Table of Contents

Color Gallery

Title Page

Cast

Table of Contents Page

The Story So Far

Copyrights and Credits

Chapter 1: Mephisto, the Sword of the Mythical Butterfly

Chapter 2: Samael, the Sword of Death

Chapter 3: The Battle of Destiny

Chapter 4: The Worst Trial Yet

Chapter 5: Arrival of the Fly King

Bonus Story 1: The Tale of Greenhorn and Grandpa Silver

Bonus Story 2: What’s Cookin’ in Alban Mine

Afterword

Newsletter

Chapter 1:
Mephisto, the Sword of the Mythical

Part 1: Slime

IN A ROOM deep within Alban Castle’s underbelly, a viscous soldier—a knight slime—knelt before my throne in deference and gave its report. I listened, kicking my short legs against the edge of the throne.

Urgh. I still can’t get used to the princess’s tiny body.

“…and Volk the Dragonslayer is on a rampage against our knight slimes in the banquet hall,” the knight slime reported. “It seems that Sir Samael, the Sword of Death, of the Three Cavaliers has succeeded in separating the dragon that suddenly appeared from the rest of the group.”

According to the last report, a dragon had attacked the banquet hall where the adventurers were gathered. By now, Rogueheil, the Sword of Infinity—who’d left his place as my guard after receiving the report—should have joined up with Samael in order to deal with the dragon.

This had developed into a rather peculiar situation. However, with Rogueheil on the move, I could assume that the dragon was more than handled.

“Volk the Dragonslayer and Mephisto, the Sword of the Mythical Butterfly, are facing each other in battle. The dragonslayer may be strong, but no matter how many humans there may be, without a hero or a saint with him, he has no chance against the strength of one of the Three Cavaliers. He’ll be defeated in no time, without a doubt!” the knight slime said, swollen with pride. I wondered how he could be so confident when the knight slimes themselves couldn’t hold a candle to Volk.

“Hmm, but still…a dragon…” I muttered to myself, drawing my legs up to the throne and wrapping my arms around my knees.

An inkling had sprouted in my brain when I first heard news of the dragon. However, I immediately dismissed it. No. There’s no way he’d show up here. I hate to admit it, but I will: I’m too paranoid about that dragon showing up again. I’m always so eager to pin everything on him.

But this dragon wasn’t him; it had been sent by the saint. The saint possessed a skill called Spirit Servant that allowed her to bind the souls of the monsters she defeated to her and control them. With such a powerful cheat skill at her disposal, she would have had no trouble taming this dragon.

I knew that the saint would be making her move soon. The adventurers were invited to the castle so my followers and I could farm them for levels and add their skills to our collection, but that wasn’t all they were here for. I’d wanted to create a spectacle to lure the saint to me; I was sure to run into her sooner or later, and this way, I could meet her on my home turf and destroy her.

A banquet hosted by the princess where outsiders were invited inside the castle must’ve seemed like the perfect opportunity in the saint’s eyes. If the saint from the Holy Land of Lialum spearheaded an attack on this castle—and the princess, the ruler of the Kingdom of Ardesia—it could spark a war between the two ­countries. The adventurers provided a conveniently neutral third party to enter with. Even if she thought it was too convenient to not be a trap, she couldn’t let such a good opportunity pass her by.

“…And the saint?”

“U-unfortunately, we haven’t been able to find her yet…” the knight slime stuttered.

Damn. She still hasn’t made her move? I clicked my tongue, annoyed. The knight slime trembled, no doubt in fear of incurring my wrath.

The Three Cavaliers had taken action; now it was my turn. The worst-case scenario would be all of us being defeated one by one while we’re separated. However, since there was no sign of the saint—or of the Beast King Spirit Servant she controlled—I had to be careful.

I’d tried to predict the likelihood of future outcomes using my Laplace Authority Interference, but the percentages were fluctuating wildly. The Laplace Authority Interference wasn’t suited for large-scale predictions. When it came to things I couldn’t envision, its accuracy dropped dramatically.

If it was just that it wasn’t very accurate, it might’ve still been helpful, but for some reason, the percentage changed drastically every time I used it. It was just a waste of MP.

The saint was likely also using Laplace to predict the future. We were in a strange standoff: We were both using Laplace to try and gain the upper hand over the other, rendering its predictions—already inaccurate at best—almost completely useless.

“If God could only tell me of her whereabouts, I could go and kill her right now… Ahh, no, I know. This is all a test to see whether I’m qualified to succeed the Great Sages and inherit the power to wield Laplace freely, isn’t it? Yes, I get it now. It’s the same as it was back then, isn’t it, God? I’ll kill the saint. Then the Beast King. And then the dragon that killed the hero. Will that suffice, God?”

The knight slime looked on in horror as I muttered to myself.

“Yes…? I am simply communing with God.”

“I-I see, my liege…” The knight slime looked unconvinced.

“If it comes to a battle of wits, the saint may still have the upper hand.”

The saint had come all the way to Alban, the royal capital of Ardesia, to speak to us and make her presence known. There was no way she wasn’t involved with the adventurers now running amok in the banquet hall and the dragon suddenly appearing and ravaging the castle.

But even so, the saint was nowhere to be found. I’d sent a slime to follow her while she was in the city, but as expected, the slime never came back to report. It was reasonable to assume that she killed it.

Under normal circumstances, I’d make a bolder move once my opponent began to act. Even before the saint announced her visit to Alban, I knew she’d be making her move soon. Things had all gone as expected since her announcement. I planned out her time of attack for her so it coincided with the feast. Once she arrived, I’d block her escape, then use a two-pronged attack with Rogueheil to ensure we eliminated her without any issues.

If I killed the saint, I’d be revealing the fact that I was a monster, and I’d lose my cover as a princess, but stealing the saint’s Sacred Skills was far more important to me than maintaining my princess ruse. If I could attain those skills, there’d be no one in the world who could stand against me.

“After all, God said that amassing a collection of Sacred Skills is an essential step in becoming the ruler of the world, yes? And I am the vessel for that might.”

That was why I wanted to take on the saint, even if it meant forcing my hand. But unfortunately, I still didn’t know where she was or what she was doing. I’d assumed she must be setting a trap somewhere in order to subdue me, but I couldn’t find the trap either. I had no idea where the saint was planning to attack me, nor what she had planned. This meant that in the end, I’d had no choice but to hide myself deep underground as a precaution against the saint’s unseen movements. On top of that, due to my lacking military forces, I’d had to send the Three Cavaliers to deal with the rioting adventurers and the dragon. For the time being, I was completely cut off from them.

I had the feeling this was all exactly what the saint wanted, but I had no other recourse available to me. By keeping herself completely hidden, she was restricting my movements.

I was getting impatient. My circumstances were not great, to say the least. But there was no way for me to act now. If I were to take on both the saint and the Beast King at the same time, my chances of victory were slim. However, even though the game was being played around me, I couldn’t see any of the cards in the saint’s hand.

“God, I…”

At that moment, the door burst open and several knight slimes charged in with panicked expressions.

“Demon King, sir, we’re in dire straits! Sir Rogueheil, he…he’s been defeated!”

Blast it! The worst-case scenario was playing itself out before me. I held my head in my hands.

“…I see. So the saint has finally shown her face, has she? Was she the perpetrator?”

“N-no, sir. I was only watching from a distance, so I don’t know the details, but it looked like it was the dragon, the one who infiltrated the castle.”

“The dragon…?”

Rogueheil was a lower rank A, and a particularly clever one. Yet he was defeated by the saint’s Spirit Servant, who didn’t even have any Sacred Skills?

“And what of the saint…?”

“W-we have not heard any word about her yet, my liege… I have tried to confirm her whereabouts with the other soldiers, but no one has seen her or the Beast King yet.”

So not only were they able to preserve their fighting power, but they defeated Rogueheil too…

“God,” I murmured, “it seems I must withdraw for the time being.”

The cellar of Alban Castle had a large waterway that led outside, which I could use to make my escape in case of an emergency. I rose from my seat, and the knight slimes in the room rushed to my side.

“What…do you intend to do, Demon King?”

“For now, I will retreat. The saint has played us for fools. Rogueheil should have been more careful.”

This defeat stung. I had no idea how many of my knight slimes—or the remaining Cavaliers—I’d slowly and carefully recruited for my cause would survive. But so long as I survived, it was still possible to rebuild. This was a massive blow, and even if we rallied together and fought hard now, our chances at victory were slim. The saint was not an enemy I could take lightly. She’d even succeeded in killing the Beast King and harnessing its spirit, rewarding her with immense power.

I’ll kill the saint, and I’ll kill the Beast King too. And then…one day, I’ll find that despicable Illusia again, the one who ruined me, and kill him as well. Perhaps not now, but one day soon.

My thoughts floated back to the dragon currently attacking the castle. I’d assumed it was the saint’s Spirit Servant, but something felt off. I’d been told that the saint could only possess two spirits at a time. Had she disposed of the Holy Dragon Seraphim to recruit a new dragon?The thought tugged at my mind.

“You are…retreating, Demon King?” one of the knight slimes asked hesitantly. I, of course, had no intentions of taking on several rank A enemies at once. I rose from my throne.

As I did so, one of the other knight slimes spoke up. “Sir Samael mentioned the names ‘Illusia’ and ‘Myria.’ Do they mean anything to you, my king…?”

At first, I couldn’t grasp what the knight was saying. But then, after a few moments, it clicked.

Ahh… So the dragon that infiltrated the castle really was Illusia, then? My suspicions were correct from the very start. Laughter bubbled up from deep within my body.

“M…my liege? Is everything all right?”

Was this another one of the saint’s clever traps? Did she know that I wouldn’t run away if she used Illusia as bait?

I would’ve liked to assume I was overthinking things. What happened between Illusia and me in the forest all that time ago was nothing of consequence in the grand scheme of things, but if the saint had been investigating me, it wouldn’t be impossible for her to connect the dots all the way to that forest village. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn she’d done that.

Even so, I still had to go and see for myself. My god had to know that I wasn’t the only one who was worthy of meeting Him, earning His favor. That I was the one who would aid Him—not Illusia.

During that battle in the forest, it became clear that my development was well behind Illusia’s; and because of that battle’s outcome, God abandoned me.

But my fate was not to end there. I survived. I’d been certain that my death was assured, but I lived. I knew now that the experience was a test, a trial given to me by God. And it was not over yet.

“Change of plans,” I announced. “I’m going to kill Illusia. We can escape afterward.”

It’d taken quite some time, but I’d already met the conditions for acquiring the Human Realm Path and the Preta Realm Path. It was time to prove that I could live up to my god’s expectations.

Part 2

LOST IN THOUGHT, I gazed around at the slime carnage scattered around the massive hall deep underground, at the bones and partially dissolved corpses that had once been trapped inside the Giga Slime.

Rogueheil, the Sword of Infinity and the strongest of the Three Cavaliers, had been defeated. So had his secret weapon, the Giga Slime. The question was, what was my next move?

This underground hall was uncomfortably vast, and the door at the end appeared to lead to a lower level. It seemed like they’d dug quite deep underneath the castle. Why? Did it serve some sort of purpose?

The Demon King ended up not revealing himself, but…if he was hiding anywhere, it had to be at the end of that passageway. That would explain why the Giga Slime—the largest, most powerful class of slime I’d ever seen—had been locked up in this underground hall: to guard the Demon King. This hall was a bit over-the-top if the plan was just for Rogueheil to lure his enemies down here and kill them, after all. If his objective was to cut off his enemy’s retreat, it would make more sense to bring me to a room that was a dead end. I had no explanation for the door at the end of the hall.

When he was talking to Samael, Rogueheil had let slip that his main duty was to protect the Demon King. And based on our battle, it seemed like the Giga Slime’s power could be utilized to its full potential when it was teamed up with Rogueheil. If Rogueheil’s typical station was in this hall with the Giga Slime, and their role was to act as the final bulwark protecting the Demon King, then…call it a guess, but I had a feeling the Demon King was somewhere deep beneath us.

If he escaped right now, the royal capital would be safe, at least. But I had no doubt that he’d find somewhere else to hole up and start the same cycle all over again. He’d slaughter humans, gather his followers, and try to take over the world.

We’d successfully made it into Alban Castle and killed two of his strongest minions, who were both rank A–. This might be our last chance at getting the Demon King alone and taking him down.

Saint Lilyxila hasn’t shown her face yet, but we’re allies. I dunno how long she plans to just watch, but I’m sure she’ll do something if she sees him trying to leave. The main bulk of our enemy’s forces have been defeated. Opportunities as perfect as this don’t come by very often. It’s only natural we’d both want to defeat him, here and now.

However, there was still the issue of Samael and Mephisto. If I put those two on the back burner, they might hurt Allo or the others. I knew the world was hanging in the balance, but leaving my friends to fend for themselves was just too risky.

It was frustrating that I couldn’t confirm anything for certain, but I apparently still had Lilyxila on my side, and she’d never been defeated. Along with her were Seraphim the Holy Dragon, and—although she struggled to control him—Beelzebub, the Beast King. And if I had a quick rest, I could still fight too. We had a total of four rank A allies on our side.

Although Lilyxila hadn’t acted yet, it was almost like she was keeping the Demon King in check and on his toes by staying hidden. That was probably why he hadn’t come out into the open yet: He had no choice but to stay on high alert in case Lilyxila showed up. And as a result, she was able to draw the Three Cavaliers away from the Demon King and give me the opportunity to take them all down one by one.

Even so…I was out here on the front lines, and she was still holed up somewhere safe. I would’ve liked to see her out here by this point. Now that I’d defeated Rogueheil and the Giga Slime, the Demon King was probably in a tight spot. Unless he was powerful enough to defeat four rank A opponents single-handedly, retreating was the only logical choice for him. And if he did have that kind of power, he would’ve already come out of hiding and vaporized me where I stood.

There was also still a chance that the Demon King had already fled. It made much more sense to make supporting Allo and my team my highest priority rather than searching for someone who might not even still be around.

All right, I guess we’d better head back up. When I turned toward Partner, I noticed she was tilting her head in an odd way, and it didn’t seem like she’d noticed my thought.

Partner? I gave a questioning growl. Partner jolted, then shook her head and turned her attention to me.

(“There’s…something dangerous coming. What do we do?”)

I immediately used my Psychic Sense. Partner was right: There was something coming up the stairs leading deeper underground. It seemed to be shaped like a human, but it was clearly something…different. Something evil. Looking at it was like staring into the inky blackness of a bottomless pit, in a way no other monster had made me feel before.

No, it can’t be… Why would the Demon King show himself now? What, does he have some sort of plan to turn things around? Or is he just desperate?

From the stairs emerged…a blonde girl, dressed in lavishly regal attire. This had to be Princess Crys, the last of the Ardesian royal family. Her already petite frame was slightly hunched over, making her appear timid. She looked at me with a mixture of fear and uncertainty, and I was struck by how different she seemed from the egotistical, selfish, and shortsighted princess I’d heard so many rumors about. But I’d also heard that she was originally quite sickly and withdrawn, and that looked accurate to me. The princess’s actual physical appearance was irrelevant now, anyway.

The center of Princess Crys’s timid face began to twist and swirl, her features smoothing into each other. A chill ran down my spine.

The fake princess opened her mouth in a silent laugh. Then her silhouette distorted, and the surface of her body transformed into a rainbow-hued, gelatinous slime. The mass of rainbow slime reformed again, into the shape of the same androgynous child I’d seen in the forest all that time ago.

“Aha, Illusia! It really is you!” the slime cried. “Oh, how I’ve longed for the day I’d see you again! Watch closely, God! I’m going to prove to you, right here and now, that I am the only one worthy of your favor!”

Maybe the Divine Voice was talking to him?The slime was bowing his head with rapturous attention.

…Damn it. I knew he’d survived our last fight, but I thought I’d gotten some experience points afterward, so I’d always believed I’d killed him.

Standing in front of the slime now, though, brought back the memories of that fight in vivid detail. I remembered jumping into the river at the bottom of the cliff with him wrapped in my arms and immediately losing consciousness. When I woke up, my level had increased and the slime was gone. I’d assumed the slime died, but I was wrong. It must have been the mahawolves it’d summoned—I’d left them near death when I jumped, and they must have died at some point while I was blacked out. That’s where the experience points came from, and I’d foolishly not realized until now.

“Now, then, I’m sure the saint will show up before too long if I don’t finish this quickly. Do not worry, God. I will not falter again! Illusia, I’ve been waiting for this moment for a very, very long time!”

The slime’s outline collapsed to the floor—he was going to transform. I immediately sent four Whirlwind Slashes toward him; they exploded on the ground just in front of him, one after the other, as the slime leapt back. Dust kicked up from the floor danced around in the air, and the slime disappeared from my sight. I tried to use Psychic Sense to detect his presence, but although I could sense his evil aura, I couldn’t tell where it was coming from. He seemed to have some sort of cloaking skill.

(“Partner! It’s in the air! That guy is bad news!!”) Partner called, her face pointed upward.

I followed her gaze and saw the deformed slime suspended in midair. His translucent, rainbow-colored body was still the same, but four massive wings sprouted from his back. In addition to the childlike face the slime seemed to prefer, he now had three other dragon heads that had seemingly appeared out of nowhere.

Oh, crap! He knows Fly?! Talk about a jack-of-all-trades. What’s with all the heads though? It looks super unbalanced.

“I wish I could’ve taken my time and killed you nice and slow, but this’ll have to do,” the slime said.

Flaming orbs of light appeared in front of each of the dragon heads’ mouths. The heads all opened their jaws, then closed them over the fireballs and swallowed. Red light shone out from inside the slime’s translucent body.

I knew this skill, but I couldn’t believe it. It didn’t make any sense.

“Gravity.”

The red light turned black, and the three orbs shot out from inside the slime, heading straight for me. The moment the light touched me, my body instantly got heavier, and I fell to the ground. The floor sagged and cracked where the light touched it as though it was crushing the ground with its weight.

Gravity was a skill that increased the gravitational force of everything in its range, preventing everyone but the user from moving. But this Gravity was on a completely different level, in both scale and power, from every other Gravity skill I’d seen before. If I’d been a rank C, it might’ve been enough to crush me to death right then and there.

“Illusia, I will be the one to save God. Not you, not the saint, and not the hero or the Beast King either. God is mine. He chose me, and only me. I know that. You and the rest are merely stepping stones on my path to His side! You misunderstand your place in all this, and you keep meddling in our affairs! You’re in my way!”

At the sound of the slime’s voice, the three dragons stretched their necks toward me and opened their mouths.

“Now, hand over your Sacred Skills and disappear! Drago Flare!” Three red beams of light shot out of the dragons’ mouths and beamed straight at me.

Part 3: Volk

I STRODE ACROSS the gaudy carpet decorating the banquet hall and pointed my sword at the strange swordswoman in front of me. She was a smaller girl with indigo hair, but on her chest was a decrepit old face with two strange eyes. This was Mephisto, the Sword of the Mythical Butterfly.

“Sorry, but I’m not going to waste any more of my time on a human opponent,” Mephisto’s first head, the girl with the blank expression, said indifferently.

“You really are a fool, ‘Volk the Dragonslayer,’” cackled the second head protruding from Mephisto’s chest. “It doesn’t matter how strong or fast you are. You only have a few skills and many obvious weaknesses. You simply don’t have what it takes to compete with me or the others. What, did you think you had a chance because you’re considered a master swordsman among the humans?”

The second head was covered by overgrown, raspy hair, but the eyes that peeked out from behind it seemed to ooze madness from their irises. Was this old, grotesque face the main head, instead of the head on her shoulders?

I received a telepathic message from the magiatite monster. ‹Your opponent is dangerous, Dragonslayer! I can repel Mephisto’s magic, but I cannot keep up with the speed of one of the Three Cavaliers!›

“No need. Focus on clearing out the small fry. I’ll take care of this one.”

That was the whole reason the magiatite had stayed behind in the first place. The magic metal monster was impressively good at dealing with the slime soldiers. Mephisto was a formidable foe. If I was crowded by slime soldiers, I wouldn’t be able to reach her with my sword, and this fight would become much less enjoyable.

The ugly slime crone cackled again. “Aha! I’ve known you were no match for us ever since we bumped into each other earlier. You have low MP, don’t you? Do you truly think you can compete with us? Really?”

It was certainly true that this two-faced monster was perhaps the worst possible match for me. It was also extremely powerful; a large step above anything I’d slayed in the past. But if I couldn’t overcome it, my dragonslayer title would be nothing but a sham. This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to face one of the minions of the Demon King working to destroy the world.

No matter how much I traveled in the future, I might never encounter the legendary swordsman Howgley. I’d already recognized that fact. And if that was the case, then this could be the moment that I’d sharpened my sword for all this time. I’d devoted my whole life to the study of the blade; if I retreated now, there’d be no meaning to any of it.

“How dare you try to pick a fight with us with such trivial stats? If you think you can beat us, go ahead and try! We’ll melt the skin off your bones!” Mephisto cried, then dashed toward me.

She was right that I had no talent for magic. The only magic skill I could use was Dimension, a spatial skill that allowed me to carry a handful of travel supplies and swords that I could pull from thin air. And to me, that was enough. I couldn’t imagine fighting with anything other than a sword. However, my lack of magic could be fatal when I had to face a magic-oriented enemy casting spells.

When I was younger, I’d had no way to resist magic, even if it was used by someone of a lower rank. Long ago, as a fledgling adventurer, I was constantly told that it was too dangerous to work alone due to my weakness to magic. However, perhaps because of my naturally aggressive temperament, I was never able to get along well with my clever, cautious adventurer peers. Or perhaps it was because of my excellent constitution, which allowed me to heal quickly from any wound. In the village where I grew up, I was once seriously wounded while fending off an attack from a bear monster. But my arm—torn entirely out of its socket—healed completely in less than a night. The villagers found this so unnatural that they kicked me out of the village. All of this meant that I had a hard time staying in one place for long.

“…Illusion.”

Mephisto’s figure blurred, then split into three.

Illusion magic. This was one of the things I was weakest against. Because it was cast on the user and not me, there was no way for me to counteract it. I just had to use my combat experience to see through the illusions and find the real Mephisto—there was no other solution.

“Ah ha ha ha ha! I’m sure you could see me clearly ­before, but how about now? Yes, this is it! This is why you could never win against me!” I heard Mephisto’s second face echoing from three different directions. A yellowish, murky light emanated from the tip of her sword.

“Confuse!”

Three beams of light flashed at me from each of the three figures. This magic affected its target’s mind, causing confusion. If I took the full force of one hit, it would render me temporarily insane. Even with my physical prowess, it was impossible to avoid them all and also deal with the three figures headed my way. Two of them were fake, so I could take a gamble, but I could only gamble so many times before I lost.

“Don’t get carried away, you scum!” I drew my blade, Leral, and slashed at the three beams. Two of them disappeared immediately, and the last one shattered, scattering light across the hall. My Blade of Exorcism skill emitted a slash that could cleave through even magical attacks.

“Ack!” Mephisto leaped to the side to evade me. Her first face scowled, while the second face on her chest cursed. “Tch! Be more careful next time! Why must I be stuck with such a useless dunce of an accomplice? Soldiers, to me!”

Unfortunately for Mephisto, the slime soldiers were too busy dodging the fireballs the magic metal monster was shooting at them to pay any attention to us.

As soon as she landed on the ground, I closed the distance between us and swung my greatsword. “Do not underestimate me. In matters of the sword, I do not lose.”

Another flash of light, this one from beneath me. She was good—good enough to be considered a master of magic.

“But not quite good enough to beat me,” I murmured.

“Huh?!”

Mephisto’s sword fell, along with her right hand. The hand changed to mucus in midair and dissolved, leaving only the sword to clatter to the floor.

“Hyaaaah!” I struck Mephisto across the face in her chest with a side slash. The blow sent her petite body flying through the air with ease.

“Kyaah!”

“Hraaaagh!”

Her body slammed into the wall, spraying mucus everywhere.

“Dragonslayeeeer! Damn you, you’re just a human! Nothing but a mere human!” The second face shrieked, her deeply gouged eyes opened wide. Her face began to heal rapidly.

“Enough! I am at my wits’ end. It’s time to finish this!” The second head cast her eyes upward, toward the first. “Well? Don’t just stand there! Use Detach!”

“…Yes, Sister.”

Mephisto’s faces shook, then her head fell off and ­began to turn into green slime. The rest of her body lost its shape and started turning green as well. Where Mephisto had stood moments before, there were now two slimes with humanlike heads atop their slimy shoulders.

Part 4: Volk

THE TWO MEPHISTOS slid across the ground at high speed and began to circle around me. They would’ve been a piece of cake to take care of if they’d just stayed together in one place, but I wasn’t so lucky. If I focused on one of them, the other one moved into my blind spot.

“Illusion.”

Suddenly, there were three of the young slime girls. Two of them were simple illusions, but now they were even harder to discern.

All three girls’ cheeks bulged. “Ooze Bomb!”

Three bullets of acid shot toward me. If they hit me, they’d explode and coat me in acid. It was a tough attack to avoid: My only option was to leap away and create some distance.

The slime girl is the only one who uses Illusion. Perhaps I should take care of the old woman slime first, then?

The slime hag turned to me, opened her mouth wide, and stuck out her tongue. “Death! Death, Death! Ah ha ha! Die, die! Yes, once more! Death!”

A black light flashed beside me. Instant Death magic was powerful but didn’t hit its target very often. Even if it did, I doubted it would actually trigger instant death. Considering Mephisto’s prowess in magic, though, I needed to dodge it. I jumped back to avoid the black Death lights, then bent over at the waist and dashed forward to dodge the Ooze Bomb.

