I stood there in the clearing, feeling the void Nala had left behind. The air no longer smelled of her, of that spicy, slightly floral scent that had become the very essence of my home. Now it only smelled of loneliness and my own stupidity. My tail twitched nervously, striking the ground with sharp movements that betrayed my frustration.
Where could she be? The question echoed in my mind over and over, like a persistent echo. I placed a hand on my hip, feeling the rough texture of my own scales under my fingers. My claws pressed lightly against my skin, as if they could extract some answer from there.
"A cave," I thought, looking towards the rock formations in the distance. "She always liked enclosed spaces, places where she could feel safe." I remembered how she curled up in the most protected corner of our cabin, how her body found comfort in the dimness. But I also remembered her love for trees, for heights. "Or maybe some hollow in a large tree," I added mentally, observing the giant trunks surrounding us. "Some abandoned burrow..."
I wrinkled my face, an expression that felt strange in this body but came naturally from my human memories. Frustration grew in me as I realized how little I actually knew about the customs of her species. I had spent weeks with her, months perhaps, and had never taken the time to truly understand where she came from, what her gestures and sounds meant.
"I should have asked her more," I murmured to myself, the guttural sound of my voice sounding strange in the silence. "I should have tried to have her teach me."
But I didn't. I treated her like a human would treat a Neanderthal, assuming I was the more advanced one, the one with everything to teach. Now I understood that had been unforgivable arrogance. She knew this world in a way I never could, understood its dangers, its rhythms, its silent language.
But I had no time to keep punishing myself. Every moment I spent away from her was a moment she could be in danger, or worse, a moment when the distance between us became more permanent. I had to find her. I had to apologize, make her understand that I had made a mistake, that I valued her presence, her wisdom, and her contribution to my life.
I did some stretches, feeling my muscles tense and then relax. My reptilian body responded with an efficiency that still surprised me sometimes. Every movement was fluid, powerful, designed for survival in this hostile world. Today, I would use all of that ability to find the person who had made this world feel like home.
I left the clearing and headed for the tallest tree I could find, a giant with thick bark and branches that disappeared into the violet sky. I climbed with agility, my claws finding purchase in the bark with ease. I climbed higher and higher, until I reached a branch thick enough to support my weight. I stood there, swaying slightly, and began to scan the horizon.
I turned my neck, then my whole body, my adapted eyes catching every detail of the landscape. But sight wasn't enough. I knew I needed another sense. I brought a finger to my mouth, wet it with saliva, then raised it to the air, turning it slowly. I inhaled deeply, exhaled forcefully, then inhaled again, searching among the thousands of aromas filling the air for one in particular: Nala's.
"It seems the wind is on my side," I said, and a smile formed on my face. It wasn't a smile of happiness, but rather a fierce, determined expression. The wind was flowing in my favor, carrying the aromas from the east directly towards my nostrils. It was an advantage I desperately needed.
And then, in less than twenty seconds, I caught it. That sweet, familiar scent, Nala's pheromones, a smell I had grown accustomed to during our time together but which now, in her absence, felt intoxicating. The mere aroma excited me immensely, a mix of relief and longing that ran through me like an electric current.
She was far away, the scent was faint, but my keen sense of smell caught it clearly. Distance didn't matter. I would run as far as necessary for her, even if it meant swimming in lava or climbing mountains of sharp crystal.
Nothing would stop me.
I descended the tree with agility, jumping from branch to branch, using my tail to keep my balance on the steepest descents. Once on the ground, I didn't waste a second. My powerful legs propelled me, and I began to run at full speed eastward, towards where the sun rose in this strange world just like on planet Earth.
I knew my path would probably take me near the territory of a certain male bear I had seen before. I had no intentions of fighting him; he had shown himself to be peaceful as long as he wasn't bothered, and I definitely didn't plan on bothering him. I had more important things on my mind. I couldn't afford distractions, not now, not when every moment counted.
