Chapter 35

Gwyneth shed her bow and quiver once they were ready to pass through the door. Thanks to her soul, she didn’t need them anymore. Besides, arrows would be useless against the slime lord. They had come from the De Lawney armoury and bore their mark as well. It would stand out when Gwyneth entered the hub.

It was late afternoon when they left the third floor’s sunlight and returned to the subterranean second floor. The cavern looked vastly different in Gwyneth’s lamplight. Mei’s frost fire had made it appear cold and dreary. Meanwhile, the floating soul’s light almost made it look like daytime on a foggy day. Diya couldn’t help but smile when he found the Ito clan’s shrine demolished. It lay flattened on the ground with most of the wooden bits half-corroded and the bits of green picked clean. Bioluminescent blobs continued to move along the ceiling, walls and floor, but Gwyneth’s lamp drowned out their weak illumination.

“Where is it?” She asked, walking ahead of Diya.

“Careful,” he warned her. “Chances are it's laying dormant on one of these surfaces.” Diya pointed at the collapsed bridge and the area he had climbed across. “You see that hollow over there? The slime lord had that bit covered, pretending to be a flat wall. I was drawing a rope across it, so my employers could cross when it woke up.” Diya looked at his hands as he spoke. A shiver ran down his spine as he remembered the feeling of the slime lord's goop. “The wisps froze bits of the creature long enough for us to cross.”

“It’s a good thing that they only have the one sense. Only lightning spells have a chance against something big enough to fill that hole. I suppose fire could work too, but you'd need a high temperature and a constant stream.”

They walked past the destroyed shrine to the platform’s edge. Gwyneth flicked her wrist, and the lantern floated upwards, brightening its light. The countless slimes around them shone, reflecting the blue-white glow.

“How do we find it?” Diya asked, gripping his axe. It wouldn’t do much good, but he felt naked without a weapon in his hand. There were too many hostiles around them, and he didn’t know how much power Gwyneth’s soul packed. Unlike augmentations and summons, most spells had strict limitations. They drew from a resource pool like his inkwell. Diya worried the woman didn’t have enough juice to combat all the monsters if they attacked at once.

“We test the surfaces covered in slimes,” Gwyneth answered. “Most research says the little ones gravitate towards the lords. My father said slimes are born from a lord getting too big and splitting bits of itself to remain mobile.”

“What came first?” Diya chuckled. “The slime or the slime lord?”

He didn’t expect her to laugh at the horrid joke, but much to his surprise, Gwyneth snorted. Despite Victoria’s relaxed nature, she never would’ve made such a sound. She’d consider it unladylike. “Let’s focus on the task at hand.”

Diya followed Gwyneth’s eyes, studying the slime-covered surfaces around them. He couldn’t help but feel impressed by her knowledge pool. Meeting someone that knew about souls, cards and monsters as much as she did wasn’t a regular occurrence. Helping and befriending her had been an excellent decision, after all. Diya didn’t get the same vibe from her as he did from Yukiho.

“There.” Gwyneth pointed at a six-foot wide pillar. “Three slimes emerged out of seemingly nowhere. They broke off from the slime lord.”

“Are you sure?” Diya asked.

Gwyneth nodded. “When I was a girl, Arthur built a terrarium to study tiny slimes. I’ve seen enough of them to recognise their reproduction. This wasn’t it. Those things came out of nowhere.”

“So, how do we take them out?”

“Leave it to me,” Gwyneth answered. “This isn’t just repayment for the life debt. I need to know how my spells work before leaving the tower. Can’t have any De Lawneys trying to keep me out of New Calcutta.” When she whispered under her breath, a mote of bright blue light broke off from the lamp. It floated into Diya’s axe, coating the head in an electric shimmer. “Be careful not to touch the metal. Just stay close and take out any little ones or tentacles that come for me.”

“Got it.” Diya nodded, taking on a relaxed stance. His focus drifted between the pillar and the closest slimes. They weren’t angling for the pair yet, but that could change at any second.

The lamp’s golden filigree brightened as it floated towards the pillar. Sparks flew from it before diffusing into the surrounding air. Diya held his breath, hoping Gwyneth was right. It wasn’t just the pillar being the monstrous slime that worried him, but her theory about its possible monster card, too. He was getting desperate. Alexander needed him to continue climbing. If the current endeavour failed, he resolved to use Eirkh’s card. The ice effects and runes would have to suffice.

A loud crack sounded through the cavern as soon as the lamp made contact with a slime. It exploded into a cloud of digestive fluid and white smoke. Much to Diya’s surprise, its neighbours didn’t turn on the lamp but wobbled away from it like countless little slugs. Gwyneth didn’t chase them. Instead, her green eyes lit up as the pillar wobbled. The stony skin cracked and gave way, revealing the translucent slime underneath.

“You were right!” Diya exclaimed.

“Of course.” Gwyneth’s pink lips curled up into a little smile. Suddenly, she stood taller, appearing confident and powerful. “I don’t think this would work against any other lord or king-class beast.”

