Sky finds a strange charm that gives him an insatiable urge to eat. Things go downhill from there. I hope you enjoy!

This story is part of a trade with @SkyTheBeetle, who gifted me access to Deadlock, so many thanks for that!

Thumbnail is by @VoraciousBuggie on Twitter/Bluesky! - https://x.com/VoraciousBuggie/status/1866969945591984442

---

They’d told Sky not to go alone. Everyone at the Association had told him that it was too dangerous to explore the newly-unearthed caverns under the Ant Kingdom without a companion, that it could be tantamount to walking into the Dead Lands alone. That read as nonsense to Sky - didn’t any of them have a sense of adventure left? Sure, these caves were pretty dark and ominous and generally unwelcoming, but isn't diving into that feeling what adventure’s all about?

“Alright, just gonna grab the treasure, get out of here, and become a huge hero!” Sky said, giving himself a little hype speech as he descended into the darkness. “Yeah, I’m gonna be the biggest bug in the whole kingdom, just wait and watch.” The words gave him real hope, and he swallowed back the fear and anticipation in his throat.

Yet, it didn’t seem like there was anything around here. He kept expecting some sort of monster or bandit or trap or something to spring out, but it was just rolling tunnels going down for what felt like forever. It dawned on him that, if there was anything hidden at the end of this path, it had to be something someone really didn’t want found. “Come on, I know you’ve gotta be here somewhere,” he groaned, shoving himself through a tight opening. “I can smell the treasure in the air!”

Even with all of his determination, Sky found himself growing bored and agitated as he progressed deeper in. He had enough food to get back and then some, but it was more the sense that all of this was for nothing that began to bother him. Sky sighed. Another hour more of traversing the same near-identical stone holes, and he was on the verge of turning around.

“Okay,” he said. “I turn one more bend, and if there’s nothing there, I’m gone.”

When he turned the corner though, instead of seeing the expected darkness, there was a gleam somewhere ahead. He just caught it out of the corner of his eye - it was hidden under scraps of wood. Somebody had tried to hide something here, a long time ago it seemed from the poor state of the wood. Sky practically sprang on the golden gleam, and pulled up, at long last, his treasure.

“What…? Is this a charm?”

He held it up to the light of a nearby mushroom that illuminated the cavern. It depicted a bug with a very, very full belly. “I guess it must have something to do with eating,” he mused. “Well, there’s only one way to find out!”

Sky clicked the badge on, and didn’t feel much different at first. He sat in the darkness, waiting to see if there would be any immediate effect, and after that, he threw a few punches and kicks to try and produce an explosion or something. He was beginning to think that it didn’t have any effect at all when his stomach began to grumble.

“Good thing I brought all this food,” he said, the hunger growing by the second. It consisted of all the travel essentials - honey, shakes, donuts, that sort of thing. Sky ate, but then kept eating. He’s been meaning to just have a Crisbee snack, but within the minute, he’d eaten everything in the pack. “Woah,” he said, “I must’ve really tired myself out. Guess that’s a good sign to get going back to the surface!”

The whole way back up, a hole was opening in Sky’s stomach. He realized someway along the line that this must be the fault of that charm, but when he tried to take it off, it just stuck harder to his shell. He figured that, if he could just fill his hunger, the effect would wear off and he’d be able to remove it. That wouldn’t be hard when he got back to the surface, which was full of delicious restaurants and snacks that’d fill him right up.

…If he could get back up there without going mad from his hunger, that being.

—

Kina was stomping around at the entrance to the tunnel, fuming as Maki tried to calm her down. “You’re saying we gotta wait for him??? He ran into that place alone, and we’re expected to help him out? Every Adventurer knows we’re supposed to go in pairs!”

“Now, Kina, calm your temper. It is true that Sky disobeyed protocol, but that doesn’t mean we can just leave him. We just have to wait here until the Ant rescue team shows up.”

“Ugh, fine! But I don’t get why we gotta save some jerk who ran into a probably super dangerous cave all by himself.” Kina, without looking, threw a finger behind her back at the cave entrance. “I bet anything he’ll never make it out of there.”

Maki cleared his throat. “Kina. Behind you.”

She turned around and immediately shut up, covering her mouth with her hands. “Oh.”

Sky was shambling out of the darkness, cradling his gut which was making noises close to thunder. He walked right up to Kina, who took a step back, shocked.

“What the heck? You made it out all by yourself?”

“I smelled food…” Sky said, licking his lips.

“Sky, I’m so glad to see you safe,” Maki said, nodding. “Now, let us get you back to-”

Kina vanished within moments. Sky reached his hands out, wrapped around her waist, and shoved her down his waiting gullet with greedy and heavy gulps. Her desperate, kicking legs were only briefly seen outside his mouth before he gulped and sent her careening down to his stomach.

“What? Sky? What is the meaning of this?” Maki said, drawing his sword. “You will explain yourself!”

He didn’t have to explain anything though - his hunger did all the work for him. Sky lurched at Maki and the poor Queen’s Guard was vanishing down that gullet before he could take a single swing of his blade. Maki and Kina thrashed around in his stomach, but not for very long, as Sky’s stomach had been quite intensified by the strange charm. Even with all of their strength, they couldn’t do anything to push back at the walls of the gut pressing in around them…

“Kina, this is all your doing!”

