SARAH AVERY VASILIAS, GREAT HOUSE SCION, REBORN LVL 5

SKYLAND

Kimi-Lim thrust their right hand out, finishing the spell they had been casting. The Spellweaver activated and four tiny arms telescoped out from it. They began weaving in intricate patterns so quickly they blurred and energy surged out of Kimi-Lim’s tensa pool.

Light bloomed in the enormous cavern like turning on a light switch. It was as bright as a clear day at noon and the light was everywhere, banishing shadows in every crack and corner. Sarah was shocked she wasn’t blinded by the sudden shift, but she took it in stride.

The slimes did not have such an easy time of it. Their googly eyes had gone completely white, their pupils contracted down to tiny pinpricks as they all froze in a state of catatonic shock.

“Hurry up!” Kimi-Lim shouted, grabbing Sarah’s hand. “They’ll snap out of it soon, so we have to move.”

Sarah expected a mad dash to the surface, but instead, the Light Mage pulled her toward the hole they’d been fighting slimes around, pushing her in and then jumping down after her. They landed on a squishy mass of stunned slimes after falling three meters from the area above. It was a sinkhole so full of slimes that they completely covered the floor. Some of the slimes burst wetly as Sarah and Kimi-Lim landed, releasing their ammonia smell into the small area, causing Sarah to cough and gag.

Kimi-Lim had landed on their feet and they helped Sarah get to hers on the wobbly footing. Once they were sure that Sarah was okay, the Light Mage took Sarah’s hand and led them straight toward the middle of the pit, keeping an eye on their Spellweaver. The metallic Spellweaver arms were still weaving and spinning out the Daylight spell Kimi-Lim had modified, but their motions were getting just a little bit jerky, introducing a tiny wobble in the rhythm.

“What we want is somewhere in the middle of those slimes,” Kimi-Lim said intently. “We’ve got to get to it before they wake up!” Sarah nodded and the two of them started pulling and tossing slimes as quickly as they could.

In their stunned state, the slimes all stopped adhering to whatever they were stuck to and their outer layer became taut and elastic. To Sarah’s hands, they felt like those old kickballs that the middle school used for dodgeball—the kind that could knock a twelve-year-old out if thrown at speed.

The stunned slimes bounced off of one another like bouncy balls, filling the small pit with flying slimes. It took several seconds of digging before they found it: a heavy metal case that was navy blue and etched with silver runes. It looked like a fancy rifle case, though it was bigger and a little thicker. It was shut with a complicated mechanism that they didn’t bother with, and there was a heavy-duty handle on one of the long sides that Sarah used to heave the thing up and out of the pit.

The damn thing weighed a hundred kilograms at least, but Sarah’s Dominion attribute and her passive bonuses from her Oni-Blooded graft made the case feel almost light. Sarah yelled, “Kimi-Lim, jump off the case!” She held the case out like a platform and waited for Kimi-Lim.

The Light Mage dashed forward and hopped up onto the case, using their Solar Step graft to boost them all the way up and out of the pit. Sarah didn’t wait for Kimi-Lim to help her up, she decided to give her new convergence a try.

It was strange, but activating Oni-Blooded was now no longer an act of fury, but just a different artificial muscle to flex in her Power Arm. She did so now and felt herself grow tall and her muscles bulge grotesquely. The slimes were starting to recover, even though the light from Kimi-Lim’s spell was still just as bright as ever. Sarah felt the slimes start attaching to her calves and shins but she paid them no mind.

She crouched low, powerful thighs and calves bunching with stored effort, then leaped at an angle directly out of the pit in one enormous jump. She still had her stick in her hand, though now it looked puny. With a thought, she changed the stick into a proper warclub and started smashing all the slimes she could see all around her. In her Oni-Blooded form, she strode among the slimes, her crimson skin quickly getting slick with ammonia-scented slime-jelly but she wasn’t in a wanton destructive rage: she had a goal.

Sunspot hopped up out of the pit after Sarah, barking and bounding around at her heels happily. He was super-heated now, smoke rolled off him in great billows as the slimes that touched him flash-boiled. He ran over to where the blue metal case had landed and barked loudly, zooming around it and biting at any slime that got too close.

