Vara perched on the top of the cliff, listening to the waves as they crashed against the craggy rocks far below. The sun had almost disappeared, darkness spreading steadily across the ocean, but she could still see the castle. It was a huge, impressive structure, surrounded by thick stone walls on three sides. The other side faced the water, and the castle was high enough up that not even a ship’s cannon fire could reach it. It was little wonder that the place had never been successfully captured.

That was about to change.

She narrowed her eyes, still studying the castle in the distance. All of the other nations had been willing to pay Vara tribute. The merchant princes of Neasba had given her bolts of rare silk and boxes of exquisite jewelry. Even the Onthi fishing ports had given her a percentage of their catch. It was only Luwold —this small, pathetic kingdom — that had dared to defy her wishes. Vara’s hands had trembled with rage as she had read the message from Luwold’s king, Hawent. How casually he had dismissed her, as if she were some lowly witch or sorceress. As if she wasn’t the last of the Undying Circle, as if she hadn’t defeated all of the others except for Jirith. And even Jirith had been banished to some abyssal plane, sacrificed for her goals.

No, the king had no idea how big of a threat she was.

Vara had shredded the letter from Luwold and flung the tattered strips into the fireplace. As the pieces had curled and twisted and charred in the flames, she had decided that this insult wouldn’t go unpunished. She would erase that sad little place from the map.

Her eyes never left the castle as she drew a deep breath and stretched up on the tips of her toes. Then, with the grace of an acrobat, she dove from the cliff and plummeted into the icy ocean. Already her magic was working, transforming her body as she sank deeper and deeper into the water. Of all of the Undying Circle, she had been the strongest, her powers unmatched. Kel, Durei, Heshna — the other members of the Circle had fallen one by one. She had collected them like trophies, draining them of their magic and casting their ruined corpses aside.

Now Vara called upon that magic, turning herself into something immense and fearsome. A leviathan, bigger than a ship, bigger than the castle. She emerged from the ocean clad in armor that gleamed like polished obsidian, a titan ready for battle and destruction. Vara had become so colossal that her feet touched the bottom of the sea, and she marched toward her target, leaving catastrophic waves in her wake.

An unfortunate ship happened to be in Vara’s path, and she didn’t care whether it was one of the royal vessels or a fishing boat. Her left thigh plowed into it, reducing the ship to splinters. She didn’t stop to see if there survivors; if there were, they were surely sucked down into the swirling water.

The once-impressive castle had been reduced to nothing more than a child’s toy. Vara loomed over it, ocean water cascading down her black armor, as shrew-sized knights spilled out everywhere. Vara snorted at the tiny creatures brandishing their swords and maces, then swatted several of them with the back of her hand. Pests, they were nothing more than pests, like cockroaches swarming and scuttling. Their minuscule arrows bounced from her armor, and even the boulders that they launched from their catapults were mere pebbles.

Vara was level with the castle, so she could lean forward and peek into the windows. It was difficult to see much, so she raked at one of the towers with her fingers, the stony exterior peeling and crumbling beneath her hand. As soon as the hole was big enough, she glanced inside. The room was fit for a king or queen, with finely-crafted mahogany furniture and a large fireplace. And there, cowering in the corner, was a small figure. Thinking that it was King Hawent, Vara reached in, snatched up the person.

When she brought her prize up to her face for closer inspection, she saw that it was Sylia, the king’s daughter. The young woman had been getting dressed when Vara had grabbed her, and her lavender gown hung crookedly from her shoulders. The golden tresses of Sylia’s hair were in disarray and hid most of her face, but Vara was able to make out the surprise and horror overtaking the princess.

“You’re not who I want,” Vara said, tilting her hand so that the woman slid wildly. Just before Sylia fell to her death, Vara changed her mind and closed her fingers around the princess once more. The woman may prove to be entertaining, Vara thought as Sylia squirmed and blubbered in her palm. She deposited the princess into a pouch on her belt, then turned her attention back to the castle. Hawent was somewhere in there, she knew it. As she began to dig through the castle, smashing through entire floors, she felt the eerie tingle of magic.

