Continent Stroll

By VivettaVenray

(WARNING: Contains omni, vore, soul vore, among other things)

(NOTE: This story was actually written before “Krumpalina”. I had planned to write a holiday story after Deus ex Machina, but I felt inspired to write this instead for whatever reason. I didn’t submit this till now because I wanted a holiday story to be my 25th submitted story [because December 25th is Xmas].

I normally like to submit stories as soon as they are done, but in a way delaying this story worked out since I feel wanting to share this helped me to write “Krumpalina” faster.

Anyways, I hope you enjoy!)

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What a precious yet trivial thing this world was. The duality of planets or, at least, this one.

I gazed down on the verdant sphere, keenly aware of how my right eye filled their sky. The way the atmosphere dispersed light surely made the purple iris almost transparent in the blue sky. A bat of my eyelashes unleashed a gust of wind over the planet to let them know I was no illusion. A flex of my abilities saved them from any damage.

Did they realize it? Did they realize it’s not just coincidence that kept my short dark hair from bumping into them or their moon? What did they think about the naked woman hovering by their planet?

The entire world spun in front of me about the size of my head. Green and blue, with humans too; I felt a wave of nostalgia wash over me. I wanted to descend onto its surface, not so much for a closer look as a closer ‘feel’.

So I did.

A thought later and I was there, compressed down to another fraction of my size. I felt greenery under my naked feet. I paused a moment, savored it, in the process inhaled. The noise of that breath echoed across the landmass.

A clump of gray was in the distance, north of where I stood. I walked towards it, knowing well what was there and dotting the lesser colonies along the way. The forest I had settled on fell from the bottoms of my feet in their stirring. They fell in the graben of the prints I left behind.

My steps made the planet’s surface tremble. It was only by my power they did that little. A bit more lax and the settlements would collapse from footfalls alone. One could think it cheap to hold back like that, but if I didn’t tweak things at all here, then my immensity would have the ground like liquid under my feet. A single step would break the planet so. I’ve done it before, and it’s boring and anticlimactic. Not to mention, it felt more than a tad odd to have continental crust liquefy between my toes.

No, this was how I liked it, so this is how it was done.

Delights found themselves flattened in my path: woodlands, smaller settlements. I gave no hint of giving them attention, but they were savored nonetheless. With my sense of touch I didn’t miss the feeling of a single home in a town, and I didn’t miss feeling trees for their forest.

I was upon the city fast. My toes were taller than anything they had to offer, and the entire settlement with its millions of lives looked less than a mat laid out by my feet. I stopped a little ways outside it and set my hands to my hips, smiling gently.

With my vision I saw the little lights pulse across the metropolis. With my hearing, I heard the sounds of calamity and confusion. What exactly did they think about the nude woman looming over their city?

I told myself I wouldn’t mind-read here. I told myself I’d just stick to enhanced versions of their senses. That was oh so limiting though. They said their thoughts on me aloud here and there, but the truest sentiments are rarely spoken. I knew those were hidden: percolating in their minds like bubbles in a cup--I certainly did a lot stirring being here.

My senses expanded and I took a drink of it all.

I was much too big for them to comprehend on their own. They saw my feet connected to legs that stretched towards the sky; that was about it. But, they had satellites, planes, and those provided images to all. They could take in my body in all its glory. Fair skin without a single imperfection; a lithe and elegant build with subtle curves. My raven-hair soaked up the light just right.

As I basked in their thoughts, I noticed many considered me a goddess. They prayed up to me. Others reviled me, heralding me as their doom. This duality was interesting to me once, but it grew trite over time.

Yes, it was all predictable for a bit. Then, out of all the thoughts, one in particular caught my interest. It came from a dopey looking woman who stood still on the balcony of her apartment building. As all the others panicked about or made their peace, she thought a single word.

‘Hello’

It was so quaint and charming I couldn’t help but respond.

“Hello.”, I said.

My voice bellowed out from above and inundated the city with its thoom. Windows cracked, but I stopped it there. Anymore and it’d be no fun. I was past the point of needing to prove my words could level civilizations.