When I reached the area of the bear's cave, I stopped briefly. Something was wrong. The bear wasn't in his cave, nor sitting in front of it as he usually was. I wondered where he could be. As far as I knew, he was always there, watchful but calm. For a moment, curiosity pricked at me, but I quickly dismissed it.
I had no time for mysteries.
I had to keep going, I had to find Nala and apologize.
I resumed my run, my claws sinking into the earth with each powerful step. The landscape changed around me, from reddish forests to plains of bluish grass, but I barely noticed. My attention was fixed on Nala's trail, on that scent that guided me like a beacon in the night.
Along the way, I encountered multiple animals. Some were familiar, others not. I ignored most, but obviously they didn't share my desire to avoid conflict. A trio of crimson lizards, three-eyed creatures with reddish scales that we had hunted together so often, pounced on me with the clear intention of making me their meal.
I couldn't help but sneer. "They're really asking for death," I thought, as I dodged them with ease. Their movements, which might be fast for other creatures, seemed slow, clumsy to me. One tried to bite my leg, but I simply spun on my heels and sank my claws into its neck, feeling the flesh and tendons give way under my strength. Another jumped at my back, but my tail moved like a whip, striking it in the side and sending it against a nearby tree. The third hesitated for a moment, but it was already too late to retreat. A quick movement of my claw and it lay on the ground, its life escaping between gasps.
Three adults, and they couldn't even make me sweat. They died in seconds, disbelief in their triple eyes, and perhaps resentment. But it was their fault for getting in my way. Some animals are just too stupid; they seem to actively seek death.
How foolish.
I kept running, but not long after, I encountered something new, something I hadn't seen before. They were creatures resembling boars, three in total: one male and two females, by my estimation. But they were more than three times larger than any boar I remembered from Earth. Their hides were a soft gray, almost velvety, but I had no doubt it would be incredibly tough. Their eyes were the most striking: an intense gold with black and red veins that seemed to move like liquid inside. Their tusks were gigantic, curved and sharp, and they had something like bone spines on their backs.
The male's spines were especially bright and large, imposing structures that not only seemed to serve as protection against attacks from above, but probably also played a role in attracting females. The male was covered in scars—some seemed to be from fights with other males, parallel marks that spoke of charges and tusks, but others were different, more irregular, with the distinctive shape of bites and claw swipes from large predators. This male had survived a lot, and that made him potentially more dangerous.
The male stared at me, and immediately emitted an extremely loud, thunderous noise, a sound that wasn't just a warning, but seemed to vibrate in the air itself, a clear attempt to intimidate me and communicate that I should move away.
I stopped, evaluating the situation. My first instinct was to attack, eliminate the threat. After all, it could be a good addition to our larder. I wondered what its meat would taste like. Would it have an earthy flavor, like some of the herbivores here? Or perhaps it would be tastier, juicier? The scars on its back suggested it had survived multiple encounters, which meant it was a survivor, and often survivors have tougher but tastier meat.
But then, my more rational mind, the one that still retained echoes of my humanity, began to weigh the variables. These creatures were unknown to me. What if they were more dangerous than they appeared? I had learned the hard way that in this planet, appearances deceived. The stone rhinoceros had taught me that some creatures could expel blood at high pressure, a lethal and unexpected defense mechanism. What if these boars had a similar ability? Or worse, what if they could launch their spines, leave them on the ground as natural traps? The animals here had proven to be that intelligent, capable of surprising tactics.
I looked the male in the eyes, and he held my gaze, defiant. His females had taken defensive positions behind him, ready to protect him or attack if necessary. It was a cohesive unit, a family. Killing him wouldn't just be a potential risk, it would also mean leaving the females vulnerable, and something inside me, a remnant of human compassion perhaps, resisted that idea without a good reason.
Besides, I thought of Nala. She could help me identify which creatures were too dangerous to hunt, which had poisonous meat, which were worth pursuing. Her instinctive knowledge of this world was invaluable, and at that moment, her absence felt like a disability. Without her, every encounter with a new creature was a guessing game with potentially deadly consequences.
