{ "submission_id": "3411236", "keywords": [ { "keyword_id": "1007", "keyword_name": "blood", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "21535" }, { "keyword_id": "5685", "keyword_name": "crush", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "2564" }, { "keyword_id": "1370", "keyword_name": "dirty", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "3726" }, { "keyword_id": "18955", "keyword_name": "fatal", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "1196" }, { "keyword_id": "402", "keyword_name": "feet", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "54473" }, { "keyword_id": "3867", "keyword_name": "filthy", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "697" }, { "keyword_id": "403", "keyword_name": "foot", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "17911" }, { "keyword_id": "288496", "keyword_name": "foot crush", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "10" }, { "keyword_id": "1108", "keyword_name": "gore", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "11091" }, { "keyword_id": "189790", "keyword_name": "insole", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "122" }, { "keyword_id": "3372", "keyword_name": "macro", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "23304" }, { "keyword_id": "10308", "keyword_name": "male/male", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "127760" }, { "keyword_id": "2712", "keyword_name": "micro", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "13709" }, { "keyword_id": "6053", "keyword_name": "musk", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "10621" }, { "keyword_id": "280", "keyword_name": "paw", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "22843" }, { "keyword_id": "16496", "keyword_name": "pinned", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "1464" }, { "keyword_id": "1109", "keyword_name": "snuff", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "10936" }, { "keyword_id": "799639", "keyword_name": "solestuck", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "1" }, { "keyword_id": "4504", "keyword_name": "stomp", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "2406" }, { "keyword_id": "15121", "keyword_name": "sweat", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "22366" }, { "keyword_id": "113494", "keyword_name": "underfoot", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "108" }, { "keyword_id": "191685", "keyword_name": "undersole", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "3" }, { "keyword_id": "18357", "keyword_name": "unwilling", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "1768" }, { "keyword_id": "969", "keyword_name": "violence", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "4496" } ], "hidden": "f", "scraps": "f", "favorite": "f", "favorites_count": "9", "create_datetime": "2024-08-31 17:52:33.255154+00", "create_datetime_usertime": "31 Aug 2024 19:52 CEST", "last_file_update_datetime": "2024-08-31 17:46:52.217274+00", "last_file_update_datetime_usertime": "31 Aug 2024 19:46 CEST", "username": "Sioninel", "user_id": "1076847", "user_icon_file_name": "278356_Sioninel_nasch_blepicon.png", "user_icon_url_large": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/usericons/large/278/278356_Sioninel_nasch_blepicon.png", "user_icon_url_medium": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/usericons/medium/278/278356_Sioninel_nasch_blepicon.png", "user_icon_url_small": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/usericons/small/278/278356_Sioninel_nasch_blepicon.png", "file_name": "5188069_Sioninel_gilagvant_insole_pg1.png", "file_url_full": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/files/full/5188/5188069_Sioninel_gilagvant_insole_pg1.png", "file_url_screen": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/files/screen/5188/5188069_Sioninel_gilagvant_insole_pg1.png", "file_url_preview": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/files/preview/5188/5188069_Sioninel_gilagvant_insole_pg1.jpg", "thumbnail_url_huge_noncustom": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/files/preview/5188/5188069_Sioninel_gilagvant_insole_pg1.jpg", "thumbnail_url_large_noncustom": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/large/5188/5188069_Sioninel_gilagvant_insole_pg1_noncustom.jpg", "thumbnail_url_medium_noncustom": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/medium/5188/5188069_Sioninel_gilagvant_insole_pg1_noncustom.jpg", "thumb_medium_noncustom_x": "120", "thumb_medium_noncustom_y": "96", "thumb_large_noncustom_x": "200", "thumb_large_noncustom_y": "160", "thumb_huge_noncustom_x": "300", "thumb_huge_noncustom_y": "240", "files": [ { "file_id": "5188069", "file_name": "5188069_Sioninel_gilagvant_insole_pg1.png", "file_url_full": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/files/full/5188/5188069_Sioninel_gilagvant_insole_pg1.png", "file_url_screen": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/files/screen/5188/5188069_Sioninel_gilagvant_insole_pg1.png", "file_url_preview": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/files/preview/5188/5188069_Sioninel_gilagvant_insole_pg1.jpg", "mimetype": "image/png", "submission_id": "3411236", "user_id": "1076847", "submission_file_order": "0", "full_size_x": "2500", "full_size_y": "2000", "screen_size_x": "920", "screen_size_y": "736", "preview_size_x": "300", "preview_size_y": "240", "initial_file_md5": "22aa1c007e498de8973e717cfcb8ea52", "full_file_md5": "4366302590e8d18e91912fcdc2d77670", "large_file_md5": "3496a7a1e8d6278670c6cd72832081da", "small_file_md5": "9639e37d7875b9736ee4a77bf46dd344", "thumbnail_md5": "9d0e99c31170099e487357a1e09f9b84", "deleted": "f", "create_datetime": "2024-08-31 17:39:07.321948+00", "create_datetime_usertime": "31 Aug 2024 19:39 CEST", "thumbnail_url_huge_noncustom": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/files/preview/5188/5188069_Sioninel_gilagvant_insole_pg1.jpg", "thumbnail_url_large_noncustom": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/large/5188/5188069_Sioninel_gilagvant_insole_pg1_noncustom.jpg", "thumbnail_url_medium_noncustom": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/medium/5188/5188069_Sioninel_gilagvant_insole_pg1_noncustom.jpg", "thumb_medium_noncustom_x": "120", "thumb_medium_noncustom_y": "96", "thumb_large_noncustom_x": "200", "thumb_large_noncustom_y": "160", "thumb_huge_noncustom_x": "300", "thumb_huge_noncustom_y": "240" }, { "file_id": "5188072", "file_name": "5188072_Sioninel_gilagvant_insole_pg2.png", "file_url_full": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/files/full/5188/5188072_Sioninel_gilagvant_insole_pg2.png", "file_url_screen": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/files/screen/5188/5188072_Sioninel_gilagvant_insole_pg2.png", "file_url_preview": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/files/preview/5188/5188072_Sioninel_gilagvant_insole_pg2.jpg", "mimetype": "image/png", "submission_id": "3411236", "user_id": "1076847", "submission_file_order": "1", "full_size_x": "2500", "full_size_y": "2000", "screen_size_x": "920", "screen_size_y": "736", "preview_size_x": "300", "preview_size_y": "240", "initial_file_md5": "a6b4c3b46e0349e0964dd1120647e34d", "full_file_md5": "a2eacc41f722524a97ff629078ee0cdd", "large_file_md5": "025421e55a5e958c614249c66fdd2487", "small_file_md5": "ca2c58f0f613f7cb60fc58a74ca7d9c4", "thumbnail_md5": "9259db6291642cac2ba10f30d850ea58", "deleted": "f", "create_datetime": "2024-08-31 17:40:50.600102+00", "create_datetime_usertime": "31 Aug 2024 19:40 CEST", "thumbnail_url_huge_noncustom": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/files/preview/5188/5188072_Sioninel_gilagvant_insole_pg2.jpg", "thumbnail_url_large_noncustom": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/large/5188/5188072_Sioninel_gilagvant_insole_pg2_noncustom.jpg", "thumbnail_url_medium_noncustom": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/medium/5188/5188072_Sioninel_gilagvant_insole_pg2_noncustom.jpg", "thumb_medium_noncustom_x": "120", "thumb_medium_noncustom_y": "96", "thumb_large_noncustom_x": "200", "thumb_large_noncustom_y": "160", "thumb_huge_noncustom_x": "300", "thumb_huge_noncustom_y": "240" }, { "file_id": "5188073", "file_name": "5188073_Sioninel_gilagvant_insole_pg3.png", "file_url_full": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/files/full/5188/5188073_Sioninel_gilagvant_insole_pg3.png", "file_url_screen": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/files/screen/5188/5188073_Sioninel_gilagvant_insole_pg3.png", "file_url_preview": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/files/preview/5188/5188073_Sioninel_gilagvant_insole_pg3.jpg", "mimetype": "image/png", "submission_id": "3411236", "user_id": "1076847", "submission_file_order": "2", "full_size_x": "2500", "full_size_y": "2000", "screen_size_x": "920", "screen_size_y": "736", "preview_size_x": "300", "preview_size_y": "240", "initial_file_md5": "67a70932c8b3ba7172d1e101d0721fa6", "full_file_md5": "8224dcf65a522f2ffe0f1d82e102287b", "large_file_md5": "e077f27db21fca81b7cc91a9ecedf315", "small_file_md5": "c91f90232d896ab2d4f86e3728745450", "thumbnail_md5": "eba6d22d1d7a32ecffb242f684ca17a0", "deleted": "f", "create_datetime": "2024-08-31 17:42:25.126023+00", "create_datetime_usertime": "31 Aug 2024 19:42 CEST", "thumbnail_url_huge_noncustom": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/files/preview/5188/5188073_Sioninel_gilagvant_insole_pg3.jpg", "thumbnail_url_large_noncustom": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/large/5188/5188073_Sioninel_gilagvant_insole_pg3_noncustom.jpg", "thumbnail_url_medium_noncustom": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/medium/5188/5188073_Sioninel_gilagvant_insole_pg3_noncustom.jpg", "thumb_medium_noncustom_x": "120", "thumb_medium_noncustom_y": "96", "thumb_large_noncustom_x": "200", "thumb_large_noncustom_y": "160", "thumb_huge_noncustom_x": "300", "thumb_huge_noncustom_y": "240" }, { "file_id": "5188082", "file_name": "5188082_Sioninel_gilagvant_insole_pg2-gore.png", "file_url_full": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/files/full/5188/5188082_Sioninel_gilagvant_insole_pg2-gore.png", "file_url_screen": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/files/screen/5188/5188082_Sioninel_gilagvant_insole_pg2-gore.png", "file_url_preview": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/files/preview/5188/5188082_Sioninel_gilagvant_insole_pg2-gore.jpg", "mimetype": "image/png", "submission_id": "3411236", "user_id": "1076847", "submission_file_order": "3", "full_size_x": "2500", "full_size_y": "2000", "screen_size_x": "920", "screen_size_y": "736", "preview_size_x": "300", "preview_size_y": "240", "initial_file_md5": "599fd24bf0a48f9c3c3240f7407e2ff2", "full_file_md5": "44d75a870e3bcb29fd310df8d34cdebd", "large_file_md5": "ffd3a6654b2f66f88ee37c9f7429bfa5", "small_file_md5": "4b10a95f71aac7a75474a14ad0ecaf7f", "thumbnail_md5": "a9e5c146c83f189dff002f514953ca14", "deleted": "f", "create_datetime": "2024-08-31 17:46:52.217274+00", "create_datetime_usertime": "31 Aug 2024 19:46 CEST", "thumbnail_url_huge_noncustom": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/files/preview/5188/5188082_Sioninel_gilagvant_insole_pg2-gore.jpg", "thumbnail_url_large_noncustom": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/large/5188/5188082_Sioninel_gilagvant_insole_pg2-gore_noncustom.jpg", "thumbnail_url_medium_noncustom": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/medium/5188/5188082_Sioninel_gilagvant_insole_pg2-gore_noncustom.jpg", "thumb_medium_noncustom_x": "120", "thumb_medium_noncustom_y": "96", "thumb_large_noncustom_x": "200", "thumb_large_noncustom_y": "160", "thumb_huge_noncustom_x": "300", "thumb_huge_noncustom_y": "240" }, { "file_id": "5188078", "file_name": "5188078_Sioninel_gilagvant_insole_pg3-gore.png", "file_url_full": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/files/full/5188/5188078_Sioninel_gilagvant_insole_pg3-gore.png", "file_url_screen": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/files/screen/5188/5188078_Sioninel_gilagvant_insole_pg3-gore.png", "file_url_preview": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/files/preview/5188/5188078_Sioninel_gilagvant_insole_pg3-gore.jpg", "mimetype": "image/png", "submission_id": "3411236", "user_id": "1076847", "submission_file_order": "4", "full_size_x": "2500", "full_size_y": "2000", "screen_size_x": "920", "screen_size_y": "736", "preview_size_x": "300", "preview_size_y": "240", "initial_file_md5": "d913ca69c7852c39673ae5540c73f151", "full_file_md5": "4fb417d6ce7d7983daa16e4acfef57f8", "large_file_md5": "f16031def62902db59a03f2f7df3a2be", "small_file_md5": "4897a89a8db57c1e8d1213a88d81d060", "thumbnail_md5": "a857c6aa6a9110fdf7d8e41238fc9178", "deleted": "f", "create_datetime": "2024-08-31 17:45:23.518774+00", "create_datetime_usertime": "31 Aug 2024 19:45 CEST", "thumbnail_url_huge_noncustom": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/files/preview/5188/5188078_Sioninel_gilagvant_insole_pg3-gore.jpg", "thumbnail_url_large_noncustom": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/large/5188/5188078_Sioninel_gilagvant_insole_pg3-gore_noncustom.jpg", "thumbnail_url_medium_noncustom": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/medium/5188/5188078_Sioninel_gilagvant_insole_pg3-gore_noncustom.jpg", "thumb_medium_noncustom_x": "120", "thumb_medium_noncustom_y": "96", "thumb_large_noncustom_x": "200", "thumb_large_noncustom_y": "160", "thumb_huge_noncustom_x": "300", "thumb_huge_noncustom_y": "240" } ], "pools": [], "description": "“Croo…!” Vant shot awake to a horrid, moist stench assaulting his nostrils. He found his face planted into the ground, one that reeked of a sour odor. Immediately, he scrambled to his hands and feet, retching and gagging in repulsion. His head shook back and forth while he repeatedly pawed at his face to wipe away foul juices soaked into his fur and nostrils. It was all in vain, however, because it seemed as though the putrid aroma tainted the air itself, not just the floor.