I was caught on the beach like a mouse at a cat picnic. The blob’s cousins scurried out of the lakes to beat me to a pulp for murdering their kin. Tooth, claw, scythe, tentacle, and all other manner of weapon that nature could conjure up came my way to rend my soul from my flesh. I had to roll, jump, spit, bite, and claw in order to try to avoid being immediately turned into a chalk outline.

The flavor of eating boiled tires mixed with the taste of blood in my mouth to create the taste of a motorcycle accident. Though I’d love to take the opportunity to rid my mouth of these sickening flavors, I lacked the time. The attacks were ceaseless and my health bar constantly shrank and rose with each bite of vile meat.

It would have been more manageable if all of these creatures were just blobs. But, it seemed that this place was Hell’s Galapagos Island and I was the demon Darwin. While two remained more like the squid I dispatched, the rest were varied. One scuttled across the sand on long legs while another hopped like a frog.

I scythed through a tentacle before I tumbled over my left shoulder to avoid being whipped by a spiked appendage. I leapt towards the hopping creature and took a disgusting bite of its torso and then leapt to the side to avoid a tag team of tentacles.

The hopper slammed its bleeding torso into my body. I felt my ribs snap like matchsticks before I was sent tumbling into the sand.

I couldn’t focus on a single creature and level the playing field a bit. The other three tried to jump me from behind and forced me to rotate damage between all of them. All the while, damage began to accumulate on me. They were all around half health and I surely would have already died several times if it weren’t for my [Sanguine Bite].

That blow from the hopper gave me another red timer. This time, it was an image of cracked ribs to match my already slowly dwindling broken arm.

Ah, what a rush. My mind burned up with adrenaline that made all pain only feel theoretical. If they killed me, would they drag me into the pits with them? Would I join that infernal choir of wretched screeches as I slowly sailed back to shore?

Injuries be damned, I needed to end this fight now. If I died without putting everything on the line, I’d only have myself to blame. My crippled body came later.

I went for the scythed creature first. Unlike its gelatinous original form, their limbs were more solid. I barreled into its legs with my full weight. A barbed limb pierced my back in payment for the action but I ignored the pain and drove the creature to the ground. I bit and bit and bit into the putrid flesh while I clawed and scratched it into nothingness.

My body was getting pummeled by the hopper and the two regular blobs. My egregious amount of health and natural armor kept me barely afloat.

You have defeated a Concept of Negativity (Anger) +250XP.

I immediately jumped away from the obliterated corpse and went for the hopper. It was less simple than the scythed blob. Its hops were a slower, more erratic, version of the ape from the Bowels. When I thought it would hop one way, it would actually move the other.

My mind quickly determined that it was not the correct move to pursue the fat beast. Instead, I went for the slow blobs. Their amount of mass and slower movements gave me a full buffet of shit to dig my teeth into. As long as I kept track of the hopper, I could manage to dodge most of the attacks against me.

The keyword was “most”

Tens of tentacles whipping at me made it impossible to avoid everything. While I no longer had to be concerned about my health levels, the red timers began to increase. Crippled leg, broken tail, and smashed scales made me feel like I was a survivor of a vicious car accident..

But, I managed to kill one of the blobs. I grabbed around the tentacle of the other blob and pulled myself into its body. My claws and teeth ripped it to inky ribbons as it screeched into smoke.

The hopper landed directly on me and slammed me into the sand before bouncing back into the air. However, this time, it had a passenger. I bit and spat into its body as it landed again to dislodge me from its body. But, it was to no avail. I carved its life to nothingness as it was midair. I fell from around ten feet in the air to land squarely on my back.

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“Ah, fuck,” I spat to myself as I tried to raise myself unsteadily to my feet. My right leg collapsed immediately and I tumbled back onto the sand.

How long were these timers going to last? They barely dwindled down.

Fortunately, I seemed to have rid the lakeshore of the local beast population. But, I was a sitting duck if anything else decided to come my way. I looked around for anything to obscure myself with but only the sparse shrubs were available.

With one arm, I drug myself across the sand towards the pitiful shrubbery. As I did so, a voice called out to me.