"Not worth it," I murmured to myself.
"Not today."
I decided to go around them, taking a wide detour so as not to provoke them more than necessary. The male emitted another warning sound, but didn't move from his position, watching me as I moved away. I felt his eyes on my back until I disappeared into the vegetation.
I kept running, Nala's scent now a little stronger, a little closer. Each step brought me nearer to her, and each obstacle overcome made me more determined to find her, to apologize, to make things right. This world was dangerous and unpredictable, but with Nala by my side, I had felt for the first time that I could be something more than a mere survivor. I could be an inhabitant, a being with a place, with a purpose.
And that purpose, at that moment, was to find her and bring her home.
*****
I moved away from the gray boars, having covered several dozen meters, when the male's roar exploded in the air again.
This time, it was different.
Louder, more imposing, but also tinged with a desperation that made every fiber of my being tense instantly. I stopped dead, and without even consciously thinking about it, my body adopted a low posture, crouching on all fours. My claws dug into the earth, and my tail began to move from side to side in a slow, controlled arc, gradually stopping from the base to the tip, which continued to twitch like a living pendulum. It was an instinctive movement, designed to detect any change in air currents, any vibration that might betray what was coming.
My pupils dilated, absorbing every particle of available light, and I felt my blood flow accelerate, pumping adrenaline through my veins. At the same time, I noticed the air had become thicker, almost palpable, and a pungent, acidic smell permeated the atmosphere. Poison? I identified mentally, but I didn't feel it was affecting me. Still, the presence of that unknown gas made all my muscles contract even more.
My tendons tensed like springs ready to launch me in any direction if necessary. My hearing and smell sharpened to an almost painful point, and I noticed for the first time some fine filaments in my nostrils that are probably an adaptation of this body to filter harmful substances from the air.
A useful detail, no doubt.
Then, I heard it: a sound that froze the blood in my veins. It was the crunch of bones being crushed or shattered, a noise that grew closer and closer. The sound became so intense that I felt a wave of chills run down my spine, a primitive sensation of imminent danger. I didn't know what the hell was approaching, but my instinct screamed that it was lethal, something so dangerous that my being reacted this way without my conscious permission. I could feel the murderous intent of this being, dense and heavy as oil.
But unfortunately for that being, I'm not one to cower.
Suddenly, the sound of wood breaking under exceptional force filled the air. Trees, both large and small, were yielding to something moving with brutal power. My expression became fiercer, and the tension in the environment reached a critical point.
Then, there was silence. A silence so overwhelming that I couldn't even hear my own breathing. For a millisecond, I thought the poison was affecting me, but no, it was something else.
I noticed a presence, I didn't know where, but it was there, lurking.
I heard the crack of more trees breaking near me, and I quickly turned to my left. There, like a nightmare made real, I saw a gigantic tail of emerald green, covered in sharp, bristling scales, heading towards me with the clear intention of piercing and killing me.
I didn't freeze. I reacted like a spring released after being under incredible pressure, jumping several dozen meters into the air. I felt the air friction against my scales and skin, but I ignored it. I looked down and saw how the tail, moving at subsonic speed, left a trail of destruction in its wake.
Trees shattered before and after its failed attack.
My attacker was a giant snake, several dozen meters long and at least two meters thick. Landing on my feet, I felt them sink into the earth, my senses returning to normal, but now I could see it in greater detail. Its head was arrow-shaped, with three pale, sinister green eyes. Three black horns at the base, turning yellow at the tips, formed a kind of crown on its skull. Its scales were thick and gradually darkened towards the head, where they almost seemed black, but retained a greenish hue. Instinctively, I assumed the scales near the tip of its tail would be lighter.
I noticed its mouth was stained with blood, and a sinister smile was etched on its features. It had no visible wounds, which meant the blood wasn't its own. My mind connected the dots: this snake had attacked the gray boars, killed and tortured them, crushed their bones, but hadn't eaten them. It had simply left them there, as if their suffering and death were mere entertainment. I clenched my teeth in fury. This despicable being had broken the natural cycle.
