From the opening of my abode, did the creature finally change its behavior. Although it had no eyes, its head was pointed directly at core with ravenous hungering mandibles. It could feel the aura of power surrounding myself and wanted to take it for itself. This invader had to be stopped no matter the cost, no matter what I had to give up to live on. Would the slimes even live after I died? Wouldn’t the thing just kill them all? I was coming up with excuses to do what I was about to do, justifying it to myself as for greater good. Although horrible, it gave me the will to fight.
The baby slimes had no hang ups however, they were monsters of a dungeon, not a stray like the beast before them. It was a given to them to throw themselves into danger to protect the core and all it provided. Perhaps I was imposing my own morality in a world incompatible with it, but their self-sacrificial nature did not ease my heart. They were my children! My spawn! Why do they not care about their own lives? It felt like I was sending them to the slaughter house, because they were.
As it ventured past the maw of the cave, the slimes flew onto the beast’s legs. They were not there to actually hurt it however, the goal was to cause pain, intense pain. At first, the creature was not too bothered, only that the pests were slowing it down from getting to its meal.
Fucking weaklings, do not even bother! You cannot hurt me!
I can hear it? Does it have… intelligence? Or was it a dungeon perk just translating what it was thinking? However, this question could be solved later, there was a fight for survival at hand. Beezlebub above continued to prepare for the secret plan I had. You see, the cave had various stalagmites hanging on the ceiling, I believe you can see where this is going. Around the base of the largest among the cavern’s collection, Beezlebub slowly dissolved it. Little Bub seemed to be half way done, which was not ideal, but was more than I was expecting of my first spawn. The rather unimpressed monster slowly became agitated at the flies buzzing around it. Swiveling its head, it swirled its body around to lunge at one poor slime. With a crunch, goo exploded on its face as the slime popped as its core was crushed. Spitting out complaints about slime getting on its antennas, its movements became more awkward as it struggled to use whatever the slime-coated stalks on its head did.
It started to buck and wildly swing its body in hopes of throwing off the assaulting goo monsters, but the thing about slimes is that they are, well, slimes. Only one who was moving to get a more stable position flew off into the walls of the cave and splatted. It did not die thankfully, the goo of its body cushioning the impact for its core. However, the slime who just experienced a close call had to tap out, it needed to sit in the water and regenerate its body before being able to do anything of use. While proved useless, it kept wildly twisting and turning, not knowing what to do. But, in the chaos, it managed to accidentally slap my core with the end of its body, driving a huge crack into my core and dimmed a little. I felt like I got hit by a semi truck. Disoriented, the battle blurred as I felt power leak out my core. Stay conscious dammit! I got the slime that was out of the battle to cover the wound, stopping the leak but not entirely. I could still feel a small trickle of power escape me even with the seal of the slime.
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Beezlebub almost disobeyed my orders, their instincts to keep me safe almost overcoming their instincts to listen to my orders. Almost there! Keep at it! Just hold fast just a little bit longer! Beezlebub reluctantly continued to eat at the stalagmite, clearly still extremely uncomfortable from having its instincts conflict and incredibly worried for my safety. I could tell my improv trap was about to be ready, I just needed the beast in the right place. Directing the slimes closer to the rock guillotine to go all out and the others to ease up the pain, the monster took the bait, only seeing red as it started to treat the slimes seriously. Two more martyrs were made then as they died acting as bait for the furious blades on the face of the creature.
Y-You pests! If you do not stop, I will grant you a painful death!
The monster’s… whatever it was using to communicate… was laced with rage and indignation at the thought of his glorious self being bullied by mere baby slimes but also hints of desperation and… fear. It came in thinking it would be a cakewalk, but now the possibility of death now existed. This was a baby dungeon! It knew that it was of the weaker sort of monster, but was it seriously going to die in some newbie dungeon? This was its chance to rise! Its chance to stand up to the stronger monsters! Consuming this core, could it survive, no, thrive!
The protagonist of its own story, it could not conceive of its own death. It had to survive, right? Yet it soon despaired as it soon knew that its story was to end in tragedy as a long spike fell above it, plunging into the space between its head and the rest of the body. It felt like time was moving in slow motion as it felt the guillotine dive into itself. All the struggle, going from a grub to this. The countless close calls and fighting for it to end like this! This cannot be! Yet, the fluids of its body flowed like a river into the pond water, staining it green, as a painful counter argument to its delusions. Its mandibles slowly opened and closed in the direction of the core as it could magically extend its jaws but such a miracle was not in the cards for the being. Eventually, it stopped as the world finally went peacefully quiet for once in its entire life.
It died, wishing for the happy ending that would never come.