\n\nHe groaned as he covered his nose with hands that reeked nearly as badly as the air around him. The stench was nauseating, yet there was no escape from it if he sat here and did nothing.\n\nVant looked around, wondering exactly where he was—a cavern of some sort? The walls stretched over his head and the floor was soft and damp. It was dark and musky. In fact, the air was so humid that a steamy fog formed from the hot air. His vision blurred, but he wasn’t sure if this was due to the oppressive odor and heat making him nauseous, or the thick miasma consuming his field of view. As he stood up, as his paws pressed into the ground, a wet squelch sounded out from it and a fluid pooled around his feet. He lifted his paw, groaning again. The textures didn’t feel like stone or dirt. They looked woven, somewhat, but there was too much grime covering it for him to properly assess what it was.\n\nThe stench wasn’t getting any better. He had to find a way out. After looking around, he noticed light seeping in from the ceiling at one end of the cavern. It appeared to be the only exit as far as he could tell, much to his confusion.\n\nPerhaps he fell in this hole and was knocked unconscious by the impact. But he couldn’t recall falling. Or going near any hole. Or anything at all, actually.\n\nIn any case, he pattered towards it. The feeling of disgust overwhelmed him whenever the ground sank underneath his weight and a slick, slimy, and foul-smelling fluid seeped out around his paws. He was happy to discover that the odor’s intensity lightened as he approached the exit, but not by much. It was enough to prevent his head from spinning and his lungs from shriveling with every breath, at least.\n\nVant looked up at the opening to find that the cave was far deeper than he expected. He must’ve fallen several stories before landing inside this stinky pit, so it was a miracle that he didn’t break any bones upon impact.\n\nThe outside world looked odd, however. There was a red sky with thick, swirling clouds and a plethora of crimson trees towering overhead. They glistened in a manner that didn’t seem natural for trees, but he ignored the oddities for now.\n\nHe was suffocating under this air and he wanted out as soon as possible. The cavern walls appeared scalable, yet he dreaded the thought of grabbing onto the filthy surface. The mere thought of the foul juices oozing out of the walls and onto his hands nearly made him gag.\n\nAs he was mulling over his choices, a thunder sounded out in the distance.\n\n‘Thoom… Thoom… Thoom…’\n\nNo, that wasn’t it. It was too rhythmic to be thunder. Was it footsteps? Was someone approaching the pit?\n\nHe considered screaming for help before a strange, garbled voice speaking an incomprehensible language erupted from the hole. It sounded far louder than he expected it to be, almost like it was reverberating down from the heavens instead of from around the corner.\n\n“Where’s it? I could’a sworn I left it over here…”\n\n“You’re always losing track of that sorta stuff, ain’t cha?”\n\n“I swear I left it—oh, there it is.”\n\nThe footsteps intensified as they neared Vant.\n\n‘Thoom…! Thoom…!’\n\nA tremor overtook the cavern. Vant yelled as he was knocked forward and off his feet, landing on the soft ground with another wet ‘plap’. The stench flooded into his face, prompting him to recoil backwards with a disgusted hack. Vant kept his body low, afraid of the potential cave-in as the tremors amplified by the second.\n\n‘Thoom!…’\n\nThe noise grew louder and louder—the earthquakes worsening—before it came to a sudden stop. He looked at the opening, confused yet cautious.\n\nJust then, an enormous monstrosity swept across the exit, blocking out the sky as it slid into his view!\n\n“Eep!” He yelped, jumping to his feet. In his haste and panic, he stumbled back onto his ass, where he sat there, staring as this thing hovered above the only exit of the pit. He stared at it in shock and awe, his synapses firing away as he promptly identified exactly what it was. The distinct shape, the three stubs at the end, the way in moved and swayed—Vant was staring at a gigantic foot!\n\nDark green in color, round and thick with its plump yet flat sole blackened in a filthy gunk, the foot descended down at the opening, at Vant. He watched, frozen in horror, as the toes plunged into the opening, unable to comprehend what he could even do in this situation. He didn’t shake off the paralysis until the foot knocked into the mouth of the cavern, which stretched apart akin to fabric, causing the entire chamber to quake and send him out of his stupefied state.\n\nVant scrambled away in a frenzied panic. Darkness intensified when the foot jammed into the opening, sealing the exit and preventing light from seeping through. With the foot bulldozing towards him, he had no other choice but to scamper deeper into the cavern, praying that there was something at the other end of this hot, noxious, and damp pit that could save him from being crushed under the massive foot.\n\nUnfortunately, he never got that chance because the cavern walls suddenly shifted around him. The slick floor bellowed to life as it rose upward, creating a slope towards the exit and the foot. Vant found himself stumbling under the tremors as he slid towards the rushing behemoth. A fearful yelp sounded out as blunt claws knocked into his little body. Immediately afterwards, it rolled him underneath a grimy mass of flesh.\n\n“Eep!” He cried as rough, greasy flesh dragged across his body, pushing him into the damp ground as much as it was smearing him across it. Fighting against the immense pressure crushing him down, squeezing him right between the sweaty flesh and the rough fibers—as well as the plethora of sour juices squelching upward from the moist floor, soaking him in his stinky slick—Vant shoved his hands against the plump underbelly of the foot, desperately trying to prevent it from smothering him.\n\n“Gr-Gack!” He grunted, pushing as hard as he could. His arms strained under the immense weight. The lack of clean air exasperated his condition, too, because every gasp was met with an odor so overpowering that his lungs rejected it with a retch. It was impossible to breathe, impossible to see, and as expected, impossible for him to bear.\n\nSubmerged in complete darkness, surrounded by a putrid stench and sweltering heat, his body finally gave in. His arms were harshly shoved down to his sides. His belly, and tail, and hips and all—crushed into the insole with another juicy squelch. His face was enveloped in thick skin that reeked as horribly as the ground—Vant let out a choked scream right before the incredible weight blackened his vision and consumed him.\n\n“Mmf!” Unable to move, Vant could only lie there, smothered by the giant foot and a tangy scent emanating from it.\n\n- -\n\nAfter pulling up the zipper on his boot, Gilag stamped his foot down and twisted his ankle a few times to make sure the footwear was fitted onto him properly.\n\n“Hgh?”\n\nAmber eyes rolled down towards the boot. He twisted his foot again, grinding his sole against the well-worn insole inside. Something was off…\n\nIt felt like there was a lump—\n\n“What’s the hold up, Gil?”\n\nThe shout of his companion brought his attention back to the other alien.\n\n“Nothin’,” he replied back. A pebble probably fell inside the boot when he wasn’t looking. He wanted to remove it before they got started, but Alit was already annoyed that their training was delayed due to some circumstances outside of their control. He took a step towards the smaller red barian—noting a strange pop underfoot as his heavy weight crunched the pebble—before ignoring the thing in there for now.\n\n- - -\n\nAs some of the only Emperors who engaged in physical combat, Alit and Gilag relied on each other for training most of the time. Punching rocks could only do so much before they acquired a strong desire to attack something that could move. And as they learned, randomly punching an unsuspecting Emperor wasn’t the smartest idea—even though it was very effective in getting them to retaliate.\n\nFortunately, the two of them were made for each other, especially when considering their strengths and weaknesses in combat.\n\nGilag was the larger and heavier of the two, towering over him by three heads. Each step of his body caused the ground to tremble and the crystalline trees to shake, and a single punch of his giant fist could effortlessly shatter the crystals on the planet. His size allowed him to endure a constant slew of attacks too, able to shrug them off while sustaining little injury. However, the consequences of his extreme girth meant that he was sluggish; in addition, he could overload his core far faster than the other Emperors.\n\nOn the other hand, Alit was much smaller and much more nimble than his sparring partner. His punches were far weaker, yet due to his speed, he struck faster and more often. If Gilag could hit him even once, then the fight was practically over. His size proved to be the primary issue for Gilag, however, because not only was he a hard target to hit but he could simply outlast his opponent by running his resources into the ground, by waiting for his energy to be depleted before going in for a one-hit KO.\n\nBecause of these differences, it made their brawls much more fun.\n\nGilag sized up to the energetic Emperor. The runt was yapping about something, but Gilag found his attention drifting back to his right foot.\n\nThe fuzzy lump inside his boot was still present even after he stamped his foot a couple of more times. He lifted up his foot to create a narrow gap between his foot and the insole. The space allowed the lump to slide around, preferably slipping to a spot where it wouldn’t be on his mind.\n\nBut it was distracting and really annoying…\n\n“Hey Al—!\"\n\nOut of the corner of his mask, he caught a swift blur of red rushing towards him, forcing him to turn his attention forward—only to be met with a fist barreling towards him!\n\nThinking fast, he dodged out of the way by applying most of his weight onto his right leg and swinging his mass to the side. The fist grazed him by the width of his hair. The lump underfoot, however, seemed to have wiggled to life the moment he applied his weight onto it again. The sudden movement startled him and caused him to falter in the follow-up.\n\n“…!”\n\nUnfortunately, his delayed reaction meant that Alit was able to pivot his body in tandem with Gilag’s, maintaining full momentum before counterattacking with a jab directly into the unshielded crevice under his mask.\n\n“Too slow!”\n\n‘CRACK!’\n\n- -\n\n“G-Gack!” Vant wheezed when the foot dropped its weight on him pressed down, squeezing the air out of his lungs and placing an immense amount of strain on his bones.\n\nHe had no idea what the giant was doing out there, but the relatively gentle treading from before was replaced with something far more brutal and aggressive. Harsh stomps, never-ending twisting and grinding, the heavy foot relentlessly mashed him into the ground with an intense vigor. Vant felt as though it was purposeful, almost like the giant was aware of his presence in here and was deliberately trampling him as hard as it could.\n\nThe pressure alleviated for only a second—allowing Vant to swallow a mouthful of the humid and pungent air—before it collapsed on him again, squishing his head and covering his snout in a blanket of greasy flesh. Below him, the well-worn insole managed to cushion some of the force by compressing downward; however, old sweat gushed from the grimy fibers, soaking him from tail to snout in its juices. He cringed as tufts of white fur—now muddied with dirt and all sorts of gunk—yanked at his skin; a few of them were plucked outright.\n\nThe heat around Vant amplified as the giant stomped around, and as the heat amplified, so did the musk and sweat. The intensity of the odor alone could’ve asphyxiated him. Hell, it stank so much that he rather the foot crushed him to death instead of pummeling him and leaving him gasping for the tainted air.