image [https://i.imgur.com/xcQhW8Y.jpg]
A few moments earlier…
Alrighty, here I am, flattened like a pancake, skulking around an enemy encampment—pathetic, right? And another thing, where the hell was I stashing all my extra mass? I know—I’ve ranted about this before, but seriously, does anyone actually understand how this works? Because I sure don’t.
Was I tucking away my excess pudding into the Stellar Void? That would make sense if I’d had my dimensional storage from the get-go, but I’m pretty sure I was compressing my goo even before that skill kicked in. So, where was it all going?
Yeah, I know, the default answer when in doubt is always magic—blah! That’s such a lazy-ass answer that writers use for… well, all movies and TV shows nowadays. Not me, though, because by pointing it out within a fourth wall, it makes me edgy and cool! Cough. Um… Where was I going with this again? Oh, right! The whole experience felt like a horrifying flashback to puberty—things growing, things changing... and those homicidal urges. An absolute nightmare!
The eclipse of another moon continued to cast the camp in eerie darkness, save for the flickering lights from the fire pits. It seemed like a normal occurrence since I didn’t hear anyone mention it as I stealthily passed unseen. In that dim glow, the shadows danced like mischievous performers, helping to conceal my movements as I approached the city walls—or should I say, village walls? Actually, it might be a hamlet? Honestly, I’m not too clear on the size differences. From what I could see, this place had fewer than a hundred buildings tucked behind wooden walls, so let’s keep going with village.
As I neared the wall, I had to duck beneath a carriage of some kind as a group of nudist barbarians passed by on patrol. I say some kind because there were no wagon wheels, or, you know, wheels—it just levitated two feet off the ground. Both the wheelless wagon and the exhibitionists were fascinating. They weren’t fully nude; their naughty bits were at least covered, but it was an odd sight I couldn’t get used to, especially when the other half of the soldiers were decked out in full plate armor. I swear, you can’t make this stuff up!
Seriously, why are half of these soldiers prancing around half-naked?
My only hypothesis is that the more skin someone bares, the better they can toy around with ambient mana for spellcasting. Well, I remember a dream explaining that I—humanity—was unique in being able to manipulate ambient mana, so… maybe they’re absorbing ambient mana to replenish their mana pools? I mean, that’s the only thing that makes any sense to me.
Nah, they’re just a bunch of exhibitionists.
Getting back on topic! I waited for the patrol to pass before oozing out from beneath the floating carriage. I’d love to play whack-a-nudist and take ’em all out, but that would put the whole camp on high alert. Imagine if they realized a patrol went missing, or worse, if I didn’t kill them quickly enough and they managed to alert the entire camp. That’s not exactly ideal for a rescue mission. And don’t even get me started on the overkill—it could seriously jeopardize Aurelia’s safety if they knew someone was here to rescue her, right? I think so, which is why it’s best not to risk it.
What I need is to locate where these assholes stash their stockpile of boom-boom shit!
No! That’s a stupid idea. No, scratch that—it’s a really stupid idea!
Sometimes, the worst ideas are the best because nobody ever sees them coming!
That’s the dumbest reasoning I’ve ever made!
Yeah, but do I have a better idea?
Do what I was doing, sneak into the village and find Aurelia!
And after that?
…Boom-boom?
“Yep! Thought so!”
As I scaled the rickety wooden walls of Elsternwick, my keen Mana Focus caught sight of a familiar figure. It was that hulking brute I’d spotted earlier, the one clinging to that elf bitch, Anlyth.
“Well, well, well, look who I see,” I cooed in sinister delight.
Aurelia first! I can deal with him later.
I watched him happily as he made his way through the small town. As much as I wanted to kill him—not because he’d personally done anything wrong, but because the elf he cared about had upset me by stealing my prey. Sure, I still got to eat the goblin, but he was my kill! Yes, I’m a vindictive and selfish bitch, but I thought we had already established that.
Didn’t I already agree this place was a village?
A town is a village, isn’t it?
No!
Then what’s the difference?
Size!
And that size difference is?
…
As I snickered at my internal debate, a wicked idea suddenly crossed my mind while I gazed at the big man. I wanted my revenge, and I needed a better way to navigate this place without alerting the entire keep. I mean, I was doing a rather good job sneaking around, but I won’t lie; even when it came to video games, I always hated stealth missions. I’d much rather go on a killing rampage. However, I wanted that female elf to suffer, and Olin needed a new body.
My gooey form shifted and twisted—spider legs sprouted out, then morphed into sinuous tentacles, ready to unleash brutal nightmares. As I stalked through the cobblestoned streets, past rotting thatched roofs, and occasionally back upon the decaying wooden ramparts of Elsternwick’s outer walls, I kept my eyes on the big guy, like a cat eyeing a juicy mouse. And let me tell you, this village was way bigger than I thought—way more than a hundred buildings, hiding like little secrets around every corner. No, I mean it; this place looked a lot smaller from outside the walls.
