Lani’s club dropped down in violent retribution. Her aim was true and a moment after she struck the remnants of the slime, it disintegrated before her eyes. Unfortunately, before it disintegrated she was splashed with its gloopy body. While killing all the slimes she was consistently splashed by their goo. Red slimes are of the fire element, blues of ice and water, and green of highly volatile acid. Regardless of what element they were imbued with, they all burned her skin when she came in contact with them. With the slimes splashing her every time, her body was covered in burns of multiple elements. At least the slimes didn’t affect non-living matter, so her clothes and shoes where still intact.

As her makeshift club, which she was getting quite attached to, fell violently on the last slime in the room, which was the room she was initially turned around in, she inwardly sighed in relief. Lani was exhausted at that point. She had barely been able to hold the club up for long enough to accurately aim where she was going to drop it.

After she learned about the weak spot on the slimes, her anger might have gotten the best of her. She decided to go back to the beginning of the cavern and find and kill every slime that she could. The slimes couldn’t move fast, but she wanted to make sure that she took care of every threat that she could think of.

It took her a long time to accomplish, but she didn’t want to continue on with the threat of danger looming behind her. Besides, she was a completionist. The act of killing the slimes was tiring, but the feeling after she saw them disintegrate into dust and then motes of light was not. Even though she didn’t tire of seeing them die, her body had enough action for one day. If it had only been a day.

She was physically exhausted and she could nap if she let herself, but she didn’t feel like it had been so long that she actually needed sleep. It wasn’t like she would be able to sleep in the cavern anyway. Lani wasn’t too worried about the time that she spent in the Monolith. She had learned that sometimes the Monolith engaged in slight acts of time manipulation. It wouldn’t always do it, but it had been known to add or takeaway hours on someone’s time inside. Besides, she had the tracking bracer still attached to her wrist.

While she rested, leaning on the cavern wall, Lani wondered how the bracelet worked.

If I die in the Monolith, will it just send some kind of signal? Wouldn’t that mean that it is possible to communicate inside the Monolith? If people die in here, their bodies aren’t sent outside, no one ever hears from them again. Hell, maybe people don’t even die. Maybe they are put to work building and working in all the scenarios inside. What it they’re turned into monsters? Did the slimes used to be people that the Monolith turned into monsters, then I killed them?

Lani stopped thinking about it so much after that. She didn’t think that was the case, but she did acknowledge two things. One was that the Monolith was so powerful that no one could ever be sure that was the case or not. Two, she must be more tired than she thought if her thoughts jumped to something like that so quickly.

Lani didn’t sleep, but she did decide to take a longer break to get back some of her strength. Another reason that she didn’t want to sleep was her lack of food or water. She doubted she would ever find food, but she was still holding out for water. However, she hadn’t been so lucky yet. Lani initially considered not going back and killing all the slimes for this very same reason, but she knew that she could go a lot longer without water still, and even longer without food. This made her security in the Monolith her primary concern.

After taking the time to rest her body and mind, Lani decided to move on. She was both excited and fearful about what lay beyond the cavern area she was resting in. Considering the cavern she cleared was the one with too many slimes to slink past, she hoped that it was the last one. Although, since there was clearly something down the next pathway, she dreaded what it might be. It could be a puzzle, a monster, or just whatever happened at the end of the Monolith floors. She was hoping for the latter, even if what happened was a tightly kept secret among the Ascended of her city.

Lani silently crept along the pathway to the next area with all her senses on high alert. After killing the last slime, the sound of dripping water stopped. She took that as a good sign for her safety, but a bad one for her water intake.

The further Lani went into the passageway to the next cavern, the more her unease grew. Because, each step she took forward, the twisting fear in her gut increased. Going through the similar passages didn’t cause her to feel that way, it was only when she moved closer to the slimes and their pools that the feeling hit her.

