[Slimy Slime] Chapter 45: What?! It survived that?!

There comes a moment in every Slime’s life, hopefully, when they must ask themselves a very important question.

“Did I go too far?”

Even I had no idea how much time I saved up and I had dumped all of it into summoning as many slimes as possible. Smart? Yes. Absolutely yes. I needed to kill this thing. It would let me break my stat limit. A hundred or even a thousand [Acid Slime] minions was just not comparable to having the ability to, at minimum, double all my stats. That stuff had to be fucking weighted or something. Or there were benchmarks I didn’t know about.

So did I regret unleashing a horde of [Acid Slimes] down onto my opponent? No. No I did not.

Yet as I saw its entire body be completely covered, stuck in mid air, as it began to be melted down… a pang of sympathy roiled through me. Acid… was a terrible way to go. Still, I waited patiently. I also had completely revised my earlier opinions. I was pretty damn sure this wolf had hit it’s stat cap for Agility and Endurance. The thing was already fast… but it was damn tough too! This had to be more than just stats! What, is it your biology?! Is it a passive skill? Why are you so tough you damn thing! Just die!

The seconds and minutes ticked by, its cries of pain growing more and more. I was tempted to try to punch it unconscious, I never wanted it to suffer. It was the law of the jungle out in this forest, not a human’s torture chamber. You tried to kill me first! Please…. Just die!

Sympathy however… soon began to turn to horror.

Its struggling wasn’t getting any weaker.

It was getting stronger.

A red aura began to shine even underneath all the [Acid Slimes] and my slimy self began to vibrate in worry. Oh…. oh no.

“Melt it faster! FASTER!”

Yet my cries went unanswered. I grit my slimy self, squeezing my hands for all they were worth, trying to hold on when-

“GAH!”

I don’t know what happened. Genuinely, no idea. It was stuck like a bug! It was floating in mid air, completely immobile! Yet… it began to glow in a red aura and then bits and pieces of my [Acid Slime] minions were raining down on me and I felt more than saw all my hands pop at once. Quickly ‘wiping’ the slime of my dead minions off, I gasped at what I saw.

The [Black-Eyed Wolf] had… seen better days. It reminded me of the Alpha, after I had tore myself out of it… but worse. So, so much worse. It’s fur? Gone. Weird scales? Gone. Skin? Almost entirely gone. It truly looked like a demonic wolf from hell now, as blood flowed all over and down it’s body, muscles exposed to air, black eyes still staring deeply down, now peering at me in a hatred and rage so deep that I felt momentarily sick.

And all around it… was that red aura, lighting it up like it was an anime protagonist that had just gotten a power up.

“T-”

The first syllable didn’t even have a chance to get out of my mouth before an absolute storm of claws descended onto me. My hands popped into air and popped out just as fast, as my screams coated the forest. My hands, my hands! MY HANDS! AHHH!

They were being mauled apart again and again and again, as I desperately tried to put distance between me and the new super wolf. FUCK! I felt madness begin to creep in as my survival instinct shot through the fucking roof. I was going to die. No ring to save me, no second chances, I’d met the end of my road and it was going to be brutal and painful.

NO!

FUCK YOU!

I rocketed my fists forward, feeling them crunch against it’s body, even as they were torn to shreds. But I didn’t unsummon them. I kept them there, forcing them to remain, even as they fell apart. I wasn’t going to die like this!

Claw met fist, over and over and over again, and my mind felt like it was falling into an abyss of torment. But I was winning. I was winning. Some of what remained still smacked into the damn thing, hitting like cannon blows.

Then it moved.

It was only because of [Danger Sense] that I survived. One moment it was there, the next microsecond I felt danger behind me. I summoned another pair of hands, pushing myself to twelve, and they were torn through instantly. But it gave me a second. A second that I desperately, desperately needed as the wolf wasn’t content with that.

It began to disappear, moving so fast that its blood still hung in the air even as blow after blow after blow came raining down on top of me. Pain had long given away to the primal absolute need to survive.

But it wasn’t enough, it was too fast, my hands could only move so fast. I was starting to feel a strain, not on my mana, but on my spirit. I missed. I didn’t summon a pair of hands fast enough… and I missed.

That was all it took.

[HP: 230/287]

[HP: 115/287]

[HP: 32/287]

[HP: 5/287]

NO!

In that moment, that crystalizing moment, something cracked in me. My slime was being torn apart, scattered by a flash of claws, only one piece barely bigger than the rest. I was going to die, no, I was dead.

I refused.

The world turned green…

And then black.

*****

…………………….

……………………………………….

…………………………………………………..

……………………………………………………………

[Generation 2 defeated. Natural stat barrier broken.]

Words…. Words….. Words….

Those words….

Where am I?

Consciousness began to flood in…. And I felt like I was going to die. Like I was close… to exploding like a balloon. Blurry panic began to overtake me, as I felt my body begin to actually explode. What… what?! What’s going on?! WHAT?!

[HP: 85/287]

[HP: 83/287]

[HP: 81/287]

WHAT?! Why am I dying?! What’s going on?!

Nothing was around me, no, maybe something was. My head, my body, I can’t move, I can’t think, it hurts. Everything hurts.

