Beautiful and Terrifying Monsters

A terrifying god who had slept beyond the reach of time

was awakened by a presence far too fragile and gentle.

For the first time, the god grew curious about fragile creatures like humans.

It reached out with writhing tendrils and nightmares, cautiously brushing against the human.

The god did not know what it meant to this soft, fragile creature: a madness and terror beyond measure.

Nor, of course, did it know that it also meant temptation, and a willing surrender.

A Banquet of Blossoms at the End of Days - [Modern Supernatural Horror]

[An Outer God with a Cthulhu Mythos mindset and a faint grasp of human nature, gong, and a pollution monitor stranded on an island, shou]

Qiao Chiyu met a strange gentleman.

He had beautiful golden eyes, and was the only traveling companion who spoke kindly to him.

The two promised that even if Qiao Chiyu went to work as a pollution monitor on an island, they would meet again.

But after arriving on the isolated island, Qiao Chiyu felt that everything around him was gradually becoming strange.

Flowers bloomed out of season in lurid splendor, and there were faint signs that someone had tidied the little house.

That night, the sound of a helicopter came from the deserted airstrip.

The guest with golden eyes arrived as promised, bringing all sorts of delicacies and a housekeeper, and invited him to explore the island.

Qiao Chiyu couldn't help falling in love with this strange companion,

even though somewhere deep inside, something was screaming, "Run!"

They were inseparable and intimate, planting a flower bed together, kissing, making love, and playing beneath the starry night sky.

Only when Qiao Chiyu had finished handing over his duties to a colleague, and the two were about to leave the island together,

did he discover that there had never been another "person" on the island.

But a human who has fallen in love with a monster can never return to the world they once knew...

A Banquet of Silver Dragons Mourning the End of Days - [Dark Western Fantasy, Theocracy]

[An evil angel who manifests through a silver dragon statue, gong, and a holy son made the church's scapegoat, shou]

In the Tal Empire, the silver dragon is the embodiment of lust. Only heretics secretly cast statues of silver dragons.

Yet when Qiao, a holy son of the church, was branded an apostate and pushed into the silent valley as the bishop's scapegoat, the little silver dragon statue serving as "evidence" of his guilt was the only thing he could hold in the cold.

By instinct, Qiao prayed to the gods as he always had, hoping to find enough firewood and fruit to make it through winter.

Perhaps his expression was so devout and serene that, in his fading consciousness, he seemed to hear the silver dragon statue give a mocking chuckle.

After that, Qiao really did find a plentiful stack of dead branches and delicious fruit.

But his hallucinations seemed to be growing more and more severe.

Even after curling up in a cave to sleep, he could hear a chilly sound, like scales rubbing together.

And in his dreams, he passionately mated with the silver dragon he both hated most and longed for most.

A Banquet of the Vast Stars Mourning the End of Days - [Interstellar, Higher-Dimensional Nightmare]

[An abyss among the stars that cannot be looked upon, gong, and a meteorite researcher gradually assimilated and consumed, shou]

Among the samples collected by an unmanned mechanical exploration team, Qiao Chiyu discovered a meteorite fragment of a strange hue.

They said the exploration team had brought it back from humanity's original homeworld, and that it bore traces of life from before the great cataclysm.

That night, Qiao Chiyu had a strange dream.

In it, a blurry silhouette with an indistinct face warmly invited him to "come over to my place," repeatedly voicing its longing for him.

The next day, Qiao Chiyu, an expert in meteorite research, received an invitation from the Federation.

They wanted him to join five other scientists aboard the latest model of spacecraft and drift for sixteen months to the homeworld, searching for a way to reverse the pollution.

Qiao Chiyu accepted the well-paid job.

Viruses, cosmic storms, mechanical malfunctions...

The group endured one hardship after another on the way, struggling to approach the star system at their destination.

But Qiao Chiyu, sitting in a hibernation pod,

gradually lost sight of why he had embarked on the journey.

The starry sky beyond the porthole shimmered with color.

He curled up beneath the window, icy snow crystals at his fingertips, his gaze lovestruck as he murmured unconsciously:

"I'm coming to see you soon, my love."

And then he would become one with it, never to be separated again.

-

When a human falls in love with a monster,

it feels less like fear and more like stumbling into a dazzling dream.

Dreams must eventually end,

but true love does not.

-

[Reading Guide]:

1. The gong has a nonhuman way of thinking.

2. A dark, sweet little story, with a nonhuman gong and a pitiful shou.

3. Each story is relatively self-contained and can be read as an episode.

4. Some worlds feature unconventional pregnancy.

5. One-on-one romance, happy ending.

Theme: Never give up your reason, and never give up hope.