The Ooze Bomb burst behind me, spraying acid everywhere. This acid spray was the reason it was so important to avoid: If I were anywhere near it, I’d be coated in sizzling ooze.

I ran straight for the old lady slime and raised Leral to the sky.

“Fsssssshhh!”

Sinister black smoke began to billow from the slime’s body, likely from a magical breath skill. I was hoping to cut down Mephisto’s other half here, but she was difficult to see in the thick smoke, and my sword instead clanged jarringly against the floor.

“Confuse!” the slime girl shouted, and murky yellow light shot out from her side.

I’d hoped my earlier Blade of Exorcism slashes would discourage her from using more magic, but it seemed like that was just wishful thinking. I kicked off from the ground and leaped high to evade the light. Then, from the air above it, I threw my sword down at the center of the cloud of black smoke.

“Take…this!” A Shockwave blast erupted from the tip of my blade, which blew the smoke away as Leral pierced the floor with a thunk. In the dissipating smoke, I caught a glimpse of the slime hag racing away at top speed.

“Such a ridiculous amount of attack power from just a puny human…!” The slime hag gave a wicked cackle. “But you’re facing your greatest weaknesses this time around!”

Wordlessly, I landed behind her retreating form and swung my sword. In a move that would’ve been impossible for a human being, she instantly twisted just her upper body around to face me.

“Death! Death!”

I dodged to the side to evade the Death attacks. A black light flashed right where I’d just been standing.

“Confuse.” On my other side, yellow light started to glow around the slime girl.

“Tch!” With another slash of Blade of Exorcism, the gathered magic was rendered useless. The slime girl scowled. “Your MP levels really are quite low. My skill getting nullified was a bit of a surprise, but you can’t do that many more times, can you? So you’d rather dodge out of the way, even if it means losing the opportunity to attack. In that case, I’ll just keep shooting magic at you until you run out of MP! Ah ha ha, it’s too easy! Good thing I have to deal with this imbecile of a human instead of that legendary dragon!”

Damn. She realized. Her magical attacks were getting more and more frequent. Should I just give up on trying to avoid the Death skills…? But truly, what was I afraid of? The solution was simple: I had to take them both down before my MP ran out. I figured I should take this half out first then, just like I originally planned!

“Already at your limit? Well, sorry, but it’s our turn now.” As she spoke, the slime hag flung her outstretched arm like a whip and sent pieces of her body flying at me. They whipped toward me at a speed much faster than the Ooze Bombs from before.

I swung my greatsword up to block them with a metallic clang. Luckily for me, the scattered acid spray wasn’t very strong. I heard a whoosh of wind behind me and twisted around to meet it. The skill slashed me across the stomach, gouging out flesh and sending a spray of blood into the air.

“So? How do you like our Water Blade, Dragonslayer? Ah ha ha!” The Water Blades were so fast that it was difficult to avoid them when they were shot from my blind spot at this distance.

The two slimes circled around me, firing several Water Blades at once. I held my greatsword like a shield and dodged from side to side to evade them.

One of the Water Blades phased through my greatsword before vanishing into mist.

“Hng…!” An illusion?! I thought I’d kept track of the real Mephistos’ positions, but they’d managed to fool me somehow.

Blades rained down upon me without pause. For every small mistake I made, I paid the price in flesh; before I could come up with a solution, the Water Blades were slicing through my shoulders, arms, and legs.

“Death!”

“Confuse!”

The two status-affecting skills seemed to meld together as they were unleashed. I swung at the two lights with my Blade of Exorcism to neutralize them. They were clearly being used to drain my MP, but there was no other way to deal with them.

At that moment, I spotted a ripple in the air in front of me.

“Crap…!” It was an Illusion and Water Blade skill combo. The Mephistos had changed up their skills while I was focused on dodging the Death and Confuse combo to throw me off. I hurriedly raised my greatsword to defend but couldn’t make it in time. The Water Blade slashed deeply across my chest.

“Gah!”

My grip on Leral loosened. But one must never lose their weapon on the battlefield, so I regained my grip before taking a look at my arm. Some of the skin and flesh had been stripped away, revealing the white bone underneath.

“These wounds are no laughing matter…!” I concentrated all of my power in my arms and focused my mind. My flesh began to regenerate, covering the white bones with thick muscle and tendon. But I couldn’t rely on my Regenerate skill too much; I was low on MP, thanks to the slime soldiers and Mephisto. From now on, I could only use Blade of Exorcism, Regenerate, or Shockwave at the most critical moments.

My mind was hazy, and my body felt like lead, likely from the blood loss. But if I used all my MP up healing, I wouldn’t have any left to attack. The only way to take the two slimes down now would be to hit them both with Leral’s unique skill, Moon Pierce.

For a moment, my vision went white. The sound of the slime girl saying “Confuse!” brought me back to myself immediately. I was only incapacitated for a few seconds, but that could be fatal in the middle of battle. This was the worst possible timing.

I couldn’t let myself get hit by the confusion magic, and it was too late to evade without being vulnerable to the Water Blade that would follow. That meant Blade of Exorcism was my only choice.

As I raised my greatsword, I heard a telltale gust of wind behind me.

‹Master Volk! Forgive me!›

An acid bullet hit my shoulder and burst.

“Y-yes! I did it! I hit the dragonslayer with one of my Ooze Bombs! It was me, I did it!”

One of the slime soldiers…!

My raised arm fell to my side. One of the slimes had slipped past the magic metal monster and shot an acid bomb at me.

“Confuse!” I was washed in yellow light, and my mind began to slip into madness. I felt like I was going to throw up. Fear and anger, joy and excitement; I could feel it all welling up inside me at random. It was hell. I’d never been subjected to such powerful confusion magic. Even if it lasted less than a minute, the massive gap in my defenses caused by the impaired cognition was more than enough to make the difference between victory and defeat.

I suppressed my emotions with sheer force of will. I…I cannot let this be my end.

“Hah! You did your best, but it’s all over now! You held your own, though, considering you had us as your opponents. But at the end of the day, you’re a human, and humans can only be so strong. This is simply what happens when we battle for real.”

I kneeled down and thrust my greatsword into the floor. First, I need to control my breathing. I can’t let my mind wander. Need to stay focused. No matter what happens, I have to watch my step until I’m healed. What if I get torn to shreds before I can heal? No, no. I cannot let myself be driven mad by fear. My first priority should be to return to normal and get a good look at the situation.

Emotions could wait. Right now, I couldn’t do anything. I had very little resistance to magic, and because of that, I’d worked hard to be able to take magic blows. One day soon, I’d be able to overcome this magic.

“You, crush his limbs to keep him from moving. Once he’s nice and helpless, I’ll break him to bits with some gravity magic! Yes, that should do it!”

“No need to go that far.” The slime girl moved quickly toward me and latched on to my body. She pressed slowly and intentionally on my limbs, stretching my joints. A sickening crack reverberated through my head.

“Gh…ghh…gahh!” My spirit, nearly back to normal, was once again overwhelmed with pain and fear.

Is this truly all that I am? No. I am more than this. I am Volk the Dragonslayer, and I will not fall here.

Get up. Shake off this slime and slay it. I promised that two-headed dragon that I’d follow him all the way to the Demon King, didn’t I?

“Gravidon.”

A pitch-black sphere of light grew from the tip of the slime hag’s outstretched hand.

“Open your eyes wide and get a good look, Dragonslayer! Ah ha ha! This will be the last sight you ever see! If you even have enough sense left to comprehend it, that is!”

The slime girl twisted my wrist. I heard the crack of bones breaking. But I focused harder on my Regenerate skill and gripped Leral with all of the strength I had left, pain shooting up my arm.

This sword will not leave my grip until my spirit is truly broken. That is when I lose. I haven’t lost yet. I can still turn this around. My broken bones and low MP be damned.

“Huff… Huff…”

The slime girl’s face twisted when she saw me refusing to let go of my greatsword. Then her usual expressionless gaze returned, and she pulled herself off me.

“Goodbye, Dragonslayer. You were pretty strong for a human.” The slime girl slid to the floor and moved away from me like she was trying to create some distance.

“Ah ha ha ha!I’ve packed this one with all the magic it can hold! You’d better be grateful!”

The ball of black light shot toward me.

I could barely move my legs and stumbled hard as I tried to stand. The pain was so great that I’d gone numb to it all. Was my knee completely shattered? Well, that was fine. It was all right.

I raised my greatsword.

“Nuuooooooooooooooogh!” I mustered my remaining MP and sent out a Blade of Exorcism at the orb of black light.

“Ah ha ha ha!You fool! There’s no way you could destroy a concentrated orb of my most powerful magic with one swing of your sword!”

The black orb had been stopped in its tracks by my blade, but my hastily repaired wrist was too weak; I couldn’t swing hard enough to slice through it.

My body screamed with agony. I felt the overwhelming pressure of the Gravidon spell through my sword.

“Hyaaaah!”

Despite the pain, despite the pressure, I swung my greatsword with all of the strength I had left. The Gravidon sphere was cleaved in two and then disintegrated. I felt a large chunk of my remaining MP drain from my body all at once.

“No, it can’t be… Did he really…”

“H-he cut Gravidon in half…? A human cut Gravidon in half with a sword? That’s…that’s impossible…”

Both of the Mephistos stared at me in astonishment.

I looked down at where my right arm should be. From the shoulder down, there was nothing. I’d failed to fully neutralize Gravidon, and it had blown my arm clean out of its socket.

Looking behind me, I saw a twisted lump of flesh on the ground, still clutching Leral. I felt some relief that I had not let go to the very end.

“…Forgive me, Leral.” I watched as a crack appeared on the blade’s surface.

“Enough of this! Let’s kill him and be done with it! He’s already at death’s door!”

“Y-yes, Sister…”

The Mephistos gathered themselves and prepared to fight once more.

A telepathic message came to me from the metal monster: ‹The soldiers have been dealt with! I will buy you some time with Mephisto. Retreat, Dragonslayer!›

“Metal monster…”

‹Yes?›

“Take the fallen adventurers and get out of here. And tell the Ouroboros…that I’m sorry, but it looks like I won’t be able to follow him to the Demon King. Now go.” I raised my remaining left hand in the air as I finished speaking.

“Dimension.”

Dimension was a skill that allowed me to trap a handful of items in an alternate dimension and retrieve them whenever I liked. I drew out a large sword and wielded it with my left hand.

The sword’s hilt had a strange blue-and-red pattern. Its sinister-looking blade gleamed with a dull red-black hue. One could tell from a single glance that it was not a respectable sword, but it was one that had once captivated me, one that I had obtained at the cost of many things dear to me.

This was only the third time I’d ever drawn this sword. It was dangerous, for both me and everyone else around me. And using it did not guarantee victory. But it was the only chance I had left at defeating this monster.

“Wh-what is that…?” The slime hag’s face twisted as she glared at the wicked greatsword.

“Allow me to introduce you.”

The blade was said to have been made from the hide and fangs of the last Beast King from five hundred years ago, and its name was feared by all. It was also said to have been the sword that had driven the hero mad and killed the saint.

“This is the Fang of the Frumious Maniac, Bandersnatch.”

Part 5: Volk

UNDER THE INFLUENCE of the Fang of the Frumious Maniac, Bandersnatch, my vision went entirely red. My mind was overwhelmed by frenzied excitement and an urge to ravage, to kill. This beast blade turned its wielder into a wild berserker.

Perhaps this is what the world looked like to the Beast King, Bandersnatch. One of my main reasons for prioritizing mental training was to be able to handle this blade’s influence on my mind. But even so, I could not suppress the wild rush of adrenaline and destructive impulses I felt when I picked it up. From that moment onward, I let my fury take over and allowed instinct to dictate my swings.

“What?! The dragonslayer, he…he seems different someho—”

“Hyaaaaaaah!”

I slammed the beast blade against the floor with all my might.

The floor cracked, sending shards of debris flying. I leapt into the air and kicked off from the wall, twisting my body to aim straight for the slime hag.

“Ah ha ha!Looks like that sword just made him even more of a fool! Water Blade! Water Blade!”

“Water Blade!”

The two slimes fired a series of Water Blades at me.

“Since the blades are airborne, he either has to block them or dodge! Go after him!”

“…Yes, Sister.”

The Water Blades hit me head-on. My skin felt the slice of countless razor-sharp edges and erupted in cuts, but I felt no pain. It was blocked out by feverish exhilaration. I would feel no pain, no agony, no fatigue, until my very last breath.

“What…?”

“H-huuuuh?!”

I tilted the beast blade to shift my center of gravity and plummeted to the floor, landing right next to the slime hag.

“Hrrrrraaaaaaaagh!!” I unleashed a massive slash. The slime hag twisted her body as only slimes could to avoid it.

“Gah! The more foolish he becomes, the faster he swings that sword around! That blade is no mere compensation for his weakened attack power! If we get hit, then…”

I struck the floor with my beast blade once more, sending out a wave of destruction.

“Gyaaaaaah!”

The shockwave generated by the blow sent the slime hag flying. I aimed my blade at her defenseless form in midair.

“Hrr…hraaaaah!”

“W-wait! No, don’t! Stop!”

“No! I won’t let you! Confuse!”

Hazy yellow light enveloped me from the slime girl’s skill. I put all of my strength into my face, enraged by the discomfort of my mind being stirred up again.

“…Just in time.”

“H-how foolish. Heh heh, didn’t you know what would happen if you got close to us, Dragonslayer? Well, I guess not! Ah ha ha! You truly were a stubborn one, but it’s all over now. Prepare to die!”

The slime hag, still floating in midair, extended her long, slimy tentacles toward me.

“Uraaaaaaaaah!” I swung my beast blade at the slime hag.

“Ah…!” The slime hag was smashed to the ground from the force of the blow, then bounced wildly into the air with almost the same momentum before slamming her back against the wall. Her form collapsed into viscous, runny slime, which convulsed weakly.

“Ah, agh…! You stupid sister, you’ve…you’ve failed me!”

“N-no! My Confuse didn’t work! It must be due to the sword’s influence on his mental state! He’s already delirious!”

“Wh-what?! How can that be?!”

“He’s moving on almost pure instinct alone! Perhaps he has no thoughts left to disturb!”

“Then…Confuse won’t work?! Why?! After we’ve come so far…! This man, he truly is a beast!”

I slammed the ground with my blade once more and began to close the distance to the slime hag.

“Prepare to be slain, Mephisto!”

“N-no! Damn you!” The slime hag peeled herself from the wall and began to slide across the floor in an effort to escape me, shooting Water Blades behind her as she went. I deflected the ones I could with my blade and took the others without dodging in order to reach the slime hag in the shortest distance possible.

“Find a way to stop him! I’ll keep up the damage and kill him! He must be near death by now; there’s no way he can survive after taking so much damage! It’s impossible!” The slime hag kept running from me, turning in a wide circle. I followed.

After chasing her for a few moments, steadily closing the distance between us, I noticed something hurtling toward me from the side. It was the slime girl. I’d noticed the strange path the slime hag was taking and realized she’d led me into an ambush.

The slime girl latched on to me and spread out, then began to tighten around every joint in my body.

“…Now, Sister!” the slime girl called. “While you still can!” I could barely move an inch.

“Yes, well done! It will hurt to lose my other half here, but I refuse to let this be my end!” The slime hag stopped trying to escape and looked back at me. A black light pooled in her hand.

I struggled against the slime girl’s fierce hold and raised my beast blade, then focused the last of my remaining MP on the sword.

“Gravidon!”

“Shockwave!” I brought the beast blade down with a mighty slash.

The Shockwave released from the Fang of the Frumious Maniac, Bandersnatch hurtled toward the black orb in the form of an enraged dragon. The dragon’s claws scraped along the floor as it lunged forward and took the Gravidon orb in its jaws. The dragon’s fangs snapped down, and the Gravidon orb swelled before bursting with an echoing boom. Then the Shockwave dragon turned its gaze to the slime hag.

“You, you beast…! Gyaaah!!”

A cloud of dust and smoke billowed over the area. The walls crumbled to reveal large holes, and the ceiling collapsed, raining debris. When it cleared, all that remained of the slime hag were a few scattered globs of slimy green liquid.

“S-Sister…! Noooo!” The slime girl reformed her upper body, continuing to hold on to me, and transformed the end of her arm into a sword.

“You panicked, and it rushed you to your end!” I whipped my body around in a wide arc to throw the slime off-balance, then stuck my sword in the gap created between us and sliced off everything above her chest.

As the slime girl flew back, I delivered my final blow. The slime’s shriek echoed through the banquet hall, and green liquid sprayed through the air. The mucus that remained on my skin splashed to the floor.

“Haah…haah…haah…”

The redness in my vision cleared. It seemed I’d fully exhausted both my physical strength and energy. I had reached my limit. My ability to follow the Ouroboros had been snatched from me the moment my fingers touched Bandersnatch. Wielding that blade meant I would be berserk until I was unable to go on.

“I could not fulfill my promise to you, Ouroboros,” I said, “but I played my role as well as I could, so I hope you can forgive me, even if I do not deserve it.”

I crouched down with my back against the wall, still clutching my beast blade. My body felt like lead from the physical and mental strain. My mind spun in circles, making me nauseated. I couldn’t even stand up straight.

I felt a splash of cool liquid on my hand and looked down. It was a final clump of Mephisto’s mucus, barely hanging on.

“Mephisto, the Sword of the Mythical Butterfly. You were…a worthy opponent,” I murmured as I closed my eyes.

Chapter 2:
Samael, the Sword of Death

Part 1: Samael

I RAN THROUGH THE HALLS of Alban Castle, ­chasing the masked spider monster and the strange girl with red eyes. Myria, the injured girl, was being ­carried on the spider monster’s back. Both the spider and Red Eyes were likely rank C or higher monsters.

They must be Illusia’s lackeys.

I was no stranger to combat, and I was a firm believer in thinking through things one battle at a time. I’d asked the Demon King enough questions about the “statuses” that governed this world to make him sick of me.

Because of my extensive experience and prior knowledge, the longer I battled against someone, the more I was able to learn about my opponent’s capabilities. When I first encountered the masked spider and Red Eyes, I was unsure how powerful they were. That being said…their agility stats clearly left something to be desired. Even if agility wasn’t their specialty, I doubted their other stats would top mine. It occurred to me that they might be setting an intentionally slow pace to bluff, but it didn’t seem like they had the luxury for that.

I thought maybe one of them would stay behind to buy the rest some time, but they both ran off in the same direction. I doubt they’re confident enough of their skills to face off against me.

…I need to catch that Myria girl.

We were called the Three Cavaliers, but the only one entrusted with the task of guarding the Demon King was Rogueheil. He was rank A– and, although I hated to admit it, much stronger than I was.

This made my role in the conflict to get rid of Illusia’s party members, along with the rest of the adventurers still inside the castle. But the Demon King wouldn’t bestow any favor on me for simply clearing out the rabble. However, the Demon King seemed obsessed with both Myria and Illusia—if I could bring either of them to him, he might come to appreciate the clever thinking that distinguished me from the other slimes. On top of that, Myria would also serve as a useful bargaining chip in case Rogueheil failed to take down Illusia.

Even with the Demon King’s Blessing, I was still unable to evolve past my rank B+ Poison Ruler form. I’d never been able to break the barrier between class B and class A. When the Demon King confirmed that my evolutionary tree stopped at class B, he’d told me in a bored tone, “Unless it’s a particularly solid type of slime, many slimes stop evolving early.” I still remembered that moment clearly to this day.

The Demon King was one who found it easy to discard whatever and whomever he deemed unnecessary. Although I was now part of his inner circle as one of the Three Cavaliers, I still needed to prove my worth to him so he didn’t cast me aside.

Even compared to the slime soldiers, I’d had a lot of contact with humans, so I understood. It wasn’t that the Demon King felt no attachment toward anything—that much was clear from his devotion to the Divine Voice. It was just that his mind had been terribly warped, and he couldn’t consider things from an outside perspective and realize how twisted he’d become. I was secretly afraid that one day soon, the Demon King would decide to abandon the slimes entirely because of their slim chances of evolving.

The two girls and the spider disappeared around the corner of the hallway. I had no wide-range perception skills, but I hurried to close the distance between us so I wouldn’t lose them.

As I put all my strength in my legs and jumped forward to the end of the hallway, Red Eyes leaped out from behind the corner. I’d thought she was still running away. In her hand she held an orb of black magic.

“Wha—”

The black orb—it had to be the Dark Sphere skill—came hurtling at me from close range. It seemed like Red Eyes had been hiding just around the corner with her magic readied.

I blocked the sphere with my arms to avoid taking a direct hit to my torso. Although I didn’t have a weak spot, losing chunks of my mass would increase the amount of damage received from each attack, making it harder for me to regain my full strength.

My arms erupted in pain. The next moment, my body was hit by a massive blow.

“Gagh! Y-you…!” The blow sent me flying back and into the wall. My left arm, which had taken the brunt of the Dark Sphere, broke at the elbow from the collision; pieces of it turned into green liquid and slopped to the ground. Red Eyes glanced at me for a moment, then turned on her heels and hurried away.

…Ahh. Now she’s done it.

It seemed I’d misjudged Red Eyes. I didn’t think she’d have the guts to pull off such a risky play at the last moment. However, that attack made it clear that Red Eyes’s stats were not as good as mine. Her best attack wasn’t fatal to me. Based on her speed and the magic she chose for her surprise attack, at best, she was either a high-level rank B–, or a low-level rank B+. Her stats were a step below my own, but there was no point in calling her bluff now, after she’d already made it this far.

Considering the masked spider hadn’t stuck around for a follow-up attack, I assumed it would be even weaker, but I wasn’t about to make the same mistake twice: From then on, my guard would be up.

And I was going to take them down.

Part 2: Samael

I CHASED AFTER RED EYES, the masked spider, and Myria. The surprise Dark Sphere attack bought them some time, but thanks to my higher agility stat, closing the gap between us would be no issue. Soon their backs came into view.

I used Regenerate to heal myself as I ran, although the damage wasn’t serious enough to worry about recovering immediately.

Even so, it was difficult to determine what species Red Eyes was while she was disguised as a human. I doubted she was truly human at all: She’d been brought along as part of Illusia’s fighting force, and she had an air about her that was very different from that of a human being. She definitely had the magical capabilities of a monster.

I sped up to leap over the three of them, then turned around to face them.

“My, what a shame. Did you really think you’d be able to outrun me with those weak little legs?”

The masked spider immediately turned and darted toward another passage, Myria on its back. Red Eyes moved toward me, presumably to buy the other two more time.

“Splitting up to try and stall me, are you? That feels like a poor choice, Red Eyes. The masked spider won’t stand a chance against me on its own when we run into each other again.”

It was a poor choice, but they were quickly running out of options. Even so, I tried to sow some seeds of doubt about the decision to try and shake her up.

However, Red Eyes’s face showed no hint of confusion or unease. She didn’t doubt herself for a second. I was impressed by her determination to not be perturbed by the situation. Of course, it was typical to mask one’s agitation, but this was no mere act. I was shocked at how unfazed she still seemed.

“Clay!” Red Eyes shouted, then held out a pale hand toward me. The magical light in her palm turned to earthen clay, which formed itself into a figure that was about two meters tall and resembled a giant version of her.

This was more than basic earth magic. The clay created by the Clay skill could be controlled and maneuvered with other skills. The clay figure moved toward me as if it were a living creature and then attacked.

But while the clay figure kept me busy, the girl kept her distance. I noticed her close her eyes and regulate her breathing. She was gathering magic, no doubt to unleash a massive attack with the help of the clay figure. Or maybe the clay figure was a decoy, and her main goal was to hit me hard with a second magic attack?

“Either way, you’re being awfully optimistic!”

I flexed my arm and used Tentacle Lash. The slime that made up my arm stretched into a long, vine-like tentacle. It smashed through the clay figure with ease, then slammed into Red Eyes, who was standing behind it. Although the attack’s power was weakened from crashing through the clay figure, it should’ve still inflicted a significant amount of damage on Red Eyes.

The blow hit directly on her shoulder, gouging out a large chunk of flesh…but not a single drop of blood seeped from the wound. I knew it! She’s a monster. But…what’s the deal with her body?

She was humanoid in form, but she secreted no blood or body fluids when she was injured. That was rather unusual—after all, even us slimes secreted green liquid. Perhaps she was just a monster with a thick outer carapace? But it was all the same to me; whatever she was, it was over for her!

The force of the attack sent Red Eyes staggering back. I moved to stand in front of her before she could regain her stance. Red Eyes raised her hand hurriedly to cast more magic, but she was too slow.

“Ah…” A short noise of despair came from Red Eyes’s mouth.

“Naive girl. Did you really think you could escape me with such meager stats?!” Her attacks meant nothing to me, and I was on an entirely different level in terms of speed. I tried to decide how best to deal with her. “Well, you certainly held your own for a while. Sleepis!”

I pointed my finger at Red Eyes. Blue light spread from my fingertip and enveloped her. Sleepis was a skill that afflicted targets with powerful sleep magic.

I wasn’t going to kill her here. The Demon King was close to evolving into a Legendary species, and he needed all of the experience points he could get. Red Eyes would make for a tasty treat: She was a moderately powerful monster that would award him a good number of experience points. I wanted to capture her alive if I could.

Red Eyes froze for a moment. When nothing happened, she immediately raised her arm toward me. For some reason, my Sleepis skill had no effect on her. Was she resistant to sleep spells because she was some sort of mage class? No, but it didn’t even seem to make her drowsy. Was she some kind of golem or something…?

