Minecraft Universe, Blocky Planet
The ground was divided into perfect squares. Trees grew in cubic segments, defying natural law. Even the clouds drifted by in rectangular chunks against a sky that seemed too structured.
The Primal Zerg's eyes were tightly closed as memories imprinted themselves even more deeply into his mind. Words formed meaning. Concepts aligned. The world gained names, context, understanding.
Adrian.
Not his name - the prey's name - but with it came fragments of human thought. Of awareness beyond pure instinct.
The creature shook his head, but that only worsened his disorientation. The dimensional node pulsed at the base of his skull, sending sharp jolts down his spine.
The air felt wrong. Too rigid, following rules rather than natural flow. His claws scraped against dirt blocks, testing their substance. Each block remained perfectly cubic until broken, at which point it would shrink into a smaller floating version of itself. The human memories explained this was normal here, though his instincts refined through numerous hunts on Zerus screamed otherwise.
His body struggled to adjust to the world's rigid physics. Scales contracted painfully, trying to align with the cubic environment. The spines he had claimed from his last kill shifted uncomfortably under his hide, refusing to settle properly with this world's rules.
Nausea caused him to shudder as his body began to destabilize. The recent adaptations wavered, threatening to collapse.
He needed shelter. Needed time to rest.
His head snapped up. He quickly spotted a cave mouth in a nearby hill. The shadows inside registered as a light level low enough for danger, but he had little choice.
Each movement felt wrong as he forced himself toward the cave. His body fought against the world's rigid rules, but claws kept slipping on surfaces that should provide grip, and muscles worked harder than they should to cover simple distances.
The human memories warned that darkness meant danger, but his body needed time to adjust or it would tear itself apart.
The cave mouth was a perfect three-by-three arrangement of block spaces.
Inside, the light level dropped steadily until he could guess it reached seven, then six, then five. At these levels, he knew hostile creatures could spawn. The sound that came from deeper inside made his scales bristle - the rattle of bones against bones.
Through the darkness came a skeleton, its cubic skull turning as it felt his presence. It raised a bow.
The skeleton moved in a straight line for some reason, not deviating from its path at all. It quickly released an arrow, and it whistled through the air towards him. The Primal Zerg tried to dodge, but his body moved wrong, fighting against the cubic space.
The arrow struck his shoulder, embedding between scales. He hissed, but was more concerned how his flesh seemed to resist regenerating properly in this blocky world.
No choice.
He needed to adapt.
The skeleton drew another arrow, bones clicking as it maintained perfect distance. The Primal Zerg launched forward, his awkward movement actually working in his favor as the next arrow flew over his flailing body. His claws killed the skeleton in two hits.
Small floating bones hovered above the ground, and he quickly ate them up. His enhanced digestive system processed the traces of material, breaking down and analyzing what little Essence remained in the bones.
It was just enough to understand how matter existed here.
His body began to change, scales shifting painfully as edges became more defined. Muscles realigned, not fully cubic but adapted to move in right angles when needed. The transformation hurt, but when it finished, the world felt less wrong. He could feel how to interact with blocks properly now, how to move through space that operated on fixed rules rather than organic flow. The arrow wound in his shoulder began healing correctly, his flesh now compatible with this dimension's physics.
He wasn't fully creature of this world - his form remained largely natural - but he had adapted enough to survive here.
Now he needed to find proper shelter before night fell and more monsters spawned in the growing darkness...
With his body partially adapted to the cubic world, movement became more efficient. His claws found proper purchase between blocks as he explored deeper into the cave, seeking defensible space.
He measured light levels instinctively now. Level 7 meant safety. Anything lower would spawn threats.
A zombie shambled from where the light dropped to level 3. The Primal Zerg clawed at its flesh, and the zombie disappeared with a flash of red, leaving behind rotten flesh that he quickly consumed and determined to contain no useful essence.
More groans came from the cave's depths.
The cave system was too dark, too open to monster spawning. He needed somewhere else. Backing out of the cave, he looked at the biome carefully. The sun was falling in perfect increments across the sky.
Night would arrive suddenly, not gradually, and with it monsters would appear anywhere dark enough.
The nearest mountain rose in clear block segments. His adapted claws could break those blocks now, create shelter rather than just find it.
He ran rapidly across the cubic grass, each step matching the grid-like nature of the ground. A sheep wandered nearby, but food could wait.
Shelter came first.
Halfway up the mountain face, he began carving into the stone blocks. Each block broke in exactly eight hits from his claws, shrinking into a smaller version that he could collect against his scales. The process was easy now that he understood the rules - dig three blocks in, two blocks up, creating a space just large enough to defend.
