“All clear,” Reysha told everyone after she came back. Halfway through opening her mouth, Aclysia found it sealed by the tiger girl’s left index finger. The touch tingled faintly with the traces of demonic energies. “Yes, bubble butt, I did the whole double and quadruple checking stuff. Trust the happy little murder kitty, ya got nothing to worry about.”

“I steadily have several reasons to worry,” Aclysia retorted and grabbed the tiger girl’s hand. It wasn’t the first time she had felt that sort of tingle and so far she had never managed to glean anything from an inspection. That did not keep her from trying.

Reysha, however, did not care to be scanned for several minutes. “There’s nothing new going on there, Clysia,” the redhead stated and pulled her hand back. Forcing the irritation she felt at her friend’s worry, excessive to her mind, she conjured the demonic side of the limb to the surface. It did not outright transform into a demonic limb. The veins bulged and turned an unnatural black, which infested whatever tiger stripes she had over the arm and turned them into messy inkblots. The red nails extended and thickened, turning into claws more befitting a digging animal than a cat. “I kinda get this now,” Reysha said.

Slower, much slower than it had surfaced, the corruption crept back under the skin. Aclysia pressed her lips together and stared. “Be wary. A play may begin when you step onto the stage, but the theatre demands its own pace.”

“Then I’ll just jump off the stage,” Reysha joked.

“Reysha…!”

The tiger girl rolled her eyes, the blue of the iris a striking difference to the black around them, especially in the poor lighting. “This is part of me now, Aclysia, might as well get good use out of it. If it starts taking me over, we’ll worry about it then. Hasn’t happened so far and I refuse to handicap myself when we’re fighting literal fucking dragons.”

Tapping her heel repeatedly, Aclysia tried to stare the redhead down. She tried to conjure a good argument. Besides the warning she had already given, nothing surfaced. “Be aware that you are setting yourself up for my mightiest ‘I told you so’.”

“Eh, ya win some ya lose some.” Reysha shrugged and looked over to Korith. “Whaddaya think, squishy?”

Korith did not register the question at first. This was the first time she had seen Apexus devour something this way. For ease of retaining his muscle structure, he usually just stuffed his face. Unhinged jaws were not that unnerving.

This was a little different. It wasn’t Apexus’ body that weirded her out, not really anyway. Even though the humanoid body seemed alien, attached to the much larger blob, that was nothing compared to the near-death abomination he had been after days of starvation. No, it was the consistent, unstopping breakdown of the corpse inside the mostly translucent slime that caught her attention.

After the scales were dissolved, the skin followed quickly. Trails of blood rose where the veins were exposed, each of them getting absorbed into the slime before discolouring the surrounding area. What the dragon had for facial features was eventually broken down to muscle and bones. Eventually it would be just bones. Then those bones would become smaller and smaller, detach from one another, thin out, and then just vanish. Fully digested and absorbed into the humanoid slime’s biomass.

Every natural creature ate and a less clean variety of the same process was continuously running inside them. That did not stop it from being unnerving. It was the kind of sight that was so uncommon it bordered on horror. Like a bird foetus hanging out of a broken egg, half dissolved and covered in goo.

“Huh?” Korith welcomed the distraction and turned her head. “Sorry, I was kinda… staring.”

“You’ll get used to it, Aclysia did.”

“Watching darling eat has never been a particularly… engaging subject,” the metal fairy confessed. “Anyway, Reysha was asking what your opinion is on the matter of her reliance on her demon hand. I posit such tools should be wielded with extreme delicacy, if at all. She insists that a tool that cannot be removed might as well fulfil its function.”

“D’aww, thank ya for wording my argument so neutrally.”

“I have no need to employ sophistry, for my view stands on its own merit,” Aclysia stated. Her green eyes darted to Korith, hoping for a confirmation.

“I mean… doing demon stuff in general is bad?” Korith said. “So I guess I’m with Aclysia on this one.”

“Urgh… what about you big guy?” Reysha shouted up to Apexus, whose humanoid form was ‘sitting’ on top of Kaladar’s shoulders. Cross-legged on the mountain of his own acidic biomass, he looked like the world’s most macabre monk.

Apexus tilted his head one way, then the other to indicate he was thinking. “Are demons bad because they are bitter or are they bad because they are demons?” he asked a rhetorical question. “They have the thankless task of endlessly warring against the Parasytes at the Roots of the Omniverse. I’d grow irritated as well, if I continuously hunted for a stranger's benefit. If that very fight has corrupted them down to their nature universally, then it would be inadvisable to risk any further spread. If it hasn’t, if demonic is just a form of strength, there is no need to worry.”

“Ya really starting to sound like a monk,” Reysha commented with a wry smile.