From up on my perch, I couldn’t help but chuckle at the sight below—more soldiers and knights than you’d find at a Renaissance fair, stumbling around like drunken fools. At the same time, the villagers treated them like conquering heroes.
Ah, the joy of impending horrors I’m about to unleash upon these clueless numbskulls.
I fixed my gaze back on my target—the big brute himself, strutting into a dark alley as if he owned the joint.
Time to pounce!
Wait! What’s this?
Two soldiers guarded a door as if it were Fort Knox. “General, it is good to see you!” they declared, offering some strange chest-slapping salute to the big guy as he strolled past them and through the door they guarded.
With a mental laugh that would make the devil envious, I slinked across the ramparts, then skittered onto the building like a nightmarish horror monster clinging to its side. It turns out Anlyth’s little love interest is a real VIP in this forsaken place. As I crawled closer along the side of the wall with Spider Walk active, I left a trail of corroded stone in my wake—because why not add a touch of style to the whole monster gig, am I right?
After a night of debauchery, the air reeked of piss and puke—a sweet perfume that got my murderous mojo going. The unspeakable horrors I was about to unleash had my goo pumping with excitement. General Conan-wannabe disappeared behind that creaky door, and I slithered down like a pro hitman, all tentacles and badass. The two guards? Pfft, they were like toys to me.
“Surprise, motherfuckers!”
“What?” they both exclaimed in unison as they glanced up.
My tar-like embrace shot out, smothering their faces, silencing their muffled screams before they could even begin. Oh, the thrill of the kill, the exquisite taste of terror! Their desperate kicks and thrashes were like a symphony to my ears as my tentacles lifted them off the ground, their bodies flailing as I choked the life out of them with only my Corrosive passive active—how I savored their struggle.
Once their heads dissolved enough that they no longer kicked, I absorbed their remains into my body, pleased by how quickly they dissolved now that they were lifeless. One tasted like pumpkin pie, while the other had the distinct flavor of French toast.
Sadly, there was no system notification about the kill, which meant no skills or levels were gained either. I really needed to get that dungeon core back to the dungeon if I wanted to continue progressing. Though, I still didn’t know where they were keeping the core, or where Aurelia was for that matter. But I’m pretty sure a general would know both!
I leaped off the wall, shifting back into my human form as I landed on the cobblestone street of the alley. A sly grin spread across my lips as my silk face finished weaving itself together. Humming happily, I eagerly reached for the doorknob like a master thief, and with a rusty screech, the old door swung open. Yeah, I may have flinched inwardly at that sound, but who cares? I was ready to rock!
Stolen novel; please report.
With bated breath, I peered through the door and found... nothing! Stepping in, I discovered a spiraling staircase around the corner, leading down into what appeared to be a seemingly bottomless black abyss. Yes, that’s another of my exaggerations—I do that a lot. In reality, it was just a stairwell leading into an ordinary basement. I could see candle lights flickering and heard yelling.
“I said—WHERE ARE THE OTHER COVENS?!” demanded a voice.
“West?” came a nonchalant reply.
Tiptoeing past the door, I was driven by growing curiosity as I crept down the stone steps. The voices from a heated conversation grew louder with each step. My grin deepened as I realized that what I had mistaken for not-so-friendly chit-chat was, in fact, an interrogation—a brutal one at that.
“Where has your lord sought asylum?!” A harsh slap echoed up the stairwell. “OUT WITH IT!” Another slap sounded. “NOW!”
The thought of them torturing Aurelia stirred up a tempest of boiling rage within me. Peeping around the edge of a hefty pillar, I got an eyeful of the General and a couple of muscle-bound bruisers with pointy ears doing a number on a guy whose face looked like a toad. A dim bell of recognition rang for the poor bastard somewhere in the recesses of my mind, but hey, I wasn’t about to lose any sleep over him.
His frantic squawks were drowned out by the steady thump of fists and the snarled demands of his tormentors—not that he had a snowball’s chance in hell of answering them. The boys seemed more invested in their savage dance than in milking any useful info from the frog. And you know what? There’s a twisted sort of honor in that.
Yep. I can respect that!
One of the interrogators turned to my prey, his eyes sparkling with sadistic glee. “General Ezad,” he growled, “permission to start severing limbs? Let’s see if that’ll loosen the wretched freak’s tongue.”
Ezad, the so-called General, grunted out a pleased sound as one of his interrogators spun on his heel and started heading for a table near the stairs, covered with an assortment of fun-looking torture devices, his face smeared with a greedy look. If only he knew, I was far more ravenous than him. With a casual shoulder roll, bam! Eight thrashing tentacles sprang from my back like squid-like, slimy appendages.
