Starbound: A Space Odyssey

The Ixodoom soon recovered from the injuries caused by John and Nuru.

The creature didn't turn around to face John again, but rather lifted its head to the sky and stood in that position for a while.

"What's it doing?" John frowned his eyebrows at the sight. He looked at the side and asked Nuru, "Can you use it already?"

"No." She shook her head. "In just a few seconds I'll be able to use it."

"Okay..."

When John glanced over the Ixodoom once again he realized that he was able to hear a faint rumbling noise coming from inside the creature.

He squinted his eyes and tried to see anything different from the outside, but it was unnecessary because he was about to understand what was happening.

*Plop*

With a a strange strange sound, the creature spit a giant ball made of green acid up in the air.

"What the-"

*Boom*

John wasn't able to finish exclaiming when he saw the ball exploding and sending droplets of acide everywhere, like it was raining.

One look at the sky, and John was able to see that the whole area around him, Nuru and Ixodoom had began raining this extremely corrosive acid.

"It'sss recharged!" Nuru shouted from beside him.

"I'm going in, send the Energy Bomb at the head!" John bent his knees and sprang forward with all his strength.

Bullet Time.

By activating his power he was now able to somewhat predict where the droplets of acid would fall and so he could chose the path which had the least amount of acid.

As he ran forward, twisting and turning his body, he heard the sound of cracking coming behind him. He was sure that it was Nuru, she had already began charging the Energy Bomb.

Without turning his back he continued running with the Grappling Hook in his hand.

The creature had already lowered its head and turned around, hoping to see both John and Nuru as nothing more than a pound of melted flesh.

But the Ixodoom's eyes enlarged as it watched another blue ball made of condensed energy fastly approached its' head.

*Bang*

*BOOMMM!*

As soon as the energy ball touched the surface of the Ixodoom's shell, it instantly exploded, opening a gaping hole in the shell located in the head.

The acid rain was unable to stop John, while he was hit by a few drops of a acid, he didn't suffer any severe wound.

With a quick draw, John aimed at the Ixodoom's head and shot the hook a second before the explosion occurred.

*ROARRRRR!!!!!*

Just as the hook inserted in the shell, the creature once again roared in pain and anger, and started to ran around, destroying the tree on the way.

John was dragged around by the Ixodoom until he had the time to press the other trigger of the Grappling Hook and make him ascend to the creature.

He had to be fast, the creature's healing ability were superb and he had to get to the place of the injury before it's completely healed.

*Bam*

While the creature was desperately moving around in pain, John was sent directly in one of the towering trees.

He coughed a mouthful of blood as the impact was way too strong and heavy, but he kept his grip over the Grappling Hook tight.

His vision was slightly blurred and dark, his hand and body shuddered in pain.

However, he kept ascending over the Ixodoom.

Old and new injuries were flaring up, making the pain almost unbearable.

Even though adrenaline has made some of the pain bearable, now it was starting to lose its effects. Such hormone has a limit at how much pain it could contain, and now this limit has been surpassed.

Realizing that he wouldn't be able to have a smooth landing, he stored the grenade it was on his hand, unsheathed his dagger and prepared for impact as he got closer to the creature's head.

*Blam*

His body slammed at hard surface of the creature's shell.

At the same moment his body slammed at the shell, he used the dagger on his hand to pierce into the shell, this way he would fall over from where he was.

The wind howled at his years as he felt the centripetal force trying send him away flying from the random and violent movements that the Ixodoom was doing.

Even with the burning pain spreading throughout his body he started to climb the head of the creature towards the opening created by Nuru.

Just when he was about the charred crater made by the Energy Bomb, the Ixodoom felt John's presence on its head, and so it started shake the head violently trying to send John away.

John kept his hand tight over the dagger's handle and stood rooted by his target.

Since it was of no use anymore, he stored the Grappling Hook back at the PIPS and took out the yellow grenade.

While keeping one hand over the dagger, he took the grenade with his other hand.

He slowly climbed upward, while using his full strength to keep himself to being thrown off by the violent turns made by the creature.

Once he was by the crater made by Nuru, he saw that it had already healed about 30% of the shell.

Without losing too much time, kept his dagger pierced on the shell with one hand and raised the hand that was graping the grenade.

"HAHHH!" John summoned his strength and swung down his arm with everything he had, completely ignoring the pain in his whole body.

In this exact moment John felt stronger than he ever felt before.

The blood in his vein circulate faster, the muscle in his arm completely bulged.

He felt his strength increasing as his arm descended.

*Boom!*

Blood sprayed all over John's body after his hand opened a deep hole into the Ixodoom's flesh.

*ROARRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!*

This time the roar was so loud that even some of the trees that were left standing swayed after being hit by the sound waves.

John immediately retrieved his Grappling Hook and aimed at the nearest tree.

*Bang*

The moment it hooked on the tree John jumped out from the maddened beast that was still painfully roaring.

Just as he jumped, John saw one of the creature's scythes coming toward him.