Even I, with my human origins, respected the law that you hunt to eat, not for pleasure.
The snake's smile widened, as if mocking me, as if considering me inferior, a simple obstacle it would eliminate in seconds before continuing on its way, leaving my corpse to rot. But I wasn't going to allow it. I would kill this damned snake, but not just that: I would make it suffer to the maximum. I ask your forgiveness, Nala, I thought, as I prepared to attack. But first, I must deal with this thing.
My eyes became bloodshot, and the tension in the environment became palpable. The snake noticed my determination, but its disdain was evident. It extended its long forked tongue and emitted a mocking hiss, as if trying to communicate something or simply catch my scent. But it was a distraction. I knew it immediately. Its muscles tensed, and it prepared to attack.
I remained calm, analyzing every detail. I couldn't afford mistakes. A single attack from this snake could be fatal. I observed its posture, the way its scales bristled, the way its eyes focused on me. Every movement of its was a lesson in death, and I had to learn fast.
****
Adonai prepared, immediately regulating his breathing. The air, still charged with the acidic smell of poison and the sweet scent of Nala's pheromones that continued to guide him, entered and left his lungs in a controlled, measured rhythm. Each inhalation was an exercise in forced calm; each exhalation, a release of the tension that threatened to cloud his judgment. His eyes, with those vertical pupils that made him look like a creature from a nightmare, didn't stray for an instant from the enormous reptile before him. He analyzed every muscle twitch, every minimal movement of its arrow-shaped head, every flash of light reflected in its three cold green eyes. He knew that a single mistake, a single lapse, would be his end.
The snake, arrogant as it seemed in its upright posture and that sinister smile that never left its bloody mouth, attacked first.
There was no feint, no test. It was a direct, brutal movement, a shot of its enormous head that lunged at Adonai with a speed that physically contradicted its immense size. It was as if a mountain moved at lightning speed. The air split with a sharp whistle, and the snake's scales vibrated with the force of the impulse.
Adonai dodged.
His powerful legs propelled him to the left, a calculated move he had already predicted. His body, though massive, moved with an agility akin to that of a young cat, dodging the open jaws by a margin no wider than one of his own scales. He felt the beast's fetid breath, a smell of rotten meat and poison, brush past his face. But even as he dodged, his eyes kept observing. And what he saw confirmed it: the expression in the snake's eyes wasn't surprise at having missed, but a mocking confidence. It knew he was going to dodge.
That could only mean one thing: the first attack was a feint, bait to position him.
And so it was. Immediately after its head passed by, the giant snake curved its neck with unnatural flexibility, realigning its gaze with Adonai. Its mouth, still wide open, showed an internal movement. Adonai saw an orifice in the creature's palate compress and then dilate with force. There was no time to think. A large spine, of pure, bright bone-white, shot from the snake's throat like a projectile. It headed straight for his chest, with the clear intention of piercing through and out his back. The speed was terrifying, a shot that would have pierced steel.
But Adonai was on solid ground, his feet firmly planted on the devastated soil. With a movement that was pure instinct, he twisted his torso. The spine whistled past his ribs, so close it slightly tore the skin between his scales, leaving a thin trail of dark red blood. It wasn't a serious wound, but it was a warning.
This snake wasn't just big and strong; it was intelligent and seemed to have an arsenal of "weapons" at its disposal.
Adonai didn't take his eyes off the snake. He couldn't let his guard down, not now. His mind, a strange and, until now, unnaturally efficient fusion between the intuition of the reptilian being whose exact nature he still didn't know and human logic, worked together at full speed. He noticed that the snake's mouth remained open after launching the spine.
Was it reloading? Or was there something else? He decided to test. He took several short, deliberately slow steps towards the snake, without much force or speed. It wasn't an attack, it was a feint, bait. He wanted to provoke a reaction, force it to reveal another card in its game.