Sarah sprinted toward him, feeling the seconds tick down from her graft. She reached the case and spotted Kimi-Lim who was dancing through the air on spots of light that appeared under their feet as they leaped and twirled. Sarah stared in gape-mouthed astonishment as the elf sashayed and boogied through the air.

Well if you’re going to have the ability to walk on air, you might as well do something cool with it, Sarah thought as the elf sped past her.

Snorting in laughter, Sarah picked up the metal case and ran after the Light Mage, easily making up the distance and overtaking them soon after. As her Oni-Blooded graft wore off, she shrunk back down to her normal height. The case became awkward even if it wasn’t heavy, and the lead she’d gained on Kimi-Lim was quickly lost. Better that Kimi-Lim leads anyway, considering they actually know where we’re going. The slimes, at least, had thinned out and they were running in a well-lit area. Still looks like a parking garage, Sarah thought, feeling a bit bemused. A moment later, her smile vanished as the ground shook beneath them.

Sarah looked behind her and saw that the slimes had all boiled up and spilled out of the pit that she and Kimi-Lim had just leaped out of. They writhed and bubbled together as toxic steam belched out of the middle of them as they liquified themselves. The smell of ammonia became overwhelming, causing Sarah to break out into a choking coughing fit. Kimi-Lim shouted back at her, “Don’t look back! Keep running!” Sarah saw the slimes start coalescing into one enormous mass and decided to follow the Light Mage’s orders. She ducked her head and redoubled her efforts, pumping her arms as she ran. They shot out of the parking garage area and thundered up some stairs.

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They emerged from the stairwell a few moments later and kept the pace up as they dashed down the halls. Sarah had no idea how Kimi-Lim kept the route they’d taken straight because they’d just wandered throughout the whole building, but the elf seemed to know where they were going and Sarah just had to trust and follow. The slimes were somehow keeping up with them—Sarah hadn’t looked back in a while because she needed all her concentration to navigate the dark halls.

The entire ruin shook around them, causing chunks to rain down from the ceiling and the floor to buckle. Sarah swerved right as a chunk of ancient stone ceiling nearly hit her on the head nearly bouncing off of Kimi-Lim, who was right next to her running just as hard. They reached out and grabbed Sarah’s hand, tugging her out of the way as a tree-trunk-thick tendril made of glued-together slimes slammed into the place Sarah had just been. Sarah took a moment to glance over her shoulder, regretting it as soon as she did. The giant slime had squeezed into the hallways and oozed after them. The truly disturbing thing about them was that the giant slime wasn’t just a bunch of little slimes glued together, it was now a discrete slime—complete with googly eyes that bulged out at them, made of dozens of slimes acting as eyeballs for the massive slime they now made. A half dozen more telephone-pole-thick tendrils hauled the giant slime through the twisting halls of the ruin as it tried desperately to reach the case Sarah had stolen from them.

“There’s the door!” Sarah shouted, seeing sunlight streaming out of a doorway just ten or twelve meters down the hall they were running down.

Kimi-Lim nodded and they poured every last bit of speed on to get to the doorway and out of the ruined shell of a building. The giant slime was right behind them, its tendrils swiping at them as they ran. Sarah spun and dodged, using her preternatural Speed and Precision Attributes to their full advantage. She felt like she imagined Spider-Man felt, dodging and flipping through the room. Kimi-Lim used their Silverstaff to block the tendrils with unerring accuracy. The tendrils all retracted at once and Sarah and Kimi-Lim took a moment to look at each other and nod before they both sprinted towards the opening.

The waterfall still thundered outside, obscuring the view outside but Sarah and Kimi-Lim didn’t hesitate. “Give me some time if you can!” Kimi-Lim shouted. Sarah nodded and flung the case out ahead of her as hard as she could, hoping that she wouldn’t have to dive down to the bottom of the pool to find it (assuming, of course, that they lived through the next few minutes). Then she and Kimi-Lim followed the case a second later, leaping as far out as they could.

