After attaining a decent footing while dodging it grabbed one of the wolves by the neck and jumped a decent distance away from the others while holding on to its neck.
It glanced at the wolf struggling to escape attacking with blades of wind; the creature looked within its eyes while thinking
“I should strike fear in them”
as it broke its neck within the hand it was holding then tore it apart in two with its hands consuming the two pieces with the tendrils that rose from it, as the wolf was consumed it roared while facing the other wolfs who were trembling with fear at this sight of the blood being splattered everywhere as one of them was torn into two and began to flee, seeing this it reminded itself
"Consuming isn’t something I should do in front of intelligent beings but it should be fine against animals"
Then thought
“This world is a fantasy come true except that magic, no mana itself is trying to kill me”.
Consuming the wolf had caused its pain to intensify even further, however, the biomass it had gained from the wolf helped it overcome it as it strengthened its bonds.
As the wolves ran off, the creature now in somewhat better condition thanks to the access biomass it had attained realized that everything might have weaker bonds in this world and thought the living beings were stronger compared to its former world though they had less weight as well though that may be due to low gravity however their strength was too great should that be the cause and whatever this energy which I could only think of as mana was deeply intertwined in all things uttered to itself
“Magic …..Huh…………. exhilarating!”
The creature having consumed the wolf learned that their structure was quite similar to a common wolf with only minor differences whose purpose it thought was to control mana as they were creatures of fantasy, it uttered to itself
“This is definitely a world of magic and it looks like magic either rejects my existence or is just trying to change the very fiber of my being to house it as everything might……. hmmmmm having magic would be interesting but alas"
Then thought to itself
“Shouldn’t try to imitate these creatures for now magic might be something that can be sensed easily anyhow I should find a place to stay, hm... should also avoid taking on my unnatural forms either unless I need to”.
Having almost completely recovered it now moved on without making any noise in a stance similar to crouching but more like an animal with it occasionally using its hands to keep its movement fluid and silent, as it was in much better condition.
Having entered the forest it kept moving deeper while keeping a distance from all other animals coming across a lake, after making certain that no larger animals were about using its extremely sharp senses and looking around with its heat vision it drank water from it by placing its hand in it and absorbing it slowly.
After drinking from the lake and looking around once more it sat mostly submerged in it and thought
“That was much better than having to drink steaming hot water back home, had to numb my senses to be able to drink that”
Although it had begun relaxing in the lake it was still completely aware of its surroundings and highly conscious of the smallest things even the movement of bugs, though it was on edge due to its lack of knowledge it was also excited due to this world which it chose to hide as best it could. The creature thought
"Well, I am able to see life again .......... guess I can thank God for that”
Followed by it uttering
<
In the language native to the religion, it was most enthused by.
It shook its head and thought
“Stop thinking nonsense, ought to search for a place to stay”
With this, it set off in search of shelter close by the lake. It wandered around while consuming whatever insect that decided to sit on it whenever it stopped to look around, after a while it came across a cave that was close enough to the lake it walked inside and looked around with night vision, seeing the cave was rather large it used echolocation upon which bat-like creatures flew out of the cave. The cave was rather large and seemed to house something almost twice as large as a bear. Having decided that it would make this its resting place it approached it, all while thinking to it itself
“Why were there bats in a cave at night, whatever …….I should not be so aggressive might be an intelligent being if magic exists then anything is possible”.
When it came closer it realized that there was no heartbeat however still exercising caution slowly and quietly approached as it came to a large opening in the cave which was filled with webs and had a massive spider’s corpse in the middle.
Upon closer inspection, it saw that it had 3 arrows on its head 2 of them in its eyes thinking
“This world has civilizations as well”
The creature looked around and saw many eggs within the webs which were broken inwards
“Wiped out …. Must be hunters”
, then proceeded to consume the spider’s corpse after pulling out the arrows while trying to contain its excitement and putting them aside. The arrows were finely made and seemed to have been decorated as well. Thinking to itself after having completely consumed the spider
“decorated weapons…… might have to do something with magic though”
It proceeded to level some of the ground in a corner after morphing its hands to become mole-like.
Once it was done it went out of the cave to survey the surroundings, staying at a distance from all large and mid-sized animals staying on the ground as the trees would cause more noise due to its weight; thinking
“Won’t stay here long but I need to adapt to the mana in the air before leaving so that I can improve my odds”
After returning to the cave it prepared itself for another period of stasis thinking
“Thank goodness I ended up on a world with life”
It laid down and wondered as it covered itself in a strong shell that would disguise it as a rock during its rest while thinking aloud
“What was the likelihood of me ending up on a planet with life, I was prepared to die back there. Lucky that I did not explode immediately after ending in space too…… well if it was God who allowed me to live and make it this far, can’t think of anything else the probability is too low of not dying or ending up on a planet with life even less so for one with magic ..... maybe even a different universe now that I think about it ”
*sigh*uttering
"Need to come up with a name too as there seems to be intelligent life here; I have long forgotten my last one ....... how about ….. Terran”
With this, it went into a deep sleep now being able to relax in the depths of the cave given it was at long last on a world busting with life.