"Mia, do your thing. Defend me. You, ooze armor, can you move me around so I don’t become turtle food?" Sprouting tendrils could help me, like some sort of hooking weapon. If it doesn’t work, better to call it a day—although I bet the vampire would hunt me down. These assholes don’t seem the humble type.

  "...Move move. Remember, master trained us for it! Din will make us trip! Din won’t! Focus ooze as one..."

  Damn, where’s my bag?

  "Where’s my shoulder bag? Do you know where it is?" If I lost it, I’m screwed.

  "...Geen keep it safe, Geen best storage!..." Alright, that’s good.

  "Thanks—give it back." Fuck, this turtle is getting closer!

  "...Geen ate it. Treasures safe!" My fucking best shoulder bag! Keep calm. There’s a turtle hunting me down with a vampire parasite from hell wanting to kill me.

  "Fine. Give me the magic nexus shard, the bigger red one." As soon as I command, a tendril from the flowing cape shoots forward, a magic nexus shard in its grasp. I open my hand, and Geen places it right on my palm. I really like these slimes. Well, when they don’t eat what they aren’t supposed to.

  Right, what’s the name of my right-hand slime? Yes, Din or Runi. "Din or Runi, could you—" Before I can finish, the shard is absorbed, merging with my palm.

  "...Din knows! Past master, oops past Henrique, did the same! Din dumb right arm! Din not dumb!" Hmm, so Runi dislikes Din. No time to dwell on it right now.

  As soon as I consume the nexus shard, my mind flashes back. I see the turtle doing a slow jump at me. My mind freezes, but my body does not. My legs jump to my right, a tendril shooting forward to the skinned tree nearby, pushing me up.

  Amazing, the slimes can even move my body! A little scary, but still cool.

  "Incredible. Could you guys keep doing that? Geen, give me magic nexus shards nonstop." Hahaha, these two will become barbecue soon enough. My fuel is running empty, though.

  Soon, the slimes and I use an improvised version of the vampire’s tactics—more like hopping insects and less like birds of prey. My legs move on their own, my body keeping balance. I feel like I’m moving inside my own robot. My mind, though, is focused on only one thing: consuming shards and burning my two enemies.

  Connection after connection. Bite after bite. The turtle desperately tries to put me down, the vampire burning inside it, not dying. Why won’t she just fucking die?!

  As soon as I form my connection with the 16th magic star, something strange happens. The next star shows up faint, and just after it, something I can only call a mega star—its size enormous, dwarfing the other stars, like a soccer ball next to a golf ball.

  My comparisons don’t do it justice. The star is just... magnificent.

  Soon, my 17th star bond finishes, and my energy undergoes another change in concentration, trying to wrestle control over my burning blood spell.

  Like I’d let it. My focus intensifies on the burning blood, but my body feels pain, like trying to move just after surgery. Uncontrollable and sudden movement as the pain assaults me makes me move awkwardly while the slimes have control.

  My head hits the skinned tree, the helmet absorbing most of the impact.

  "...Henrique wants control back? Hit head, hit head. Xeen is fine..." No, that’s the last thing I want.

  "No—I’m just in pain. Do your thing and don’t stop until I say so!" I grit my teeth as my body fights for control against the energy change.

  With the magic nexus shard’s sleek surface touching my hand, I control my desire to consume it. I can’t risk absorbing it in this state, even though I really want that mega star.

  The turtle doesn’t stop rampaging against me, the trail of blood in its wake painting the grass red and black. Its skin grows paler, its eyes becoming even more bloodshot.

  I don’t want it to end this way, but I have to survive. Yes, I have to survive, whatever the cost.

  Costs that I can bear.

  The forest looks like a tornado has destroyed it. The slimes move around the place, far from the shards. No can do.

  "We can’t get far from the shards!" I command the slimes. After so many bruises, my body feels like I just sparred with a gorilla. My energy, though, finally stabilizes. Although my energy reserves have increased, I can’t keep this burning blood forever.

  Slowly but surely, we guide the turtle’s back near its trove of shards. The turtle now spews crimson flames from its own mouth, crawling toward me until it finally collapses to the ground, the tremor rocking the terrain.

  Its eye looks at me unblinking, its giant body slowly vibrating. The sharding process begins.

  Stolen story; please report.

  Just then, a black figure in crimson flames shoots forward from its mouth.

  A creature straight from a nightmare—skin made of scabs that burn to a crisp only to heal again, like a cycle of eternal agony from purgatory.

  "EAT—TORTURE—FINGER BY—LIMB BY LIMB—" The voice, once feminine and educated, now sounds more like a witch’s.