The word ringed in their ears. I let it vibrate a moment, settle. Then, I lifted my foot above the city and stepped down.

I wanted a bit of surprise to it, so I stomped quickly. They didn’t have too much time to think, but my oh my did they feel! A flurry of emotions went through them. Regret, shame, confusion. Plenty of surprise, as predicted.

The city deflated beneath the sole of my right foot. Their landmarks burst beneath my toes. Entire swaths of the settlement tickled the sensitive skin of my foot. I let my step rest there and drank in their shock as much as their essence. I basked in the tactile treats as well. There was the occasional further crumble something under-sole made. Nothing, however small, eluded my sense of touch; I didn’t miss the bursting people for the breaking buildings.

I lifted my other foot. Two more steps, stomp stomp, and the city was leveled. I was precise with my timing. When their shock was at a peak was when I acted. It gave two more little maximums of the emotion.

The first steps were always the most fun. The sense of surprise wouldn’t last long. It wasn’t necessarily my favorite emotion they offered, but it was the most transient.

They knew what I was here to do now.

I gleamed their thoughts as they expired, and reflected on them as I moved. Countless prayers to be spared, and a good deal of disbelief too.

‘How could you?’ was a usual one that always stuck out to me.

How could I not?

They thought I had cared for them based on my appearance alone. They thought themselves special by virtue of looking like me: only smaller, and no splendidly amethyst eyes.

It’s silly given what I know, but I can’t blame them too much. All they’ve know is this tiny sphere: this bit of seasoning among stars. The ‘naked ape’ is so common an evolutionary destination that the word ‘human’ is used universe-wide. Bipeds in general make up most of the sapient species in the cosmos.

I used my human-like form for comfort and familiarity. Flesh is fun, after all. I could have used other shapes, ones that’d defy their understanding of how physics work. Other bodies would allow me to get more sensation at once at the cost of pacing, and their sanity--a trifling little thing that is. However, the fact that I deigned to walk on a planet at all meant I was in a mood to be more ‘worldly’ than not.

Many higher beings pride themselves on being inconceivable to lesser minds. Chief among them are the eldritch. How cool they must feel when they show up and melt minds by existing. They are like a mortal that doesn't shower and marvels how crowds clear a path for them.

‘Behold my importance!’ they must think. Yes yes, so ineffable and incomprehensible you are. Being inarticulatable by mortal tongues is *so amazing. Pat pat. Gold star.

I found myself chuckling at my musings as I walked along the continent to the next destination. The feeling of crunched foliage and village are nice, but they didn’t match the enjoyment of my mirth. All were hardly novel.

Still, I tease the eldritch too much. I probably wouldn’t be as I am without them. Plus, when they know their place, they can make for fine servants. When they don’t, well, all those limbs squirm nicely going down my throat.

Another city was up ahead. Aerial craft flew by my body and pelted me with metal bits fired fast. They thought themselves strong for having that weaponry. In reality, they were weak for being vulnerable to it. I was not; a thought from me could carry magnitudes more force than their pellets. I was beyond their ‘strength’, if one could call it that.

My feet fell upon their settlements some more while I pretended to not notice them. There is a special type of anger mortals feel when their attacks are ignored. It seethes in a most exquisite fashion. The amusing mix of indignation and humiliation as it’s clear they can’t grab my attention is something that hits my senses much as a powerful spice on my tongue.

They wouldn’t have wanted my full attention anyways. It would’ve been wasted on them. Ignorance is bliss after all; their little minds can only comprehend so much horror out of the box.

Still, I adjusted the swing of my arms to clip a flying vehicle in a manner that’d seem entirely unawares. The curt smirk on my lips gave it away to some, however.

I made it to the next city and noticed it smaller than the last. Another smattering of gray, centuries old, for me to flatten in seconds. At its edge stood an army sent to stop me.

