Exterminating the Kapteri Pests
The current commander of the Kapteri tribe, masters of pest extermination, had scattered his subordinates across a total of five planets, ordering them to hide quietly inside. It was all to multiply their numbers and bide their time for the future. This place was safe—no one would find them, and no dangers would arise. Though it lay within the influence of powerful gamma rays and energy storms from a nearby supernova's aftermath, such things posed no problem for the Kapteri, specialized in radiation and cosmic environments. They just needed to endure for a few decades...
...Or so it should have been. But then it appeared on the very planet where they had hidden. A colossal shadow emerging, cloaked by the intense light from the supernova's wake. Its size was so immense it blotted out the entire planet. And astonishingly, it was moving.
With tentacles extending from its massive body writhing about, it peered down at the planet through gigantic, blood-red eyes.
“Kkigik... Kkuguk.”
The moment their gazes met those crimson eyes, the Kapteri commander knew: 'Ah, the end has come for our kind.' An absolute apocalypse they could never defy. An abyss so profound it defied imagination. An inescapable death was watching them.
The entire Kapteri tribe froze stiff. Normally, the instant they sensed danger, they would enter combat readiness or flee into space to find a safe haven for breeding. But they couldn't move. Not even the commander could issue the order to move. No, it wasn't that he couldn't—it was that it would be pointless.
Their instincts as living beings screamed it: There was no escaping that thing. No matter what they did, it was meaningless. The moment they were spotted, their extinction was sealed.
The moving apocalypse. The eye of extinction. All they could do was wait. It simply loomed silently, gazing down—but that was mere amusement for it. The instant its curiosity waned would be the end of the Kapteri tribe.
That was when—
Kiiiiing—
“Gegek!”
“Gek!”
“Kuaaaak!”
Suddenly, an excruciating pain exploded in the commander's head. A pain more extreme than anything he'd ever felt in his life. It was as if dozens of tiny Kapteri were scurrying madly through his skull, gnawing at his brain. Pain so intense he wished he could just die right then and there.
Not just the commander—every other Kapteri writhed on the ground, screaming in the same agony. It was obvious this was the doing of the colossal entity before them. It could kill them outright but was toying with them instead. Purely for its amusement, inflicting this hellish torment.
'Just kill us already...!'
That was what the Kapteri commander wanted to scream, but he couldn't force the words out. Partly from the unbearable migraine, but mostly from the hopeless certainty that his pleas would never reach it.
Now, all they could do was pray for a swift, merciful death.
Parssak—Peuseok!
With that, he annihilated the four fully infested planets, along with every Kapteri on them. He confirmed the larvae bleeding from every orifice before succumbing. Then he captured the surviving evolved adults and the commander, shoving them into a massive insect collection jar.
It was called a jar, but it measured about 10 kilometers across—necessary for the building-sized giant Kapteri. Now to torment them just short of death. To prevent any escape and accidental harm to the elves, he warped a pocket dimension from space itself.
A slight distortion of universal space... Perfect. A fully isolated sub-space, inaccessible to anyone but him.
After civilization sims and cosmic soap operas, another pastime secured. Nice—helping the galactic federation and gaining entertainment. Wise Outer God life at its finest.
It conjured a vast, transparent enclosure, trapping the commander and dozens of surviving Kapteri inside.
“Kkeueuk... Kiik...”
The horrific headache vanished as they were sealed in, but now confined in the tight space, they were transported somewhere. They couldn't tell where. Pitch-black void, devoid of starlight, radiation, or even gravity. Like an empty void—but even voids held the universe's ambient energy. This was true emptiness. Nothingness incarnate.
The only things present: the 10km transparent case imprisoning them and the dozens of Kapteri within. Powerless, they could only huddle helplessly inside.
No energy, no passage of time in this void of voids. Terror gripped the Kapteri. They didn't know when or where it would return to torment them anew. Better to have been killed outright. They envied the larvae whose brains melted and the kin vaporized with their planets.
As they trembled in that thought—
“Keeek!”
“Kkieeek!!”
Just hearing the voice echo directly in their minds made their six legs thrash in agony. It felt like a hammer pounding their brains. Mere words, yet excruciating.
But that was only the beginning. As promised, the cold set in. Kapteri could survive swimming through empty space, enduring extreme temperatures. But this transcended cosmic absolutes, plunging far lower.
Theoretically, absolute zero halts entropy at molecular motion's end—no lower possible. But here, physics bowed. Molecular activity hit true zero. All physical motion ceased. Perfect stasis.
In this impossible breach of universal law, the Kapteri began to freeze—not merely icing over, but molecules halting, matter destabilizing, crumbling from the edges. A slow cessation, then disintegration. They couldn't even sense it happening. Everything had stopped.
Even in that state, its voice rang crystal clear. Then—
“Kkeheuk! Kke...euk...”
“Eok... eogeugeo...”
Temperatures normalized. Molecules stirred anew. Biological time resumed, slamming them with the sensation of their petrified, crumbling bodies.
Unimaginable agony. Like petrification, flaking away piece by piece—each severed fragment firing nerves, scorching the brain. Over half the Kapteri perished from shock. Beings of supreme cosmic vitality, broken by pain alone.
The surviving commander thought: We can't endure this. Eternal repetition until death? Its "overboard" remark confirmed endless torment short of killing.
This won't do. We can't last. Escape at any cost.
Squeezing out a voice that barely emerged, the Kapteri commander cried:
“Oh, great one...! We shall be your faithful servants... Please, please release us... Free us from this torment...”
He begged through sobs, desperate for mercy. Of course, a colossal, grotesque armored arthropod weeping and chittering in its tongue inspired revulsion over pity.