“MY doing? Well, excuse me for-”

Their argument got cut off as Sky clenched his middle and promptly eliminated the both of them. Within moments, they were churned and gurgled into a thick gutsludge sloshing around in Sky’s stomach, nothing left of the two of them except guttural stomach sounds escaping his unsatisfied gut. He rubbed his stomach, and felt Maki and Kina roll about in there. “I need more…” he groaned. “I don’t know what this charm is, but by Venus, I need more…”

He tottered off in the vague direction of the Adventurer’s Association. In his stomach, Maki and Kina were sucked greedily out of his belly, and swiftly became fat on his body. He swelled in size, his gains added by the power of the charm, and soon he was as large as Crisbee or Diana. Sky’s hunger grew with his size, and before long he was eyeing everything around him as food.

With great hunger, he began eating just about anything that crossed his path. He devoured the seedings that got in his way, gulping them down in one swallow before moving on. Lesser bug after lesser bug fell down his gullet, getting churned up in a matter of moments, and making him big as a boulder. By the time he came across some actual adventurers, Gen and Eri, he hardly registered them as fellow insects anymore.

“I- Is that Sky???”

“What happened to him?”

That’s all they got to say before Sky fell on them, tossing one and then the other down his gullet, gulping them together and sending them both to his glorping gut. His stomach was growing stronger with each bug devoured, and Gen and Eri stood no chance, having only time to let out a couple strong yells before vanishing entirely, churning into more sludge and then into more fat, the wobbling on Sky’s body the only evidence at all that they had ever existed.

There were more bugs on the way to the Association. Sky came across Fry, who was scrounging up materials for his next recipe, and swiftly added him to his own palette by eating and churning him. Madame Butterfly, who looked oh so delicious with her bright colors, went down next with a delectable taste. Even Diana, who Sky was quickly dwarfing in size, got swallowed in only a few strong gulps.

Each one came to rest in his belly, and didn’t last long against his empowered insides. Sky felt all of them slosh away into food, felt the way they grumbled through his guts and glorped away into wobbling weight, but none of it felt like enough. Not even Diana, with her great bulk, did anything to satiate his cravings as she noisily pumped through his stuffed guts. He ate well over a dozen bugs on his way to the Association, and all it did was make him hungrier.

By the time he actually made it there, he was a proper monster in his own right. Sky had grown nearly to the size of one of the buildings in the encampment, and he towered over all the little bugs down there, drooling as he imagined how delicious they would taste. He vaguely recalled their names and jobs, such as how Eetl was one of the managers of the property, or how Artis gave out rare badges, but all of that was secondary now. Instead, Sky savored their tastes as they vanished screaming down his gullet, the collective forms of the many he was eating forming a shape in his stomach before he clenched his gut, and reduced them all to chyme.

Word of his havoc spread quickly, and it wasn’t long before various heroes showed up to try and take down the powerful beast. Stratos and Delilah were first to show up, but they tried running off the second they realized the strength of the enemy. Sky, fat and round enough now to fill nearly the entire Association, reached them quite easily, and added them to his form.

Then Mothiva and Zasp showed up, and what could be expected soon ensued.

“Mothiva, you cannot seriously expect me to fight that thing!” Zasp said, pointing an accusing finger at Sky, as if even assuming Zasp could do anything to harm him was absurd. Which it was.

“Ugh, Zasp! Stop complaining and just get in there! This is our chance to make something of ourselves, and get back at those Snakemouth losers! Don’t talk back - just do it!” She crossed her arms, indicating that the matter was settled.

Preparing himself for the worst, Zasp launched into battle with a cry, and mustered up all of his strength into a single mighty kick. A kick which did absolutely nothing to Sky’s fat stomach, bouncing harmlessly off it like he’d just smacked a pillow or something. He looked sheepishing up at Sky, and felt like he was looking up at some sort of malicious, moving building. A building which was looking hungrily directly at him.

“Can we, uh, call a truce?”

“Zasp you IDIOT!” Mothiva shouted as Sky plucked him from the ground and tossed him up into the air, swallowing him easily out of the air. “You couldn’t even beat some fat jerk like this??? Seriously?? I’ll have to show you how it’s done!”

Charging up into her own attack, Mothiva leapt at Sky, who anticipated her hotheaded reaction. He leaned down, and put his mouth right in her way, and opened it. Mothiva, shouting, was consumed in his throat and let out a particularly loud and harsh-sounding gurgle as her body was dissolved and turned into the same sludge as Zasp.

It seemed like nothing was able to stop Sky as he stopped devouring the now-depleted bugs of the camp, and started tearing down the buildings themselves. He consumed them like they were sweets, feeling them finally fill up his stomach with something substantial. Sky patted his belly, and for a moment, the hunger subsided. It faded just long enough for him to realize what he’d done to all of his former comrades. For a moment, he felt guilty, but then the hunger surged back again, and he couldn’t help but consider how delicious the rest of the denizens of the Ant Kingdom would be.

He rolled onwards, towards the Palace where Elizant dwelled. On the way, he ran into who else, but Team Snakemouth. By this point, they were the last true defenders of the crown, most everyone else having been devoured effortlessly by Sky. They stood their shaky ground with an admirable confidence, standing with their arms crossed and faces upturned towards him, as if daring him to take another step forwards.

Except… were they missing a member? He could only see Leif and Kabbu - Vi was nowhere to be seen.

“What a time for Vi to go on an expedition to the East Lands!” Kabbu cursed

“Nah, that seems like a very Vi thing to do,” Leif said. “So, what are we gonna do about all this?”

Sky took a step forwards, wanting to get past them and enter the feast that was the Ant Kingdom already. Kabbu and Leif dropped into battle stances in response.

“Sky! Stop this madness - you know this isn’t right!”

“Yeah Sky, you’re not supposed to be so heavy,” Leif said with a severe nod.

