Grumbling about my system mana issues, which turned out to be as long and hard as a man’s di ice water once I really put them to the test, I still managed a smirk as the skeletons charged.

  The coliseum was my pyground, and each csh sent a pulse of excitement surging through me. When a skeleton dared to charge at me, I twirled, my hips swinging with succubus grace, and I fshed a devilish grin. My arm whipped out, morphing into a tentacle, and smack—its skull exploded, teeth spraying like fetti from a bone pi?ata. The skeleton’s remains cttered to the dirt, abandoned like yesterday’s toys. Oh, the sheer ecstasy of destru!

  Victory was sweet but fleeting. Three more boneheads staggered into the arena, hungry for a piece of the a. With a flourish, I spun around, my tentacle sweeping through them like a deadly ribbon dancer, knog two to the ground. The third, foolishly ambitious, grabbed onto my back, seeking my jugur. Little did it know, beh my allurierior was nothing but Corrosive goo.

  As the skeleton’s cws ah sank into me, it quickly began to dissolve, succumbing to the acidic burn of my Corrosive passive. A flicker of washed over me as I pondered my pH levels, reminding myself to tread carefully around Aurelia—assuming, of course, she’s even into tentacle py.

  “I really want me some of that a,” I mused aloud, nontly batting away bones with a flippant fliy tentacle.

  No time for daydreams about a dark entress vampire—uedly, my mind flickered back to a ret dream and a hat teased the edge of my memory. Why couldn’t I remember it? My thoughts were abruptly cut short as skeletons swarmed me like cheap perfume at a dance hall. I sidestepped a clumsy swipe, my irritation spiking not just from the attack but from spottiail in the distance, looking utterly bored. I shot a sharp gre his way. There he was, casually manig his cws, safely out of harm’s way behind the metal gate.

  Typical.

  Oh yeah, he’s definitely on my snack list after this.

  That irritation e—a spear thrust through me, sliding in as if I were butter or fug getin. I snapped my head toward the spear-wielding skeleton with a disgusted tsk, only to get an intimate view of a metal shield. The impaocked me off the spear with a loud dung—was that the shield, or just my head ringing? Stumbling back, I felt an adrenaline rush pump through my gooey form.

  I ied the wound, amused as the silly putty-like substahat was me kself back together seamlessly.

  I burst out ughing. “No guts, no glory, right?”

  Yet, my voodoo-infused, slime resilience brought little soce as skeletons encircled me, their botling advance sounding like a creepy xylophohe grouh me roiled as new, fresh zombies cwed their way out, drooling for a bite out of my gooey ass.

  I let out a ugh that teetered more towards a panicked chuckle. With a nervous gulp, I summoned ic Fme—nothing. “Blight, dammit!” Still nothing. My magic was a no-show, as effective as a limp dick, whily refirmed my suspis: I definitely had a mana pool.

  “Son of a bitch,” I spat, squaring up as the undead mob closed in.

  Time to show these boneheads how a real monster bitch fights.

  One by ohe undead hurled themselves onto me, creating a suffog, morbid mound. Their skeletal hands cwed relentlessly at my form, teeth gnashing in a macabre symphony as they tore piee away. It was an onsught that would have crushed any normal being. But I was far from normal.

  My Corrosive passive was still active—a saving grace that didn’t rely on the system’s mana allocation. Don’t ask me why; I’m just as clueless. We’ll just call it magic, shall we? I mean, that’s the go-to for zy storytellers, right? When in doubt, just chalk it up to—magic!

  Although my passive didn’t dissolve them as rapidly as I would have liked, its effect was unmistakable. As the weight of the undead bore down oheir mass slowly succumbed to my acidic essehere erverse delight in feeling their bones and flesh disiing into me, a sensation oddly akin to abs strawberry-fvored Jell-O.

  In this battle of ption, my victory was assured as the horde of mindless undead gradually dissolved into me. However, the thrill of su easy triumph left me yearning for more. I craved excitement and challenge, yearning for something beyond the mu of passively abs my foes. It was time to shed my human guise and embrace my true nature. With a touch of insanity, I let go of all reservations and embraced going fully passive… Yeah, that sounded better in my head.

  Instinctively, I unleashed Polymorph, allowing my imagination to run wild as I transformed.

  Tentacles erupted from my body, sprouting in every dire like a wild dance of chaotic appendages. My back transformed into a writhing mass, while my legs and arms morphed into multiple, unruly tentacles. There was no rhyme or reason to their arra; my focus urely on the freic shing. With my acidic limbs, I unleashed a frenzy of attacks, striking wildly at the horde that dared to pile upon me, feeling slightly drunk on the euphoria that apa—was it the Life Drain kig in?

