Adam found himself staring at a giant metal dinosaur. More accurately, what looked like a t-rex covered head to toe in long, thin metallic spikes of various thickness. It was also obscenely huge. Its head alone was larger than Adam's entire body, and it was taller than some of the trees. It was also looking right at him.

Adam was completely frozen. His eyes staring right into the large orange orb, filled with raw hate. He had never seen so much anger in his life. The giant reptile also radiated power in a way that Adam could feel viscerally, all the way to his bones. Suddenly, the abomination swung its head around toward Adam, opened its mouth, and roared.

It was so loud, his whole body vibrated, and he could feel the air pressure almost push him over. He felt a primal fear overcome him, and his mind blanked out. Flecks of dino spittle hit him all over, and it burned. The pain of the acidic saliva snapped him out of whatever mind fuckery had been going on with that roar. It was a moment too late, though.

Adam regained awareness of his surroundings just in time to see a scaled arm, ending in hands with claws longer than his forearm, heading right for him, almost too fast for him to perceive. The claws slammed into his midsection, ripping into his stomach and intestines, coming away covered in the gore that used to be his body. The force of the blow tossed Adam dozens of feet away, completely eviscerated. So this is how I die. He thought. He could feel his life leaving him. He couldn't even summon up the energy to so much as twitch, the pain overwhelming him until he passed out.

Regaining consciousness, what must have been only moments later, Adam saw his situation had only gotten worse if that was possible. He was looking into the descending mouth of the creature that had so thoroughly disemboweled him. Jerking in surprise and with more force, than he had thought remained in his ravaged body, he flung his arm out in some vestigial and pathetic attempt to resist his death.

His arm, which also happened to still be a pyrovine limb.

The limb whipped forward, the bulb slamming into the dangling uvula dangling in the throat of the dino. Reflexively, it jerked back and slammed its mouth shut, with part of Adam's transformed limb still inside it. Then, it jerked its head around while standing to its full height. This caused Adam to be ripped through the air, losing some more of his guts in the process.

The head shaking, flung him up around the monster's head and back down the other side. As he went, the pyrovine arm stretched out under the massive physical force he was under. Swinging around several times, the elasticity of the limb seemed to reach its limit, and Adam was slammed violently into the metal back of the dino. He was then impaled on the spike there in several places along his torso. Somehow, his head ended up nestled in between two spikes. Unfortunately, his lungs were pierced, possibly multiple times, the spikes sliding through his flesh with as much ease as the claws had earlier.

Adam wasn't sure how, but he managed to be in even more pain than he had felt after having his stomach ripped out. He faded in and out of reality, the t-rex moving around occasionally jolting his ravaged body on the spikes, further increasing the damage. Why can't I just die? He thought, the pain slowly breaking his mind as his brain gradually ceased to function from oxygen deprivation. Eventually, his mind managed to reach oblivion.

{}

Adam jerked up with a start, screaming in agony. Until his mind caught up with his body, and he realized he wasn't in any pain. Jerking his head around, he was more and more surprised. He was still on the back of the metal dinosaur, but he was no longer pierced by its spines. In fact, his body was completely fine, besides being covered in blood, gore, piss, and shit. Yeah, apparently, at some point while his body was being turned into a prehistoric chew toy, he had lost control of his bowels. The smell was awful. He had no idea Visera smelled so horrible.

The more surprising part was that the dino appeared to be dead. It was lying flat on the ground, unmoving. His transformed arm was still in its mouth, pinning him to its back, so he rolled off the side of the thing, hoping to unravel his arm, and figure out what had actually killed the thing.

When he did manage to get to the side of the gigantic creature, which was more than a little awkward with all the spikes, he started laughing. While flinging him around like a rag doll, the giant lizard had managed to get his pyrovine arm wrapped around its neck several times. Then his body had been held in place by the giant spikes. It had literally choked itself to death, using him as a medium. He laughed harder, unable to stop; every time he looked at the green vines looping around its neck, he laughed even harder.

He ended up keeled over on the ground, laughing like a loon. At some point, the laughing started to transition into full-body sobs. He lay there, crying like a baby, harder than he had in his entire life. He couldn't control it any more than he could his laughter. So he just let go and cried. He wasn't even sure what he was crying about. He felt incredibly lost and drained as tears streamed out of him.

Finally, some time later, his sobbing petered out, and he just t=lay there, next to a creature who had almost killed him, on an alien world in another universe, his transformed arm still wrapped around its neck. He rolled to stare up at the sky. He wasn't sure what the hell he was doing. He just stared into the air as sunlight started to fade into night. He had arrived in the morning. He hadn't even been here a whole day, and he had very nearly died gruesomely.

"I'm a fucking idiot." He said out loud after a long time. He must have been in shock earlier. Walking toward the sound of monster roars to get a look? What the fuck was wrong with him? He hadn't even tried to be stealthy; he just wandered through the forest like it was an afternoon stroll! He was only alive because of the most lucky, bullshit circumstances. "I don't want to die like this." He whispered.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

He jumped to his feet, determined to take this situation as the deadly serious challenge it was. Only to immediately fall over from the pull on his vine arm. He stared at the thing. He wouldn't be able to do anything unless he managed to unwind himself from this corpse. Looking at the thing, he wasn't sure how to go about that. It looked heavy as fuck. Seriously, the thing's head had to weigh several tons, being the size of a small car and covered in metal. Plus, it was covered in spikes. He wouldn't very well be able to grab it, even if he wanted to try to move it.

