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The Plan

It was time for the Collective to spread to another world. The organic matter on their current world had been exhausted and the members of the Collective were already starting to suffer the effects of starvation. Massive blobs the size of the cities that used to dot the surface of the planet were starting to shrink down as the only thing that they had left to consume was their own bodies. As they shrank they began work on a ship that would transport them to their next world. There was no need for speed. This was something the members of the Collective had done many times before and they planned on doing it many times again in the future.

The Collective was an ancient race of grotesque creatures that resembled rotting balls of flesh. These balls of flesh could grow to enormous sizes, but when they arrived on a new world they were usually no larger than the size of a kitten. But, the Collective would begin feeding on any organic material it came in contact with on the world it arrived on. As they did so the various members of the collective would begin to grow and prosper once more. They would continue doing this until there was nothing left to consume on that world and then they would move on.

There was more to an invasion of a new world for the Collective than just feeding, though. Just what they had to do depended on the conditions present on the world they planned to invade. Usually that did not consist of much, but when a world had an actual civilization present on it there was a bit more that needed to be done. It was rare the Collective moved from one civilized world to another, but in the Collective's long existence, it had happened many times. After handling the civilization on this world so easily it had thought the move to the new one would be simple enough. These humans on the planet of Earth were even less advanced than the race on this world had been after all.

The standard invasion procedure seemed like it should work well enough. Since the humans had just recently entered into space and did not so much as have a single colony world, that simplified things greatly. The bodies of the Collective would be sufficient enough to do most of the work. Long ago the Collective had altered their biology to make it so that they emitted what could best be described of as a pocket dimension. Anything within range of this pocket dimension had to operate by a new set of rules. These rules made it impossible for the technologies of the lesser races in the universe to work properly. When the Collective arrived on a world this could make things difficult for the native intelligent race once anything more complicated than a pulley stopped working properly.

There were other changes the Collective would make. Despite being an ancient and powerful race, the Collective was very vulnerable when it first arrived on a new world. It needed a distraction for itself until all the members of the Collective could grow to a size where things like pointy sticks were no longer a problem. To do that it usually altered other species on the world it planned to invade. The Collective preferred to use herbivores for its purposes. Not only did the Collective grow when it consumed things, but it could give that gift to other races. The collective made sure there was a cutoff point much smaller than its own for those other races, of course. Those races would also be modified so that they would instinctively try to wipe out the native intelligent race upon scenting them. Giant stampeding herbivores trying to crush you when all you had to protect yourself with were rocks and pointy sticks proved to be a very good distraction.

Changes were already being made to the Earth even as the Collective constructed its ship. The animals that had been selected to grow would start doing so shortly before the Collective arrived. Then the Collective would find a suitable location to settle upon before destroying their ship as they always did. Keeping the ship around in order to help evacuate if need be was something the Collective was loath to consider. It had been around for countless millennia. The Collective was the first sentient race and the universe was its dominion. There was simply no possibility that any of the lesser races would ever force them to retreat, to admit defeat and leave a world. Keeping a ship around for longer than was needed to transport them to a new world was like admitting to a weakness that the Collective knew it did not have.

Once the Collective had completed their vessel, they set off for Earth knowing full well that it would be scoured of life like all the other worlds before it. Humanity would fall. It would either be trampled by the herbivores that the Collective had selected to grow or it would be consumed by the collective itself. The Collective never even considered that something else might happen to humanity or themselves as they set out on their journey.

The Invasion

The Collective had found its invasion spot. Already, the humans were distracted by the few species of herbivores that were growing and were perplexed as to why they seemed to be so hostile. Still, they were not all that worried about them while their weapons were sufficient to handle the problem. As the Collective landed they knew that would be changing soon.

There were a few humans around in the location that they had chosen to land, but not many. The humans had actually established a national park where they limited their own numbers in the area. It was also located on an island chain that would soon be very difficult for other humans to get to without their technology. Even if the humans found out what was going on they probably would not be able to respond with numbers sufficient enough to do anything about the invasion in time.

It was not long after the Collective landed that they discovered destroying their ship was a huge mistake. As expected, the humans were not much of a threat, but there was a creature that would make itself a problem. The Collective could normally manipulate non-sentient creatures at will. Resembling lumps of flesh did tend to make them appealing to local predators on various worlds and the Collective was fully aware of this. This world happened to have a creature that was immune to that control.

Even though the members of the Collective had not all landed on the same place on the island they all found that they were a huge draw for a local reptile. The humans referred to them as Komodo dragons. If the members of the Collective had been their full size they would not have had to worry much about these reptiles and they would have easily made a meal out of them. But, after the long journey they were the ones that found themselves looking like snacks to the scaly beasts.

The Collective was not a fast moving race. At best they could only move as fast as a walking human at their size. That was not even close to fast enough to flee from the curious and ravenous reptiles. On every occasion where the Collective encountered a Komodo dragon the result would be the same. The Komodo would easily catch up to the Collective, smell it with its forked, find the smell to be appealing, and then the reptile would snap up the tasty morsel.

Even something like this did not really concern the Collective at first. The Komodo dragons had not been the only creatures to attempt devouring members of the Collective. When that did happen the Collective would just devour the creature trying to devour it from the inside. Something was different this time, though. Upon entering the belly of a Komodo the Collective would try to secrete its own digestive enzymes to digest the reptile from within. Unfortunately for them, nothing happened to the Komodos on this occasion. The Collective had just encountered a creature, that by some freak coincidence of nature, was immune to their digestive enzymes.

While the Komodo dragons were immune to the enzymes of the Collective, the inverse was not true. For the first time, the Collective knew true fear as they found themselves being absorbed into the bodies of the great monitor lizards. The Collective tried to do battle with the reptiles, but found their weakened forms no match for the bellies of the beasts. Their very being was stolen from them. All of the Collective's power was taken in by the Komodo dragons. Things were made even worse for the Collective as they found that their odor was easily detected by the Komodos. What had been a race that had devoured entire worlds now found itself as nothing more than a substandard prey species on Earth. Within a day the entire Collective had been devoured by the dragons of Komodo. The once mighty Collective's invasion had been thwarted and they were now an extinct species.

One species fall would prove to be another species ascension. Every Komodo that had devoured a member of the Collective was changed, enhanced. They took the intelligence and memories of the Collective. What had once been a mere animal soon surpassed human level intelligence. They also took on the trait of the Collective that made technology cease functioning. The ability to grow beyond their normal limits was also absorbed by the Komodos. Even the ability to alter other creatures to suit their purposes was taken. With all of these things taken into account, the world was still about to change radically even without the Collective present to make sure it happened.

50 Years Later

"You were right, there is land not much further away," said Shane to the massive reptile whose body he was riding upon.

In response the reptile that was about as long as a bus gave a deep throated rumble. Most people would have been terrified by that rumble, but Shane had come to understand the rumbles and hisses of the Komodo dragon he had come to know over the years. What the Komodo had said was, "Of course I was right. You should know by now that my senses are far better than your own."

"I never doubted your senses for a second Cronus," Shane said as he gave the relatively huge lizard an affectionate pat on the back. The Komodo enjoyed the attention of his human pet. Cronus knew Shane considered them more like friends, but he really considered the human as more of a pet. Still, Cronus liked Shane and tried to hold back his instincts to gobble the little human up. Even though the abilities of the Collective had been passed down to him from his own parents, Cronus could not change his instincts.

Cronus had known Shane since the moment he had hatched. The human had been forced to hide out in his nest when a horse that was 20-feet tall at the shoulders had chased him into it. All of the eggs in the nest had already been eaten by a very large Komodo male that had chased off a slightly smaller female that had been guarding the nest. Shane probably would have been eaten by the mother of Cronus if she had not already given up on the nest. Instead of getting eaten by a Komodo dragon, he was saved by the same one that had eaten Cronus' kin. While the horse had been busy trying to get to Shane, it had not noticed the Komodo dragon that was the same size it was sneaking up on it. With a body enhanced by the abilities of the Collective and a body that was already a natural powerhouse, the horse had not stood a chance against the beast. Its body only went to enhance the already impressive form of the Komodo dragon.

That Komodo might have eaten Shane too, but he had already been in the back of Cronus' nest along with his egg. To the giant Komodo it was simply too much trouble digging out the rest of the nest just to get to one measly human and an egg. So, Shane had survived, alone and scared in the back of a partially buried Komodo nest. The little human was too scared to leave the nest for fear that the Komodo would be right outside waiting for him. Of course, the Komodo had moved on to find much larger meals, but Shane did not know that. Instead, he had just hung out near Cronus' egg, which was not such a bad idea.

Even though Cronus' egg had been larger than a normal Komodo egg it was still a lot smaller than Shane had been. Of course, Shane had been much more frightened when Cronus started to hatch. The human had huddled as far against the other side of his nest as he could. When the nearly three-foot long hatchling that was Cronus emerged from his egg Shane was terrified of the reptile. Even back then Cronus actually had a level of intelligence that was superior to that of an adult human. Additionally, due to his parents having eating members of the Collective, their memories were passed down to him along with the knowledge of the Collective.

The young reptile was fully aware of his situation in the world. He knew that many of the adult Komodos would make a meal out of him if they had the chance. Then the monitor lizard noticed there was a human in his nest with him. The human was obviously terrified of him and he thought he could take advantage of that fact. Instead of trying to attack the human, he tried to make friends. If he could travel around with the young and larger human he figured that the adult Komodo dragons would go for the human before they would go for him. Cronus did not have to worry about the giant herbivores trying to go after the human either. What the Collective had done, he could neutralize at will. If they both survived long enough he would undo the effect. It would be nice having a creature around that was a meal magnet.

Cronus would find another use for Shane later on. The human helped him catch game that should have been too large for him at his age and size. With Shane's help Cronus had been able to grow very fast. He was already larger than Shane was by the time he was a year old. Shane had given him his name as well. Cronus did not really feel he needed a name since he tended to think of things more in terms of their scent and smell rather than verbal identifications. But, the name seemed to make Shane more comfortable with him, so he accepted it.

Over the course of the next few years Cronus would grow steadily. He had thought of eating Shane on many occasions, but he had come to realize something. Shane's presence in his nest had forced him to think just a little bit more than was normal for Komodo dragons. Despite having the mental capacity to exceed humans, it was only useful if the Komodo dragons chose to think. Cronus had discovered that his people still relied almost entirely on their physical superiority. They had not even chosen to leave their home islands and spread out to the rest of the world nor had they bothered to use the rest of the gifts they had absorbed from the Collective. It was a waste, a terrible waste. Cronus chose to keep Shane around as a reminder to become better, to use the powers he had to improve his lot in life.

Cronus was aware that human civilization had fallen apart. Even though the Collective was gone, the rest of their plans had worked perfectly. Giant herbivores now ruled the rest of the planet, besides on his own home islands. Those herbivores would have probably ruined the ecosystem of the entire planet if not for Cronus. He was the only Komodo that thought to use his powers to adjust the planet to be able to accommodate the herbivores. It probably would have been easier to just return the herbivores to normal, but Cronus did not want to get rid of such a good food source. Cronus also enjoyed the opportunity to practice the use of his powers. Things like deserts were a thing of the past and the planet would have looked like a lush paradise if viewed from space.

With so many adult Komodo dragons already on his own island Cronus had decided to leave. Many of those Komodos were already killing each other off for the limited territory that was left on the island. There were only a handful of Komodos left that had been the original ones to devour the Collective. Do to all the infighting going on here it was unlikely that any of the Komodos would reach their full potential before another one killed them off. That was a terrible shame. Cronus knew his lifespan was vastly expanded. He had the potential to live for a thousand years, but if he stayed on his home islands he probably would not live for another hundred years. And now, after days of swimming, Cronus was about to arrive in his new land, free of other Komodo dragons. It was the perfect place for Cronus to set his plans of becoming the greatest of Komodos, and thus the greatest creature on this world, into action.

First Day in a New Land

"So you're sure there are no other Komodo dragons here?" Shane asked.

"Of course, but you still need to be careful about the herbivores Shane. They'll try to stomp you into oblivion if you are not careful," Cronus responded in as comforting a tone as his guttural language would allow.

