After her ascendance at the Katok Monastery, Deputy Yang's plans were put into full force. The selecting of people for mountain 'retreats' took on industrial proportions. It began with Yang's political opponents, then their families, followed by people whose social credit scores were deemed to be in a certain range. High enough to be politically valuable, but low enough to escape attention.

While Karen's people-to-growth ratio had gone down, the solution they reached was the ever-more supply of people. Even if it took a hundred people for her to grow just one centimeter, there were thousands of people being shuttled towards the mountain monastery. Regrettably, however, Karen was growing discontent with the situation. When she had first arrived, it had been glorious to accept the Panchen Lama's self-sacrifice. That first follower had been satisfying as well, and he had not been the only volunteer. At that time, Karen's ambitions seemed to have been achieved.

Once the buses of Yang's opponents began arriving, she relished the numbers. Feeling throngs of them writhing inside of her stomach had been epic. Yet, after a couple of months, it was as if she was being turned from a Goddess into a sanctified dumpster. On Tanna Island, she had enjoyed personal relationships with her sacifices. Those relationships had been short, but they had felt wholesome. Now people were being shrunk smaller than they needed to be, just so that more and more of them could be shoveled down her gullet. Day by day she could no longer keep count of how many were filling her stomach. She knew that this was more about getting rid of people than it was about her deification, and that did not sit well with her. She wanted a change, and she felt the time was about ripe.

* * *

Yang was visiting her again. It had been some time, as his visits had become rarer. She had finished the evening devouring session. She told Yang that she was so full, she couldn't swallow another single person. Yang had joined for dinner, though he had had duck. He also looked a bit bored. Having now seen her swallow hundreds over numerous times, the process did not excite him as much anymore.

"It's too bad I don't have more room, it would have been nice to welcome you inside," she teased.

"Nothing would give me greater pleasure, Goddess," he replied half-heartedly, "but I am necessary to provide you with ever more sustainance. I truly regret that I cannot become your food along with the many others. They are the lucky ones."

She resented his lie. He got off on the idea of it, but he clearly had no intention of actually becoming her food.

He was sitting at a table on a balcony overlooking her throne room. The monastery's interior had been expanded again recently to make space for her growing body. The balcony was at about her face level, specifically so that they could talk directly.

"You're right," she acknowledged. "Thank you for all you do. I would never have become what I am now without your help."

He nodded a 'you're welcome', but did not vocally respond. He was thinking about some business he needed to clear up with his adjudant back in Beijing. He was even on his smartphone reviewing some reports while he did so.

His adjudant had been taking on more and more of the Deputy's duties, faithfully executing the plans and policies. What Yang did not know, however, was quite how ambitious the adjudant was. He also did not know that the Deputy's underling had been in contact with Karen.

She got up from her throne and made her way toward Yang's balcony.

"I'd like to reward you for your efforts," she said.

That got his attention. He looked up from his phone to look Karen straight in the eye. Her gigantic face was a mere fifteen feet away from him.

"Why don't you strip down, my little man," she suggested. "That way I can reward you properly."

His mouth went dry. His survival instinct told him this was dangerous. While she was not yet big enough to swallow a whole-sized man down her throat, he had just witnessed her gobble up about a hundred half-sized people. Furthermore, as she had told him upon her arrival at the monastery, she could decide to chew him up if she wanted to. At the same time, this fear combined with the sort of reward she might be suggesting to him made his brain share blood with his nether regions.

The nether regions took over.

"Yes, your holiness," he said, hastily beginning to unbutton his suit.

Deputy Yang, an old Chinese senior bureaucrat, was not the ugliest man in the world, but he was not a male porn star either. Karen was not turned on by his body as he disrobed himself. Karen was, however, turned on by her own power. That fact was lost on Yang as he saw the look of lust in Karen's eyes. Had he been of more sober mind, he would probably have figured that out for himself, but he was far from being so clear-headed.

He was barely done with undressing himself when her hand came up behind him and gently pulled him toward her. She smiled, and then stuck out her tongue. It touched the tip of his penis.

Pleasure jolted up his spine.

Her mouth then opened to give him a view of her gullet.

His limbic system sent that jolt back down his spine and to his loins. The tip of her tongue gently flicked back and forth long the underside of his penis.

"I have a hundred people inside my stomach, Yang," she said, "and you sent them there."

This was pure sex-talk to him. As a fetishist, he imagined himself in their place, but he also got off on the power of having defeated so many enemies.