I’m impressed a population this undeveloped managed to marshal a force so fast. Then again, from probing their minds they had a base of some sort nearby. Besides, I wasn’t exactly in a rush getting here. When mortality isn’t hanging over one’s head, you learn to take things slow at times: enjoy them. I certainly enjoyed every surface-shaking step strolling over.

I gazed down at the force. It was thousands strong. Vehicles with long barrels pointed right at me. I could tell they weren’t all official. There were plenty of people with guns on the nearby roofs or atop their cars. It was desperate, hopeless, but they thought themselves heroes. It was in their nature.

‘Very well then, heroes, martyr yourselves under my toes.’, I thought.

Their volleys exploded harmlessly against the digits. They didn’t even leave a speck of soot to mar my skin. Without lifting my foot, I moved it forward. My toes were flawless at both ends of the city: sliding in at one end then out on the other. The army joined everything else in getting compressed under my unyielding ped.

I smiled, then moved on a bit richer on mortal essence.

They don’t even realize how little hope they have; how fragile they are. They thought me a monster for doing this, but a meteor could end them in a flash. Meteors: space crumbs, basically. So, am I really so bad for doing it myself? A fiery rock can’t get pleasure out of their destruction, but I can. They might as well have a purpose. It’s grander than any one they’ve had so far, by a large margin.

A conceited thought, but a true one. By virtually every quantitative measurement I’m the most impact thing to have graced their planet. Am I wrong for finding delight in that fact? The fact is there anyways, I might as well get something out of it. These humans find themselves in a similar position. The end was inevitable, it’s just a matter of how it happens and who enjoys it.

Another city found itself beneath my heel. I found it too small to afford much attention. I suppose that’s not nice to think, but few get to where I am always being ‘nice’.

Nice ones don’t typically ‘ascend’, so to speak. They die and end up a soul churning away within someone like me. Even when one gets lucky, they stagnate. They are content managing their pet planet or planets and end up food all the same. That’s why it’s important to not get too attached to these little beings.

It’s like a human, managing a colony of ants as a hobby. They’re too focused on the trivial going-ons of the vivarium to notice their house crush beneath my toe.

A fitting analogy, and a true story from a town I had just stepped on. Quaint!

Of course there is the flip-side of things. Namely, even if that man noticed his house in my pinky toe’s path, he couldn’t do anything about it. He died happy and distracted, but death isn't the end of things.

On a similar note, one must not get too unattached either. Many others get all stoic--typically after some knee-jerk uses of newfound power. They let ‘fate’ decide things, and think they are above manipulations. Ah, but there is a pleasure to inaction they are blind to. A smug little buzz.

Inaction is stagnation, and for all their wisdom they never stop to consider they aren’t the largest creature in the pen: the biggest fish in the sea. I’ve experienced their surprise when they come across a ‘shark’ for the first time. I sensed the flurry of long-tempered emotions come aflame as they entered my guts. There, they quickly find the depths of my stomach deeper than any realizations they’ve had as the ‘hands-off’ god.

Besides, what’s the point of power if it’s not used? It’s not very fun, then, at least to me.

As I marched norther still, towards another city, I heard the whooshing of an especially speedy flying object. There was no life on it, as my senses told me.

I used more of my tool-set of abilities to find out what was in it, and once again violated my promise to myself on keeping things simple. Radioactive elements filled a segment of the weapon’s shaft. I knew at once what it was: their planet’s super weapon.

I was never afraid of nukes, and I certainly wasn’t then. I let it burst against my chest and felt its warmth cascade across my skin. It felt lovely, as did the influx of energy it provided.

I moaned.

For fun, I even grew up in height: enough for the distant city to fit square under one foot. The sides of my feet ended another town as my body burgeoned up and out.

The moan was real, but their attack didn’t make me that big. There was some truth to the act: they did feed me more energy. However, I was already holding back on my scale so much. It was less them powering me up, and more me holding back a smidge less. The energy of the bomb they so generously fed me was nothing in the grand scheme of things.

That’s how powerless they were: they could hardly even make me stronger.