"But I haven't been attacked by an herbivore since I've known you Cronus," Shane said.

Cronus eyed Shane carefully before saying, "Just because you have been lucky all these years does not mean you should expect to be so here." He had never told Shane that he could alter the human's body to make it so that the herbivores would not attack him the moment they scented him. The reptile only planed on making it so that herbivores would attack his pet when he was close enough to save him and get a good meal out of it. He also did not plan on letting the human attract some of the largest herbivores yet. Cronus was large, but did not feel quite confident enough to take on something the size of a horse that was 40-feet tall at the shoulders.

Cronus instructed Shane to go out and find some small game for him to eat. The human was more than happy to do so. Without any other Komodo dragons around he felt that he would be safe, despite Cronus' warning. Cronus was amused. He figured that was just how humans were. They had to learn things the hard way. Cronus did plan to make sure his pet survived the lesson, though. Even if the great reptile did use the human for little experiments and as bait he had grown fond of him over the years. The fact that he had not eaten Shane and gone off to get another human showed how much the predatory lizard that thought of anything smaller than it as a meal did care for his pet.

Shane did not mind gathering food for Cronus. He knew every bit of food that his friend ate made him larger. The larger Cronus was, the better a protector he made. For some reason he also found that he barely had to eat when he was around Cronus. He only had to eat about once a month, so just about every scrap of food went to Cronus. Of course, this change was due to another experiment of that Cronus had conducted. The reptile wanted as much food going to him as possible and he wanted to make sure his pet would never have to worry about starving.

It was not long after Shane went about catching small game as snacks for his friend that he heard something large in the heavily wooded area ahead of him. Shane froze and looked for the source of the noise. What he saw would not have been something many people were afraid of 50 years ago. But, Shane had grown up in a much different world. To Shane the sight of a sheep was a not something he ever wanted to see, especially when that sheep was over 15-feet tall. Its nostrils were flaring and it was already pawing at the ground as it stared at Shane with dark hate filled eyes. Even though it had been years since Shane had been forced to flee from an herbivore his body still remembered what it needed to do.

Cronus knew that Shane was in trouble. He had made it so that he could sense when his pet needed his help and he had made it so that Shane would flee towards him whenever he was in trouble. That meant a nice tasty meal was soon to be delivered. The lizard could hardly wait and immediately ran in the direction he could smell Shane was in. It was only seconds before Cronus nearly trampled Shane to get to the sheep. The human ducked down just in time to let the huge body of Cronus pass right over him. Jaws agape, the reptile lunged and got a hold of the sheep's neck before it had a chance to change its course. Shane just tried to stay out of Cronus' way as the reptile wrestled the sheep to the ground, nearly getting stepped on multiple times.

It was a brief fight that seemed to last much longer to Shane, who happened to be a bug stuck between a battle of dueling giants. The large reptile clearly had the advantage and the sheep never stood a chance. Once on the ground Cronus tore the throat out of the sheep and did not even wait for it to bleed to death before he started feeding. As he did that he also made sure to make insure Shane would not attract the rest of the herd the sheep must have belonged to. Cronus could handle one sheep, but he was not sure he could handle an entire herd.

While Cronus was feeding a still frightened Shane cuddled up against the huge form of his reptilian friend. Cronus did feel a little bad for using Shane as bait like that as he felt his pet shivering against him. Still, Cronus wanted an easy way to bring his meal to him. Maybe some practice would help. With familiarity would come some confidence. After a while, once Shane had proper experience dodging his paws during a fight he might even come to find this an enjoyable experience.

It took a good part of the day for Cronus to devour what he wanted of the sheep. By that time Shane had stopped shivering and was idly caressing the scales on Cronus' side. Shane had professed to liking to watch Cronus eat and the lizard was content to let him do so. The human marveled at watching huge chunks of meat, some of them larger than he was, disappear down the flexible throat of his friend. He also like watching his friend gradually grow as he ate. It was possible for Shane to feel the scales of the monitor lizard getting larger beneath his hand as he digested his meal. Without any other Komodo dragons around it was actually going to be possible for Cronus to consume his meal in peace too. It was rare Cronus had been able to enjoy a kill back on his home islands, and now he was going to be able to get everything from his kill. This was going to help greatly with his growth. Eating something did not add all of its mass to Cronus, only a small portion was actually added to his size. Even the entire 15-foot tall sheep would not add an extra foot to his length. His growth was a slow process, but exclusive ownership of his meals would definitely help in the long run.

When Cronus was finished with his meal he was feeling fat and happy. With a meal warming his belly he was ready for some attention from his pet. The lizard rolled over on his back. He had to do what he wanted from this position. The last time he had tried this standing up he had nearly crushed Shane and he had only been half the size he was now. If Shane was unsure of what Cronus wanted he would not be for long. The reptile started to emit a powerful pheromone, one he had altered Shane to be very attracted to. For this task Cronus had actually been forced to make a change to himself too.

Shane knew exactly what his friend wanted and the pheromones only backed it up. The human climbed on top of Cronus' belly and immediately went for the slit that contained his reproductive member. He was practically forced to crawl inside to get to it, but he did not mind doing that. Shane immediately starting massaging the manhood of Cronus, gradually drawing it out of its slit. What did come out was not the normal member of a Komodo dragon and it looked decidedly more human in nature, but not exactly. It was a bit thicker at the base than a humans would have been and it was a little more pointed at the head than dome shaped. Cronus had needed something that would not run the risk of impaling Shane with hooks, but he still wanted it to be distinguishable from a humans.

Cronus doubted Shane even knew what a normal Komodo dragons member looked like. His member was what Shane was familiar with. It was what Shane was acting practically worshipful of as he rubbed his body against the large reptile's impressive cock. Shane loved the way his pet threw himself into the task of giving him the best hand job he was capable of. Even when not fully erect the human was able to sit atop Cronus' member as if it were a mount. Shane rubbed his body up and down the lizard's huge member, enjoying the way it pulsed with pleasure beneath him. Cronus began to rumble with pleasure, causing his entire body to quiver with delight and shaking Shane to his very bones.

Shane was also getting a great deal of pleasure out of this experience. His own member was fully erect and he delighted in the way it felt as his much smaller member slid along the mammoth shaft of Cronus. Drops of pre were leaking down Cronus' member, acting as an excellent lubricant for Shane's activities. But, eventually there was so much pre coating the lizard's shaft that it caused Shane to slid right off. That was alright, though. The human was able to kneel in front of the monitor lizard's cock and lick at its head. He drank in the pre that was leaking out, enjoying the flavor of Cronus' seed.

Cronus noticed that Shane climaxed just from the pleasure of getting to service him. It made the reptile happy that his pet could enjoy this activity as well. On that thought, Cronus climaxed. Shane was right in front of his member as he did so. The human was bowled over as Cronus' cream shot forth from his cock. Shane was covered from head to toe in the lizard's seed from that one blast alone. The human was battered as more of the thick creamy liquid burst forth in blast after blast. Still, Shane seemed to enjoy the whole experience. He certainly did not seem to mind when Cronus demanded more and Shane had to repeat the process. Cronus was virile enough that he could easily outlast Shane. The great reptile was able to get three more rounds out of his human pet before he was too exhausted to continue. Cronus probably could have gone for a few more rounds before he even started to break a sweat, but he was satisfied with his pet and let Shane go to sleep on his cum soaked belly. The lizard soon followed his pet to sleep as he digested his meal, thinking about what a nice first day it had been in his new home.

Started on a Whim

It had been a few months since Cronus had come to this new land. There had been entirely too many close calls for Shane and Cronus was starting to worry about him. He really did want his pet to be safe. There had to be a better way of doing things than what he was doing now. Plus, Cronus knew he was going to outlive his precious pet and he knew he would want another. So, he was going to have to breed his pet. He did not just want Shane mating with the first female he came across either. Finding a good female in the vast wilderness that the Earth had become might be a little difficult.

To make things easier on himself, Cronus decided to reform humanity's shattered civilization. Things would be a little different than they had been. He was sure that the humans would come to worship him as a god, which he pretty much was compared to them. He did like the idea of having worshipers and then he thought about the idea of all the sacrifices. Yes, civilization might be a good thing, Cronus thought.

Meanwhile, bellow Cronus, Shane felt a drop of lizard drool fall onto his head. "Are you hungry Cronus?" Shane asked with a hint of amusement in his voice.

"What? Oh, was I drooling on you again? Sorry about that Shane," Cronus apologized. He was also happy he had made Shane immune to the bacteria carried in his drool long ago. "I just had a tasty idea."

"And what would that be?" Shane asked, honestly curious about what his friend was thinking about.

Cronus cocked his head at Shane and winked at him before saying, "I think I want to keep that as a surprise for you. But let me ask you this, how would you like to be a High Priest?"

"A High Priest? What's that?" Shane asked. Cronus had to explain things carefully to his human pet. His parents had been killed while he was still pretty young and Shane had not received much in the way of an education. Truth be told, human civilization had fallen apart pretty quickly and none of the humans born in the past 30 or so years had been educated all that well. Without their technology and roaming hordes of aggressive herbivores destroying just about every farming operation, they really were not able to maintain any form of civilization.

Even if the humans could somehow manage to gather enough food to feed a small community, they ran a serious risk of being scented by the herbivores and that did not end well for them when it happened. The cities had made good defensive positions for them for a very short time, but without all those farms, planes, trains, ships, and automobiles to supply them, most cities did not have enough food to last them more than a couple of months even with rationing. After 50 years, human cities had been completely abandoned. It was every man for himself out of pure necessity and as a result the human population had shrunken to less than a tenth of its former numbers. The changes Cronus had made to the planet helped them some, but just a little.

Now Cronus intended to help out much more if things worked out the way he wanted them to. But first, he had to get Shane to understand just what a priest was, and what a god was too for that matter. Shane had never been the deepest thinker in the world. Most of his intelligence had been focused on trying to survive and he had just barely been able to do that until Cronus grew large enough to protect him, making his life much easier. If Cronus did not have the knowledge of the Collective backing him up he was not sure he would have been able to get through to Shane. But, after many hours worth of effort he was sure that Shane understood what a High Priest was supposed to do and he was willing to accept that Komodo dragons were gods. As far as Cronus was concerned, it was not much of a stretch for humans to consider Komodo dragons gods. With all the power available to them Cronus thought his race would be the closest thing to gods that any living human would ever see.

"Why didn't you ever tell me you were a god Cronus?" Shane asked later that day. The two were currently walking through the forest in search of other humans. Actually, Cronus was walking while Shane rode on his back. The giant reptile thought that would make for a much more impressive sight to other humans and cement Shane's authority as his High Priest. Plus, his pet was just so slow on foot and things went faster this way.

Cronus answered, "I thought you would have figured that out. If you have not noticed, we Komodo dragons are the only things you know of that can kill the herbivores that hate you humans so much. You should have also figured out that you have not known hunger or sickness since you've known me. That's my doing you know."

"I had no idea, thank you Cronus," Shane exclaimed, "But if you Komodo dragons are gods, how come none of them have asked for humans to worship them before like you want us to?"

Cronus had already thought of a response for this question, just like he had for every other question he thought Shane would think to ask. He said, "That's simple really. The other Komodo dragons don't really think much of humans, so they don't demand that they worship them. Since I've come to know you I have changed my mind about humans and have decided to extend my divine protection to the rest of your race."

"That is really kind of you," Shane said as he gave the reptile's broad scaly back a hug. "I'm sure it will be nice for everyone to not have to worry as much about getting stomped to death by every herbivore around or getting eaten by another one of your race."

"Oh no, don't get things wrong Shane, getting eaten by me is a good thing for humans," Cronus corrected his pet.

"It is," Shane said, perplexed, "But won't we die if that happens?"

"Of course not. All that would happen is your physical form would melt away and be absorbed into my own. Your soul would also go on existing within my body for so long as I live. And once I pass on I would take all your souls with me to an eternal paradise. It is impossible for human souls to do that on their own," Cronus explained.