In the air, there was nothing John could do to actually dodge the incoming attack.

The deadly scythe was fastly approaching, and it was about to cut John in half...

"*Roar*" With a loud warcry Nuru jumped and entered between the scythe and John.

She skillfully wielded the spear in her hand and thrusted toward the incoming Ixodoom's slash.

*CLANG!!!*

"*Puh*..." Nuru was sent flying backward while spraying a mouthful of blood after the clash between both forces.

While Nuru's attack didn't manage do to damage in the scythe, she was strong enough to change the direction of the Ixodoom's limb and save John from certain death.

"Nuru!!!!" John shouted as he couldn't do anything beside watch as she disappeared from his line of sight between the lush trees.

Once he landed on the tree the first thing he did was to run in the direction Nuru was sent flying, he ignored the terrible pain and bleeding coming from his uncountable wounds all over his body.

The Ixodoom was about to madly chase behind John when it realized that there was something inside its huge wound created by John.

John looked back at the creature and said, "Blow up, fucker."

*Tic*

With a low pin noise, the timer of the grenade inside the Ixodoom's head came to zero.

*BOOOOOMMMM!!!!!*

Blood and flesh pieces were sent high in the air with the explosion that occurred on the creature's head.

John gave one last look at the corpse that had its brain blow up before resuming his ran toward Nuru.

"Hm?" John suddenly forced himself to come to a halt when he started to a feel a extremely painful burning sensation on the back of his right hand.

"Are you alright?" Nuru walked out from a bush while holding her right arm that was completely bloodied and clearly broken.

With one look at Nuru and John was certain that even though her life wasn't at risk, he injuries were very serious.

"You shouldn't worry about me look at yourself."

"I'm fine, thisss isss jussst sssome flesssh woundsss." Nuru cleaned the blood away from her mouth and approached John.

"Well at least- ARGHHHH!!!!" John was about to speak something the pain in his hand intensified to an insane degree and started to spread throughout his entire body mainly his head.

He felt like there was something graping his brain and squeezing it tightly.

"What happened?" Nuru panicked and got closer, but John fell on the ground while loudly groaning in pain before she could hold him.

"AHHHHH!!!!" John's eyes flared opened and he looked at his hand.

A few burning marks slowly started to appear in his hand.

But more than that.

He was able to see those same blue particles that he had seen before with Peri, but this time the particles were coming directly from the Ixodoom's body and entering inside his body through the mark that slowly being formed in hand.

With difficulty he turned his head to look at Nuru.

Her mouth was opening and closing, but he was unable to hear a single thing beside the buzzing noise.

It was way too pain the whole process. John couldn't handle it and after a few minutes he immediately fell unconscious.

...

"Hmmm?" A lonesome figure exclaimed while lifting its head to look at the endless black sky.

This figure was on the rooftop of the Shopping Complex in the Ark Outpost.

There was a lot of Hylotl guards walking around but none of them seemed to see this figure completely clad in a purple rode that covered its entire body.

The only thing that could bee see was its crimson two eyes that shone with intensity.

"A disturbance in the universe..." The figure whispered with a deep and ethereal voice. "It doesn't seem to be another survivor of one the Ancient Challenges...what could this be...? Maybe another Dimensional Rift? No, this happened way too close and not beyond the Frontier..." The figure started to think of what could have cause the disturbance that he felt. "It doesn't matter...maybe this could be an opportunity. I was doubting that the people would be able to destroy the Ruin once for all, but now..with the help of this person, maybe it can be possible."

His eyes gleamed with a powerful red light directed at the black sky like he was wanting to pierce through it and see beyond.

"Hahahahahaha... It looks like things are about to get interesting." The figure loudly laughed and the Hylotl guards continued to carry their duties without even realizing that there wast laughing in the middle of the rooftop, just by their side.

...

With the guaranteed victory in the Great Hunt and with the Artifact that would soon be John's hands, peace doesn't seem to be an impossible dream for the Universe now.

There were only possibly 5 more Artifacts to go, before opening the seal and fight the otherworldly evil threatening the universe.

But unknown to John, the possible fall of the Universe wasn't coming only from the threat of the Ruin.

Sometimes, the end can come from within.

Chaos had started to sprout throughout the Universe in the same day the Terrene Protectorate fell.

Everything was changing. The stakes getting higher and higher.

John was only a single person and there's a limit in what he can do.

His actions might appear insignificant, but they cause ripples that could change everything.

That's different for the great players of the universe that had already started their power struggle, their little game that put at risk trillions of lives.

For them, lives are nothing more than just another piece that can be used and disposed whenever they see appropriate.

This once dorment power hungry people, and forces, are riling up, weaponizing, and plotting against each other in this giant chessboard.

As the line between good and evil, heroes and villains, start to blur, it becomes difficult to know who are the enemies and who are the allies.

Long time enemies will ally to each other as previous friends will try to destroy each other.

In middle of this chaotic world, how can someone keep himself clean, keep himself good?

~~~~~~~~END OF VOLUME 1~~~~~~~~