“Thank you,” Apexus responded with the hint of a smile. “Until we know whether the arm spreads or not, it might as well see usage. I agree with Aclysia though. One should not blindly tear into potentially poisoned meat.”

Reysha grumbled for a little bit. Appeased, Aclysia walked away and tugged at Korith to distract her with the renewed task of picking up some trophies. Distracting herself from the moral condemnation of her peers, the redhead asked, “Speaking of blindly tearing into poisoned meat, can I just dig into that?”

“The poison works on ingestion, not on re-ingestion,” Apexus told her. Many a compound that was poisonous unfolded its purpose by being broken down by bodily functions into something harmful. What ended up in the bloodstream of the victim was, itself, incapable of surviving the initial stages of the eating process. Unless Reysha injected the dragon’s blood directly into herself, she would experience no problems. If she did, she’d have many more problems than the poison.

The exact chemical processes taking place were unknown to them, but Apexus knew what it felt like to ingest poison. His slime went numb or ached for a little bit, particularly when the poison had a magical element to it. Nothing of that happened here. Everything was dissolved without harm.

With that news, Reysha moved to the back of Kaladar’s massive body. Apexus was still busy with the serpentine neck and head of the dragon, so Reysha had plenty of time to indulge herself with a delicious looking thigh. The only problem was that she had to de-scale the area first. She considered her options for a moment, then glanced about. Aclysia and Korith were too distracted to see her, half-hidden behind a wing.

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‘Fuck it,’ she thought and let the demonic strength manifest again. Apexus noticed her tear the individual scales out with raw strength and said nothing. Concern about what could happen competed and lost against letting her decide what to do with this strange limb she had been given. It was supposed to be a reward by Apotho. From what Apexus had been told, Warlocks had to be honest in their rewards to retain the trust of demons. Pacts and oaths were the currency of those that employed the creatures from the Hellroots. If demons were unconvinced that the Warlock would keep up his end of the bargain, they would not serve. Warlocks were incentivized to be, of all things, truthful in the rewards they bestowed.

What the incentives were and what Apotho truly could have done were two different matters though. Apexus came, pondering as he kept eating, to the conclusion that it was no use to worry too much.

If Apotho had created this arm with malice in mind, it was unlikely he would have tied any outright demonification to usage. If direct corruption was possible, the blood of a Deathhound would have facilitated it and veins connected the limb to her torso either way. If anything, it’d be a matter of time rather than application.

‘We should find someone with prowess in this field,’ Apexus concluded. There was no teacher for Warlocks on the isle, but there had to be at least one retired adventurer of that Class somewhere. When they got back, unless their teachers found something else that needed to be learned, that’d be their next priority. ‘We could ask Melios before we return home.’

Hours passed. The corpse of Kaladar got continuously smaller, while Apexus devoured most of it. The knowledge that he could acquire a new permanent Growth was already tingling in his biomass. He held off on it, gradually making his way towards the chest of the creature.

The magical cortex of most creatures that had one was behind the sternum. It was loosely attached to the bone through gelatinous tissue. The cortex Itself was of a layered make. Petals of a flexible matter were consolidated into a tight, hardened bud. It was the centre of the magical circuits that spread out through the entire body. As someone unfolded their magical potential, the cortex would ‘bloom’, increasing the surface area, allowing more blood to reach it, which carried the nutrients that were transformed into mana.

Kaladar’s magical circuit was in a mostly undeveloped state. There were many differences between the magical cortex of a dragon and that of most sapient species. None of them were relevant to Apexus at that moment. The primary one, the sheer size of the opaque organ in his smaller torso, was solved the moment the Growth turned from temporary to permanent.

Upon being integrated into the slime, the magical cortex tightened up as much as possible. Although the slime possessed magical circuitry of some description, none of it had ever seen use outside of feeding Aclysia with mana. Any previous, lesser magical cortexes he had acquired from animals who only wielded select spells they were born with, had failed to work with them. The permanently acquired cortex swiftly became the nexus of these invisible pathways.

Apexus expected to feel a drain on his resources. Instead, he felt nothing. The passive capacity of a magical cortex, turning nutrients into magical energy, had been fulfilled by his slime previously. With a dedicated organ, it would be more effective.

The question was where to place it in his body. Unlike everyone else, he had the choice. His sternum was not a bad choice. His ribcage was essentially solid, the bones thick and covered by dense muscles. However, that was the expected placement. Putting it elsewhere could have been a tactical advantage. Many techniques had surfaced over the years that targeted the cortex of an enemy. As magic energy became more prevalent in higher Levels, that would only increase in relevance. Plus, his chest already contained his core. Placing too many vital organs in one spot created an ever-larger weak spot.