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What Lani assumed was about halfway through the passage, her ears picked up a new sound that she hadn’t heard before. She paused to try and listen closer and determine what it was without the intrusion of her shuffling feet. It was a strange sound that reminded her of the sound of water sloshing in a bucket. Living in the slums for the last few years, she became familiar with the sound. The water didn’t work in all the buildings and finding one that was safe to squat in was nearly impossible. The only way to have fresh water was to carry a bucket to the local water point then slowly slog back home.

Lani tried to refrain from thinking about the implications of her discovery. She continued forward, her mind consumed with watching for any signs of danger. As the passageway turned a final corner and her instincts screamed for her to get away, she was able to see what she had feared.

On her level of the Monolith, the only sounds had been that of dripping water. But technically, that wasn’t true, that was only the sound she had focused on. When she got close enough to the pools of slime, their movement did make sound and it was just like the sloshing of water. Since there was no water source in the caverns, which meant that any sound of water would have to be a slime. Additionally, any sound that she would have been able to hear halfway down the tunnel would mean that there was a lot of it. When she had come to that conclusion, she prayed that she was wrong about what was waiting for her.

Standing at the edge of the passageway and the opening of the last cavern, her hope fled. The final room in this Monolith challenge was a boss room and she didn’t have a chance, nor did she see any other way of escape hiding in the cavern. Her knees nearly buckled and her eyes filled with tears of regret. Before she could give up hope and sink into despair, Lani caught a flash of light at the center of the largest slime pool that she thought ever existed.

Lani got ahold of her emotions then. There was nothing to do but get out of the Monolith by defeating this challenge, or die, and she wasn’t going to do that. Lani set about analyzing the room.

In the center of the cavern, was one large pool. Inside that pool, or more accurately, the contents of the pool, was a slime that looked like it could fill a small pond in the city. Its color was as red as the fire slimes, but Lani thought that it was more translucent.

Actually, as Lani looked, she noticed that the cavern itself was actually the pool. There was a foot or two around the entire edge and then the floor dropped down into the pool. Lani absently wondered how deep the slime pool was, but she thought she could see the bottom, but with the ever present red light it was hard to tell.

Interspersed throughout the area and jutting up a half-meter from the surface of the large pool, were seven smaller slime pools, but even they were twice as big as the pools in every other cavern. Each of the smaller pools were overflowing with different colored slimes. Their goopy bodies dripped out, too voluminous for their own spaces and mixed with the larger body in the center.

Lani could guess at the slime types by the colors that she had already encountered in the other areas, but there was at least three that she wasn’t sure because they all appeared to be black. However, the color didn’t last long because once they fell into the larger pool, the color disappeared as it merged with the bigger slime.

Once again Lani almost fell to despair but the continued shine of power coming from the center of the large room gave her hope. Lani moved her head to see what angles she could spot the weak point. When she moved her head and the light went away, she could swear that with her regular sight, Lani could actually see a small stone.

A stone? That’s what has been making that light for me to attack? That must mean it’s the monster’s core. No wonder it was the weak spot. If that one is so big, the others must have been a lot smaller, perhaps the size of a grain of rice, or definitely no larger than a pebble since I couldn't see them.

Lani closed her eyes briefly to see if she could sense it, or any of the others. She could feel were the large one was but couldn’t see it just yet. She couldn’t sense or see any of the others cores.

So I am able to sense the core of the slimes. Is that normal? It can’t be, or the other Ascendants wouldn’t fear slimes so much. I wonder if I will be able to sense all monster cores. Is this a Remnant power? I didn’t think I received one.

Lani looked around the room again and tried to devise a plan. She could move around the edge of the room and attack each of the slime pools individually, but she would have to be fast. Her flimsy prison shoes could protect her feet for a second or two, but they would quickly get saturated and her feet would start to burn away. Once immobile in the slime’s goo, she was as good as dead. After she killed all the smaller slimes, smaller by comparison, she would try to do the same for the large one.

The Monolith always heals those who finish the trial, so I should be willing and prepared to take some damage.

Lani couldn’t seem to think of any other solution. She took a step forward and her plan immediately failed. Unfortunately, the big one noticed her and a wave of slime immediately started moving in her direction.