To complete [Igor’s Request], Diana must now make her way through the floor to find [3 Large Star Crystals]! Just like its name, a [Large Star Crystal] was a crystal, that was quite big, and shaped like a star.
Oh, and no, Igor doesn’t have a really sharp and long nose, just to make that clear.
Just like any dungeon floor that has existed in the realm of video gaming, this floor of [Tartarus] was filled with monsters, each of them readily waiting to jump and attack her! Luckily, her training with Rei helped quite a lot in these battles, but there sure were some close encounters!
Several minutes after she parted with Igor, when she was just walking around, this bull-shaped robot monster appeared and began charging at her, just like any bull would. Dodging him was pretty easy, but to her surprise, just as she was turning around, a pair of torpedo missiles were charging at her! And they were too close, she couldn’t dodge them!
A loud resounding *Boom!* sounded out through the room as smoke exploded outwards. But in the midst of the explosion, a slither of slime managed to make its way under the robot bull, and shot upwards, penetrating into the bull’s metallic body!
The corrosion applied instantly, and the effects began to play out, corroding its body from the inside. And then, as the smoke dispersed, Diana could be seen there, still alive, but bruised and slightly burnt in some places. The bull’s eyes flashed red as it prepared to charge once more!
But that was not needed, since the bull’s system quickly fell apart as her slime at the bull from the inside. The battle was over, and experience has been gained, but a large chunk of her explosion was sent far away due to those missiles.
It wasn’t too much of a bid deal, since she could just meditate and apply her [Slime Mending] to speed up her recovery, but she’s in a dungeon, and being a sitting duck in this kind of place was just inviting Nyx to take her life away.
So, she bravely charged onwards, continuing her search for the [Large Star Crystals]!
Oh! And also, just when she stumbled upon the first [Large Star Crystal], and was preparing herself to battle against the large golden chalice cup that was the ‘Sentinel’ Igor warned her about, the walls surrounding her opened up, and a volley of poisonous arrows were shot out!
Luckily, those arrows weren’t magical, so she was able to morph into a slime and twist her body to dodge the incoming arrows! Although, her clothes didn’t fare as well as she did, since they got shot and torn apart by the volley of arrows.
Now naked, she morphed back to her human form and readied herself for the giant chalice boss! It somewhat reminded her of Yaldabaoth’s first form in Persona 5, but save that for later, the giant chalice was ready to strike!
The only attack it had was a high-tier spell in the world of wizardry, aptly named [Judgement]. It was a spell that gathered an intense amount of [Light Magic] into one location, and shot it out at incredible speed, burning away anything that comes in its path!
It was a great magic spell to have as an ally, but as an enemy, this spell was devastating!
After she saw the power of the spell it unleashed, which she somehow managed to dodge by using some massive slime trickery, she knew that it was a deadly spell that would probably end her life in one go if she wasn’t careful!
First up, distraction! The AOE of the spell wasn’t small by any means, but it wasn’t super colossal massive either. And the giant chalice also seems to mainly target the one closest to it, which meant that [Slime Army] should do well here!
Morphing into a slime herself, she unleashed a giant wave of slime and gave life to countless Dogoos! When it noticed one Dogoo that was getting slightly too close for comfort, the giant chalice unleased its spell and killed, like, 9 of them in a single blow!
But that’s fine! All she needed to do was create even more Dogoos to crowd the room even more! As the chalice was recharging its attack, she ordered her cute Dogoos to swarm the chalice, coating the giant chalice in a cube of slime, and corrosive slime at that!
The chalice let out a ‘cry?’ of pain as it unleashed the half-baked spell it was gathering, causing the slime cube to explode, but there were still more slimes to come to compensate!
But the chalice had gotten enough of this annoyance, and unleashed the greatest [Judgement] spell it had even created, completely destroying any and every single drop of slime in its radius! The battlefield was now clear of slimes!
The giant chalice ‘sighed?’ at a job well done and looked around at its-, wait…Why was the [Large Star Crystal] missing? No…It couldn’t be…!
