I watched Killa fish using her own slime body as bait for the fish. They kept trying to eat her, but her slime would slip right through their mouths and pull them out of the water.

I sat next to her and waited. My energy was almost at zero. She happily gave me fish to eat. As we sat on the railing, we talked about our plans for the next island.

Killa handed me another fish. “So with all your new augments, what level does that put you at?”

“Level 50,” I replied as I bit into the fish.

“What?” Killa stared at me with a shocked expression. “Eight levels ahead of me? Wow, your system really is a huge deal.” The slime woman’s mouth opened and closed a few times as she tried to think of what to say. “I hate to say it, but you might be better off leaving us behind. We might be slowing you down at this point.”

I shook my head. “You guys are my family. I’m not going anywhere without you. Besides, you two are a ton of fun. I’ll be bored out of my mind without you two around. That’s just asking to get myself into trouble.”

Killa smirked. “You know you’re more than strong enough to get yourself into trouble without us, right?”

“Yes, but it’s a lot harder when I don’t have someone to laugh with or a shoulder to cry on.” I nudged her with a stinger arm. “We’re in this together now. We’ll reach the top together. That was our promise to each other, remember?”

The slime woman nodded. “I remember. I guess I just feel a little inadequate being around you. I mean, there’s so much I can do. I can shape my body into whatever form I want, become almost anything, but it’s still nothing compared to what you can do.”

She pulled out another fish by the tail and threw it on the deck. Instead of putting her arm back in the water, she just hung her head. “Only five people have succeeded in reaching the top of the Soul Nexus. We met one of them. He’s trapped here. What makes you think we can succeed like him? He’s an undying lich.”

I used my stinger arm to gently turn Killa’s head towards me. “You’re pretty hard to kill yourself. Back in that spider dungeon on the second floor, I thought you were dead. All that ice that fractured at a touch. I couldn’t believe that you survived. And look at you now. You’re here. Yes, Shadara is the weakest because she still requires food and air. That means we just have to look after her.”

Killa smiled. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. That girl needs all the help she can get. She’s way too cute for her own good. But she’s really nice.”

I laughed. “Yeah, she is.” I paused as I recalled our time together. “She’s going to be a really powerful archer once she gets a bit more experience. And I have an idea of how we can get you and her some really good levels. It could take us a couple of days, but I think we can pull it off.”

“What do you have in mind?” Killa asked with a curious grin.

“Well, we can stop at an island tomorrow, or we can run straight for the end.” I patted Killa on the shoulder. “We can take what we learned before and use it. If we kill the fish, we can’t stop. After they start getting larger, we have to pick those out as our targets.”

Killa’s jaw hung loose. “You want to create another deviant? Why?”

I pointed a finger at her. “When we were fighting it, our attacks weren’t damaging it, but I think we were close to hurting it. Now, I know you keep your stats all even, but I think you’re going to need to focus on arcane.”

Killa chuckled softly. “Seeing what you and Shadara can do with your speed and strength specializations has shown me that my method doesn’t really work anymore. We cover each other’s weaknesses. So I can agree with you. I’ll start focusing on my arcane stat more from now on.” She tapped my metal arm. “You’re the most durable of us three, and Shadara can attack from the furthest distance. Me? My tentacle magic can keep people retrained or force them to reposition.”

I held up my hand and let my shadow magic envelope it. “If things go too wrong, we’ve always got two options. We can run to the next floor, or we’ve got my werewolf form and the massive power boost it gives me.”

“I still can’t believe you have something that powerful,” Killa said with a snort. “I know Shadara can temporarily enhance a stat with her magic, but all of your stats—that’s got to cost you a lot of mana.”

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“One hundred percent of my maximum per second,” I said without skipping a beat. Killa laughed as I continued, “My hair helps with the mana regeneration, which is why it was so long before. And it’s now easier to keep my mana battery filling up, as I can directly deposit the mana as I collect it.”

Killa glanced at me from the corner of her eye as she threw back her head. “That was a lot of hair. Alright, we’ll try your plan again. But, if something goes wrong, we’ll run for the next floor right away. Besides, last time, the fish were only going to give me another three levels. They were only level thirty-five.”