Thinking about the problem for a moment, Adam struck upon a possible solution. He focused on his limb, willing it to heat up, as hot as it could go. If he couldn't lift the thing, he would just melt right through it. The pyrovine heated up rapidly, approaching and then exceeding oven territory. Adam figured it had to be approaching 1000 degrees Fahrenheit. He was starting to sweat from the heat it was putting off. Though, he could tell that the changes his body had gone through had made him significantly more resistant to heat.

After several minutes, Adam started to accept that this wasn't working. He let the pyrovine cool, which it did just as rapidly as it had heated. He laid his hand against the spines touching the vines around the monster's neck. They weren't even very warm. Apparently, this things heat resistance put his to shame. Staring at the metal, he sighed. He only had one other solution. Focusing on the pyrovine, he patted it, then dismissed the transformation. The whole limb blurred, then disappeared, leaving behind his normal arm in its place.

He hadn't wanted to do that, the limb had saved his life after all, and he was loath to lose it over something as silly as this. Despite its lackluster effect in the heat department, it had seemed pretty strong to him. "Well, I need to find a way to wash up and some…new...clothes," Adam said to himself, staring at his gorey body and tattered clothes, only to find said clothes completely fine.

His work boots, denim jeans, long sleeve black shirt, and leather jacket were pristine. He wasn't sure what to think. He knew they had been just as shredded as him earlier. He had been wondering how he would find replacements since the scraps that had been left didn't cover much. Now they looked brand new. Better than he had ever seen, especially in the case of his jacket. It had been a hand-me-down from his grandfather.

The old thing was from a time when clothes were made to last and held up well over all these years, but it had had several noticeable rips and scuffs. Those were now gone. He hadn't even noticed it happening. On a hunch, he used Know the Unknown on his jacket.

Outsider's Regalia:

Grade: @)^!&^(

This article has experienced the depths of the infinite, along with its owner. This has caused it to develop a resistance to most magics, as well as the ability to regenerate, so long as the owner remains alive. This Item is soul-bound and cannot be removed from the owner without his consent.

Why the fuck didn't I look at these earlier? Adam berated himself. He hadn't been thinking about anything! He scanned his other clothes, and they all said the same thing. He had been wearing magic clothes this whole time! In fact… Thinking back, he hadn't even noticed, but the clothes had shifted with his limb when he had used Form of Chaos. His shirt and jacket had just ended at his shoulder, right where the vine had started. He hadn't even questioned it!

"I really am a fucking idiot," Adam repeated, pissed at himself. "Ok, serious time, need to figure this shit out." He said, clapping his hand on his face and shaking his head. He had several things to figure out in the short term.

First, he stank. It probably wasn't technically the most important thing to deal with, but it was hard to think when he was constantly smelling his own shit.

Second, he needed to figure out how the hell he was going to survive another one of these reptile fuckers. He could see, now that he wasn't pissing himself in fear, that this one had been chomping on the fresh corpse of another one when he had stumbled into it like an idiot.

Third, he needed to figure out what to do with the giant corpse he had inadvertently made. He didn't want to just leave it. It was the first thing he had managed to kill on this sucky planet, and he had almost died in the process. Plus, he was hoping it would be worth some money, seeing as he had none.

Focusing on solving the problems in reverse, he started with the corpse. He actually had something of a solution for this one. Focusing on the one magic he had, Adam tried to use Contained Chaos. It was surprisingly easy, and a small portal opened in the air in front of him, roughly the size of his hand. Using the magic for the first time, he understood it a little better. The portal, which looked like a circle made of TV static, started to expand as he willed it to grow. Within moments, he had a portal he could walk through. However, as it got bigger, its growth became slower and slower.

By the time he had a portal he could fit the dino's head through, it was growing about an inch every second. With his understanding of his power increased, Adam focused on opening a portal directly beneath the creature. As he waited for the portal to grow big enough to drop the body in, he idly scanned the corpse, wondering what the stupid thing was actually called.

Metarex:

Violent, territorial, and durable. The Metarex is covered in metal spikes resistant to most forms of magic and significant amounts of physical damage. Their natural predator is the Amroc.

Adam laughed a little at the name. Metarex. Metal rex, not the most clever name. Then he shuddered. He did not need to know that this thing had a predator. That was terrifying. It had practically killed him in one hit. Admittedly, he had survived while it was dead, but that had been pure luck. A good lesson to learn. Even if he grew to be as powerful as this behemoth, eventually, he wouldn't be invulnerable.

Conversely, he speculated, a thought sparking in his mind, that meant everything here could probably be killed if he went about it right. He kicked the corpse.

"Try to eat me, you fucker? Maybe I'll get colonial on your ass and genocide your whole race. Ha, I'm an invasive species." He laughed. Now he had a goal in mind. He could go find civilization, but only when he was sure he could survive in this world. After all, if something like the Metarex existed, there were probably humans that were even more powerful. And ultimately, Adam knew humans were scarier than any monsters.