Thunder cracked overhead in sharp booms.
Rain began falling in perfectly straight lines, each droplet following the same path. He worked faster, breaking and placing blocks. The entrance was deliberately small - one block high, one block wide. Most hostile mobs wouldn't be able to fit through, except baby zombies.
But he could deal with those just fine, couldn't he?
The moment night fell, he put the final blocks in place.
The den was basic but secure: three blocks deep, two blocks high, two blocks wide. A single block gap in the ceiling provided ventilation.
From his den, he watched the monsters appear. They didn't spawn gradually or walk in from elsewhere…
No. Instead they simply popped into existence wherever light levels dropped to 7 or below.
Skeletons took up positions. Zombies began their gridlike patrols. Spiders spawned behind trees. And there, in the distance, the distinct hiss of creepers. Their cube-shaped heads swayed as they moved.
None of them could reach his position easily, because the mountain face was too steep for their simple intellect to navigate.
The night should pass in exactly ten minutes of real time.
Rain struck the mountain in perfect vertical lines. Each droplet followed an exact path downward, but no water collected on the ground. Three zombies wandered in straight lines twelve blocks below. A skeleton positioned itself twenty-three blocks away, bow ready but unable to calculate a firing solution to his elevated position. A spider attempted to climb the cliff face but slid down when it encountered an overhang, clearly unable to cope with the obstacle.
The skeleton essence he had consumed earlier had finally finished integrating into his system.
His body settled further into this world's rules. Muscles and tendons aligned to move in exact increments. His claws adapted to break blocks in precisely eight strikes. Even his eyes became squares.
Through the small ventilation hole, he studied the mountain's composition. The vast majority consisted of stone blocks, but he could spot veins of coal blocks as well. Deeper in, iron ore sparkled. The human memories suggested these resources held value, but gathering them would require proper tools.
His defensive position proved perfect, because no mobs disturbed him during the short night.
When morning arrived, it came instantly. Zombies and skeletons burst into flames under the square sun, dropping items that vanished after exactly five minutes, while the creeper had wandered away. The rain stopped as suddenly as it had started, the sky clearing in a single tick of time.
Hunger soon drove him from his shelter.
There was a group of sheep grazing eight blocks away. They moved in the same manner as everything he had encountered thus far.
Turning at exact angles, completely unaware of the predator above them.
The hunt was trivial. He dropped from the high ground, landing on the largest sheep. His claws struck its head, and the sheep vanished in a puff of red particles. Raw mutton and wool remained floating above the ground, rotating slowly.
The other sheep showed no reaction.
A strange sound drew his attention. "Moo." The noise came from a cubic cow nearby. The creature stared at him with blank eyes. The cow's behavior pattern was simple - walk forward until blocked, turn, repeat.
And when he approached, it didn't flee. It simply continued its basic routine.
He clawed at it, the cow disappearing like the sheep. The floating meat and leather vanished into his gullet. Each bite made the forcibly integrated human memories clearer.
After a moment of just staring at his own claws, he looked around and spotted a cave entrance that gaped in the mountainside.
The dimensional node at the base of his skull tingled, suggesting materials for attunement might be below the ground. His new memories warned of danger underground, but also spoke of valuable ores.
The cave mouth led to a twisting tunnel system that descended at sharp angles. Torches would make this safer, the memories suggested, but he had no way to craft them yet. The darkness was no challenge to his night vision. Coal ore dotted the walls, along with specs of iron ore. The tunnels branched and split, some leading deeper underground. Water dripped from the ceiling in single-block sources that spread across the floor.
A red glow caught his attention.
Redstone ore.
His eyes glowed a subtle blue. This material could help attune him to this world, he knew this…
He moved toward it, but stopped at the sound of bones clicking against stone.
Three skeletons walked out from an adjoining tunnel, bows raised. The first arrow bounced off his scales. He spun, tail sweeping two skeletons off their feet. The third kept firing as he pounced, crushing its skull between his jaws.
The bones crumbled into items.
The remaining skeletons stood no chance. A few strikes of his claws reduced them to floating bone meal and arrows. But the sound of combat had drawn attention.
A loud hiss approached from behind.
The creeper never got close enough to detonate. His spines pierced its head, and the green mob vanished in a puff of gunpowder. Creepers exploded, destroying blocks and creatures alike, didn't they?
He returned to the redstone, breaking the ore with his metal-lined claws. The glowing dust would help attune him to this world.
But he needed more.
He knew that there were other valuable materials deeper underground. His claws flexed against the stone blocks, leaving deep scratches in their surface.