With that in mind, Apexus decided to move the magical cortex to an area that was rarely struck even indirectly: his hips. The protection was a little lower, particularly from the front, but the magical cortex was not sensitive enough of an organ to worry about anything besides deliberate attacks. Further steps to layer on defences could be taken down the line, or it could be relocated if it didn’t work out.

While Apexus continued eating, Korith and Reysha took a nap and Aclysia held a vigil above. They were past the morning hours now and someone could have had a reason to check on Kaladar. Once more, the lack of care the members of the camp had for one another was to the advantage of the quartet.

Eventually, all that was left of Kaladar was a pile of scales, his broken horns, and the last fistful of thigh meat that Reysha stuffed down her throat as breakfast. What was valuable was inside their adventurer’s bags. They cleaned themselves off with the contents of their waterskins, made themselves presentable and then employed the most daring of all exit strategies.

They simply walked out.

A few nearby people turned in their direction, then returned to whatever they were doing. Kaladar had no guards who would be surprised if someone came out. Some may have wondered when they had entered. No one actually tracked it and so they just shrugged it off. Had the group appeared bloodied or otherwise unusual, someone could have connected the dots. Having changed back to their casual clothes, with all wounds treated by Aclysia, there was nothing off to be spotted.

“Just keep walking,” Reysha told Korith, who was being incredibly suspicious by rearing her head repeatedly.

“I just can’t believe we’re getting away with this,” the shortstack whispered back.

With no initial reaction, the group just strolled (mostly casually, except for Korith’s nervous stride), back to their camp. Once there, they started packing up their tents and what other belongings they wanted to take with them. The bandits that had settled nearby followed the happenings curiously. Between the three of them, they discussed whether they should take down their own tents, but decided to delay that work until they were sure the quartet was moving something further away.

It only took them about ten minutes. What they could prepare without looking suspicious, they had yesterday. The tents were empty, only had to be taken down and stored away.

The party started moving southwards. Apexus stopped and exchanged a long-distance glance with the trio. “Keep moving, I’ll catch up,” he told his lovers. Reysha raised an eyebrow, Korith jumped from one foot to the other, and Aclysia nodded approvingly. Then, they parted for the moment. Alone, Apexus approached the three bandits. He squatted down next to their campfire. “Tielner, Gore, Meltz,” he addressed the three of them individually. “Your life strategy is not going to pay off in the long term. One day, not too far from now, you won’t even have the strength of youth anymore. Your body will become slower. You will die. You’re horrible people that deserve it. Try to find a way not to be.”

“The fuck are you on about?” Tielner, the apparent leader of the trio, sneered. Meltz, the one who Apexus had carried to Aclysia after accidentally breaking his skull, had a smiliarly confused and dismissive expression. Only Gore was quiet and actually considered these words.

“Try to move south. To the fortress of Weststir. Ask for work. That’s the best suggestion I have for you.” With that, Apexus stood up. He had done what he felt he had to. With that, the slime moved away.

A day after the quartet had left the camp, someone became curious why the dragon hadn’t come out to hunt in two days. They found the lair vacated and some of the hoard gone. Confused, they would report this to the camp. Everyone wondered what had happened. That the adventurers had something to do with this became the common theory. Others insisted that they couldn’t just kill Kaladar and make his body disappear, so they suggested that the red dragon had somehow slipped out and left them.

Either way, the camp soon turned into an open brawl. The loosely affiliated cliques would fight each other for the remaining resources. Meltz would die in that brawl, leaving Tielner and Gore to attach themselves to the victorious clique. The survivors disbanded the camp and scattered, pursuing either smaller-time banditry or a new dragon to serve.

For a year, Tielner and Gore would survive on infrequent meals, until hunger claimed Tielner. Left in a bandit camp where he felt like a complete stranger, Gore would finally heed the words that Apexus had left him with. He headed south. After a month of trying, he would meet a patrol and plead for a chance.

Gore would serve as a guide for the soldiers, showing them the common tricks bandits used in the area. For many years, he helped keep them safe, until his age eventually started to slow him down. The soldiers vouched for him, allowed him to take a boat to Weststir, where he stayed for one month before finding that proper civilization was too much for him. He returned to the fortress, where he would spend the rest of his life as a simple cook.

When he died, the only thing he left behind was a book written in the scraggly hand of someone who had learned to write late in life. A messy, chaotic chronicle of the monster he had been and how thankful he was for the simple life he was allowed to have despite his past. The last words in the book were: “I can only thank the few, blunt words that I heard that one day.”

Apexus would never know his words had taken root in only one person.

Had he, he would have smiled and said, “That was worth it, then.”