Picking her up as gently as he could, he looked and saw the rift was simply gone. That was a relief, as he didn't want to be anywhere near that monster. As he turned to set off, he saw that half of the heart was on the ground near her. He picked it up for Aster to enjoy later.
As he walked toward the nearest rift with a groggy Aster in his arms, the shakes started. His AI unhelpfully calculated the dragon’s size from the head’s outline and distance from the sun.
The beast's head was somewhere between the size of a standard planet on the low end, and a dozen times larger than that on the upper end.
It was all he could do to keep his feet moving. If that monster came for vengeance, he wouldn't know how he died. Or how an entire planet was eaten along with him.
That brought his attention