\n\n“Mmff!” He struggled as much as he could. The foot lifted up and slammed back down, almost like it was aware of his feverish movements. The impact left him in a stunned daze with his limbs throbbing, his lungs burning, head spinning, bruises forming—it was an utter nightmare.\n\n— —\n\nBracing himself, Gilag dug his boots into the ground right as Alit rammed into his stomach with his antlers and mask. The impact nearly knocked him off his feet, and it didn’t help that the razor-sharp horns were boring into his thick skin, ripping into his belly. If he was anything but a barian, his guts would’ve been pouring all over the other Emperor’s skull at this point. Instead, Alit carried on by wrapping his arms around his waist and attempted to throw him over his back. The guy was too small for this, but that didn’t stop him from constantly trying to suplex Gilag whenever he managed to stun him.\n\nGilag crushed Alit’s head with his meaty hand before prying him back, wrenching him away and tossing him against the crystal pillar with raw strength alone.\n\nThe smaller barian hurtled backwards, but before he could crash into the pillar, leaving him wide open for an attack, he recovered within seconds. His body pivoted until his legs were angled at the pillar. He collided feet-first against the pillar before using it as a springboard to launch back at Gilag.\n\nGilag swung his fist down at the incoming barian when he was within range, but Alit managed to duck out of the way. A fist landed a hit at the side of his face. He grunted before turning towards the source of the impact, his boot sliding across the ground in a fury to match his speed with Alit’s. By the time he turned, however, the other barian was already behind him, and then in front of him, and then back again, constantly on the move and constantly battering him with punch after punch.\n\n“Quit movin’!” He shouted in frustration, sweat rolling down his forehead and pecs, his body starting to be pushed to its limits. As Alit was moving past his front, he lifted his arms overhead, hands conjoined and balled into a tight fist, and immediately swung it down as hard as he could.\n\n‘THOOM!’\n\nThey hit the ground with such intensity that his body rattled and his feet lifted from the ground for a brief moment. It dropped back down a second after, landing onto the floor with a squelch—followed by another distinct pop inside his boot.\n\nIn tandem, a foot stepped onto the tufts atop his head.\n\n“Missed me haha!” Alit laughed, dodging the attack as effortlessly as the rest of them.\n\nIn an attempt to lay a hit to the pipsqueak, Gilag lifted his body and stumbled backwards with the intent of crushing the wily Emperor between his body and a nearby crystal tree. Predictably, Alit bounced off of him, so all he accomplished was ramming himself into the tree, shattering it and injuring himself.\n\nAlit chuckled as Gilag rubbed his sore shoulders and hips, grumbling. He stood to the side as he waited for his partner to recover. “What’s the matter, Gil? Your moves are more telegraphed than usual.”\n\n“Shut it!”\n\nHe readied a fist and charged at the other barian.\n\n- - -\n\n‘Squelch! Squick!’\n\n“Hurk!”\n\nAs the stomping continued, his body soaked in all the sweat secreting from the foot. Each step resulted in a moist squelch as the pressure wrung his fur of the juices, but with nowhere for the excess sweat to seep into—aside from the already-drenched insole—his fur reabsorbed it to continue the cycle.\n\nWith his body completely lubricated with toxic sweat, he slid around the insole each time the foot lifted off the ground. It never gave him enough space to squirm to safety; instead, he found himself smeared against every part of the foot. Sometimes he found his face squished between the flaps of hot skin near the toes. Other times, he slid towards the heel, where the full weight of the behemoth stepped down on him, crushing his limbs until he could no longer feel them. No matter where he slipped, however, he couldn’t escape the slimy sweat nor the horrendous odor, which worsened the more humid the chamber grew.\n\n‘Thud! Squelch! Thud!… Thud!…’\n\nHis limp body flattened and spread apart with each stomp. His bones were grinding into a paste and his head felt distant, fuzzy, unable to focus properly. Eventually, with so much sweat and toejam caking his fur, he found himself plastered to the sole instead of sliding around. Every time it rose from the insole, he stuck to the underside like a wad of discarded gum. Despite this, the foot continued to drop down on him, crushing him in a singular spot over, and over, and over…\n\n- - -\n\n“Phew,” Gilag heaved. He could feel his core pulsating as it tried to supply his overworked and overheating body with more chaos. Covered in sweat, utterly drained, he lugged himself to the crystalline overture and leaned against it for support. He dragged his gloved hand over his green tufts, combing through it and picked up the clumps of sweat and dirt adhered to it before wringing his soaked hand to the side. He slumped against the wall before sliding down, exhausted.\n\nOn the other hand, Alit seemed to be more lively than ever, bouncing around and ready for more roughhousing, practicing his form and punches while his partner was on the verge of collapse. “You were off your game today, weren’t ‘cha?” Alit said as he stepped towards the other Emperor.\n\nHe huffed. He always found it obnoxious that Alit never seemed to struggle with managing his body’s resources as much as Gilag, but that was the benefit of being the smallest out of the Emperors.\n\n“I know, I know,” Gilag replied back, glaring at him. “It wasn’t my fault. It was—“\n\nBefore finishing his thought, he pulled his right foot towards his body and grabbed onto the leathery vamp with a giant, grubby hand. A firm yank pried it off his foot, freeing it from the tight confines of his boot. The cold air hitting the sweat-ridden sole ushered a pleased murmur out of him—he didn’t realize how moist and blistering it was in there until he had a chance to cool the foot down. As he let it air out, filling the air with his sweaty musk, he brought the boot towards his face.\n\n“What’s wrong?”\n\n“Something was messin’ me up in here,” he explained. He peered inside, turning it from left to right to try to take a good look at the damp interior. Aside from a glossy sheen overlaying the filthy fabric, he couldn’t find anything that stuck out. The insole was as worn and torn as always. He shook a few times, thinking that the object was embedded into the fibers somewhere, but nothing rolled into view. He swore there was something in here.\n\n“Don’t tell me you couldn’t focus because of a pebble,” the other barian chuckled, amused that someone as thick-headed and burly as Gilag was distracted due to one little rock in his shoe.\n\nGilag grumbled again. “Well it ain’t in here anymore, that’s for sure.”\n\nAs he stretched out his legs and let out another low bellow, purging his body of more heat, Alit suddenly piqued.\n\n“Hmm, I think it’s under your foot there,” he said as gestured towards the right foot, which was resting on the ground with his heels propped against the soft dirt.\n\n“Huh?” Gilag twisted his leg until the sole was facing him, and to his confusion—and relief—he discovered that something was plastered to the bottom of his foot. Although, it was extremely flattened due to the weight of being trampled on during the entire session, and it was completely coated in a thick layer of filth, sweat, and all sorts of things. This was likely the thing that fell into his boot and bothered him the entire afternoon, but at this point, he didn’t even want to question what the thing was. It looked like an organic creature, as far as he knew, with its fuzzy body and all. He could see it twitching, too, still alive despite being trampled upon for nearly an hour.\n\n“Gross,” he muttered before slamming his sole into the ground, further crushing the stupid thing into his foot. His weight dug into it as he stood back up—he felt a few additional pops as the creature crumpled under his weight. It was cushioned only by the relatively soft ground, but that did little to alleviate its comfort when he began to drag his foot back and forth, smearing the thing into the floor until he wiped it off his sole.\n\nThe creature laid in the footprint, surrounded and half-buried by the dirt with only bits of his grimy body visible. It wiggled slightly, gasping for breath, before a paw unceremoniously stamped into the crater, crushing it deep into the dirt. Gilag inadvertently and repeatedly stepped all over the creature while he was putting his boot back onto his foot.\n\n“Should we tell Nasch?” Alit asked. It wasn’t common that organics found their way into this dimension, but it happened on occasion due to the rifts connecting them to the other worlds.\n\n“Nah. It’ll just make him worry for no reason. Probably a bug that got lost, s’all,” Gilag said before grinding his boot down on the creature a few more times, listening as the faint pops and crunches faded with every twist of his ankle. He lifted up his foot to find that the creature was out of sight, crushed into a pulp, disposed of with no further issue. “Come on, let’s see if Mizael is busy.”\n\n- - - -\n\n“Urgh…” Buried in the soil, Vant groaned as the two behemoths stomped away from him after pulverizing him deep into the ground. He managed to push his snout into the surface after fighting the intense pain radiating from every inch of his bruised and broken body. He laid there, gasping for air, whimpering as each lungful prompted a shock of pain from his flattened chest. Not only that, but he could also still smell the awful stench of the giant’s foot, which now-emanated from his stained and soaked fur as well as the dirt it was treading on—every time he inhaled the odor, his body rejected it with a violent hack.\n\nIt hurt all over.\n\nAfter a few minutes of laying in silence, soothed by nothing but his haggard breathing, the flapping of wings brought him out of his stasis. He could barely open his eyes, however. They were practically sealed shut with a layer of sweat and dirt-ridden crust.\n\nA pair of poignant tips pinched the scruff of his neck before prying him out of the ground and a sadistic chuckle filled his ears, but by then, he drifted into unconsciousness…\n\n“Gah-hah-ha…”\n\nGORE ALT:\n\nAs some of the only Emperors who engaged in physical combat, Alit and Gilag relied on each other for training most of the time. Punching rocks could only do so much before they acquired a strong desire to attack something that could move. And as they learned, randomly punching an unsuspecting Emperor wasn’t the smartest idea—even though it was very effective in getting them to retaliate.\n\nFortunately, the two of them were made for each other, especially when considering their strengths and weaknesses in combat.\n\nGilag was the larger and heavier of the two, towering over him by three heads. Each step of his body caused the ground to tremble and the crystalline trees to shake, and a single punch of his giant fist could effortlessly shatter the crystals on the planet. His size allowed him to endure a constant slew of attacks too, able to shrug them off while sustaining little injury. However, the consequences of his extreme girth meant that he was sluggish; in addition, he could overload his core far faster than the other Emperors.\n\nOn the other hand, Alit was much smaller and much more nimble than his sparring partner. His punches were far weaker, yet due to his speed, he struck faster and more often. If Gilag could hit him even once, then the fight was practically over. His size proved to be the primary issue for Gilag, however, because not only was he a hard target to hit but he could simply outlast his opponent by running his resources into the ground, by waiting for his energy to be depleted before going in for a one-hit KO.\n\nBecause of these differences, it made their brawls much more fun.\n\nGilag sized up to the energetic Emperor. The runt was yapping about something, but Gilag found his attention drifting back to his right foot.\n\nThe fuzzy lump inside his boot was still present even after he stamped his foot a couple of more times. He lifted up his foot to create a narrow gap between his foot and the insole. The space allowed the lump to slide around, preferably slipping to a spot where it wouldn’t be on his mind.\n\nBut it was distracting and really annoying…\n\n“Hey Al—!\"\n\nOut of the corner of his mask, he caught a swift blur of red rushing towards him, forcing him to turn his attention forward—only to be met with a fist barreling towards him!\n\nThinking fast, he dodged out of the way by applying most of his weight onto his right leg and swinging his mass to the side. The fist grazed him by the width of his hair. The lump underfoot, however, seemed to have wiggled to life the moment he applied his weight onto it again. The sudden movement startled him and caused him to falter in the follow-up.\n\n“…!”\n\nUnfortunately, his delayed reaction meant that Alit was able to pivot his body in tandem with Gilag’s, maintaining full momentum before counterattacking with a jab directly into the unshielded crevice under his mask.