“Leif! This is no time for jokes!” Kabbu said, dropping his stance to gawk offendedly at Leif.

“We know, we know,” Leif said, waving a hand. “It’s a very heavy time - we need to give it the weight it deserves.”

“Seriously?!?”

“We have to pick up the snark now that Vi’s not here,” Leif said, crossing his arms. “Anyhow, let’s put this beast down so we can get back to our Spy Card game.” A ball of ice formed in his hand, and he prepared to rain his magic down on Sky.

For his part, Sky was rather unbothered. He was mostly just hungry, and listening here to Kabbu and Leif prattle on had only inflamed his appetite. He took another couple steps closer, his body towering above either of the small bugs beneath him like he was The Beast, and reached a hand down to grasp them.

Kabbu charged, and so narrowly avoided getting grabbed. Leif, who was channeling a spell and thus in the way, had no such luck. His cast went off, but it just bounced off Sky’s stomach uselessly, and Leif cursed as he cast several other spells at him, none of which did any better. For all his yelling and struggling, he went down Sky’s throat as easily as any other bug.

“Leif! Hold on, I will save you!” Kabbu said, redoubling his efforts with another strong charge which hit Sky right in his knee. Sky, annoyed now at this bugs resistance, dropped his belly lazily right on top of Kabbu, pinning him beneath its building-sized girth. If he wanted to see Leif and the rest of the Ant Kingdom bugs so badly, then he could get a front row seat to their digestion.

Pinned beneath that enormous gut, Kabbu was surrounded by the terrible glorpings and gurglings of a stomach full as it could be. The softness surrounded him on all sides, along with the aforementioned sounds and also the noises of bugs deeper in struggling, trying to get out. Kabbu tried to wriggle out from under that trap, but the weight of it kept him pinned them, and all his moving really did was knead up Sky’s belly, making the digestion of the others easier.

Above, Sky rested on his belly, leaning forwards as it squished down onto the ground, and harder onto Kabbu. His body had gotten very good at dealing with bugs by this point, and the poor victims of his latest feast were churning away quite loudly, their sounds growing louder by the second, as he grinded his belly against Kabbu on the ground.

Horrified, Kabbu was surrounded on all sides by the glroping and churning of almost every bug he’d come to know in this part of bulgaria. He felt the stomach grow fatter against him, and deeper in he heard the pumping of Sky’s stuffed guts as his empowered body got to work on everyone he’d taken in. The fat squished against Kabbu harder, and he felt it swell pound-by-pound as bug after bug was terribly digested, including Leif.

The sound was everywhere, and the squishiness pushing into Kabbu now only taunted him further. The stomach moved against him, as if Sky was working Kabbu’s little body against it, using his form to help knead up everything inside, so he could see and feel it better as they all glorped away into sludge, and then into weight. He was kept under there for quite a while, and got to hear every last bug still struggling about in Sky’s stomach slosh away, those full guts sucking heavily, so loudly Kabbu could hear it through all the fat, the weight that was growing heavier around him now, squishing against every last inch of him, so there was no choice but to feel every last horrible second.

When the last bug had finally faded from Sky’s gut, the now-massive bug with his building-destroying hips and ass got up off of Kabbu. The green beetle looked dazed, like his mind couldn’t process what it’d just been through. Then he snapped back to reality, and charged with all of his might at Sky, who simply got down, opened his mouth, and let the angry beetle charge blindly down his gullet with nothing but a final angry roar and curse of vengeance making itself known from his throat.

Sky got up and held his stomach, felt Kabbu come to a rest in it, and then clenched hard. He kneaded and rubbed and patted his stomach, pushing in and contracting his gut as much as he could, wanting to deal with this persistent bug best as he could. He felt Kabbu go from being angry and full of so much rage, to being little more than gutsludge within the space of a minute, destined to end up in the same place as all of those he’d fought to protect.

By now, there wasn’t much left of Sky’s conscience, which surely would’ve protested the slaying of such close friends. But he was hungry now, and his hunger seemed endless. Ahead, the Ant Kingdom stood open for him, looking like one huge buffet ripe for the taking. With heavy steps, he walked forwards, wanting to take in whatever he saw…

—

“Queen Elizant, it’s terrible!” Zaryant said, getting down on one knee and prostrating herself before the ruler of the Ant Kingdom. “Team Snakemouth has been defeated, and now that beetle is tearing his way through the city!”

It was all true. She’d watched firsthand as Sky had toppled into the Ant Capitol, and began eating everything in sight. Every bug he saw was picked up and swallowed, and even the buildings were not safe from his hunger, as they too disappeared down his throat. Elizant had been taken here, to the very back of her Palace, and was surrounded by her finest guards - but none of that gave her much relief.

“Do we have a plan?” Elizant said.

“We need to get you to safety. If you survive, we can regroup! Bring the Kingdoms together, and strike at this foul beast before it can claim more lives!”

“And do you have a way for me to escape?” Elizant said, shuffling uneasily on her throne.

“You must leave now, with me! The tunnels beneath Bugaria are still connected, and we can take you to another Kingdom before all is lost,” Zaryant said, feeling the ground shaking beneath her now.

Outside, Sky was going on a rampage. The Ant Kingdom population was swiftly being wiped out, with dozens of bugs flowing down his throat with each passing minute. Every building had been scooped up and put away, and there was no hiding from his ravenous hunger. He was now large enough that he could simply lay down on the Palace and crush it with either his enormous belly or rear. Fleeing was the only sensible choice.

Elizant sat still and silent for a moment, unsure what to do. Then, her resolve hardened, and she nodded. “I see. Take me to the tunnels. Now.”

