As before, his spear was held perpendicular to the slime’s body and its attack. Its body hit the entire shaft of the spear sideways, and did not sink in that far at all. Joe grunted as he bounced off the mass, tucking limbs close to his torso as he spun through the air. He tried to twist as he had been trained, swinging his head around as quickly as possible before focusing on a single point so he could get his bearings as he spun through the air, but the tumble and strike overwhelmed him and he was only able to get his bearings at the last second, bringing his spear hand down to slap the spear and palm against the ground. The slap twisted him around enough that he hit the ground with his shoulder and allowed him to roll his whole body out in a somersault that had him back on his feet almost immediately, although with his back to the original location where they had clashed.
He whipped his body around and saw the slime just landing, and he sprinted towards it without thought. Close! The thing had barely hit the ground before its body quivered with shocking speed… Jumping! So fast! Joe recognized the quiver, its body compressing before a leap, but much faster than he’d really expected, coming across more as a shiver through its body than a deliberate compression of body mass before explosive movement. He still recognized it quickly enough to react.
His body dropped to the ground, slamming the butt of his spear into the floor even as he flickered his eyes downward looked for any pit, crease, or hole to anchor his spear in. Too strong! Almost couldn’t pierce three core! Joe’s mind had raced through possibilities and he knew this thing was much stronger than they were expecting. He remembered having to charge the three core slime even to get his spear to pierce the slime’s shell. He could only assume that this slime’s defense was even stronger, and relying on his own body to punch his spear into the slime would likely prove impossible. But if the thing leapt into the spear for him?
Joe dropped down to a very low crouch, keeping his arms and legs under him to move quickly, but still lowered himself down almost low enough to put his belly into the ground. He rested his torso on his elbows, using his right arm to hold the butt of the spear firmly against the ground and in the small divot he’d found. His left hand pressed the spear upward against his shoulder, aiming to angle the spear upwards at about a forty or fifty degree angle. Most of the weight of his upper body lay on his right shoulder and upper right pectoral with his elbows stabilizing. His feet angled behind him, legs spread wide and pushing up into the spear, offering as much strength to anchor his spear as possible.
Even as his body dropped down to brace his spear, the slimes body exploded outward towards him, body elongating into an ellipse until it stretched outward into a tear drop. Joe grimaced, his spear dropping too slowly and turned his quick but cautious drop to his elbows into an uncontrolled fall. Going to hurt! Joe tried to relieve as much of the damage to his elbows as possible by taking the brunt of the fall against the spear shaft pressing into his upper right pectorals and shoulder.
He hit the ground with a grunt, his chest throbbing, followed quickly by complaining elbows, but nothing enough to put his arms out of the fight. He fought to keep the spear up as he dipped the spear a bit too low, but it was still enough.
The slime hit the spear point on, thrusting in a bit below center. Joe grimaced as he felt the spear slip, his legs buckling under the outrageous force. Luck was on his side though, and the spear only slid a hand’s breadth before gouging into another chink in the floor. Still, the monster only compressed in on itself instead of being pierced, and Joe watched with some consternation as the thing began to roll up and over the point of the spear. Joe yanked the spear upward, but found himself in a very weak position, unable to bring any force to bear on his spear against the slime. Joe settled for pulling the spear up higher, not trying to push it into the slime, just slicing it up into the body as it rolled, hoping to add to the pressure the spear point was putting on the slime.
Joe smiled. The spear tinged. A subtle sound or feeling; something. But Joe knew immediately that the spear had pierced into the slime. He quickly shoved the spear up into the body of the slime, easily piercing it now that its skin’s defense had been defeated. He let the spear go, not wishing to pull the spear from the slime’s body and quickly leapt to his feet to charge after the flying slime.
It didn’t matter, the thing seemed to have deflated slightly, and the spear speared out of the beast’s side seemed to do nothing to its speed as it hit the ground, quivered in its preparation to leap, and came right back at him. Joe leapt to the side again, realizing that he would never be able to catch up to the thing, tucking and rolling before standing again.
This time, he ran away from the slime, even as it landed once again, compressed itself to leap again, and came directly for him, his spear still sticking out to the left of the slime. Joe smiled and leaped forward and to the left. Hitting the ground head first once again, he tucked his head in and landed on his shoulders to tumble forward in a somersault and continued sprinting forward but turning right slightly, trusting his spatial awareness, his right hand reached out. It should be…
His eyes came up just in time to see the slime splat against the ground to his right as his arm came down on his spear. He leapt forward and pressed the spear deeper into its body while angling it downward and into the ground, digging the point towards a larger crevice he hoped he could target and that the light wasn’t too distorted by the slime’s body. The point dug in short of the crevice, but he was able to angle it forward and dug the point into the crevice. His hand held the spear firmly against the ground and then he blinked, surprised. Small!?
He pulled out a bladed weapon, but held himself ready to leap away. This slime had given him too many surprises, and he didn’t wish to trust that the spear could keep it anchored as the forest slimes were. The thing quivered slightly, but didn’t compress for a leap, instead of making the wobbling movement that Joe had long ago recognized as a snail like slither across the ground, but much faster than he was used to.
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Joe nodded when he saw that the thing seemed to be stuck, and he gave it a few moments, making sure that it was truly stuck. It suddenly quivered to leap, faster than Joe could react, and fear clamped on his throat when the thing tried to jump, but found itself still stuck on the spear, and Joe felt relief flood through his body. It’s stuck! The bladed weapon he’d pulled was too short to actually reach the core, so Joe re-sheathed it as it wouldn’t prove useful. His hand automatically went for his spoon spear but found his hand coming back empty and he grimaced and cursed under his breath.