When she whispered under her breath, the lamp’s light dimmed, and lightning burst from the lamp. It struck the slime’s exposed bits, and all the hardened bits of its skin fell away. The monster released the ceiling, collapsing into a titanic blob on the cave floor. Diya had underestimated its size. The creature was three storeys tall and shrinking as white smoke billowed from where lightning had struck it.

Moments later, tentacles burst from the slime-lord, speeding at Gwyneth and him. Diya couldn’t fathom how it had figured out where they were. Perhaps the beast had the means to trace the magical link between a soul and its master. There was no other explanation, and Diya didn’t have the time to come up with another. He stood in front of Gwyneth, holding his axe with both hands. The metal hummed and brightened under the effects of her utility spell. He didn’t know how long the effect would hold up, but Diya intended to make the most of it.

The tentacles reached the pair not long after Gwyneth released a second lightning bolt. Sweat beaded on her forehead, but her focused eyes didn’t falter. She breathed deeply and flexed her fingers. The tentacles faltered for a moment when the spell struck the slime lord but continued their progress a heartbeat later. Diya smiled, noting how they had slowed. Cutting them down would be no trouble at all.

Much like the lamp, the axe buzzed as soon as it touched a tentacle. The resulting jolt almost wrenched the wooden haft out of Diya's hands. If not for the two-handed grip, he would've dropped the weapon and forever lost it to the abyss's darkness. The slime lord's tentacle exploded. The acrid white smoke threatened to make him hunch over and cough, but he managed to keep himself together. After taking a moment to clear his lungs, Diya chopped at the next tentacle to approach them. Instead of staying in one spot, he let the swings follow through and carry him away from the appendage just as it burst into the suffocating gas.

Another lightning bolt struck the slime lord. It was bigger and brighter than any before. The spell left Gwyneth breathing heavily, and she struggled to keep her back straight.

"It's almost down," she said, watching her target. The slime lord was no bigger than a horse-pulled carriage now. Gwyneth had her lamp float down towards it as the tentacles retracted. "It’s going to try to escape now. Think you can get to it?"

Diya nodded and started his descent without question. When he had passed through the area with his last party, Diya had assumed the room had no floor. It helped him maintain his resolve while scrambling across the slime lord. Now, in the lamplight, he could tell that the shrine was only thirty feet off the ground. It would've been safer and less stressful to climb down to the cave floor, trek across the cavern and ascend it again without risking their lives against the countless slimes.

Another blue mote charged Diya's axe with lightning as he completed his descent. The local slimes were fleeing too. Perhaps they had a rudimentary scent of smell or a sixth sense that warned them of their friends' fate. Diya didn't care. He raced at the slime lord as another lightning bolt struck it. This time, it hardened its liquid dome moments before the spell landed. Smoke still bellowed from the creature, and it shrunk down to a horse's size, but the damage appeared much smaller than before.

"I have no more in me!" Gwyneth yelled."It's all you, Diya."

The slime lord didn't try to attack him. Diya guessed it could only detect Gwyneth’s location. He, on the other hand, was invisible to his senses. Diya swung his axe into the creature one-handed before dancing away from it. Since the slime lord had no flesh or hide, he didn't need to put much strength into his attack. Besides, it wasn't the physical assault that would inflict damage but the lightning.

Smoke and tentacles assaulted the spot Diya had stood moments ago. He ignored them, focusing on the almost transparent sphere moving around inside the slime. Because of the fluid's distortion, Diya failed to discern its size, but the maelstrom of white and sapphire energy inside spoke for itself. He sliced and moved, dancing around the beast. It always remained several heartbeats behind Diya, missing him as he zipped around it.

The beast got more desperate in its attacks as it shrunk. Perhaps with less mass to manipulate, its control got better as well. Tentacles burst randomly from all around the slime lord's blobby mass, trying to limit Diya's movement. His inkwell was more than half full. So, he put his journal's spells to good use.

Ensnaring Inkfire Vines flew from the fountain pen and wrapped around the slime lord. The creature’s gastric juices spluttered and sizzled as they extinguished the inkfire almost straight away. However, the tentacles retreated, and the creature shrank considerably. Diya used the opportunity to charge in and hack at the beast while it recovered. The axe head's glow decreased with every swing, and he kept going until it went out altogether.

Towards the end, when the slime lord was no bigger than a pig, its texture became snot-like. Its body had become more jelly than liquid as it got smaller, but now it no longer changed. When the ordinary axe went in for the finishing blow, the creature hardened the surrounding goo, trapping the weapon less than an inch from its transparent core. Diya let go of the haft and hopped backwards. He cast Frozen Ink Lance, and the fountain pen's nib shot into the slime lord as it and the barrel grew. Diya felt it strike something hard, and a crack followed. The slime's skin exploded, spraying his coat with its gastric juices, and only a cracked core remained.

They had done it. Diya and Gwyneth had defeated the slime lord with reasonable ease. He reached into the silver light flowing from the clear sphere and claimed his reward. It was a monster card. Oozeth, the Slime Lord.