“Gale!”

A whirlwind gathered at the tip of Red Eyes’s hand. I crouched down and braced for impact. Using all of the magic she’d gathered, she unleashed the Gale at me the moment she saw her opportunity.

“Tch!” That one hurt. I was still all right, but she dealt a lot more damage than I was expecting. Red Eyes might have had low stats, but she was quite adept at using her skills.

At first I thought she could be either a high-level rank B– or a low-level rank B+, but now…based on my experiences and knowledge, I was convinced it was the latter.

Which means that without the Demon King’s Blessing, we’d be exactly the same rank.

The Demon King’s Blessing skill had the ability to increase the evolutionary potential of the Demon King’s subjects. But even with that advantage, I was still only a rank B+. Rogueheil looked down on me like I was worthless because of it, and the Demon King also often lamented that the Cavaliers weren’t powerful enough. It was my biggest insecurity.

“…Damn. Now I’m getting angry.”

I raised my head and glared at Red Eyes.

“Wh-what? How are you still standing?”

Red Eyes’ face showed a hint of confusion.

Has she finally realized just how much of a discrepancy there is between our stats?

“Not only did you try to run, but you also thought you could cut me down? Well, it was a great idea, but you dreamed a little too big. What made you think you’d be able to defeat a high-health, high-recovery slime who’s a higher level than you? You should’ve gotten a little stronger before you faced me.”

When I tried to step forward, the clay pieces scattered on the floor by the Gale attack reformed into clay arms that wrapped themselves around my legs. I lifted my legs, but they weren’t coming off easily. The clay pieces wrapped around my joints and ankles in layers, making it even harder to pull free.

“I see. An interesting skill and strategy. But unfortunately, I’m a slime, so…” If I unsolidified myself a little, I could slip right through the clay arms. This plan wouldn’t buy Red Eyes any time.

“Dark Sphere!” Red Eyes unleashed more magic, presumably to take advantage of the slight opening she’d made. However, this wasn’t much of an opening. I could still evade any magic attack she sent toward me.

I stood at the ready, my eyes trained on the Dark Sphere.

The jet-black orb spiraled dizzyingly through the air…but not at me. Instead, the Dark Sphere shot straight up into the air and crashed into the ceiling. Cracks appeared along the ceiling’s surface, and debris fell to the ground around us.

“Urk!” She got me. Had this been her goal from the very start?She used the clay arms to draw my attention to the ground, then took advantage of Dark Sphere’s irregular movement patterns to disguise her plan to rain down debris from the ceiling until it was too late!

I had to hand it to her. An area-of-effect attack using objects from the field of battle, which would ignore my defensive stats, was certainly the best tactic to compensate for the difference in ability.

A large chunk of rubble fell straight toward me. I made my arms huge and used them to knock the debris to the side. One of the advantages of a slime’s amorphous body was the ability to absorb and negate impact, and it was most effective against this type of attack.

“What a shame. That would’ve probably done a lot more damage if I wasn’t a slime. It’s a good thing you’re a lower level than me. Now, have you exhausted all your options?”

I turned my attention back to Red Eyes—just in time to see her jump into the air and fly upward in a move that seemed to defy gravity,

“Huh…?”

From the edge of the hole, I spotted the masked ­spider that carried Myria on its back peeking out; its mask rattled like it was laughing at me. Then Red Eyes joined up with them, and the three turned and fled.

I understood then why she was completely unfazed by my attempts to shake her. Their party had split into two with the intent to meet back up right away. Red Eyes was already planning to use the masked spider’s thread to climb up and escape somewhere after they parted, so it was easy for her to dismiss my provocations.

“That girl played me for a fool…”

I stretched out an arm and grabbed on to the ceiling one floor above, then pulled myself up and through to the next level. I strained for any sound of their escape, trying to estimate their position. Drawing a map of the castle in my mind, I tried to narrow down their potential routes.

“It’s useless. There’s no point in playing out this farce. Not only am I much faster, but I know this castle like the back of my hand. If they think they can get away, they really are too naive.”

Part 3: Samael

I PURSUED RED EYES and the masked spider carrying Myria on its back as they fled. With the castle’s layout mapped out in my head, I could narrow down their potential escape routes. Perhaps because they were aware of the risk of me chasing them into a corner, they occasionally made strange turns to try and throw me off. However, since they didn’t know the castle’s layout, they could only do this randomly, and their plan sort of backfired.

Even so…it seemed like they were moving with a particular destination in mind. For a moment, I had a suspicion that they might be leading me into some sort of trap…but that was impossible. This was their first time in Alban Castle. Maybe they were using a skill to communicate with their allies, but they were all otherwise occupied: Illusia with Rogueheil, and Volk and the Magiatite Heart with Mephisto. The only other possibility was the saint’s party, but I doubted they would come out of hiding to dispose of me.

Red Eyes and the others were trying to get me out of the way. I couldn’t think of any other explanation.

Before long, I caught up with my three targets once again. The path they chose was a single door that led to a private room at the end of the hallway with no other exits. It was a dead end.

“What a shame. There’s no way for you to escape now. If your plan was to draw me in and kill me, I can admit that you executed the first part flawlessly. However…”

If I gave them any time to think, they’d likely try to escape through a window or another ceiling or floor. Ideally, I wanted to finish them off here without giving them the opportunity. With my physical capabilities, it would be a piece of cake. As I closed the distance between us, Red Eyes stepped protectively in front of the masked spider.

“Clay!”

A lump of clay shot toward me. Red Eyes’s Clay attack was only the first move. It was clear that next she’d be using her Special Skills to manipulate the clay again.

“Give up. I already know your attack pattern.” I bent down to avoid the clay and sped up, reaching them almost immediately. They’d made it this far, but they simply couldn’t compete with my speed.

I put my hand on Red Eyes’s face. “This is the end of the line for you, Red Eyes. Poison Touch!”

A powerful jolt surged through my palm and into her skull, and she went limp. I was afraid that I’d killed her, but what’s done was done. The important part was to make sure she was immobilized. This girl was even more dangerous than I thought.

However, Red Eyes woke up almost instantly. It didn’t even look like she took any damage.

“Wh…what?!”

That couldn’t be right. There was supposed to be a massive gap between our levels and stats. Suddenly, her complete negation of my Sleepis skill floated through my mind. It made me think that perhaps…she had full immunity to debuffs.

“Which would make you…an undead type! And you lack blood because you’re a Levana, and your body is sculpted from soil!”

I’d come across an undead of the Levana lineage once before, but the one I saw looked more like a simple lump of soil. However, if a Levana became a Liche class, they could obtain a body that was even more beautiful than that of a real human.

The price for my momentary lapse in focus was a heavy blow. I thought I’d already secured my victory, but then Red Eyes swiped at me with a massive, grotesque arm formed from her earthen body, claws outstretched. The claws gouged through my abdomen from the left side.

“H-how dare you…!”

This much damage was nothing to me. However, an undead with full debuff immunity posed an unexpected problem. Most of the skills I normally used to fight would be useless. All I could use was Tentacle Lash.

“I’ll send you to an early grave!” I roared, then stretched out my arm and whipped it downward.

Red Eyes evaded the Tentacle Lash with an unbelievably fluid dodge backward. The Tentacle Lash only grazed Red Eyes’s skin before slamming into the floor, creating a large crack.

Red Eyes’s last evasion tactic, I soon realized, was thanks to a string of web attached to her by the masked spider behind her. With it, the masked spider pulled Red Eyes to its side.

“I’m getting tired of your measly little parlor tricks…” I quickly raised my arm. If I aimed it right, I could still hit Red Eyes with a Tentacle Lash at this distance.

“Fog of the Dead!” Red Eyes shouted.

The narrow hallway was enveloped in gray mist. Another silly trick?I swung my tentacle arm down in frustration. I thought I caught a glimpse of her in the mist, but she was a good distance away, and I couldn’t hit her. Landing a hit at this distance with such limited visibility felt next to impossible.

I closed my eyes and concentrated on my other senses. Even with the thick fog, I could still pick up sounds of movement. I wouldn’t let them get away.

I heard the sound of footsteps and immediately brought down a Tentacle Lash in the direction it came from. It was a perfect hit, and I felt something roughly the shape and mass of one girl shatter to pieces. For a moment, I was sure I’d finally won, but I quickly realized that what I’d hit wasn’t Red Eyes; it was just a clay figure she’d made walk across the ground to catch my attention. She kept trying to buy themselves time with these sly tactics, and I was sick of it.

“Enough! Surrender now, or die!”

I continued to send Tentacle Lashes through the hall, both horizontally and vertically. They tore through the walls and floor, but I got no response from my adversaries. In the midst of my rage, I heard a noise.

My eyes darted toward the sound and, sure enough, there was the shadow of the spider and the red-eyed undead girl jumping through a fissure I’d made in the floor. They were using the thick fog as cover to escape back down to the lower level. There were no other signs of movement. This time, I was certain that those figures were my real targets.

There’d be much less fog on the floor below, and Red Eyes’s MP was running out fast. If she wanted to make more fog, then so be it. All I had to do was drain her MP and get her more and more desperate.

I jumped into the hole in the floor after the trio. There was some fog on the lower level, but not much; the visibility was more or less the same as normal.

As I fell, I looked for Red Eyes, the masked spider, and Myria, but I didn’t see them anywhere.

What? Were they just more clay fakes?! But that doesn’t make any sense…

Suddenly, I felt something tug at my leg. It was one of the masked spider’s webs. It pulled hard and flipped me upside down in midair.

“Gah…!”

Although the web itself wasn’t very strong, it was very effective while I was in the air and could offer little resistance. I bent my body to break the web, but couldn’t right myself, and I plummeted to the ground face-first.

I looked up as I fell and spotted Red Eyes, the masked spider, and Myria attached to the ceiling, likely by the masked spider’s webs.

They were up there waiting for me?

“…Clay, Clay, Clay.” Red Eyes used multiple skills to form a massive ball of clay at the tips of her fingers.

What’s she going to do with such a huge ball of dirt? As I wondered, Red Eyes released her hand. The massive ball of clay swung toward me in an arc. When the light hit it just right, I could see some of the masked spider’s web attached to one side of the lump of clay. They’d created a makeshift pendulum weapon.

Following the pull of gravity, the ball of clay hurtled toward me as I fell. Just like their previous attack, they were taking advantage of the castle’s architecture to do as much damage as possible.

“D-damn you, you…!” I used Tentacle Lash to break the web attached to the ball of clay, but that did nothing to stop it. The ball, accelerated by gravity, careened straight for me.

Falling freely through the air, I had no way to dodge out of the way. If I could reach the wall, I could use it to escape, but the only way to do that in these circumstances would be to collide with the ball first.

I lowered the viscosity of my slime, then tried to position myself to lessen the force of the impact. My body began to morph and reshape itself.

If I couldn’t avoid the ball of clay, the only thing I could do was try to mitigate the damage as much as I could. The lower my body’s viscosity, the more resistant my body would be to physical attacks.

The ball of clay crashed into me, hitting my whole body.

As my consciousness began to fade, I used Tentacle Lash to stick my arm to the wall, then pulled myself to it. There, I increased my body’s viscosity and returned to a humanlike shape. The ball of clay slammed to the ground, sending an earthquake through the area.

“Damn it…! How long do you intend to drag this out?!” I used Regenerate to heal. I took significant damage this time, but it wasn’t a fatal blow. No matter. I’ve identified my opponent’s basic strategies and species. I’ll just recover and regroup real quick, then start thinking from their point of view and thwart their survival strategy. I won’t allow this game of tag to continue any longer.

“No doubt they’ll use the web to escape back through the hole in the ceiling…”

I looked up in time to see Red Eyes swing a massive clay arm toward me.

“Agh…!”The arm smashed into my head, then it peeled me off the wall and flung me into the air. While I’d been focusing on regenerating, she’d come down to attack me.

The attack caught me by surprise. It was true that I definitely didn’t want to be hit right now, but attacking me was still a mistake on her part. That was why it surprised me; it was simply not a good strategy.

Red Eyes’s borderline suicidal surprise attack barely did any damage to me. Instead of trying to deal damage while I was down, she should’ve taken the opportunity to flee. Of course, fleeing would only prolong the inevitable, but it would’ve at least meant she’d survive the current encounter.

I morphed my stomach into a massive mouth, inhaled, and then released a Diseased Breath. The dull, cursed mist breath enshrouded Red Eyes, who frowned.

Curse skills didn’t affect undead—I knew that already. But Diseased Breath could also make biological substances rot and deteriorate. In this case, it would cut Red Eyes’s lifeline.

Something snapped behind Red Eyes, and her eyes went wide—my Diseased Breath had destroyed the masked spider’s web attached to her.

Red Eyes’s plan must’ve been to knock me down with a surprise attack, then use the web to return safely to the ceiling. She definitely wasn’t expecting to face me in close combat.

Red Eyes extended her pale arm. “Gale!”

Even if her magic was instantaneous, it would’ve been simple for her to just move away from me and regroup. That is, if I wasn’t in her way.

Red Eyes’s hand was starting to crumble. It was easy to tell what kind of situation she now found herself in, and how she was going to deal with it.

And Red Eyes, who had her hands full with her current predicament, didn’t have time to predict my actions and take any countermeasures. I extended my tentacles and attached them to her massive, disfigured arm.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“Ngh…!”

I pulled Red Eyes toward me as I fell. She raised her massive arm to try and intercept me, but in a direct face-off, there was no way I could lose.

I pinned Red Eyes’s massive arm down, then grabbed her elbow with my opposite hand as I grew a third arm out of my left shoulder. I formed my new arm into a blade before stabbing it downward into the center of her pinned arm. The snap of bones cracking echoed through the room. I tore her arm apart with my two free hands and tossed it to the ground.

As I raised my other arm to finish her off, I noticed a round, earthen shield hurtling toward us from above.

“Is that…a Clay Shield?”

There were several different types of Clay skills: Clay Gun and Clay Sphere both shot spherical lumps of clay from a distance. The regular Clay skill could replicate them, but it cost more MP, and the Clay versions were much weaker and less accurate. The Clay Shield skill was specifically used to create sturdy clay shields. It was a difficult skill to use offensively, but its sturdiness made it effective to use as a falling projectile.

It was hard to believe the masked spider had that skill… Maybe it was Myria’s?

“You underestimate me.” I raised my third arm upward and smashed into the clay disk, destroying it.

I’d come across Myria in the reception hall earlier too, but she was clearly at least three ranks below me. She was a second-rate adventurer at best, and she wasn’t worth wasting my time on.

A web shot out from the blind spot just above the now-destroyed shield. The masked spider had ridden the shield down. I didn’t think Myria and the masked spider were really working together, though; Myria probably panicked and used Clay Shield, and then the masked spider jumped onto it to drop down and try to rescue Red Eyes.

It was a surprise attack created by chance, and that made it unpredictable. The web began to wrap around my neck.

“Tch!” I turned and brought my raised arm down to break the web. The masked spider jumped at me and sank its teeth into my lowered shoulder.

“Gale!” Red Eyes unleashed an attack toward me while my attention was on the masked spider. The masked spider kicked off me, then used another web to zip to the wall and out of the way. The Gale attack hit its mark and sent me through the floor to the lower level.

On the lower level, the large ball of earth Red Eyes threw at me earlier had made a massive hole in the floor, and I fell even farther. I did my best to mitigate the fall’s damage by lowering my body’s viscosity and becoming amorphous. The impact of the fall coursed through my entire body. The damage I took was no joke, even for me. I immediately used Regenerate to start healing myself.

I looked around. I’d fallen two levels down from the second floor, so that meant I was now in the castle’s cellar. During the previous encounter, I’d taken a lot of damage in quick succession. Things weren’t looking great for me. They’d really messed me up good. Luck seemed to be in their favor as well. Anger boiled up within me, threatening to overflow. How much more trouble were these weaklings going to cause me?

I should’ve just led them to the room where all the slime soldiers were waiting—it would’ve been faster.I’d opted not to do so before because I thought it would be quicker to take them out myself, but that was obviously a mistake. I’d assumed Red Eyes and the others would be easy to clear out, so I was quick to let my guard down. “I’ll wipe them out next time.” “It’ll be fine.” This moment was an accumulation of all of those poor choices, and that thought irritated me to no end.

First, I formed a mouth to shout at the ceiling and slid across the floor. “It’s no use! No matter how hard you try, we’re on completely different levels. Do you really think you can just run away from me forever?!”

I’d lost a lot more MP than I thought I would. This sucked. The Demon King was going to be so disappointed.

“Enough of this… Damn it, you annoying little…”

While I considered whether to go straight back up, Red Eyes landed lightly in front of me. It seemed like she’d used Gale to completely negate the impact of the fall.

“Finally decide to throw in the towel?” I asked. “Or…heh heh, did you think you’d be able to defeat me now?”

“…I knew escape was impossible. That’s why I’ve been leading you here from the very beginning.”

“Huh? You led me here?” I did notice that they took some strange routes through the castle when I was chasing them, but there was no way they could’ve known the castle’s layout beforehand. Was it the saint? Did she tell them the layout? It didn’t feel likely, but…regardless, being led down to the cellar wasn’t going to change anything.

“If you’re planning to bluff your way to victory, think again,” I growled.

“…Fog of the Dead.”

The area was covered in thick, dense fog. However, I could still see Red Eyes’s silhouette. The fog seemed to have a presence-blocking effect, but it wasn’t perfect. I’d finish this up nice and…

“Huh?”

Countless shadows rose in the thick fog. Was Red Eyes making dolls out of the clay that dropped down here earlier? But it didn’t matter; it was just a pointless little trick now. I’d take them all out in an instant. I morphed into a humanoid frame and grew four arms. Then I ­created a mouth on my stomach and long tentacles that hung down from my abdomen.

“Come get me, I dare you! I’ll shatter your conceited belief that you’d ever be able to defeat me!”

One of the silhouettes leaped at me, and I crushed it between my arms. The thing that attacked me simply fell to the ground. But it was not clay—it was a human skull, with decaying flesh still stuck to the surface.

“What…?”

Silhouettes rose up around my stunned frame. Even the corpse I’d just knocked to the ground began to rise once more.

“No. Is this…the Undead Maker skill?” Undead Maker was a skill possessed by some advanced undead species which allowed them to reanimate any corpses caught in their miasma. The corpses themselves were closer to weapons than individual underlings. All the corpses in this area would simply serve as swords devoted to aiding their master. And even if they were torn to shreds, they would not die. A broken sword could still swing. If I wanted to stop the swords, I needed to take down their master.

An undead clubbed me on the back from behind. After taking the blow, I grabbed the club and swung it in a wide arc at the undead surrounding me, knocking them down.

My MP was getting dangerously low. I could no longer preserve my physical strength either. I was getting driven into a corner…but regardless, I would be the one to emerge victorious.

My opponents were reaching their limit too. They had to be, with the amount of magic they were using. Maybe Red Eyes was replenishing her MP by siphoning some of the spider’s with an undead skill like Mana Drain; even so, they had to be running on empty.

I’d considered Red Eyes’s wind skill, Gale, a threat after that surprise attack, but in truth, it wasn’t that powerful. That was the best proof I had that Red Eyes didn’t have much MP to spare and was trying to conserve it as much as possible. The Fog of the Dead and Undead Maker skills wouldn’t last long, and the reanimated corpses from Undead Maker would hardly be my undoing.

Red Eyes would definitely come up with another irritating trick, and if I could endure it long enough, she’d run out of MP and I’d come out on top.

The corpses Red Eyes was using were the remains of humans we’d kidnapped. They were usually disposed of by feeding them to the Giga Slime, but in order to manage the Giga Slime’s habit of binge eating, it was necessary to collect the corpses in advance and store them. That was why we had a storage area in the cellar.

Perhaps Red Eyes, as a high-ranking undead, had the power to sniff out areas where the dead lay. Like she’d said before, she was working to lead me here from the very beginning, so that made sense. Even without knowing the castle’s layout, she could locate the pile of corpses underground.

“Dark Sphere!”

“Shiiiiiii!”

Suddenly, I heard two voices call out from either side of me. Two black, glowing spheres emerged from the deep gloom of the fog and floated toward me.

“…Here they come.”

Red Eyes and the masked spider had both used Dark Sphere. So the spider can use Dark Sphere too, huh? When I tried to avoid them, a clay arm made from the fallen ball of clay wrapped around my ankle.

“U-urgh…!” Red Eyes had saved this skill for the right moment, to ensure that their Dark Spheres would hit their mark. No, in fact, the entire wild-goose chase they’d sent me on was leading up to this very moment. More and more corpses piled onto me before I could break free of the clay arm’s grasp.

“Have I…lost? No, it can’t be, not like this! This cannot be my end!” After a moment of panic, I lowered my body’s viscosity and began to slip between the bones and corpses restraining me.

The lower my viscosity, the more resistant I was to physical attacks—but that also meant I was more vulnerable to magical energy attacks. In my more liquid state, Dark Sphere would be dangerously effective.

I should’ve prioritized breaking free of the corpses restraining me as soon as possible, but I hesitated—and that late judgment call led me to my ruin.

The approaching orbs of black light sandwiched me between them and exploded.

Chapter 3:
The Battle of Destiny

Part 1

THE THREE DRAGON HEADS attached to the slime’s body opened their jaws and sent out an inferno that tore up the floor, walls, and ceiling as it surged toward me. The areas burned by the flames were then engulfed in a blazing column of fire.

Wh-what the heck? Three Drago Flares at once? That’s way too extreme.

I thought back to the Drago Flares used by Azalea and Eldia. They’d both been extraordinarily powerful attacks that seemed to exceed their users’ stats. Even as an Ouroboros who prided myself on my physical strength, a single Drago Flare could potentially be fatal.

If I stayed on the ground, I’d risk being instantly burned to a crisp. My best option was to get into the air and give myself more room to evade so I could dodge the three massive heat rays coming my way.

I tried to spread my wings, but they suddenly felt like they’d been encased in lead; I could barely move them. A black light floated around me. The Gravity skill the slime had used just before Drago Flare was holding my body in place.

I gulped. With Gravity still affecting me, I could hardly move, let alone fly.

Using Gravity on top of the three simultaneous Drago Attacks to restrain me was a dirty play. The slime was using an attack method that seemed to negate all the combat experience I’d accumulated up to now. What in the world is this slime’s deal? We just started fighting, and he already managed to drive me into a corner? Wh-what do I do? What’s the play here? I can’t get in the air to evade, but it’ll be impossible to dodge the attack while I’m on the ground.

“Graaaah!” (“This is getting dicey, Partner!”)

Even Partner, who was usually the confident one of the two of us, was at a loss. I couldn’t blame her—this slime was in a whole different league than any enemy we’d faced before.

You’ve gotta be kidding me. How was I supposed to beat this thing? I think I got why the saint had been hiding away all this time now. She had to stay inconspicuous so she could prepare to take on this slime, right? Surely now she’d swoop in at any second to help? I could count on that, right?

I quickly glanced around, but all I could see was that this was not the moment Lilyxila would swoop in and rescue me.

W-well, if I can’t avoid it, I have to find a way to protect myself somehow! I brought both of my wings around to block me from the front, then thrust my tail forward to act as a makeshift shield.

The three blasts of overwhelming heat shot down from above and engulfed my body in flames. In an instant, my field of vision was dyed a bright, swirling red.

“Die, Illusia! Diiiieee!!”

The slime’s shriek was accompanied by white-hot, searing pain. The immense firepower of the triple Drago Flare instantly burned through my wings and tail. The force of the impact was so great that it even overpowered the gravitational force pinning me to the ground, and my body was flung back, out of Gravity’s range.

My entire body was on fire. It felt like every inch was being burned by the flames. I could no longer feel my wings or tail, but sacrificing them meant I was able to avoid a fatal wound. I quickly curled my body in midair and used Roll to run in the opposite direction.

The three flaming death-bringers chased after me with a roar. This thing seriously didn’t know how to play fair! I’d been told this underground hall was made of special impact-resistant metal, but these attacks were going to bring the entire place down in no time. But even if that happened, a slime could still slip through all the debris and either finish me off or escape.

“Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Look, God! You see?! I really am the strongest! That puny worm was nothing compared to me! How does it feel, Illusia?! I’ve been waiting for my chance to do this ever since that day in the forest! All this time, I’ve waited!”

The trajectory of the three intertwined flames wasn’t perfect. Its skill level probably wasn’t that high, so the accuracy wasn’t great. But even so, the three Drago Flares at once were simply too big a threat. They made up for their lack of precision with sheer scale and power and quickly drove me to the wall.

“Die for me, Illusiaaa!”

I was trapped, pinned against a vertical wall on one side and flames on the other. No matter how hard I tried, I wouldn’t be able to avoid the slime’s attack…

No. I couldn’t let things end for me here. There was no way of knowing if there were any other beings in the world who could defeat the Demon King if I lost. Lilyxila probably couldn’t do it on her own, Beelzebub was impossible to control, and Eldia would likely side with the Demon King slime. If I died, that slime would probably consume the entire world.

If I lost, Allo, Nightmare, and Treant would most likely try to go up against the Demon King as well. And to be honest, even if those three worked together and gave the fight everything they had, they’d still be no match for the Demon King.

Suddenly, it hit me. If I thought this hit was inevitable, my opponent probably did too. In other words, there was an opportunity here.

Sometimes, things didn’t work out the way I assumed they would. For example, when the slime believed he had me cornered, he might get lax about keeping track of me with Drago Flare.

I bounced against the wall in feigned panic, and the speed of the Drago Flare attacks slowed down a little, as if assured of their victory.

