**Chapter 60: The God Steps In**
**Day 1,236 (Morning).**
**Location: The Stomach of Gorgoth (Formerly).**
**Current Status: Sticky.**
**Mood: Ready for a shower.**
Waking up inside a stomach is not an experience I would recommend, even for a deity.
There was no sunrise. There was only the rhythmic, thrumming bio-luminescence of the stomach walls and the sloshing of acidic tides that had long since given up trying to digest me. My **[Admin Authority]** had created a localized bubble of sterile reality around my body, but the smell... the smell was something code couldn't delete. It smelled like ancient stars and rotten calamari.
I sat up, stretching my neck. A terrifying crack echoed through the fleshy cavern—not my neck breaking, but the shockwave of my movement shattering a calcified rib-ridge nearby.
My power ticked.
*+10%.*
It washed over me, a familiar rush of omnipotence. Yesterday, I had force-fed a planet-sized monster enough mana to break the logic of the universe and parry a cosmic eraser beam. Today, that amount of energy felt... quaint. Manageable.
"Zero," I said, my voice flat in the damp darkness. "Status."
The red holographic avatar flickered into existence, looking disgusted despite being an AI.
**[Good morning, Architect. You have been asleep for eight hours. Status Report: Gorgoth has ceased all hostile motor functions. The 'Trojan Horse' protocol has overwritten 98% of his higher brain functions. However, his autonomic nervous system is currently trying to drift toward Mars' gravitational pull.]**
"Is he attacking?"
**[No. He is orbiting. Like a very large, very ugly moon.]**
"Good." I stood up, brushing a piece of undigested starship hull off my shoulder. "Time to make it official."
I looked up at the ceiling of flesh.
"System. Teleport."
***
**High Orbit: The Crimson Citadel.**
The war room was silent.
Ren, Kael, and the surviving guild leaders stood around the tactical map, staring at the holographic representation of the solar system.
It looked wrong.
Earth was there. Mars was there. But floating uncomfortably close to the Red Planet was a massive, writhing sphere of black chitin and violet light. Gorgoth.
"It hasn't moved in four hours," Kael whispered, wiping sweat from his forehead. "It's just... hanging there."
"Is Shigu dead?" Damon asked, his voice low. "He went in. He stopped the White Beam. But we haven't heard a signal since."
Ren gripped the edge of the table. "He's not dead. The system is still online. The mana is still flowing. If Shigu died, the game would crash."
"But the monster is still here," a generic commander argued. "We should fire the railguns again. Try to push it away."
"You fire on that thing," Kael snapped, "and you might wake it up. Right now, it's comatose. We do not poke the sleeping world-eater."
Suddenly, the sensors screamed.
**[Energy Signature Detected.]**
**[Location: Sector 4 - External.]**
"Something's coming out of the monster!" the comms officer yelled.
On the main viewscreen, a speck of light appeared on the surface of Gorgoth. It wasn't an explosion. It was a person.
He simply appeared in the vacuum, miles above the surface of the beast, floating between the monster and the Martian fleet.
He was small. Insignificant against the backdrop of the planet-sized horror. He wasn't glowing with the fury of a sun anymore. He looked... casual. He was dusting off his shoulder.
"It's him," Ren breathed, collapsing into his chair. "The crazy bastard is actually alive."
***
**The Grand Stage.**
I floated in the silence of space.
Below me, the massive bulk of Gorgoth blocked out the stars. To my front, the combined fleets of humanity and the Order of Truth hovered in a defensive formation, looking like toys.
I could feel the gaze of the entire system. Every telescope, every sensor, every player looking up from the surface of Mars was watching this.
I checked my appearance. My grey robes were stained with void-slime. My hair was a mess.
"Not exactly the triumphant look I was going for," I muttered.
**[Recommendation: Apply 'Celestial Aura' cosmetic effect?]**
"No," I said. "Let them see the mess. It adds character."
I turned my back to the fleet and faced Gorgoth.
Up close, the beast was even uglier than I remembered. The "armor" I had inadvertently helped it grow was jagged and uneven. The giant eye—the primary sensory organ the size of a continent—was currently squeezed shut, twitching in REM sleep.
I needed to wake him up. But gently.
"Hey," I projected my thoughts. "Rise and shine."
I didn't shout. I just poked the psychic link I had established yesterday.
Gorgoth stirred.
The movement was cataclysmic. As the entity shifted, gravity waves rippled out, knocking satellites out of orbit. The massive eye opened.
It was a sea of violet chaos. It focused on me.
*TINY THING,* the voice rumbled in my head. It sounded groggy. *THE PAIN IS GONE. THE WHITE LIGHT IS GONE. I AM... FULL.*
"You're welcome," I said.
*YOU ARE THE SOURCE,* Gorgoth realized. The hunger returned, sharp and sudden. The 'Trojan Horse' I installed gave me control, but Gorgoth was a biological creature. Instincts were hard to overwrite. *YOU ARE INSIDE MY HEAD. BUT YOU ARE ALSO OUTSIDE. IF I EAT YOU... I BECOME THE WHOLE.*
Gorgoth lunged.
It wasn't a full attack. It was a reflex. Thousands of tendrils, each capable of crushing a battleship, lashed out toward me. The massive maw began to open, preparing a Void Roar to vaporize the gnat floating in front of it.
On the fleet comms, I heard the panic.
"He's attacking! Open fire! Save the Admin!"
"Hold fire!" I commanded, my voice overriding every channel. "Nobody interrupts the training session."
I didn't move. I didn't cast a shield.
I just sighed.
