"Affection, h–"

  Instinctively Rou called for help but couldn't even get the first noise out before the entire world, all of existence, simply stopped. Frozen in time. The only one in this world who wasn't frozen was Affection, who by this point had gone mad and had jumped the barrier to try and get to Rou only to find herself grabbed by the back of the neck by Astyss.

  She could see Rou but whatever power Astyss had over her prevented her from even leaving her body. "Peace for the time, I am here, his other soul brought me here. I stopped time."

  But something that surprised all of them, even Astyss, was what they saw.

  The dragon in his humanoid form hadn't even had time to react, Rou only reacting instinctively as he threw up his hands in his young body to try and protect himself, and in front of Rou… almost touching his palm, was a thin, viscous tendril of some kind. Looking like a mixture of a vine made out of tar covered by some kind of mycosynthetic material. Soft, powdery, goopy, and as Affection and Astyss just looked all of it over, Celia too with much less capacity, they quickly realized about the same time.

  "So it really was alive, but…"

  "This isn't how the black spore normally reacts. Besides, this world is being constructed from the memories of all the beings inside of Rou. Even with the restored worlds, this shouldn't be… could it?" Affection and Celia both looked at Astyss who was quite curious himself. "Indeed, you are right, this shouldn't be something I did, but likewise, I think it is piggybacking off my actions by chance. Luck, perhaps? Or…" he looked towards Celia, who realized what he was thinking and shuddered.

  "It can't be me! It can't be!"

  "But this world is in his soul, one of billions of worlds - just the one his primary soul piece happens to be focusing on at the moment. And you are here, as his second soul… and likely within this world too, yes? The old bastard did mention your luck, and the polarity thus. I wouldn't worry too much about it. It is just speculation on my part."

  Astyss reached out to lightly pat atop Celia's head as if trying to reassure her, but it didn't help at all, Affection quickly moving to hug Celia as tightly as she could even if she was only a soul.

  The three stared at the tendril before Astyss rather simply asked, "I can try to figure this out, but there is a chance it might hurt his soul even more. Take longer to try whatever is going on."

  "We don't care how long it takes, this isn't right. Something is wrong. Please."

  Astyss nodded and promptly waved his hand, the entire 'world' they were in simply splitting in two, leaving them all floating in his soul - the dragon and Rou frozen, the black spore tendril frozen as well as the entire spore network - exposed, like a giant ant colony.

  "Well bend me over, look at that."

  –

  In the center of the colony of the black spores of this entire region, the network far larger than even Affection had thought, was a figure.

  Alien-looking, thin, short, but somehow no matter how they looked at it while frozen, every other look was different. Morphing constantly despite being frozen in time as if it was basing it's look upon the thoughts of the viewer at any given time.

  "Tell me about this stuff." Astyss asked simply.

  "Slimes were an evolved race of natural golems that came to exist a few million years back, before I even came to exist at this point in time. They nearly overran the world before they accidentally encountered a natural poison to them in the form of a plant. But to counteract it, they bred themselves into plantlife and accidentally destroyed their own ability to be mobile and were eradicated from existence outside of the odd few reminders that pop up now and then." Affection gave the quick course.

  "Various colors are largely harmless now, blue, green, pink, so forth, but Black slime… is a remnant of the past. But it was only a plant. No sentience. No body. Not alive. It was… the spores are its pollen and the slime itself was the fruit. But this thing…"

  "Did it survive the eradication in the past and evolve to this point?"

  "That was my guess from what she said. But I can't shake the feeling that this isn't my doing." Astyss and the two floated there a while before he shrugged and began to look at the other worlds idly. "Seems this thing isn't actually in any of the other worlds. But it has been. The stronger Rou's soul gets, the more complete Rou's soul gets, the more complete this thing gets. A parasite?"

  Celia asked rather simply, "Can you take it out of here, out of him? Please."

  "Not especially, no. I mean, I could, but that seems like a recipe for disaster. I think Rou'll have to figure that one out. Think of it like a coin. Sure, I could take away the back, but then there will be a new back. You two will just have to support him through the process. But, something I will do is stay here and watch just to make sure. If I think it's too much, I'll risk it. But you know the consequences."

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Affection and Celia nodded only for time to snap back - but for Rou, and the ancient Slime. And instantly Rou's whole 'body' was wrapped up in the slime, going from the shape of his body, to a blob of black tar, to a crystal and finally a crystal in the shape of Rou's body.

  –

  "-elp… me…"

  It was the only thing Rou could get out before he was in darkness. Trapped, his whole body covered in tar, and eventually even his own body, his senses, felt erased. It was like his body was instantly dissolved, or at least the link between his body and mind was severed. Between his mind and his soul.

  And yet, he could see something. In front of him was someone who looked almost exactly like him. Some… thing. The same height, the same shape, except it appeared to be made out of a cloud of spores. Solid spores, a mix of various states of matter between solid, liquid and gas, even some kind of aura permeating it.