\n\n“Too slow!”\n\n‘CRACK!’\n\n- -\n\n“G-Gack!” Vant wheezed when the foot dropped its weight on him pressed down, squeezing the air out of his lungs and placing an immense amount of strain on his bones.\n\nHe had no idea what the giant was doing out there, but the relatively gentle treading from before was replaced with something far more brutal and aggressive. Harsh stomps, never-ending twisting and grinding, the heavy foot relentlessly mashed him into the ground with an intense vigor. Vant felt as though it was purposeful, almost like the giant was aware of his presence in here and was deliberately trampling him as hard as it could.\n\nThe pressure alleviated for only a second—allowing Vant to swallow a mouthful of the humid and pungent air—before it collapsed on him again, squishing his skull and covering his snout in a blanket of greasy flesh. Below him, the well-worn insole managed to cushion some of the force by compressing downward; however, old sweat gushed from the grimy fibers, soaking him from tail to snout in its juices. He cringed as tufts of white fur—now muddied with dirt and all sorts of gunk—yanked at his skin; a few of them were plucked outright.\n\nThe heat around Vant amplified as the giant stomped around, and as the heat amplified, so did the musk and sweat. The intensity of the odor alone could’ve asphyxiated him. Hell, it stank so much that he rather the foot crushed him to death instead of pummeling him and leaving him gasping for the tainted air.\n\n“Mmff!” He struggled as much as he could. The foot lifted up and slammed back down, almost like it was aware of his feverish movements. The impact pushed his arms and legs to their breaking point. They snapped and crumbled like a twig underfoot, leaving him whimpering with tears in his eyes, his lungs burning, head spinning, bruises and swells forming—it was an utter nightmare.\n\n— —\n\nBracing himself, Gilag dug his boots into the ground right as Alit rammed into his stomach with his antlers and mask. The impact nearly knocked him off his feet, and it didn’t help that the razor-sharp horns were boring into his thick skin, ripping into his belly. If he was anything but a barian, his guts would’ve been pouring all over the other Emperor’s skull at this point. Instead, Alit carried on by wrapping his arms around his waist and attempted to throw him over his back. The guy was too small for this, but that didn’t stop him from constantly trying to suplex Gilag whenever he managed to stun him.\n\nGilag crushed Alit’s head with his meaty hand before prying him back, wrenching him away and tossing him against the crystal pillar with raw strength alone.\n\nThe smaller barian hurtled backwards, but before he could crash into the pillar, leaving him wide open for an attack, he recovered within seconds. His body pivoted until his legs were angled at the pillar. He collided feet-first against the pillar before using it as a springboard to launch back at Gilag.\n\nGilag swung his fist down at the incoming barian when he was within range, but Alit managed to duck out of the way. A fist landed a hit at the side of his face. He grunted before turning towards the source of the impact, his boot sliding across the ground in a fury to match his speed with Alit’s. By the time he turned, however, the other barian was already behind him, and then in front of him, and then back again, constantly on the move and constantly battering him with punch after punch.\n\n“Quit movin’!” He shouted in frustration, sweat rolling down his forehead and pecs, his body starting to be pushed to its limits. As Alit was moving past his front, he lifted his arms overhead, hands conjoined and balled into a tight fist, and immediately swung it down as hard as he could.\n\n‘THOOM!’\n\nThey hit the ground with such intensity that his body rattled and his feet lifted from the ground for a brief moment. It dropped back down a second after, landing onto the floor with a squelch—followed by another distinct crunch inside his boot before a sudden, warm slickness spread out from under his sole.\n\nIn tandem, a foot stepped onto the tufts atop his head.\n\n“Missed me haha!” Alit laughed, dodging the attack as effortlessly as the rest of them.\n\nIn an attempt to lay a hit to the pipsqueak, Gilag lifted his body and stumbled backwards with the intent of crushing the wily Emperor between his body and a nearby crystal tree. Predictably, Alit bounced off of him, so all he accomplished was ramming himself into the tree, shattering it and injuring himself.\n\nAlit chuckled as Gilag rubbed his sore shoulders and hips, grumbling. He stood to the side as he waited for his partner to recover. “What’s the matter, Gil? Your moves are more telegraphed than usual.”\n\n“Shut it!”\n\nHe readied a fist and charged at the other barian.\n\n- - -\n\n‘Squelch! Squick!’\n\nVant could do nothing but lie in intense agony as the foot smashed him. His limbs were pummeled into a gooey paste of scales, bones, and meat at this point. His fur was blemished with blood and sweat. His torso was squashed, yet his skin refused to rupture. There was no telling how long it could last under the constant stomping, though.\n\nAs the stomping continued, his broken body soaked in all the sweat secreting from the foot, too. Each step resulted in a moist squelch as the pressure wrung his fur of the juices, but with nowhere for the excess sweat to seep into—aside from the already-drenched insole—his fur reabsorbed it to continue the cycle.\n\nWith his nearly-lifeless body completely lubricated with toxic sweat and his own blood, he slid around the insole each time the foot lifted off the ground. It never gave him enough space to squirm to safety; instead, he found himself smeared against every part of the foot. Sometimes he found his face squished between the flaps of hot skin near the toes. Other times, he slid towards the heel, where the full weight of the behemoth stepped down on him, breaking a bone or two in his torso. No matter where he slipped, however, he couldn’t escape the slimy sweat nor the horrendous odor, which worsened the more humid the chamber grew.\n\n‘Thud! Squelch! Thud!… Thud!…’\n\nHis bones were grinding into a paste and his head felt distant, fuzzy, unable to focus properly. Eventually, with so much sweat and toejam caking his fur, he found himself plastered to the sole instead of sliding around. Every time it rose from the insole, he stuck to the underside like a wad of discarded gum. Despite this, the foot continued to drop down on him, crushing him in a singular spot over, and over, and over.\n\nHis mangled form was giving into the abuse. His chest was squishy, and his midriff felt tight.\n\n‘Squelch!’\n\nThe sides of his belly burst open with a sickening, wet squelch. His organs eagerly poured out from the opening before finding themselves liquified due to the constant stomping. His limp body flattened and spread apart with each stomp.\n\n‘Crunch! Squelch!’\n\nHis skull cracked soon under the pressure, unable to ensure the abuse any longer. His head throbbed in agony, but his misery didn’t end there. Another harsh stomp caused his jaw to dislocate. Another one squeezed his eyes out of their sockets. His tongue flopped outward, tasting the rank aroma of the sole one last time. The foot pressed down and held its weight there; simultaneously, his brain gushed from the fractures in his skull and flesh, dripping onto the insole.\n\nThe foot continued to rise up and down, crushing him until he was a bloodied pelt of fur soaked in sweat and all sorts of foul-smelling substances.\n\n- - -\n\n“Phew,” Gilag heaved. He could feel his core pulsating as it tried to supply his overworked and overheating body with more chaos. Covered in sweat, utterly drained, he lugged himself to the crystalline overture and leaned against it for support. He dragged his gloved hand over his green tufts, combing through it and picked up the clumps of sweat and dirt adhered to it before wringing his soaked hand to the side. He slumped against the wall before sliding down, exhausted.\n\nOn the other hand, Alit seemed to be more lively than ever, bouncing around and ready for more roughhousing, practicing his form and punches while his partner was on the verge of collapse. “You were off your game today, weren’t ‘cha?” Alit said as he stepped towards the other Emperor.\n\nHe huffed. He always found it obnoxious that Alit never seemed to struggle with managing his body’s resources as much as Gilag, but that was the benefit of being the smallest out of the Emperors.\n\n“I know, I know,” Gilag replied back, glaring at him. “It wasn’t my fault. It was—“\n\nBefore finishing his thought, he pulled his right foot towards his body and grabbed onto the leathery vamp with a giant, grubby hand. A firm yank pried it off his foot, freeing it from the tight confines of his boot. The cold air hitting the sweat-ridden sole ushered a pleased murmur out of him—he didn’t realize how moist and blistering it was in there until he had a chance to cool the foot down. As he let it air out, filling the air with his sweaty musk, he brought the boot towards his face.\n\n“What’s wrong?”\n\n“Something was messin’ me up in here,” he explained. He peered inside, turning it from left to right to try to take a good look at the damp interior. Aside from a glossy sheen overlaying the filthy fabric, he couldn’t find anything that stuck out. The insole was as worn and torn as always. He shook a few times, thinking that the object was embedded into the fibers somewhere, but nothing rolled into view. He swore there was something in here.\n\n“Don’t tell me you couldn’t focus because of a pebble,” the other barian chuckled, amused that someone as thick-headed and burly as Gilag was distracted due to one little rock in his shoe.\n\nGilag grumbled again. “Well it ain’t in here anymore, that’s for sure.”\n\nAs he stretched out his legs and let out another low bellow, purging his body of more heat, Alit suddenly piqued.\n\n“Hmm, I think it’s under your foot there,” he said as gestured towards the right foot, which was resting on the ground with his heels propped against the soft dirt.\n\n“Huh?” Gilag twisted his leg until the sole was facing him, and to his confusion—and relief—he discovered that something was plastered to the bottom of his foot. Although, it was extremely flattened due to the weight of being trampled on during the entire session, and it was completely coated in a thick layer of filth, sweat, and all sorts of things. This was likely the thing that fell into his boot and bothered him the entire afternoon, but at this point, he didn’t even want to question what the thing was. It looked to be the remains of an organic creature, as far as he knew, with its fuzzy body and all. Its body was covered in a red slick, however—blood, was it? Not only that, but a gooey substance protruded from every orifice of its squashed body.\n\n“Gross,” he muttered before slamming his sole into the ground, further crushing the stupid thing into his foot. His weight dug into it as he stood back up—he felt a few additional squelches and cracks as the creature crumpled further under his weight. He groaned in disgust when he felt more of its innards gushing from its body, too. He began to drag his foot back and forth to wipe it off his sole. Its greasy pelt rolled against his sole, ripping and tearing under the grinding friction. After his foot was ‘cleaned’ of the grime, Gilag lifted it away with a satisfied huff.\n\nThe creature laid in the footprint with its body torn apart and in bloodied chunks, but even in death, even after being reduced to butchered corpse, it wasn’t left to rest in peace.\n\nA paw unceremoniously stamped back down into the crater, crushing the remains deep into the dirt and desecrating the body even more. Gilag inadvertently and repeatedly stepped all over the creature while he was putting his boot back onto his foot.\n\n“Should we tell Nasch?” Alit asked. It wasn’t common that organics found their way into this dimension, but it happened on occasion due to the rifts connecting them to the other worlds.\n\n“Nah. It’ll just make him worry for no reason. Probably a bug that got lost, s’all,” Gilag said before grinding his boot down onto the creature a few more times, listening as the faint squelching faded with every twist of his ankle. He lifted up his foot to find that there was nothing left but a red smudge and loose bits of fur within the dirt. “Come on, let’s see if Mizael is busy.”", "description_bbcode_parsed": "“Croo…!” Vant shot awake to a horrid, moist stench assaulting his nostrils. He found his face planted into the ground, one that reeked of a sour odor. Immediately, he scrambled to his hands and feet, retching and gagging in repulsion. His head shook back and forth while he repeatedly pawed at his face to wipe away foul juices soaked into his fur and nostrils. It was all in vain, however, because it seemed as though the putrid aroma tainted the air itself, not just the floor.

