It was far too hot inside the Volcano Tearer, even for Apexus, especially in the creature’s chest. For all the fire it had expended, its heated core remained scorching hot and the slime tried to stay away. His sense of heat was just about the only thing he could rely on while gnawing on the Volcano Tearer’s insides. Dissolving something inside out wasn’t easy, since he had to somehow get the to-be-eaten chunks underneath his membrane. Teeth made the process a bit easier.

Apexus didn’t eat much at first, keeping only to what he needed to replenish his lost biomass. The last thing he needed was to alarm their sudden visitors to his presence by writhing visibly inside the corpse. Once he felt the three quick impacts of Reysha’s boot against the side of the beast, he went about it with less worry. Eventually, he emerged from the monster’s stomach.

“Gross,” Reysha laughed, looking at the almost human head sticking out of the red scales. Several unappetizing fluids covered the slime, blood and stomach acid first and foremost. “How’s it taste?”

“Alright,” Apexus said, devouring more as they spoke. With some already torn off, progressing was made easier. “Who was it?”

“Just a trio of kinda nice guys,” Reysha responded, pulling out her knife to taste some of that alright meat herself. Opening the hole Apexus had created further, she soon got access to the almost black meat. “Guess we should finish this before the sun rises.”

“As much as I know this will irk you, I must insist that you do not finish this meal at all,” Aclysia informed the duo and sighed when she got two complaining, almost childish, outcries in response. “It would appear immensely suspicious if the corpse were to vanish overnight. Now that we have been spotted, we should only remove the organ we sought and leave the rest to rot.”

“That’s such a waste though!” Reysha complained.

Apexus let out a saddened noise, “Now that we were spotted, its best not to leave obvious traces of our true nature. Camouflage doesn’t work if you are parading your fangs around.”

“Camouflage is for suckers, just sneak up on your prey. Maybe finger yourself to orgasm behind their back, just for the fun of it,” the brightly coloured tiger girl declared, her red tail waving as she munched on a strip of dark, bloody meat. “…You’re right… this is pretty ‘alright’,” she mumbled while chewing. The Volcano Tearer’s flesh was stringy, firm and had almost no flavour. Magic provided a bit of that delicious sweetness and the element that kept the faux-dragon from cooking itself made it a bit spicy, but it still wasn’t exactly tasty. Part of that was because it was a malnourished creature.

“You may be able to sneak up to civilization, but I doubt it is a target you can kill with a pounce,” Aclysia remarked.

“Fair enough,” Reysha sighed and cut a second strip out of the belly. “We’ll still have to make it look like we took the core out regularly so I can at least fill up, right?”

“That is correct.”

“Thwanks, mawm- ow!” Reysha rubbed her head after she was bonked on the head by Aclysia’s staff. “That’s not how you are supposed to use that!”

“Would you rather I summoned a spell for disciplinary measures?”

“I don’t deserve disciplinary measures for that!”

“I vehemently disagree, for that voice is obnoxious and…” Aclysia stopped and sighed. “I just encouraged you to do it more frequently, did I not?”

“You sow swmart bawblwe buwtt,” Reysha said and then laughed out loud. “Sowwy is-“

“No,” Apexus chimed in. “Too much.”

“Joke getting worn out?”

“We are getting there,” the slime confirmed.

“Alrighty, more eating then.”

Reysha continued to slice open the monster’s belly, occasionally cutting out a chunk of meat for her to munch on, while Apexus did his own devouring trying to keep it spread out. It was fine if people asked themselves why the corpse looked so weird, as long as the questions raised weren’t the right ones. Once he had eaten enough to replenish his biomass, he crawled out.

“Can you grow the core?” Aclysia asked.

“No,” Apexus answered the question.

“So, this wasn’t challenging enough?” Reysha was a bit confused by this and had to keep herself from scratching her neck with her bloody hand.

“I didn’t say it was?” Apexus returned a question of his own, then it clicked. “Oh. Sorry. I answered the question too simply. I can’t grow the core because I haven’t eaten it yet. It’s too hot. Need to wait for it to cool down. Permanent Growth is possible though.”

“Minor inconvenience, major benefit, I can roll with it,” the redhead said. “Where is the core, just about? Might as well take it out, let it cool quicker, ya know?”

“It’s about…” Apexus climbed on top of the corpse and rested his hand between the shoulder joints of the front and middle legs. “…under here.”

Reysha went to work and started to gut the creature. It was bloody work and she had to be careful not to burn herself. “Should buy a butcher’s knife in addition to that pickaxe,” she grumbled, hacking away at the stringy flesh with her combat dagger. ‘At least I have that whetstone now,’ she thought to herself, certain her weapon would be in dire need of sharpening after she was done there. “Alright, Clysia, if ya would.”

“Me?” the metal fairy was extremely taken aback by the suggestion of partaking in the disassembling of the corpse. It was necessary work, so she didn’t mind witnessing it. Taking part in it was quite another thing. Getting blood all over herself was unappealing on several levels. Shoving her arms into the guts of an animal was several levels above that.

“You’re the gal with the heat resistance,” Reysha pointed out. “I don’t wanna burn my fingers and I doubt ya want your darling to boil his.”

“Don’t think I would boil.”

“Not the point, pretty slime.”

“Am I pretty?”

“Maybe once ya get a nose you’ll be.”

“Interesting that some cartilage dictates attractiveness.”

“Some cartilage or being a stunning redhead.”

“Are you stunning because you are attractive or are you attractive because you are stunning?”

“I’d say when the Progenitor God started seeding the Omniverse with life, he just had decided that: Reysha therefore is beautiful.”

“I thought Reysha was a common name where you are from.”

“Sure, but there is only one me.”