  Wait, do the undead even have life to drain?

  With my writhiacles, I grabbed skeletons and zombies by their necks, their spleens—heck, anywhere I could t. I reveled in the sensation of my acidic corrosion doing its grim work, dissolving their bones and flesh as I repeatedly smashed them into the ground. Their forms crumbled and disied under my grasp, their remains flung about like morbid fetti. A skull here, a limb there, all tossed aside with effortless fir as I moved swiftly onto the unfortunate undead.

  Time seemed to around me as I tore through the undead with a frenzy—snatg, smashing, and corroding—all underscored by my wicked ughter. What felt like ay in battle was, iy, maybe three minutes. Or was it ten? Twenty! What I say? I warned you—I’m a pretty shitty timekeeper. Just don’t ask me how long this whole reinated mess has been going on—two days or three weeks, I holy couldn’t tell you. That’s LSD for you, or maybe it’s from chowing down on those damn mushroom men?

  I wonder if this is what Alice felt like in Wondernd?

  As the dust settled, I surveyed the skeletal remains scattered arouhe air was thick with the sickly-sweet st of decay, oddly remi of freshly baked bread. I paused to assess my surroundings, my gaze nding on three statues at the arena’s ter. They stood tall, their eerie gazes fixed on me as if waiting for something. With no immediate threats and hunger gnawing at me, I was drawn to the few remaining rotting zombie piles among the bone piles that I hadn’t yet burnt to ash before my ma as limp as—

  Ugh, not another dick joke!

  —Ign that thought, I found myself really craving a quiack.

  But just as I was about to indulge, a slow, mog appuse froze me. Redtail’s exaggerated g was dht annoying.

  Seriously, what’s gotten into him?

  It’s like he’s been switched out for a different character altogether.

  Well, that’s irely fair—he’s never seen my hts. So maybe this is just how he is, a total dick!

  Is he really that unimpressed with my prowess?

  Screw him!

  Annoyed, I cut short the overly long internal discussion I was having with myself. I folded my tentacle arms ay chest and shot him a defiant gre.

  “I didn’t think I was that bad,” I muttered.

  I’m so going to eat him while he screams.

  Yet, amid the debris, a surreal sight caught my eye—several skeletal hands and lone skulls were futilely attag my severed tentacles.

  “When did I lose those?” I blinked in surprise.

  All at ohe areed into a sandstorm, engulfing everything in chaos as a shape leapt into the ter of the coliseum. As the dust settled, it revealed a monstrous chimera with the head of a lion and a snake for a tail, notably missing the typical goat head—utter bullshit if you ask me! Its body was riddled with decay and rot, bones visibly protruding—it was undoubtedly undead.

  Its presened rger than a moruck, with the lion’s maw dripping putrid drool and the snake’s mouth oozing a sickly green venom. Yet, the sight thrilled rather than terrified me—likely a perk of my new body. Yeah, I know—I keep saying it, but fuck me, I’ve really turned into a little psychopath. But what I say? It smelled delicious!

  “Oh, this is going to be fun,” I growled, relishing the uping challenge.

  The lion’s head roared so violently that the arena seemed to tremble. Simultaneously, its sail coiled around a massive k of broken pilr, aiming it directly at me. Time stretched thin as I gauged the ining threat. Instinct kicked in—I aimed fraceful somersault, but shit, my limbs were still in their freaky tentacle form. My attempt to dodge became a ridiculous tangle of squirming appendages, leaving me wide open for the smash.

  With a grotesque spt, the pilr crashed into me, obliterating everything above my waist. There I was, a literal half-slime in the dirt, yet as a Bck Pudding, I started knitting myself back together almost immediately. My getinous ass separated from my head, and for two seds, I residered the fight. Was I outcssed? Probably, if its opening move was any indication. But the beast smelled oh-so-good; I just had to eat him, or at least take a nibble.

  As I frantically tried to scoop up my scattered pieces, Redtail’s amusement from behind the safety of the barred entrance seemed deeply mog.

  No, seriously, what’s gotten into him?

  I bet it’s all those lizard-chi-dinner ents.

  The sight of my lower half scampering to reuh my upper bits robably a riot for him. Disembodied legs running around like headless chis? edy gold—but fuck me, I wasn’t ughing. Ugh, it was se trying to guide my ass with two eyes lying a few meters apart in the sand.

  Maybe I should reform those?