“Help me!” It screamed at me.

A freshly revived arm rose from the tar around twenty feet from shore. The supple flesh was already beginning to form bubbles and fall apart. It was still hopelessly far away and would surely perish numerous more times before they ever had the chance to return to shore.

image [https://i.imgur.com/4PU2r1U.jpeg]

Quest!

Sympathy for a Tragic Villain:

A disgraced warrior betrayed by their comrades drowns in tar and would like for you to save them. Rescue them from their cruel fate before they perish another time and you will receive a bonus.

Reward: 500 XP (1000 XP if done before death).

Yoshitsune has offered you (1) Recovery Potion (Green Quality) as payment for accepting.

As soon as I accepted the quest, a glass vial dropped in front of my face. Red contents sloshed around inside the glass container. I grabbed the vial and uncorked it with one of my claws. Logically, someone who wanted me to save them wouldn’t poison me. I decided to trust the stranger and emptied the red liquid into my mouth.

It tasted like someone dumped a bunch of herbs into a bottle of cold medicine. But, compared to the small rubber processing plant that I just ate, it was like drinking the finest red wine.

As soon as I gulped it down, my wound timers disappeared. The lingering pain in my crippled limbs and torso melted away like snow. I pushed myself up from the sand and back to my feet. I tested my affected parts quickly before brushing the sand from my body and relocating the arms that wished for my help.

Even though I was grateful to be cured, I was not immediately certain how to save this drowning demon. There were no trees I could knock over towards them or any vines to use to lasso the arms. Even if I had a rope, it would catch on fire immediately.

Maybe the shop had something I could use. I activated the marketplace. I searched “Fire-proof rope” and only found purple tier or higher items selling for far more than I had. Instead, I thought “50ft chain” into the search section. At the top were several chains made of low grade Sin-got selling for only 200XP. The only issue was that the quickest sale would be three more minutes before the auction timer ended.

I didn’t think they would live that long so I quickly scrolled to see if there were any other options. For the most part, it was chains that were too short or too high quality to be worth my use. But then I saw something ideal. At 300XP, there was a seller with an inventory of chains that had an “automatic buy’ feature enabled.

Feeling like it was a worthwhile exchange, I ordered the chain. As soon as I confirmed my purchase, a chain began to fall from the sky while clanging onto the sand like a deadly handkerchief trick.

I stepped on one end of the chain and held the other end with my hands. With every ounce of strength, I hurled the chain in the direction of the hand. The metal made a massive splash into the lake by the hand of the client.

“Grab the chain!” I hollered.

The hand desperately reached around for the chain while other hands surfaced like a feeding frenzy. I had no interest in hangers-on and sprayed the freeloaders with my acid. Limbs dissolved with an otherworldly screech as the hopeless demons sunk back down to the bottom to die again.

Only paying customers were allowed freedom.

As soon as the hand gripped the chain tightly, I rapidly yanked the chain towards me. The links with tar burned my scales and sizzled my flesh but I just gritted my teeth and continued to reel my customer in.

A humanoid that looked like the Anakin Skywalker after taking a lava bath on Mustafar slid from the depths and onto the coarse sand. Charred, tar soaked, flesh dripped from the body to show exposed bone. A sword blade was melted to their right forearm.

Despite all that, the demon’s health was still not yet expired. The burns were causing it to rapidly dwindle away. They tenaciously turned their head and looked up at me with a featureless face. Another vial identical to the one given to me plopped in the sand by their head. They tried to reach for it, but missed.

“Please, use it on me,” the creature croaked.

I looked down at the vial and thoughts of treachery wriggled into my mind. If they had this many valuable possessions, how much could I take if I killed them?

But, I struck those devious thoughts from my head. I dutifully uncorked the bottle and emptied the contents in their mouth. They saved me from my helpless fate; that was not something that I should recklessly scorn.

Besides, if all the fights in the future were like the one I just went through, I needed well supplied backup to keep me from looking like a mugging victim every time I tried to level up. I needed a more reliable replacement for Squealer and I doubted that I would have another introduction get off on the right foot as much as this one.