Hoisting myself up, I stayed hidden, lurking above the lower part of the stairwell leading into the basement, completely concealed from view. I managed to get into position just in time. My first soon-to-be snack strolled by, oblivious to his fate and, fortunately, just close enough for me to snatch.
Before Ezad and his remaining bruiser could react, I delivered a savage twist to the poor sap’s neck with one of my tentacles and gleefully absorbed his lifeless body into mine. He dissolved quickly, consumed entirely by my pudding flesh—which, I might add, looked seriously wrong on so many levels in my human-ish form. It was sort of like reverse childbirth, though thankfully, I pulled him into my chest.
Let’s ignore that visual! This time, I had been more cautious, activating all my passives to ensure there was no struggle from the unsuspecting man. Without Paralysis, it surely wouldn’t have been so effortless.
Casting a sneaky look back to where the toad-man was being worked over, his pitiful whines—or were they pleasure moans?—struck my ears like a disturbing soundtrack. Shaking that unsettling thought from my mind, I went back to scoping out the place.
A handful of jail cells nestled against the walls caught my eye. A quick sweep of my gaze revealed nothing but emptiness within them. Relying on Mana Focus to see, I discovered I couldn’t see beyond the bars—it was more like peering into a gaping void I couldn’t penetrate, as though all the mana had been siphoned out.
I switched to Thermal for a double-check but encountered the same issue—like all warmth had been stripped away as well. Whatever was happening, the cells seemed enchanted to prevent detection using both my forms of sight. I doubted this was the intended design, but that was what was happening nonetheless.
Maybe it’s an antimagic prison cell?
Hmm… that would make sense, I suppose.
The General appeared to be getting annoyed as he cast his gaze back toward where the other interrogator had vanished. As he looked toward the stairwell, I quickly ducked back. Thankfully, it seemed he remained unaware of my presence. I switched back to Mana Focus, and that’s when I noticed a pale orange light reflecting off the wall my face was pressed against—I nearly swore aloud at my mistake that almost got me caught. With an internal grumble, I released my hold over Mana Focus and let it spread out across my entire body, giving me the annoying panoramic view. While I still hated it, it did remove the telltale orange glowing eyes that would give away my position.
“Soldier! What’s keeping you?” bellowed the General.
“It’s no use, humyn,” I faintly heard a whisper, purring in a way that made my soul flutter. “You’ll be dead before you return to your pitiful Slaethia. My beloved Bowen will see to that.”
My heart sank at the mention of that name. All I wanted was to hear my own name, Blake, upon Aurelia’s lips.
—Wait! Bowen... Wasn’t that the name of that guy from my dream?
A dream of my… past life?
Another memory suddenly came to mind. When I first woke up in this realm as a Black Pudding, Aurelia had been carrying me around. At the time, I was struck with Sickness, and as she hummed, she removed the debuff. When it happened, the system notification referred to her by a different name—a name I had utterly forgotten in the midst of all the insanity that followed. Somehow, I had failed to put it all together until now.
Aislinn?
My gooey heart skipped a beat—yes, I meant that metaphorically. Again! Of course, I don’t have an actual heart, nor blood—unless you consider my corrosive and poisonous secretions to be my blood... or saliva? Meh. The point is, I was on cloud nine, knowing that I’d finally found the woman of my dreams! But how was she here? Did she also reincarnate, or was her soul summoned like mine?
Uh... if Aislinn’s here, what was in that tent at the camp?
Boom-boom? No clue, but I don’t think it’s a big deal anymore.
...I suppose.
The General turned toward Aurelia—Aislinn? This whole duel name thing is really confusing—a smirk spreading across his face. He approached her cell as if to gloat. Meanwhile, the second interrogator moved toward the stairwell like a deer unknowingly walking into a hunter’s sights.
That’s when I unleashed my terror. I morphed into a writhing mass of inky black tendrils and tentacles as I descended upon the elf, who let out a scream of terror and pain that filled me with elation. The General spun around, his face contorted in horror and fury as he charged forward, massive fists raised to deliver punishing blows. But before he could so much as lay a finger on me, a goopy tendril of black pudding snaked around the elf’s lower jaw, wrapping it in a web of sticky tentacles, and yanked.
With a ghastly tug, the jaw was ripped free, and I hurled it at the oncoming brute. Ezad swatted the detached jaw aside with a flick of his hand, but I was ready for that and hurled the still-screaming elf at him. The two tumbled in a tangled heap, the elf’s howls of pain echoing throughout the room like the sweet music I so love.