It worked. The snake, noticing his approach, reacted immediately. From the two pairs of yellowish fangs rising from its upper jaw, tiny barely visible openings appeared. And from them, it wasn't a stream of venom like many earthly snakes would produce.
A pale green gas, ultra-dense, burst forth with a sinister hiss, expanding rapidly towards Adonai like a wall representing death itself.
Adonai didn't think twice. His already tense muscles reacted before his mind finished processing the danger. He stopped short and leaped backwards with all his strength, propelling himself with his powerful legs and using his tail as a rudder. He landed more than five meters away, in a clearing momentarily free of the gas. What he saw then chilled him.
The poisonous gas didn't just float in the air. It acted on contact with organic matter.
It fell on the grass and small plants on the ground, and they began to corrode at a visibly rapid pace. The leaves blackened, twisted, and disintegrated into a sticky, fetid substance. The ground itself smoked slightly where the concentration was highest. A sour, metallic smell, similar to battery acid but a thousand times more potent, filled the air, making even Adonai's eyes and nostrils sting, despite his natural filters.
This unsettled Adonai. The possibility of corrosive venom was something against which his scales might not be a complete defense. But at the same time, a wave of extreme satisfaction, almost ecstasy, ran through him. His prudence, his decision not to confront it directly from the start, had saved his life. He didn't know, and didn't want to know, if that corrosion could dissolve his scales and flesh, but the best, the smartest thing, was not to risk finding out.
As he watched the toxic cloud begin to slowly disperse, carried by the breeze, an intrusive thought crossed his mind: were there more like this giant snake? This world was vast and full of horrors. And if so, could Nala have fought one of these or, more likely, escaped from one before? The image of Nala, agile and cunning, arose in his mind. No, he told himself, Nala wouldn't fall to something like this. Her survival instinct was too sharp. She would have detected the danger, would have read the beast's arrogance and power, and would have fled at the first moment, without hesitation. She was a true survivor, a daughter of this hostile world. Unlike him, who sometimes let his pride and strength cloud his judgment, as had almost happened with the stone rhinoceros.
In any case, he sighed. A deep, guttural sound that came from deep within his chest. It wasn't a sigh of tiredness or defeat, but of resignation. Resignation to the brutality of this planet, and to his own foolishness that had led him into this fight when all he wanted was to find Nala.
The snake, however, interpreted that sigh in the completely opposite way. For her, accustomed to a life of absolute dominance, where all creatures submitted or perished the moment she made an appearance, that sound could only be one thing: disdain. Arrogance. A monumental disrespect towards her power. The irritation she already felt for this reptiloid who dared to face her transformed into incandescent fury. Her ego, vast as her body, had been wounded.
So great was her anger that, immediately and without any doubt or tactical planning, she lunged again at Adonai. But this time there was no elegance, no clear strategy. It was an impulsive attack, blinded by rage, with a great desire to crush him in one go. There was no thought of torture or sadistic enjoyment. Just the primal impulse to immediately eliminate the source of her irritation, to erase this affront to her authority.
Adonai, whose calm was now comparable to that of a glacier, dodged that attack immediately. He didn't care in the slightest what this snake thought or believed. His mind was clear, his body responded to hard training based on hunts and sharpened instincts. He moved from side to side, not just dodging, but mocking with his movements around the snake, playing with her, forcing her to turn and twist, wasting her immense energy on useless attacks.
As he did so, his eyes never stopped analyzing. And then he saw it: a slight tremor at the base of the snake's tail, a tensing of the muscles under the scales. She was retracting and preparing it.
The objective was clear: a tail lash.
The same type of subsonic attack with which she had tried to kill him at the beginning, with which she had destroyed a line of trees. A blow that, if it hit him, would turn him into a stain on the ground.
So Adonai prepared. Not to dodge, but to counterattack. He tensed all the muscles in his body in a concentrated way, making them bulge under his scales, storing potential energy like a giant spring.