Their retreat came moments before Sky started literally ripping apart the Palace, and they could hear the thumping above them as he ate everything he could. They would go to the most far-flung Kingdom - the Termite Kingdom - and see if a deal could be reached.

And in a more generous world, maybe that would’ve worked. Maybe teamwork and cooperation could have saved the day. But they were up against an impossible force - Sky’s all-consuming hunger. When Sky realized he’d missed his chance at Elizant, and that he had no idea which one of the tunnels she’d fled down, his reaction was not to give up. Instead, his hungry mind smelled an opportunity.

If he didn’t know which Kingdom Elizant had run off to, he’d just have to eat all of them!

His mind raced, and his first stop ended up being the Golden Settlement. It was the closest to the Ant Kingdom, and also it was a fairly low-key location - the kind of place a leader-in-hiding may seek out. He ate everything he saw on the way. Every flytrap, every lesser bug, every building or piece of machinery - they all vanished into his stomach. Making him yet larger, yet round, and yet bigger, so that when he fell on the town itself, it stood no chance at all.

The Golden Settlement had never been built to resist this sort of assault, and with how large Sky was, each building there went down swiftly and easily. The few dozen inhabitants of the town were too swallowed without much effort. Sky gathered them all up in his hands, and gulped them all down at once, swatting his stomach as he clenched it, crushing and glorping up everyone in there, reducing every inhabitant of the once-prosperous settlement into chyme.

Before he could leave though, an angry voice accosted him. “Hey! What are you doing?”

Venus rose up before him, her vines reaching her all the way up so that she was looking him in the eye. “I’ve been watching you, foul creature. I will give you one chance to return my subjects, or I will-”

Already tired by this flowery bugs prattling, Sky leaned forwards and took her in his mouth like a noodle, slurping rapidly. He expected it to be a quick affair, but Venus’ roots reached across all of Bugaria. He threw his head back, and sucked heavily, feeling the Goddesses’ angry thrashing in his gut, her vines thrashing at the sides of his stomach. He kept slurping, feeling his stomach finally filling like it hadn’t since he’d eaten his first couple of bugs.

He had to suck for a very long time before he managed to get all of Venus’ roots. When she finally vanished down into his stomach, Sky let out a mighty belch, which only further angered Venus. She roared and raged in his stomach, which was now quite large from the huge form inside of it. Still, even Venus’ might couldn’t save her from Sky’s hunger. Her anger soon transformed into fear, as she started praying for her own safety and the safety of her subjects. This was all pretty annoying to Sky, who just wanted the whole thing to be over already so he could eat some more, so with kneading hands and a clenching guts, he tried to finish Venus off as quick as he could.

She held on for quite a while, with the gurgling from his stomach growing louder and gradually drowning out her pitiful cries for help. He ran his fingers deep into his stomach, feeling her gradually sludge up in there, her once-mighty body getting melted away. Sky pushed in hard as he could, contracting his gut and kneading until the horrible sounds of her roots snapping and sloshing away were the only things he could hear in there.
Sky knew that it’d take a bit for her to melt away into fat, so he scanned around for Elizant and found nothing. Figures he’d get unlucky. Oh well, that just meant there was even more to eat! He checked his mental list, and figured the Hive would be his next best bet.

With how big he was becoming, it was of little challenge to get there. He was able to simply walk up over the walls of the sandbox which contained the Lost Sands. And all the while, he was growing fatter and wider as Venus finally melted away, dying in his gut with a pathetic glorple and pumping thickly through his guts. Sky grew bigger and fatter with every moment now, and he could soon see Defiant Root on the horizon. Then, it wasn’t long before he was running up on the place itself.

By now, the town itself was so small, with all of its tiny bugs running around in a panic, that it looked like a little snack. So, he got down and scooped it up out of the earth, swallowing the whole thing in only a few gulps, buildings, bugs and all. There was only a hole where the town had once been, and a couple sharp clenches of his stomach finished off any poor and unfortunate soul to be caught by his feasting.

Then there was the matter of the Hive. He was just tall enough that, if he jumped, he could reach up and grab it, which he did. It fit in his hands like a building-sized piece of candy, and he started tearing into it and swallowing, loving its delicious honey taste and the feeling of so many delectable bees getting caught in his mouth and flowing down to his stomach. He tore the Hive apart piece-by-piece with his hands, swallowing each part of it entirely. The structure was soon all gone, nothing left of it but the honey on his hands which he licked off.

Still though… no Elizant. He rubbed his stomach, feeling his hips and rear swelling again, growing huge enough to flatten entire Settlements under. There were still a couple other Kingdoms to visit - one of them had to have what he was looking for!

There were a few other places to check, most of which weren’t that important. He was big enough now that he was simply able to wade into the waders of the once-imposing ocean until he made it to Metal Island, which looked much smaller from his new vantage point. He hardly even registered it as a place he ate as he plucked it up and swallowed it up with little though. He checked the Swamplands next, mostly because he didn’t want to bother going all the way to the Termite Kingdom. Sadly, the Leafbug Tribes were not of much help. It felt like he was eating a salad there the entire time! And the foliage was hardly tasty.

Afterwards, there were only a couple of options left for where the Ant Queen could be hiding. Since it was closer, Sky decided to try out the Wasp Kingdom first. He expected to face fierce resistance there. After all, these were the same wasps who had proven capable of taking on the rest of Bugaria in a war. But here, that same fierceness was not to be found. The patrols Sky came across tried to scatter before him, with their paltry members yelling that the monster had arrived within their borders before they were swiftly gobbled and melted.

