Chapter 26: Tournament Finale

The next few challenges were as quick as they were brutal.

Immediately after the food-moving challenge, everyone was cleaned of food-gunk and found themselves in a big coliseum. The next challenge was an outright brawl. Delta gave everyone a sword and told them to “just keep killing each other till half are left.” At this point, it was clear brutality was essential to win. Before, people had the luxury of turning their heads whenever their team-members did rotten things, but now they had to participate in the savagery themselves or die. Those that refused tried to hide behind padded-pillars, but eventually they were found.

The challenges kept coming. Many were less forgiving obstacle course races, but once the numbers got thinner and thinner Delta got even more creative. One challenge had go-carts on tracks lined with gnashing mini-maw traps and plenty of holes and ramps to drive off of. She found that especially amusing, since the average person had no idea how to drive. Out in the real world, vehicles drove themselves.

There was even a quick memory game to spice things up. People had to remember and recite long strings of numbers that grew longer each round. The competitors had their own padded booths for that one, which of course stopped floating at a single wrong digit. One mistake and their booth plummeted into the bubbling green doom below.

Eventually, only two contestants were left. Yi was a tall, very lean and athletic light-skinned woman in her 20s. Determination flashed in her brown eyes, and her short black hair was kept in a ponytail. She was one of the few athletes back before Delta’s headclip update sucked her into Paradise. Before then, she trained too often to have much free time to spend in the simulated reality.

The other contestant was a man by the name of Kaden. He was fit, with tan skin not too dissimilar in shade from Delta’s. His black hair flowed free and long like a lion’s mane. His eyes were also brown, and anyone could see fear linger in his expression. It was a powerful motivator for him in getting this far.

Together, the two stood in a wide open circle with raised edges. At the center was a small altar atop which a floating orb shined green and yellow light.

The two looked around at the stomach walls, but now, Delta had shrunk herself and her realm to a still immense though far more manageable size. Every challenge she had shrunk just a bit, and it was hard to focus in pre-finale with all the screaming faces on the wall. Each face contorted to show some unimaginable agony. Yet, now, those losers were gone: no longer forced to spectate from within Delta’s gut.

It was just Yi and Kaden here in Delta’s gut it seemed. She spoke.

“This is it, the final match. You need to get that orb, though only one of you can. Game start~”

The two made a beeline for the altar. In the past, each had killed a competitor or a few to save themselves. Neither was clean in terms of avoiding violence in Delta’s twisted and visceral game. Yet, both ignored each other as they went to the altar.

Their speeds were matched, but Yi had a little more cardio training on the outside it’d seem as she dived for the orb. Kaden tried to grab at one of Yi’s ankles as she lept towards the target, but she kicked him back, right in the face, as her hands grasped it. The heel of her bare foot knocked out two of his teeth.

Yi let out a gasp as her body filled with warmth. The orb flew into her and that heat intensified. It felt like she was in an especially warm shower. She also felt a curious stretching feeling, more intense than any pre or post-workout stretch she ever tried. The padded ground seemed to fly away from her as she rocketed up to 50 feet in height.

Her clothes tore off the process, and she saw the white, blood-stained garbs down by her toes. The shorts, in fact, fell right onto Kaden’s head before he yanked them off. His face looked up with a mix of surprise and horror. He had lost, of course.

“Good work Yi.” roared Delta’s voice around them both.

“There’s just one more part of the challenge. Crush him~”

Kaden let out a yelp. He scrambled back from the newly naked Yi. With her shorts and shirt gone, the woman’s fit figure was on full display. In particular, he saw the tone of her lean form. The woman’s abs in particular looked near perfectly sculpted. She was tall before, intimidating before, but now she stood as an actual giant. He was literally at her feet.

Yi hesitated, she had killed before during this contest, but something about it being so 1-1 and personal had her second-guessing things for a moment.

Delta noticed.

“This is part of the challenge you know. I don’t mind having two losers if need be. You do want the prize don’t you? It’s near-infinitely better than what the losers go through~”

Delta’s voice had a clear undertone of malice. Yi figured she didn’t come all this way for nothing. She lifted her foot over Kaden. The man scrambled to his feet and ran off just before she stomped down.

Kaden bounced as the padded arena carried the vibration unexpectedly well. Yi took a few more thudding steps to come up to him. She slammed a ped to his front so he ran into her ankle and fell over. Once he was on his back, she slid that right foot right atop him.

The man wiggled beneath her naked sole. The sensation was odd, and her face contorted at it in a such a fashion to get Delta giggling.

“Go on, do it. I’m getting bored~”, said the thundering voice of the cyber goddess.

Yi stepped down. At the first crack, she began to regret not just stomping him fast and being down with it. His screams were muffled into the ball of her foot: the appendage was *just* big enough to cover him completely. She saw a hand slip out between her toes and pressed harder so he wouldn’t wiggle out.

She heard another big crack, and felt wetness. Getting a bit grossed out, she finished it quick. Yi put her entire weight behind her foot and crushed him down. She felt him pop like a ruptured sack of meat. Blood and gore gushed out from under her sole. She yelped at the feeling and slid her foot against the padded floor of the arena to try and wipe it off. Unlike Delta, she couldn't just ‘decide’ to make her skin un-stainable.

The cyber goddess spoke, her stomach rumbling with her voice as usual. It reached all the minds of every competitor. She even clapped at the TV screen to add another thundering sound.

“Congrats to Yi, the winner of my little ascension tournament. Are you ready for your prize?”

Yi was still scraping her foot free of Kaden’s gore.

“Please, let me go, let me out of Paradise.”

Delta laughed. “Ha, good joke. No. Your prize is actually wonderful, delicious ice cream~”

The tan woman’s laughter rose higher as Yi grew a dejected expression. Up above, she heard the sounds of savoring, then a swallow then... screams. The woman looked up and the stomach entrance, right above, opened to let creamy vanilla scented dessert plop down. There was waves of it.

Yi tried to run but the glob was big enough to cover the whole arena. She looked and screamed, and in a moment saw tons of people stuck in the mostly-melted bit of cold treat.

“It’s second-hand, of course~” said Delta, laughing in another uproar.

The godlike coder’s first swallow buried Yi, who miraculously lived for just a bit longer. The chill of the treat dulled her pain till she eventually drowned in the sweet and creamy delight.

On the outside, Delta was licking at a vanilla ice-cream bar. The entire treat swarmed with all the losers of the competition. They shivered, ice cold in the dessert. It was better than being stuck in her stomach walls at least, but they were going back to that organ anyways it’d seem.

Delta watched the TV as her stomach worked the treat down. Her humid breath warmed her chilled victims as she licked them up. Her lips occasionally curled around in the bar’s corners to suck up chunks when possible, but otherwise everyone stuck in her dessert was at the mercy of that slick crimson muscle. Almost every single competitor experienced her stomach again for the second time. Most had a bit of freedom in her mouth and throat, where the warm flesh and saliva finally loosened the treat enough for them to flail a bit in the sticky sweet stuff.

Delta soon finished the treat off. She licked up a bit of the ice-cream off her fingers and the thousands of lives there too. She was beyond thorough, and the circuit-haired woman made sure to sup up the last bits with her tongue draping down the wooden ice-pop stick.

She stayed until the last bits of the ice-cream digested away. The expression on her face as she saw it all on the screen was a mix of admiration and wonder: all directed at herself.

“Delicious~”, she mused.

With a snap she zipped off to another realm where more fun was to be had.