15 minutes later...
Inso's room had become a war zone. Not with guns and bombs, or swords and arrows, this was worse. This was the dreaded AWKWARD SILENCE WAR ZONE.
Rex and Devi sat cross-legged on opposite sides of the room, locked in the most intense glaring contest. Their eyes crackled with barely contained hostility, creating an atmosphere so thick that we need swords to get through.
Poor Inso laid buried under his blankets, counting sheep, counting stars, counting the reasons why his life had become a sitcom. The electric tension in the air made it impossible for him to sleep.
I just wanted a nap. One. fucking. simple. Nap.
But fate had other plans for our MC.
THE ULTIMATE DISS BATTLE ROYALE starts....
Beat drops.
Devi cracked her knuckles and stood up, her eyes gleaming with the fury of a thousand internet comment sections. "Oh, you want to do this? Let's GO."
Devi strikes first:"How shameless are you? Let's make a list—
Tried to kill my boy when he couldn't even use his fists!
Then you stroll back in like it's tea and toast,
Drinking his grandma's soup like you're some honored ghost!"
Rex's eye twitched. His pride meter just took a critical hit, but his comeback game was about to be legendary.
Rex's counter attack:"You thought I was dead? Oh please... you're just a noob,
I respawn fast, I make death look like a rube!
Your friend's a side quest, just skipped the plot,
And that grandma's soup? Mid-tier, too hot!"
Devi's jaw dropped. "Did you call grandma's soup mid-tier, you pig?"
Devi's combo attack:"You slurped that soup like it came from the Gods,
Now you're calling it mid? Man, you're odd!
Stuffed your face like it cured your pain,
Now you're talking trash? Damn, use your brain!"
(Rex's Imaginary EXP lowered for dissing Grandma's cooking)
But Devi wasn't done. Oh no, she was just getting warmed up. Her next verse was about to achieve legendary status in universal roasting:
"Bro, you're so shameless, it's kinda a skill,
You'd rob a healing potion just to flex a kill!
I should carve you outta space junk, shame on your face,
Launch you to orbit—The Statue of Disgrace!"
"Put you on a satellite, spin you real slow,
Every time it passes, Earth yells, 'YO, NOOO!'
Shameless Rex, galactic meme of the year,
Even black holes avoid you—they're like, 'Not here!'"
(Translation: "How shameless can you be? Didn't you try to shamelessly kill a party member when he was needed? Then you're shamelessly drinking that guy's grandma's soup? How much more shameless can you be? Should I carve you as a statue naming 'the shameless person in the world' and display it shamelessly on the satellites for everyone to mock?")
Rex staggered backward like he'd been hit by a cosmic freight train. His shame levels were reaching critical hit.
But just when victory seemed within Devi's grasp...
THUD. THUD. THUD.
The sound of impending doom echoed through the room as something stirred beneath the blankets.
A figure rose from the bed like a vengeful spirit, a blood-lust zombie, blanket draped around him like a cape of justice. His hair was a mess, his glasses were crooked, and his eyes held the terrible fury of someone who had been denied the basic right to sleep.
The final boss has entered the battle, aka sleep deprived Inso.
"Yo, I'm tired, my brain is fried,
Trying to sleep while you yell outside..."
Rex and Devi became statues in shock.
"You call that a battle? It's a toddler's fight,
One screams loud, the other just bites!
Rex, you're shameless, up and down,
Noona, you rhyme like wifi's down!"
Devi and Rex literally became PNG files, frozen in absolute shock.
But Inso wasn't finished. The sleep deprivation had unlocked his hidden power: Brutal honesty.
"This is MY room, I'm the KING here,
Disturb my sleep again, I'll make you disappear!"
[K.O.! Heaven official's blessing has showered upon him!]
SLAM!
The door hit them both in the face as Inso physically ejected them from his room like an angry bird taking flight to destroy the pig forts.
Rex stood outside the door, staring at it with the hollow eyes of someone who'd just witnessed their entire worldview crumble.
Did... did that human just verbally destroy both of us?
Sniffle.
Rex's alien senses picked up the sound of distress. He turned to see Devi, the same Devi who'd just roasted him into the next dimension—crying actual tears.
Oh no!. Crying human female. This is worse than facing an infinity ranked monster.
His internal systems were screaming to find a comfort phrase. But Rex was bad at the subject.
"Hey... that's..." Rex started awkwardly, his voice cracking like a teenager's.
"I've carried him in my womb and raised him!" Devi sobbed.
Rex's brain started to malfunction. "SHE DID WHAT?!
(Author's Note: Chill y'all. It's just a figure of speech. No plot twist here.)
