After struggling for some time, the little jelly finally managed to extract itself and landed firmly on the dirt.

Remembering its recent victory, it turned back into a jelly to do a little jiggle of glee. However, from the act of changing, it realized it could have simply transformed back into its base semi-liquid state and squeezed out of the tree. It then proceeded to bang its head onto the tree in frustration over how much time it wasted and over its own stupidity.

Finally calming down after banging the tree enough times to cause a depression on the trunk, it then proceeded to claim its massive prize.

The maned beast was huge. Now that it was back in its original form, the corpse was a towering mountain of flesh.

If it were to try and consume it in its current state, it would take hours, maybe even days.

Pondering over what it could do to speed up the process, it came up with an idea when it remembered it had mastery over a predator genome. All it had to do was form multiple muzzles extending from tendrils of itself then consume large portions of the corpse as if it were an entire pack of beasts.

It put the thought into practice and extended eight tendrils with the girth of a small tree. The ends morphed into muzzles that had missing features such as noses, hair, and eyes. They were simply large elongated maws with two rows of sharp teeth along with multiple columns of crushing molars lining the walls leading inwards.

The sharp teeth would easily tear the flesh, while the molars would grind it down while passing through the entirety of the tendril until it would reach the jelly.

The jelly knew it couldn’t bite through the fur, so it decided to consume it from within through the opening where its head used to be, then later dissolve the skin and fur using its acidic body.

It hopped towards the large opening where it was still bleeding. Sucking up all the spilled blood, it then proceeded to thrust the eight maws into the wound.

The corpse twitched and squirmed in a gruesome manner as the maws made short work of its flesh, bones, and organs within. Large helpings of biomatter pulsed within the tendrils as they pumped their cargo into the little jelly who made short work of digesting the partially shredded biomass.

Over time, the corpse started to look like a deflated hairy sack. Once the jelly cleaned out the entrails and everything within, using the tendrils, it started crumpling the furry skin sack until it formed into a crude ball.

While in its base state, the little jelly expanded itself as much as it could to completely engulf the ball of flesh and fur. As soon as it was completely encased by the jelly, it powered up its digestive juices so it can quickly deconstruct the tough materials. The ball visibly grew smaller and broke apart as it bubbled and churned within the jelly.

Once it was completely digested, a familiar tingling sensation coursed through its body. New information flooded its once-more questionably existent brain providing it with more genetic data and biological information.

Reading through its attributes, the jelly is once again in awe of this creature’s physical prowess.

It may not be as intelligent as the grey-black beasts, but this thing was a veritable fortress of mass. Not including the titanic beast from before, the sheer weight or bulk of this creature alone was enough to make it a threat.

Excited with the prospects of a new form, the jelly wasted no time in transforming. Soon it grew to over several times its original size to match the volume of the maned beast. Its body then slowly morphed an outline of the creature starting with its four limbs, then its head, then finally brown fur.

After a complete transformation, the jelly opened its eyes. The first thing it noticed was that the colors appeared slightly different. Whenever it changed to the horned beast or the black beasts, it could only see outlines of objects with some level of spectrum. Only when it acquired the sight of the black beast did it come to know the existence of color variants.

Now that it saw through the eyes of the maned beast, it found another spectrum existed. Seeing this, it came to the conclusion that different creatures must be able to see different spectrums. If it combined enough genetic information, would it be able to see even more varied spectrums and maybe even combine them all?

The prospect excited the little jelly as it tested more of the maned beast’s properties. Its strength wasn’t surprising, but what surprised it the most was its ability to smell. It seems its olfactory capabilities were so developed it exceeded even that of the black beasts’ and the horned beasts’.

Using its new heightened prowess at capturing scent, it soon caught whiff of the smell of another maned beast. This was perfect as it needed at least one other maned beast to completely assimilate the genome.

It doesn’t need the entire maned beast; just enough biomatter and gene data to fill in the missing blocks, so it can leave some for the little ones to eat.

With this plan in mind, the jelly set off once again following the scent of new prey.

– - –

Successfully hunting another maned beast, it was close to midday when the jelly returned to the nest. Currently in the form of the grey beast while carrying a whole hind leg on its back by securing it with adhesives, it believed it should be enough for the little ones.

