“*Mine!*” The roar, when it finally ripped from the void wyrm’s throat, was not just sound; it was a physical force. It scoured the battlefield, stripping errant rock formations bare, ripping banners from their poles, and flattening the frozen-solid remnants of the hunter legions. The living Apex soldiers, those spared the nitrogen geyser, were flung backwards like discarded dolls, their elaborate assault gear clattering uselessly against the scorched earth. Panic, thick and pungent as raw fear, bloomed across the remaining seventy thousand faces. They had faced horrors before, navigated the twisting gut-paths of lesser chasms, but this… this was the end of all things. This was the entity their training manuals warned them about, the one that broke worlds. “Scatter!” someone shrieked, a high-pitched sound lost in the cacophony. The remaining forces, forgetting their discipline, their oaths, their very mission, turned and ran. They tripped over their fallen comrades, clawed at the portal gates that still flickered weakly on the horizon, desperate to escape the inevitable, icy inferno that promised to glass the plateau. Commander Vorlag, face a mask of utter despair, watched his grand design unravel, his ambitions devoured by the beast he had hoped to chain. Tarlok Vosh, however, stood unperturbed. He squinted at the unfolding chaos, a frown deepening between his brows. “Honestly, the nerve of some creatures,” he muttered, more to himself than anyone. He kicked at a loose piece of volcanic rock. “Look at this mess. Just look. All this lovely topsoil, freshly tilled, meticulously prepared for the late-season crop rotation, and this… *thing*… just comes barging in, scuffing everything up.” He jabbed a finger at the colossal behemoth, which was now inhaling deeply, its chest expanding like a collapsing star preparing for nova. The air grew impossibly cold, the very atoms of the atmosphere protesting its presence. “And tracking mud everywhere! Did it wipe its feet? No, it did not. Absolutely no respect for property values.” He sighed, a sound of profound annoyance. Orikala Zev, who had been bracing for oblivion, looked from the world-ending beast to Tarlok, her mind struggling to reconcile the two. “Tarlok, that’s… that’s an ancient apex wyrm! It’s going to incinerate us all!” Her voice was a strained whisper, raw with a terror she hadn’t felt since her first Chasm dive. Xarivath, still clutching a half-eaten hell-berry turnover, merely adjusted her apron. “It does look rather… unkempt,” she mused, eyeing the creature's leathery scales. “Perhaps a good bath would help. Or a vigorous scrubbing with some pumice stone.” Fenrik Jor, having peeked out from the fertilizer bin, promptly fainted again, a small, piteous squeak escaping him. Tarlok ignored them all. He strode purposefully towards Gorgath, who was currently whimpering, trying to bury his multi-jointed head in the ash. The former dungeon boss, who had once revelled in the screams of a thousand tortured souls, now merely wanted to be a very, very small, unnoticeable lump of sinew and bone. “Gorgath! Up, boy!” Tarlok barked, slapping the demon’s flank with a calloused hand. “We’ve got a pest problem, and you’re looking a little under-exercised.” Gorgath let out a pathetic groan, but the sheer force of Tarlok’s will, coupled with the memory of the reinforced plow harness, was enough. He slowly, reluctantly, began to rise, his gargantuan limbs shaking. Tarlok, with surprising agility, located the heavy plowing harness. He tossed it over Gorgath’s quivering shoulders, ignoring the shuddering tremor that rippled through the demon’s frame. “Alright, alright, stop your fussing. Just a quick run.” He found his trusty, rusty hoe and used its curved head to hook the plow handle. “Hup! To the left, boy!” he ordered, leaping onto Gorgath’s back as if the hulking demon were nothing more than a particularly large riding pony. Gorgath, claws digging deep into basalt with sudden desperation, took a hesitant step. Then another. Then, with a desperate surge of self-preservation, he bolted. Not away from the titanic beast, but *towards* it, as Tarlok had implicitly directed. “That’s it! Good boy! A little more speed, if you please, we’re on a schedule here!” Tarlok bellowed over the wind, his voice utterly devoid of fear, only pure, unadulterated irritation. Gorgath, now a blur of fear-driven motion, galloped across the scorched earth, his hooves kicking up plumes of ash and pulverised rock. The serpent of the deep, momentarily distracted from its world-shattering breath attack, paused, its massive head tilting slightly. It seemed to regard the rapidly approaching, ridiculously small man on the back of the terrified, plowing demon with a flicker of… confusion. “Faster, Gorgath! We haven’t got all day!” With a powerful surge, Gorgath closed the distance. The beast, still trying to process the absurdity of the scene, opened its maw, not to blast them, but in what looked like an indignant growl, a challenge to this tiny, brazen defiance. This was Tarlok’s chance. “Hold still, you overgrown lizard!” Tarlok yelled, releasing his