No, not quite; it seemed like they were spreading out to widen their range and ensure I’d be hit, no matter how far I rolled. It was a clever strategy, but it was careless to believe they’d hit me even if their speed dropped so long as they widened their range.

And thankfully, their plan backfired. I made it through unscathed.

“Aha! Did you see that, God? I could’ve killed Illusia so easily just now!”

After crashing into the wall, I’d used Roll to zoom along the wall at full speed and escape the fire spread by Drago Flare. If the slime hadn’t slowed down, I would’ve been burned to a crisp when I hit the wall. However, forcing myself to Roll along the vertical wall at top speed wasn’t something I could do for long.

I lost my balance, just as the roar of Drago Flare’s flames stopped. I kicked off from the wall and landed on the floor. The scales on my tail were burned off, along with the tip. I used Regenerate to heal both, then I cast my gaze upward. The humanoid slime figure in the center of the three dragon heads looked down at me with emotionless eyes.

“I may have missed this time…but I’ll kill him soon, God. Please watch closely.”

The three dragon heads roared and thrashed in rage. I stared back at the slime suspended in midair. I’m a little late because of the sudden onslaught, but I should check out this thing’s status screen. First, let’s start with the species.

Chaos Ooze: Rank A Monster.

An imitator of all of creation, able to copy any power.

This monster could have done anything, become anyone.

And yet, all it could do was destroy.

What this monster truly wanted to be, no one knows.

A Chaos Ooze, huh…? I remembered hearing about a faceless lord in one country’s folklore named Chaos. Seemed like a fitting name for a fake princess or the faceless Demon King.

The harbinger of chaos and ruler of the slimes.

The end result of a mutant slime that absorbs anything and everything.

Able to reproduce parts of up to four monsters at once, which also allows for simultaneous use of up to four skills at once.

The Chaos Ooze’s power increases with the number of monsters it consumes.

The parts of four monsters at once…? The three dragon heads shooting Drago Flare and the human body that used Gravity made four total, so that checked out. It was like I was dealing with four rank A monsters at once.

Now I knew that he was a Chaos Ooze, but the important thing was finding out just how many monsters he had already consumed. He’d gone to the extreme of impersonating a princess to supplement his meals, so I wasn’t optimistic.

“If you wish to look at my status screen, then go ahead and look. I can’t stop you anyway.” As the slime spoke, a massive amount of data flooded into my head.

Species: Chaos Ooze

Status: Normal

Lv: 100/125

HP: 1681/1681

MP: 1417/1780

Attack: 1125

Defense: 574

Magic: 1229

Agility: 842

Rank: A

Sacred Skills:

Demi-God Realm Path: Lv—

Special Skills:

Seven Types: Lv—

Slime Body: Lv—

Stealth: Lv 3

Poison Belt: Lv 8

Automatic HP Recovery: Lv 8

Divine Voice: Lv MAX

Tortoise Shell: Lv 3

Psychic Sense: Lv 2

Grecian Language: Lv 3

Automatic MP Recovery: Lv 8

Control: Lv 4

Magical Brainwashing: Lv 3

Conceal: Lv 3

Nekomata: Lv —

Third Eye: Lv —

Magic Energy Transmission: Lv 4

Magic Energy Reception: Lv 4

Scent: Lv 3

Swordsman: Lv 3

Impact Suppression: Lv 6

Super Regeneration: Lv 7

Recovery+: Lv 7

Nightvision: Lv —

Dragon Scale: Lv 5

Demon King’s Blessing: Lv —

Nightmare Creation: Lv —

Bug King’s Chitin: Lv 4

Mage: Lv 3

Tentacles: Lv 4

Fly: Lv 4

Slime Plant: Lv 3

Master’s Demonic Gaze: Lv 2

Evil Eye: Lv 2

Fearsome Gaze: Lv 1

Enchanting Gaze: Lv 2

Maddening Gaze: Lv 2

Petrifying Gaze: Lv 2

Instant Death Gaze: Lv 3

Four-Headed: Lv —

Magiatite: Lv —

Flame Emperor’s Wings: Lv —

Resistance Skills:

Physical Resistance: Lv 7

Magic Resistance: Lv 7

Debuff Immunity: Lv—

Seven-Type Resistance: Lv7

Normal skills:

Change Color: Lv —

Skill Steal: Lv 9

Bite: Lv 2

Shockwave: Lv 3

Flame Slash: Lv 1

Intimidation: Lv 1

Spidersilk: Lv 2

Puppet: Lv 3

Thread Slice: Lv 3

Iron Pendulum: Lv 2

Paralyzing Tongue: Lv 2

Double Poison: Lv 2

Paralyzing Bite: Lv 2

Acid Drool: Lv 2

Heat Beam: Lv 3

Petrify: Lv 1

Evade: Lv 2

Hellscissors: Lv2

View Status: Lv 7

Shell Retreat: Lv 3

Iron Tackle: Lv 1

Life Drain: Lv 4

Lightning Bolt: Lv 2

Dimension: Lv 3

Swell: Lv 2

Regenerate: Lv 7

Mana Drain: Lv 2

Roll: Lv 2

Black Fog: Lv 2

Jeweled Cage: Lv 3

Lucent Luna: Lv 3

Godspeed Flash: Lv 2

Great Leap: Lv 3

Death Needles: Lv 2

Water Gun: Lv 1

Armor Break: Lv 2

Tentacle Lash: Lv 4

Bellow: Lv 2

Mirage: Lv 2

Charm: Lv 1

Scorching Breath: Lv 2

Diseased Breath: Lv 1

Sand Breath: Lv 1

Decaying Breath: Lv 2

Metal Breath: Lv 3

Decoy: Lv 1

Resist: Lv 3

Drago Flare: Lv 2

Mega Cleave: Lv 2

Concentration: Lv 2

Sandstorm: Lv 2

1,000 Needles: Lv 1

Venom Fangs: Lv 2

Paralyzing Venom Claws: Lv 2

Whirlwind Slash: Lv 3

Charge: Lv 3

Headbutt: Lv 2

Meteor Dive: Lv 2

Ooze Machine Gun: Lv 3

Ooze Bomb: Lv 2

Tremor: Lv 3

Stone Breath: Lv 2

Temper: Lv 3

Hi-Slow: Lv 3

Hi-Rest: Lv 2

Summon: Lv 3

Illusion: Lv 3

Holy: Lv 1

Hi-Power: Lv 1

Mana Barrier: Lv 2

Grim Burner: Lv 3

Hi-Care: Lv 2

Hi-Quick: Lv 2

Firewall: Lv 1

Flash: Lc 3

Berserk: Lv 3

Stone Spear: Lv 2

Death: Lv 3

Neutralize Poison: Lv 2

Curse: Lv 2

Clay Wall: Lv 3

Dark Sphere: Lv 2

Clay: Lv 2

Fire Sphere: Lv 2

Aqua Sphere: Lv 3

Wind Sphere: Lv 2

Telepathy: Lv 2

Gravity: Lv 3

Gravidon: Lv4

Lightning Rain: Lv 2

Mirror Counter: Lv 1

Poison Cloud: Lv 1

Physical Barrier: Lv 3

Magic Metal Creation: Lv 2

Liquid: Lv 2

Corona: Lv 2

Iron Maiden: Lv 3

Anti-Power: Lv 3

Gale: Lv 3

Hidden: Lv 1

Demon Hand: Lv 1

Dual Dark Sphere: Lv 2

Holy Firebird: Lv 2

Great Blowfly Ring: Lv 2

Detachment Beast: Lv 6

Empty Dream Invitation: Lv 3

Life Mana: Lv 1

Title Skills:

Mutation: Lv —

Demon King: Lv 9

Thief: Lv —

Insane: Lv —

Dependent: Lv —

Puppet Master: Lv —

One Hundred Faces: Lv —

Corpse Eater: Lv —

Liar: Lv MAX

Itty-Bitty Hero: Lv MAX

Protective Spirit: Lv MAX

Nightmare Chimera: Lv —

Laplace Authority Interference: Lv 2

Princess: Lv —

Recreator of All Things: Lv —

Cursed Millennium Tortoise: Lv —

Great Owl of Wisdom: Lv —

Eight-Legged Death God: Lv —

Giant Bug Cluster: Lv —

Ugly Dragon: Lv —

Fallen Phoenix: Lv —

What the heck?! How many freakin’ skills did this thing need?! His stats were mostly higher than mine too…aside from defense, HP, and MP!

When fighting against an enemy of the same rank as me, the disadvantages of being a tanky Ouroboros really came into play. I’d learned a lot from my past fights: If I challenged an opponent with more attack power and agility to a melee battle without any strategy, I would be beaten to a pulp. And if I kept my distance from an opponent with a lot of magic, they’d shoot me with long-range magic and force me to defend.

Stats were everything in this world. That was why I, with my View Status skill, had been able to survive so long. And that also meant I could see how reckless it would be to fight against a monster that had more attack, magic, and agility than me.

“No, this won’t do,” the slime grumbled. “This form drains too much magic power to waste on an enemy who’s only running away.”

The three dragon heads began to consume each other, and their forms collapsed, leaving only their wings. The slime transformed, taking on a human upper body and a spider lower body. His spider body was somewhat large, so it seemed like he was mostly in spider mode.

“Yes, this form is best for hunting. It’s less draining, and I can hunt my prey quickly and efficiently. There’s no sense in going out of my way to keep my distance from a weakling like you, but I’m not stupid enough to get close.”

Part 2

A SPIDER LOWER BODY, dragon wings, and the same androgynous-looking human torso I’d encountered in the forest so long ago.

The spider slime sprinted toward me.

The only difference between the slime back then and the slime now was that he was now actually slime-colored, which made him even more disturbing. The spider’s eight eyes darted around vigorously, each with a different-colored gleam.

A sudden slit appeared in the floor in front of me. I had a hunch it was bad news, so I immediately backed up. The slash in the floor widened, and something grabbed at my wings where they crossed over that extended line. I could tell he did something, but I didn’t know what.

The floor down here was made of sturdy metal, designed for combat; Rogueheil said as much during our fight. However, it had been sliced open like tofu. I didn’t know what this attack was, but I knew it was bad news.

Looking up, I saw the slime closing in on me, arms raised. He was going to do it again. I had no idea what kind of attack it was, it was insanely powerful, and it was too fast to even tell it was coming. Without hesitation, I turned my back to the slime and booked it in the opposite direction. Not my proudest moment, but I knew I couldn’t face that attack until I knew exactly what I was up against.

Although I had a rough idea about what the mysterious attack could do, not knowing its scope or trajectory made it dangerous. If I went up against it blind, I’d be sliced to shreds in an instant. This thing was no joke. It could fly out at me whether I was on the floor or the wall, and it could even slice through midair. I flew low to the ground but, sensing danger, made an abrupt landing by extending my back legs, twisted my body around ninety degrees, and leaped to the side.

The space on the floor where I’d just landed was sliced as if by a massive, razor-thin blade. As I dashed away, I thought back to the slime’s status screen and tried to narrow down which skill he was using by asking my Divine Voice for more information.

I quickly concluded that he was probably using the skill called Thread Slice. This was a skill that created an incredibly thin but sturdy thread that sliced through the air like a giant knife—but even so, his attack power felt way too high.

I turned around and squinted, trying to locate the thread. Then I spotted a line of familiar silver light, and I gulped.

My guess was that the slime might’ve made part of his own body metal with one of his other skills, then transformed it into a thread to use with Thread Slice, thus ­raising his attack power. By supplementing the convenient, nearly invisible skill with more power, he had made it into a low-cost, one-hit-kill attack. Compounding the effects of more than one skill together was a technique only this slime could use.

Enhanced by the metallization, the power of Thread Slice was certainly impressive, but there was something else that bothered me: I was pretty sure that this metal was the same kind Grandpa Magiatite was made of.

When I looked at the slime’s status earlier, I did notice a skill called Magiatite on his skill list… Grandpa Magiatite’s words floated through my mind.

That slime killed an old friend of mine who also aided him because he said they had skills he needed.

Not that I doubted it before, but…it seemed like this slime really did kill the old man’s friend.

“So? How do you like my unique skill combo, Illusia?!”

They’re not your skills. Both your Normal Skill Thread Slice, and your Special Skill Magiatite, were stolen from other monsters! And you’ve got the gall to pretend they belong to you!

“Horizontal Slice!” The slime cracked his human arm like a whip and a large, diagonal slit appeared in the wall beside me. I quickly swung my paws to the side and flew off in the opposite direction.

The Thread Slice nicked my claw with a shrill, echoing screech of metal and sent me flying back the other way. I spread my wings in and used the sideways force to swoop up and float in midair. A large gash appeared on the wall just centimeters beneath me.

“Hng…!”Just when I thought I was safe, a Thread Slice shot through the claws I’d held up to defend myself. They shattered, coating my paw in blue blood. If I’d been any closer, I would’ve been sliced in half. Maybe not entirely, thanks to my Ouroboros scales and defense, but it would’ve hurt. A lot.

“Ah ha ha ha ha! You can’t run from me forever, Illusia! Why don’t you just call it quits now and let me gobble you right up?! I’m sure I can put your rare skills to better use than you ever will!”

The Demon King was just a slime, but even so, he was a step above me in terms of stats. He was using a mid-range, fast-attack skill that left me very little opening to retaliate.

However, if I just kept dodging his attacks, sooner or later I wouldn’t be fast enough, and then I’d be dead. Even if the odds were stacked against me, I had to take a gamble.

I flapped my wings and swung my front legs through the air. The wind gathered beneath my wings flowed through my front legs, then burst out of the ends of my claws as a Whirlwind Slash.

The slime effortlessly moved to the side to avoid the slash. “Huh? You’re going to need a faster skill than that if you want to beat me. One with more range and power too. Like this!” He slashed with his arm again, toward where I floated in midair. “Ah ha!Get ready, the next one’ll be vertical! How far can you run, Illusia?”

Vertical attacks had a narrower range than horizontal cleaves; they were simple enough to evade. However, I noticed the slime adjust his stance. He was probably readying himself to attack either left or right, depending on which way I went. If I made a bad move here, it could create a fatal opening in my defenses.

(“Partner! Stop right there!”)

I stopped, and we dropped to the ground. Partner stretched her neck out and tilted her head. Before I could ask what her plan was, a flash of silver struck her across the face in a painful slash. Blue blood sprayed from the wound and splattered on the floor. However, the Thread Slice stopped there, giving Partner the chance to bite down on the metallic thread. The slime’s face clouded over.

(“I’ve never met this slime before, but I can tell you one thing: I ain’t a fan!”)

Partner yanked her head back. The slime’s body shook violently, then floated slightly closer to us.

“Urgh…!”

The slime waved his arms, and I heard a snap. It seemed like he had severed the thread from his body.

Now. It wasn’t a huge opening, but it was better than nothing. Even if it was risky, I needed to take this chance to go on the offensive. I’d learned the hard way that when this spider slime went on an MP rampage, there was nothing I could do to stop him. My best bet was to do some damage while he was in spider mode, even if it meant being a little reckless.

I spread my wings, kicked off from the ground with my hind legs, and leaped into the air. Flying low, I closed the distance between the staggered slime and myself.

I concentrated my magic in my swinging claws, calling forth the black flames of Dragon Punch. The slime’s viscous form would negate some impact from the blow, his ability to morph freely made it difficult for the attack to connect, and close-range attack would mean risking a counterattack. I’d rather avoid challenging the slime in close combat, but Whirlwind Slash wasn’t strong or fast enough to do anything.

“You did see my status screen, didn’t you? I’m stronger and faster than you are, and you think knocking me a bit off-balance is enough for you to come charging in for the kill? Well, I suppose you have to take every chance you get when you’re this far out of your league.”

The dragon wings attached to the slime’s spider half then transformed into two massive, demon-like arms and extended forward to meet my charge. Long claws grew from the demonic arms like rows of swords. The slime reached his arms out at me and swiped with his claws as I dove toward him.

He was fast. And since he was a slime, he could stretch and extend himself at will to get the reach he needed.

I was still too far away.

“How about a taste of my Paralyzing Venom Claws?! If you think you can avoid this, then I’d like to see you try!”

A claw slashed across my chest, piercing my scales to gouge deep into my flesh. The slime’s face, lit up with a triumphant grin seconds before, went still, and his eyes narrowed.

Getting a claw to the chest didn’t stop the momentum of my swinging fist. Dragon Punch was a slow, heavy blow that required a big swing. This windup made it a pretty easy skill to avoid in normal situations—but not this time.

This time, the attack connected. The slime had attacked me preemptively to stop my attack, but while he was gloating about his victory, I had the perfect chance to get in a good punch.

“What?! Were you planning to let that hit you from the very beginning?!”

Being a tanky Ouroboros with a lot of HP meant even if I got hit twice, I could hit back once and still win in the end. I might’ve been lacking in attack and agility, but when it came to HP, I came out on top. I could definitely take a beating.

“Grrroooooooooooh!”

I gathered more magic in my paws. The black flames expanded, wrapping around my arm. I aimed for the slime’s face. He was still a slime, so attacking his formed head wouldn’t make a difference, but I was still going to knock that head clean off his shoulders.

I fired a vicious Dragon Punch at the slime’s face. The next moment, my fist erupted in pain, and I heard the crack of a bone breaking. Obviously, this wasn’t what I was expecting punching a lump of slime to feel like. It felt like my attack was blocked by some kind of wall.

“Phew, that was close… You sure are a tricky one, aren’t you?”

What I’d hit was a massive turtle shell covering the slime from his face to his waist, beyond which was the slime’s spider half. The shell had intricate swirling patterns running through it that gleamed emerald in the light.

Just before my punch connected, the slime had formed a rock-solid turtle shell on the surface of his body.

“Amazing, isn’t it? It’s the shell of the millennium tortoise, Aspidochelone. The real shell is much bigger, of course, but my version is just as sturdy. It was quite a challenge to hunt the beast down, to be honest. But that’s why I like it so much.”

The slime’s right demon arm clenched its fist and punched me in the abdomen so hard that the impact reverberated all the way through to my back. It broke through my scales and gouged out a chunk of flesh. It felt like my organs had been crushed.

I was sent flying backward. My vision flickered, teetering on the edge of unconsciousness from the pain of the blow.

I need to Regenerate myself quick, or else…!My stomach was so messed up that I could barely move.

“Graaa!” (“Hang in there, Partner! It’s still coming for us! Hey!”)

The slime’s left demon arm then stretched out and smashed into the side of my head. I was powerless to avoid it. The blow rocked through my brain like an explosion, and for a moment, my mind went completely blank.

“See? This is what happens when you get close to an opponent like me. You can be as fast or slow or careful as you want, but it’s all the same in the end.”

I saw the slime stretch his arm out—another Thread Slice was coming. But I couldn’t move my body. My mind was still too hazy. I tried to force myself to move, but my body didn’t listen.

(“Tch! That’s it! I’m taking the reins for a while!”) Partner turned her head to look me straight in the eyes. Her eyes blazed crimson for a moment as she used Master’s Demonic Gaze, which let her temporarily control an opponent tuned to the same wavelength. Under its power, my body moved of its own accord. I leaped into the air and spread my wings, soaring high to avoid the slime’s Thread Slice attacks.

“Graaaa!” Partner howled.

The healing light of Hi-Rest enveloped my body. Soon after, Partner lifted the effects of Master’s Demonic Gaze and returned control of our body to me. I quickly used Regenerate to restore all the spots that took damage. S-sorry, Partner… That was a close call. We almost kicked the bucket.

(“If you come back here later, you owe me some tasty treats!”)

O-oh, of course! Leave it to me! The capital of Ardesia’s gotta have everything from tasty treats to local delicacies. I’m not sure when I’ll be allowed to walk freely through the country as a dragon like Lilyxila said, but I can still come into the city in my human form. I’ll try to get some money from Lilyxila and buy all the food your heart desires. But to do that, first I’m going to have to take down this slime jerk.

If I got hit by a barrage of attacks, my HP would be down to zero in an instant. Not that I’d expected this to be a walk in the park or anything, but seriously, I couldn’t let my guard down for a single second. This thing was way too dangerous.

“I wanted to end you quickly with my Thread Slices, but you managed to stick around somehow. I never thought I’d have to use my millennium tortoise shell against you either.”

The slime’s body trembled, then began to bubble and expand as if he were boiling. He also seemed to be morphing again: The slime’s spider lower half began to lengthen, and his two front legs swelled and transformed into pincers. His smaller, humanlike upper half swelled until the torso and head alone were nearly two meters in height.

“I wanted to finish our little matchup quickly with my thread to save time and magic, to be done with you before the saint decided to show up, but it seems I may have been a little too hasty. The gap between our stats was even wider when we first met, and I hadn’t amassed all of the skills I have now, but you are still the dragon who managed to nearly defeat me at one point in time. So now, I will fight you with my favorite combination of parts for combat.”

The slime’s lower half changed from a giant spider to that of a giant scorpion. His humanoid upper half carried the millennium tortoise’s shell in one hand as a type of shield and a massive blade in the other. Two additional arms extended from his shoulders as well, each wielding blades of their own.

The slime’s torso wriggled, morphing into the face of an owl. The owl’s eyes darted this way and that, and its beak opened and closed in a chewing motion. Its entire face twisted upside down and then back again.

Is that the Great Owl of Wisdom I saw in the slime’s Title Skills? If so, it must’ve been a pretty famous monster.

“Hooooooooooooooot!” The owl screeched as if it had gone mad. Its face rotated up and down again. Suddenly, the slime’s body was enveloped in flashing red-and-blue lights. What the heck? Is he using some kind of status-enhancement magic? How many different status effects did he just use?!

Species: Chaos Ooze

Status: Power (Major), Quick (Major), Physical Resistance Boost, Magic Resistance Boost

Lv: 100/125

HP: 1590/1681

MP: 1169/1780

Wait, four of ’em? All at once?! I’d been barely skimming by thanks to my stats this entire battle, and now he was even stronger than he was before? You gotta be kidding me.

Even so, the slime’s MP was steadily decreasing. Not because he was using it wastefully, though—if anything, it seemed like he was trying to be careful about conserving it—but because making good use of his strengths as a Chaos Ooze meant consuming a lot of MP. His triple Drago Flare opener, especially. Considering he had already used up more than a third of his MP, his chances of winning our fight were slim to none.

But he had another skill that was making me nervous.

Normal Skill: Life Mana. Burns through life force as fuel for magic. Converts HP into MP.

I’d never seen any MP-focused monsters who used that skill, so maybe it was too inefficient and deadly to use, but…I still had a bad feeling about it.

Part 3

“I WON’T ALLOW THIS little farce to continue any longer! I’ll finish you in an instant!” yelled the slime as he moved to attack, now transformed into a strange, mutant knight. He had the lower half of a scorpion with huge wings, four arms equipped with either a sword or a shield, and an owl face on his chest—the Great Owl of Wisdom—whose eyes rolled in its sockets.

The owl was the one to look out for. The slime had just used four status-enhancing skills at once. Using the full extent of the owl’s skills probably wasn’t very efficient in terms of MP, but if it could use offensive magic as well, it was a fearsome monster all on its own. I’d have to keep an eye on it at all times.

The next thing to watch out for was the shell shield on one of the slime’s four arms; according to the slime, it was modeled after the shell of the Cursed Millennium Tortoise. It managed to completely block my Dragon Punch. Breaking through it with a normal attack would be impossible.

Both the owl and the tortoise are listed in his Title Skills. Maybe since they were so powerful, they were recorded as Title Skills once the slime defeated them and absorbed their power? If so, then I guess all of his most powerful forms are recorded as Title Skills…which means I should be extra careful about those.

According to this theory, the slime’s main forms were the six forms listed in his Title Skills: the Cursed Millennium Tortoise, the Great Owl of Wisdom, the Ugly Dragon, the Eight-Legged Death God, the Giant Bug Cluster, and the Fallen Phoenix. The Ugly Dragon form had to be the one that used Drago Flare, and the Eight-Legged Death God had to be the spider that could shoot out a relentless stream of Thread Slices. I hadn’t even seen the Giant Bug Cluster or the Fallen Phoenix yet.

I’d love to defeat this thing before he has a chance to use them, but as of right now…I don’t feel like I can land a winning blow.

I evaded the incoming slime by rearing up on my hind legs and making a massive leap backward. The slime’s sword plunged into the ground where I was just standing, but he pulled it out easily.

J-jeez. That thing’s extra strong now… I’d never be able to keep up with him while he had that Quick (Major) status modifier going. With an opponent this strong, I’d have liked to take advantage of the moment when he had to reapply his status condition to strike, but…this slime could activate four skills at once. There was no moment for me to take advantage of seeing as the magic specialist Great Owl of Wisdom could reapply it and three other skills at the same time.

If this had been a video game, the slime’s super OP four-skill cheat would immediately classify it as a garbage game. There was just no way to even the odds against something that powerful. And since he was a slime, he could recover instantly even if I knocked him off-balance. There was no room for me to do anything.

I spread my wings and put some more distance between us. As I flew, I shot a series of Whirlwind Slashes at the slime one after the other from above. The slime raised his shell shield and blocked them all with ease. Multiple peals of wind struck the shield and dissipated, seemingly absorbed by the shield’s hexagonal pattern. My Whirlwind Slashes tore through the floor around him, but the slime didn’t move.

“How long do you intend to drag this out, Illusia?” As soon as my torrent of Whirlwind Slashes stopped, the slime swung his sword sideways from its spot on the ground. A massive wave sprouted from the blade and shot toward me. I recognized the skill immediately: It was the swordsman skill, Shockwave.