Shane took a moment to think about that, "So, getting eaten by Komodo dragons is a good thing?"

"Not just any Komodo dragon, just ones that accept humans as their followers. If the Komodo has not done that then he will not absorb the souls of those he devours and they will just be expelled with the rest of his excrement," Cronus explained to his pet. From a certain point of view what he was saying was not entirely untrue. The Collective had been able to absorb the memories of things they devoured. They mostly did it to intelligent races to make sure no one was coming up with something that could actually stop them. It was not something they had to do. They had to choose to do so. And now Cronus and the rest of the Komodo dragons had that ability. Of course, most of Cronus' brutish relatives never chose to do so. Cronus guessed that it would not hurt for him to absorb the memories of his followers. Since various groups of humans had different views of the soul, he supposed the memories might count as the soul to at least a few of them.

Cronus did not really bother to explain what happened to the souls of those that were expelled from Komodo dragons or what happened to the souls of those that died by other means. Chances were the humans would come up with their own explanations eventually. They were good at stuff like that. Cronus grinned to himself, thinking that the humans might actually come up with something worse than he could. They did have rather vivid imaginations.

Cronus and Shane continued to talk as they walked. The reptile made sure that his pet was able to understand the foundations of the religion he had just come up with. While they were doing that Cronus finally scented other humans in the air. Cronus did not need to tell Shane this. Over the years, Shane had come to learn the signs in his reptilian friend's body language for things like when he had found what he was hunting for. The monitor lizard did find something strange about the scent. There were too many different scents in the air. It seemed like he had found a large group of humans.

It was not until he stumbled upon the group that he thought he understood what was going on. The humans were all crowded to one side of a clearing. They had obviously heard him coming. All of them had what looked like spears pointed in his direction. They just might have been dangerous to some of the smaller giant herbivores, but anything much larger than the sheep Cronus had killed on his first day in this land would not have even hesitated to charge them. They probably would not have suffered much damage from those spears either. At around a dozen members, this was a larger group of humans than Cronus had expected to see.

This did happen every once in a while. Occasionally some humans would get together and form little bands to take what food they could from other members of their race. There were a couple of human heads on pikes in the camp to indicate that these humans really were raiders. Cronus was also happy to see about three human females locked up in cages. He was sure they did not look bad by human standards and they might make good choices for breeding partners for his pet. They would probably be so grateful for being rescued that they would not even have to be pushed to do so. And these females did need to be rescued.

They were already shouting to their captures that they knew this would happen. Since they were all in one big group they had thought some large herbivore would come in and crush all of them eventually. Cronus knew those females were right. If he had scented them this easily it was only a matter of time before a wandering herd of herbivores came close enough to scent them as well. These humans were probably arrogant enough to think they could avoid the herbivores while terrorizing their fellows. Cronus would have been surprised to find out this had not happened many times. They would have all been crushed eventually for being idiotic enough to gather in such a large group, and chances were that none of them would survive to pass on the lesson of how stupid it was to become a raider in this world.

Cronus did find it amusing that the humans seemed to have mistaken him for an herbivore. Carnivores just did not get as large as he was, so it was a natural assumption for them to make when faced with an unfamiliar creature. As Cronus chuckled at that thought he could see that the humans had mistaken it for something else. Shane had always said his chuckle sounded more like a growl to him. It was obvious these humans thought the same with the way they took a step back from him as he laughed.

Eventually, the humans worked up their courage and tried to attack Cronus. His laugh turned into a sneer almost immediately. The raiders were not being the least bit smart about their attack. They were going for a head on charge. That would not have been smart even if he were just some regular herbivore. If he had charged them back they would not have been able to stop his momentum even if their little spears managed to kill him. All his weight would have slammed right into them and their little bodies probably would have been flattened.

Cronus did not charge them, though. He just stood there and let the humans come to him. The Collective had left Komodo dragons with the ability to do many things and the raiders charging him were about to find that out. When spear met hard scales and thick leathery hide, the spears snapped like the twigs. Cronus had made his skin and scales tougher than diamonds shortly after hatching. That little idea had saved his life on a few occasions. It was an idea that probably would have saved the Collective if they had thought of it too. They could have made their skin to tough to be digested and they would have just passed right through the digestive systems of the Komodos that ate them. Cronus thought that the Collective had had things go their way for so long that they just were not quick enough thinkers by the time they reached the Earth. In a way, they were as lazy-minded as the rest of his own race. Cronus was not about to let his abilities go to waste.

As the humans stood there, stunned that their spears had broken without a single one penetrating the reptile, Cronus dipped his head down and snapped up a couple of the raiders. Cronus had tried to restrain himself from eating humans back on his home island to avoid distressing Shane. Now that he had convinced Shane that getting eaten could be a good thing he did not think his pet would mind if he ate these raiders. Besides, these raiders were not exactly the best people in the world. Even Shane should be able to see that they planned on raping their female captives to their hearts content. Cronus thought that he had to be the good guy here, even from a human's point of view.

He swallowed both raiders whole, enjoying the strange sensation of them wriggling down his flexible throat. Cronus did not normally eat food alive and kicking since he did not think food that small was normally worth going after. With the way these raiders felt as they slid down his throat and into his belly, kicking and punching all the way, he decided he might have to change his mind about that. It was a good thing the rest of the raiders were still gathered about right in front of him. They were used to seeing other people trampled and sometimes herbivores did bite, but they were not used to seeing an herbivore swallow what they bit. It was finally starting to dawn on them that they were dealing with a dinosaur sized carnivore.

Before they even had a chance to react to that realization Cronus had snapped up another four of their members. They were a bit of a mouthful for him, but they were not even close to being a problem for him to swallow. One gulp was all it took to send all four raiders down his throat, making a bit of a bulge as they traveled for the rest of their friends to see. In just a few brief seconds, half the raiders had found themselves in the belly of Cronus and he was still hungry for more.

Seeing their other companions devoured spurred the remaining raiders into action. They tried to flee, but Cronus was in full predator mode and he was not about to let some tasty treats get away. As the raiders tried to retreat from the lizard they found out just how fast Cronus could be. He was easily able to circle around them, cutting off their escape route. Of course they would just try to flee in the opposite direction when he did that, but he would just circle around them and end up cutting them off again. They had to repeat that a few times before the raiders tried to do something else.

Instead of running away from Cronus they tried to run beneath him. He thought of just laying down on them, but that would flatten them and deprive him of the squirming meal that he wanted. Cronus wondered what they would try to do beneath him until he felt the shafts of their broken spears poking at his belly. They actually thought he would have a soft underbelly that their weapons would be able to penetrate. It was not a terribly original idea, but at least they were trying to think now. Cronus let them have their fun for a little while and tried to see if they would think of anything else to do.

They continued poking around for a while until one of them found what he thought was an opening in the armor of the giant reptile. He jammed the spear right up that opening, completely unaware that he had probably sealed his own fate. The opening that the raider had poked his broken spear into was the slit leading the Cronus' sizable member. As the spear poked at Cronus' manhood the unexpected stimulation caused him to shudder in pleasure. The raider mistook that reaction for one of pain and kept poking at Cronus' member. Cronus had not thought this would happen, but he was not complaining either.

The raider did not realize his mistake until the Komodo dragon's member emerged from its sheath. Cronus' sizable shaft fell directly atop the tiny human, pinning him beneath its weight. The man tried to push it off of him. All he managed to do was give Cronus' cock a fairly decent massage, making his member stiffen even further. Cronus started to grind his member against the raider, being as rough with him as he would never dare to be with his precious pet. He could feel bones snapping against the sensitive flesh of his cock and the raider screaming in pain. His friends could do nothing but stare, mesmerized by horror of what they were seeing. Their fellow raider was being ground into pulp before their eyes. His screams turned into a burbling cry as he was reduced to nothing more than paste by the lustful reptile.

When the raider was nothing more than a bloody stain in the ground Cronus finally climaxed. The stream of cum that erupted from his member knocked the humans backward and kept doing so as spurt after spurt burst forth. They were knocked all the way along the length of Cronus and wound up right in front of his head before the waves of creamy white liquid finally stopped hitting them. As they looked up into the face of Cronus they had never thought a reptile could look so happy and content as he bent his head down and scooped them up into his maw. Cronus happily gulped down the remaining raiders and found that he liked the way they tasted coated in his cream even more.

After a few moments of enjoying the way the squirming mass of humans in his belly felt he decided it was time to move on. There were still a few human females trapped in cages that needed rescuing. The cages themselves were only made of wood tied together with rope. For Cronus, that was not much of an obstacle, but he could see that the humans were terrified of him.

"Shane," Cronus said to his pet, still perched on his back, "Hop off and get those females out of those cages and try to calm them down. Let them know I don't intend to harm them."

"Sure, just give me a minute," Shane said as he slid off of Cronus' back. Cronus expected his pet to take much more than a minute calming the females down, but Shane showed a real knack for calming other humans. It took him no time at all to calm them down, explain that Cronus was a god, and have the women practically worshiping at his feet. Shane did not get everything exactly right as Cronus had explained it, but his explanation seemed to work for other humans, so he did not mind.

Cronus let his pet and the human females climb onto his back as he continued his search for yet more humans. The females were fawning all over him and they looked like they were grateful to Shane for convincing such a powerful protector to help them. It looked like things were going to go according to Cronus' plans. He kept finding humans in ones and twos throughout the day. It turned out a lot of them had been terrorized by the raiders Cronus had handled. With the humans he had already gathered singing him praise for taking care of those raiders and rescuing another human from a rampaging kangaroo later in the day, it became increasingly easier to gather humans to him.

After about a week Cronus had gathered enough humans to form a nice sized village. The problem was that most human construction techniques did not work. It was going to be impossible for the humans to make a decent hut, needless to say something as complicated as a halfway decent temple to him. Cronus thought on that problem and then he tried a little experiment. The Collective had made it so that humans could not use their technology, so Cronus wanted to see if he could ease the restrictions a bit. He did not want humans to have all their technology back since they could come up with some pretty potent weapons that just might be able to kill him, but letting them make things as advanced as some of their more ancient civilizations could seemed like it might be a good idea.

Doing that would require altering the pocket universes that all of his kind were emitting and Cronus was not sure he could do that. Still, he gave it a try and was surprised he could actually do it. The monitor lizard had to concentrate to do it, but it was not much of a problem. He could feel trace signs of resistance from the others of his kind, but none of them cared enough to stop him from making the change. It was a bit of a revelation for Cronus. He could alter the other Komodos if they did not care to stop him. If he wanted to change something that they did care about he would probably have a fight on his hands, but it was still useful information that Cronus filed away for future use.

Now humans all over the planet would be able to at least put together a civilization on par with what their ancestors had done 4,000 years ago. It would take the humans a while to gain the knowledge to reach that point again, though. Cronus tended to make sure his humans had a head start on that task. Instructing them through Shane, he was able to teach them a lot of things that had been forgotten by the rest of humanity. Of course, he made it sound like it was divine knowledge rather than knowledge that he had inherited from fleshy blobs his own parents had eaten. With that display of divine knowledge and his own impressive physical stature, Cronus had secured his place as a god in the minds of his human followers and together they went about forging a civilization.

Collective Mistakes

Cronus was not the only creature seeking to better his place in the world. While Cronus had been making his way to his new land the last surviving member of the Collective had been hiding in a crevice back in his homeland. It had not grown and had just barely been able to maintain its present size. While the rest of its race had been consumed it had survived by altering its scent to something less appetizing to the scaly behemoths that now populated this land. It was the only one quick witted enough to think of this before it could be devoured and thus it was the last member left of its race. But, things were about to change very quickly.

The last surviving member of the Collective found its hiding place occupied by fleeing human one day. That human was fleeing from a giant horse trying to stomp it into paste. The human was frantic and grabbing whatever it could to throw at the horse. Without even noticing that it had grabbed the last surviving member of a race that had once terrorized the rest of the universe, it threw it at the bellowing horse with all its might. The member of the Collective landed right in the back of the horse's throat. This caused an inadvertent gag reflex in the horse that forced it to swallow.