As it got closer to the hill, it suddenly caught whiff of a faint unknown scent.

Becoming cautious, the jelly turned its muzzle to that of the maned beast’s. With its enhanced senses, it found that the scent was old. However, it also discovered that the scent permeated the whole area.

Worried about the little furballs, the jelly ran up the hill while throwing caution to the wind.

There it found that the nest area was covered in small unknown footprints. They were long and flat footed with five long toes with claws. Based on the motions the prints showed on the ground, it appeared that the creatures were bipedal. It also found some unknown scratches on the ground, as if an object was being dragged around by some of them.

Scanning the area, it determined that there were at least five of these creatures. Whatever made these prints, the jelly has yet to encounter this creature before.

Ignoring whatever left these prints for now, the jelly circled around following a set of them that seemed to be headed where it feared. Just as it turned around the rock overlooking the nest entrance, its fears were confirmed.

The prints ended before the nest’s small entrance with the rock cover moved to the side.

The jelly hurriedly went inside to look, but only found traces of a struggle from the shuffled dirt and scratches. One small speck of blood could be seen dried on the wall.

A wave of power surged within the jelly’s legs as their pulse alone cratered the earth. Its eyes turned black and gained a ghastly glow, with a bright blue ring glowing where its pupils should be. For the first time, the jelly has come to experience the emotion of rage.

Irrational, untamable, and unquenchable bloodlust filled its mind. It couldn’t understand why it felt this way over two small young creatures that it had no biological attachment to, but it had chosen to place them under its protection.

Failing to protect them, it felt complete abhoration towards whatever caused it to feel this slight. Never had it wanted to shred, maim, and tear apart anything so thoroughly that its cells would cease to exist.

Agglomerating all its known genomes, the jelly started morphing into a twisted form born of its rage.

Its upper body swelled then contracted to form into a chiseled wall of bristled muscle with forearms seemingly as thick as tree trunks. Its lower body shrunk further to create a nimbler and more athletic form; the legs taking the sinewy sleekness of the horned beast. Elongated claws of the maned beast formed at the ends of its forearms, while the grey beast’s paws formed at the end of its back legs.

A thick dark brown mane grew on its neck that fell freely past its torso. And on its thick neck laid the head of the maned beast with the pointed ears of the grey beast. And finally, on its forehead grew massive horns that seemed to reach towards the sky.

In an explosive transformation, the beast erupted out of the earth when it stood. Despite the massive boulder nearly twice its size roofing the nest, it easily tore it from the earth then crushed it into rubble with its claws.

An earth-shattering roar blasted out of its maw, echoing across the forest carrying with it the creature’s ire.

After displaying its power, it soon turned towards the direction of where it smelled the two pups were heading towards.

Getting on all fours, the beast charged towards the forest; a black blur that tore through trees and stone indifferently like an avatar of violence.

***

“Rakai, snap out of it!”

His brother’s voice tore through the fog in Rakai’s mind as it shook him out of a daze.

Seeing his brother lunge at the beast forcing it back, he churned the mana within his body to isolate most of the poison. Soon he could feel his strength returning as he broke through the grip of the two bloated corpses.

With an incredible display of strength, he grabbed the arms of the two bloated corpses then swung them above him to smash their heads into each other. He then quickly turned to the side as he threw away the entangled corpses.

Rushing towards Kirili who was lying on the floor, he knelt before lifting her into his arms.

With sweat drenching her face and visible pain on her expression, Kirili struggled to look at Rakai as she smiled.

“I’m… fine. Go… and save… our daughter.”

Seeing her having difficulty with her words, Rakai solemnly nodded as he laid her gently on her side to avoid aggravating the spike sticking out of her right shoulder.

He looked towards Rikarn and the creature as they fought. The entity easily avoided his brother’s blows and seemed to be toying with him.

Angered once more at the creature’s mockery, Rakai joined his brother in the fight. Together, they traded blows, but even with his assistance the creature appeared no more troubled than it already was.

It motioned to puppet more corpses to interfere in their fight, but reinforcements arrived seconds later. Seeing the walking corpses of their kin, the Kaijin were angered once more as they systematically took the corpses down.