He groaned as he covered his nose with hands that reeked nearly as badly as the air around him. The stench was nauseating, yet there was no escape from it if he sat here and did nothing.

Vant looked around, wondering exactly where he was—a cavern of some sort? The walls stretched over his head and the floor was soft and damp. It was dark and musky. In fact, the air was so humid that a steamy fog formed from the hot air. His vision blurred, but he wasn’t sure if this was due to the oppressive odor and heat making him nauseous, or the thick miasma consuming his field of view. As he stood up, as his paws pressed into the ground, a wet squelch sounded out from it and a fluid pooled around his feet. He lifted his paw, groaning again. The textures didn’t feel like stone or dirt. They looked woven, somewhat, but there was too much grime covering it for him to properly assess what it was.

The stench wasn’t getting any better. He had to find a way out. After looking around, he noticed light seeping in from the ceiling at one end of the cavern. It appeared to be the only exit as far as he could tell, much to his confusion.

Perhaps he fell in this hole and was knocked unconscious by the impact. But he couldn’t recall falling. Or going near any hole. Or anything at all, actually.

In any case, he pattered towards it. The feeling of disgust overwhelmed him whenever the ground sank underneath his weight and a slick, slimy, and foul-smelling fluid seeped out around his paws. He was happy to discover that the odor’s intensity lightened as he approached the exit, but not by much. It was enough to prevent his head from spinning and his lungs from shriveling with every breath, at least.

Vant looked up at the opening to find that the cave was far deeper than he expected. He must’ve fallen several stories before landing inside this stinky pit, so it was a miracle that he didn’t break any bones upon impact.

The outside world looked odd, however. There was a red sky with thick, swirling clouds and a plethora of crimson trees towering overhead. They glistened in a manner that didn’t seem natural for trees, but he ignored the oddities for now.

He was suffocating under this air and he wanted out as soon as possible. The cavern walls appeared scalable, yet he dreaded the thought of grabbing onto the filthy surface. The mere thought of the foul juices oozing out of the walls and onto his hands nearly made him gag.

As he was mulling over his choices, a thunder sounded out in the distance.

‘Thoom… Thoom… Thoom…’

No, that wasn’t it. It was too rhythmic to be thunder. Was it footsteps? Was someone approaching the pit?

He considered screaming for help before a strange, garbled voice speaking an incomprehensible language erupted from the hole. It sounded far louder than he expected it to be, almost like it was reverberating down from the heavens instead of from around the corner.

“Where’s it? I could’a sworn I left it over here…”

“You’re always losing track of that sorta stuff, ain’t cha?”

“I swear I left it—oh, there it is.”

The footsteps intensified as they neared Vant.

‘Thoom…! Thoom…!’

A tremor overtook the cavern. Vant yelled as he was knocked forward and off his feet, landing on the soft ground with another wet ‘plap’. The stench flooded into his face, prompting him to recoil backwards with a disgusted hack. Vant kept his body low, afraid of the potential cave-in as the tremors amplified by the second.

‘Thoom!…’

The noise grew louder and louder—the earthquakes worsening—before it came to a sudden stop. He looked at the opening, confused yet cautious.