I dropped my altitude and ducked my head to dodge the attack. The Shockwave caught the very edge of a few of my scales, shattering them instantly. I heard the ceiling behind me crack.

Th-that’s a nasty move… Who knew an enemy who can handle fast attacks, offensive magic, and auxiliary magic skills would be so tough to beat? Is he invincible as long as he has MP?

“Hmm. With my improved statuses, I wonder if you’ll be able to handle this?” The slime raised his three swords high.

W-wait. You’re kidding…right?

The slime swung his three swords randomly. Around ten Shockwaves shot at me where I was hovering in midair. I frantically pulled my wings in, ducked my head, and dove downward to try and avoid them, but the storm of Shockwaves thundering in my direction was impossible to avoid completely.

I couldn’t afford to take a direct hit. Instead, I somersaulted to reposition myself and faced the Shockwaves head-on, curling my body and bringing my wings in front of me to block. My wings erupted in a flash of pain—no, not just my wings. The Shockwaves managed to partially penetrate my wing shield and slash across my chest.

Hngh?!

Tch! That hit was worse than I thought it’d be. But I…I could compensate for the damage to my wings with Regenerate or something, right? Then I’d still be able to fight…!

I let the blow send me flying backward, without trying to resist its impact, so I could minimize my damage while also keeping my distance from the slime.

As I tumbled through the air, spraying blue blood, I managed to use Regenerate to rapidly heal my wounded wings and chest. I spread my wings again to create some air resistance and came to a halt in midair, centimeters from the ground.

I let out a sigh of relief. Somehow, I’d managed to avoid being slammed into the ground or a wall. But what was my next step? Run? With my stats this low, it was taking everything I had just to survive moment to moment. I’d never last until the slime’s MP ran out.

Should I try to take this fight outside? That’d definitely throw the royal capital into chaos, but if we were outside, there’d be a much higher chance Lilyxila would be able to join the fight.Lilyxila had been concerned from the start that her involvement in attacking a castle in another country might create a misunderstanding between the kingdom of Ardesia and the Holy Land of Lialum, or that it could create an opening for her political enemies to exploit back in Lialum. Judging from her radio silence up until this point, it seemed like she had no intention of interfering until I dragged the slime out into the open.

If I took the slime outside, though, he could also try to run away for fear of going up against the saint. From our previous encounters, I knew that the slime was brutal, vicious, and would stop at nothing to achieve his goals. But beneath that brutal exterior, the slime was nothing but a coward. I doubted he would even follow me outside if I tried to leave.

Going outside might be a good way to stop the fight, but it wasn’t a good way to beat the slime. I stretched my legs to drop down to the floor, then raised my eyes to check the slime’s position, and… Wha?

“Did you really think I’d let you keep your distance from me?” The slime sneered, already mere meters away. What the heck? Was this guy really that fast?! I mean, he did have the Quick (Major) status, but this felt a little extreme to me! Could I even consider this a competition at this point?

I was screwed. Close combat was won or lost in an instant. I couldn’t slowly whittle down the slime’s MP like I’d planned. The gap between my stats and the slime’s would really show itself here.

Well, I knew it’d end up like this at some point. I didn’t have the long-range skill set I’d need to fight against an opponent equal to or stronger than me from a distance. And since the slime blocked all of my long-range attacks with his shell shield, the only way I could inflict damage was if I got up close and personal. As a melee specialist, if I couldn’t get past this exchange, then I was dead from the moment I set my eyes on the slime.

The slime raised his three swords again. As my gaze followed them upward, the owl in his chest hooted.

“Hoooooooooot!” A ball of crimson, flickering flame formed in front of the owl’s face and immediately shot toward me.

Is that Fire Sphere?! I moved my left wing forward to block it. A column of blazing fire rose from the surface of my wing. While my vision was blocked by the flames, the slime swung his sword down from the left.

I raised my left paw up, meeting the swing. The sword caught on one of my claws and shattered it, then dug deep into my foreleg. Two more deadly blades followed. I lifted my upper body and started to raise my right foreleg to block them…but halfway up, I stopped. The twin blades, free of any obstacles, plunged deeply into my neck.

I think I’m…gonna pass out… Instantly, I was enveloped in the healing glow of Partner’s Hi-Rest.

(“Oi! Why the hell didn’t you block that?!”)

I’d never make it through this many attacks unharmed. There’ll always be another one waiting for me. It’s not about dodging ’em all—it’s about choosing which ones I take.

“Phooooo…” Black light gathered at the tip of the owl’s beak as its eyes rolled in its head. It was Hi-Slow. If I let it hit me, it was game over, here and now.

Yep, I was right. Just like I thought. I’m glad I kept my right paw free.

I struck out at the owl with my paw, moments before the skill was unleashed. The only advantage I had over the slime was my toughness. And if that was all I had, then continuing to tear flesh and break bones was the only thing I could do.

“Oh no you don’t,” the slime said, sticking his tongue out.

My right paw slammed against the slime’s shell shield. Damn it!No matter how much I sacrificed, I couldn’t even lay a single blow on this thing! This was not good. Not at all. That stupid owl’s Hi-Slow was coming for me!

“Graaaaaaaaah!” I put my full force into my right leg and shoved the shield with all my might.

“G-gah!” The slime lurched to the side from the shove, and the recoil sent me flying back. The black light of the owl’s Hi-Slow flew past me and dissipated.

“You don’t know when to give up, do you?! Just die already!”

Three Shockwaves shot out from the slime’s three blades. The first two sailed above my head, preventing me from getting back in the air to escape. The final blow was aimed right at me, where I’d been grounded by the other two. I ducked down and raised my front legs to avoid it. The blow left a massive crack in the floor.

“Hooooooot! Hooooooot! Hooooooot!”

Three Flame Spheres spiraled out from the owl at random, then shot at me from three different directions. I dug my claws into the gouge in the flooring caused by the Shockwave and yanked, forming a makeshift metal shield as the floor peeled away from the ground below. The ball of flame hit the floor shield and burst, creating a pillar of flame.

N-nice. Well played, me… This metal floor is pretty good for protection.

“Y-you…!” The slime dashed toward me on his scorpion legs and scuttled around the floor shield. “Gravity!”

Black light spread out in a circle with the slime at its center. As it washed over me, my body sagged with the tremendous weight of the gravitational pull. So…heavy… I can’t move… But compared to how it was at the start of our fight, it’s way weaker. The range is smaller too. It’s still strong enough to stop me, though, so that doesn’t change much…!

“Grrrr…” I sent the slime a message via Telepathy. What’s the matter? That’s not the Gravity I saw earlier. You’re trying to reserve your MP, aren’t you? You’re trying to play it cool, but you’re starting to worry that you won’t be able to beat me even if you use up all your MP, right?

The slime’s humanoid brows furrowed, and he glared at me. “This is the end for you. God is in agreement. You’re nothing but a bore, and it’s time for you to die!”

Dang it. No luck.I’d hoped to get under his skin and dig for info, but the slime’s response gave away nothing. My goal was to find out how much MP the slime would have left after fighting with me and whether he could use Life Mana to make enough MP to Regenerate and restore his HP in a loop, but that response was way too vague to tell.

The slime’s swords lunged at my nearly motionless form. Two of the three shot down from the left; Partner lunged forward and caught both swords in her mouth. Jagged pieces of sliced fangs fell from her mouth, along with blue, dripping blood.

Yes! She stopped two of his arms! This is huge!

“Chiii!”

“Grrrrr…” Partner growled, deep and low in the throat. Then her eyes glowed red as she used Master’s Demonic Gaze.

But…the slime is resistant to magic, isn’t he? Even if he’s less resistant to status changes, Master’s Demonic Gaze won’t work against an opponent with so much magic power. It’d be nice if it could create an opening, though, even just a small one…

“Ah? A-ahh, aaaaaahhh!”the slime shrieked, his remaining sword dropping to the ground as he clutched at his head.

W-wait, did it actually work?

The slime glared at me through the gap between his fingers.

“Bghoooooooot!” the owl hooted in rage. Fire, water, earth, and wind spheres appeared in front of the owl’s beak in succession, then flew at me one after the other.

H-hey! Is that a good idea, making the owl shoot off all its magic at us at once?!

Crap. If this guy was gonna blast me with that many skills, I had to avoid them, or else. Each one of those spheres was chock-full of magic. This was not the time to rush in, but this was my best shot at getting out of this—draining the slime’s MP would force him to drain his own HP. There was no need for me to go on the offensive.

I kicked off from the ground with my hind legs and jumped backward. The two slime swords in Partner’s mouth stretched as we leaped back, then snapped. Their color faded, and they fell to the ground as nothing but goo.

(“Geh! B-bleghh!”) Partner spat the remaining goo from her mouth.

The slime raised his final sword. “Your petty tricks bore me!”

I flapped my wings, concentrated the generated wind power in my right paw, and unleashed it at the slime as a Whirlwind Slash. The goal wasn’t to deal some damage, it was to deflect the slime’s attack, which would’ve hit me otherwise.

“You’re not the only one with that skill, you know!” The slime flapped his wings and pointed his now-empty hand at me. He unleashed his own Whirlwind Slash, canceling mine out.

Tch! He copied my skill to block it!

Behind the Whirlwind Slash, I saw that the slime had already swung his sword and unleashed another Shockwave. Oh man. Here it comes!

The Shockwave expanded horizontally as it flew toward me. At this distance, such a massive attack was impossible to avoid. Damn it! He’s attacking way too fast for me to do anything!

I gave up on evading it completely and curled into a ball to try and protect myself. But as I knew, blocking wouldn’t be enough to survive the slime’s onslaught.

Suddenly, an idea flashed through my mind. Maybe I could use the rotational force of my Roll to deflect some of the Shockwave’s power and run away as soon as I landed to give myself some space?

I used Roll to spin vertically at high speed, keeping my body wrapped in a tight ball. The Shockwave hit me, sending a burst of pain through my back that felt like it was being torn apart. I almost stopped rolling, but that would only mean being attacked by the slime. I kept rolling, simultaneously trying to minimize the damage with Regenerate. As soon as I landed on the ground, I rolled away from the slime as fast as I could.

“Are you trying to run from me again, Illusia?!”

The slime scuttled after me on his scorpion legs, still benefiting from the Hi-Quick. As I considered whether I’d be able to outrun him with Roll, my eyes landed on the section of flooring I’d peeled up to use as a shield. It was still bent up at a slope, almost like a springboard. Could I jump on that to create some distance? No, wait… Maybe I could use it as an attack somehow? The millennium tortoise shell he was using as a shield was a major problem. It would be difficult to get past that shield with a direct, frontal attack. However, I did manage to force my way past it with a Dragon Punch.

Is that…my chance?

I’d have to rely on pure luck afterward to survive, but this felt like the only opportunity for me to do some damage. Things would only get worse otherwise; every time we got in an altercation, I came away from it needing to waste MP on Regenerate. My MP, already low after the fight with Rogueheil, was about to hit rock bottom. I had to take a chance; and if I couldn’t manage to force my way out of this situation, it was all over for me.

The slime was still underestimating me. He only saw me as a warm-up for his fight with Saint Lilyxila. Well, that’s fine. I’ll make my move now and decide the victor, before the slime has the chance to pull any more tricks from up his sleeve!

The slime chased after me. With his Hi-Quick active, he was almost as fast as I was with Roll. The slime swung his two previously empty arms—now equipped with new slime swords made from his body—at me again. Jeez. Talk about convenient.

“Hooooooot!” The Great Owl of Wisdom’s cry echoed across the battlefield.

Ugh! Not this thing again! I darted from side to side as bullets of fire, water, wind, and earth exploded right behind me. The more I was forced to maneuver, the closer the slime got.

“Watch yourself, Illusia! I’m catching up!” The slime raised his three swords.

Was the triple Shockwave next?It was faster than the magic bullet skills and had a much wider trajectory, so I’d be in trouble if it hit me. However, I was able to get to the piece of peeled-up metal floor and use it as a shield.

I turned ninety degrees to the right and accelerated with all my might. The first of the slime’s Shockwaves slammed into the ground, right where I’d been moments before.

“Hmm…not bad. But how long do you think such a harebrained strategy is going to keep you safe?”

The slime moved to swing both of his remaining swords down at the same time. I spun a full one-eighty and lunged directly at him.

“What?!”

The slime wasn’t expecting me to suddenly come toward him. His body stiffened for a moment, then he started to back away. It was the perfect opportunity to pounce.

Yes! This is it! I’m gonna Roll tackle that jerk!

“I told you! It’s useless to resist!” The slime thrust out his shell shield, which grew a size larger and stood tall against the ground like a solid wall.

I leapt at the huge shell, and my body was slammed by the recoil. The shield held steady. I accelerated, rotating my body as fast as I could and sending up a spray of metal floor scraps behind me.

“God…if I abandon this castle, I will come out of hiding and take my rightful place as the Demon King and prepare for an all-out confrontation with the saint. But in order to do so, there is something I require.”

Ghh…urgh! This shield is freakin’ huge! But I can’t give up now! I’ve just gotta push through it!

“I need a name. If I win this fight, perhaps you can grant me a name as a reward. I want my name to be chosen by you, God. That is why I chose to remain nameless, even though Samael recommended one for me. And I chose not to adopt that child’s name either. I’d like a name that has a cool ring to it…but I will accept any name, if you are the one granting it to me.”

A slime arm, complete with a multitude of joints, slithered out from behind the shell shield. It seemed the slime was trying to attack me while I was stuck against the shield. Th-this slimy bastard!

“Roooooooooaar!” I used Bellow and increased my rotation speed. Come on, please! I don’t need to destroy the shield; I just need to knock this thing off-balance a little bit!

“Ggh!” With a final shove, the shield gave way a little as the slime staggered.

Y-yes! I did it!

“You’re a persistent one, Illusia! But a little shove won’t change anythi—aagh!” The slime’s jab was cut short as he tripped. What he hadn’t realized was that the floor behind him was the part I’d peeled up before, and he was on a massive slope that was enough to bring his legs out from under him.

With a final hard shove, the slime’s guard broke, and we shot backward into the top of the springlike flooring. Then we bounced off and were sent flying into the air.

Now there’s no floor around to help stabilize the shield! And not just that—the slime, suddenly thrown into an aerial battle, was too bewildered to react.

I rolled over and extended my tail to push the shield down from above.

“Hrgh… Y-you dare…!”

Black flames surrounded my paw, and I struck the now-defenseless slime with a Dragon Punch. My deadly claws wrenched through the human face, then gouged deep into the owl in his chest.

“Bghooot!” the owl screeched as its face was ripped open.

You really messed me up too, y’know! If I never met the original owl monster, it’d be too soon. I’d been subjected to enough of its magic to last a lifetime.

My Dragon Punch blew through the slime’s face, sending half of his mass flying. The flying red glob lost its integrity and its color, then splattered to the ground like rain.

Yes! My gamble paid off!

(“N-nice work, Partner!”)

Don’t congratulate me yet! If I don’t wrap things up now, we won’t survive another round of attacks!

The slime made a feeble attempt to grab at my face, but I whipped my tail at him again and sent him flying into the air. Then I reversed my spin to release an uppercut and immediately struck him with my tail again.

Yes! Keep going, keep hitting him! I won’t give him a chance to recover! If I don’t finish him off here, then there’s no way I’ll get out of this alive!

I battered the slime’s body, creating deep dents across his surface. One of his arms ripped off and fell to the ground.

“Illusiaaaaaaa!”

A demonic face appeared in the malformed ooze and leered at me in fury. I swung my paw straight down and struck him across the forehead with the skill I’d taken straight from the hero: Celestial Fall.

The slime’s face twisted; then he plummeted to the ground at top speed. I made a final pursuit, dropping down after him with my front legs extended.

My claws tore through the slime with the full force of gravity, and then I followed up with Earth Fall. The floor ripped wide open, scattering the slime’s ooze across the room at random.

That was it. I put everything I had into that last barrage of attacks.

I had nothing left to spare.

Illusia

Species: Ouroboros

Status: Normal

Lv: 109/125

HP: 331/2816

MP: 98/2718

My MP was already at less than 4 percent of its max. Although I’d finished it with time to spare, the fight with Rogueheil really drained my stats. It would only take a few more healing skills for my MP to be gone.

This isn’t the kind of enemy where waiting for my MP to recover automatically enough to use Hi-Rest is gonna work. Please…let this be the end.

In the distance, one of the globs of splattered slime rose and contorted into a human torso.

“G-God…”

He’s still alive?!

He must’ve been healing like crazy, even in the middle of that onslaught! But that had to have been a massive drain on his MP. E-even after all that, this thing was still kicking…?

Species: Chaos Ooze

Status: Power (Slight), Quick (Slight), Physical Resistance Boost (Slight), Magic Resistance Boost (Slight)

Lv: 100/125

HP: 433/1681

MP: 447/1780

H-huh?! Y-you gotta be kidding me?! He’s still got that much MP?!

“Forgive me! Forgive me, God… Are you disappointed in me?” The slime clawed and scratched at his face. “This is the second time this guy has driven me into a corner… I swore the next time we met, I’d destroy him with ease…!”

Unbelievable! How did this thing come out on top?! If that attack wasn’t enough to kill him, then I was dead from the moment I saw him!

I…couldn’t think of a way out of this. What was I gonna do? Could I even escape at this point? If I could just find Lilyxila and get some backup… No, the slime was faster than I was. It was no use.

“L-Laplace! What are the odds of my victory?! Answer me!”

Wait. Laplace? Like the Laplace Authority Interference skill? I’d thought Laplace was the same as my Divine Voice, but from the way the slime spoke to it, it seemed like another being entirely. The skill was supposedly the same as the one that’d given me probabilities of future events when I fought the Little Rock Dragon. I’d been trying not to use it because it creeped me out, but the slime clearly didn’t seem to mind.

“Ninety-five percent, huh…? Heh, heh heh,I see…I… I won’t lose to him… There’s no way I can lose… It’s okay. It’s all okay. Wait and see, God. I’ll crush Illusia to death…”

I was frozen in a state of despair, but hearing those words brought me back to life. W-wait, that means I’ve still got a chance. Five percent, huh? That’s all I need!

Even if it was just a show of bravado, I was gonna fight to the very end. It’d be way too boring if I just lay down and died! No way out? That was normal in a world full of hungry monsters! In fact, I was lucky I’d had my powerful recovery skills to protect me all this time. Get it together, me. The last time I’d confronted this slime, all I had to keep me alive was my weak little Rest skill.

The slime’s form wriggled, and something that looked like a lump of flesh swelled up, seemingly crushing the humanlike torso beneath it. The slime transformed himself into what appeared to be a hulking mass of flesh. Four large wings sprouted out of him, and the lump of flesh took flight. Then four fleshy owl faces appeared on the surface of his body.

“Hooooooot!”

“Pghooooot!”

“Hoohooooot!”

“Hooooooot!”

The four faces spun around the lump of flesh. I thought I was used to the slime’s grotesque transformations, but I was wrong.

What the heck?! Four Great Owls of Wisdom?! They must be trying to finish me off in one last Hail Mary.

‹“Let’s settle this, Illusiaaaa!”›

I almost balked, but then I shook my head and stepped forward. All right. I’m ready, slime. I’m gonna take you down without using any skills!

Part 4

THE MASS OF FLESH with four owl faces spread his four eerie wings and soared through the underground hall. It was a quadruple Great Owl of Wisdom that specialized in ranged attacks, without regard for his appearance or MP usage.

It was definitely going to be difficult to survive against a monster like that for long. However, the slime was down to about a quarter of his max MP. Using four of the MP-draining owl forms at once had to be a risky move.

But…the slime still had forms and skills that he hadn’t even used yet. If it wasn’t a risky move, if he still had a trump card hidden up his sleeve…with my stats as low as they were now, it wouldn’t take much to finish me off…

No. I couldn’t think like that. Right now, I needed to focus on doing everything I could to survive. That’s all I could do. Just had to keep fighting with the belief that I’d win and stick it out as well as I could.

It’ll be fine… According to Laplace, I’ve still got a 5 percent chance of coming out on top…!

“Pghogogogooooot!”

“Pghooghooooot!”

“Pghoooooot!”

“Pghoooot!”

The four owl faces spun around and around as he soared higher. After a few seconds, black light began to rain down from the air overhead.

I couldn’t believe my eyes. The twenty or so barrages of black light were all powerful Dark Spheres. Any one of them could be the end for me, even as a tanky Ouroboros.

I-Is he an idiot?! Using that many skills at once is like throwing MP into the gutter!

I kicked off from the ground, flying low to try and outrun the nightmarish bombardment from above. Fortunately, because the slime’s Dark Sphere skill level was so low, the orbs were only raining down in straight lines. I’d be really screwed if they had spiral trajectories or a homing effect.

A Dark Sphere exploded right behind me, shattering the floor beneath it.

‹Look, look here, God! My body can do anything, become anything! I’m the one most worthy of God’s favor! What could you achieve with a measly dragon like Illusia?› The slime’s maniacal laughter echoed through my head.

Suddenly, a chill ran up my spine. Something’s coming. I quickly curled up into a Roll and shot down toward the ground. A thick beam of heat shot through the air just above my head: Drago Flare. One shot could be the difference between victory and defeat.

I looked back toward the source of the beam and saw that one of the owl heads had stretched out from the mass of flesh and transformed into the head and neck of a dragon.

“Groooooooar!” the impromptu dragon roared. Then the dragon’s neck shrunk back into the lump of flesh, and its face returned to that of an owl.

Damn it! Quit using those broken skills! I knew if I just waited for the slime to exhaust all his MP, I’d slip up and get caught sooner or later. There was no guarantee that I’d make it through the next magic downpour. On the other hand, if I flew after the slime, the four owl heads would target me with their magic and I’d be blown up before I got close enough to hit him. Sure, I was glad this attack routine was a big MP drain, but his power and range were far too dangerous to risk it.

As expected, the slime flew after me, but then he shot toward the ceiling again. It was no use. If I used Fly to go after him, I’d be hit with a storm of magic.

No, wait… Flying isn’t the only way to reach the ceiling! I dashed to the wall, still using Roll, then zoomed vertically up it. Y-yes! This is it! I’ve got it! If I mess up here, the magic storm will kill me…but if I’m gonna die anyway, I’m gonna die trying!

‹What? What’re you…› The slime, so incensed beforehand, returned to his normal state for a moment. However, when he realized I was scaling the wall and coming for him at a tremendous pace, the slime’s murderous intent returned. The next moment, several orbs of black light rained down on me. I swerved from side to side, just in time to dodge the explosions, and reached a height that was about equal to the slime’s altitude in the air.

‹All right, how about this?! Let’s see you try and run away this time!› Two dragon heads extended from the floating mass of flesh. Each one opened its mouth and shot out a massive ray of heat, tracing a circle of molten metal in the wall around my body, engulfing me in a wall of Drago Flare flames.

The slime grew a third dragon head, which extended toward me and released a third beam of Drago Flare at my trapped form.

I’m completely surrounded, but there’s still one more way to go: out!

I stopped rolling, kicked off from the wall, then spread my wings and flew straight for the slime. Then, wheeling to the side to avoid the third Drago Flare, I shot toward the slime’s upper left. Here it is! This is the perfect time to attack!

‹You fool. I’ve been luring you here from the start!›

Just as I was about to strike, the final remaining owl face looked straight at me.

“Phgogogogoooooooo!”

Almost at once, four Dark Spheres shot out from the owl’s beak and closed in on me. My right wing, which I’d moved in front of me to defend, was blown from its socket. The next shots hit me in the chest, front right leg, and Partner’s neck.

My consciousness began to fade. Did I get the Bleeding status condition? I didn’t even have the MP to use Regenerate, and having one of my wings torn off in midair was definitely a worst-case scenario.

‹Aha ha ha ha! That’s a garbage amount of HP you have left!›

Oh yeah? Well, same to you!

I swung my gouged right paw and tore through the slime. Then I broke his stance in midair and slashed him savagely with my left paw. I dug the claws of my hind legs into the lump of flesh to keep myself from falling.

‹Gaaah! Wh-what?! You even lost a wing! Your HP is barely hanging on and yet you don’t even hesitate!›

Don’t be stupid! You and me, we’ve got what you call a difference in resolve! I thought the Demon King was supposed to be someone impressive. You’re just a mama’s boy who does whatever the Divine Voice tells you to!

‹What would you know about it?!›

Tentacles extended from the lump of flesh, piercing through my body. But even so, I didn’t stop attacking. I kept swinging my front paws in wide arcs, tearing apart the mass of slime flesh piece by piece.

‹Aaaaaaah!›

The slime’s body burst open in midair, and I dropped toward the floor. I could…barely move. But if I didn’t, I was going to hit the ground straight on my side.

I lifted my tail and slammed it into the floor before me, using the recoil to slow myself down and reduce my fall damage. The slime, having lost his form, slammed to the floor after me with a loud boom. From the center of the slimy lump of flesh, a human head and torso formed, swaying like a ghost. His eyes stared out at me lifelessly.

Heh, heh heh…I did it. You definitely wasted all your MP with those owl attacks. And on top of that, you took an absolute beating just now. You’ve gotta be running on empty, right?

Species: Chaos Ooze

Status: Normal

Lv: 100/125

HP: 521/1681

MP: 67/1780

…Well, you still have more than I thought you would, but whatever. You have HP, but you’ll run out of MP soon. Then all you’ll be able to do is writhe around in that slime body. I win. You should beg for mercy to the Divine Voice for losing a match you were 95 percent likely to win.

The slime looked at me with hatred in his eyes. “…God hasn’t answered me in a long time. Not since that day in the forest, Illusia. The day our fight ended in a draw.”