The General shoved the wailing elf off him and surged to his feet, but it was too late. I shot a tentacle out and wrapped it around his neck, pulling him close.
Aurelia’s laughter pierced through the elf’s jawless, horrid howling, warming my soul.
Oh, how I have grand plans in store for her!
Tentacle Hentai?
…Yeah.
There I was, giving Anlyth’s sweetie the old squeeze play, my arm coiled around his neck—not quite offing him, just ensuring my passives were off but making him about as useful as a screaming toddler. The guy was throwing punches and clawing at me, but every time he scraped off a bit of my gooey black sludge, it just filled right back in. As I started morphing back into my drop-dead, tall, curvy-babe self, I couldn’t help but smirk.
In my sultry human form, I rocked the hell out of my pitch-black, deadly goth body as my silk face finished weaving together a gorgeous satin appearance that would have given Edgar Allan Poe a raging hard-on from beyond the grave. My eyes flickered with Mana Focus, casting an eerie orange light that splashed across the General’s stunned gaze.
The second he caught sight of the lady behind the monster, his wrestling act took a nosedive. He fixed me with a stare that could freeze lava, and I was totally eating it up. The only downer was the blubbering elf, who seemed to have misplaced his jaw. Scratch that—I was totally getting my rocks off from that too!
“What manner of abomination are you?” Ezad rasped with a snarl.
Aurelia’s voice cooed from the depths of her dark prison cell, as alluring as I remembered. “Well, well, you’re a woman—and a gorgeous one at that. General Ezad, allow me to introduce you to our Dark Champion.”
“Hi’ya,” I stammered, my mouth unusually dry for a Black Pudding.
Hi’ya? Are you fucking kidding me?
So embarrassing.
“Um… I may have told that old lady I didn’t want the title,” I added, smiling over the man’s shoulder into the cell I couldn’t see into.
Fuck, me! I’m fucking this up big time, aren’t I?
“No matter,” Aurelia chimed in, almost soothingly, her tone hinting at a touch of relief. “You’re still alive, so the Crone must have taken you in as one of her faithful.”
“Not exactly,” I corrected. “I’m not really a follower. Though, she was pretty nice to me.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I’ll fucking kill—” the man in my grasp started to hiss, but with a quick twist and a snap, he fell lifelessly and unceremoniously to the ground.
Didn’t that dwarf lady mention something about Aurelia being drained of blood?
I looked down at the jawless, whimpering elf and smiled. Getting a good grip on the interrogator’s leg, I started dragging him over to where Aurelia was caged up. The guy was a hot mess, howling his head off as I started tugging on him—well, what was left of him after his jaw had taken a hike. I was tempted to just scarf him down right then and there. But I knew Aurelia needed his blood way more than I needed a snack.
Hey, look at me sharing! Maybe I’m not as selfish as I thought.
Nah, I definitely am.
The cell looked like something torn right out of a history book, as if it belonged in the 1600s or something similar. I slapped my hand on the rusty old bars, letting my acidic flesh work its magic to melt down that hunk of iron. Piece of cake, really—the door crumbled in a few seconds flat. Then, with a cheeky twist of my hips, I flung the elf into the cell. As he skidded to a halt, the cell briefly became visible, but all I could make out was Aurelia’s outline as she pounced on the wailing elf as all hell broke loose.
That’s one seriously ravenous vampire.
What a sight!
He was flung all over her prison cell, kicking and flailing as she dug in for her meal, feeding with ravenous hunger. The faint outline of her was so thin, but as she fed, I noticed her filling out. Those curves that drove me wild slowly came back. It was like watching a great white during chow time, but a thousand times better. And me? I was so wrapped up in her, so caught up, I couldn’t tell if I was in love or just lusting after her like crazy. Yeah, I’m messed up. But I was just so captivated by her raw, wild beauty.
She’s amazing!
As I was totally vibing on this moment, frog-face had to go and break my trance. “Um, can you unstrap me from this chair?” he croaked.
I took a peek at the frog, not exactly thrilled. “Yeah, just hang on a sec. Got a little something to take care of.”
With that, I stood over the man I’d just killed and started fishing out the staff from my void, and as it emerged from what looked like my chest cavity, so too did a rather annoyed and irritated gnome head attached to one end and a phylactery on the other.
“You bloody bitch!” Olin screamed.
“What was that?” Aurelia hummed, chilling even me—though, in a totally good way, not so much for the gnome head, whose eyes widened in alarm.
Aurelia stepped out from the shadows of her cell, her sharp red eyes honed in on the staff in my grip. As she moved, I couldn’t help but get caught up in the sway of her hips, her queen-like stature, and those killer tits! Oh, and let’s not forget the sexy-as-hell blood still running down her beautiful face.
Tentacle Hentai!