It wasn’t her magic, although it felt familiar. And by the gods, it was powerful. So powerful that Vara became disorientated, and she staggered backwards, holding her head in her hands.

Vara. The voice exploded in her skull, and she almost dropped to her knees. Breathing hard, she glanced up and witnessed an incredible sight: a hand descending down from the heavens. As mammoth as she was, this hand utterly dwarfed her, the fingers so thick that she couldn’t have wrapped her arms around one of them. Astonished, Vara watched as the castle and the surrounding area were obliterated beneath a fingertip. The resulting shockwave knocked her over, displaced air buffeting her armor and sweeping through her short hair. Slowly her eyes traveled upwards. The night sky had been replaced by a vast face, one that she knew very well.

“Jirith,” Vara gasped.

***

The last time that Vara had seen Jirith was when she had betrayed him. Did she ever regret it? She had to admit that occasionally she did, especially when she remembered the two of them sharing a bottle of wine, the satin bedsheets tangled around their bodies. The other members of the Circle had been reserved, aloof; they had kept their secrets and their weaknesses hidden away. Jirith had been different. He was boisterous and merry and witty, and maybe that was what had attracted him to her.

That attraction hadn’t been enough to spare him, though. Vara knew that the magic required sacrifice, that to achieve ultimate power she needed to offer another member of the Circle. And thus her decision had been made. After they had finished the wine and licked the dark droplets from each other’s lips she had opened the portal. Shoved him toward the hole in reality, avoided his desperately grasping hands. And when he had disappeared, she had opened another bottle of wine to drown whatever conscience she had left.

That should have been the end of him, and yet here he was, impossibly gigantic. So vast that his body took up most of the landscape, destroying entire farms and acres of countryside. It seemed that Jirith had finished her task for her…Luwold had been annihilated, and with such cruel indifference. Vara stared up at her former lover, startled by his size and by the other changes in his form. Jirith had always been beautiful, his features delicate and fey; now they looked even more unworldly, his eyes glowing the ghostly blue of will o’wisps. In fact, his whole body emitted a pale light, so that even his long mane of hair seemed to radiate energy.

“How I’ve missed you, Vara,” Jirith rumbled in a voice that threatened to burst her eardrums. She winced and stood up on wobbly legs.

“I-I don’t understand,” Vara said, and the giant merely grinned, his smile so wide that it seemed to stretch across the horizon. He dipped his head down, his glowing hair puddling around him, and sipped at the ocean as if it were ale. Vara didn’t understand what he was doing until he pulled her toward his lips, along with untold gallons of water.

She shrieked and fought against the sudden current, but she was little more than a mite stuck in a whirlpool. A small boat swept past her, dragged into the chasm of the giant’s mouth. She watched it vanish, sent down into a nightmarish cauldron of a stomach. Realizing that this would also be her fate, Vara swam harder, her limbs churning the water. Jirith’s lips drew closer, and then his teeth appeared, huge and pearly and horrifying. With a desperate wail she latched onto his bottom lip, hugging at the soft flesh. He snickered and sucked her into the humid darkness of his maw.

“Let me go!” Vara cried, and she would have shouted more if his tongue hadn’t pressed her into the side of his cheek, cutting off her words. He rolled her body around, coating her armor in a thick layer of saliva, and for a moment it seemed like he was going to swallow her alive. Then he spat her into his hand.

They were no longer outside, Vara saw. Wherever Jirith had teleported them was palatial and built to his scale. Everything seemed to be either white or crimson — marble floors and columns and deep red velvet drapery. The giant himself lounged on some sort of chaise that was the color of fresh snow, his head propped up on one fist while he looked down at Vara. He had changed his attire so that he resembled a wealthy nobleman; the midnight blue frock coat and cream-colored gloves were exquisitely elegant. It seemed that despite his physical changes, his lavish taste in clothing had remained the same.

Soaked and furious, Vara sat up in his palm and summoned her magic. Or tried to summon her magic. She could no longer sense her powers; it was as if someone had siphoned away all of her abilities.

“What did you do to me?” She demanded.

“You already know what I did to you.” Jirith’s smirk was absolutely infuriating. “I took away your magic.”

“But how?”