  For the longest, longest time Rou tried to hide and get away, but no matter how he tried to turn and flee, the being remained in front of him somehow. Inching closer and closer until it stared at him directly. Rou couldn't see it but could still sense and feel it somehow. As if it was part of himself.

  But what Rou hadn't expected was to feel the cool, gelatinous body of the being suddenly hugging him.

  "Mom… I'm sorry…"

  Trying to comfort and console him despite being so alien in understanding that it didn't realize it only freaked Rou out more, made him try even more desperately to claw away his own flesh and bones just to get away from it. Especially as its mouth opened and a distorted, sobbing noise came out.

  "Affection… please… I'm sorry…"

  Once again the echo of the slime croaked out words, the crystalized tears on the cheeks of the slime glistening as if freshly wet.

  Eventually Rou calmed down, only after he realized something. He was once again feeling its hunger.

  "Help… me…"

  But unlike the predator, it wasn't hungry for /him/.

  It was hungry… /for/ him.

  He could sense its hunger. A deep desire to consume any and all life, anything and everything. To consume more and more, even the gods, even the sky and the stars, existence. But not him.

  And all the fear that Rou had felt for the Black Spores for such a long, long time was gone in an instant. This terrifying superpredator ancient being, the remnants of his memories of his time suffering from the Black Slime, or all his past 'life' experiences as his soul tried to reconstruct everyone's memories bit by bit?

  It was gone. And instead simply replaced by a desire to consume.

  A confusing desire, but as Rou existed there in the silence, in the emptiness, the moment he opened his mouth, all the 'tar' and darkness absorbed into himself and condensed into a fist-sized pearl, floating beside his soul - at least, what of his soul was currently there, still very much being reconstructed and strengthened.

  –

  Astyss whistled softly and the world snapped back into place, him wrapping himself, Affection and Celia up in high-dimensional energy to stop them from being noticed.

  –

  The dragon floated there in the air, looking at Rou who went from covering his face to just sitting on his arm and staring at nothing. Those green eyes of his briefly looking black, but what confused the dragon even more was he could sense the black spores in the entire region.

  They had suddenly activated en masse and swarmed right towards them.

  "What?!"

  The dragon promptly flew straight up and out of the hole, high into the air, only for the entire regions black spores to swarm at him like a mist. But as he quickly transformed into his original size and blasted out dragonsfire at the spores, they didn't even seem to care. They surrounded Rou.

  "No! Affection, help!"

  It actually cried out for Affection as it tried to save Rou the only way he could think, by snapping him into his mouth and swallowing him. To get him away from the spores. But his mouth was suddenly held open just a sliver as the spores ignored him and reached down his throat, grabbing Rou and pouring into his mouth as Rou's body ravenously consumed it.

  And then the dragon cried out in pain before falling out of the sky and landing on the ground, crushing the forest beneath as it actually fainted, leaving the young body of the red panda to crawl out of the dragons mouth and just start scooping up anything he could get his hands on and eating it.

  –

  Celia couldn't bear to watch and turned to bury her face against Affection's chest, especially as both of them could feel exactly what Rou was going through. At least in part. That familiar warmth, comfort and love they all shared was covered in nothing but slimy coldness at the moment.

  –

  It was only when Rou started to take a bite of the dragon that he stopped and seemed to realize something was wrong. Clearly struggling with himself as Astyss watched, intrigued what he would do. Rou's tiny hands rested on the dragon's nose as Rou tried and resisted over and over when it came to taking a bite of the dragon. Some part of his tiny body knew that if he took that one bite, he wouldn't stop until he ate everything.

  But his conscience failed, the dragon was lost as Rou went to take a bite, the hunger maddening him. The young childs mouth split open at the cheeks and went to consume the dragon's nose with a giant bite.

  –

  "Nompf…"

  Astyss snorted laughing as he realized Rou's strangely simple last-ditch method to avoid this. He bit down on his own hand, fully stuffed into his mouth. An absolutely idiotic sight, but Rou, and the creature now within him, was not hungry for himself. No matter how much he bit down, or how hard he tried to eat his own hand, he couldn't even penetrate the daintiest skin there.

  Soon day turned to evening, and night, and then morning and day again before the dragon began to stir and as he came to and tried to figure out what was going on, he couldn't help but find the young red panda with his whole fist stuck into his mouth, almost as if he was teething on his own wrist - fist and all, like some kind of giant pacifier.

  Notice

  ??? ???

  ???

  ???????

  Perk Gained - [Consume, Predate, Feast]

  Status Gained - [Hungry]

  Status Gained - [Hungry]

  Status Gained - [Hungry]

  Status Gained - [Hungry]

  Status Gained - [Hungry]

  Status Gained - [Hungry]

  …