The once-legendary defenses of the Wasp Kingdom fell like paper before Sky. He devoured their walls, and scooped upwards of a dozen wasps into his mouth at a time as he made his way towards their capital. It was easy enough to identify, as it was the biggest thing for miles around except for Sky himself! He could see creatures fleeing from the castle as he approached, evidently bugs of all kinds had fled there to try and escape his rampage. He fell on the ones he could, eating them and the very land they were trying to run away on with heavy gulps. Some managed to escape into the overgrowth, but that was fine for the time being. There’d be time to gather all of them later, for now he was focused on finding Elizant.


Sky’s stomach wobbled and gurgled with at least a hundred melting or melted wasps as he fell on Vannessa’s castle. Much to his shock, the Queen herself walked out to meet him, giving a shockingly strong impression of strength as stood at the front of her castle, crossed her arms, and said one simple word: “Stop!”

For a moment, Sky’s hunger was pushed back by confusion as he processed what he was seeing. There was a bug out here who not only wasn’t trying to run from him, but was actually coming to confront him head-on? Even through the haze of his endless need to eat more and grow bigger, this struck the large beetle as odd.

“You will not take one step further,” Vanessa said, keeping her voice level. “Back when the Wasp King ruled our Kingdom, he developed our resources into creating a weapon powerful enough to defeat even a Dead Lander Omega, in the case that one of those creatures ever chooses to leave the Dead Lands and attack us.” She pointed back at her castle, then towards Sky. “Take one more step closer, and we will activate it. You will die, horribly and painfully, if you do not cease now. Your body will feel the pain of the-”

Okay, he was bored of this. Sky snapped his head down and took a big bite out of the earth where Vanessa was standing. She, and the entire space she had been standing on, disappeared into the maw of Sky. He suspected that this meant Elizant wasn’t here. He hadn’t seen her run off with everyone else, and there’d be no way in Venus that she’d still be hiding in the palace here, knowing the monster was just outside. Still, he decided to clear out the castle, just in case.

He took huge bites out of the structure, sitting down next to it and making his belly wobble like the world's biggest water bed. Sky wrapped his huge legs around it, and dug in, tearing the building apart with his maw and with his hands, shoveling entire rooms and any unfortunate occupants still within to their dooms in his stomach. Sky, out of curiosity, looked around for the supposed weapon Vanessa had mentioned and found nothing. Turns out it’d been a bluff meant to scare him off! Yeah, like anything would be able to scare him off now.

He continued eating the castle, all the way down to the foundations, his belly bulging out from the amount of both building material and bugs he was eating. Sky clenched his gut, and felt all the buildings crumble and so many of the poor wasps in there get turned into gutsludge, sludge that would surely soon be nothing more than even more fat on his body. Nothing was left of the once-mighty Wasp capitol now, and Sky soon turned his attention to those who had escaped.

Hunting them through the nearby Swamplands, Sky did the best he could to wipe out anybody he came across. He found dozens and dozens of escapees, and sent them all hurtling down his throat, each one making him bigger and fatter, each one making him still larger, his mass towering above the nearby landscape now, big enough to rival even the Dead Lander Omega, and still with so much left to go…

Not long after, the final insect from this pathetic Kingdom vanished into Sky’s body. All of the Wasp Kingdom’s might and strength now nothing more than fat wobbling all over him: on his belly, his thighs, his rear, and all the rest. Well, that only left the Termite Kingdom now, he thought as his body wobbled with thousands of pounds of fat. If Elizant wasn’t there, he had no idea where else she would be! He started making his way there, lumbering across the lands, swallowing up any buildings or hills or really any sizable objects that stood in his way.

—

“And… you’re saying that this bug is eating everything he came across?” Queen Layra said, not quite believing what she was hearing.

“Absolutely everything. We just barely managed to escape the Ant Kingdom before he ate the castle itself. From reports I’ve heard from my scouts since we arrived here, it seems that the creature has continued his crusade, devouring every settlement and even the Hive itself!” Elzant was genuflecting before the Termite Queen, begging in a way she had never done before. “I implore you, rally your forces, or if even that fails, plot a plan for escape, before it is too late.”

Larya shivered, she had never seen Elizant so rattled. “It sounds like the situation has grown dire, but you must remain strong, my Queen. Remember, this Kingdom is protected by a steel door strong enough to keep out even the most determined foe. If he somehow comes in from the sea, we will see him coming from miles off, and we can evacuate before he arrives.”

The Ant Queen’s shoulders rose slightly, and she rose to her feet. “Yes, you’re right,” she said. “It’s not like he can just rip the roof off this place and start-”

“QUEEN LARYA! THE BEAST HAS BREACHED THROUGH THE CEILING OF OUR FORTRESS!” a guard yelled, sprinting in and bowing before the Termite Queen as he spoke.

“What? But that’s all solid stone! How could he ever get through all of that?!” she said, making the rare effort to stand herself, a feat which was quite impressive considering her immense weight. “Are you sure you’re not mistaken?”

“Yes, he tore right through the ceiling, and h-he devoured it!” The guard was shaking all over, and looked moments away from running for the proverbial hills.

“The doom has come for us all,” Elizant said, already running towards the door. “We need to escape!”

Outside, Sky was ripping the Termite Kingdom apart. His body was fat enough now that he filled most of the space inside the mound, making it easy for him to reach down for buildings to scoop them up and eat them. It was just as easy to gather dozens of insects in his arms and then swallow them all in one fell swoop, their collected forms barely bulging out his throat as they made their way to his gut, where they were swiftly and noisily sloshed away, destined to become yet more weight.