He didn’t answer right away; instead, his hand dipped down and lowered her to the marble floor. As Vara scrambled up, Jirith swung his legs around, nearly squashing her beneath one of his gargantuan boots. Somehow she managed to dodge his foot and avoid becoming a scarlet smear.

“I should thank you, Vara,” Jirith said, peering down at her from between the canyon of his legs. “You made me into a god.”

The sacrifice. When I pushed him into the portal, something must have gone wrong, she realized. Noting her surprised expression, he said, “You chose the worst place to send me, Vara. That world, that entire universe, was ripe for the picking.”

She silently cursed him, and herself, and all of the Undying Circle.

“Return me at once!” Vara tried to keep her voice composed and authoritative, but Jirith sensed her unease. Smiling, he sat up and tapped his foot thoughtfully, sending powerful vibrations through the floor.

“All right, I’ll return you home, but on one condition. I want you to climb up to the top of my boot.”

Vara’s eyebrows knitted together in irritation. “I don’t think so.”

“Suit yourself,” Jirith replied, shrugging. “You can scurry around my floor for all of eternity, and perhaps I won’t step on you by accident.”

She knew that he wasn’t kidding, and while she loathed the idea of playing his game, she also hated being so small and helpless. Gritting her teeth, Vara approached the massive pillar of his leg and stared up at it. If she had had her magic, she could have levitated herself, but since Jirith had stolen that from her she was forced to grab at the wall of shiny, black leather. She felt the warmth of the flesh beneath the boot, a reminder that she was climbing up an actual person.

Something squirmed in the pouch on her belt, and she remembered that the princess was in there. Well, Sylia would have to wait. Vara concentrated on scaling the huge length of Jirith’s calf. It had been so long since she was a mere mortal, and without her powers she was keenly aware of how much danger she faced. Every twitch of the giant’s leg muscles nearly sent her tumbling to the floor far below. And such a fall would no doubt break her spine, crush her skull like an eggshell.

As she searched for her next foothold, Jirith moved his leg enough that she almost went flying. She clung fiercely to his boot, the leather creaking and groaning thunderously, and when it seemed safe enough she snuck an upward glance. The giant’s face wasn’t visible at this angle, although she was certain that he was watching her amusedly.

“Bastard,” Vara snarled, and she would have said more if the leg beneath her hadn’t tilted without warning. This time she lost her grip, her body heaved into the air, and she cried out as the floor rushed toward her.

Jirith caught her just before she slammed into the ground. It still hurt when she collided with his hand, and she laid there, dazed and aching. Pain had been such a distant memory for so many years, and Vara was shocked at how awful it was now that she was experiencing it again.

“That was a good attempt,” Jirith teased. “Care to try it again?”

No, she wasn’t in the mood for more humiliation. Gathering up every once of strength, Vara sprang up from his hand and leapt onto the chaise. She was sprinting the moment that her feet hit the soft fabric. The plan was simple: escape, rethink her strategy, find a way to regain her magic and defeat Jirith. But as she dashed across the chaise an enormous shadow engulfed her.

Vara froze and looked up. Jirith’s taut thighs and butt hovered over her, and she flung up her hands, as if that could ward off something so overwhelmingly huge. It was as though an asteroid was crashing down on top of her, and as she was pushed down into the chaise by one of the giant’s buttocks, she knew that she’d be squashed flat. The situation was almost comical, and had it been anyone else she would have cackled at their plight. But all that she could do was wail, the sound muffled by tons of flesh.

It may have been Jirith’s magic, or maybe it was the way that he sat down, but she wasn’t reduced to bloody pulp beneath him. The pressure was unbearable though, and since Vara was lying supine she found that her face was mashed into the mass of muscle and fat. Once or twice she tried to push up, but it was hopeless. Her limbs were pinned down and the best that she could do was wiggle feebly. Would he let her slowly smother here, his weight suffocating her until it was impossible to draw another breath? Vara wouldn’t put it past him. Like all of the Undying Circle, Jirith could be ruthless, and revenge was probably occupying his thoughts.