It was a sigh of profound, existential weariness. I had saved the system, fought the janitors of the universe, and buffed a raid boss to god-tier, and this thing still wanted to try its luck?
"Bad dog," I whispered.
I raised my right hand. I curled my fingers into a loose fist, leaving only my middle finger and thumb connected.
I aimed at the center of the continent-sized eye.
I calculated the trajectory. Force equals mass times acceleration. My mass was infinite. My acceleration was arbitrary.
I flicked my finger.
*Snap.*
In an atmosphere, that snap would have shattered eardrums for miles. In space, it was silent.
But the result wasn't.
A shockwave of pure, concentrated kinetic force erupted from my fingertip. It wasn't magic. It wasn't mana. It was just *strength*.
The force hit the center of Gorgoth's eye.
*BOOOM.*
The impact was visible from Earth.
The giant eye didn't just close; it deformed. The shockwave rippled through the entire planet-sized body of the beast. Gorgoth's rear atmosphere blew out into space from the transfer of momentum. The massive creature was knocked backward, spinning uncontrollably like a billiard ball struck by a sledgehammer.
*OW! OW! OW!* Gorgoth screamed psychically. *IT HURTS! THE GOD STRIKES!*
The beast flailed, trying to stabilize its orbit, curling into a protective ball.
I teleported again, appearing instantly right next to its ear (or what passed for an auditory receptor).
"Sit," I commanded.
The word carried the weight of a command prompt.
Gorgoth froze. The tentacles went rigid. The eye opened, wide with terror, streaming rivers of violet tears.
*SITTING. I AM SITTING.*
The monster stopped moving. It hovered perfectly still, terrified to even twitch a muscle fiber.
I turned back to the fleet.
"There," I said, dusting off my hands. "Housebroken."
***
**The New Reality.**
I teleported directly to the bridge of the flagship *Unrelenting*.
The bridge crew recoiled. Half of them reached for weapons before realizing who I was; the other half dropped to their knees.
Ren stood by the captain's chair, his mouth slightly open.
"You..." Ren stammered. "You just physically slapped a planet."
"It was a flick," I corrected. "A slap would have killed him."
I walked to the viewport, looking out at the subjugated monster.
"Zero. Patch me through to the global frequency. I have an announcement to make."
**[Broadcasting to all Players, Civilians, and refugees.]**
I cleared my throat.
"People of Earth and Mars," I began. "The event 'Arrival of the Devourer' has officially concluded."
"We did not defeat the boss," I admitted. "Because killing him would have been messy, and quite frankly, a waste of resources."
I pointed at Gorgoth.
"Instead, I have applied a hotfix. Gorgoth is no longer a World Destroyer. He is now... server infrastructure."
Ren blinked. "Server what?"
"He's a Zone," I explained to the audience. "We have a housing crisis. Mars is crowded. The orbitals are full. Gorgoth has a surface area equivalent to three Earths. I've neutralized his digestive acids and locked his aggression protocols."
I grinned beneath my mask.
"Effective immediately, the 'Abyssal Plains' zone is open for colonization. It features high-level resource nodes, distinct biomes, and 100% more tentacles than your average suburb. Guilds can claim territory starting at noon."
Silence reigned across the system for about three seconds.
Then, the gamers reacted.
"Did he say *loot*?"
"Did he say *new zone*?"
"DIBS ON THE EYE SOCKET!"
The cheer that erupted from the fleet wasn't one of relief. It was the feral, greedy roar of a player base realizing a new expansion pack had just dropped.
I cut the feed.
The adrenaline faded. I leaned against the console, feeling the heaviness return. The boredom.
"You're insane," Ren said, shaking his head. But he was smiling. "You turned the apocalypse into real estate."
"It's efficient," I shrugged.
"Shigu," Kael stepped forward. He looked older than he had yesterday. "The White Wave. The geometric ship. It retreated, but..."
"It logged us," I finished for him.
The mood on the bridge cooled instantly.
"They are the Janitors," I said quietly, staring at the black void beyond Gorgoth. "They maintain the order of the universe. They delete anomalies. And right now, between my power and that pet monster out there, this solar system is the biggest anomaly in the galaxy."
"Will they come back?" Ren asked.
"Yes. And next time, they won't bring a scout ship. They'll bring the formatting crew."
I clenched my fist. The memory of the White Beam hitting my shield lingered. It was strong. Not stronger than me, but strong enough to erase everything *except* me.
"We bought time," I said. "Maybe a year. Maybe ten. But the game has changed, Ren. We aren't playing a survival RPG anymore."
"What are we playing then?"
I looked at my hands. The power was still rising. Infinite. Unstoppable. Terrifying.
"Tower Defense," I said.
I pushed off the console.
"I'm going to my quarters. I need a shower, and I need to sleep in a bed that isn't made of cartilage. Don't wake me unless the sun explodes or Gorgoth tries to eat the moon."
I walked toward the exit.
"Oh, and Ren?"
"Yeah?"
"Send a mining team to Gorgoth's lower back. During the fight, I think I saw a vein of Void-Metal the size of the Himalayas. Make me a new sword. The old one got digested."
I didn't wait for an answer. I stepped out of the bridge.
As the door closed, I heard the chaos erupt again—logistics, planning, guild wars starting over territory rights on a living planet.
I smiled.
They were busy. They were growing stronger.
The Janitors wanted order. They wanted silence.
I would give them the loudest, messiest, strongest humanity the universe had ever seen.
And if they tried to delete us again?
Well, I had plenty more flicks where that one came from.
**Chapter 60 Ends.**