“Where… is… Elizant…?” Sky mumbled between gulps of bugs and everything else he could get his hands on. He was really tearing through the Kingdom now, having become an expert at devouring from his time eating everybody else. Sky cleared out the colosseum and everybody in it in the space of a minute, their bodies vanishing into fat faster than any of them could react to the new horror. The many shops and technological innovations of the Termites were too consumed, and he got down on the ground and shoveled each new place he saw into his waiting maw.

Queen Larya burst from her castle, leaving for now even the attendance of the insects who typically carried her. “Elizant, where did you go?” she shouted above the panic. She was intending to find the Queen and form a plan of escape with her, but sadly her shout instead attracted the attention of Sky, who immediately lunged towards her, his body dwarfing her a hundred times over.

“Curse you Elizant, you coward!” the Termite Queen roared as Sky fell on her, swallowing her fat body. She was the first bug he’d eaten in some time who was so big that he had to take a second to get her down, and her body was clearly visible sliding down his throat. It was visible in his stomach too, where one could see her thrashing about and battering the sides of the belly which entrapped her. She was quite sturdy too - Layra didn’t melt as quickly as her subjects had, and Sky turned his attention from her to instead find the Ant Queen.

Sky continued eating all he saw, but his target was nowhere to be found. He ate hundreds of insects, and grew only hungrier as he searched for the subject of his ire. Eventually, once they were all gone and gurgling in his gut, he took to ripping the Kingdom apart itself, eating the very walls and floors of the mountain in his search for Elizant. He would leave a mere crater here, if that was what it took to find her.

In her flight, Elizant had chosen a clever hiding space. She’d hidden at the docks, below a rock outcropping in which there was a space for her to crawl into. Outside she heard the screams of the bugs as they were eaten, and the sounds of the buildings and very mountain being ripped apart by Sky’s vicious assault. She kept her head down, and tried not to make a sound. But even this obstinate hiding place couldn’t keep her in the end. Once Sky took to devouring the ground itself in his search to find her, it was only a matter of time before she was discovered.

When she heard him bearing down on her hiding space, she lurched from cover, hoping to make it to the sea. Instead, a hand larger than most buildings in Bugaria grasped her. Sky rose her to his face, and grinned greedily at her.

“Finally… caught… you!” he said, some awareness now returning to him that he had what he wanted. “I… searched everywhere!”
“Sky, please, don’t do this,” Elizant begged. “I will offer you anything. Even the throne! You could rule all of the Kingdoms by yourself, take all the money for yourself. Anything! Just don’t eat me!”

“But I’m still hungry…” Sky groaned, his stomach grumbling, his bestial hunger returning after his momentary satisfaction faded. “And you made me work… so hard to find you…”

“I’m begging you, and I’ll give you anything,” Elizant said, pressing her palms together now as if praying.

Sky considered what to do. Merely eating the Ant Queen, after everything she’d made him do to find her, seemed too simple. Elizant needed to suffer some for making him go through all of that. Besides, he was still hungry, and he doubted that a single ant would do anything to fill the hole in his gut. He grinned as a plan crossed his mind.

“You’re coming… with me…” Sky said, pressing Elizant against his stomach. “I’ll show you… how hungry I still am…”

Elizant screamed, but she was silenced as he pressed her deeper into his gut. Sky knew there were still likely bugs out there in Bugaria who had survived his purge, but he had no idea where they were. The only option, obviously, was to eat the entire thing, land and all! And poor Elizant would feel it all, he’d make sure of it. She’d get to feel every last ounce of her precious Kingdom melt away in his stomach.

The haze of hunger descended on Sky again, and he seemed to black out. After that, there was only a collection of images passing his starved mind. He devoured the entire Termite Kingdom, mountain and all. He drank all the water in the sea, and followed that up by devouring the Lost Sands and the container that held all the sand inside. He cleared Defiant Root off the map, followed by the Golden Settlement. And throughout it all, he kept Elizant either pressed under his gut, or stuffed under some of his fat, making sure she’d feel him grow so much larger pound-by-pound.

He grinded her small face against his stomach, pushing her in as far as she’d go, making sure her head was as deep in there as it’d go, so she’d hear and feel everything. He’d squish his stomach around her, making her like a grain of sand surrounded by mountains of fat which had used to be her land and subjects. Every look he got as her face looked more and more defeated and terrified, which just enticed him to do it some more, working her into and against his fat as much as he possibly could.

Sky kept on eating, devouring everything from Snakemouth Den to the Grasslands, occasionally catching poor terrified insects which he’d missed during his initial sweep. He made sure to keep the Ant Kingdom for last, wanting to end his journey where he’d started it. And sure enough, after everything else was done, he was back at the castle which had used to be the seat of Elizant’s power. As far as Sky could tell, everything else in all Bugaria was just a crater now, devoid of any life. This was the last place left, and from how huge he’d grown from eating, the Castle looked about the size of a burger.

He fell on it and ate it as quickly as he could, ripping the entire thing apart room-by-room, saving the Throne Room for last. He finished that off with one final chomp, leaving nothing but yet another crater where the Castle had once been. In the space where the Ant Kingdom had been, he placed Elizant, who looked up at him with a look of total terror now. Then, Sky laid down on top of her, looking around to see nothing left of Bugaria in all directions.

Elizant was surrounded on all sides by Sky’s endless and greedy stomach, which grumbled and gurgled like a jet engine all around her, churning up the last few remaining occupants of her Kingdom as well as all the land and buildings over which she used to rule. The beetle gripped his stomach with both hands, and then grinded it heavily against the ground and by extension, Elizant. He really worked the gut against her, pressing and shoving it down hard as he could, hoping she was getting all of this, feeling the last of Bugaria vanishing.