As if to prove this, he tensed his buttock and the titanic slab of muscle ground painfully into Vara. She flailed and fought, all the while understanding that the giant barely felt any of her movements. Jirith didn’t relent until she became limp and motionless, and then like a cat with a dead fledgling, he seemed to lose interest. The pressure disappeared instantly as he shifted, lifting his butt to examine her. Blessedly cool air washed over her flustered face.

Before Vara could appreciate the slight reprieve the shadow reappeared. Jirith sat on her again, pinning her beneath the heavy bulge between his legs. It wasn’t as uncomfortable as being trapped beneath his ass, but it was more humiliating. She felt the softness of his scrotum through the fabric of his breeches, the same scrotum that she had fondled in her hands while her lips met his.

Jirith chuckled, the noise reverberating through her bones. “Like I said, I should be thanking you, Vara. I know that you were just trying to complete the ritual and break the Circle, but the place that you sent to me was perfect. No one used magic, and I was able to claim all of it. Oh, they tried to stop me, and they had such impressive war machines. But I trampled all of their machines like ants.”

“Mmmph,” Vara squeaked.

He didn’t deign to acknowledge her protests. “Would you like to see?”

Part of her was morbidly curious, and part of her wanted to remain ignorant. In the end, it didn’t matter what she wanted, though. Jirith opened his mind to hers, allowed her to behold the world that he had visited. Vara saw structures of shining glass and steel and odd, metallic carriages. And she saw the giant as he cut paths of destruction through the streets, leveling the bizarre buildings and raining down debris and dust. He was a living, breathing tornado, ripping and flattening and razing.

When Jirith withdrew from her mind, he left behind a dull, persistent bloodlust.

“I played with that world for quite some time,” he said. “Conquering it was easy, and they built thrones as big as mountains for me. But it became boring after awhile, all of those fawning worshippers. And so I grow larger and larger, until that planet fit into the palm of my hand. All that it took was a single squeeze, and then it crumbled to dust around my fingers.”

Vara’s heart hammered in her chest as she contemplated this.

“When I sensed you again, I decided that it was time for a new world to torment. And who knows? I may keep this one around for longer,” Jirith told her. He scooted backward enough so that Vara’s head popped free.

“I’m so sorry!” She stammered, wheezing and gasping.

“You’re lucky that I’m such a forgiving soul,” he said, and his fiery eyes were so cold that they chilled her blood. They were the eyes of someone who had destroyed an entire world solely for the sake of entertainment. Vara felt herself being drawn deeper and deeper into his gaze, until the pale light became endless darkness.

***

Her mouth was dry and scratchy and tendrils of agony pulsated through her brain when she awoke. It felt like a hang-over, the worst one that Vara had ever suffered, and she groaned as she rubbed at her face. Everything came racing back to her, Jirith’s reappearance and his rise to godhood. She sat up so fast that her head spun. A quick glance showed that she had been teleported to another location. Bright sunlight streamed down onto the miniature houses and trees surrounding her. It was a village, complete with tiny, stunned people who watched her from doorways and windows.

Had Jirith returned her home despite his threats?

Vara knew him well enough that she doubted it. As she tried to figure out Jirith’s plans, she felt Sylia thrashing in her pouch. Reaching down, Vara retrieved the princess and held her between her thumb and forefinger. She wasn’t even sure what to do with the woman; Luwold was nothing more than a vast crater, and she had lost her own destructive appetite. Being mortal again would do that, she supposed.

“Be quiet,” she growled as Sylia wailed and struggled in her grip. Vara shook the woman, trying to silence her. Then, without warning, the princess stopped in mid-shriek.

They both looked up at the sky.

The cloudless stretch of blue shimmered, faintly at first, and then it sparkled like a sheet of ice. Vara took a step or two, her armored boots pulverizing a cottage. She hardly heard the cracking and crunching of the building underfoot; she was too busy staring at Jirith as the titan took over the heavens once more. He was in some sort of silken robe, patterned in black and gold and ivory, and it was open to reveal the sculpted expanse of his chest. His long hair was pulled back, held in place by opalescent clips, and he was wearing some sort of ornate necklace. Initially she thought that the multicolored beads were made of clay or stone; upon closer inspection she realized that they weren’t beads at all.

Worlds. Planets. The husks of civilizations, strung together by a thin chain of gold.