Just then, an enormous monstrosity swept across the exit, blocking out the sky as it slid into his view!

“Eep!” He yelped, jumping to his feet. In his haste and panic, he stumbled back onto his ass, where he sat there, staring as this thing hovered above the only exit of the pit. He stared at it in shock and awe, his synapses firing away as he promptly identified exactly what it was. The distinct shape, the three stubs at the end, the way in moved and swayed—Vant was staring at a gigantic foot!

Dark green in color, round and thick with its plump yet flat sole blackened in a filthy gunk, the foot descended down at the opening, at Vant. He watched, frozen in horror, as the toes plunged into the opening, unable to comprehend what he could even do in this situation. He didn’t shake off the paralysis until the foot knocked into the mouth of the cavern, which stretched apart akin to fabric, causing the entire chamber to quake and send him out of his stupefied state.

Vant scrambled away in a frenzied panic. Darkness intensified when the foot jammed into the opening, sealing the exit and preventing light from seeping through. With the foot bulldozing towards him, he had no other choice but to scamper deeper into the cavern, praying that there was something at the other end of this hot, noxious, and damp pit that could save him from being crushed under the massive foot.

Unfortunately, he never got that chance because the cavern walls suddenly shifted around him. The slick floor bellowed to life as it rose upward, creating a slope towards the exit and the foot. Vant found himself stumbling under the tremors as he slid towards the rushing behemoth. A fearful yelp sounded out as blunt claws knocked into his little body. Immediately afterwards, it rolled him underneath a grimy mass of flesh.

“Eep!” He cried as rough, greasy flesh dragged across his body, pushing him into the damp ground as much as it was smearing him across it. Fighting against the immense pressure crushing him down, squeezing him right between the sweaty flesh and the rough fibers—as well as the plethora of sour juices squelching upward from the moist floor, soaking him in his stinky slick—Vant shoved his hands against the plump underbelly of the foot, desperately trying to prevent it from smothering him.

“Gr-Gack!” He grunted, pushing as hard as he could. His arms strained under the immense weight. The lack of clean air exasperated his condition, too, because every gasp was met with an odor so overpowering that his lungs rejected it with a retch. It was impossible to breathe, impossible to see, and as expected, impossible for him to bear.

Submerged in complete darkness, surrounded by a putrid stench and sweltering heat, his body finally gave in. His arms were harshly shoved down to his sides. His belly, and tail, and hips and all—crushed into the insole with another juicy squelch. His face was enveloped in thick skin that reeked as horribly as the ground—Vant let out a choked scream right before the incredible weight blackened his vision and consumed him.

“Mmf!” Unable to move, Vant could only lie there, smothered by the giant foot and a tangy scent emanating from it.

- -

After pulling up the zipper on his boot, Gilag stamped his foot down and twisted his ankle a few times to make sure the footwear was fitted onto him properly.

“Hgh?”

Amber eyes rolled down towards the boot. He twisted his foot again, grinding his sole against the well-worn insole inside. Something was off…

It felt like there was a lump—

“What’s the hold up, Gil?”

The shout of his companion brought his attention back to the other alien.

“Nothin’,” he replied back. A pebble probably fell inside the boot when he wasn’t looking. He wanted to remove it before they got started, but Alit was already annoyed that their training was delayed due to some circumstances outside of their control. He took a step towards the smaller red barian—noting a strange pop underfoot as his heavy weight crunched the pebble—before ignoring the thing in there for now.

- - -

As some of the only Emperors who engaged in physical combat, Alit and Gilag relied on each other for training most of the time. Punching rocks could only do so much before they acquired a strong desire to attack something that could move. And as they learned, randomly punching an unsuspecting Emperor wasn’t the smartest idea—even though it was very effective in getting them to retaliate.

Fortunately, the two of them were made for each other, especially when considering their strengths and weaknesses in combat.

Gilag was the larger and heavier of the two, towering over him by three heads. Each step of his body caused the ground to tremble and the crystalline trees to shake, and a single punch of his giant fist could effortlessly shatter the crystals on the planet. His size allowed him to endure a constant slew of attacks too, able to shrug them off while sustaining little injury. However, the consequences of his extreme girth meant that he was sluggish; in addition, he could overload his core far faster than the other Emperors.

On the other hand, Alit was much smaller and much more nimble than his sparring partner. His punches were far weaker, yet due to his speed, he struck faster and more often. If Gilag could hit him even once, then the fight was practically over. His size proved to be the primary issue for Gilag, however, because not only was he a hard target to hit but he could simply outlast his opponent by running his resources into the ground, by waiting for his energy to be depleted before going in for a one-hit KO.

Because of these differences, it made their brawls much more fun.

Gilag sized up to the energetic Emperor. The runt was yapping about something, but Gilag found his attention drifting back to his right foot.

The fuzzy lump inside his boot was still present even after he stamped his foot a couple of more times. He lifted up his foot to create a narrow gap between his foot and the insole. The space allowed the lump to slide around, preferably slipping to a spot where it wouldn’t be on his mind.

But it was distracting and really annoying…

“Hey Al—!"

Out of the corner of his mask, he caught a swift blur of red rushing towards him, forcing him to turn his attention forward—only to be met with a fist barreling towards him!

Thinking fast, he dodged out of the way by applying most of his weight onto his right leg and swinging his mass to the side. The fist grazed him by the width of his hair. The lump underfoot, however, seemed to have wiggled to life the moment he applied his weight onto it again. The sudden movement startled him and caused him to falter in the follow-up.

“…!”

Unfortunately, his delayed reaction meant that Alit was able to pivot his body in tandem with Gilag’s, maintaining full momentum before counterattacking with a jab directly into the unshielded crevice under his mask.

“Too slow!”

‘CRACK!’

- -

“G-Gack!” Vant wheezed when the foot dropped its weight on him pressed down, squeezing the air out of his lungs and placing an immense amount of strain on his bones.

He had no idea what the giant was doing out there, but the relatively gentle treading from before was replaced with something far more brutal and aggressive. Harsh stomps, never-ending twisting and grinding, the heavy foot relentlessly mashed him into the ground with an intense vigor. Vant felt as though it was purposeful, almost like the giant was aware of his presence in here and was deliberately trampling him as hard as it could.

The pressure alleviated for only a second—allowing Vant to swallow a mouthful of the humid and pungent air—before it collapsed on him again, squishing his head and covering his snout in a blanket of greasy flesh. Below him, the well-worn insole managed to cushion some of the force by compressing downward; however, old sweat gushed from the grimy fibers, soaking him from tail to snout in its juices. He cringed as tufts of white fur—now muddied with dirt and all sorts of gunk—yanked at his skin; a few of them were plucked outright.

The heat around Vant amplified as the giant stomped around, and as the heat amplified, so did the musk and sweat. The intensity of the odor alone could’ve asphyxiated him. Hell, it stank so much that he rather the foot crushed him to death instead of pummeling him and leaving him gasping for the tainted air.

“Mmff!” He struggled as much as he could. The foot lifted up and slammed back down, almost like it was aware of his feverish movements. The impact left him in a stunned daze with his limbs throbbing, his lungs burning, head spinning, bruises forming—it was an utter nightmare.

— —

Bracing himself, Gilag dug his boots into the ground right as Alit rammed into his stomach with his antlers and mask. The impact nearly knocked him off his feet, and it didn’t help that the razor-sharp horns were boring into his thick skin, ripping into his belly. If he was anything but a barian, his guts would’ve been pouring all over the other Emperor’s skull at this point. Instead, Alit carried on by wrapping his arms around his waist and attempted to throw him over his back. The guy was too small for this, but that didn’t stop him from constantly trying to suplex Gilag whenever he managed to stun him.

Gilag crushed Alit’s head with his meaty hand before prying him back, wrenching him away and tossing him against the crystal pillar with raw strength alone.

The smaller barian hurtled backwards, but before he could crash into the pillar, leaving him wide open for an attack, he recovered within seconds. His body pivoted until his legs were angled at the pillar. He collided feet-first against the pillar before using it as a springboard to launch back at Gilag.

Gilag swung his fist down at the incoming barian when he was within range, but Alit managed to duck out of the way. A fist landed a hit at the side of his face. He grunted before turning towards the source of the impact, his boot sliding across the ground in a fury to match his speed with Alit’s. By the time he turned, however, the other barian was already behind him, and then in front of him, and then back again, constantly on the move and constantly battering him with punch after punch.

“Quit movin’!” He shouted in frustration, sweat rolling down his forehead and pecs, his body starting to be pushed to its limits. As Alit was moving past his front, he lifted his arms overhead, hands conjoined and balled into a tight fist, and immediately swung it down as hard as he could.

‘THOOM!’

They hit the ground with such intensity that his body rattled and his feet lifted from the ground for a brief moment. It dropped back down a second after, landing onto the floor with a squelch—followed by another distinct pop inside his boot.

In tandem, a foot stepped onto the tufts atop his head.

“Missed me haha!” Alit laughed, dodging the attack as effortlessly as the rest of them.

In an attempt to lay a hit to the pipsqueak, Gilag lifted his body and stumbled backwards with the intent of crushing the wily Emperor between his body and a nearby crystal tree. Predictably, Alit bounced off of him, so all he accomplished was ramming himself into the tree, shattering it and injuring himself.

Alit chuckled as Gilag rubbed his sore shoulders and hips, grumbling. He stood to the side as he waited for his partner to recover. “What’s the matter, Gil? Your moves are more telegraphed than usual.”

“Shut it!”

He readied a fist and charged at the other barian.

- - -

‘Squelch! Squick!’

“Hurk!”

As the stomping continued, his body soaked in all the sweat secreting from the foot. Each step resulted in a moist squelch as the pressure wrung his fur of the juices, but with nowhere for the excess sweat to seep into—aside from the already-drenched insole—his fur reabsorbed it to continue the cycle.