It had been tricked!! Diana knew all too well that she was incapable of wounding such a powerful enemy, so she used all the slimes as a distraction, and sneakily made her way to the [Large Star Crystal] and snatched it in the midst of the light show!
The chalice ‘screamed?’ in frustration over its own incompetence. A mere slime girl had tricked it and gotten the upper hand! Now, a third of the quest was complete! 66% of the mission left to complete!
Well, she was supposed to look for the second [Large Star Crystal], but looky look! There’s a treasure chest right at that corner!
Problem is…between her and the chest, was a large gap filled with lava. If she tried to cross it by jumping across, then the dart traps by the side would shoot and impale her with poisonous darts, the flamethrowers on the ceiling would roast her, and her burnt body will fall into the boiling lava~
But such a trap would not stop the slime master that is Diana! Morphing into a slime, she glued her slimy body into the wall, and began to crawl along the wall, skilfully moving through and past the many dart traps, and finally make it onto the other side!
Doing a quick JoJo pose as she landed, she giggled for a bit and approached the chest with glee. And inside…!
Was a red cloak! And a magical cloak with superpowers at that! Sadly, it wasn’t the Cloak Of Levitation, but oh well.
When she took out the cloak and put it on, her body felt lighter. She felt as if she almost could just blaze through Konoha in a single flash! And there seems to be a coat of magical residue on the cloak, which was probably for extra defence. Overall, great cloak! 10/10!
Ah, but she needed to make her way back first…Could she just jump all the way there with her now increased speed?...Nah, the gap’s too wide, she’d probably end up like Chell at the end of Portal 1.
So, she went through the painstaking way again, morphing back into a slime, and crawling her way across the wall as she avoided the dart traps, now with the added difficulty of also taking care of her newly acquired cloak as she went.
However, this time, she wouldn’t come out so cleanly!
“Eep…!”
The edge of her cloak suddenly grazed against one of the dart traps, and, all hell broke loose. All the dart traps fired, the flamethrowers kicked into gears, and the lava began to boil at a rapid pace, causing some flame sparks to emit from the lava!
She tried to move again, but the many things that were occurring all at once was becoming too hard to handle, especially with the added stress of keeping her new gear safe from all the stuff!
So, with the help of her [Slime Cannon], she shot her magical cloak all the way past the lava and the traps, and onto the floor at the other side! With that, the new gear was safe, but that won’t mean anything if she becomes roasted slime!
The poisonous darts were fine, since they couldn’t deal damage to her, but they took up the space she needed to navigate. The only worry were the lava and the flamethrowers. If she gets hit by the flames, then she’ll evaporate. If she touches the lava, then, she evaporates.
With the speed of a full-powered Toyota Sprinter Trueno, she twisted and turned her body as she snaked her way across the dart riddled wall, quickly moving past all the traps and the fire!
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But, just as she was about to reach the other side,
“Uwah?! M-My hand?!”
A sudden burst of flames erupted from the flamethrower above her, frying her slimy hand up for dinner time! That loss of concentration also meant getting hit by two poisonous darts, that did no damage, and getting a bit of her body sizzled in the lava.
She did make it out alive after all that, but her body was not doing so well…
Although she was pretty much able to regenerate any body parts, simply by going to slime form and reshaping her body, but still, she lost her precious HP again! Well, she got this awesome cloak as a reward for her awesomeness, so that’s okay~
With the help of [Alleviation] and [Slime Mending], she sat down and began to heal up, and also recharge her MP and SP battery. Using her [Slime] based techniques at a rapid succession was surprisingly tiring.
After that was done, she stood up and donned on her newly acquired magical red cloak. Although her being naked on the inside was slightly uncomfortable, at the least she wasn’t completely naked now. And her magical powers got a boost too!
Anyways, back on her mission to track down the last 2 crystals!
The journey after that wasn’t all that interesting. She met up with several different monsters, disintegrated them using her [Slime: Corrosive!], and continued on. Ah, but there was one moment when something interesting did happen!
Some time after she left that lava pit, she had an encounter with a golem-type enemy. And this one’s an annoying one at that! Using the stone bricks from the nearby walls, the golem was able to infinitely regenerate its lost body parts.