His grimace turned sour but he didn’t have much of a choice now and pulled out his longest one handed sword which he began using to slice off portions of the body. He soon found the effort futile as the slime was much stronger than the slimes he’d fought before, and he couldn’t easily pierce the skin. He was able to get his sword in point first next to where his spear plunged into the slime, but found the effort futile as the sliced off portions of the slime only liquefied before merging back into the slime since they poured down the side of the slime, easily able to be reabsorbed.
Joe dropped his sword in frustration, not wanted to sheath it full of acidic goop, and grabbed another weapon, his hand falling to his club as he’d given it primary place on his harness since he wanted to level it. He grimaced again, not seeing too much hope with this weapon but heaved it at the slime anyway.
The club hammered into the side of the slime and proved as ineffective as Joe had feared with only small splashes splatter over the floor but he stilled continued pummeling the slime another couple times before moving to re-sheath the club as well, but then stopped, realization hitting him.
His eyes glanced to the splatters resting on the floor then grinned viciously as he began to wail on the thing, the slime raining small drops of its body across the floor around him. After a few moments, Joe was able to verify that the slime was slightly smaller, and Joe reinvigorated his strikes while he glanced at the core and quickly judged how deep it was still in the body of the slime. Joe whaled on the slime for a good five minutes while orbiting the slime, maneuvering the spear shaft to be buried in the slime as much as was possible while keeping the majority of its body on the other side of the spear shaft from him.
It took several minutes, but Joe could see he was affecting the slime. Suddenly, it reacted in a way that completed surprised Joe and he saw it move its core. He’d never seen a slime move its core before; not so blatantly. It shifted from the center towards the edge where his club was hammering against the slime and Joe noticed an immediate reduction in slime body parts splattering to the floor. It can harden its surface if the core’s closer? Wow!
The fight had now become a rather academic one, the winner to be decided by who could last longest and Joe began analyzing the situation with a bit more thought rather than simply acting. Huh… OK. Time to switch it up. Joe swapped hands, his spear and club switching hands and he began hammering on the opposite side. He got in a good couple strikes before the core could move over to make his attacks meaningless, and Joe spent the next few moments alternating where he struck the slime. His arms were starting to get slightly sore when he suddenly stopped. I’m an idiot! Joe cursed to himself before renewing his strikes. Might as well keep shrinking it down a bit more. It seems to be settling into a pattern. Let’s keep it complacent.
The thing was soon anticipating Joe’s swaps and when he stopped bashing with one hand and prepared to swap, the core was already moving to the other side. When Joe saw this, he smiled a bit, allowed the situation to play out one more round so that he could swap weapons back to his stronger right arm. He beat a few times before swapping weapons once again, keep about the same rhythm. He slammed down on the monsters side with his right hand twice with the club before he suddenly tossed the club to the side and ripped out his sword.
Simultaneously, he tilted the spear and his body hard to the right, rolling the slime’s body over even further, bringing the core over to the side so that was now near enough to the surface with the body tilted over that if the slime were to drop, it would fall out of its body and onto the floor. Of course, the core wouldn’t fall out, but Joe would help it along, swinging the sword down hard and separating the majority of the slime’s mass from the small portion that the core was occupying.
As usual, the portion of the slime inhabited by the core retained its elasticity and wrapped itself quickly and protectively around the core and Joe was able to bring the flat of his blade against the much reduced slime body, smacking it like a ball with his sword as a bat. He didn’t hit it hard, not wanting to chase it far, but hitting it in a lobbing strike up and away from its now collapsing body. If the core fell back into the ooze, it would just reform.
When the displaced body collapsed, Joe was able to feel the spear pull free easily and he chased after the small flying slime, letting his spear trail behind him but preparing his sword. He much preferred using his spear, but seeing as how he had the sword in his strong hand, he could deal with using the spear to kill the slime. He need the precision that his preferred hand gave him, although his masters had spent quite a bit of time trying to break him of his habit of preferring one hand.
The slime tumbled upward in a lazy arc, just skimming beneath but not touching the ceiling before coming back down again. Joe found perfection in that moment and in that movement, and his sword hand reacted without thought as he flickered the blade up and sliced the slime orb once again. The blade bit through the slime’s body in the end, but Joe’s eyes widened when he realized that the creature still had its incredible surface tension to protect itself. The thing seemed to fold around the blade before seemed to pop, the strength disappearing without a trace and Joe was able to cut the slime in half once again. Even though Joe succeeded, Joe felt his heart spike as he realized that the thing was still quite strong and able to protect itself from being pierced. He berated himself for forgetting that it was still a four core or greater slime, so it likely still had incredibly strong defenses. Hope I can pin it!
As the slime tumbled through the air, pulling in the last of its slime body around it, Joe twirled his sword so that it was now held blade downward and brought the point of his sword down upon the slime as it fell downward. Pin it!
His sword guided the slime downward even as his blade accelerated it to the floor, the thing once again proved itself as a high tier monster, resisting the blade’s thrust for a split second before Joe felt his blade slide home. Joe breathed a sigh of relief, but grimaced a bit as he realized the wide blade of his sword meant that he had less to pin the much smaller slime down. Core out. Now! The return to frantic action had Joe once again purely focused on ending the battle, analysis left far behind.
He swapped hands once again, pinning with his left hand and using the spear with his right while carefully bringing the blade of the spear in to scoop out the core. Despite the smaller size of his traditional spear compared to his ‘spoon’ spear, the ten thousand plus slimes of practice aided him as the spear’s blade slid in perfectly behind the slime’s core and he flicked it with practiced ease, aiming the thing towards Garnedell as he usually did. Joe felt the wash of the kill come over him even as the core flew through the air towards Garnedell.
Joe smiled and called out to Garnedell, “It’s dead.”