With his body completely lubricated with toxic sweat, he slid around the insole each time the foot lifted off the ground. It never gave him enough space to squirm to safety; instead, he found himself smeared against every part of the foot. Sometimes he found his face squished between the flaps of hot skin near the toes. Other times, he slid towards the heel, where the full weight of the behemoth stepped down on him, crushing his limbs until he could no longer feel them. No matter where he slipped, however, he couldn’t escape the slimy sweat nor the horrendous odor, which worsened the more humid the chamber grew.

‘Thud! Squelch! Thud!… Thud!…’

His limp body flattened and spread apart with each stomp. His bones were grinding into a paste and his head felt distant, fuzzy, unable to focus properly. Eventually, with so much sweat and toejam caking his fur, he found himself plastered to the sole instead of sliding around. Every time it rose from the insole, he stuck to the underside like a wad of discarded gum. Despite this, the foot continued to drop down on him, crushing him in a singular spot over, and over, and over…

- - -

“Phew,” Gilag heaved. He could feel his core pulsating as it tried to supply his overworked and overheating body with more chaos. Covered in sweat, utterly drained, he lugged himself to the crystalline overture and leaned against it for support. He dragged his gloved hand over his green tufts, combing through it and picked up the clumps of sweat and dirt adhered to it before wringing his soaked hand to the side. He slumped against the wall before sliding down, exhausted.

On the other hand, Alit seemed to be more lively than ever, bouncing around and ready for more roughhousing, practicing his form and punches while his partner was on the verge of collapse. “You were off your game today, weren’t ‘cha?” Alit said as he stepped towards the other Emperor.

He huffed. He always found it obnoxious that Alit never seemed to struggle with managing his body’s resources as much as Gilag, but that was the benefit of being the smallest out of the Emperors.

“I know, I know,” Gilag replied back, glaring at him. “It wasn’t my fault. It was—“

Before finishing his thought, he pulled his right foot towards his body and grabbed onto the leathery vamp with a giant, grubby hand. A firm yank pried it off his foot, freeing it from the tight confines of his boot. The cold air hitting the sweat-ridden sole ushered a pleased murmur out of him—he didn’t realize how moist and blistering it was in there until he had a chance to cool the foot down. As he let it air out, filling the air with his sweaty musk, he brought the boot towards his face.

“What’s wrong?”

“Something was messin’ me up in here,” he explained. He peered inside, turning it from left to right to try to take a good look at the damp interior. Aside from a glossy sheen overlaying the filthy fabric, he couldn’t find anything that stuck out. The insole was as worn and torn as always. He shook a few times, thinking that the object was embedded into the fibers somewhere, but nothing rolled into view. He swore there was something in here.

“Don’t tell me you couldn’t focus because of a pebble,” the other barian chuckled, amused that someone as thick-headed and burly as Gilag was distracted due to one little rock in his shoe.

Gilag grumbled again. “Well it ain’t in here anymore, that’s for sure.”

As he stretched out his legs and let out another low bellow, purging his body of more heat, Alit suddenly piqued.

“Hmm, I think it’s under your foot there,” he said as gestured towards the right foot, which was resting on the ground with his heels propped against the soft dirt.

“Huh?” Gilag twisted his leg until the sole was facing him, and to his confusion—and relief—he discovered that something was plastered to the bottom of his foot. Although, it was extremely flattened due to the weight of being trampled on during the entire session, and it was completely coated in a thick layer of filth, sweat, and all sorts of things. This was likely the thing that fell into his boot and bothered him the entire afternoon, but at this point, he didn’t even want to question what the thing was. It looked like an organic creature, as far as he knew, with its fuzzy body and all. He could see it twitching, too, still alive despite being trampled upon for nearly an hour.

“Gross,” he muttered before slamming his sole into the ground, further crushing the stupid thing into his foot. His weight dug into it as he stood back up—he felt a few additional pops as the creature crumpled under his weight. It was cushioned only by the relatively soft ground, but that did little to alleviate its comfort when he began to drag his foot back and forth, smearing the thing into the floor until he wiped it off his sole.

The creature laid in the footprint, surrounded and half-buried by the dirt with only bits of his grimy body visible. It wiggled slightly, gasping for breath, before a paw unceremoniously stamped into the crater, crushing it deep into the dirt. Gilag inadvertently and repeatedly stepped all over the creature while he was putting his boot back onto his foot.

“Should we tell Nasch?” Alit asked. It wasn’t common that organics found their way into this dimension, but it happened on occasion due to the rifts connecting them to the other worlds.

“Nah. It’ll just make him worry for no reason. Probably a bug that got lost, s’all,” Gilag said before grinding his boot down on the creature a few more times, listening as the faint pops and crunches faded with every twist of his ankle. He lifted up his foot to find that the creature was out of sight, crushed into a pulp, disposed of with no further issue. “Come on, let’s see if Mizael is busy.”

- - - -

“Urgh…” Buried in the soil, Vant groaned as the two behemoths stomped away from him after pulverizing him deep into the ground. He managed to push his snout into the surface after fighting the intense pain radiating from every inch of his bruised and broken body. He laid there, gasping for air, whimpering as each lungful prompted a shock of pain from his flattened chest. Not only that, but he could also still smell the awful stench of the giant’s foot, which now-emanated from his stained and soaked fur as well as the dirt it was treading on—every time he inhaled the odor, his body rejected it with a violent hack.

It hurt all over.

After a few minutes of laying in silence, soothed by nothing but his haggard breathing, the flapping of wings brought him out of his stasis. He could barely open his eyes, however. They were practically sealed shut with a layer of sweat and dirt-ridden crust.

A pair of poignant tips pinched the scruff of his neck before prying him out of the ground and a sadistic chuckle filled his ears, but by then, he drifted into unconsciousness…

“Gah-hah-ha…”

GORE ALT:

As some of the only Emperors who engaged in physical combat, Alit and Gilag relied on each other for training most of the time. Punching rocks could only do so much before they acquired a strong desire to attack something that could move. And as they learned, randomly punching an unsuspecting Emperor wasn’t the smartest idea—even though it was very effective in getting them to retaliate.

Fortunately, the two of them were made for each other, especially when considering their strengths and weaknesses in combat.

Gilag was the larger and heavier of the two, towering over him by three heads. Each step of his body caused the ground to tremble and the crystalline trees to shake, and a single punch of his giant fist could effortlessly shatter the crystals on the planet. His size allowed him to endure a constant slew of attacks too, able to shrug them off while sustaining little injury. However, the consequences of his extreme girth meant that he was sluggish; in addition, he could overload his core far faster than the other Emperors.

On the other hand, Alit was much smaller and much more nimble than his sparring partner. His punches were far weaker, yet due to his speed, he struck faster and more often. If Gilag could hit him even once, then the fight was practically over. His size proved to be the primary issue for Gilag, however, because not only was he a hard target to hit but he could simply outlast his opponent by running his resources into the ground, by waiting for his energy to be depleted before going in for a one-hit KO.

Because of these differences, it made their brawls much more fun.

Gilag sized up to the energetic Emperor. The runt was yapping about something, but Gilag found his attention drifting back to his right foot.

The fuzzy lump inside his boot was still present even after he stamped his foot a couple of more times. He lifted up his foot to create a narrow gap between his foot and the insole. The space allowed the lump to slide around, preferably slipping to a spot where it wouldn’t be on his mind.

But it was distracting and really annoying…

“Hey Al—!"

Out of the corner of his mask, he caught a swift blur of red rushing towards him, forcing him to turn his attention forward—only to be met with a fist barreling towards him!

Thinking fast, he dodged out of the way by applying most of his weight onto his right leg and swinging his mass to the side. The fist grazed him by the width of his hair. The lump underfoot, however, seemed to have wiggled to life the moment he applied his weight onto it again. The sudden movement startled him and caused him to falter in the follow-up.

“…!”

Unfortunately, his delayed reaction meant that Alit was able to pivot his body in tandem with Gilag’s, maintaining full momentum before counterattacking with a jab directly into the unshielded crevice under his mask.

“Too slow!”

‘CRACK!’

- -

“G-Gack!” Vant wheezed when the foot dropped its weight on him pressed down, squeezing the air out of his lungs and placing an immense amount of strain on his bones.

He had no idea what the giant was doing out there, but the relatively gentle treading from before was replaced with something far more brutal and aggressive. Harsh stomps, never-ending twisting and grinding, the heavy foot relentlessly mashed him into the ground with an intense vigor. Vant felt as though it was purposeful, almost like the giant was aware of his presence in here and was deliberately trampling him as hard as it could.

The pressure alleviated for only a second—allowing Vant to swallow a mouthful of the humid and pungent air—before it collapsed on him again, squishing his skull and covering his snout in a blanket of greasy flesh. Below him, the well-worn insole managed to cushion some of the force by compressing downward; however, old sweat gushed from the grimy fibers, soaking him from tail to snout in its juices. He cringed as tufts of white fur—now muddied with dirt and all sorts of gunk—yanked at his skin; a few of them were plucked outright.

The heat around Vant amplified as the giant stomped around, and as the heat amplified, so did the musk and sweat. The intensity of the odor alone could’ve asphyxiated him. Hell, it stank so much that he rather the foot crushed him to death instead of pummeling him and leaving him gasping for the tainted air.

“Mmff!” He struggled as much as he could. The foot lifted up and slammed back down, almost like it was aware of his feverish movements. The impact pushed his arms and legs to their breaking point. They snapped and crumbled like a twig underfoot, leaving him whimpering with tears in his eyes, his lungs burning, head spinning, bruises and swells forming—it was an utter nightmare.

— —

Bracing himself, Gilag dug his boots into the ground right as Alit rammed into his stomach with his antlers and mask. The impact nearly knocked him off his feet, and it didn’t help that the razor-sharp horns were boring into his thick skin, ripping into his belly. If he was anything but a barian, his guts would’ve been pouring all over the other Emperor’s skull at this point. Instead, Alit carried on by wrapping his arms around his waist and attempted to throw him over his back. The guy was too small for this, but that didn’t stop him from constantly trying to suplex Gilag whenever he managed to stun him.

Gilag crushed Alit’s head with his meaty hand before prying him back, wrenching him away and tossing him against the crystal pillar with raw strength alone.