I tapped my chin with a finger. “Something tells me they will probably be at a higher level at the end. It’s just a feeling.”

Killa went back to fishing with her arm hanging in the water. “The sphinx warned us that it was going to only get more difficult. A warning like that feels off. But at the same time, if they’re supposed to go out of their way to warn us, then the difficulty is going to rise substantially. And the trials to ascend to the next floor will only be more difficult than the last.”

I turned my head. “Are you saying we’ve had it easy so far?”

“Yes,” Killa answered with an emotionless expression. “Well, it really hasn’t been easy, but what we will be facing will make what we’ve gone through look easy.”

“What makes you say that?”

Killa sighed. “I don’t know. It’s just a feeling I have.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right.” I looked at the deck and ran a finger along the wood. “But you know we are going to succeed.”

Killa leaned over and put her head on my shoulder. “I know. We’ve got you. You’re our tank, and you’re one of the strongest people I know.”

“Aww, thanks.” If I had any blood, I would’ve blushed. “It’s just nice knowing that what I do matters to someone—to do something more than just survive. And I’m glad we met.”

Killa beamed. “Same here.”

I offered a small smile to the slime woman. “What do you say we catch a hundred more fish? I could use the food.”

Killa let out a hearty laugh. “For you and that bottomless stomach, of course.” She flicked her arm up and dropped the fish in my lap. “Ninety-nine more to go.”

The fish flopped in my lap as its mouth attempted to bite at me. It was one of the smaller ones. Curiosity filled me as I offered a finger. Its teeth bit down on it. The fish’s teeth shattered at the attempt.

"Sorry, little guy,” I said as I held the fish by the tail. “Looks like you’re never going to be able to eat me.”

I opened my mouth and bit the fish’s head off. The crunch of the fish’s bones was satisfying. My tongue slid around in my mouth as it found the fish’s eyes and swallowed them. The slime it left behind in my mouth tasted awful. I grimaced as I looked at the rest of the fish.

You know what, Orange? Why don’t we make it so I can tolerate raw meat better by augmenting my tongue.

Synthetic tongue upgrade available:

Cost: 8,265 shards.

Purchase?

I accepted it immediately. My organic tongue fell out of my mouth and fell into the water, where a fish jumped up and ate it. A new one grew in, longer and thicker. The muscle at the base of my tongue enlarged so much that it felt like someone was pushing against my neck before folding back down. The new muscle stretched out to three inches before it stopped growing.

I brought the fish to my mouth and tore it in half. The slimy fish had a tolerable taste, as if there were several new flavors that I couldn’t quite identify but could now perceive. A piece of raw fish and a scale got stuck between my teeth. I had to push my fingers in to pull the bits of fish out. I didn’t enjoy the sensation of my teeth grinding on my own fingers.

I swallowed the fish and looked at my tongue. The tongue appeared ordinary at first glance, but upon closer inspection, it lacked any discernible texture. I then opened my mouth and stuck my tongue out to see how far it would stretch. It reached six inches past my mouth before snapping back in.

I wonder what else I can do with it.

Killa and I continued to enjoy our fishing time well into the night. Thankfully, our captain didn’t bother us once. Although I turned to check on him to make sure he would leave us alone. He had a strange smirk, or at least what I interpreted as a smirk.

The moon sat high in the sky as Killa finally had an enormous collection of fish to bring my energy up to three hundred percent again. As she fished, she helped me train my magic.

Shadow Power Solidify level up.

Shadow Power Manifestation level up.

Shadow Power Distance level up.

Shadow Power Distance level up.

Synthetic tongue:

The host’s tongue has been replaced by an elastic synthetic muscle. The host is capable of altering its shape, width, and length at the cost of shards. The new synthetic muscle is highly conductive and contains multiple sensors. The host may alter which sensors are active or not.

Stat bonus: +4 quickness.

“Look alive, lasses.” Captain Webster’s sudden outburst caused both Killa and I to jump. “We’ve got company. Someone be missin’ ya.”

I turned to look towards the back of the boat. Something was cutting through the water like a knife. Focusing revealed the deviant serpent fish monster we left behind before.