I had been consuming stars and celestial bodies for what felt like an eternity.

Galaxies drifted through the void like scattered embers, remnants of cosmic events that had long since played out. Their stars, burning with raw fusion and untamed energy, collapsed into me one after another, fueling my expansion. Each mass consumed strengthened me, reinforcing my event horizon, solidifying my secondary core—the one I had forged to contain what I could not control.

I had grown vast. Larger than many stars. The hunger that defined me had become instinct, a force of nature that pulled everything within reach into my abyss.

Yet, despite all I had consumed, I had never encountered another black hole.

Not once.

It was an odd realization. The universe should have been littered with them—remnants of dying stars, singularities born from destruction. And yet, none had come into my grasp.

Perhaps that entity had placed them too far beyond my reach.

A thought I had.

But then, as I drifted through the abyss, my senses expanding across the endless void, I finally found one.

A black hole.

A giant, slumbering behemoth in the darkness, devouring light and mass in a quiet, relentless hunger. It was vast—perhaps even larger than me by a small margin.

And that made it the perfect test.

I had long since realized that consuming many stars at once gave me an immense surge of energy. But what about a single black hole? Would it offer me something different? Something greater?

This was my chance to find out.

I reached out, expanding my gravitational field, stretching my pull toward the distant singularity. My event horizon trembled, extending beyond its usual reach. The moment my presence touched the distant black hole, the space between us rippled, bending under the combined weight of our gravity.

And then—

I drew it in.

P.S. Author’s Note:

Hey everyone! I’ve been super busy lately and will continue to be for some time, but I’ll try my best to keep the updates coming. Next chapter drops tomorrow!

Also, sorry for the short chapter this time—I’ll make it up sometime in the future when I get a break from all this busyness. Thanks for your patience and support!