In moments the final member of the Collective found itself in the belly of a horse. It was there that it found the digestive system of a horse was able to handle it almost as well as the digestive system of the Komodo dragons had been able to handle the rest of his fellows. To that last member of the Collective, it had become painfully obvious that his race should have done more research on the creatures of this world before beginning an invasion, but it was too late for that now. The only consolation that member of the collective would have had was that the horse crushed the human that had thrown it to its doom.

For the horse it was a very good day. It had gotten to crush a much hated human beneath her hooves, she had gotten to mate with a rather nice stallion earlier in the day, and the sudden burst of intelligence and power that came with digesting a member of the Collective was a very nice thing. That intelligence was a real benefit for her. It made her realize that there were other places on the Earth where there were no predators capable of devouring her, where she could raise the young she knew were already within her without fear of being consumed. And she also came to realize that she might one day be able to amass enough power to rid this world of both the hated humans and the Komodo dragons that made prey out of her kind.

If she had set out in the same direction as Cronus had the reptile might have put an end to her plans in a few short years, but where he had gone south, she had gone north. There she thought she would have room to grow and she would be able to mother a race of master horses that would rule this world. That decision would set the stage for a clash of titans, but that would not happen for a very long time.

What Wonderful Imaginations

It had been generations since Cronus had settled into his new land. He was now the god of a thriving empire. The humans under his divine protection did not need to constantly fear being trampled by huge herbivores. They had reached the peak of technological sophistication and a grand temple to Cronus now lay just outside of the lair Cronus had constructed for himself. His size had also increased substantially. From head to tail, Cronus was about as long as a small office building used to be before the level of human technology had been limited.

Besides his increased size, the only thing that Cronus truly cared about was that his breeding program for his pets had been a success. Shane's descendents were shaping up fairly well. They were strong, attractive to the human females, sharp of wit, and they made good leaders for their people. With Cronus backing them up, Shane's descendents ruled without any opposition.

Since Cronus had allowed all humans to have some of their technology back there was the worry about the occasional barbarian horde invading his kingdom. The barbarians that managed to fend off the herbivores even without the help of Cronus and then breed in numbers sufficient enough to consider invading Cronus' kingdom could make for fierce opponents. Still, on most occasions the armies of Cronus could handle most other humans. Cronus still liked to put in an appearance at any invasion even if his people could handle it on their own. The great reptile drooled a bit at the thought of the feast he had been able to have at the last invasion. That had only been last year, but he was already yearning for the next invasion.

Some of Cronus' attendants were quick to gather up that drool. Over the years people had noticed that none of the High Priests ever grew ill. With how often Cronus had accidentally drooled on his pets people had come to believe that bathing in the drool of the lizard would prevent them from getting sick. The real reason was actually because Cronus actively prevented his pets from getting sick, but he decided he might as well make it so that his drool did contain healing properties for his followers while it remained very dangerous for anyone else to come in contact with.

The followers of Cronus did not expect to receive the gift of his saliva for free. At that moment his payment was already entering his chambers. That payment happened to be in the form a harem of worshipers whose sole purpose in life was to make sure the giant reptile was pleased. A good deal of the time that just involved giving his scales a good rub down, shinning his claws, massaging his paws, and generally making sure that Cronus looked godly at all times. However, when his followers decided to take something from him they were expected to give a little more in return.

Like Cronus had done for Shane generations ago, he rolled over on his back and allowed his worshipers to climb onto his belly under the supervision of his latest High Priest. Over time Cronus had grown far too large for a single human to be able to please him. It required a few humans just to part the slit leading to his manhood, but they managed to get the job done. They could only hold the slit open for but so long, but in that time over half dozen of his worshippers would make it inside of him. Cronus basked in the feeling of having all those little bodies massaging his member, trying to coax it forth. It was a job they were very good at and that they were very enthusiastic to do. The pheromones of Cronus were now so potent to his followers that even the slightest hint of his arousal could turn them into his willing sex slaves. Getting exposed to the full power of the great reptile's arousal would leave a person so utterly devoted to Cronus that they were useless as anything else besides his personal servants.

Cronus rather liked having such devoted followers. Even after all this time they still managed to find knew spots along his member that he did not know could bring him such pleasure. It was as if their tiny hands could probe more areas that they could not before as Cronus continued to grow. The more people that could fit along his member, the more areas that could be simultaneously pleasured as well. That was once again proved to be true as the humans managed to bring his member out of its sheath, where the rest of his human servants could properly get to it. A light touch here, a firm touch there, or an entire body rubbing against another spot of his shaft all sent thrills of pleasure coursing through his body.

Drops of pre nearly the size of his servants dripped down his member, soaking them in his pleasure. They drank what they could, as if it were a precious gift granted to them by their god. Cronus' mighty member pulsated beneath the touch of his servants, letting them know that the inevitable reaction to their intention was soon coming. That just made them want to work harder at pleasing Cronus. The giant lizard did try to hold back his reaction for as long as he could. His servants tended to be at their best when he was this close to his climax and he wanted to stretch things out for as long as he could. It tired his servants out faster, but that would not be much of a problem. This group of servants was particularly good and Cronus could only delay his climax for a few extra seconds.

A huge burst of creamy white liquid shot forth from Cronus. Those servants that had been around the head of his cock where bowled over by the sticky seed of Cronus. No bones were broken, but they were still knocked back a few feet by just the first blast of the Komodo dragon's seed. The repeated blasts of cum knocked them all the way along the length of their god's belly. Those that were not busy getting knocked about simply marveled at the demonstration of virility that Cronus was putting on. Each blast of his seed was enough to fill a pool to them. And even when he was finished releasing his seed he was still ready for his servants to continue on once more. His servants were eager to continue, but they could only do so for but so long. They continued on until they had passed out from exhaustion on his belly. Cronus let those servants take their much deserved rest and had his pet call in the next group of sex slaves. There would be a few more groups needed to fully sate the enormous reptile that night, all of which would wind up in the same place, passed out in pools of their god's seed as their god also slept through the night, very pleased with the civilization he had created.

The next day would have a very pleasant surprise in store for Cronus. It was on this day of the previous year that Cronus had shown up on the battlefield and completely wrecked an attempted barbarian invasion all on his own. That had actually been a little bit of an embarrassment for the Komodo dragon. He had intended to let his followers do a little bit of the work, but it had been about 30 years since the last barbarian invasion. It had been a while since he had been able to devour those wonderful small squirming bodies that humans had. His belly got the better of him and before he knew it he had gobbled up the entire barbarian horde before his own soldiers even had a chance to so much as lift a weapon to fight with. As a result, his own side had no casualties and there had been a great celebration.

Followers of Cronus were gathering in his capital city from all over the kingdom to celebrate that great victory again this year. Cronus thought he had inadvertently created a national holiday. As long as his followers were happy he supposed he had done a good thing, even if all he had been doing was acting like a glutton. There was a feast being prepared, but to Cronus it still looked like there was not enough food for the thousands of extra people that had traveled to the capital. He had made it so that humans did not need to eat as much as they used to, but they still had more food than what he was seeing in his capital. Cronus wondered what the humans planned to do about that until it was time for the feast to begin.

He watched as his pet ascended to the top of his temple and started to speak, "On this day we celebrate the great victory that Cronus gave to us. As Cronus feasted on that day, we shall all feast on this day. But, what a shame it would be for us all to feast while making our god look on in hunger at the celebration dedicated to his feast." At that point the High Priest turned away from his people and looked at Cronus instead. "Oh great Cronus, we ask that you accept this offering from your people and ask that you let us feast beside you on this day that we dedicate to you."

Before the eyes of Cronus, many of the people that had been gathering in his capital, as well as significant portion of the capital's inhabitants, started gathering before him. Cronus smiled as much as his reptilian face would allow. These humans really could come up with such wonderful things. Cronus turned his great head towards the High Priest and said, "You have outdone yourself this time my pet. I accept your offer."

The High Priest was the only one allowed to learn the language of Cronus. He liked the way that his deep throated hissings and rumbles effected the little humans. It also left them completely dependent on his pet to translate the words of their god. The people were already waiting in anticipation for the translation of Cronus' response. When they received the response they were looking for a great cheer erupted from the crowd. Even Cronus was a little surprised by that. Up until this point he had resisted eating his worshipers in great numbers. He would occasionally lap up a few passersby when they crossed his path and people always offered him their dead, but he had been afraid if he pushed them too far and ate to many of them that all his followers might desert him. Cronus did not have to worry about his followers trying to kill him, but he did not want his civilization to be shattered and have to start things all over again.

Now the humans, his humans, were freely offering themselves to him in staggering numbers. They looked like they would make for an absolutely delicious meal too. Everyone present was looking at him, waiting for him to begin his meal before anyone else would begin theirs. Cronus did not want to keep everyone waiting, so he lowered his head to the ground and opened his maw. The moment he did that his followers started flowing into his mouth with great enthusiasm. They packed themselves in and Cronus waited until they could no longer cram in any more of their numbers.

Cronus closed his jaws and lifted up his head in a slow theatrical manner. He took a moment to savor the flavor of his beloved followers before swallowing. Everyone present was able to see the large bulge travel down the great reptile's throat. Cronus listened for the sounds of any gasps or sounds of horror at what they had just seen. There was not a sound. And then, a deafening cheer burst from the crowd. Every person present believed that what they had seen was a good thing. Cronus was very pleased that his religion had taken root so thoroughly.

After that first swallow everyone else began their feasting. As they ate, Cronus alternated between scooping up his followers and letting them practically walk down his throat. They were happy enough to offer themselves to him, until they reached his belly that was. Only Cronus was aware of their screams as they were digested alive. Cronus always considered himself kindhearted for a predator and while he liked his meal to wriggle and squirm in his belly, he did think his followers deserved a little better than this after offering themselves to him in such great numbers.

The reptile god went about using his Collective inherited powers to alter his people. He could not get rid of their pain and he certainly was not about to spit them back up, but he could make it so that his humans would be just as attracted to the scent of his digestive juices as they were to his pheromones. Within moments the people within his stomach went from being in incredible pain to being able to ignore the pain as they tried to hump the fleshy walls surrounding them. If they could not reach those walls that just had to be satisfied with each other. The movement in his belly being caused by the orgy was more than enough to satisfy Cronus. Feeling that he had done what was right for his followers, Cronus was able to happily continue with his meal.

Even though Cronus had a couple thousand followers to devour, he still managed to finish his meal before the other feasters had. All those worshipers made for a satisfying meal, but Cronus was not exactly feeling full. He turned his attention to the rest of his followers, still happily eating, and Cronus could not help but thinking how good they all looked. Cronus decided to risk panicking the people celebrating in his honor and dipped his head down to scoop up a few of those feasters. There was a little cry of surprise at what was happening, but that was soon followed up with shouts of thanks for being chosen as a part of his celebratory feast. With that little revelation, Cronus did not feel the need to hesitate any longer and feasted to his heart's content. It took over half the feasters to truly satisfy Cronus.

With his belly finally full, Cronus laid down to rest. The celebrations still continued with people dancing all around their god. People would rest their heads against Cronus' belly and try to listen to the people digesting within. It was difficult for them to hear anything through the countless tons of flesh between them and those people, but the gurgles of his digesting meal was able to reach them. That seemed to be enough to satisfy those people and make some of them wish that they had been chosen to be a part of their god's feast. Cronus fell asleep as he digested his rather substantial meal, but the celebration continued well through the night.

Come the next day, the pet of Cronus decided to have a conversation about what had happened the previous day. "Your people are very happy that you seemed to enjoy your feast," the High Priest said.

"Of course I was. Did they think I would not be?" Cronus asked.

"Actually, yes they did. Getting devoured by you is a great honor and many did not think you would be pleased to have so many asking that honor of you," the High Priest explained.

Cronus did not normally search through the memories of those he devoured, but that comment made him decide to do so this time. He was a little taken aback by what he found. The humans considered getting devoured by him such a great honor that they were almost afraid of asking him to do so. They were looking for excuses to throw him a feast like this and Cronus' actions last year had given them that excuse. Cronus really thought of himself as a kind predator after that. What other predators took all the fear out of being devoured for his prey and tried to make the experience of being digested as pleasant as possible? None others that he had heard of.