W-wait, not since then…? D-does that mean you’ve just been talking to yourself this whole time?!

“I didn’t want to have to use this here, but…I am out of options. Allow me to show you my most prized skill: Life Mana! It utilizes my strength—being able to absorb all kinds of monsters—and uses it as my ultimate skill!”

On the slime’s lower torso, three owl faces wriggled to life. Just then, the slime’s entire body was enveloped in blue light, and then it burst into flames. Inside the flames, a human form clutched at its head with its arms and screamed. The owl faces lost their shape in the heat of the fire, and their forms disintegrated.

“A-ah, aaah, aaaaaaaaah!”

Th-that’s Life Mana?! The skill that lets you exchange HP for MP?!

The slime hadn’t used it until now, so I had to guess he was using it now because the exchange rate from HP to MP was expensive, and I didn’t have anything left to attack him with. He was sacrificing the rest of the HP he had to spare in order to squeeze out the last of his MP. Well, that was fine. If the slime reduced his HP, I’d just finish him off with a single blow…!

The blue flames of Life Mana dispersed. With a heave, I lifted my heavy body and staggered to my feet. Now, the question is, how much MP did he get back…?

Species: Chaos Ooze

Status: Normal

Lv: 100/125

HP: 1075/1681

MP: 547/1780

…Huh?

N-no, wait, that can’t be right. No, no no no! It can’t be!

This…this is just…it’s absolutely impossible!

By all accounts, the Chaos Ooze’s stats and characteristics, coupled with the slime’s inherent ability to extract skills from other monsters, was a truly broken combination. But being able to regenerate both HP and MP with no cost? That was on a whole different level entirely.

“Laplace…what is my chance of victory? I see. So it hasn’t changed…”

Why?! Why did he regain most of his HP too?! What the hell is going on? With a skill like that, this battle will never end. Something…something fishy is going on. There must be some sort of catch.

“Now then, Illusia… Let’s begin our final round, shall we? This monster was…very difficult to kill. It was the one with Life Mana, after all.”

Then the slime’s body began to swell rapidly.

Part 5

A RAINBOW OF COLORS began to spread over the slime’s growing form. The hues turned warmer and warmer, until he finally completed his transformation and stood before me as a bright-red bird. He spread his two wings that were large enough to take up a majority of his body width and stamped on the floor with massive clawed feet. The slime bird looked down at me from behind his imposing beak.

This had to be the form of the monster that had Life Mana…the Fallen Phoenix.

But the slime managed to kill the Fallen Phoenix, even with his Life Mana skill, right? That meant the skill had to have a weakness. If I could find it and use it to my advantage, then maybe…!

“…God called me pathetic, you know. But I seem to be a truly unique specimen in this world. Because it chose to acquire Life Mana during its evolution, the Phoenix’s HP was incredibly low compared to other rank A monsters, and that became its downfall. It was still a persistent enemy…but I’ve realized that, out of all monsters, I am the only one without any weaknesses. And that is because I am God’s ideal vassal, and I exist outside the boundaries of this world.”

Two bright-red wings spread wide from the slime’s back. The space behind him seemed to shimmer with intense heat.

My consciousness began to fade. S-sorry, Lilyxila… I can’t win against this. Was I just an expendable resource to you? A stone to use and throw away?

The damage from the consecutive Dark Spheres was too much for me. One of my wings had been blown off, so I couldn’t fly properly; in fact, I couldn’t even lift my leg. Partner’s neck had also been hit hard, and there was a deluge of blood pouring out of it.

The slime slowly approached, his steps echoing across the floor, and he pointed his fingers at me as he closed in. Our eyes met. I knew that if I made a move to try and escape, he would attack without hesitation.

(“H-hey!”) Partner protested. (“Are you seriously just giving up?! There’s gotta be something we can do!”)

Yeah, you’re right. There has to be something. If the Life Mana skill really didn’t have any weaknesses thanks to the slime’s OP abilities, he should’ve used it from the very start of the fight.

The slime could’ve come down on me hard at the beginning and finished me off, trapping me with a barrage of Drago Flare and preventing me from ever getting close. Even if he completely destroyed the underground cellar, he would’ve been able to escape with that slime body. But he didn’t do that.

So it’s definitely not an all-powerful skill. He probably recovered his MP with Life Mana, then used a different skill to restore his HP.

I felt like there might be other risks to using Life Mana, but considering it wasn’t displayed in the skill details, I doubted there was any crazy disadvantage to using it.

It didn’t escape my notice that when the slime activated Life Mana, three Great Owls of Wisdom appeared. However, I didn’t have the time to guess at the connection there and exploit it as a potential weakness. At the end of the day, I had to accept the facts: The slime had recovered, and I was still on the brink of death. It was too late. The multitude of cards in the slime’s hand had overwhelmed me. I couldn’t even move properly anymore.

“You had luck on your side, but you still lost. Even so, I never expected you to give me such a run for my money.” The slime lowered his fingers, and a two-meter-long comet of flame shot out from the flames on his wings. The flames took the form of a bird, which spread its wings and opened its beak wide as it flew at me.

“This is Holy Firebird…a mass of flames with a homing effect.”

I blocked the attack with my remaining wing. The flames burst against my skin and enshrouded my entire body in blazing heat. I could tell that my HP was rapidly decreasing.

“Ghhh…” I sank to the ground and kneeled. From the very beginning, there was no way I’d be able to win this battle. The only thing I could’ve done was run away as fast as I could. The slime’s Laplace only predicted the slime’s chance of winning—for all I knew, that five percent could’ve simply been the chance that I’d be able to get away.

“Gaa, graaaaah!” Partner cried out and shook her head. Blue blood splattered the ground with each shake from the gaping wound in her neck. A second Holy Firebird flew at me and exploded, and then a third.

The slime raised his arms and opened his mouth. “I’ve managed to come this far because I’ve been focused on becoming strong all this time. I’ve heard that you, on the other hand, have been going around and acting frivolously, doing whatever you pleased. I don’t know much about you, but that is clearly what distinguishes you from me. If you were at your max level, our stat difference would’ve made it impossible for me to even land an attack, and this conflict might’ve never ended. If you’d just made it to your next evolution, you would’ve been rank A+, if not Legendary. Then…things may have ended differently. But it’s no use speculating now.”

Then the slime began to slowly lower his arm, as if biding his time.

“It may surprise you to know, Illusia, that I never truly hated you. Not that it matters now, of course.”

Another massive, flaming bird flew at me. It was slow and hulking, probably because it was intended to be all about power instead of speed. It could be as slow as it liked; there was no way I could hit it now.

…I’m sorry, Allo, Nightmare, Treant. I won’t be coming back. I should apologize to Lilyxila and Myria too… No, I guess it’s too late for that now.

What was this slime going to do now that I failed to stop him here? I doubted Lilyxila would be able to stop him herself. I should’ve gone back as soon as I found out we wouldn’t be working together.

Judging from the current outcome, if either Lilyxila or I were not around to help, it would’ve been completely impossible for us to capture the Chaos Ooze at this point.

But just before the Holy Firebird hit me, a shadow flew out in front of me. I opened my eyes wide.

“Uraaaaaaagh! Blade of Exorcism!”

A sinister, red-black blade slashed through the Holy Firebird, cleaving it in two. The flames lost their forward momentum and dissipated without bursting.

V-Volk?!

Volk released his right hand from the eerie greatsword, opened and closed it as if to check his grip strength, and then gave a ghastly grin.

“Hmph. That’ll do, I suppose.”

Wh-where’d that sword come from…? And he seems even faster than he was when I fought him…

“Don’t get too close. This sword carries a curse. It even tried to slash at me while I was trying to heal Volk. It seems our dragonslayer truly is closer to monster than man.” Right before my eyes, standing next to a pile of rubble, was Lilyxila’s retainer, Alphis. Her small, piercing irises peeked out from underneath her short blonde hair.

“Master Dragon!” I couldn’t see Nightmare anywhere, but even Allo had arrived here. She leaped over the rubble and dove to my side, glaring at the slime.

“Roooooooaar!” H-hey, watch out! That guy’s really dangerous! If we don’t get out of here soon, it’ll kill us all!

“Goodness, that surprised me. But you’re not the saint, are you? It seems I’ve only got a few more small fry to worry about, so…” the slime said, laughing.

The slime’s laughter was cut short by the sound of Alphis’s voice. “You should have never come out into the open. No matter how many humans you’ve swallowed, no matter how illustrious a name you’ve given yourself, you are still nothing but a slime. Saint Lilyxila is likely still making predictions with her remaining magic. Choosing to appear at her provocation was a huge mistake. You should have bided your time until the saint gave you a clear opening, just as she is doing with you now.”

The slime’s face contorted in anger.

‹Allo, what the heck’s going on?› I asked Allo with Telepathy.

Allo gave me a complicated look. “Nightmare is ­taking the girl, Myria, upstairs right now. But that slime…we only barely escaped from him.”

So Myria’s safe? And that slime…you mean Samael? Y-you guys managed to fight him off? With how powerful he was, I could only hope you were able to get away.

“And after that, we met up with her.” Allo pointed at Alphis, a hint of dislike clouding her expression. When we’d first met, Alphis had clearly looked down on me and the rest of my crew as just a gaggle of monsters. Now that we were working together, she seemed to appreciate having our strength on her side, but I still felt like she was reluctant to accept us as true friends and allies.

…I wanted to thank them for coming here to support me, but to be honest, I wasn’t sure how long Volk, Allo, and Alphis would be able to survive against that slime… More than anything, I was simply worried for them. Alphis was provoking the slime for coming out into the open, but as for me, I would’ve rather she called up Saint Lilyxila and let her handle things.

“It seems the small fry is trying to make me out to be a fool. Can’t you see that you stick out like a sore thumb?” The slime moved.

Alphis raised her sword. “I’ve saved a bit of my magic, so I can at least buy you some time. Quick!”

A magical light enveloped Allo and Volk. Volk raised his greatsword and kicked off from the floor, then leaped to the wall and ran along it toward the slime. Allo, momentarily taken aback by Volk’s vigor, glanced back at me before moving to go after him.

However…although Volk was a different matter, I knew the slime was way too much for Allo to handle.

“Grahh…!” I called out to her, but Allo just looked back at me and smiled.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got an ace up my sleeve.” Allo patted my side, then enlarged her hand and ran over to the slime.

An…ace up her sleeve? Sure, being low on agility would be lethal, but this isn’t the type of monster she’d be able to defeat because of a little speed buff.

“Naturally, we’d be in trouble without you back in the fight. Mana Release!” Alphis raised her sword again and thrust it at my forehead. Her body began to glow. The light traveled through her body to her sword, then flowed from the sword’s tip to me. My entire body felt lighter, and the haze over my five senses cleared.

Was that…an MP-transfer skill? I didn’t receive much, probably because the conversion rate wasn’t very efficient and Alphis was running low on MP herself, but…there was a very big difference between having a little bit and having none at all.

With this, I could use Regenerate to heal my broken parts and Hi-Rest to regain some HP. I healed my wings and repaired the gouges across my body.

A-all right! I can still fight! I wasn’t sure if Alphis would be any help back when we first met, but she did have some pretty handy skills. I guess it was no wonder, considering she was Lilyxila’s retainer.

(“Say thank you,”) Partner ordered.

“I have no need for thanks from monsters,” Alphis responded calmly, without making eye contact. “Show me it was worth it.”

Welp, her attitude’s the same as ever. Couldn’t Lilyxila have found a strong swordswoman who was a bit…nicer? I hoped she didn’t give me sass while we were fighting for our lives out here.

I tried to take a step forward, but I felt my body wobble, and I staggered. Ugh! My body’s not in good shape yet? When I need to get back into the action?!

“…What are you so surprised about? Don’t you know? Recovering MP with items or skills puts a strain on your body.”

Now that she mentioned it, I did remember Allo struggling a bit after using Mana Drain to borrow my MP in the mine. I thought it was just mental fatigue at the time, but…it actually put you at a disadvantage?

Then…was the slime at a disadvantage too? Did that mean Life Mana wasn’t a skill he could use repeatedly? If so, then I’d understand his wanting to conserve MP. But Allo had filled her empty MP several times with no issue, so it didn’t seem like a heavy burden on her.

“However, transferring MP through skills is far more convenient than relying on medicine to recover,” Alphis added. “Now move.”

I wasn’t sure if it’d be much of a fatal weakness in this fight either, as it was something I could tolerate as long as I was aware of it. It seemed like wishful thinking to believe using Life Mana multiple times would wear the slime down…right?

“Let’s finish this before our energy runs out. The dragonslayer and the undead are already at their limits. Quick!”

The light of Alphis’s magic fell upon my back.

You…don’t know how stupid tough this slime is, so you’re talking down to it like you’re better. But I’m telling you, the only time I can defeat it is now, while the Quick is active. Right now, I had the upper hand against that cheating slime in melee combat, but our only shot was if I could finish him off with a barrage of blows that prevented him from using his Life Mana skill again.

Alphis jumped onto Partner’s neck. “Get moving. You’re wasting my magic.”

“Graaaaaah?!” Partner snapped her fangs and glared at Alphis.

“Hmph.This is not the time,” Alphis said, but Partner didn’t seem to be listening.

(“Hey. Can I bite this lady real quick, just to cheer me up a little?”) Partner asked, staring at Alphis with wide eyes.

I sighed. ‹Hop on my neck instead, Alphis; I don’t mind. That one won’t be swayed by logic!›

“R-right…” Alphis leaped over to my neck. Wow. The big bad swordswoman was really scared just now, wasn’t she? I saw her face tense up.

I ran over to where Volk and Allo were deep in combat with the slime.

“…I won’t be needing any fancy skills to get rid of Illusia’s little entourage,” the slime sneered. “I’ll just destroy you with this.”

Numerous tentacles stretched out from the slime’s body to attack Allo and Volk. Allo couldn’t even get close to the slime. Just when the tentacles were about to catch her, she used Gale to blow herself away and narrowly avoided them.

The slime could sling his tentacles around as long as he liked, but Allo had to use MP to dodge. This slime really was a head above her in terms of stats.Meanwhile,Volk evaded the tentacle strike effortlessly, like he’d known its trajectory from the very beginning, then leaped upward and swung his greatsword at the tentacle.

“Hyaaaaaaah!” With a furious shout, Volk sliced the tentacle cleanly in two. The slime frowned, and Volk gave a fearless grin. The next moment, however, another tentacle shot out and slammed Volk to the wall. The wall cracked with the force, and Volk’s body was crushed deeper into the crevice.

I-Is he dead…?

As soon as the thought crossed my mind, Volk jumped out of the hole and dodged the pursuing tentacles. His form was stained with blood, but that same feral grin was still plastered on his face.

No matter how I looked at it, there was no way he could’ve gotten out of that so quickly. He must’ve only targeted the parts of his body necessary for movement and immediately healed them with Regenerate.

I-Is Volk really not human after all?

Volk jumped onto one of the tentacles chasing him and ran along it to the slime’s main body. “I suppose I wouldn’t mind exchanging my dragonslayer title for that of Demon King slayer!”

“You are nothing but an annoyance! Gravity!” the slime shouted.

Black light spread rapidly along the ground, restricting Allo’s and Volk’s movements. They both sank to the ground and writhed on the spot, their shoulders shaking.

“Mmgh, grrh… This power…!”

“How unfortunate. No one can save you while you’re stuck in the light of my Gravity. Now you’ll both die!” The slime’s stomach wriggled, then transformed into a spinning owl face. Two spheres of black light appeared in front of it—the Great Owl of Wisdom was using two consecutive Dark Spheres!

Maximum power Gravity really was dangerous. Even I, with my size and power, would have my movements greatly restricted if I went into the area of effect. Volk and Allo had no way to escape, so it was up to me to do something. I kicked off from the ground and spread my wings, then flew into the ring of black light from above.

When I entered the Gravity field, I felt it immediately begin to pull my body down to the ground. I used my momentum to aim for the slime’s humanoid form as I plummeted down, my front legs stretching toward it.

“What?!” The slime immediately threw its two Dark Spheres at Allo and Volk, then raised both arms to meet me. His massive shell shield formed at the tips of his fingers and blocked my claws. However, it seemed like he couldn’t bear the weight of my huge body along with the Gravity, and his entire form trembled with exertion. The ring of black light from Gravity weakened, and Allo and Volk started to move again.

“Gale!”

“Mega Cleave!”

The tornado of wind released by Allo struck the phoenix’s back leg, and Volk’s sword skill slashed at the tentacles. The slime lost his balance, and his shell shield began to tip even further.

“Shockwave!” Alphis released a sword strike in the gap we’d created. The Shockwave sliced through the opening in the slime’s defenses and sliced through the base of his humanoid arm.

“Tch!”

I shoved the tilted shell shield with my claws, toppling it further, and tossed it to the side. The slime was defenseless.

I raised my paw and tore through the slime’s humanoid upper body vertically where it extended from the phoenix neck. The shell shield fell to the floor and burst, turning back into slime.

“This…this isn’t fair! We were having a one-on-one fight!” The two halves of the slime’s mouth flapped open and closed as he spoke. His human form, split in two, dissolved and sank down into the body of the phoenix.

Instantly, the phoenix’s body was covered in a layer of silver, and dozens of mouths of various sizes formed along his entire body. Even the tips of his tentacles had mouths. H-huh…? What’s going on?

The slime’s entire body was transformed into a strange, silvery mass of gaping maws. I felt a tremendous amount of magic power flow into the center of the metallic phoenix. I dunno what this thing’s about to do, but whatever it is, it doesn’t seem good.

“First, I’ll start with the small fry.”

“I’ll be sure to mow them down.”

Voices echoed from each of the slime’s open mouths. I swung my paw wide and clawed at the silvery surface of his body, only for my claws to shatter against him and snap off, along with my toes.

Ouch. He wasn’t as hard as the shell shield, but he was still really tough. Did he seriously manage to make his entire body as hard as steel? Damn it, I thought he’d used his trump card already! Or was this just another card in his hand?

Think, think! What skill is this? It feels like metal, so maybe… No way. It can’t be!

“I’ll be nice and declare my plan ahead of time.”

“I’ll be releasing my breath skill, Metal Breath, in all directions at maximum power.”

“You, with your high HP, will likely be the only one to survive.”

That’s Grandpa Magiatite’s skill! It was a breath skill that sprayed magiatite, vaporized by super high heat, into the surrounding area all at once. If the massive metal slime shot it out from each of his mouths, the lethal spray would take up half of the underground hall. There was no way for me to stop the magiatite slime with any of my current attacks. If such a powerful attack hit them, Allo, Volk, and Alphis definitely wouldn’t survive.

“Rooooooar!” ‹Get behind me! I’ll block it!› I told the other three via Telepathy.

(“Hey! Watch out, Partner! It’s aiming straight for you!”) Partner warned me.

I knew that much. The slime said he wanted to wipe out my friends with this attack, but I was certain he wanted to finish me off by making me take a direct hit while I protected everyone else. If I took the hit, the slime would get what he wanted.

But if I didn’t, all three of them would die!

The slime’s mouths all twisted into smiles. “You’re a brave one, aren’t you! Go on, start running, or this’ll be the end for you!”

The slime sucked in breaths through all of his mouths, and his body swelled. I stood in front of the slime and raised my upper body to form a barrier. The only spot Metal Breath couldn’t reach would be right behind me.

“I had no idea this thing was such a monster… Will Saint Lilyxila really be able to manage it?” Alphis muttered as she leaped behind me.

Allo, Volk, you too! Hurry!

“Are you…sure you can handle this?” Allo asked, glancing back at me. Then she turned back to the slime and raised her oversized clay arms over her head.

“Oh, yes! Now!” Volk, who’d been running around at the slime’s feet, leapt to Allo’s side and slashed at one of her bloated arms.

H-hey! What’re you doing to her?! Don’t tell me that weird cursed sword is messing with your head…!

“Gale!” Allo raised her remaining arm toward the large open mouth at the center of the slime. The whirlwind from Gale kicked up around her and picked up her severed arm before it sailed over to the slime. The Gale hit the slime, but he didn’t move. Allo’s severed arm was sucked directly into the slime’s mouth.

Hey! Seriously, what’re you two doing?! Come back here, quick!

“Sorry, but your time is up. This is the most ideal outcome for me anyway. Get ready! Metal Breath!”

At that moment, something strange happened. The metal around the mouths began to melt, blocking their airways. The silver covering the surface of the slime’s body turned a bright red, and his whole body distorted and began to expand.

“Huh? Wh-wha…? N-no, it can’t be! Why, why, wh—” The slime’s mouths were sealed shut as the molten magiatite trickled in. The Metal Breath attack, intended to be sprayed outward, had no place to go and burst inside the slime.

Wh-what? What just happened?

“H-h-hot! It…hurts! It hurts! How did…how did you…?!” The slime’s phoenix body staggered as he ­began to melt. He spread his warped wings and flew into the air.

For a moment, I was stunned; but this was my chance. I jumped straight up to catch up to him, and then the remainder of the battle was between the slime, who only lived to become stronger, and me, who spent my days gallivanting around.

“I’m…I’m not finished yet. I still have Life Mana, and as long as I do, I will never lose…”

Three owl faces appeared on the slime’s body. “All right, let’s start all over again.”

“And again and again.”

“Until you’re through, and I’m the only one left standing…!”

I sent a message with Telepathy. ‹Enough with the bluffing. Sure, it’s a useful skill, but you can only use it so many times, can’t you?›

The slime froze in surprise.

Compared to how powerful he was at the beginning, the slime was clearly much slower and weaker after using Life Mana. He had probably used the faulty magiatite skill to compensate for that fact.

At first, I’d been too preoccupied to think about it, but as I saw the slime preparing to use Life Mana again and compared it to how he was during the battle earlier, I understood.

‹That three-faced owl form…you use it to cover yourself with a barrage of magic skills to compensate for the damage from Life Mana, don’t you?›

The slime’s Life Mana skill… At first glance, it looked like the slime had recovered 500 MP, and more than double its remaining HP, just by using it once. But as expected, that’d be too broken of a skill to even be possible. The slime had various skills that consumed MP to recover HP, and Life Mana converted HP to MP. If there was a single positive net gain from this cycle, the slime could repeat it over and over quickly to gain a lot of both HP and MP.

But using skills to recover MP over and over would cause fatigue, like it did for Allo. Even as a slime with three owl forms that specialized in repeated magic attacks, if he alternated Life Mana and recovery skills at high speed, he would be hard-pressed to keep up the pace.

In fact, he was slowing down. If he were only up against me, he would’ve been able to fend me off with his skills. But after the surprise magiatite attack, on top of the arrival of Allo and the others, I doubted the slime would have enough strength left to fight properly after he forced himself to recover with Life Mana again.

“You…say that like you know a single thing about what you’re talking about.”

“I still have plenty of skills I haven’t even used yet.”

Blue flames began to rise from the slime. The three owl faces spun around the slime’s torso and melted in the flames.

“I…was intending to never use this skill again.”

“But it seems I have no choice.”

“I am going to turn this cellar…”

“Into the fiery pits of Hell.”

The slime began to move within the flames. He raised his fiery phoenix wings high, and the flames engulfing his body turned black.

“I didn’t expect to be pushed so close to the brink, but in the end, you are the ones who are going to die.”

“You may as well try to run for your lives…”

“But you’ll likely be vaporized in an instant!”

Wh-what’re you planning to do?!

“Prepare to burn to death! Great Blowfly Ring!”

A massive circle of magic appeared, floating, in the middle of the hall. Moments later, it transformed into an enormous ring of black flames. The temperature of the entire hall jumped in an instant.

“Ha ha ha ha!Meet the skill that calls forth the flames of Hell to burn through anything and everything aside from the skill user, who is equipped with armor of black fire! I was outside when I faced this skill from the phoenix, so I was able to escape. But here, I doubt you will be able to do the same.”

I hurriedly scanned the battlefield to check the others’ positions. Of course, Allo and Alphis were staring, but even Volk was looking at the massive ring of black flame in dismay. I dashed around the hall, stretched my neck out toward Allo and Volk, and scooped them both into my mouth.

(“Partner! Jump to the right and get that stupid swordswoman and Grandpa Magiatite!”)

Partner instantly did as she was told, scooping up Alphis and Grandpa Magiatite, in sword form, with a flick of her head.

A-all right, we got ’em all!

“Unfortunately…”

“You made the wrong choice.”

“You should have left your friends behind…”

“And looked for a way to escape.”

“But now, there is nowhere to run!”

The ring of black flame contracted for a moment, then expanded at a tremendous speed.

It’s already hot enough just being in the room! Is the slime planning to coat the whole hall in flames?! It’s gonna burn down the entire cellar!

I curled up and covered myself with my wings. Hellfire engulfed my body and surged past me.

Resistance Skill “Fire Resistance” Lv 3 has become Lv 4.

I felt my cells being burned away and my body beginning to carbonize.

Partner! Use Hi-Rest! As many as you can, please!

(“We’re almost out of MP!”)

Please! Use the rest of the MP we got from Alphis and everything we got back over time, all of it!

I was enveloped in the light of Partner’s Hi-Rest. I felt my body, moments from being burned to a crisp, revive from the healing magic. But my new scales and skin quickly began to burn and blacken.

Resistance Skill “Fire Resistance” Lv 4 has become Lv 5.

So…hot. It hurts. I couldn’t breathe because of the inferno raging around me, and my body was burning up. Just let me die already… The weak thought rose in my mind unbidden, and I desperately tried to fight off the urge to surrender.