Of course, the tactic was simple. Jam in some corrosive slime into it and let it dissolve the core of the tough guy. Problem was, the golem core was immune to corrosion!
So, the match was stuck in a deadlock, with the golem attempting to crush Diana up, while Diana was running around the battlefield, using her [Slime Valley] to slip out of tight situations.
After a while, she got a bit impatient, and that led to a terrible mistake, causing her to get hit by the golem’s arm! Her body was flung back with intense force, but she was able to morph into a slime quick enough, negating any further damage.
And then, she felt something hot, coming from right behind her. Slowly, she turned around, to see the large pit of lava from earlier! And she also saw that her slimy self was quickly heading down towards it!
Twisting her body, she was able to safely land back on the ground, but the golem was quickly on her tail. The golem caught sight of her, and was quickly approaching!
But then, as the sound of the sizzling lava came into her ears, a brilliant, and very hot idea came into her mind! A plan of pure geniusness has been born!
Since her cloak was nearby, she quickly took it and wore it. She’ll need it, since her plan would probably need extra magic power to execute fully. Sadly, her iron wand got crushed by an enemy a while ago, but that’s fine.
Just like a man and a bull, she teased the golem to come to her by waving her red cloak around, just to make this guy come here. And come here, he sure did. In fact, since she stepped aside at the last moment, the golem crashed into the wall!
Of course, the golem wasn’t damaged at all, and quickly recovered and turned towards its enemy. But the little girl before it seems to be doing something. An incredibly dense ball of slime was floating before her, and the sound of the sizzling lava was-
*…!*
It was then, the golem realised, it f*cked up.
“[Slime Railgun]!”
The newly created [Slime Railgun] fired off at intense speed, quickly closing the gap and crashing into the golem. Such an attack was trivial to an entity like the golem, but the consequence of such an attack was extremely dire!
The golem was knocked off its footing, and dropped right into the lava! The golem let out one last attempt at swimming, but his ignorance at his swimming classes caused him to sink into the lava, never to be seen ever again.
Her new spell, [Slime Railgun] was, obviously, derived from her [Slime Cannon]. But instead of focusing on the power and density, this new spell focused on intense speed and density, which allowed her to knock the rock hard golem into the lava!
[Victory!]
“Hmm?”
I did say earlier that the golem was never to be seen again…But guess what? The golem’s core was now floating across the lava! What the hell?! Is that thing resistant to every single type of ailment?!
Hmm, now that she had a closer look, the core seems to have lost the light that it previously had as a living golem. Did that mean that the golem was dead, but the core was alive? How was that even possible?
The answer, lied in the lava itself! As an example, normally, physical things could not harm Diana’s slime form. This, does not only include physical attacks though! Normal fire, crashing waves of water from the sea, an avalanche, these things could not harm her as a slime!
However, if said fire was created from magic instead, then that’s an entirely different story! As long as magic is present, whether in the creation or in the attack itself, Diana will get harmed, no exceptions. The lava in that pit, happens to have been created by magic, which was why it was able to burn Diana, and also why it could destroy that golem’s [Soul]!
However, the magical core of a golem was nearly indestructible, with some small exceptions. While the [Soul] residing within it may die, the core itself will keep living on, moving past the grieve and sorrow, and into a new future!
That was what happened to-, hmm? Diana seems to have teared up a bit…?
“S-Such a sad life…T-To live on to see your friends die…hic…”
……Anyways, that’s what happened to this little core. Now, it was simply a husk, waiting for its next resident to take the space it has provided.
‘Moved by?’ the sadness of immortality this core had, Diana used her slime as a rope and pulled the core onto the shore. She displayed a ‘pained?’ smile at the magic core, and continued on her way to the next [Large Star Crystal].
I have no idea what happened there, she wasn’t always that emotional …
Anyways, moving on, after walking around for a bit longer, she began to feel tired, mentally. Her SP was fine and all, but the added stress from that chalice boss fight, to that lava pit nearly killing her, to that golem also nearly killing her was getting to her.
So, for the first time, in quite a while I must say, she laid down and slept. She also used the red cloak as a blanket, since the air was quite cold…Despite being just metres away from lava.