Sarah felt rocks and rubble pelt her from behind as she jumped, crying out as one shard sliced her cheek right near her eye. Would I get a Bionic Eye graft if I lost my eye stealing treasure from these slimes?! Sarah wondered bitterly as she prepared herself to hit the water. She tumbled as she fell toward the pool, catching a glimpse of the giant slime right before she hit the water. The slime had followed them mindlessly out of the ruin, bursting out of the wall and splashing through the waterfall with an explosion of water and rubble. It was still surging out of the ruin, more and more of it pouring out, inflating like a hot air balloon in fast-forward.

As she fell, she twisted acrobatically so she was facing the giant slime and formed a weaponform she was frankly surprised she was able to form: an official USA Olympic Ultimate disc. The disc formed in her hand and she slammed her Electrify graft into it. Right before she hit the water, she tossed the disc with her signature overhand flip. The crystalline disc sparked and hissed as it flew threw the air. It wasn’t a fantastically accurate throw, but she’d put a lot of power behind it and the slime thing was as about as big as a house. The disc barely skipped the slime’s left googly eye—certainly not a hit that would traditionally be particularly effective; but as it skipped off the giant slime’s exterior, it dumped the electricity into the monster. It didn’t have as dramatic an effect on the giant slime as it had on the pit of slimes: it didn’t explode. But it did pause in its growth as it shook and spasmed from the electricity coursing through it.

Sarah splashed into the water and realized that she’d jumped a lot further than she’d thought because instead of splashing into the deep pool, she slammed into the bottom of the pool, her breath getting knocked out of her and her head slamming into the muddy bottom, making stars explode in her eyes. Despite the pain and the confusion, Sarah felt oddly calm. She knew she was hurting, but instead of trying to gasp in air, she controlled her instinct to breathe and instead flipped herself around and used her Power Arm to launch herself in a handspring right out of the water and onto the shore. She stood there a moment, gaping and unable to breathe, dripping and shaking, frankly mystified that she’d been able to keep her calm so well. She managed to take a shallow, wheezing breath and then looked around for Kimi-Lim and the slime.

The slime was easy to find: it was still shuddering and convulsing from her Electrify graft, but it was already beginning to regain some control even as Sarah watched. Kimi-Lim was standing in midair on a patch of glowing yellow light with Sunspot glowing brightly next to them. The elf had their arms spread wide, their robes catching in the light of the sun and sparkling with reflected light. Sarah tried to think of something else she could do to help, but nothing was coming to her. She didn’t have enough tensa for another Electrify and she was pretty sure that she couldn’t hurt the slime with just her conjured weapons.

Before she could shout up to Kimi-Lim that they should just cut and run, the Light Mage thrust out both hands toward the slime and the sky went dark as it seemed like all the light in the world was channeled in a multicolored fan of laser light. Kimi-Lim’s eyes were shining with a coruscating rainbow of light as they grinned and began flapping their laser hands rapidly like they were trying to cool the slime down. The effect on the slime was immediate and devastating. Wherever the rainbow laser fan swept over the giant slime, it blistered and blackened; then the blisters burst and azure ooze spilled out in a steaming stream.

The slime didn’t scream, but the fast-forward inflation of the slime had reversed. It was desperately trying to squeeze itself back into the crumbling ruin, but Kimi-Lim continued fanning it with the rainbow lasers. In a matter of seconds, the entire giant slime was reduced to a boiling mass of blackened, smoking jelly. Kimi-Lim and Sunspot skipped down from their spot standing above the pool, breathing hard.

“Holy shit,” Sarah breathed as they alighted next to her in the shallows of the pool. The waterfall washed away the disgusting mass of burned-up slime and Sarah shrank back from the chunks of still-bubbling jelly that floated by. “That was nuts!”

Kimi-Lim nodded, collapsing down in a heap next to Sarah. Sunspot pushed his head under the elf’s hand, eliciting scratches and pets under the ears. “That was exhausting is what it was. I used almost all my tensa for that last spell.”

At that moment, the entire jellied mass of slimes fuzzed and dissolved in a shower of light particles drifting skyward. Kimi-Lim and Sarah just watched: it was an ethereally beautiful sight, especially after all the chaos of the fight. They both took another few moments to catch their breath. Eventually, Sarah wiped her brow and stretched, touching her toes and then stretching back as far as she could.