They had no real strength. For that pitiful strike humans sat behind machines in a building far across the continent. There, one of them hit a button while sitting on a comfy chair. How unsatisfying.

I found myself romanticizing the planets where people charged at me with swords and the like. It’s still weak to me, but there’s a certain appeal to that style of assailing the unassailable. When mortals fight each other like that, there’s a real risk to things. I just adore the charm of seeing hordes of a lesser species ran at my mountainous toes with axes and whatnot.

Perhaps it’s just my nostalgia acting up again. Still, those less developed mortal civilizations are getting fewer and fewer as time goes on and planets progress. New worlds don’t spring up quick enough to keep up--at least in this universe.

In any case, I wasn’t gonna let such a grand strike against me go unrequited. Their base was far away by their standards, but to me it was a thought away. Psionics is a basic tool-set to the divine, and one I was very familiar with. My mind reached out to everyone in that building. I felt the alarm as they watched on their screens the aftermath of their ‘attack’. I could see into the room with my senses now.

‘It made things worse!’, shouted one of them to the others.

They had fallen for my little trick, and discord sowed as a result. As predicted, the anger and disbelief were all the better as a result. I let it simmer a bit.

I read from their screaming minds and saw how my nudity made it all the more humiliating. They thought me licentious, shameless. The latter was certainly right. What did I have to be ashamed of around them? I wasn’t shy to bare my form; I’ve evolved past that notion. No, it was more arrogance from glorified monkeys in strips of cloth. I noticed the shiny metals on their suits as they howled at one another. The irony: another delight for me to relish.

Wounding the egos of others could be as fun as indulging my own. To really sink in their inferiority, I made my assault. A thought from me had the building quaking, but nothing else. There was more to strength than magnitude; there was also precision: control.

I laughed into their minds and let them hear it. They knew it was my doing. The lights flickered on and off as I brought their bickering to an end and united them in the common cause of hopeless panic. The building and the chunks of earth it rested on collapsed with the most meager squeeze from my will.

I moved on to the next city. My steps shook louder and farther. I stopped at its boundary, and wiggled my toes to herald my doom.

Once more, I looked down on a settlement of millions of beings. Once more, I raised my right foot above it all. I sensed the despair, the dread. They were bawling! The negative feelings were unreal and novel to them. I giggled, and my mirth washed over them.

If only they could understand how silly it all was to me. I wonder how they'd feel if a fly came up to them and said 'no please, my life has been so grand it cannot end so soon!' Even that is not an apt comparison. It's more like a grain of salt whining about its importance. A single bacteria, between one's toes, pouring its heart about on how its life of supping off skin detritus has been so rich and valuable.

Hilarious.

Their lives are short and delicate. An errant movement from the types of beings I eat for breakfast could nudge their planet too much this way or that. Frost or fire, both were dooms. Temperature of all things could end them with ease. They certainly stood no chance against me, not as I stepped down and flattened them all in one smooth motion.

None of what they did was grand. This fact was laid bare in my footprint as I strolled off. That, they would understand.

I soon found myself at the northern edge of the continent. There was another city, and this one was by the sea. I had trod on so much already that I decided to change it up a bit. I crouched down above the gray blotch--smiling as usual. The specks got to running as expected. Meanwhile, I opened my lips just a tad: enough to dab the tip of my finger on the surface of my tongue.

My right forefinger touched down at the city’s center and swept to its left edge. Everything I made contact with stuck to the thin layer of saliva on the whorled pad of the digit. I brought the bounty to my eyes and studied it all. I chuckled, and knew how it shook their little bones. How tantalizing the notion: how appetizing.

I slipped my finger into my mouth and sucked them right down my throat. More souls for me. Shortly after, I heard a rumble from far away from the planet. A ginormous being had shown up.

The people of this planet couldn't tell that. The humans need light to see, and the rays that bounced off her would’ve taken quite some time to reach the planet. It was time they wouldn’t have had in any case.

The entity was blonde, naked, and big enough to swallow a few star-systems in one gulp. She made an announcement into all mortal minds, and I listened in as well.