I had no time, I quickly shot up my status page, hoping it had answers.

[General/Crown/Evolution/Dungeon

Name: Slimy Slime

Free stat points: 3

HP: 75/287

MP: 96/174

STR: 50

AGI: 41

DEX: 50

CON: 35

END: 50

INT: 35

WIS: 35

SPI: 50]

It all seemed normal but my eyes traveled down further, seeing a ‘stat’ I almost never paid any real attention to.

[Astra: 2397]

What?! I…. I’ve never had that much astra before and- AH!

[HP: 63/287]

No time! Focusing, I shot out my Astra up into the sky, a green glow of energy defusing into the air. Immediately, my body stopped bubbling like it was a cauldron brought to a boil and began to calm down.

[HP: 59/287]

[Astra: 403]

I slumped over, exhausted. What… what happened? I remember… I was about die and then… nothing. No, there had been something. A green glow and-

My eyes finally took in my surroundings. I didn’t have the energy to gasp but my body froze, awe and fear dawning on me.

Everything was dead.

The grass, the trees, even the air felt stale beyond where I’d shot out my Astra. Not just the dead of orange, blackened to nothing. I could already see some of the grass seemingly turning into ash. And I saw something else too. It was… a black lump of what I first mistook for a horribly misshapen lump of coal. But I saw it. I saw the black eyes of the abyss, at least the holes where they used to be, staring back at me. Even in death… hatred and anger beyond what I believed mortals could possess stared back at me.

Astra…. It didn’t take long for me to put two and two together. I’d been about to die, fighting something I’d underestimated. Something I should have been able to beat even with its higher stats… but it pulled out a, a berserker skill or something, seeming to practically double in strength and speed all at once.

Then I… I just wanted to live so badly. My survival instincts had been screaming, my death was approaching, the light was beginning to leave my slimy eyes and then… green.

Then unconsciousness.

I’d…. I’d sucked in the Astra, the lifeforce, of everything around me. No wonder I nearly exploded… and it definitely hadn’t been a one to one conversion either. If I’d really sucked in all the lifeforce a tree had, I’d never have woken up.

But… I did. I won. I’m still here. Still here.

And stronger than ever.

But that had been too close. I was still too weak. Still too…. Too garbage at fighting. I didn’t even use my magic at all… and I would have died if not for just getting lucky. How on earth did Astra heal me? I didn’t even know that was possible…

I sat there for a long time simply staring at the massacre to the forest I’d caused.

I always knew Astra was key but… it truly is something I shouldn’t have, not for a very long time. It may have saved my life… but I should never have gotten to a point where that needed to happen. God damn it! What could I have done differently?

I floated back on my hand towards home. No, not just home. To my Kingdom.

On the way, a slim answer finally worked its way into my mind. I’d been underestimating the tiers too much. For some reason… a thought had swam into my mind, that my stats were high. I could break trees like twigs! I knew Michael and Sandra were far weaker. Krrrgg had less lower strength than me.

There, there it was, that last one. Krrrgg… had lower strength than me right now. She hadn’t eaten to her natural growth limit. Krrrgg… was a fresh Gen 2 and I had fought something, hopefully, nearing the Max of Gen 2. It was a qualitative difference. The Berserking skill hadn’t helped anything.

Maneuverability had cost me. I hadn’t been able to dodge worth shit. My movement relied on the hand I sat on but that required my mind. I’d been too panicked, too in pain, too busy to focus on dodging and weaving. I’d stayed a sitting duck while a speedy monster had torn me apart.

Fighting had been… better but lousy. I was still no master pugilist. I just threw fists. My stats were making up the difference but I needed to be better. Feints, distractions, weaving around the claws, deflections, grabs, and more. My fists may be sturdy… but they were no steel weapons. If I couldn’t take a hit, I had to not get hit, and if I had to get hit, I had to make it worthwhile. Not just a shredded wall of spirit meat between me and an enemy.

And finally… magic. I’d worked on the fundamentals but I needed some practicals right now. So what if I’m ‘better’ at it? So what if I know the flow of my meridians and know I have a core? What can my magic do? Blind people, make them feel isolated, cold, and…. That’s it. That’s truly it right now. Not good enough. I had to break my preconceived notions. I don’t care how… I needed to find a way to use my Dark Magic offensively. Or… maybe Defensively. But it wasn’t Rock or Fire, I had no idea how to-

Sandra! Michael! My god, I’m an idiot. Humans, people who at least have heard of magic before! A single story of any dark users, hell, any magic users at all, and I can probably work backwards! If I could just expand my mind on what’s possible…

I took a deep, deep breath. And then let it out.

Today had been a failure. My spirit twinged. No…. no, it hadn’t.

Today had been… a learning experience.

I’d learned a lot. Gained a lot. More than I ever expected today. I knew better how to develop after that last fight. I had more stats. I was better connected with my fists. I almost died twice in one day… but now I was past my stat barrier. If I ate a small army, I’d be unbelievably stronger.

Today was a victory, even if it didn’t feel like it right now.

I floated home, feeling better, letting out a little whistle as the blackened forest collapsed behind me.