Feeling annoyed at the interference, the creature though it was time to escape and once more tried to bring to surface the young it held hostage.

However, before it could stimulate its flesh, a bright blinding blue light flashed and tore one of its arms.

Feeling the sensation of burning flesh, the creature screeched as it quickly leapt backwards.

“You two, stand back!” called the elder as he held two fingers forward facing the creature; the bone talisman glowing in his hands.

“Elder, wait! It has the children!”

“What!?”

Just as they exchanged their words, the creature made a sickening noise as if mimicking laughter.

Turning towards it, the two brothers paled when they saw one of the tumors at its side shriveling up with a gurgle until it was completely gone.

The arm it lost easily regrew as it expelled small skeletal remains from its palm.

Horror and fury burned onto everyone’s expression when they realized what the creature just did.

“Black-hearted beast! Don’t think your end will come so painlessly!”

Blue purifying fire raged within the halls as Uruwan’s anger peaked. Seeing the threat of the old Kaijin before it, the creature motioned all its arms to make a crushing gesture.

Soon, all the bloated corpses – including the ones that were dispatched – started expanding quickly.

Understanding what the creature was planning to do, Uruwan made the fire engulf the entire hall and focus around the Kaijin.

Just as the fire was about to reach the corpses, they all exploded with the force of a bomb expelling black matter and corrosive bile.

Because of Uruwan’s quick decision, most of the bile and taint was burned before it could touch any of the Kaijin. However, as the fire receded, the creature was no more. Only the remains of splintered wood, smatterings of black blood, and a massive hole on the back of the hall laid evidence that the creature had decided to run.

“Tsk. It’s escaped.” spat Uruwan as he clicked his tongue.

Just as the Kaijin were preparing to pursue, a voice from the hall’s entrance called out, “Old Uru, what happened?”

Hearing the familiar voice, Uruwan sighed in relief as he turned around. “Old Jortus, if you’d have arrived any sooner, perhaps it wouldn’t have been able to run.”

Jortus frowned at his friend as he replied, “You know how the Warpways work. Any sooner and half of me might not be here to greet you.”

Ururwan merely shrugged in response, but grew solemn when he saw Rakai.

His wife in his arms, tears flowed from his eyes as Kirili grew paler while her breaths were becoming shorter.

Jortus came closer as he raised his hand over her to scan her condition. Confirming the results, he closed his eyes as he took a deep breath and sighed.

“This… isn’t good. She isn’t just poisoned by that spike… she’s slowly being corrupted. The poison prevents mana from isolating and healing the corruption while the corruption strengthens the poison to fight back any cure. There are ways around it in the city, but… bringing her… it would be too late by then.”

Upon hearing this, Rikarn fumed. “What an insidious poison! Not only does it make a mockery of the dead, but that it would even toy with the living!”

Despite Rikarn’s outburst, Rakai merely continued to watch Kirili. Closing his eyes, he carried Kirili and brought her before the elder.

“Elder… please.”

Uruwan sighed as he heard Rakai’s plea. “…Are you sure?”

Nodding in response, Rakai laid her on the floor. “I lover her, Elder. More than anything in this world. That is why… I want her to be herself all the way to the end. I know her… Kirili would’ve chosen the same.”

Closing his eyes, Uruwan nodded solemnly.

“…Understood.”

With a wave of his hand, purifying fire engulfed Kirili.

The flame slowly burned away at her, yet no pain can be seen on her expression. Instead, a faint smile could be seen on her face.

Seeing his wife slowly being burned away by the Pure Fire, Rakai looked up towards both Uruwan and Jortus with eerie calmness.

“That thing took my wife… and stole my daughter. I cannot rest until this grudge is settled and my daughter is saved. Tell me… how do we stop it?”

 Jortus and Uruwan looked towards each other then back to Rakai as they nodded.

With a wave of his hand, a dark sphere manifested on Jortus’ palm. Several hazy images of a broken fence and a trail leading towards the forest appeared for a brief moment.

“From what I can see… the creature is moving east… towards the swamplands. Goblin country.”

***