[Slimy Slime] Chapter 24: Death is unpleasant but living can be pretty scary too

This one singular moment seemed to crystallize everything in front of me. I had known and tried to shake off that horrific non-feeling. That disassociation I had felt since arriving here. Like an invisible, unfeelable blackhole, only able to know that it's there by its effects. I felt like I had made progress in that respect. Having my life come down to this, to this singular moment, it felt like I had fully broken that spell over me. I could feel my slime flowing through my body in agitation of my emotions, my mind becoming like a hard rock as it mixed burning rage and cold wrath, the smells seeping through me of gore from melting wolves, the sounds of growls in myriad, the adrenaline and rapidly beating heart I should have ratcheting up in at least a mental construct if not a physical one.

It all led to a single, earth-defining moment for me. A singular sensation as I knew death had finally come to tear down what it had failed to permanently do twice now. A phrase that summed up my entire existence from day one to now.

I am here.

The Alpha wolf ran at me. I could see its monstrous teeth and burning anger. I could practically feel its desire to end me and take what was mine. I could see its arrogance, knowing that I am a slime even if I am also more.

And that would be its failing. It thought of me as more. When it should be more worried about me being a slime.

It ran, closer and closer, the moment was coming. The yawning void of a wolf’s mouth began to open, claws scrabbling against the earth, the world narrowing to a single point. It was me and him, only. Death. Kill or be killed.

The darkness of absence loomed.

I launched two of my hands out and it slowed down only marginally, ready to bat them to the side or rip them to pieces with its fangs. I aimed them palm out and shot over half my MP in one go in a wave of darkness. The wolf was afraid, yes, smart to the extreme for an animal, but ultimately arrogant. It ran forward, intent to rip apart whatever this was, even not knowing what it was. But the darkness had already done the job I had hoped it would. It had blinded it.

As it ran into pure darkness, mouth open, ready to bite me in half, I let it. Or rather, I lept into that gullet willingly. The sensation was disgusting. A tongue pushing against me, the smell of its rancid breath, squeezing down its narrow tube of a throat, until I was effectively in its stomach.

The plan was simple. Go down its throat and melt the bastard from within. As simple a plan as there could possibly be. I couldn’t beat it in attrition and every other way I could win was possible but probably more risky. This was an easy surefire way to defeat it.  I hadn’t even thought much of it to be honest and as I landed in what was clearly its nasty stomach acid, I was slightly regretting not just melting its mouth and throat open. Still, you can go longer than anyone would like even if you can’t breathe so melting right through its rib cage and probably heart, was the easier of the two options.

That was all what I felt right up until the moment the burning started. I was starting to really regret not having proper eyes because then I could have a way to express just how much fear I was starting to feel at that moment. I was burning. I was melting. My thoughts raced a mile a minute on what the hell was going on before I grasped an answer like a fish dying for water. Not magic, not astra, not biology (as far as I knew), which left Skills. What skill would cause a stomach to up its melting capabilities? Probably something like [Iron Stomach] or [Strong Stomach]. And what would get that? Probably something that kept eating hard to digest stuff that it shouldn’t be eating.

That was as far as my mind got before the melting started to go from painful to agonizing. I screamed and tried to spawn my hands and punch as hard as I could, to flee this fucking melting pot I had jumped in like an idiot. I couldn’t. I couldn’t summon my hands where matter was and while there was some space, we were moving and I was a bit busy being melted alive to focus on the small amount of space I did have for a moment. I activated my own skills, [Enhanced Melt] and [Devour]. The stomach acid gave way and I could feel myself starting to eat through something but the stomach acid suddenly ramped up to such an intensity that the world became nothing but blinding screaming agony. Every single moment felt like an eternity and my slime and HP were dissolving rapidly.

None of that was in my head. Pain was the only thing inside me, the only thing I could and was focusing on. Nothing, nothing I had ever experienced held a candle to what I was experiencing right now. It was pain beyond anything I had ever thought of possible or imagined. I could feel my mind creaking, breaking, snapping under the pure weight of it all. I would’ve killed myself in a heartbeat just to make it end.