…………………
After a nice session of pure sleeping, which was surprising since there was monsters in this dungeon, Diana woke up, put on her cloak, and continued on her jour-, ah, and before that, she grabbed her newly acquired magic core, and then left.
After some more boring walking, and turning, and fighting, she finally reached the second sentinel!
“Woah…That looks so cool~!”
This time, it wasn’t some stupid giant chalice that stayed in one place. Instead! The second sentinel was a large pure white halo, with 6 golden crystals hovering around it! And the crystals were slowly moving around it, almost…hypnotically…yeah…
“Munya~…?”
Uwah~, the halo was slowly moving closer to her…But, for some reason, she couldn’t stop watching the crystals, slowly…moving…and moving…and-, uwah?! The halo was already above her!!
By the time she came back, the halo was already above her. The battle was already over before it started!! A cylindric shield of light appeared around her, trapping her inside! She tried punching it, kicking it, hitting it, DOOM punching it, but nothing worked! Even her [Slime Cannon] couldn’t break through!
Damnit! She got ‘distracted’ by the spinning of the…of the…uwah~, staring at the crystals moving around was really niiicee~
And…yeah, she got entranced again by the spinning of the crystals. This was, indeed, one of the special powers of the mystical halo. The Halo had three main abilities. One was, the ability to entrance and stop a foe from moving, with Diana as the subject. The second, was to erect a barrier to prevent the foe from escaping.
“Hue~…”
…And third, was the ability to charge itself with the ambient mana in the air, and slowly gather them all into the halo, to release a devastating beam attack on its trapped foe! One hit from that, and say goodbye and ascend to the Spirit World.
And the halo was already half-way to fully charging itself!
“Hue-, hya?! A-Again!!”
Well, she’s back from the trance! Problem was, the Halo’s half-way done charging, and the sphere of pure concentrated magic power was hovering above her, making escape by jumping away, obviously impossible!
Well…She’s stuck now. Trying to tank this was impossible, and her slime form wasn’t any help either. Actually, the damage would be even worse as a slime! 3 times more damage in fact!
…Meh, you know what? F*ck it. The situation’s not gonna change if she did nothing. [Slime Valley] activated, she morphed into her slime girl form, and then morphed again into a giant cylinder of dense slime. Maybe it’ll soften the impact? Who knows?
The Halo simply watched from above as its prey was trying its best to tank the damage. While it wasn’t soul-crushingly powerful, and the AOE definitely wasn’t all that big, since it only destroys the area inside the barrier, but you can bet that it was an insta-kill move!
And so, as the last seconds ticked by, the Halo paid its respect towards this prey’s best effort, and unleashed the super beam attack, disintegrating anything and everything inside. Every molecule of the slime within the barrier just went, poof! With the exception of the [Large Star Crystal] and the magic core of course. These things were near damn impossible to destroy!
*……*
There was only silence in the room, with the only sound there being the soft humming of the Halo’s crystals, slowly spinning around. The target, has been eliminated!
But then, it noticed an anomaly…There were signs of life, in this exact room!
“[Slime Wave]!”
A wave of slime suddenly rose from the side, and crashed into the floating Halo, smashing it down against the cold stone floor! The situation has been flipped!
There, from the corner of the room, was Diana! Equipped with her red cloak and everything too!
See, Diana’s gotten slightly smarter lately. After her revelation after her training, Diana’s gotten quite adept at using her [Slime] to do many different things, and escape many different clutching situations.
When she turned into that giant jelly of slime before, she wasn’t doing that simply because she wanted to tank some of the damage, that wouldn’t work anyways. Instead, she had been using her [Slime: Corrosive!] to slowly dig a path to the corner of the room! She even had some time to pull herself and her cloak to safety too!
Of course, or else this novel would be so short~
Now, the glowing…pretty…and-, no. Now that the Halo was pinned down, she pulled out the [Large Star Crystal] and the magic core. She also snagged the second [Large Star Crystal] the Halo had been guarding.
With that, after she ran as quickly as she could away from it, the second [Large Star Crystal] was hers! 66% of quest completed, 33% left to accomplish! Time to reach for the last one!