Cronus said, "You should let my people know that I am very pleased with this feast and that they should not be afraid of offering me these feasts. I love all of my followers and I would be willing to bestow the honor of being a meal for myself to as many people as I can."

The High Priest was more than willing to convey that message and did so that very afternoon. Over the coming decade the followers of Cronus would establish four major seasonal feasts plus a score of other smaller ones throughout the year. Cronus found that his followers were more than willing to stuff his belly and he actually had to increase their birth rate to keep from depopulating his own kingdom. He also attempted to streamline the human birth process so that their females would no longer be pained by the birthing process. The people interpreted this as their god being pleased with their actions and having bestowed them with a miracle. It only made the humans love him all the more. All in all, Cronus thought things were going very well.

The Next Step

A few decades after the establishment of the feasts Cronus felt it was time to expand his kingdom and turn it into a much larger empire. Even with his followers fueling his growth, he was only but so large and he would not be able to protect the borders of an empire that he wanted to circle the Earth all on his own. He would need others of his kind and he planned to get them.

Cronus decided it was time to summon others of his kind to him. It was not a difficult thing to do. With all the practice he had with using his abilities on his followers, doing such a thing was mere child's play. He tried to summon a good mixture of males and females to himself. They would both be needed for his plans. Cronus was very pleased to find that those he summoned did respond. He was not able to control all their actions and made sure that the message went out to all the towns in their path that they needed to get out of the way for the time being.

It was on the day of what was supposed to be the Winter Feast that Cronus' guests arrived in his capital. For the people in the capital it was quite a show. Cronus had summoned 200 of his fellows to the capital city. Even though none of them were more than a quarter his size, 200 giant reptiles was quite the impressive sight. That was the primary reason Cronus had made sure most of the humans in the capital had temporarily taken shelter in the woods surrounding the city. He had also made sure they cleared out a wide swath of land to act as a sort of tournament grounds for what he intended. The humans would be able to watch what was going on from the safety of the forest.

Cronus could tell that some of the other Komodo dragons did not take kindly to being forcefully summoned. It did not matter much to him. Most of them were small enough for him to make a snack out of. None of them were a match for him individually. Back on their home islands they had been the largest of the Komodo dragons and encountering Cronus was a bit of a shock for them. Still, they had been the top predators in their homeland for a good portion of their lives and they were not pleased to find they could be compelled to do anything by anyone. At least that was what the males were thinking. A few of the females were of a different opinion.

The largest of Cronus' guests was actually a female. Since Komodo dragon females were not the type to take a mate that was weaker than they were, she was currently without a mate. Cronus was pleased to find that it looked like he was going to finally get a mate. Many of the males and a few of the females did not look like they were quite ready to let him have his way, though.

One on one, Cronus probably could have made a meal out of any other Komodo dragon present. All of them knew that too. But, the intelligence granted to them by the Collective let them think that if they worked together they just might be able to defeat Cronus. It was not something unforeseen for Cronus and he had spent some time practicing for just this situation. Still, if he could do what he wanted without fighting, that would be best for everyone.

"I welcome all of you to my lands," said Cronus, "And I thank you for heeding my call. I summoned you here to offer you the chance to be gods. Under my leadership you will have an abundance of food and enough land to grow on that you won't need to constantly battle each other for survival. You will actually get to live out your long lives and all you have to do is submit to me."

Cronus could see that the vast majority of his visitors were willing to accept the offer, but a few holdouts still remained. "And what makes you think that you can force all of us to submit to you," one of the Komodo dragon's said.

"From what I can see, if we work together we can put you down and take these lands of yours for our own. It will be rather nice having all this land to rule as our own," said another Komodo. Cronus noted that both the Komodos that had spoken were large battle scarred males. They had faced many challenges throughout their lives and had achieved a certain level of dominance that they were not willing to give up. Still, it seemed like no more than 40 of the Komodos were willing to challenge Cronus.

They were already circling Cronus, but there was not much organization. Cronus had bothered to pay attention to his followers and the barbarians they had to fight. His followers had learned quite a bit about how to work together, about strategy and tactics. This was the first time any of the Komodos facing Cronus had ever worked together. That was something that was painfully obvious to Cronus. They planned on charging him and using overwhelming numbers to defeat him, like most of the barbarians attempted to do. It would not work just like it did not work against his followers even when he did not intervene on their behalf.

Even now he could only feel a few of the Komodos facing him actually summoning on the powers that they had inherited from the Collective. Those little blobs of flesh had incorporated much of their technology into their own bodies. There were a lot of offensive and defensive abilities to be drawn on thanks to that. And so few of Cronus' kind were willing to use them. Cronus was a little disappointed in his race for that, but at least a few of them seemed to be smart enough to attempt to use the powers gifted to them.

There were many things Cronus had learned to do over the years and he showed the other monitor lizards what he was capable of. Even though his kind had a certain level of almost instinctual protection from each other's abilities, instinctual protection would do them no good against Cronus. In an instant he was able to blow right through the defenses of all the Komodos that were not summoning on their powers. He did not do anything to harm them. All he did was deliver a mental knockout blow that would render them unconscious for the next few hours. It was nothing flashy, but Cronus was sure it would have an effect on the moral of those opposing him. He also thought it would look good to his own followers to have all those opposing him just collapse before him. It would definitely work to make him look like some sort of supreme god.

With that little display Cronus had reduced his number of opponents to just seven. He smiled to himself as he sensed the hesitation of the others still trying to surround him. That would make things easier for him. Instead of waiting for the others to attack, Cronus took the opportunity to attack first. There were actually quite a few attacks he could have used that were invisible to the eye, but he was trying to put on a show for his people. They already thought that lightning was an instrument of the gods and he had no problem letting them see that they were right about that.

One unfortunate challenger to Cronus found himself on the receiving end of five lightning bolts striking his body simultaneously. He was big and his body was tougher than it should have been thanks to the Collective, but it was only tough enough to let him stay conscious for a few seconds before passing out and receive a few minor burns instead of dying.

Two of the Komodos tried to do the same to Cronus as he had just done to their fellows. Cronus had anticipated something like that and had trained hard to figure out how to stop just such an attack. What the Collective could do it could also undo. One of the attacks dissipated before it could even come close to reaching Cronus while the other attack was redirected back to its attacker. The one that was hit with the attack was knocked out instantly, the other one was not quite as lucky.

Cronus wanted to put on more of a display than just a light show. He had a very large and imposing body that he planned to put to good use. The Komodo that had his attack stopped was charged by Cronus while he was still figuring out how Cronus had done that. Cronus seized the much smaller Komodo dragon up in his jaws by its midsection. For Cronus it was not much trouble shaking him around like a rag doll and occasionally bashing him against the ground until he was rendered unconscious. To the other Komodos it was not much of a surprise to see that Cronus could so easily physically dominate them, but to the on looking humans it was quite a sight to see something that could easily crush them be manhandled like that.

That was three down and Cronus was not expecting much trouble out of the rest of them. Expectations could be wrong sometimes, though. Instead of using four separate attacks that they all knew Cronus would be able to stop, they united their attacks into one big attack that was not so easy to stop. What they did was use the very air above Cronus as a weapon. Cronus felt the air coming down on him as if it were solid as stone. He could tell it had enough force behind it to shatter his spine if he did not do something. It would not be possible to stop the attack as he had done the other two, but he could at least lessen the effects.

Instead of getting crushed Cronus was flattened against the ground. He tried to get up, his claws tearing great furrows in the ground as he did so, but he could not budge. The other Komodos were not letting up on their attack, but Cronus could tell they were putting everything they had behind that attack and to prevent Cronus from negating it. The only alternatives they had left was to physically attack him.

They did not want to get close to his tail, which was still very mobile and fully capable of flattening them. Cronus had a hard time moving his head, but he could still move it and that discouraged his challengers from coming at him head on too. That left only his legs. If they could tear those off they thought they might be able to let him bleed to death. With four legs and four of them it seemed like a logical enough course of action.

Unfortunately for most of them they found out that Cronus was a bit too thick skinned for them to do anything more than annoy the giant reptile. Cronus was a bit surprised to find out that one of them had figured out that sharpening his own fangs would help him out for challenges and taking on larger prey. His fangs did manage to draw blood from Cronus. That was not something Cronus liked at all and he felt he was lucky that he was so large or his leg might have been crippled by the smaller Komodo instead of just receiving a few minor injuries.

With four other Komodos attached to his legs Cronus felt it would only be a matter of time before they figured out how to do some major damage to himself. He had to do something and he had to do it quickly, starting with that one that was actually doing some damage to his leg. Even though they were all using up their power to keep him pinned down, Cronus still had a little extra power left to spare. He used that power to use the air as a weapon too. Instead of using it to pin down his foe, Cronus just made sure to drain all the air from around the head of the sharp fanged Komodo. It was not long before it was gasping for air as Cronus sucked the air right out of his lungs as well. With all of his power going towards keeping Cronus pinned down he could not defend himself. He passed out without the others even noticing what had happened.

What the other three did notice was that they suddenly no longer had the power to keep Cronus pinned down. The air that had held him down disappeared without warning and the three smaller Komodo dragons found themselves much closer to a free Cronus than they wanted to be. Without the air to pin Cronus down they were not even close to being strong enough to restrain the much larger reptile. He was able to pick up one of the Komodos before it could run off and threw it hard into one of its fellows as it tried to retreat from Cronus.

The two collided with a sound like thunder. They were uninjured, but both were stunned from the impact. Cronus did not give them the chance to recover. Instead, he used the same lightning trick he had used earlier to knock out both lizards.

That left Cronus with one opponent left. He turned his attention to the smaller monitor lizard only to see it trembling and tacking on a much more submissive pose. It knew when it had lost and Cronus could tell it was just hoping he would not eat it by this point. Cronus looked over at the other Komodo dragons that had chosen not to fight so far and could see they were properly cowed. The ones Cronus had fought were the most dominant among them and he had just defeated all of them in less than five minutes. They did not think that they could all take him on at once. Cronus knew they probably could not do so as well, not without practicing with their powers considerably more.

All of them were acting submissive at that point and Cronus was willing to accept their surrender. Pinning down everyone beneath his weight and wracking his claws along their backs, as his kind normally did, would have been a bit time consuming. Still, Cronus' instincts were screaming for him to do just that. He had to put a lot of effort behind holding back his instincts as he said, "Now that I have demonstrated my power I need a show of subservience from the rest of you. I need you to open yourselves to me and do not resist what I am about to do or you will have to be punished."

Cronus did what he had planned to do from the beginning. He reached into all the Komodo dragons present using the powers given to him by the Collective. With their desire not to offend the larger male in place and the others knocked out, Cronus felt no resistance. He was able to slave their powers to his own. They would no longer be able to use their powers against him and he would be able to draw on all of theirs at will. He also decided to limit their size. The ones that had never even fought him and the ones that had fallen to him so easily at the beginning of his fight would never be able to grow to more than a quarter his own size. As for the four that had put up more of a fight, Cronus would let them reach half his size. They had earned that at least.

Then there was the largest female. She had not been involved in the fight, but she had been watching the fight carefully. It was obvious she had been pleased with what she had seen, but she did not look quite ready to submit. Cronus could see she was not quite willing to skip out on the formalities. At least he only had to go out of his way for one of them though. All he had to do was pin her down, which took all of a few seconds to do, and she was his mate. There was one more thing for him to do, but he wanted to hold off on that until he had his followers around. Instead, he also used his powers to slave hers to his own as well as limiting her size to about three quarters of his own. It would never do for her to somehow get larger than himself, but she had to remain dominant to the others of her kind.

There was something else that had to be done. Cronus let all of the Komodo dragons know that they were now gods to the humans and that they had a certain set of responsibilities to them. For one thing, they were not supposed to eat all of them and they were to help expand the human's civilization. In return, the humans would offer them their services and then there were the feasts as well. The Komodos were happy to hear about that. The four that Cronus had let reach half his size would also be in charge of carrying colonists to four separate continents and conquering the human populations there. He would let them chose which continents each of them wanted. There were only four choices for them anyways. Cronus already planned on taking control of the rest of this one, one continent was to frigid to maintain a human population, and the humans on another continent seemed to have been nearly wiped out. All in all, there would be 40 Komodo dragons divided up between all five continents. Some of them were not looking forward to the long swim that they were going to have to take, but at this point they were not willing to defy Cronus.