And then I was through. I splattered onto the ground, hardly any of me left, still covered in stomach acid. The pain hadn’t ended, hadn’t lessened, in fact with the air touching me it briefly flared, only to pass. Suddenly, everything became numb. I hadn’t tried it much, but I was too fucked up to care what was possible and what was or wasn’t doable. I turned my eyes around and saw my own body.

And it was almost gone. There was hardly anything left. The acid had eaten me away and the haunting feeling of cold was starting to overtake me. The acid was done, yes, but the damage was too much. Slime wasn’t resilient in any way, the only reason I had lasted as long as I had was because I was an [Acid Slime]. There was an irony there I appreciated. To die by melting is….

…pretty….funny….

I watched and saw as the last of my slime melted away.

.

.

.

[Ring Activated]

*BURBLE*

I was still fairly certain slimes don’t breathe, but I couldn’t help letting out great gasp as my body reformed. And a wince. I quickly checked my HP.

[HP: 29/278]

Not, at full health? I couldn’t focus on that right now but I felt like I had 3rd or 4th degree burns over the entirety of my slimy body. It hurt, god it hurt. But I had other things to think about right now.

[Elemental Resistance (Acid) Tier 1 Gained!]

God I hate that running theme. I did the slime equivalent of shaking my head… cringed in agony as 3 more hit points dropped. Alright, okay, not moving until I’m healed. Got it. I blearily stopped looking at my diminished body and turned my eyes around to-

‘Oh my god.’

It was somehow easy to forget but I had been inside a wolf. And that wolf was utterly devastated. Standing about a foot away from me, with its stomach completely torn open and buckets of blood pouring out like a waterfall, stood the Alpha. I must have missed melting its heart but not much else. Its intestines, stomach, and almost entire abdomen was just gone. It looked like some horrific nightmare more than anything else. What shook me to my core was something that warred with my understanding of reality.

It wasn’t dead.

It was gushing out a massive wound, half of its important organs were gone, any other creature would have died instantly. But still, the Alpha wolf stood.

And then it turned and I froze like ice.

It looked at me and never had I seen any look, on any creature. It was a look of pure and utter hatred, but it went even further than that. It was a cold, cold feeling of knowledge. It knew it was dying, that it was dead, that it was doomed. And it was going to take me with it.

It took a step towards me. Panic began to seize me. The ring was used. I was going to die. Permanently die. My consciousness snuffed out into that void I kept encountering but this time it would never return. The end of my days coated in blood and falling like an ocean approached me. One foot slowly after the other.

I couldn’t move, the mere act had harmed me.

I tried to summon my spirit hands, my MP was near empty and I felt it try and draw on my HP.

I was nearly defenseless and still, it kept walking.

I was going to die.

Something snapped within me. I stilled. I had died again. I had been saved twice now by an item I had never expected to be used so often. I had been attacked and murdered, twice. No, no that wasn’t true. Although I held no malice to the first, I had been murdered all three times. My anger returned and if before it was fire meeting ice, now it was lava meeting a blizzard. Where before sat rock, now stood a mountain.

I hardened and hardened once more. My anger flowing through me like the hardest of stone.

I spent the HP to summon a hand. A fist. I was going to kill this Alpha. And then I was going to murder the other [Dire Wolves]. I was going to smash them onto the unyielding ground, break their bones, kill them all. All the wolves that had approached me today, would not be leaving tonight.

They would all die and be eaten by me. Melting into oblivion.

The Alpha saw my hand, my fist, my own anger in the face of its hatred and desire. And it yielded first. It fell and soon, the Alpha was no more.

The other [Dire Wolves] stared at the scene before them. Foolish. I summoned another hand, nearly blacking out, sending them flying towards the cave, tracking them with my eyes. The wolves watched, enraptured. The sounds of my army being ripped apart and the slight sizzle of acid and howls of wolves filled the air. I saw my Hob-Goblin friend limp out of the darkness of the night towards me, covered in deep lacerations but alive. Soon, my hand came back out, carrying two potions.

As I poured my HP and MP potions on me, and looked at the frozen wolves, one feeling came to join the anger.

Pity.