Grinning, he reached a hand down below his mountain of a belly, and grasped Elizant with a couple fingers. He shoved her up into his stomach, and rubbed her all around her, pressing in deep as he could while clenching his gut, surrounding her with the sounds of his gut digesting the rest of her life’s work. Eventually he shoved her in his navel and, and squished the fat all around her, pressing in just as his gut let out a series of glorps and churns loud enough that they could probably hear it in the land to the East.

Gradually his belly grew softer and gurglier, and his body swelled yet more as the last of the once-great land vanished into his body. He sloshed it around, forcing Elizant to hear all of it, and kept her there as what was left in his belly was sucked away. It was only when there was truly nothing left in his stomach that he took her out again, and looked at her, a speck on his hand now. Sky, whose hunger finally felt on the cusp of being satiated, took a moment to examine all of his gains.

Grinning, he shook his belly, which when he laid down, now filled most of the space Bugaria had once been. It was too heavy for him to even lift at this point, and it was a miracle he could stand at all, with the countless tons that his stomach now weighed. His hips were huge enough that Sky could probably hip-check and destroy an entire Kingdom by this point, and his rear was so massive that next time he came across a place like Bugaria, he could probably just reduce it to dust under his huge globes.

“So, what do you think?” Sky asked Elizant, who laid defeated and broken-looking in his palm. His senses had fully returned to him, now that the haze of hunger had finally ended. “I think I look pretty great!”

“Monster…” Elizant choked, too horrified for words.

“Well, suit yourself,” Sky said, shrugging. Then, without another moment of hesitation or wait, he finally tossed Elizant into his maw. He tasted her delicious body on his tongue, taking the time to savor her now that he finally had the Ant Queen all to himself. She felt delicious on his tongue, and it was incredibly satisfying to finally be taking her down. He tossed his head back, and let gravity pull her down his throat, feeling her struggling the whole way. She was so small compared to his size that she didn’t even form a bulge as she slid down.

When she reached his stomach, Sky decided to have some fun. He wouldn’t have much longer with her, so he sloshed his belly hard as he could, feeling his stomach wobbling with each movement. Sky pressed in his hands and gave his belly heavy smacks, feeling the Ant Queen’s once-mighty body swiftly churning away into sludge. With one final happy clench of his gut, she was done, vanishing into the same gutsludge that the rest of her Kingdom and subjects had vanished into.

Sky sat back, leaving a new crater in the earth where his heavy ass landed. He let out a belch loud enough to shake the nearby trees, and he looked around at his handiwork. He hadn’t done too bad on this one, if he had to say so himself! Would he sorta miss a few of the bugs from that Kingdom? Sure, maybe. But he had to admit, they looked pretty damn great on his new body here. And he was finally full! Well, full-ish. He went to pry the badge off with his strength, but he couldn’t locate it on his body. He’d simply grown too large for it to be found easily - it could’ve been anywhere on the practical mountain of fat he’d become. Oh well, that just meant he’d have to eat some more.

He sat up, and looked around. The only place nearby was the Giant’s Lair, and that’d be pretty dangerous. Still, he licked his lips, and stood up once more, his belly wobbling and shaking like an ocean. Sky knew it’d be a great challenge, but nobody could stand against his newfound power. As he approached the building, he wondered how the Deadlander Omega would taste. And once that monster was vanquished, Sky would be the de-facto king of all Bugaria! Or what was left of it, anyways.

With how huge Sky was, he was able to stroll right into the Giant’s Lair, tearing off a side of the wood and devouring it. He was bigger than the building itself by this point, which was a testament to his new bulk if he’d become even larger than a Giant. Tearing his way inside, Sky found the place practically crawling with Dead Landers who had not expected an outsider to come traipsing into their lands, especially not one so large from the species they routinely hunted.

Now however, the tables were turned. Sky hunted down every Dead Lander he saw. As he scooped up the first bunch into his mouth, he was at first confused by their strange and alien taste. But then he considered that, no matter what way you slice it, food is food, and he swallowed them down. It was difficult to tell with his newfound size, but it seemed like these new creatures filled him up and rounded him more than the bugs outside had, likely due to their unique diets and body types. This just made him excited: imagine how big he’d get after eating the Omega!

He had to bend down to fit within the space of the former house, which is what he could see it as now that he had grown this big. What shocked him, as he tore his way through the appliances and furniture, crunching them down in his maw between eating every Dead Lander he saw, was that he hadn’t seen the Omega yet. It must be really good at hiding! He’d just have to eat his way through everything in here until he found it.

Eventually Sky had to get down on all fours and crawl around, tearing the place apart in his search for more food. The very walls of the place became food for Sky in his endless hunger, and his body continued to swell. He was getting bigger, and bigger, and bigger with every gulp and every swallow. The Dead Landers fell before him one after another, dozens of them vanishing into his fat and making him so huge with each passing minute. Even the building soon seemed too small for him, and he started eating the very building itself as if it were the Wasp capitol.

It was only when the rest of the Dead Landers had been eliminated, and when most of the building had been demolished, that the Omega revealed itself, springing up from beneath the floorboards in an attempt to ambush Sky. Evidently it’d been waiting for him to tire himself out, and then spring for the kill. Instead, all the once-terrifying being did was crash into the proverbial mountain that was Sky’s stomach. Since he’d been in hiding, he hadn’t seen the total extent of the beetle’s growth, and now that he was here, being stared down by a mountain of weight huge and wide as the building the Dead Lander had once occupied, the Omega couldn’t help but feel as if it had made a mistake.