Cronus sent out his guests that very day. Each of the Komodo dragons were already receiving names from the new set of priests Cronus' pet had trained. They had been trained on how to translate the language of the Komodo dragons and they would spread the religion Cronus had created across the planet. Even his mate received her own priest and came to be known as Rhea.

With everyone dispatched, it was time for the winter feast to actually begin. Cronus' followers poured out of their hiding places and Rhea was surprised with just how many of them there were. She was even more surprised to find out just how willing many of them were to practically walk right down her throat. Cronus had made sure that the population of his capital city had expanded to the point where it could afford to feed its new goddess as well as its god. The people were very pleased to met their new goddess and were eager to please her.

Cronus had kept it a secret that he was expecting to find a mate and many of the people thought they would not be able to be a part of the feast this year. It was a time of great rejoicing for them now that they would be included in the feast after all. With two Komodos feasting in the city it was the grandest celebration the people had ever seen. It would take thousands to satisfy the hunger of the reptile gods that day. Dozens of people would disappear down Rhea's throat with each gulp and Cronus was so large that he was swallowing nearly a hundred people at a time. During all of this Cronus was delighted to see his worshipers cheering him on, trying to see how many of them could fill his belly during this feast. Cronus smiled to himself as he thought about how every human in the city would have marched right down his throat if he wanted and he could actually fit them all in his belly.

With their bellies filled to capacity both reptiles were feeling rather content. "Do they squirm like this all the time?" Rhea asked dreamily.

"Of course they do. I made them that way," Cronus said proudly.

"You do some good work Cronus," Rhea said to him. "I'm happy I could finally find a mate like you." With a nice full belly, bloated with over a thousand eager and willing sacrifices, and a very attractive and powerful male right next to her, she was beginning to feel very aroused. Cronus picked up on the scent of his mate's arousal and that made him feel a bit aroused himself. He had planned on mating with her back in his own chambers, but plans could change.

People that had been celebrating beneath Cronus picked up on his arousal and found themselves held captive by his pheromones even as his massive member slid out of its slit and crushed them beneath its weight. The reptilian god moved to mount his goddess as everyone within smelling distance of his arousal rushed to his member. Most were plowed under the huge shaft and reduced to little red smears as Cronus moved. He actually enjoyed the way they felt as they burst against the flesh of his sensitive member and thought he would have to make this a part of the feast eventually.

A few people did manage to get on top of it instead of getting plowed under. They tried to do their best to stimulate Cronus and he did appreciate the effort, but it was his mate he was more concerned with at the moment. As he moved to insert his member into the tight confines of his partners femme the people on his member really did not stand a chance. Her own pussy was just barely large enough to fit his member into it at her size. The extra passengers on his shaft were either knocked off or crushed as they forced into her pussy. As Cronus pumped into her, their bodies were turned into paste, but even seeing that, more people tried to help please their gods.

More and more people were crushed between cock and pussy as they did so, helping to act as a nice lubricant for Rhea. She was grateful to the humans for making this experience much more pleasant for her. It was easy to see why they had become a favorite of Cronus. She could tell she was going to like having these tiny creatures around very much as well.

The two titans would make love many times that night and many more people would sacrifice themselves to their gods. For Cronus it was nice to have a mate with endurance to match his own. To Rhea it was just nice to have a mate and obtaining a horde of worshipers willing to sacrifice themselves to her was a very nice bonus. And for the humans they had what they felt was a wonderful addition to their feast and the display of godly vigor was an awe inspiring thing.

Northern Holdout

Cronus' people would spread over the world for the next few centuries. The four continents that his people had settled fell under their control as quickly as the Komodo dragons felt like expanding. Of course, the technological level of the people limited their ability to comprehend just how vast what had come to be known as the Empire of the Dragon really was. Only the Komodo dragons themselves were capable of easily traversing the great oceans that covered the planet. And as the centuries passed they only grew grander in status.

But, they had not expanded to every corner of the globe quite yet. In one northern enclave of one continent the empire know as Iuolus was having its first encounters with the Empire of the Dragon. As of yet they were unimpressed with the supposedly young gods that were present on the outskirts of the Empire of the Dragon. They had convinced themselves that their enemies had simply tamed 15 to 20 foot long reptiles to do their bidding. Those monsters were quite effective in battle and they had yet to kill one of them, but there were only but so many of them. The Empire of the Dragon was not yet strong in this area while Iuolus was. Their armies had been victorious more often than not even if they could not kill those supposed gods.

In Iuolus they did not believe what they heard from prisoners they had captured. Those prisoners said that the gods they had seen so far where still practically hatchlings and that their elder gods were much larger. They said that even the lesser gods were much larger than what had been seen in Iuolus. Then there were their gods, their high goddess, Rhea, and their high god, Cronus. The people of Iuolus believed none of it. What they preached was nothing more than the wishes of a weak people that Iuolus planned to crush.

They thought that the emissary sent to them from the Dragon Empire recently was another sign of their weakness. That emissary had actually threatened that if they did not surrender the full might of their empire would destroy them. He had claimed that the god Altjira himself had been angered by the people of Iuolus and their stubborn resistance. This was not the first time Iuolus had heard of Altjira. The people of the Empire of the Dragon had claimed they were under his protection from the very beginning. They had said they would not force the people of Iuolus to join their empire and had claimed they would probably join the Dragon Empire willingly once they witnessed his glory. Iuolus had taken that as a sign of weakness and attacked the border colonies of the Dragon Empire immediately. To show that they still were not afraid of the so called god Altjira, they had his emissary tortured before sending his head back to him on a pike.

The Iuolus Empire knew this would mean war with the Empire of the Dragon, but they were not afraid. Their armies had managed to strike fear into even the giant herbivores that plagues the lands and they were not about to be intimidated by some superstitious peoples and their pet lizards. They had already gathered an army of over 250,000 soldiers to crush the Dragon empire and bring it to its knees. The thought that such a huge force could be defeated never even crossed their minds.

Iuolus had been expecting to meet some resistance shortly after they began marching. There was no way they would have been able to keep such a force a secret and if the Empire of the Dragon really did have the force to meet them there were only but so many places where they would choose to do so. They never encountered that resistance and they were surprised to see the few small villages that they had encountered so far had been evacuated. Not even their pet lizards remained. After a couple of days they just assumed that the people of the Dragon Empire had chosen to back down. Iuolus thought they had already won the war.

Things changed drastically early into the third day of their march. It was hard for them to tell that anything was out of the ordinary at first. A quarter million people on the march could generate a good deal of noise. They had to feel the ground quaking beneath them before they could tell something was wrong. The commanders of their army brought their forces to a halt. It was then that they could hear as well as feel something very large approaching them. The ground quaked violently as it neared them and the thudding of something very heavy impacting the ground could be heard in the distance.

Whatever was coming was hard for the army to see. They were in a wide open field, but the area just ahead of them was heavily forested. The army of Iuolus wondered if the Dragon Empire had finally planned to meet them in battle. But, the sound just was not right for an opposing army. It sounded like something was crashing through the forest, snapping trees as if they were twigs. And then they received their first sight of something that left them all chilled down to the very marrow of their bones.

They saw what none of them had never expected to see. Towering over the forest was a giant reptile, over 1,000-feet in length. It was waving its head side to side as its 100-foot long tongue flicked out of its mouth. The creature had the cold reptilian face that all of its kind did, but even then there was something about the look on its face that indicated anger and extreme displeasure. There was no doubt that the giant beast resembled the gods that the people of the Dragon Empire claimed to worship. They hoped that it was just some beast that was passing by that would show no interest in them, that it was impossible for mere men to tame such a beast. However, when they looked hard, they could see a tiny figure riding atop the lizard's head that looked like nothing more than a bump on its scales. They knew that "bump" was one of the priests of the Dragon Empire which were known for riding around on the lizards they claimed to speak for.

The soldiers of Iuolus were starting to realize that mere humans could not possibly control something like what they were seeing. For the first time many of them were willing to admit that they just might be in the presence of a god. If they had seen something like this when they had first encountered the Empire of the Dragon they really might have bowed down and worshiped it. Now, something was telling them that they had angered this giant beast and sending it its emissary's head was a huge mistake.

After looking over the army of Iuolus a deep rumbling and hissing started to come from the titanic reptile. Its voice alone seemed to be able the shake the earth. They could tell they were being spoken to and the voice was laced with anger. The army of Iuolus, the largest one this part of the world had seen since before anyone could remember, was frightened for its survival before any fighting had even begun.

When the lizard god had finished talking its priest walked to the front of its snout and translated, "The great god Altjira is angered with the actions committed by the Iuolus Empire against his people. If you had accepted the offer given to you when our peoples first met Altjira would have allowed you to join in our glorious empire which spans the world and he would have taken in your souls to allow you to reach paradise. Altjira had planned on wiping your people from the face of the Earth. Your great monuments and cities would have been crushed under his mighty feet and all your people would have become nothing more than excrement to fertilize our fields. But, I pleaded for Altjira to show your people some mercy and, in his infinite capacity for forgiveness, he accepted my offer. Instead, Altjira has demanded the sacrifice of this army to appease his anger. It is unfortunate, while your flesh will be added to his own, your souls will be shat out with the rest of the waste and they will never reach paradise because of that. But, you brought this on yourselves and you should rejoice that your sacrifice will save the rest of your people."

The army of Iuolus had waited in utter silence for the priest to finish translating. While they did not quite understand the religious aspects of everything that was told to them, they did understand the part about sacrifice. It was not something that they wanted to have any part of. The first thought that anyone in the army had was to retreat from the giant reptile. Something strange happened when they tried to do so, though. They encountered a wall of air that blew them back and would not let them pass. The works of a god were definitely happening, but the army of Iuolus were not ready to jump into the giant lizard's mouth just yet.

They turned around to try and face Altjira in battle. If they had driven back the herbivores they thought there might be a glimmer of hope that they could do the same to the lizard god. Those herbivores had only been a fraction of Altjira's size, though, and chances were that he could have made a snack out of even the most dangerous of herds of herbivores. And the way Altjira seemed to chortle at the thought of mere humans challenging him did not instill any confidence in the army of Iuolus.

The army of Iuolus tried to form up and prepare to defend against Altjira as best they could as the god walked casually towards them. Spears were brought to bear and bows were readied as they prepared for the giant reptiles attack. Everyone was nervous as they prepared for Altjira to attack. The soldiers in the army were struggling to keep themselves from throwing down their weapons and fleeing before the enormous god beast. Only the knowledge that Altjira already had them trapped like rats within his wind barrier kept them from fleeing in terror.

As Altjira approached their ranks he actually did not attack. He did not really need to attack. All he had to do was keep walking. The giant paws of Altjira came down on the soldiers of Iuolus without a care. Those soldiers under the paw tried to use their spears to stab into the god's paw, but their wooden spears were no match for the thick leathery soles of Altjira's paws. Spears snapped like twigs and the soldiers holding them were about to meet a similar fate. As the full weight of the huge lizard came down on them their bones were shattered and the rest of their bodies were reduced to pulp. The sickening crunch of dozens of bodies being crushed all at once echoed through the air and little bits of gore squirted out from under his mammoth paw to cover those standing around the paw.

This would be an act that would be repeated many times as Altjira waded through the tightly packed ranks of soldiers. Any attempt to stop those paws met with utter failure and arrows bounced just as harmlessly off his thick hide. They realized that it was a demonstration that Altjira was putting on for them. The god wanted them to be sure that what was going on was not a fight. He was so far beyond insignificant little humans that he did not even need to fight them in order to defeat one of their armies. All he had to do was take a casual stroll through them.