"He's never talked back to me!" Devi continued, tears streaming down her face.
Rex was sweating bullets now, his mental database frantically searching for "How to Console Crying Human Female" and coming up with absolutely nothing.
His inner demon whispered: "Just choke her. She'll stop crying."
No, bad demon!
"But now..." Devi's voice wavered.
Rex gulped, preparing for the emotional climax.
"Now..." Devi's eyes suddenly began to sparkle like a Christmas tree. "HE'S GROWN UP!"
Rex's face contorted into an expression that defied the laws of biology. WHAT.
"He finally grew a spine! I thought he'd be my lackey forever!" Devi beamed, wiping her tears with the pride of a mother watching her child take their first steps.
"Humans are really, underdeveloped weird species. Tch…", Rex concluded, feeling utterly disgusted.
Devi's demeanor shifted faster than light. The crying was over; game mode was activated.
"You've got a mission, Rex."
Rex immediately straightened up, his warrior instincts kicking in. "Did Nexus inform you?"
"You'll be training Inso for a week."
"ME? That low-ranked—" Rex caught himself before finishing that sentence, remembering what had just happened to his pride.
Devi felt her eye twitch, but violence wasn't always the answer. Sometimes, you had to use... shudder ...diplomacy.
She placed a hand on Rex's shoulder and squeezed it with a gentle pressure. Her smile was so forced it looked MEMEful.
"P... Please?"
Rex looked at that smile and realized he was witnessing something truly terrifying: Devi trying to be nice. It was like watching a starved lion attempt ballet to get some food.
He smirked. "Fine then." This is interesting, hehehe. "But why don't YOU train him?"
Devi's expression darkened. "I'm going on a mission with Polaris and Ekkril."
The temperature in the hallway dropped ten degrees. Rex's eyes narrowed.
"THAT mission?"
Devi nodded grimly.
Rex sighed, suddenly understanding the weight of the situation. "Did you tell him we have to move in a week?"
"Nope! That's part of your mission too!" Devi said cheerfully, like she'd just told him he'd won the lottery instead of signing his death warrant.
Rex's teeth grinding could probably be heard from moon.
"But," Devi added with a sly grin, "I'll give you the Octokey[1] as a bonus reward."
Rex's eyes lit up real soon. "DEAL."
They fist-bumped with seriousness, like two generals agreeing to a ceasefire.
"I'm counting on you, soup sucker," Devi winked, heading for the exit.
Rex casually waved his middle finger as a farewell gesture.
As Devi's figure disappeared into the distance, Rex's expression grew serious. The playful alien was gone, replaced by something far more dangerous.
"One week until the game starts, huh?"
I'll see you soon, rank 1 fucker.
Meanwhile in a distant planet...
The Shadow Woman—the same one who had tried and failed to drag Inso into whatever cosmic horror show was brewing—moved with the fluid grace of liquid darkness itself and went inside a dark fog castle.
Her form flickered between solid and mist, reality bending around her like she was too dangerous for the universe to fully contain.
THUD.
She dropped to one knee in the grand hall, her head bowed before a throne that seemed to absorb light rather than reflect it.
"Master," her voice echoed.
On the throne sat a figure that made the darkness itself seem bright by comparison. Long purple hair cascaded over broad shoulders, and a mysterious winged mask covered his eyes—though somehow, you could still feel his gaze piercing straight through one's soul.
When he smiled, it wasn't the kind of smile that reached his eyes. It was the kind that made grown warriors wet themselves and planets consider relocating to different solar systems.
"I've sent one of my shadows to Earth," she began, her voice steady despite the dominance radiating from the throne. "The target has escaped, but.....it seems to have the power of creation and Rex was protecting him."
Silence.
Then, slowly, deliberately, the man's mouth curved into a smile that could have been carved from nightmares.
"Cool down, babe," he said, his voice smooth as silk and twice as dangerous. Each word dripped with the casual confidence of someone who could end civilizations with a yawn. "The game has just started."
He leaned back in his throne, looking like a chess master carefully halting his pieces.
The shadow woman remained kneeling, waiting for orders.
"Let them think they're preparing," the masked figure continued, his fingers drumming against the armrest of his throne with the rhythm of a countdown timer. "Let them train their little hero. Let them scramble and panic and make their adorable little plans."
His smile widened, revealing teeth that seemed to gleam with their own inner darkness.
"After all," he chuckled, the sound echoing through dimensions like the laughter of entropy itself, "what's a game without hope to crush?"
The fog swirled around the castle, entirely making it sink in darkness.
To be continued...
[1] This is a game item. "What is it for?" Secret