“Greetings mortals. Prepare to join your resplendent goddess. Rest assured, your spirits will find rest in my form for eternity.”

I rolled my eyes. How theatrical. To be honest, I have my moments too. Still, she was lying. She wasn’t after them: she was after me.

The ‘goddess’ was attracted by the extreme essence signature I was willfully giving off. I had read her mind just as easily as I did the mortals by my feet.

She thought me a fledgling divinity that didn’t know her own power. She didn’t address me at all, hoping I wouldn’t even notice perhaps. Maybe I’d buckle from her lack of any deference or respect, she thought. That’d make things easier.

Yes, the star swallower was so sure she came upon the catch of a lifetime. She had, but not in the way she thought. She imagined what she’d do with the power I’d offer her. She imagined galaxies singing songs to her, falling head over heels to satisfy her appetites and whims.

Even her grandest delusions paled in comparison to what I was actually capable of. I froze her with a thought: everything but her ability to sense and think. Her appearance signaled it was time to leave the planet and reach a more fitting scale.

So I did.

I was gone from the surface of that green-blue sphere. No longer did it hover in front of me. Instead, I found myself looking at a galactic supercluster; Laniakea, it was called.

Somewhere in the bite-sized smorgasbord of stars was a particular galaxy among more than a hundred thousand. Among that galaxy’s tens of billions of stars was one orbited by the blue-green planet from before.

The humans there couldn’t comprehend me now, even when I hastened the travel of light from my truly gargantuan form to their mote of a world. So, I helped them out. I sent them and every other sapient mind in the supercluster a visualization of myself as I was. The humans and the other sapient species within the cosmological structure at last realized how insignificant they were. Mere germs, really.

Needless to say, many ‘gods’ in the meal felt fear for the first time. They saw the hunger in my gaze, which now shimmered with purple light. None could escape, I saw to that.

The blonde divine entity from before panicked, still immobilized. She was just one of many such beings who learned, all too late, they were not as above everything as they thought they were. No, they were seasoning in the celestial treat before me. I had a real meal here, not some planetary toy. I swung open my mouth and they all saw how it watered. All that power, all that flavor: mine.

I stretched my tongue beneath it all while floating forward. I let loose a moan of anticipation.

“Aaaa~”, was the noise as it rang across the cosmos. It rumbled the very fabric of space-time by my will. Another mere toy.

My lips sealed around it all. There was light inside my mouth, but if not the supercluster provided ample of its own. I shared in their view, and relished how bands of my saliva tore and ensnared entire galaxies in their dangling. For all my power, I couldn’t resist gulping it down after long.

“Aah~”, was the sigh that rang out next. It was similarly loud as my last utterance: similarly unashamed.

All that delicious energy was mine. My insides were beyond mortal imagination, but the ‘gods’ I devoured could guess what was coming. Stars flickered out one by one in the celestial stew within me. Souls remained, after I took their energy and made it wholly my own. Their beings would continue to exist within me or, if I saw fit, get some time outside to serve my will. There were certainly worse fates than being mine.

Make no mistake, they served me no matter what. They were part of the queendom of my being now: the domain within. I planned to sift through them as I relaxed and processed my meal. Already all the gods were dwindling down as I sucked the trapped souls out of them. The blonde entity from earlier found herself on equal footing with her past meals. I’m sure they’d have lots to talk about as they swirled around my iridescent innards.

A thought and I was in a sector of space I called my home. I had sent the command earlier and already loyal servants waited at the foot of a throne of solidified void. I rested my naked cheeks upon the sublimely smooth and comfy surface.

I was feeling frisky, but not in the mood to call up any of the few beings around my level of existence. Even I exchanged dalliances now and then.

I’d start with a massage, and I’d see where my hands traveled from there.

Servants swarmed my feet and shoulders and got to work. They used bodies I provided them. They chose the shape of the forms, though, which were more immense than the supercluster I just ate. No matter, they wouldn’t rebel. I gave nothing I couldn’t take away. They knew their place.

They were my meals once too, after all.

Fin