Elder Cultivator-Epilogue #1

If distortion beasts were strictly carnivores, Bear Hug would have had a much easier time not getting eaten. Fortunately, they were an expert at such things, having dealt with a cannibalistic vegetarian in the past. That individual was Briar, of course. As for the distortion beasts, Bear Hug didn’t care much if they were vegetarians or omnivores… though the latter was obviously more correct.

Really. They ate almost anything, including rocks. And planets, occasionally. Most of them weren’t big enough for that though. They just bit off some of the chunks that had the most amount of energy in them… and they didn’t always break their teeth on them.

Bear Hug was pretty sure a lot of distortion beasts died from trying to eat things they shouldn’t. Like stars. None of them could eat stars and Bear Hug completely refused to entertain the idea that there could be any big enough to think about it.

At the moment, there were a certain number of such beasts were trying to eat Bear Hug. How many was unclear. Were the quills from the same being as the concerningly blue tongues? Were the beaks related to the tentacles, or somehow part of the same thing that had all the wool? It was difficult to tell, especially because of the whole ‘trying to eat’ thing.

Bear Hug was busy not dying. It wasn’t the hardest thing Bear Hug had done, but it didn’t leave a whole lot of room for careful rumination. Bear Hug did their best to avoid any sort of energy overlapping with the mass that was their body. Dying was not fun. The very few times they had experienced it, Bear Hug had always resolved to avoid it at all costs. Especially since that was only partially dying, unlike most people. Like getting an arm bitten off.

Speaking of which, one of the distortion beasts got an arm bitten off. That almost guaranteed there were two or more in the pack. Bear Hug really didn’t like to hurt them, but this batch of distortion beasts were particularly rowdy. They had to bop various bits that stuck out from subspace. Sometimes, they wrestled bits in front of various sharp or otherwise deadly things.

Perhaps he could make the distortion beasts understand that pain was bad if they hurt themselves. Obviously it wasn’t okay to hurt anything you were trying to raise if you could help it. It was only a poor rancher that had to use pain on the regular. But Bear Hug was a poor rancher and possibly the best distortion beast wrangler in the galaxy, because nobody else was really trying. Maybe the Disciples of the Beyond had been better but they were dead now.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Dodging a horn, Bear Hug continued to wear down at the energy of the surrounding foes. Energy endurance was something Bear Hug had in abundance, considering the rest of them could be gathering energy. Well, half of them on average if considering the appropriate type. It was difficult to use natural energy in the upper realms and upper energy in the lower realms.

As long as none of Bear Hug got eaten, most distortion beasts didn’t recover much energy throughout the course of a battle. Except when they ate each other, obviously, but digesting each other tended to take some time. Meanwhile, Bear Hug was less than a cubic meter and mostly made out of fiber and free flowing energy. No extremely dense metallic compounds making up multidimensional skeletal structures, just algae bits. The physical matter could be broken down in an instant, and the energy not long after.

It sure was exhausting, though. Obviously, since it was an endurance battle, but also mentally. Bear Hug didn’t want to hurt these things… but also that seemed to be happening anyway.

After several grueling hours, there weren’t any distortion beasts left. Another dead nest, but Bear Hug wasn’t happy. People were safe, at least, but it wasn’t really working towards the conservation efforts.

No, wait. There was some energy. Just a little bit, hiding behind a few layers of subspace. Bear Hug reached out, grasping something and dragging it out. It was some sort of horrible mass of slime and sharp bits. Some of the internal organs were external in this phase of reality. But vulnerable as they were, they seemed to be vacuum resistant at least. Pretty much every layer of subspace was mostly vacuum, so it made sense. Not much heat or pressure.

Some of the sharp bits tried to consume Bear Hug. Bear Hug bapped it on the head while wondering which distortion beast this remaining stuff was part of. Then Bear Hug realized that it wasn’t. It was kind of a mix of several things, but all the ‘bones’ and ‘flesh’ had sort of merged together from dead stuff. It was difficult to say if that was the normal result, but it was certainly what happened this time.

Bear Hug carefully plucked some flesh with nearly neutral acidity and maybe only a few hundred poisonous compounds in it to feed to the little creature. It was barely bigger than Bear Hug- probably not even a cubic meter total. It happily devoured the mass of flesh, despite not having a stomach. Or at least nothing that looked like one.

“Good job little guy,” Bear Hug said. “Now stop biting.”

Bear Hug was going to take good care of this one and teach it to not attack people. Also, Bear Hug was going to figure out if distortion beasts belonged on that list- most evidence pointed to probably not. Even so, Bear Hug hoped this thing could eat pure energy if raised properly. Or at least a modest diet that wasn’t exponentially expanding and all consuming.

“Your name is Toothy!” Bear Hug declared. The distortion beast probably didn’t understand words. It definitely didn’t understand that it wasn’t supposed to eat Bear Hug. But that was okay, Toothy would figure it out given time. Hopefully.