If I gave up now, everyone would die. Everyone. And I wasn’t finished with this slime yet.

I was starting to think that even my five senses had burned away to ash…when the pain racing through my body suddenly eased.

“What? How…”

I stood up and shook my head, then opened my bleary eyes. Fire still raged throughout the hall, but the lethal black flames were nowhere to be seen.

“How are you…still alive?”

I lowered my head and spat out Allo and Volk. Despite being somewhat protected inside my mouth, they’d both been exposed to some degree of flames, and they were badly burned—but they were alive. Next to me, Partner spat out Grandpa Magiatite and Alphis, who both seemed crispy but alive as well.

“I-It can’t be… Lies…” The slime recoiled in disbelief.

Unfortunately for you, slime, as an Ouroboros, my defining trait is endurance. If I’d chosen to evolve into any other rank A dragon, I wouldn’t be standing here right now. That much firepower, with such a wide range…that was truly an incredible skill. But that was your Hail Mary, wasn’t it? And now, it’s all over.

Part 6

“ROOOOOOOAR!”I let out a wild roar and slashed at the slime with my front paw. In his phoenix body, the slime raised the shell of the Cursed Millenium Tortoise to block my attack. As before, it was tough as steel; my claws couldn’t break through.

“No! I won’t lose! I won’t! I can’t lose to you anymore!” The split human torso on top of the phoenix’s neck collapsed, and five tentacles appeared from inside it. The tentacles flexed in midair and swung down to attack.

“Don’t get carried away, Illusiaaaaa!”

Partner gathered the five sprouted tentacles together and chomped down, crushing them between her jaws.

(“Get it! Kill it!”)

Way ahead of ya, Partner!

Partner jerked her head back to make the slime stagger. I stepped down hard on his now-vacant abdomen, then shoved hard with my shoulder to send him flying. The slime’s body shot backward, tearing him off from the mass of tentacles in Partner’s mouth all at once.

“Yaaaaaaaaaaah!” Countless screams echoed from the slime’s many mouths.

Partner slurped up the tentacles like noodles as they began to liquefy. Then she looked up, swallowed, and spit. (“Ugh. Disgusting.”)

The battle was already decided. We’d won. Great Blowfly Ring was a great skill that had nearly destroyed the hall, but it was also a quick way to say goodbye to all the MP the slime recovered with Life Mana.

I had no doubt that it’d done a lot of damage to the slime’s body itself too. His movements were much more sluggish than before. At first, he had only planned to use Life Mana once, and now no trace of his former agility remained.

The slime staggered, then slammed his back against the wall. The entire hall shook with the force of the impact. Already close to collapse from the fire, the beams and pillars supporting the underground hall began to crumble. One of the pillars fell to the ground with a crash, and debris began to fall from the ceiling.

U-uh-oh…We gotta get outta here, and fast. I could also go after the slime and take him down, though… But the problem was, my body was almost at its limits. I was still damaged from that ring of fire, and I didn’t have any MP to heal myself with.

“N-ngh…”Allo staggered toward me, lugging both Volk and Alphis along on her back and enlarged shoulder. In her hand, she clutched Grandpa Magiatite, now reduced to just his core. It seemed like she’d gathered them together to protect them from the remaining flames. Unfortunately, it didn’t look like she’d been able to fully heal herself: Her skin was dry like sand, and cracks were beginning to appear here and there along her body. Her left leg in particular had cracks running up and down it, and I could tell it hurt.

“Groooh!” Allo, get out of here. Any more of this and you’ll crumble to dust.

Allo blinked and looked up as I called out to her, her face etched with pain. “But…but what about you, Master Dragon?!”

I’m going to go settle things with this slime once and for all. Partner, please.

Partner let out a sigh. (“You know, I bet we’d be a lot more stable if I gave us at least one Hi-Rest…”) Despite her words, she turned to Allo and used Fake Life.

Allo’s body was enveloped in black light. Her body, close to becoming a statue of crumbling sand, turned back into fresh clay.

“N-no, Master Dragon! You can’t! If you waste your magic on me, you won’t have enough to take down that monster! I-I’ll help! I’ll fight too!”

“Graaaaaah!” I roared with all my might. There’s no time! Just go! Hurry! If you don’t, Volk and Grandpa Magiatite will die! You know that, right?! Are you trying to dawdle here and give that slime a chance to recover?!

Allo flinched, then gave a small, sad smile. “I know. That’s just the way you are, Master Dragon. But…you don’t have to be so mean.”

Allo sidestepped a piece of falling debris. Then, with Volk and the others on her back, she ran off in the opposite direction of the slime.

(“…Did you think she wouldn’t back down unless you said all that to her?”) Partner asked. I remained silent and turned toward the slime. (“Hmph… Well, it’d be awful embarrassing to lose to that pile of muck after all of that.”)

Even if we won, it’d be meaningless if it meant my friends had to die. I couldn’t just leave them to perish because using my MP to heal them might leave me at more of a disadvantage. If I just held on for a little longer, everything would be okay, and we’d have a happy ending.

My foreleg swayed as I stepped forward, but I steeled the last of my strength, and it stilled. Then, one agonizing step at a time, I approached the slime.

“Laplace, what…what are my chances of victory? Huh? N-no, you…you’re lying, right? Wh-why is it so low…?”

The slime stood frozen on the ground, stunned. I walked up to him and punched him in the torso again. I understand the desire to rely on predictions, but God won’t save you now.

I closed the distance between me and the slime again. He had collapsed, and his body was now beginning to droop and melt. The phoenix body disintegrated, leaving behind a humanoid upper body that sagged into a puddle on the ground. The bright pigment coating him faded, and his entire body returned to his original clear iridescence.

“No, lies… I don’t believe it. I don’t! Wh-what? My survival rate? No. No, I didn’t hear that! Wh-what is this?! What’s happening?!” The slime retreated, trying to get away from me. “Stop! Stop it! Let me go! No, I don’t want to die! I don’t want to die!”

I moved forward. A piece of falling debris hit me on the head, and blood streamed from my left eyelid. But I kept my eyes open and kept moving forward.

“N-no! If I die here, I can’t fulfill my promise! I promised God that I’d…that I’d get you out of here! So…!” The slime was staring at me as the debris hit my body, but when he saw me continue forward with no regard for him, his expression went desperate again.

Title Skill “Calamity” Lv 9 has become Lv MAX.

H-huh? Why now? Because everything’s starting to collapse?

Title Skills “Wrongdoer” Lv MAX, “Dastardly King” Lv MAX, and “Calamity” Lv MAX have become “Demon King” Lv 1.

Fulfilled requirements to obtain Sacred Skill “Demi-God Realm Path.”

…Ahh, I see. So this is what this was all about, was it? Hey, what’s the big deal? You’re watching me right now, aren’t you? Are you watching the slime and the saint too?

Was that question directed at me?

The message suddenly appeared in my head.

Congratulations. Your original position has been reinstated. Although, in truth. I would have been just as happy. If the other one beat you. But even so, the victor. Was you.

I heard a smattering of polite applause in my head that made me feel like the Divine Voice was mocking me.

I dislike using my authority much. It annoys Laplace. But in such an interesting case. I cannot allow Demi-God Realm Path to disappear. Consider it a freebie.

…You keep talking about things that I don’t understand. I’ve got no interest in freebies or bonuses or anything from you.

Perhaps that is why. You are the better choice. The other one was cowardly. Cruel. Devious. Timid. And a liar. He seemed ill-equipped to be the hero of our tale, don’t you think?

Are you really in a position to say that about him? You’re the one who’s been pitting the slime against me all this time, aren’t you?

“G-God…? Are you there? I-I haven’t lost yet! I can win this! I could take Illusia on a hundred more times, and I’d win every single one! Y-yes, yes, I can beat him right now!”

Three owl faces appeared one after the other on the slime’s body. The faces spun, and blue flames erupted all around them. A thin figure flickered in the flames as though it was on the verge of disappearing.

“With this…my HP and MP will return to normal. Ah ha ha, ha ha ha ha!It’s a shame you’re so battered! Now, then, let’s get into some overtime…”

This is…too painful to watch. We already know you don’t have the strength to recover with Life Mana anymore.

Gained Sacred Skill “Demi-God Realm Path” Lv —.

Special Skill “Divine Voice” Lv 5 has become Lv 6.

Title Skill “Laplace Authority Interference” Lv 2 has become Lv 3.

My Divine Voice continued announcing my skill acquisitions without pause.

“Ah, aaaah, aaaaaahh…How…how can this be? Why…?” The blue flame of Life Mana burning around the slime’s body vanished with a flash. The slime’s melting, humanoid form slowly fell to the ground.

“Ah ha! Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha, ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Why? After all this time, after working so hard…! Ah ha ha ha, ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!”

The slime looked up at the crumbling ceiling and started laughing like a madman, then turned his blank, expressionless eyes to me.

Species: Chaos Ooze (Deteriorated Form)

Status: Normal

Lv: 95/95 (MAX)

HP: 488/1531

MP: 532/1630

The slime’s stats were much lower now, but aside from the Divine Voice-related skills, his skills were unchanged. It seemed like he had successfully regained some HP and MP with Life Mana, but the exertion of using it so many times in a row along with recovery skills had rendered him completely immobile.

“I’ll…curse you! I’ll escape the cycle of reincarnation and rise again one day. And when I do, I will remember your face, and I’ll kill you. I’ll tear you limb from limb and drown you in a swamp of poison, I’ll make insects feast on your flesh, and I’ll torture you to death. Whether it’s ten years from now or a hundred, I swear, I’ll…” The slime spat the words with fury and resentment. The word “reincarnation” felt like it didn’t belong in his mouth.

Wait, did this slime have memories of a previous life in another world, like me? Or was that something encouraged by the Divine Voice?

‹Did you—›

As soon as I reached out via Telepathy, there was a large crack, and the ceiling collapsed above us with a roar. This underground hall was going to completely crumble, and soon. I didn’t know how much time I could afford to waste on unnecessary questions—and I had no interest in making friends with this slime either.

“Grroooooooh!” I roared, then dragged my heavy body over to the slime. As I lifted my front leg, I felt a cold sensation on my back. The next moment, my legs buckled and I fell to the ground, one step short of the slime. An unpleasant sensation coursed through my body.

D-damn. Is my body giving up on me? But I’m so…close…!

As I dragged myself forward, splintering pain erupted on my back like I’d been slashed with a sword. No. This isn’t just fatigue or me reaching my limits!

I gathered the last of my desperate strength and rolled my body to the side. Above me, a sword-wielding man with green-silver hair flew into the air.

It was Samael of the Three Cavaliers.

Crap. I knew he was alive…but I never expected him to show up at the very last second and try to get in my way. Did he use his slime body to get through the crack in the ceiling from the upper floor?

I swung my paw upward and used the momentum from my side roll to slam into Samael. He tried to parry the blow with his sword, but the impact was so powerful that it flew out of his hand.

My paw crushed Samael to the ground, where he rolled along the floor. As he got up, the slime regained his human form. I quickly rolled back over to my original position. My entire body started going numb, and I realized the initial discomfort I felt was the sensation of the Poison Ruler’s venom running through my body.

“Tch…!You seemed weak, but you still managed to show such ridiculous power!” Samael clicked his tongue and slung the humanoid slime body sinking into the pool of Chaos Ooze across his back. The slime’s face, which had been limp and lifeless before like his soul had been sucked out, turned upward in a devilish grin.

“W-well done, Samael! Ha ha, ha ha ha ha ha!He is still with me! God is… He’s still watching over me! This confirms it!”

Wh-what in the world is happening?

I’d assumed I could only start inheriting Sacred Skills once the battle was over. But if someone came in after I’d already gotten the skills and changed the outcome of our battle, what would happen? If things continued like this, the slime could slip through my fingers. I definitely wouldn’t lose to Samael, but…I could barely move. If the slime tried to run, I wouldn’t be able to catch up.

“Kill him!” the slime cried. “Samael, kill him! Kill him with your poison! If you do, I might still get my powers back! Do it, quick! Kill him! Kill Illusia!”

Samael’s expression tightened a bit in surprise, then he shook his head and kicked the floor to get away from me. “…Let’s retreat, Demon King. We’ve lost this round. Next time—”

“There may not be a next time! Don’t you see how weak he is?! Kill him! Now, while we can! Just hurry up and kill him! There’s no point in running away! Kill Illusia!”

“Grooooooooh!” I kicked the floor with my back legs and swung my front legs down at the slime. Rather than simply moving my body, it felt like I was swinging with the power of centrifugal force.

Samael, with the slime on his back, leapt behind me to dodge my blow. As I stared at Samael, my chest heaving, the slime began its ranting anew.

“You saw that lousy attack! You can do it, here and now! You can kill him!”

“…Don’t be absurd. It was difficult enough for me to avoid that lousy move. The longer we wait, the more he’ll recover and the faster he’ll move.”

“But even so, this is our last chance! Why won’t you get that through your thick skull?! Kill him! Kill him now!”

Ignoring the slime’s cries, Samael touched his hand to a crack in the wall, turned his body back into green ooze, and began to slither through.

“Too bad, Illusia. The Demon King has an emergency escape route underground, but without a slime’s viscosity, you’ll never be able to catch up.” Samael grabbed the slime, whose body was already a melting heap, and pulled him into the wall after himself.

“Graaaaaaaaah!” I crawled up to the wall where the slimes had disappeared and swung my claws into the cracks. The floor shook, the wall collapsed, and a large chunk of debris fell onto me. Even so, I didn’t gain any experience.

After all that, the slime still got away… I didn’t think the slime would be able to do anything after he forfeited his Demi-God Realm Path skill…

It’s all right. The only reason you were able to inherit the Sacred Skill. Was because Laplace determined the other’s death was a certainty.

I suddenly remembered the slime mentioning his survival rate. Was his death a 100 percent certainty at that point?

You have never sought fit. To place your trust in my words. However, I have already told the others of this truth.

…Yeah, and I don’t trust you now either. This is the last time you and me are ever going to have an extended conversation. You’re done with the slime, right? I’m not interested in becoming your new pawn.

After I’ve given Lilyxila a piece of my mind and explained the situation to her, I’ll take Allo and the others, eat some delicious food with Partner, and go back to living my comfortable life as a dragon. I don’t know if you’re an evil god, or some sage, or what, but I don’t give a damn what you think.

I had hoped to win you over. With this. There are many things I still wished to teach you. But perhaps I can leave you with a single piece of advice?

I didn’t know what to say to that. No matter what I thought, this entity was the one behind the slime. I really had no business listening to a single word it said. But…could I really risk missing the Divine Voice’s advice?

When I hesitated, the Divine Voice’s next words appeared in my head.

Give up on saving your friends. You must get out of here as soon as you can. Otherwise, you will be trapped.

…Huh?

And your worst trial yet is waiting for you on the surface.

Chapter 4:
The Worst Trial Yet

Part 1

I RAN BACK THROUGH the cellar that led to the underground hall and headed for the upper floor. I used the MP I’d gained back to use Regenerate and heal my burns from the Great Blowfly Ring, my chest and wing injuries from the Dark Spheres, and Partner’s neck. If I wanted to prioritize regaining HP, I could’ve used Hi-Rest, but doing so would’ve given me a much harder time trying to escape.

I looked back at the hall as I continued down the corridor. The slime wasn’t dead yet. I didn’t know how many experience points he’d be worth.

Was he really going to die? He had already lost all the power he had, his status as the princess of Ardesia, and his Sacred Skill. He probably wouldn’t be showing his face anytime soon regardless, but… No. I needed to focus on the problem at hand: getting out of here.

Using my wings to shield myself from the falling debris, I ascended the stairs to the upper level, simultaneously using Psychic Sense to detect any signs of life.

I was worried about what the Divine Voice had said, about the “worst trial yet” waiting for me on the surface. Countless voices echoed from the castle above, running around in all different directions.

“Search for any fallen humans. There probably isn’t a single one of the castle’s human inhabitants left.”

“Watch out for any remaining slime soldiers. There may be some hidden away somewhere!”

The voices shouting orders seemed to indicate that help was on the way. Not just one or two people either—more than ten seemed to be coming. Maybe they were adventurers from the capital? Or…

As I stopped to look around, I heard a loud noise from above. It sounded like someone had used an attack spell.

“Sir Barea! Seize that child! It’s an undead! If you don’t believe me, use Rest on it!” The voice belonged to Alphis. Wait, were Alphis and Allo fighting each other? And who was Sir Barea? One of Alphis’s friends?

“Got her…but damn, she’s a tough one. Is she a Liche class or somethin’?” The voice sounded rough and masculine.

“She must be at the end of her magic by this point. But don’t let her rest!”

There was no time to wait and scope out the situation. I took off, thundering up the stairs and bursting out into one of the crumbling halls on the castle’s ground floor.

Allo stood on the other side of the room, surrounded by Alphis and a man who had to be Sir Barea. She’d received a nasty slash across her torso, her left arm was enlarged, and she was poised for battle. However, she was also almost out of MP, which meant she was in no condition to fight.

Although Sir Barea was cloaked, I could see that his sword was an exact replica of Alphis’s. I didn’t want to believe she’d betray us, but the sword was proof enough.

Lilyxila had said that she’d only brought Alphis along with her because she had to keep a low profile, but this man was clearly another member of the Order of the Holy Knights—the same order Alphis was part of. They’d arranged to send their forces to Ardesia without telling me.

My sudden appearance drew the three trios’ attention, putting a pause to the fighting. I stared at Alphis, waiting. If she had an excuse, I wanted to hear it.

Alphis narrowed her eyes and glared back at me.

“The Kingdom of Ardesia has fallen to a high-rank dragon and a Liche-class undead!”

Those words were decisive, and I felt a shock rattle through my skill.

So…that’s how it is, then? Did the saint decide this? I asked Alphis with Telepathy.

Alphis silently raised her sword and pointed the tip at me. “Let’s go, Barea. The dragon is exhausted. We can at least buy everyone some time.”

“Aye, Sir Alphis.”

I was beaten. From the very beginning, Lilyxila had planned to pit the slime and I against each other and then hunt down the one that remained. It didn’t matter to her who won or lost, as long as we were evenly matched and the one who came out on top was weakened. Perhaps her goal was to recover our Sacred Skills for herself.

“Roooooooooar!” I concentrated my magic in the pit of my stomach and let out a Bellow. Alphis and Barea froze, intimidated.

You…you goddamn fool. The world was at stake, and you came to me. To ask me for my help. Are my Sacred Skills really that important to you?

I aimed at Alphis’s back and fired a Whirlwind Slash with the last of my MP. The blade of wind ripped a massive crack along the floor right behind her.

I’m not sure the two of you get it. If I wanted to, even in my current state, I could tear two measly human soldiers limb from limb. And if that’s what you want, then so be it.

Neither Alphis nor Barea gave me any response.

“Sir Alphis…I fear this monster may be out of our league.”

“…Agreed. Then what is our play here?”

After a moment’s hesitation, Alphis turned her sword to Allo. “Don’t move, Evil Dragon. The moment you do, Barea and I will use our skills to send this undead back to the underworld where it belongs.” Her eyes were wide open, glaring at me brazenly, but her lips trembled.

I know you’re desperate, Alphis, but that’s not my ­problem to solve. I’m sick of your treatment and your backstabbing ways.

“Master Dragon! Don’t worry about me! Just get out of here!” Allo shouted at me, keeping the two knights in check with her massive arm.

I knew that Lilyxila and the Holy Dragon Seraphim were around here somewhere, and they were both rank A. In my current state, I wasn’t equipped to deal with them if we crossed paths now. If they appeared, it’d be all over for me. But I also had no intention of running away without Allo and the others. They’d come all this way because of me, because I made the mistake of taking Lilyxila at her word. There was no way I could abandon them now. Allo, Nightmare, and Grandpa Magiatite would be hunted down and killed by the humans if I did.

“Roooooooooar!” I howled, then pounded the floor with my paws. The floor easily cracked and shattered underneath me.

“H-hey! I said don’t move! Don’t you care what happens to this one?!” Alphis shouted, bearing down on Allo.

Try it, then. But don’t think you’ll actually be able to kill her. I’d used Fake Life on Allo already. If they got their hands on her, even if they killed her once, it wouldn’t be the end for her.

Alphis and Barea swayed for a moment and then dropped both their swords to the ground with a clunk.

“Ngh…”

Next to me, Partner had her gaze fastened on Alphis and Barea, eyes wide. While they’d been distracted by my telepathic message, she’d used Master’s Demonic Gaze.

(“I did it! I stopped ’em!”)

The moment I stepped forward, my Psychic Sense went off, alerting me that someone was at the window. Then the window exploded inward, bringing some of the surrounding walls with it, and a mass of black light soared in through the hole toward me. I could tell immediately that it was the Gravidon skill…and that it was stronger and faster than any other magic skill I’d seen up until now.

Were they just holding Allo hostage as a distraction?!As I was about to back up to avoid it, I heard a voice from outside the window.

“Holy Sphere!”

I saw a staff peek out from behind the crumbling wall. An orb of magical light shot out from the end of the staff and headed straight for Allo.

I darted forward as fast as I could. The Gravidon hit me on the side of my abdomen, cracking through scales and skin and gouging out a hunk of flesh. I reached out with my front paw and shoved Allo back, out of the way.

The Holy Sphere missed Allo and instead exploded on the tip of my outstretched paw, blasting my skin away and exposing bone. Allo’s body, bathed in the radiating light of the aftershock, whitened and began to crack. She fell to the ground and rolled away until she hit a wall and stopped, unmoving.

“Master…Dragon… R-run,” she murmured.

My body felt frozen, like it could barely move. I tried to curl my paw, the one that took the direct hit. It’s…it’s okay. It hurts, but I can move. The rest of my body, though, felt like lead. I couldn’t get myself to stand. I was already at my limit after the battle with the slime, and this was too much for me to bear.

“It was a mistake to act before we’d seized our main target, Alphis. You knew what the plan was, didn’t you? The dragonslayer sensed something was amiss earlier and went on a rampage that caused a lot of trouble for us all. Did something unexpected happen?”

From behind the wall, out stepped Saint Lilyxila.

“…Forgive me, Saint Lilyxila.” Alphis bowed her head.

No doubt the plan was to take me by surprise and kill me before I suspected anything, but that plan was clearly out of the question now.

Lilyxila’s expression didn’t even change as I glared at her. “But, well, I suppose it does not matter now. It is finally over. All of it.”

Barea pointed his sword at Allo where she was lying on the ground.

It was over. The Divine Voice was right. I’d been so focused on settling the score with the slime that I didn’t even consider the idea that Lilyxila might betray me.

Lilyxila had a Sacred Skill too. I’d been a fool to not think she might have similar goals in mind as the slime.

…Sorry, Partner, for getting us wrapped up in all this.

(“I agreed to come here and help too, didn’t I? Don’t be stupid. It’s not your fault.”)

But…

(“And besides. We may be down, but we’re not out yet.”)

…Y-yeah, you’re right. I’ve got no intention of going down without a fight. I still need to make sure Allo gets out of here safely.

With that, I put all my strength into my legs and made myself stand once more.

Part 2: Slime

SAMAEL RAN THROUGH the underground passageway with me on his back as we made our escape.

There was a large waterway down here that led to a subterranean water vein. If we could reach it, as slimes, we’d be able to escape to a nearby river, ocean, or wherever else we liked. No dragon or saint would be able to follow us. I had no idea where to go, or even how to get out of here. This escape route was a last resort—a way to slip out, vanish from public view, and give myself a chance to start over and get back on the right track.

“But…there’s no point in any of that now. It’s all over,” I muttered. Samael’s face turned grim at my words. “I can’t see anything anymore. Levels, species, names, statuses… It’s all gone. I can’t get any stronger, now that I’ve lost my Sacred Skill. I can feel my level decreasing, like it’s being pushed down by something from above. And since I’ve lost my role as Demon King, I’ll never be able to create any rank A followers again…”

“It’s…it’s not over yet, Demon King. I’m still—”

“You?!” I shrieked, letting all of my fury out at once like the crack of a whip. “And what can a rank B failure like you do?! Maybe if you were as strong as Rogueheil, things would be different! How did it feel, getting tossed around by that little undead whelp?! If Rogueheil were there, he could’ve killed her in an instant!”

Samael’s expression remained unchanged. I considered yelling at him some more, but my anger receded, and I just felt deflated. Rogueheil was gone. It was all over. I was nothing. Not the Demon King, not the hero…nothing.

“Samael…it’s over,” I said. “Laplace has already predicted it. I’m going to die. Sacred Skill inheritance only begins once the owner of a Sacred Skill is predicted to die with 100 percent certainty.”

“Y-you know, I’m sure even that Laplace of yours can make mistakes sometimes—”

“It can’t. Laplace is not a fallible, living being. It is the concept that governs all the phenomena and laws that make this world possible.”

According to God, it was a complex, intertwined mass of paradoxes and contradictions; and although it was neither omnipotent or omniscient, it was as close to those as one could possibly get. The only way to outwit Laplace would be to utilize the world’s paradoxes that it hadn’t been able to solve—the phenomena that God called “bugs.” That was the only way to overthrow the world’s balance and release God from captivity. God told me that I was the closest thing He had to one of those bugs, but now I was certain that was nothing but a lie.

It was a long time ago, back when I’d just been born, deep inside a certain forest from my past. I could only vaguely remember it now, but it was an important memory. After getting kicked out of my pack for being a different color than the rest of the slimes, I’d happened across an egg in the forest. Out of starvation, I bit into it, and that was when I accidentally snatched the Sacred Skill developing inside the egg and made it my own.