And then, instead of retreating, he began to run.
It was an explosion of speed surpassing any of his previous records. His claws dug into the earth and tore it, propelling him forward in a wide circle around the snake's body. He was a black and gold blur, a whirlwind of movement surrounding the emerald giant. The snake, confused by this tactic, tried to launch the tail lash prematurely, but Adonai was no longer where she expected.
He had positioned himself near the base of the tail, right at the point where the scales began to bristle, forming those sharp spines that extended about three meters to the tip. And there, without hesitation, he pounced on the snake's body.
What he did next was a demonstration of brutal strength and surgical precision. He used his claws, the same ones that had never failed him, that had torn rock and flesh alike. With his left hand, he gripped the snake's flesh tightly, sinking his claws deep to anchor himself. With his right, he formed a point, all fingers together and claws extended, creating a living spear of bone and keratin.
A cry rose from his throat, not of pain, but of euphoria and concentrated effort. A war cry that echoed in the clearing. And then, he attacked.
He drove his claws, shaped like a spear, into the exact junction where the tail met the body, just before the bristling section began. There was no resistance that could stop him. The scales, thick as steel plates, split under the concentrated force of his impact. The muscles, dense and powerful, were torn. The tendons, thick as cables, were severed with a dry, sharp snap.
The giant snake writhed and thrashed wildly, panicked. A pain like she had never felt ran through her entire body, a pain that clouded her rage and replaced it with pure, primitive terror. She convulsed, trying to shake Adonai off, but once Adonai latched onto something, he wasn't about to let go.
His claws were anchored like steel hooks, and his body, propelled by his powerful legs, remained firm against the giant's convulsions.
And Adonai didn't stop. Once he started the cut, he continued with fierce determination. Using his free arm and the strength of his whole body, he kept tearing and cutting through the thick appendage, through the flesh, the blood vessels gushing green blood, and finally, through the tail's spinal column. A final, wet, definitive crack was heard.
A scream, or rather a heart-rending roar, burst from the snake. It wasn't just a sound of unbearable physical pain, but of absolute disbelief. She couldn't believe that her tail, her master weapon, her symbol of power, had been severed by this being she considered inferior. Her world of absolute dominance was crumbling along with her body.
Hearing that horrible sound, Adonai couldn't help but sketch a smile. It wasn't a normal smile of joy, but a reptilian expression of fierce triumph, a contraction of the muscles in his snout that showed the edge of his teeth. He stared at her fixedly, still clinging to what remained of the bloody stump, as she writhed and screamed in chaotic agony. In her desperation, she tried to finish him off by launching corrosive gas in all directions, blinded by pain and panic. Thick green jets shot from her fangs, corroding the ground, the fallen trees, and her own flesh, but without a clear target.
Adonai simply waited, patient as a predator, dodging the erratic jets. He knew that venom wasn't infinite. And indeed, in a short time, the jets weakened and then ceased completely. The snake panted, exhausted, mortally wounded, and plunged into unfathomable shock.
Adonai then jumped off the bleeding stump. He had something much more important to do: look for Nala. Her scent, that golden thread in his consciousness, still called to him from the east. Although a part of him, the dark part that fed on combat, wanted to prolong the snake's suffering, he knew he couldn't afford that luxury. He had already done more than enough. He had cut off her tail, her main weapon and probably a symbol of her pride. That was a punishment worse than death for such a creature.
But Adonai simply stopped thinking about that. He set out to finish this once and for all. Not out of mercy, but for efficiency. He propelled himself once more, running at an impressive speed along the snake's convulsing body, straight towards its head.
The snake, through her pain, saw the black silhouette approaching. With a final effort, she tried to lift her head to defend herself, but it was too slow, too weak. Adonai leaped. He spun in the air with a grace and speed that belied his size, a movement perfectly choreographed by his combat instincts. And then, he attacked with everything.
Using his tail.