The army of Iuolus realized that they were packed together so tightly that they were making themselves easy to step on. It was not long after that realization that they began to scatter to any other open spaces within the barrier that Altjira had erected. All discipline within the ranks was lost and the army became nothing more than frightened prey fleeing before an almighty predator.

After that happened, Altjira changed his behavior as well. He stopped simply walking all over the army to dipping his head down and scoping up the tiny treats that were all around him. The sight of the cavernous pink fleshy maw rushing at them was enough to reduce most to little more than cowering pieces of flesh ready to be swallowed. Altjira barely wasted any time tasting his sacrifices before swallowing them dozens at a time. Sometimes it was not even necessary for Altjira to scoop people up in his jaws. Even though it was not how Komodo dragons normally caught prey, he had found that it was easily possible for him to flick out his tongue and expect things as small as humans to stick to the saliva coating it. Altjira found it rather amusing to catch humans in such a fashion and with so many humans running around he found he could catch at least a dozen of them with each flick of his tongue.

As the now scattered army of Iuolus tried to find a way out of the trap Altjira had set for them they were either trampled under his paw or made a part of his meal. Even the casual wave of the god's long and monstrously heavy tail was obliterating any seemingly fragile human that it came in contact with. Occasionally, small groups would attempt to resist Altjira's feast, but he rarely ever noticed such efforts and when he did it only angered him. Challenging him for dominance was not something that he would have tolerated from even his beloved pet priest.

Altjira normally just crushed any resistance under his paws, but after one group he felt he had finally had enough. It was time to show these humans who the dominant male was on this continent. The reptile god hovered over one of the groups trying to fight him, letting little arrows bounce harmlessly off his hide. That group did not know what was happening as the countless tons of flesh that made up Altjira's body simply paused over them, eclipsing the sun as it did so. There was a slit in the reptiles body that they did not know what was for until it was far too late.

Without warning, a huge pink shaft emerged from that slit and fell to the ground. The group only had enough time to realize that a massive cock, larger than any of their homes, was falling directly atop them. It landed with a thunder like crack against the ground. Altjira smiled to himself as he felt the tiny bodies of the resistance group pop beneath the sensitive flesh of his member. It was an arousing sensation and Altjira let the scent waft through the air with a little help through his control of the wind. Like all humans, the people of Iuolus found the scent of his arousal irresistible. Despite trying to resist, they could not help but start gathering to his member. As they did so Altjira would grind his member against the ground. Anyone that strayed too close to the rock hard piece of flesh would get plowed under by the mammoth cock and get reduced to nothing more than little red smears.

Altjira delighted in his ability to dominate the minds of those that opposed him in such a fashion. He had something else in store for them as his level of arousal continued to rise. The tiny humans around the member of the giant lizard could see it throbbing ominously. It was generating an increasingly oppressive amount of heat and the musky odor that held them captive to the cock just kept getting more intense. They knew what was coming, but try as they might, they could not run away.

When Altjira climaxed an almost unbelievable amount of cum shot forth from his member. Many people directly in the path of that wave of seed had their bodies shattered. A few of them were just washed away with the gallons upon gallons of Komodo dragon seed. And that was just the first shot of cum to come out of Altjira. He had many more waves left ready to burst out of him. By the time he was finished there were hundreds of people left drowning in his thick creamy cum. Only a few were able to make it out of that cum, where they were promptly lapped up by Altjira, who rather liked the way the cream coating made the humans taste.

With that little demonstration out of the way, Altjira continued on with his feast. Even for a creature of his size it still took a while to devour or stomp a quarter million humans. As the numbers were whittled down the surviving soldiers hoped that the god would not notice their presence. Unfortunately, Altjira's keen senses were more than sufficient enough to pick out every surviving human in the area. He had declared that all 250,000 soldiers were to be a sacrifice and he meant it. A few of them did try pleading for mercy, but only a few. Everyone learned their lesson after watching Altjira swallow those that did plead for mercy.

When Altjira sensed that the last human in the area, besides his priest, was digesting in his belly he finally lowered his wind barrier. The area was a bit of a mess. He had stepped on nearly as many people as he had eaten after all. There had been quite a few people in that army, though, and that made for a very satisfying meal. Feeling all those that had defied him moving around in his belly was very pleasant. And since these people were not his followers, getting digested was not the least bit pleasant for them. That pleased Altjira immensely and really did make him feel more merciful than he had been before. A full belly always managed to put him in a good mood.

The people of the Iuolus Empire were lucky for that. Altjira had not come alone. He had come with his own armies, a small portion of them at least. With the rest of the resources of the continent at his disposal he had assembled an army twice the size that Iuolus had without any trouble at all. Now, with the army of the Iuolus Empire crushed under his paws or digesting in his belly, the army of Altjira could operate with impunity in Iuolus. It would not take long to bring the final part of this continent under his rule and any resistance that did manifest could probably be put down easily enough with an appearance by himself or some of the younger Komodos he planned to divide these lands between. If all went well, Iuolus would be completely under his control before Cronus and Rhea showed up on their tour of their empire. And if it was not, well, that would be more of a problem for the people of Iuolus than for him. Cronus and Rhea would be hungry after their trip and a few defiant humans might be just what they were looking for.

An Incident

It had been a while since the Empire of the Dragon had come to rule the two continents bordering the one where humanity had been exterminated. In celebration of Cronus' upcoming nine-hundredth birthday colonization efforts were finally getting underway. The entire continent would be going to the second place winner in the challenge contest for the position of Cronus' successor. It was rumored that Cronus himself had said he only had about 100 years of life left in him, but that was hard for any human to believe. Their gods had said they did grow old and die, but entire generations of humans had come and gone while the gods remained constant.

Even if the humans were not quite sure if the gods really would die, the contest that had been held for Cronus' successor was said to have been a sight to behold. The lesser gods that had taken part in the tournament may not have been as grand as the gods or the high gods, but they were very clever in the use of their powers and incredibly impressive fighters. In the end, the winner of the tournament was acknowledged as the successor of Cronus while the five under him would be made into gods that would inherit the realms of the others gods when they eventually died off.

The offspring of Cronus were said to be the most impressive. Half of the winners of the challenge were his offspring. The other three were all the offspring of the other gods. Cronus had tried to be fair and let the offspring of all the lesser gods and gods participate in the challenge. It just appeared that the offspring of the gods and the high gods were of a superior breed.

The second place winner was the lucky one, though, since he would be receiving his land right away. That god had already reached his full size as a lesser god, which made him well over 1,000-feet long at the moment and now he would be able to double that size over time. The new colonists were looking forward to meeting the new god that would be ruling over their continent and they planned on having at least a few villages built up by the time he arrived.

Of course, getting ahead of their gods could be a little dangerous. There were still plenty of dangerous herbivores around, but the settlers thought they had come armed well enough to deal with any threats they might encounter. They would soon discover just how bad an assumption that was to make. Not even a week after reaching what they had thought was a good location to set up a village they heard something thudding through the dense jungle that made up this part of the continent.

It sounded a bit large for even the largest of herbivores. Those were never more than 40-feet tall at the shoulders. What was coming toward them was too small to be a full grown lesser god too. They thought it had to be one of the younger lesser gods, but they had not heard of any headed their way. The sound was also coming from the wrong direction. Any of the lesser gods headed their way should have been coming from the opposite direction. It sounded like what was coming at them was coming from deeper within the unsettled continent. That made the people present a little nervous, but they were certain that nothing as large as what they heard could be anything but one of their gods.

Then, to their horror, an herbivore emerged from the densely wooded area. It was a white horse, more than three times the size of any herbivore they had ever heard of. There was hatred in the horse's eyes and it was snorting in derision at the sight of the humans. The people knew what to do in the event of an herbivore attack, but they were not prepared for this horse. They found that their weapons shattered against the hide of this horse just as easily as they would if used against one of their gods.

The horse snorted in derision once more before galloping into the small group of villagers. It stomped people into the ground with merciless glee. The horse's heavy hooves were soon coated in the gore of its helpless victims. It had been a long time since the villagers had felt so helpless before an herbivore. They regretted leaving behind the safety of their gods, for now it seemed like they had come upon a demon. That view was further reinforced when the horse actually bent its long powerful neck down in order to snap up a couple of villagers. Herbivores were known to bite, but they had never seen a horse swallow someone like this horse did.

The horse actually swallowed more people than it stomped. They at least expected the horse to chew them up, but like their gods, the horse seemed to like swallowing them whole. The horse's throat was not as flexible as a Komodo dragons was and that prevented him from swallowing as many people at once, but he was still able to swallow them in twos or threes easily enough. Once in the horse's belly it was not a very pleasant place. While the Komodo dragons had sought to make the process of digestion as pleasant as possible, the horse had sought to make it as hellish as possible. The horse, as well as the rest of his kind, had made it so that humans could survive as long as possible in their digestive system and made sure the humans would stay conscious for so long as they still lived.

When the horse was done devouring all of the villagers he sat down to enjoy the digestive process. He could feel the tiny humans in his stomach pounding against his belly and he could hear them begging to be set free. The horse delighted in every second of that. Over the course of a day their struggles grew weaker, but still were not dead when they moved out of his stomach. Death did not come until they had traveled through a good portion of his intestines. The horse liked the thought of how the last things they must have smelled where their own rotting bodies getting mixed in with whatever indigestible matter he had eaten earlier. Just to add insult to injury, when the horse was finished digesting the humans, he defecated on the remains of their village, letting their own remains pollute the village they had set up. Then the horse trotted back from whence he came to let the rest of his kind know that he had found more humans.

The Conflict

It had only been a few months since that first village had encountered that unusually large horse. The gods on the two continents bordering with the one that seemed to be populated by these horses that the humans were already calling demons had been able to deal with the first few incursions by the horses onto their territory, but one day an exceptionally large horse had made an appearance. It was a mare that by all reports made even the Komodo dragon gods look small. The rest of her kind, though larger than normal, were still only about the size of the lesser gods at best. It had been found out that she was the mother of their kind and that she had probably eaten a member of the Collective. She was able to drive back the gods on the continents bordering her own and the lesser gods were no match for her and her multitude of offspring at the same time.

To many it seemed inconceivable that there was an actual threat to the Empire of the Dragon that Cronus and Rhea would need to be called on to defend against. Cronus and Rhea did not think that. They had been aware of how quickly the humans had disappeared on that one troublesome continent and they had always thought something powerful could have been behind that. Cronus just wished that they had gotten around to actually dealing with the threat earlier in their lives. After 900 years of living he had been looking forward to that last century of his life being nice and peaceful. Now he was going to have to deal with some uppity herbivores with overinflated opinions of themselves that thought they could terrorize his worshipers.

Cronus had never seen his worshipers so frightened either. He had already arrived on the continent that the demon horse, now known as Chia, had chosen to concentrate her attacks on. Along with himself and Rhea, he had also gathered the rest of the gods and a great host of lesser gods. Just about all of the gods and lesser gods had been ridden into battle by humans in their younger days, as had Cronus, while on missions of conquest. It was the first time they would have to put that experience to good use in a very long time.

Streams of refugees were fleeing towards the army of gods that Cronus had assembled. They could not hope to stand up to the horses and they had despaired that anything could hold back the great herds of demons that had descended on their lands. Seeing the army that Cronus had assembled, especially Cronus himself, was enough to change their minds. Even the smallest of the lesser gods was well over 1,000-feet in length while Cronus himself was more than three times as long as any structure humans had ever built was tall, even before the Collective wrecked their civilization. The very Earth seemed to quake in fear with so many titans treading upon it.

To the humans fleeing the demons it was a heartening sight. Since they were utterly useless in battle against the horses, they offered themselves up as a meal. It was a rather nice way to deal with what would have been a refugee problem for the rest of the Dragon Empire. There would be no one crowding into cities that were too small to deal with all the people and Cronus and his minions would be able to eat while on the march. With so many titanic reptiles it was exceedingly rare that any refugees were left not in the belly of one of them by the time they passed.