grip on the plow handle. With a spring in his step that defied his chronically annoyed demeanor, he launched himself from Gorgath’s back, soaring through the air like a poorly aimed projectile. In his hand, he clutched a truly enormous carrot. It glowed with an unnatural, vibrant orange, crackling with pure, unadulterated magical vigor. This wasn’t just a carrot; it was a carefully cultivated, agility-boosting, system-enhanced root vegetable designed to give a prize-winning rabbit the hop of its life. He landed, with a surprising amount of grace, directly on the creature's snout. The beast flinched, pupils shrinking in disbelief. Before it could react, before it could even formulate a thought beyond *‘What in the void-blighted realms is this tiny creature doing?!’*, Tarlok jammed the colossal carrot, with all the force of a man fixing a leaky faucet, straight down its gullet. The beast gagged. Its immense, scaled body bucked violently. Concentrated magical nutrients, far more potent than its ancient metabolism could ever hope to process, surged through its digestive tract. It was like a million suns of pure vitamin A, B, and C exploding simultaneously within its stomach. The midnight scales began to glow, then *shrank*. The terrifying, ancient power that had dwarfed mountains seemed to fold in on itself. The roar became a confused squeak. The wings, once blotting out the sky, rapidly diminished, becoming tiny, leathery flaps. [DRAGON GOD TAMED. AFFINITY: MAXIMAL. NEW DOMINION ESTABLISHED.] [LIVING PLANET CORE RESPONDING TO DOMINION. STABILITY INCREASED.] [PET LICENSE REGISTERED. DAILY ALLOWANCE OF ESSENTIAL MINERALS RECOMMENDED.] Tarlok hopped off the now rapidly shrinking, glowing lizard, which was no larger than a house cat and was purring, rubbing its tiny head against his leg. He patted its head, a satisfied smirk on his face. “There. All better. See, Gorgath? Just needed a good dose of vitamins. You know, for bone health.” He looked at the system message. “Ah, good. Pet license. Knew they’d have a form for it somewhere. Just need to remember to get its shots next month.” Orikala, Xarivath, and the still-fainting Fenrik stared. Gorgath merely collapsed into a heap of terrified, relieved, and utterly bewildered demon-flesh. The remaining Apex forces, who had watched the impossible spectacle from the distant portal gates, simply dropped their weapons and began to openly weep. Their world, their reality, had been fundamentally shattered. Commander Vorlag, however, watched the docile, purring, glowing lizard that had once been his god-tier weapon, and a single, chilling thought ignited in his eyes: *No.* He had failed to harness the leviathan. His grand plan, his ascent to godhood, depended on controlling the Floor 88 core. He would not allow this… botanist… to simply *domesticate* it. If he couldn't have it, no one could. His hand, trembling with a cold, desperate fury, went to a concealed runic panel on his bracer. It wasn’t the time-stop artifact. This was something far more dangerous. He pressed a specific sequence, his lips moving in a silent, guttural prayer to forgotten gods. A deep, resonant hum began to vibrate through the cavern floor, not from the earth, but from somewhere far, far below. A countdown flickered into existence on his bracer, stark red against the dark metal. “If I can’t claim this dominion, it will be obliterated,” Vorlag snarled, his voice raw with defeat and manic rage. “The Floor 88 core… it has a failsafe. A complete energy purge. In five minutes, every single structure on this floor will be reduced to subatomic particles. Consider it… a tactical cleanse.” He turned, a madman’s grin on his face, and began to run, not towards a portal, but towards a hidden escape pod he had secured beneath a nearby ridge. “See how you like *that*, Dread Lord!” Tarlok Vosh, still petting the miniature, glowing serpent, felt the floor rumble beneath his feet. He frowned, his annoyance returning. “A tactical cleanse? Is that what they’re calling unauthorized demolitions now? Honestly, the bureaucracy of this place is appalling.” He pulled out a small, leather-bound notebook and a stubby pencil, flipping through its pages. “Right, ‘Floor 88 Core Integrity.’ Page 27, subsection C, paragraph four… hmm. ‘Unsanctioned structural destabilization of the central core can be mitigated by introducing a sufficiently dense, non-reactive mass into the primary energy conduit within a five-minute window.’ Dense… non-reactive…” His gaze swept across the ruined landscape, then settled on his tiny farm. Orikala, Xarivath, Fenrik, even Gorgath, were too far away, or not dense enough. The little lizard purred against his leg, dense as a neutron star, but he couldn’t just toss his new pet into a core meltdown. His gaze narrowed, a slow realization dawning. He had one, and only one, object dense enough, heavy enough, perfectly non-reactive enough to save the harvest. It was his greatest secret, his last hope for the county fair, hidden deep beneath a false floor in his barn, lovingly nurtured and grown to impossible proportions. His final prize.

Overdosing on Vitamins