One might think using the tail against the head of such a large snake would be a useless, even stupid attack. But Adonai's tail wasn't just any tail. It was a dense, flexible, and incredibly powerful muscle mass, covered in scales harder than any earthly steel.
A strike with it wasn't like a slap; it was the equivalent of being hit by a war hammer the size of a log.
The tail whip connected with the side of the snake's head. The sound wasn't a normal dull thud; there was an explosion. A sonic boom that resonated through the forest, a blast of compressed air that shook the ground.
The impact was so violent that Adonai himself felt the vibration run through his entire spine.
When he landed and looked at the snake, the result was evident. A large, deep, bleeding indentation opened on the beast's face, just below one of its eyes. The scales were shattered, and the snake's flesh pulsed grotesquely. The emotion Adonai felt wasn't joy, but cold satisfaction. His assessment had been correct.
Without giving it time to react, Adonai seized the moment of confusion and pain. He made a quick turn in the air after landing and fell again onto the snake's body, this time closer to the head. And then, he pounced with his claws, but not to sink them and let go, just that; this time he wanted to tear.
He sank his claws into the already vulnerable flesh and, using the weight and strength of his whole body, began to run along the snake's back, tearing a deep, longitudinal wound.
His claws weren't long enough to cut it in half with a single blow, but the force of his run and the power of his arms did the job. It was an act of pure and brutal destruction. He opened a gash several meters long, through which the snake's intestines and internal organs, in surreal reddish-green and purple colors, began to spill out, spreading over the ground with a nauseating smell.
The snake no longer screamed. The sound coming from her was a choked gurgle, an agonizing pant. Her body convulsed spasmodically, without control, the last nerve impulses of a nervous system on the brink of destruction. She tried, with the little strength she had left, to charge Adonai one last time. Her head rose shakily, her mouth opened in a final attempt to bite or spit, but the movement was slow and pathetic.
Adonai dodged it effortlessly. His eyes fixed on the snake's left eye, the only one of the three that still seemed to have a glimmer of consciousness, and which looked at him with a hatred so intense and pure it was almost palpable.
Adonai felt nothing. He aimed with his right arm and pierced it cleanly. The cornea burst, the vitreous humor splattered, and his claw sank into the brain behind the eyeball.
The snake shuddered violently, one last massive spasm. Adonai didn't stop. He pushed further and further, inserting his whole arm into the shattered skull, destroying the brain tissue until the tips of his claws came out the other side, through the orbital bone. The light in the snake's eyes went out instantly.
She was dead.
Her body, however, continued to writhe for a few more seconds, not from life, but from residual nerve discharges in a severely damaged brain. It was a macabre spectacle, "the final dance of a fallen tyrant," Adonai thought with a smile on his face.
Adonai withdrew his arm, covered in brain matter and green blood. He shook himself vigorously, removing the worst remnants of the snake's vital fluids that covered him. The euphoria of combat began to dissipate, replaced by deep fatigue and, above all, a fierce hunger. He hadn't eaten anything since he left in search of Nala.
He looked at the snake's massive body. The meat, despite the smell, seemed... edible. With a quick movement, he tore a large piece from the back, where the meat seemed cleanest. He brought it to his mouth and chewed. The taste was strong, earthy, and had an unmistakable acidic aftertaste, but it wasn't unpleasant. He knew that, with good cooking, it could even be tasty. But there was no time for that.
He swallowed the piece of meat, feeling the energy begin to slightly replenish his reserves. Then, he looked east again. Nala's scent was still there, very constant, you could say it was a beacon in the fog of his senses. The fight had been a deviation, a brutal reminder of the dangers of this world, but also a necessary catharsis. He had released part of his frustration and anger.
Now, with the snake dead at his back and his stomach a little fuller, there were no more excuses. His main mission remained. With renewed determination, Adonai began to walk, and then to run, eastward. Towards where Nala was. Towards where he would have to face a much harder battle: that of apologizing and regaining the trust his stupidity had shattered.