Cronus was pleased that he did not have to force his army to forge for food on the way to its destination. It would have been a huge waste of time and with this many Komodo dragons of this size present there was a very real possibility they could have depopulated the area for the horses. With the stream of refugees providing a constant food source, things were moving along quickly. It only took a couple of days to reach the most advanced parts of the horse herds. They were relatively small in numbers and not very organized. Cronus had made sure that the rest of his race did not show that they were capable of organizing in large numbers. Because of that, the horses had only encountered mated pairs of Komodos, not an entire army of them. They were used to having the numbers advantage.

When Cronus' minions fell upon those advanced parts of the herds they attacked quickly and did not give them any chance of escape. One on one, the lesser gods and the horses were about equal, but with the numbers advantage that Cronus' army gave them, plus the practice they had in actual combat working as an organized team, those first groups of horses did not stand much of a chance. Cronus' army was even able to save a few villages that had yet to be stomped into oblivion. But, what they normally encountered were villages that had all the buildings stomped in and had piles of horse excrement in the center of the village.

It was very angering for all the Komodo dragons to see such things for various reasons. For one thing, the Komodo dragons had come to view the humans as their exclusive prey. To have an herbivore taking their humans from them was an unforgivable offense. Then there was the way the horses seemed to be determined to wipe out the humans, and any predators on their land as well. The Komodos did not care as much about the other predators, but wiping out a good prey species seemed like such a horrible waste. And despoiling their former villages seemed like a deliberate insult.

Those horses had even gone so far as to make their flesh taste terrible to anything that would try to eat them. Even after the Komodos managed to kill the horses that were terrorizing their lands all they could do was leave the corpses there to rot. This was not nearly as fun as conquering all the humans had been. At least you could eat them and have your way with them, thought many of the Komodos in the army Cronus had assembled. Killing off the small groups of horses really was proving to be more of a tedious thing for them. With all of the gods and the high gods backing up the army there really was not much the horses could do to fight back.

It would take close to a month before the horses could realize they were getting picked off in small numbers and another two months for them all to come together to form one massive herd to fight back against the Komodo dragons. This was what Cronus had thought would happen eventually. Still, he had been hoping he would stumble upon Chia before all the herds came together. Chances were that she would not be easy to handle even all on her own. With the rest of her herd backing her up things would be much more difficult.

The sight of Chia's herd would have been impressive to any human. It was nearly twice the size of Cronus' own army and all of those horses would have made humans look like bugs. Even if those horses did not have the same enhanced protection that the Komodo dragons did they would have been unassailable to humans. They were simply too large for humans to expect to harm with simple wooden spears. To many of the Komodo dragons the herd was not all that impressive. Their bodies were already built to take down prey larger than themselves if need be and, besides Chia, all of the horses were the same size the lesser gods were. They also really were just a herd while the Komodo dragons were an actual army.

The most impressive thing about Chia's herd was Chia herself. The colossal mare was even larger than Cronus was. She had to have at least a quarter extra mass on her than Cronus did, but he did not find that intimidating at all. His kind was used to larger prey after all. Still, her larger size probably indicated that she had more power than Cronus did when it came to their Collective abilities. He would have to see which one of them was more clever with the use of those powers.

Chia approached the front of her herd before anyone could start an attack and stated, "So, I see the pathetic predator leader has finally decided to make an appearance. That is good. Now I can crush your spine beneath my hooves and scatter your pack to the ends of the Earth. Then my herd will spread out across your so called empire and put an end to those vile humans you seem to have taken such a liking to once and for all."

Cronus was happy he had eaten so many of the refugees on the way here. If he had not absorbed their memories of the horses attacking their villages and taunting the humans as they did so he would not have been able to translate the horse's language by now. He did not know if the horses knew his language yet, but he decided to respond anyways.

"That is a bold statement for you to make horse," said Cronus. "You attack our worshipers, defile our lands, and dare to threaten to wipe us out. Your kind is nothing more than an abomination, too stupid to see that most of your actions are guided by alterations to your mind made by a race of petty arrogant blobs. Even with all the power that has been given you all you are is a frightened herd beast. We will be doing this world just as big a favor in getting rid of you was we did when we devoured the Collective."

By the way Chia looked increasingly angry as he spoke, Cronus assumed she could understand him. Seeing her nostrils flare and listening to her snort was amusing for Cronus. But, things did feel a little out of place without his pet with him. After making a little speech like that it felt like he should have someone translating it for him. Like all the Komodo dragons here, Cronus had been forced to leave his pet behind. This simply was not a battle for humans to be present for. There was going to be a lot of power flying around and the god lizards were not going to be able to defend themselves and their pets at the same time.

With the speeches over, it was time for the battle to begin. Cronus and Chia gave the commands for their minions to attack. Within seconds the ground was shaking so violently that if a human were present it would have felt like the Earth were about to come apart. Countless tons of flesh rushed towards each other and godly powers were put to lethal use. Cronus and Rhea concentrated on attacking Chia while the gods assisted the lesser gods in attacking the rest of her herd.

Cronus was not trying to impress anyone like he had in the battle to win himself a mate and the loyalty of the rest of his kind. This time he used the most effective powers available to him rather than just the flashiest. Most humans would not have been able to see or perceive what was going on besides the physical blows that were being traded. Hard scaly tails would smash against thick leathery hides with enough force to shatter bones as thick as a humans home, often times thicker. Sharp hooves would come down on lizard bodies that should have been tougher than diamonds and still managed to draw blood. Both sides were snapping and biting at whatever parts of the body the other side would present.

Cronus could see that the horses had been practicing the use of their powers just as much as he made his kind practice their own. There would be no using his powers to knock out large portions of the horses at a time like he had done so long ago when starting out his empire. Casualties were being inflicted on his army, but with the assistance of the gods, the Komodo dragons were killing two horses for every one of their own that was killed. Those numbers were far too even as far as Cronus was concerned. If Chia could manage to beat himself and Rhea, the demon horse could very well turn the tide of battle against his army.

Cronus, Rhea, and Chia were probing at each other. The slightest hint of a weakness could trigger an attack. Sometimes there would be little sign of an attack, and at other times the effects were much more visible. The times those effects were visible were not good for any of the smaller creatures that populated the area. Neither the Komodo dragons nor the horses were paying much attention to the jungle that they were fighting in. There battle was literally altering the landscape. Trees that had stood for centuries were snapped like twigs, smaller animals were crushed without ever being noticed, and missed godly attacks could leave swaths of land wiped clean of life.

Eventually, Chia was the one of tired of just probing. The supreme horse demon charged right at Cronus, intent on stomping him out of existence. Cronus knew better than to take a charge full on from her and sidestepped out of the way. The mare had been anticipating something like that and did not go flying right past Cronus as he had hoped she would. Instead, she managed to time her stop perfectly, and only slightly passed Cronus. From her position she was able to deliver a solid kick with both of her hind legs to the rib cage of Cronus. He felt a couple of his ribs crack with that kick, but they did not quite break.

The reptile high god ignored the pain from the blow and concentrated on fighting back. Before Chia's hooves had the chance to touch the ground again Cronus bit into her lower leg. She tried to yank the leg out of his mouth, but Cronus would not let go. He could taste her foul blood in his mouth as it felt like the horse was trying to yank his head from his body.

The mare should not have been concentrating so hard on Cronus alone, for Rhea rushed in and chomped down on Chia's other leg. While Cronus and Rhea did not enjoy the taste of the horse, Chia definitely enjoyed having two giant reptiles biting down on her legs even less. Eventually, the larger horse was able to dislodge Cronus and Rhea from her with all of her kicking and yanking, but the damage had already been done. She was limping on the legs that the high gods had bitten and she definitely would not be moving as quickly as she had before.

Chia switched tactics and tried to hammer at both Cronus and Rhea with every ounce of power she had inherited from the Collective. Between the two of them, they were able to deflect most of her attacks, but one long gash along Rhea's flank showed that they were not entirely successful. The gash was deep and Rhea was losing blood fast. It would not be long before she started to weaken, which would be a very bad thing for Cronus. Fending off Chia's attacks was taking their combined efforts. Chia was aware of that to and the mare seemed to snort in pleasure. She thought she had won.

The demon mare kept her distance then, using her powers against the Komodos, waiting for the time when Rhea would be too weak to help fend her off. Cronus tried to get in close enough for more physical attacks, but the horse kept running off. Even with her injured legs it was hard for Cronus to keep up with her. As Rhea weakened, Chia sensed victory.

Then, on what had become a standard retreat from Cronus, Chia felt suddenly dizzy and stumbled. The mare tripped over herself and fell to the ground, crushing one of her own demons as she did so. Chia tried to stand up, but her body was feeling sluggish. Cronus did not give her time to recover, rushing over to the fallen horse and slamming his thick whip like tail into her side. Each time she tried to stand he would hit her again and again and again. Even though she was the larger creature, the blows still did their damage.

"What h-happened to m-m-me," Chia stuttered.

"Stupid horse, you were greedy is what happened," Cronus stated derisively. "You should have shared more of your power with your offspring and their offspring. They would have been able to assist you more like my kind assisted me."

Chia looked at Cronus with hate filled eyes and said, "What are y-you talking ab-about?"

"My bite, or at least my mate's bite is what I am talking about," a triumphant Cronus said.

"You are talking about y-your bacteria. I-I know all about th-that. I defended my-myself against it," the mare said as if disbelieving that the Komodo dragons could penetrate her defenses.

"I'm sure you did," a smug Cronus said, "But you had to constantly use your powers to fend off the lethality of my bite while I used my powers to enhance the lethality of my bite. I'm sure you were concentrating on fending off the bacteria in my bite more than my mate's too. You assumed I would be like you, and use all of the power I had available to me to enhance my own powers. Instead, I actually lent my mate some of my power and I used some of the power from those who hold the rank of god to assist her as well. While you concentrated on defending against my bite, it was my mate that delivered the truly fatal bite."

Chia was extremely weakened by this point, but she could still crane her neck to take a look at the leg that Rhea had bitten. It was already horribly swollen while the leg that Cronus had bitten was only slightly swollen. The bacteria from the Komodo dragons should not have affected her that quickly, but in her weakened state Cronus was using his own powers to hasten the effects. She tried to defend herself, but she could no longer muster the strength or energy to do so.

"Y-you basta-," Chia said as Cronus cut her off by lunging at her throat. The mare let out a terrible cry that was quickly cut off as the lizard high god ripped her throat out. He spit the foul tasting flesh back to the ground and let her bleed out. All the other horses looked on in utter horror as the mother of their race died before their eyes. Cronus thought about letting out a triumphant roar, but there were still things to be done. With Chia dying, he concentrating on helping his race win the day over the rest of the horses. By the time Chia's heart beat its last beat, the herd was in full retreat with many of Cronus' army in hot pursuit. They did not plan on letting the herd grow to be a threat to them ever again.

With the herd on the run and Chia dead, Cronus' part in the battle was done. He needed to tend to his mate and he wanted to get back home. He really was missing his pet. But, before he left, he ordered that Chia's remains were to be left untouched. When there was nothing left of her but bones he wanted those bleached bones to remain as a testament to the power of his kind. And that was the way it would be for long after even Cronus was gone.

The site of the battle would become a bit of a holy place to humanity. Scores of people would visit the site every year to see those massive bones and marvel at the power of their gods for being able to slay such a great demon. It would also make them very happy that they had the protection of such gods in the event that such a demon should ever appear again, for no human Empire, no matter how mighty, could ever hope to stand against such a behemoth.

Prologue

Cronus' return home was a much celebrated affaire, as was the return of the other gods and lesser gods to their homes. With the way his human followers fretted over the injuries of his mate, even he was touched somewhere deep down in what his followers might call a soul. For the first time he thought they really might have been worth defending as something more than an exceptionally good prey species. He tried to think of a way to celebrate his victory over the demons that they would enjoy as much as he would and only one answer came to mind. There would be a new feast, a weeklong feast and orgy that the entire empire would take part in.

The people were overjoyed by that pronouncement. It was not often that so many people would get the opportunity to become a part of the reptiles that they so lovingly worshiped in such a short period of time. Of course, feasting on humans for an entire week would surely put a dent in their population, but without any demons or external threats left, Cronus was sure they would breed fast enough. Yes, this was something that he and all of his followers would enjoy very much.