The smaller barian hurtled backwards, but before he could crash into the pillar, leaving him wide open for an attack, he recovered within seconds. His body pivoted until his legs were angled at the pillar. He collided feet-first against the pillar before using it as a springboard to launch back at Gilag.

Gilag swung his fist down at the incoming barian when he was within range, but Alit managed to duck out of the way. A fist landed a hit at the side of his face. He grunted before turning towards the source of the impact, his boot sliding across the ground in a fury to match his speed with Alit’s. By the time he turned, however, the other barian was already behind him, and then in front of him, and then back again, constantly on the move and constantly battering him with punch after punch.

“Quit movin’!” He shouted in frustration, sweat rolling down his forehead and pecs, his body starting to be pushed to its limits. As Alit was moving past his front, he lifted his arms overhead, hands conjoined and balled into a tight fist, and immediately swung it down as hard as he could.

‘THOOM!’

They hit the ground with such intensity that his body rattled and his feet lifted from the ground for a brief moment. It dropped back down a second after, landing onto the floor with a squelch—followed by another distinct crunch inside his boot before a sudden, warm slickness spread out from under his sole.

In tandem, a foot stepped onto the tufts atop his head.

“Missed me haha!” Alit laughed, dodging the attack as effortlessly as the rest of them.

In an attempt to lay a hit to the pipsqueak, Gilag lifted his body and stumbled backwards with the intent of crushing the wily Emperor between his body and a nearby crystal tree. Predictably, Alit bounced off of him, so all he accomplished was ramming himself into the tree, shattering it and injuring himself.

Alit chuckled as Gilag rubbed his sore shoulders and hips, grumbling. He stood to the side as he waited for his partner to recover. “What’s the matter, Gil? Your moves are more telegraphed than usual.”

“Shut it!”

He readied a fist and charged at the other barian.

- - -

‘Squelch! Squick!’

Vant could do nothing but lie in intense agony as the foot smashed him. His limbs were pummeled into a gooey paste of scales, bones, and meat at this point. His fur was blemished with blood and sweat. His torso was squashed, yet his skin refused to rupture. There was no telling how long it could last under the constant stomping, though.

As the stomping continued, his broken body soaked in all the sweat secreting from the foot, too. Each step resulted in a moist squelch as the pressure wrung his fur of the juices, but with nowhere for the excess sweat to seep into—aside from the already-drenched insole—his fur reabsorbed it to continue the cycle.

With his nearly-lifeless body completely lubricated with toxic sweat and his own blood, he slid around the insole each time the foot lifted off the ground. It never gave him enough space to squirm to safety; instead, he found himself smeared against every part of the foot. Sometimes he found his face squished between the flaps of hot skin near the toes. Other times, he slid towards the heel, where the full weight of the behemoth stepped down on him, breaking a bone or two in his torso. No matter where he slipped, however, he couldn’t escape the slimy sweat nor the horrendous odor, which worsened the more humid the chamber grew.

‘Thud! Squelch! Thud!… Thud!…’

His bones were grinding into a paste and his head felt distant, fuzzy, unable to focus properly. Eventually, with so much sweat and toejam caking his fur, he found himself plastered to the sole instead of sliding around. Every time it rose from the insole, he stuck to the underside like a wad of discarded gum. Despite this, the foot continued to drop down on him, crushing him in a singular spot over, and over, and over.

His mangled form was giving into the abuse. His chest was squishy, and his midriff felt tight.

‘Squelch!’

The sides of his belly burst open with a sickening, wet squelch. His organs eagerly poured out from the opening before finding themselves liquified due to the constant stomping. His limp body flattened and spread apart with each stomp.

‘Crunch! Squelch!’

His skull cracked soon under the pressure, unable to ensure the abuse any longer. His head throbbed in agony, but his misery didn’t end there. Another harsh stomp caused his jaw to dislocate. Another one squeezed his eyes out of their sockets. His tongue flopped outward, tasting the rank aroma of the sole one last time. The foot pressed down and held its weight there; simultaneously, his brain gushed from the fractures in his skull and flesh, dripping onto the insole.

The foot continued to rise up and down, crushing him until he was a bloodied pelt of fur soaked in sweat and all sorts of foul-smelling substances.

- - -

“Phew,” Gilag heaved. He could feel his core pulsating as it tried to supply his overworked and overheating body with more chaos. Covered in sweat, utterly drained, he lugged himself to the crystalline overture and leaned against it for support. He dragged his gloved hand over his green tufts, combing through it and picked up the clumps of sweat and dirt adhered to it before wringing his soaked hand to the side. He slumped against the wall before sliding down, exhausted.

On the other hand, Alit seemed to be more lively than ever, bouncing around and ready for more roughhousing, practicing his form and punches while his partner was on the verge of collapse. “You were off your game today, weren’t ‘cha?” Alit said as he stepped towards the other Emperor.

He huffed. He always found it obnoxious that Alit never seemed to struggle with managing his body’s resources as much as Gilag, but that was the benefit of being the smallest out of the Emperors.

“I know, I know,” Gilag replied back, glaring at him. “It wasn’t my fault. It was—“

Before finishing his thought, he pulled his right foot towards his body and grabbed onto the leathery vamp with a giant, grubby hand. A firm yank pried it off his foot, freeing it from the tight confines of his boot. The cold air hitting the sweat-ridden sole ushered a pleased murmur out of him—he didn’t realize how moist and blistering it was in there until he had a chance to cool the foot down. As he let it air out, filling the air with his sweaty musk, he brought the boot towards his face.

“What’s wrong?”

“Something was messin’ me up in here,” he explained. He peered inside, turning it from left to right to try to take a good look at the damp interior. Aside from a glossy sheen overlaying the filthy fabric, he couldn’t find anything that stuck out. The insole was as worn and torn as always. He shook a few times, thinking that the object was embedded into the fibers somewhere, but nothing rolled into view. He swore there was something in here.

“Don’t tell me you couldn’t focus because of a pebble,” the other barian chuckled, amused that someone as thick-headed and burly as Gilag was distracted due to one little rock in his shoe.

Gilag grumbled again. “Well it ain’t in here anymore, that’s for sure.”

As he stretched out his legs and let out another low bellow, purging his body of more heat, Alit suddenly piqued.

“Hmm, I think it’s under your foot there,” he said as gestured towards the right foot, which was resting on the ground with his heels propped against the soft dirt.

“Huh?” Gilag twisted his leg until the sole was facing him, and to his confusion—and relief—he discovered that something was plastered to the bottom of his foot. Although, it was extremely flattened due to the weight of being trampled on during the entire session, and it was completely coated in a thick layer of filth, sweat, and all sorts of things. This was likely the thing that fell into his boot and bothered him the entire afternoon, but at this point, he didn’t even want to question what the thing was. It looked to be the remains of an organic creature, as far as he knew, with its fuzzy body and all. Its body was covered in a red slick, however—blood, was it? Not only that, but a gooey substance protruded from every orifice of its squashed body.

“Gross,” he muttered before slamming his sole into the ground, further crushing the stupid thing into his foot. His weight dug into it as he stood back up—he felt a few additional squelches and cracks as the creature crumpled further under his weight. He groaned in disgust when he felt more of its innards gushing from its body, too. He began to drag his foot back and forth to wipe it off his sole. Its greasy pelt rolled against his sole, ripping and tearing under the grinding friction. After his foot was ‘cleaned’ of the grime, Gilag lifted it away with a satisfied huff.

The creature laid in the footprint with its body torn apart and in bloodied chunks, but even in death, even after being reduced to butchered corpse, it wasn’t left to rest in peace.

A paw unceremoniously stamped back down into the crater, crushing the remains deep into the dirt and desecrating the body even more. Gilag inadvertently and repeatedly stepped all over the creature while he was putting his boot back onto his foot.

“Should we tell Nasch?” Alit asked. It wasn’t common that organics found their way into this dimension, but it happened on occasion due to the rifts connecting them to the other worlds.

“Nah. It’ll just make him worry for no reason. Probably a bug that got lost, s’all,” Gilag said before grinding his boot down onto the creature a few more times, listening as the faint squelching faded with every twist of his ankle. He lifted up his foot to find that there was nothing left but a red smudge and loose bits of fur within the dirt. “Come on, let’s see if Mizael is busy.”", "writing": "", "writing_bbcode_parsed": "", "pools_count": 0, "title": "Pebble In Training 1-3 + Gore Alt.", "deleted": "f", "public": "t", "mimetype": "image/png", "pagecount": "5", "rating_id": "2", "rating_name": "Adult", "ratings": [ { "content_tag_id": "5", "name": "Strong Violence", "description": "Strong violence, blood, serious injury or death", "rating_id": "2" } ], "submission_type_id": "1", "type_name": "Picture/Pinup", "guest_block": "t", "friends_only": "f", "comments_count": "0", "views": "203", "latest_file_name": "5188082_Sioninel_gilagvant_insole_pg2-gore.png", "latest_mimetype": "image/png", "latest_file_url_full": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/files/full/5188/5188082_Sioninel_gilagvant_insole_pg2-gore.png", "latest_file_url_screen": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/files/screen/5188/5188082_Sioninel_gilagvant_insole_pg2-gore.png", "latest_file_url_preview": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/files/preview/5188/5188082_Sioninel_gilagvant_insole_pg2-gore.jpg", "latest_thumbnail_url_huge_noncustom": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/files/preview/5188/5188082_Sioninel_gilagvant_insole_pg2-gore.jpg", "latest_thumbnail_url_large_noncustom": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/large/5188/5188082_Sioninel_gilagvant_insole_pg2-gore_noncustom.jpg", "latest_thumbnail_url_medium_noncustom": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/medium/5188/5188082_Sioninel_gilagvant_insole_pg2-gore_noncustom.jpg", "latest_thumb_medium_noncustom_x": "120", "latest_thumb_medium_noncustom_y": "96", "latest_thumb_large_noncustom_x": "200", "latest_thumb_large_noncustom_y": "160", "latest_thumb_huge_noncustom_x": "300", "latest_thumb_huge_noncustom_y": "240" }