  A thundering wind assaults my back, pushing me forward toward the creature. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out who did this. Without any time to spare, I swing the Jelly Blade—a total half-assed move. The vampire dashes out of the way. But before I finish the attack, my body moves on its own—no, the slimes do.

  Changing my attack, transforming it into a feint, the Jelly Blade goes for its neck.

  The sword meets its flesh, slicing. The vampire tries to retreat, but before my eyes, the blade elongates, decapitating the woman.

  As they say, go for the head. I dismiss the burning blood in its body and focus on its head.

  Before the headless corpse can fall to the ground, its missing top transforms into an orb of crimson flames.

  That soon goes out—not because I want it to, but because I run out of energy.

  A few seconds later, the black rock that was its head and the headless corpse convulse, starting the sharding process as well.

  Strangely, in both their sharding processes, essence flows all around them, visible to the naked eye, dissipating into the air.

  Maybe because they’re stronger than anyone I’ve fought. Really, a waste of essence.

  The turtle yields one relic, two nexus shards, five core bio shards, two divinity nexus shards, one nexus and three core tech shards, one magic nexus shard, and two basic nexus shards.

  With a command, Geen transforms part of the cloak into white-silver tendrils, each collecting the shards. Soon, any trace of them vanishes, aside from the marks left in the pooling blood of the dead beast.

  Why didn’t the vampire have its Dominion’s Digit with it? This seems quite stupid. Unless it had a reason to. Also, there’s no doubt that it was an heir. It knew the past owner of the armor—another reason to change its design.

  In a fair fight, I probably would’ve been dead, especially without my new friends. I have to say, it wasn’t that impressive.

  Yes, I did a surprise shot on it. Still, it should’ve been prepared for that. Maybe it’s its fighting style—pure glass cannon, all speed and power.

  Maybe that regeneration was to balance it out. Even after all that time cooking, it didn’t fucking die.

  Its body yields two relic shards—one tech and one magic. The tech one actually drops from its body before the sharding process. Aside from that, nine nexus and three core magic shards, four nexus and five tech shards, three bio nexus shards, and five basic cores.

  Before I can take a better look at the shards, the slimes start mindspeaking.

  "...Stinky smell. Stink but tasted good. Fur fur..." Yes, I’m having a bad premonition. The vampire didn’t have any left—the burning blood did a number on it.

  Just ahead, someone wants to do a number on me. Specifically, on my pocket.

  It didn’t go over my head that the tigers were nearby during my clash, but they didn’t act. I thought they’d taken a page from my book and were just waiting for the kill.

  How wrong I was.

  Nearing the location the slimes guide me to—the same hoard the turtle left behind—I see a scene that makes my skin crawl.

  The furred bastards are stealing my shards. They’ve even dug to get shards I didn’t even know were there.

  In their number are more than twenty tigers. Two are older than the rest, their metallic skin paler, their size even bigger—like tigers on steroids.

  As soon as I walk nearby, they look at me, some with shards in their mouths—mostly nexus, some cores. The bastards didn’t go for the cheaper ones.

  "You bastards didn’t just betray me. You steal from me, too. I bet you guys won’t just leave me, right?" I’m actually pissed at these fuckers, but I’m also beaten up with no energy to spare. The last thing I want is a death match with a group of tigers.

  My slimy allies could probably take care of it. These two pale tigers, though, they smell fishy.

  The felines look between themselves, as if they actually understand what I said. It doesn’t take long for the ones with the nexus shards to vanish.

  Only the two bigger tigers and five normal ones remain.

  Until the fuckers starts roaring. From nowhere, I don’t know how many tigers show up in the trees, but it's a lot. Their numbers only increase.

  I didn’t use my ice shield in the past fight, but do I need it for this one?

  How can I use it, anyway? I don’t have any energy. Wait, I don’t, but the slimes...

  "Can you use one relic shard for me? My energy is empty." Maybe it works.

  "...Eating shards is for dumb dumb. No eating shards, using it. Henrique told to use, not to eat. Din dumb. Din didn’t say to eat shard! Yes, we can!..." Hahaha, great. Only stupid assholes can say that slimes are worthless.

  Commanding Geen to give me the relic shard that was in my now-eaten shoulder bag was a good call.

  The tendril places the relic shard on my left gauntlet—I’m holding the sword in my right. Its solemn light emanates. The greedy eyes of the tigers glint.

  It doesn’t take long for the first tigers to start coming closer. "Runi, put as much energy as you can into it."

  "...Runi needs energy to be armor. Runi can give only a little..." Soon, energy flows into the shard. In a moment, the shard disintegrates into sparkling essence, soon transforming into the Water’s Reflection relic.

  The tigers look maddened by the appearance of my ice shield, as if I’ve stolen from them.

  The audacity.