“Finally found you!” Sky said, grasping the immense creature by its spiderlike middle. “Huh, you’re a lot smaller than I expected. Either that or I’m a lot bigger! Either way, I think I’m really gonna like what happens next.”

For the first time, fear showed itself in the eye of the Dead Lander Omega. His body was huge and spider-like, with a narrow midsection that jutted out with arms and legs in many directions like limbs of a tree. There were several eyes across its body, and they all shrunk back as Sky licked his lips, taking the creature who, to a normal bug, was the size of a mountain and swallowing him like it was nothing. Putting his wide head in his mouth and then slurping down the rest of that supposedly powerful being like it was a big spaghetti noodle, its arms and legs failing to do anything to stop its descent as it punched and kicked against the sides of Sky’s throat, being dragged down to its oblivion.

With a final satisfied gulp, Sky devoured the last of the Omega. The entity vanished entirely into his stomach, where it thrashed and wriggled like the wild animal it was. But the bulk surrounding it was simply too huge, too overwhelming, and soon, it would be part of it. Sky, not to rest on his laurels, set about eating the rest of the Giant’s Lair, eating every last scrap of the place. By the second, he was growing bigger from everything he had eaten, and now that process would only be accelerated by the Omega dying in his gut.

“Almost…. There….!” Sky choked out between gulps of the last wooden scraps of the once-mighty building. He bit down on the last board of it, and that was that. There was nothing but empty land now where the house had once been, and after a few more moments, the ground itself had been eaten away too, leaving nothing but a barren crater there. The new King of Bugaria crashed down on his back, and felt what was going on in his stomach. He felt the valiant struggles of the Omega as it still hung on for dear life, and he felt the way in which the entire place he’d eaten shifted around in there as his gut got to work on it. It didn’t take long for his gut to catch up with his new meal, and he was swiftly digesting his quick as he had anything else he’d taken in on his quest.

He watched as his belly began to shrink, the solid forms inside breaking down into soft and squishy ones as they melted. He felt the Omega’s final futile struggles before he clenched his gut, slapping and smacking his stomach as he did so, to finish the monster off and reduce it utterly to sludge sloshing around in his gut. And he felt the stuffed pumping of his guts as his body got to work distributing that weight around his body. Exhaustion fell over him - an entire day of eating countless insects will do that to a gut, and Sky suddenly felt on the edge of sleep now that the adrenaline was gone. The only thing he could think of as he drifted off was how huge he’d be when he got up.

The answer surpassed even Sky’s greatest expectations. When he finally awoke after an entire day of rest, he initially didn’t even realize where he was. His surroundings didn’t look anything like the Bugaria he knew, and he couldn’t even see the crater of Bugaria that should’ve been there. It wasn’t until he sat up and cleared his eyes and looked around, seeing the distance for endless miles around, that he realized he was sitting on it.

“Oh, well that’s new,” he said as he looked down, seeing that he’d grown so huge and large that his rear alone was so huge that it was crushing everything that once had been Bugaria. His fat spilled out from him in all directions, and his stomach still sloshed and gurgled with the leftovers from his feast. Every part of him was larger than Bugaria now, and even the once-massive Giant’s Lair was puny compared to his new size, looking closer to the size of a small pet than a human house.

He stood up with great effort, which is to say it took several minutes of learning how to move with the literal thousands of pounds he now weighed. When he eventually made it up, he was shocked to find that his belly was so huge now that it nearly touched the ground, and he could barely lift it! His ass, as was mentioned before, was big enough that it’d left an ass-shaped crater where the land of Bugs had once been. And his hips? Well, he could take down entire human-sized buildings now just by swinging them.

On the whole, it was hard to understate just how huge Sky had become. He could crush both Bugaria and the Giant’s Lair both just by laying on them with his stomach. He was taller than any building or tree or anything he could see either close or nearby, and he was wide enough that, to anyone on the ground, he’d utterly block out the sky above. Pretty ironic ultimately, considering his name and why he began this quest in the first place.

“Aw man,” Sky said, hefting his belly and letting it drop, watching it wobble. “I can’t believe I’m the new King of Bugaria! It’s only me left, so the title goes to me by default, I guess. I sort of expected the Dead Lander Omega to be tougher, but I guess nobody can stop me now! Speaking of… where the heck do I go…?”

He raised a fat hand to his head, scratched his chin, and thought about it. Hadn’t he overheard Maki say something about a land to the East? The trip there was supposed to be really long and treacherous, which is why it was rare to see bugs from there in Bugaria. Well, with his new body, getting there would be a breeze! “Alright, sounds like a plan,” Sky said to himself, “I guess I’ll have to make myself the King there too!”

—

Several hours later, a hole opened up in the ground right outside of what was left of Bugaria. Vi climbed up out of it, and turned around to glare at the mantis who arrived just after her. “Ugh, I’m glad we’re finally here. You’re really annoying with your prices!”

The mantis sighed. “Yes, as I believe that taking someone from the East all the way to Bugaria shouldn’t come free. This was a day-long trip!”

“Yeah, it was a day-long trip - as in I’m gonna be feeling the hurt in my wallet from this for days. Ugh!” She turned and kicked a stone, and the mantis’ eyes looked past her, and he cocked his head.

“Is Bugaria… supposed to look like that?”

Vi turned towards where he was looking, and took in the sight of what had become of her Kingdom. Nothing there now but an unfathomable crater. And in the distance, something too huge to comprehend was lumbering away, subtly shaking the ground as it walked. Vi turned from the figure, back to the crater, and then back to the figure, and creaked out a single phrase:

“What the fuck?”

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