"I am your grateful goddess," she told him, before letting her tongue slither along his member again.

He wanted to say something, though he didn't immediately know what to say. It was doubtful that he could have articulated anything even if he had known what to say. He just took in the pleasure of it.

Her hand ushered him closer, and her lips surrounded his penis. Behind her lips, her tongue again flicked against the head of his member. His hips gyrated to get the feeling of friction against those lips.

"I am almost big enough to swallow a whole man whole," she said, "against his will."

He gained control of his ability to speak, and said: "It will be a glorious day when you are, my Goddess."

She pleasured him a little more, bringing him closer to climax.

She then grabbed him by his ankles and picked him up, hanging him upside down. He gasped, as his orientation shifted. He craned his neck 'up' to look down. Her smiling face looked up at him.

"Do you want to go down my throat?" she asked him.

"Of course!" he said, possibly lying, "but there are too many people whose sacrifice must precede mine."

"Yes, you have been important to the project of turning me into a world goddess," Karen acknowledged. "I could not have done it without you."

Despite his predicament of hanging upside down, naked, over Karen's face, Yang was still conscious enough to notice how she used the perfect present tense: 'have been' and 'have done'.

He then found himself being dunked into a container of liquid. The liquid was oily - olive oil if he was not mistaken. In addition to the oil, there were little flecks of herbs.

"So I'm happy to reward you," she said.

"My Goddess!" he spluttered. "But you still need me, and you're not yet big enough to swallow me down like this!"

"You are also too full of other people!" he added in desperation.

"You're like dessert," she countered to his last statement, "and there's always room for dessert."

"Don't worry about me needing you any longer," she added. "You are a very capable manager, and you've made sure that your underlings know how to manage the country without you."

"But,..." he began, wanting to remind her of his remaining point.

"I think I can just about manage a well-oiled man who goes down my gullet voluntarily."

They looked at one another for a moment, before she asked: "you don't want me to chew you up, do you?"

He did not.

"Good. Come on in then," she said, opening her mouth.

That mouth now gaped before him, the tongue He was clearly hesitant, but his erection betrayed his mixed feelings on the matter. His rational mind didn't want to die in her stomach, but his libido saw this as the fulfillment of a life-long wet dream.

"The longer you wait, the more I'll be inclined to chew you up," she said after he did not rush in.

He realized that his game was up, and that he really only had the choice between going down willingly, or going down in several pieces. Among those two, the former was clearly the preferable one.

"Come!" she commanded.

He obeyed, giving in to the inevitable.

Yang slouched toward her gaping mouth. Her tongue unfurled itself for him. He knelt before it, just wondering if he drew this out that she would change her mind. His face planted itself against the end of her tongue. It felt warm, wet, and soft. It pushed itself underneath him, essentially scooping him up like a spatula.

She pulled herself back from the balcony, and stood herself tall and self-possessed. Her open mouth smiled, with Yang Xiadou still on her tongue. He was the largest man that she had atempted to swallow. He had not been shrunk, and she really liked the idea of not using the shrinking serum, just like she had not used it on Choekyi Yeshe, the Panchen Lama. Just like the Lama, Deputy Yang was also a significant person, whose significance did not prevent them from becoming her food. In fact, it was precisely their significance which destined them to this fate.

Karen slowly tilted her head back. She could feel Yang complying with her wish. He held his arms close, which would make him easier to swallow. The oil she had dipped him in also made him easier to slide. She braced herself, and then let him slide down into her throat.

He was clearly a larger-than-normal lump, and her throat had to work to get him down. After just a little bit of discomfort, however, she did manage to put him on the downward path.

She sat back down in her throne and took a breath of relief.

"Mmmm, there you go," she said to herself - or, rather to the full-size man now being pushed into her stomach.

She bared her belly and allowed her fingers to caress its slightly-distended contours. Yang really had been like a dessert. She certainly enjoyed not only the feeling of around a hundred smaller people writhing around in her belly, but also the idea of so many people being conquered by her in so carnal a way. Yang, on the other hand, was an integral part of a regime that ruled well over a billion people: nearly a fifth of humanity. If she could order him into her stomach, then she figured that she was also the ruler of those people, even if she was so only indirectly.

She was confident that some day, that indirect rulership would become direct, and that she would also expand her rule. She knew, in her mind, but also in her soul, that it was her destiny to become the Goddess of All. As Goddess of All, she would not have to have people trucked to her under false pretenses. Like on Tanna, people would grovel at her feet and beg for the privilege of being her food.

It was destiny.