Normally, Sacred Skills could only be passed from one owner to the next through legitimate inheritance via combat. The fact that I received a Sacred Skill by complete chance in this fashion was, indeed, one of God’s bugs.

God hypothesized that there was a certain period of ambiguity in which Sacred Skills were able to manifest but were not yet inherited by the growing organism. That didn’t make much sense to me, but thanks to that, a bug had appeared in the egg’s inhabitant as well. When I took the skill, I caught a glimpse of fragmented memories from the bug, but it was a strange scene that didn’t seem to resemble anywhere in this world.

God seemed to know something about that world, and was very interested in hearing about it, but He never told me anything. Thinking back about it now, I felt like God was more interested in Illusia—the result of the bug—than me, its source, from the very beginning.

Actually, I think I’ve known that for a long time, but I chose to pretend that I didn’t notice.

“…If you believe in Laplace so much, then why try so hard to defeat Illusia in the first place? You fought against him because you thought you could change the future that the prophecy had foretold, right? And instead of giving up, you—”

“No, Samael. I never doubted Laplace. From the moment it told me, I knew my death was fated. I already knew what was going to happen.”

“But that’s—”

“However, although my death is unavoidable, Illusia’s survival is not. He could have been killed by falling ­debris or whatever else. The hall was collapsing, and Illusia was weak. After all, the only thing Laplace told me for certain was that I was going to die.”

“Oh…?”

“But still, I was so frustrated. After all that work, all that time spent honing my skills, I was going to die. And Illusia, who wandered about without a care in the world, would take everything from me! If it was all just going to be taken by him, then I never wanted any of it in the first place! If Illusia was going to take my levels, stats, Sacred Skills, Laplace, the world, and my god away from me, then I would rather just disappear! I’ll curse him… I’ll curse Illusia and everything he does, for the rest of his life!” I burst out with the words that had been bottled up inside of me.

Samael looked puzzled, and opened his mouth slightly as if to speak, but seemed to think better of it and remained silent. I scanned his face with some degree of indifference.

‹A suitable final request.›

A telepathic message came down to us from above. I looked up to see a massive white dragon standing in the entrance to the waterway. Ahh, yes. As expected, the saint’s collared dragon.

“Wh-what? When the hell did that big brute get down here…?” Samael’s sword dropped from his hand, the clatter of it hitting the stone floor echoing emphatically along the passageway.

‹All that time spent waiting, biding our time, and you don’t think the saint did anything to prepare? She is waiting above in case you decided to go aboveground, and I was tasked with waiting underground to foil any attempts at escape. Even if I were to be buried alive here, I could simply be replaced. But truly, it is a horrible reason to send one hailed as the Holy Dragon of Salvation to my death.›

If Illusia had left earlier, the saint would have likely planned to come down herself and finish me off in a pincer attack. Damn it. I was just too hotheaded when it came to that guy. By the time I chose to fight him, I was already doomed. I should’ve just left early and waited until Illusia was alone to kill him. I fell for the bait, hook, line, and sinker.

“Look. It’s over. I know tha—huh?” I felt a strange sensation across my entire body.

It was an instinctive, uncontrollable urge, as if something dark was swirling deep inside me. I recognized the feeling. Evolution.

After I’d lost my Sacred Skill, I felt its power leave my body. I’d thought that my body could no longer support the Chaos Ooze species without it and that I’d gotten weak as a result. However…perhaps my level cap had lowered because of that and allowed me to meet the conditions necessary for evolution.

But that…that couldn’t be. I’d lost my Sacred Skill. There was no way I could evolve into a Legendary rank. That’d be way too convenient right now. Laplace even predicted that the Holy Dragon would be here, and yet…here we were.

Could this be another bug?

Sacred Skills themselves were beings that existed between this world and Laplace. They were the only thing Laplace couldn’t control.

Originally, God had said that a being’s using Sacred Skills to ascend to a Legendary rank—which was impossible through any normal means—was, in itself, a kind of bug. The Sacred Skill acted as the trigger for evolution. In fact, the whole reason Illusia and I were unique individuals in the eyes of God was because I’d received my Sacred Skill in a way that outwitted Laplace.

Even so, it’s hard to understand. But that doesn’t matter. If I can evolve, I may be able to overturn Laplace’s prediction. And then, most importantly, I could kill Illusia.

“This is a miracle. I have been given a miracle…!” That was the only thing I could say. My passion and zeal had overcome Laplace, the absolute law of this world. How else could it have happened?

Stop. I did not ever expect this to happen. Your purpose here has already been fulfilled. One without Sacred Skills. Or the Laplace Authority Interference skill. Will never be able to break through the wall between rank A and Legendary.

The divine voice of God floated through my head. It was comforting. I never thought I’d hear it again; but without a doubt, God’s Divine Voice had returned to me. God was watching over me once more.

“Don’t worry, God, I’ll kill them all…!” My body was being remade. It was red-hot, painful, and hollow. My head began to spin, and my ability to form thoughts slipped away.

“Chaos Ooze” has Evolved into “Ruin.”

Rank L evol◇tion not author%ized.

Gained Special Skill “Ruin.”

Gained Normal Skill “Ruin.”

G@!nedSp%cialSk!ll“#&.”

Am I getting…taller? No, have I been able to see this high from the beginning?

I didn’t know. My mind was so jumbled. I felt sick. I felt like I could see a world that I didn’t know. And then it disappeared into the distance. I didn’t know. Maybe I’d collected too many. Too many skills, too many memories.

I knew it was strange. You had survived too long past the pronouncement and skill inheritance. I see. So this was a fixed outcome?

The messages from God continued.

Lost Special Skill “Seven Types.”

Lost Special Skill “Slime Body.”

Lost Special Skill “Stealth.”

Something left my mind just now. I can’t remember what it was.

Lost Special Skill “Poison Belt.”

Lost Special Skill “Tortoise Shell.”

Lost Special Skill “Psychic Sense.”

I wonder if it was something important?

Lost Special Skill “Grecian Language.”

I can’t think of anything. Something is floating away inside my head.

“……! …………!!”

Something…was making noise in front of me. Experience points. I stretched out my arm, and it crumpled, then popped.

Experience points. Need…experience points. More experience points.

“Illusia… Illusia…”

Yes. To kill Illusia, I need more Experience points. I see a white…dragon ahead. Ah, yes, it looks like it has lots of Experience Points. I recited the only word that remained in my memory, which had gone pure white.

“Ruin.”

The entire area was covered with a blinding, empty white light that looked just like the one inside my head.

Part 3

LILYXILA LEAPT from the windowsill into the hall and pointed her staff directly at me as she landed.

“Holy Spear!”

A spear of light shot from the tip of her staff and careened toward me at high speed.

Can I avoid it? No, that’d be too tough. Then I’ve got no choice but to defend. I’ll slice through it with my claws and send a Whirlwind Slash at her at the same time!

I spread my wings and swung my front leg toward the spear. Two chipped claws fell from my paw and clattered across the floor. It wasn’t enough to cancel out the spear of light, but instead, it veered off course, spun around, and embedded itself in my back.

Enduring the intense pain, I flapped my wings, then gathered the wind in my front claws and shot a Whirlwind Slash at Lilyxila. Then I twisted my body around and fired another Whirlwind Slash in the opposite direction.

When the wind slash got close to Lilyxila, a wall of light appeared in front of her. My Whirlwind Slash was sucked into the wall of light and disappeared with a slight ripple on the wall’s surface. Then the Whirlwind Slash burst from the light wall again, this time headed straight for me. Partner turned her head just in time to avoid the brunt of the slash. It seemed to have grazed her; a few of her scales were sliced off, and blue blood dripped onto the floor.

That must have been Lilyxila’s Mirror Counter skill.I’d thought I already had a pretty good grasp of her skills, but it seemed like she still had a few useful ones left that I didn’t know about.

Lilyxila’s eyes narrowed slightly as she looked at me, and she touched her mouth with her free hand as if contemplating something.

“…I took many precautions to prepare for any uncertainty,” she muttered, “but even so, the unexpected continues to rear its ugly head.”

What, did something go wrong with her plans? If so, I thought perhaps I could take advantage of it, but I couldn’t see anything I could exploit.

Dang, maybe I should’ve been chummier with the Divine Voice to get it in a good mood and pull some information out of it?

At that moment, an angry voice spoke up from the other end of the room. “Gah! It…it got me…!”

Barea, who’d had his sword trained on Allo, glared at me, holding his blood-soaked arm. His sword had flown from his hand and rested on the ground a short distance away. The second Whirlwind Slash I’d sent out had been aimed for Barea, and apparently he hadn’t been able to avoid it.

“A hostage is useless in these circumstances! We should’ve disposed of her at once!” Barea pointed at Allo, no doubt readying to use some sort of magic attack. Allo got up and jumped backward to make some distance between the two of them.

“Barea, that’s enough!” Alphis shouted. “Leave the undead alone! Liche or not, she’s nothing compared to that dragon!”

Barea stopped moving and looked me up and down, eyes narrowed. “But…Sir Alphis! The undead doesn’t look like it’s going to run away!”

Even if there was no chance that I’d win, I wanted to keep the three of them focused on me to give Allo time to escape. That was my goal, and I’d succeeded. Allo was free to leave.

Allo, get out of here! Grab Nightmare and Grandpa Magiatite on your way if you can!

Allo stopped, confusion etched on her face.

Hurry up! I can’t get away if you’re still here!

With that, Allo flinched, her shoulders and back trembling. She looked down to hide her face and turned her body away.

…I’m sorry, Allo.

She would’ve never run away first if I didn’t lay down the law like that, but I still felt bad. I wanted to apologize the next time I saw her, but I was almost certain that I’d never get that chance.

Lilyxila jumped closer to me. Was she…trying to close the gap?

My only long-range skills were for small fry and dealing damage, so the closer Lilyxila was, the better. If I was extra lucky and managed to land a good blow, I could maybe even get her to retreat.

When I raised my leg to strike, Lilyxila’s staff was already in the air.

“Gravity.” Black light spread in a circle with the saint at the center. I felt myself grow heavy—I couldn’t lift my paw any higher than my neck.

“Your body is already at the end of its rope. But surely you know that better than anyone, don’t you?”

Yeah…seems like it. But at least now, Allo should be able to escape…

I turned my eyes toward the edge of my field of vision. Alphis and Barea were both kneeling under the effects of Gravity, but lying on the floor a ways behind them was Allo. My eyes opened wide.

Th-there’s no point in killing Allo! Your goal is to get my Sacred Skill, right?! We risked our lives to get rid of the Demon King for you! You could at least show us a bit of mercy!

Lilyxila didn’t respond to me, but she scowled in annoyance and turned slightly to look behind herself.

“I wanted to get this over with before it became too much trouble…” Lilyxila muttered, just as a group of armed humans entered the hall. At first, there were only three, but another seven came in soon after.

There was no sense of uniformity in their garments, weapons, or appearances. Some were clad in armor, while others were bare on their upper halves and carried massive clubs on their back.

“So the rumors were true! The Demon King was pretending to be the princess of Ardesia!”

“W-wait, let’s stop here… If that massive dragon comes this way, we won’t stand a chance!”

“Don’t be stupid. It’s dying, see? Besides, the saint is keeping it at bay. With this, we can join the ranks of heroes!”

These…weren’t the adventurers the Demon King had invited to the castle to harvest for experience points. More than likely, they were adventurers based in Alban who’d rushed over when they noticed something strange going on in the castle.

Their stats weren’t great. They were all in the E+ to C– range. But even so, now that they were here, it’d be even more difficult for Allo to escape. On top of that, even more adventurers—and Lilyxila’s men, who were still busy fighting the rest of the slimes at the moment—would arrive before too long.

“Please stay back,” Lilyxila said. “This dragon is dangerous, and we do not require your assistance.” She raised her staff. Black magic gathered at its tip, and I immediately recognized it as the gravity magic Gravidon. If that skill hit me directly with my current stats, it’d be all over.

All right, bring it on. Perhaps because Lilyxila’s focus was shifted to Gravidon, the Gravity she’d used before was weakening. I jumped into the air and blocked it with my wings, which somehow diverted its orbit.

And now, I’m gonna try and devour that saint in one bite!

At that moment, Lilyxila suddenly flinched. She staggered, covering her mouth with her hand. The expanding light of Gravidon shrank and disappeared, and the circle of Gravity weakened as well.

Wh-what’s going on?

“Seraphim…?” Lilyxila murmured, her face tense. She seemed genuinely shocked.

Well, I dunno what the deal is, but this is a perfect opportunity to strike!

“Roooooooar!” I leaped straight at Lilyxila and swung my claws at her. She hurriedly backed away, waving her staff in front of her, and two spears of light flew toward me. I slammed my front legs to the ground and landed quickly. The two spears pierced the floor right in front of me.

“Saint Lilyxila?! What’re you doing?!”

“I’ll explain later. For now, let’s just finish this dragon first.”

Seeing that I was released from my Gravity restraints, the onlooking adventurers had backed up considerably.

“W-well, it doesn’t look like it can move still!”

“Yeah! We can’t stop now! I-I’m going to go down in history!”

I saw the adventurer release an arrow, but I chose to ignore it and avoid risking giving Lilyxila an opening. The arrow pierced through my stomach, which had already been descaled by the saint’s magic. C-crap. That’s gonna do some damage.

“Look! My arrow hit it! I hit it!”

Okay. Don’t get too ahead of yourself, me. It’s not that much damage. I just gotta grin and bear it.

At that moment, the hall was rocked by a massive tremor. No doubt the underground portion of the castle had just collapsed, and the reverberation had been transmitted to the level above.

A crack appeared in the floor right in front of me, and the floor started to crumble. I leaped up and flew backward to avoid it. Lilyxila, unfazed by the collapsing floor, bounded forward in pursuit.

She shoved the tip of her staff into my chest—a reckless move. However, once I was caught in the collapse, I knew I’d be skewered by her spear of light. Was this…the end?

As I prepared myself for Lilyxila’s attack, the crack in the floor widened, and something sprang up from its center.

What appeared between Lilyxila and I was a fluid, color-changing mass of light. The iridescent mass of light resembled the outline of a dragon.

“Wh-what? Where did this… What happened?” Lily­xila’s face twitched, but she waved her staff toward the light.

The spear of light thrust straight into the creature’s chest, but disappeared as if it was absorbed by its iridescent glow.

The creature’s eyeless head turned toward Lilyxila. She leapt back and waved her staff, creating a wall of light between them. It was another Mirror Counter—the same skill she used to repel my Whirlwind Slash.

“Oooor, ooourgh…” A strange sound escaped from the creature’s mouth. An iridescent ball of light, the same color as the creature, appeared in front of Lilyxila. The next moment, her Mirror Counter shattered.

“What…?” As soon as I heard Lilyxila’s confused mutter, my vision was completely flooded with light and I felt an impact hit my entire body. The force slammed my back against the wall, then I dropped to the ground and crouched. When I opened my eyes, a spherical area of complete destruction greeted me. The walls and floor of the castle were in ruins, centered around an iridescent ball of light floating in the air.

The area where Lilyxila was standing was much less destroyed, thanks to her Mirror Counter. But even if she had a magical barrier, she’d still been attacked at close range. There was no way she’d gotten out of it unharmed. But whether she’d been obliterated by the blow, or fell through the collapsing floor, she was nowhere to be seen.

“S-Saint Lilyxila…? Saint Lilyxila? Where’d you…?”

The other adventurers, along with Alphis and Barea, were on the ground groaning on the other side of the ­crater in the floor, seemingly blown away just like me. Allo was kneeling near them, but her body didn’t look like it’d taken much damage, probably because her ­enlarged arm had acted as a shield.

Wh-what the heck was that crazy skill…? It seemed like I’d been lucky enough to get away with minimal damage because it was a good ways away, but based on the level of devastation on the floor, it would’ve done some immense damage if I’d been stuck in the center.

The creature itself used its head to break through the ceiling with ease, then flew up to the upper floor and disappeared from view.

“Oooor, oooooouurgh!” It gave another strange cry, and iridescent light began to shine down from the hole in the ceiling. It had to be the same skill it unleashed on Lilyxila earlier. The floor above us shattered, revealing the creature once again. Fortunately, this time, there was no debris left to rain down.

The creature’s pearly iridescence and ambiguous shape reminded me of the Chaos Ooze’s initial form, before it started changing colors. But where that one had a slime body, this one was completely made of gathered light.

It had come from underneath us, so maybe it was a monster like the Giga Slime that the slime locked up underground because it was too difficult to handle?

Species: Ruin

Status: Collapsing God

Lv: 54/150

HP: 1279/2422

MP: 1185/2716

Attack: 1871

Defense: 1016

Magic: 1995

Agility: 1287

Rank: L (Legendary)

Special Skills:

Automatic HP Recovery: Lv 8

Automatic MP Recovery: Lv 9

Divine Voice: Lv 1

Ruin: Lv —

Collapsing God: Lv —

Absorption: Lv 2

Resistance Skills:

Debuff Immunity: Lv—

Normal Skills:

Regenerate: Lv 9

Ruin: Lv —

Title Skills:

Former Demon King: Lv —

Ruin Magic: Lv —

Final Evolution: Lv —

L-Legendary?! And all its stats are over 1,000! Its attack and magic are closer to 2,000, even! What was a monster this powerful doing, sleeping in a room underneath the castle all this time?!

Wait, it’s got “Former Demon King” as a Title Skill… Does that mean this thing is the slime?!

Wh-what’s going on? I know the higher your rank, the faster the initial leveling process will be, but isn’t 54 levels a bit much? Did he kill Seraphim or something?

Ruin: Rank L (Legendary) Monster.

An embodiment of destructive impulse. An amorphous, indefinite monster made of gathered evil magic. So long as its form remains in the world, it will never be healed of its urge to destroy.

Uh, Divine Voice? What happened to the slime’s death being certain? Not only is he alive and well, but he got a serious upgrade!

Special Skill “Ruin.”

User’s body is a vast mass of magical power, and touching it means death. Halves MP consumed by use of the magic skill of the same name.

Wh-whoa… It’s like his body is completely covered in magic skills. Guess that means close combat is a no-go. If my opponent was equal to or stronger than me, my damage output was limited to almost entirely melee attacks.

Special Skill “Absorption.”

Continuously absorbs MP from surroundings without user input.

On top of his massive stats, he was also equipped with a special MP recovery skill. He also had the Normal Skill Regenerate, so tiring him out wouldn’t work. If Ruin really used to be the slime, he should’ve been worn out from using Life Mana to regain his stats. However, there was no sign of fatigue in Ruin’s shining form, and the Absorption and Regenerate combo wouldn’t require him to spam the skills dozens of times like he had to with Life Mana. I couldn’t expect the same level of exhaustion from healing as I did last time.

Normal Skill “Ruin.”

Emits an iridescent ball of light that explodes, causing destruction in a wide area. Power varies greatly depending on distance from the center of the blast.

So that blast earlier…was Ruin, the skill with the same name as his species? He was caught up in that explosion too, but it didn’t seem to injure him. Maybe Ruin was immune to skills with his namesake? There was no way I could fight a monster that strong. Wh-what could I even do? Oh, crap, what was this skill?

Special Skill “Collapsing God.”

Those who gain undeserved power will inevitably perish. Maximum HP and MP decrease rapidly. This skill will never disappear. Ever.

Wh-whoa. Was that the catch for evolving into Ruin? No, that couldn’t be right. Undeserved power… Maybe the slime wasn’t able to evolve on his own, or maybe he shouldn’t have. I was pretty sure you needed to have one or two Sacred Skills to become a Legendary.

…Ahh, that must be it. The slime was obsessed with beating me, and the only way to do that would be to force himself to evolve and give himself the Collapsing God status. That must’ve meant that even if the slime managed to escape, he was still sure to die in the end. I doubted there was even any trace of the original slime left now…

It was…painful to think about. The slime was a cruel, selfish, and terrible monster, but even so, I felt bad for him. I wished I could’ve just killed him while I had the chance.

…However, if Ruin really was just a mindless monster, I might just be able to get out of here in one piece.

Part 4

RUIN LOWERED his eyeless head toward me. I crouched down in alarm and took a defensive stance, but he immediately yanked his head in the opposite direction and smashed into a wall on the upper floor with his entire body.

I knew it. He’s…not out to get me anymore, is he? With Ruin’s sudden disinterest and Lilyxila nowhere to be found, now was the perfect time to escape and get back on my feet.

I reached out to Ruin with Telepathy. Not only did the skill let me get my thoughts across, it also let me probe into my target’s inner thoughts. Although I didn’t have as much of a mastery over it as, say, Lilyxila or the Red Ogre Ant Queen, it should at least be able to tell me whether or not there was a mind left inside that beast.

‹Destroy…destroy…destroy…›

Normal Skill “Telepathy” Lv 1 has become Lv 2.

Using Telepathy on Ruin made me sick to my stomach; I quickly severed the link. As Ruin’s description said, he was just a mass of destructive impulse. There was barely a sense of self left.

This was a crazy stroke of luck. If the saint’s knights fighting the rest of the slime soldiers were to join forces with the adventurers looking on, they might’ve even been able to hunt me down while I was still weak. But now, it was impossible. The saint’s knights were freaking out because their commander had disappeared, and all the adventurers in the crowd were cowering in fear at the sudden turn of events. There was no way they’d join forces and work together now. And if Ruin came back down here, the entire thing would fall apart. There was no way the onlookers would go along with such a borderline-suicidal strategy.

There’s a chance. It wouldn’t be too tough to take Allo, retrieve Nightmare, Volk, and Grandpa Magiatite, then grab Treant from wherever it was sulking in Alban Mine and make our escape. And since it was so dangerous around here for everyone, I’d like to at least take Myria out to the edge of the capital too.

I couldn’t help but laugh. Allo’s safety and my survival, seemingly shattered by Lilyxila’s betrayal, were now back within my grasp—and it was all thanks to Ruin.

All I had to do was not provoke him. If left to his own devices, his Collapsed God status would eventually drain his HP and MP, and he would collapse and die. I looked at Ruin’s status again and saw that his max HP and MP were decreasing by about one point per second… No, actually, a little more than that. It was about one-and-a-half points per second. Even with his impressively high HP, Ruin would still run out of HP and die in about thirty minutes.

I would’ve liked to go underground to check for Lilyxila’s body—and finish her off if needed. However, if Lilyxila was able to use magic, she could kill me with a single shot. Besides, right now, the most important thing was to get Allo and the others out of here safely.

I looked down at the hole leading to the cellar. It’s a shame things had to end like this, Lilyxila. I really believed we could join forces and work together, but I guess you thought differently. It must’ve been real satisfying, watching me fight for my life against that slime, just like you wanted. But you chose the wrong moment to betray me. How does it feel, betraying me after you thought I defeated the Demon King, only for it to come back even stronger?

To hell with you. You make me sick. I don’t wanna say this to someone who might be dead, but look at them. I looked over at the remaining humans.

“N-ngh… How could this happen? After all Saint Lilyxila did to prepare…”

Barea held up his sword, but his shoulders were shaking. He didn’t think they’d be able to beat me without their saint there to back them up. Alphis was still on her knees, but seemed ready to get up at a moment’s notice. As expected, Lilyxila’s retainer seemed much tougher than the surrounding adventurers.

I sent a telepathic message to both of them. I’d love to devour you two right here and now, but I’d rather not waste my time or magic. Get your sorry mugs outta here before I change my mind.

“F-forgive me, Saint Lilyxila…”

Barea’s grip on his sword relaxed, and the blade tumbled to the floor.

If Ruin would be rampaging for another half hour, it would probably drastically reduce Lilyxila’s forces. Maybe even finish the saint off, if we were lucky. And it wasn’t just the castle at risk. With that much time, Ruin could even go into the royal capital, Alban. But that wasn’t my problem anymore.

It was true that I came here at Lilyxila’s request to keep the royal capital and its citizens safe, but Lilyxila betrayed me. Not only did she completely double-cross me and try to kill me, she also tried to kill Allo, who was only trying to escape. I was done with her. And I’d lost my respect for these clueless adventurers who were planning to kill me while I was weak just to make a name for themselves.

All that stuff Lilyxila had promised about granting me safe passage in Ardesia and the capital always seemed too good to be true. I’d known deep down that there was no way it’d ever actually work, but when I heard the world was in danger, I risked my life to come all the way out here and defeat the Demon King.

And if it weren’t for Lilyxila’s betrayal, I would’ve risked my life once again to stop Ruin now.

I sent out a telepathic message. …Allo, Partner, I’m sorry I brought us to this awful place. Let’s grab Nightmare and the others and get out of here as fast as we can.

I glared at the adventurers again to make sure they weren’t about to pick a fight. Many of them were still on the floor, unable to move. Most shrieked and struggled to get themselves up when they saw me look in their ­direction. One of the adventurers, soaked in blood, was desperately bowing his head to me. One guy simply ignored my glare and wailed like he’d gone mad. It was the archer who managed to shoot me in the stomach. It seemed like the wounds he’d sustained in Ruin’s attack were more pressing than the dragon standing right in front of him.

“No, Tina, you can’t! Hey! Wake up… Tina, wake up! Please! Tina!”

Upon closer inspection, I realized the archer had a limp female adventurer in his arms. It seemed like they must’ve known each other. The man seemed completely unconcerned about his own injuries or the fact that I was looking at them.

She was a living human being. They all were. I suddenly felt like my fury toward Lilyxila had blinded me from recognizing that fact. I shook my head. What the hell am I thinking? I can’t just stand here and do nothing while Ruin kills half the city. I’ve gotta do something.