“Wonder how many Apexuses there are.”

“Apexi.”

“What?”

“Plural of Apexus. Apexi.”

“Ya sure?”

“Ya sure ya want to talk like me?”

“Maywbe, ya curwy kittew.”

“Oh, we’re fucking later, ya sassy liquid ass,” Reysha laughed and looked over to Aclysia. “Ya gonna stop being a salt pillar before Apexus retorts he’d be more a liquid stomach?”

“It’s true.”

“I know it is.”

“Just as true as you having a bubble butt of your own.”

“Ya like it?”

“You know I do.”

“Ya gotta get some muscles to spank it properly.”

“Would that make me more attractive?”

“Multi-dicked Adonis with killer bod? Hellroots yeah. Fill all my holes, make my tits jiggle and my ass ripple!”

“Does sound nice. Maybe we should hurry to the Drowned Temple?”

Aclysia finally snapped out of it, “Inefficient order would be a long-term detriment, darling. You would deny your nose to prioritize your body.”

“True. Here is another inefficiency,” he pointed at the corpse underneath him. Watching his love hesitate further, he said, “You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to. I don’t think there will be any less blood in our future though.”

“That’s a grim way to formulate it, but not inaccurate.” With a heaving sigh, Aclysia resigned herself to the accuracy of the argument and closed in on the dead Volcano Tearer. Taking her robe off to not make it soak up the blood pooling on the dark stone, she pushed her hand into the innards. They were firmer than she would have thought, but also slippery. When she reached something hard and smelting hot, almost shoulder deep in, she tried to pull. With a displeased expression, she reached in with her second arm as well.

With a couple of yanks, she tore the core out of the flesh and placed it on the ground with a mixture of relief and an intense desire to wash herself.

“Good job, ‘Clysia,” Reysha complimented.

“I require a large, preferably heated pond,” the metal fairy complained, looking at her dark red arms.

 “Well, maybe Apexus can heat one up for ya after he eats that,” the tiger girl said and reached into her Adventurer’s Bag. Retrieving the destroyed robe, she used it as a mere rag. The thing was so ruined that Apexus wouldn’t wear it again anyway. Once her hands were the slightest bit clean, she pulled out her water bag and helped Aclysia wash her own arms with the contents. Afterwards, the metal fairy looked a lot less unhappy about her situation.

Reysha then poured the rest of the water over the blood and flesh covered object on the rock. Steam rose as some of it vaporized on impact. Enough persisted to reveal the organ in its entirety.

It had a form similar to a knot of roots. Light grey tunnels of varying thickness intertwined, forming a roughly spherical clump that was about the size of a human head. An entrance and exit set right next to each other, covered in meshes big enough for the liquid stone to be pulled and be regurgitated while separating out the food items. The inside of the hollow tunnels were covered in patches that conducted magical energy. They were responsible for keeping the lava heated. Pressure from outside muscles would have squeezed it back out, the tunnels being a special kind of cartilage that was quite flexible and heat resistant.

It was an outstandingly mechanical solution for a living creature, but the monster had also been helped in its evolution by divine influence.

 Apexus waited for it to cool even further before taking it and shoving it inside his stomach. He took his time dissolving it, in order to understand everything about it that he could, before reforming it inside himself. Once he had confirmed it could be used to heat himself, acquiring it permanently was an easy decision. What followed were a couple of minutes of silent experimentation.

The design of the Volcano Tearer’s melting core was easily adjusted to serve Apexus’ needs. The tunnels were almost perfect to push his own slime through, albeit he had to make a conscious effort to keep that internal movement running. It entered cold on one side, exited hot on the other and the heat distributed itself throughout his liquid body almost evenly. Cold was, in the current environment, quite the relative term, so he had to expend a vast amount of energy to keep the biological furnace running.

“Uh, not to rehash our earlier conversation over what’s attractive or not, but you’re steaming hot, Apexus,” Reysha remarked, watching thin white trails rise from her beloved slime. “Don’t think that’s healthy.”

“It’s burning a lot of energy. I feel pretty awake though,” the slime waved his hand around and was pleased with how quick the motion went. “Want to race me to that boulder?” the slime asked and pointed at a random one about fifty metres from where they were. “Just to test the speed.”

“Sure thing,” Reysha agreed, interested herself. They got into a starting position and had Aclysia give the signal.

For the first half of the track, they were neck and neck, but the tiger girl progressively gained more ground on him. Flying, the slime may have arrived first. Keeping to their feet, Reysha remained faster. Not by a whole lot though.

Apexus arrived shortly after her, only for the tiger girl to suddenly turn at him and send her fist hurling towards his chest. Reacting in time, he managed to knock her arm aside, then dodge a first roundhouse kick by bending his midriff backwards in an inhuman fashion. The second kick that immediately followed connected, however, and sent him flat on his back.

“Might just be in bursts, but it seems pretty useful,” Reysha remarked, offering him a hand. She pulled it back quickly when he was about to take it. Not to prank the slime, but because she got afraid that her hand might suffer the same fate as a tongue getting boiled by tea. “That heat is almost as bad as you being quick though. Can ya shut it off?”

“Already have,” the slime answered. “I just have no way to cool down quickly.”

“Is that bad?”

“I don’t burn energy anymore, but I’m still losing water. So yes, kind of,” the slime answered. It hadn’t even been a minute of him entering that overheated state and he already felt like he was transforming into a raisin. With more water accessible around and bigger energy stores, he may have been able to maintain the state for longer than that. “Even if I don’t use it all the time, it is useful to have a way to raise my physical ability to not useless.”

Aclysia walked over to them, her Priest robe back on, “I suggest we continue the experimentations somewhere we have ample water, available food and less risk of prying eyes.”