She had been under the impression that he had destroyed one world; how wrong she had been. Jirith was wearing the remains of dozens of planets. Gods, she had underestimated him so much.

Even worse, he was so much bigger now. Vara felt like a beetle — no, smaller, a flea — and she wondered if he could see her, or if she was just a dot on the landscape.

“You didn’t think that I’d send you back, did you?” The carnal hunger in the colossus’ eyes filled Vara with dread, and the petrified worlds around his neck clacked together ominously as he leaned toward her. From her perspective it looked as if he were peering into a bowl or jar, and perhaps he was. Perhaps this whole place was in a pretty vase on his dining room table, right next to the salt and pepper shakers. “I decided to create a little pocket dimension for you instead, complete with playthings. You can live here as a queen, a goddess, whatever you want.”

“What I want is for you to give me back my powers!” Vara commanded, or rather, tried to command. Her bravado and her voice faltered simultaneously.

Jirith laughed, and beneath the silk robe something massive stirred. He reached down, flirtatiously untied the robe. His erection loomed over the entire village, and the giant’s fingers wrapped around its girth, caressing it as everyone stared. To Vara, the giant’s penis was bigger than a redwood tree; to the tiny villagers, it was almost a landmass, so incomprehensibly immense that it likely didn’t register as a body part to them. Vara followed a single drop of precum as it beaded at the top; then it plunged down like a meteorite, flattening the entire marketplace and several nearby houses.

His gaze met hers, and she didn’t need magic to foresee what he was going to do.

Another droplet fell and slammed into the ground with tremendous force. The villagers were in a panic; some of them took refuge in their homes, while others fled for their lives. Jirith didn’t seem interested in them at all. To the giant, they were microbes, unseen and unimportant. Jirith continued to watch Vara as he moved his hand along his swollen length, his eyes half-hooded with pleasure.

She wanted to tell him to stop it, but a third droplet exploded into the countryside. His physical presence became overwhelming: the salty musk of his precum, the earthshaking booms of his groans, the heat of his body, radiating outward like a blast furnace. There was no way to escape from him; she could run and run and she’d still be trapped in the god being’s shadow.

He had won.

Jirith’s roar deafened Vara and the princess in her hand and everyone else in the little village. Excruciating agony pounded at her ears as the first volley of cum ravaged everything beneath it. The viscous, hot flood swept across the land, ripping through buildings and dragging down villagers into the morass. And the deluge only grew as the other shots rocketed down, pulverizing and destroying. Vara had seen her share of monsters; she had conjured rampaging dragons and kraken, and yet the viscous sea of slime was so much worse, devastating the tiny world that Jirith had created. Her grip on Sylia tightened as the towering wall of white slammed into her.

She was buried almost instantly, the warm goo oozing over her skin and into every crevice of her body. It filled her lungs as well, replacing the air with a heavy mass. As Vara sank down into the semen her vision blurred, then tunneled, then darkened. Struggling was futile; she could already sense her consciousness fading. Her sole consolation was that she’d finally be free from Jirith.

Except she wasn’t.

Somehow Vara survived, washed onto land like flotsam. The slime had dried into a hard crust on her armor and hair, and she was too exhausted to try to free herself of it. Miraculously Sylia was also alive, her breathing ragged and labored as she flopped between Vara’s fingers. Rolling over took great effort, and Vara gradually took in the remains of buildings and other debris floating in the foul slime. The village was gone, wiped away by the giant’s orgasm.

“Did you really think that I’d let you drown?” Jirith asked from his place in the sky. He held a candle, and in its glow he almost looked human again, his strange, ethereal features softened into something more recognizable. As much as Vara loathed the idea of begging, she couldn’t afford to be prideful any longer.

“Please let me go, Jirith,” she pleaded, and the giant seemed to actually consider it, the candlelight dancing on his face. Then his lips twisted into a cruel grin.

“Don’t worry, I’ll check in on you from time to time. Maybe you can destroy a city or two while I watch,” Jirith told her with a wink that was both playful and mean.

Sylia clapped her hands over her ears and winced as Vara screamed wordlessly at the giant standing above them.

“You’re so adorable,” Jirith said as he blew out the candle.