  Wait—why didn’t my eyes melt into goo whehing else that separates from me does?

  Everything else does, right? Yes—oh! Could it be that mana I jammed into them from Mana Focus?

  Hmm… Did I figure that out myself, or was that a fsh of... what’s it called... insight?

  After I literally pulled myself together, I dodged two more sbs. Sadly, I hadn’t mao scoop up all my dark gooeyness—I was a short, skinny toothpice again! In a burst of ued agility, I cartwheeled over a pile of bones. My move was supposed to be a sleek backflip, but as, I botched it and belly-flopped right onto the sand. Luckily for me, this epic fail dodged another sb that whizzed overhead, crashing into the arena with a deafening boom. Talk about dodging a bullet—well, a sb, in my case.

  Gng up, I locked eyes with the undead chimera. Forty meters away and closing fast, every footfall resonated like a miniature earthquake, sending ripples through the sand. Someone might mistake it for an Arrakis sandworm approag. The hiss of its drool sizzling on the sa shivers down my slimy spine. Even the marble statues seemed to lean in, their stone gazes unnervingly fixated oh intense curiosity.

  “Shit,” I muttered, my hands shaking with a mix of fear and, well, let’s just say excitement? I wasn’t really scared, right? This was just the thrill of the fight…

  As the chimera charged, a wild rage boiled inside me, hotter than any damn fme I could’ve jured—mostly because my mana decided to take a freaking vacation. What started as a thrilling ride had spiraled into a total shitshow—I fug hate losing. I mourhe sweet, short-lived high, now brutally cut short by this monstrous face-off, all thanks to my absent mana for the system skills.

  I’ve always been a bit of a twisted bitch, taking things to the extreme just to make a stupid point. Like when my ex, Ethan, cheated oh my supposed best friend, Mia, right as I was ing out as bi—not that it was any big secret. I mean, I’ve pretty much always been this way. But still—boy, was I pissed! I would’ve bee poly with both of them, but they sneaked around like little lying bitches!

  So, ialiation, I did something seriously messed up—I slept with his mom! Yeah, it’s not my proudest moment, but damn, she was good. Like, a serious freak! And it hit him pretty hard—though not as hard as she went down on me.

  Who would’ve thought he’d be more ashamed of his mom banging his ex-girlfriend than I was? But hey, she was a total MILF. Maybe not the best mure, though, given her reputation at the local bars. A me tell you, the antibiotics I needed afterward firmed those rumors. But hey, at least I picked up a few tricks from her, if you know what I mean.

  Now, here’s the real kicker—Ethan’s st name was Stifler! Yeah, you heard right—I was the chick who baifler’s mom! The jokes and teasing he endured during college were endless, while I only had to deal with two weeks of burning every time I went pee. Worth it!

  As for Mia, let’s just say Ethan unknowingly gave her a special parting gift from his mother: chmydia. Yep! I went back for o goodbye fuck after I noticed a slight burn. Of course, this was all before he discovered the truth about his mom, and before he realized that I knew about him and Mia. Ah, revenge is a sweet, twisted pleasure. See! Twisted bitch, am I right?

  So yeah, I may be vindictive, but damn, did I revel in my victory, celebrating my triumph with a warm slice of apple pie—and maybe a few extra visits to Stifler’s mom ohose antibiotics kicked in. Seriously, she’s a horrible mother but an amazing y! Anyway, there oint I was trying to make… Umm, what was it again? Shit, I pletely fot. Ah, who the fuck cares!

  ht! I hate losing.

  As the chimera bore down on me, rage ignited within me, hotter than any fme I’d ever jured—mostly because I had no fmes nor any other casting spells. What had been an exhirating ride had turned into a fug nightmare—I’ll say it again, I hate losing. I mourhe fleeting joy that had been so cruelly repced by this monstrous showdown.

  Raising my hand in a desperate attempt to defend myself, I summohe power of Blight—but to my frustration, nothing happened. Anger surged through me as the chimera’s shadow engulfed me, its massive jaws desding with a thunderous roar. In a frantieuver, I leapt to the right, narrowly esg being devoured, but I couldn’t evade the crushing impact of the creature’s oversized paw.

  Like a little car at a moruck rally, I was trampled—or more accurately, swatted by the big kitty. My body tumbled across the sandy arena as the beast barreled straight past me, uo halt its tremendous momentum. The pain wasn’t as excruciating as I had braced for, not that my scale of pain is particurly reliable. The only truly painful thing I’ve ever endured was catg on fire; everything else, including being torn in half, just registers as a mild annoyance, like actally biting your tongue.

  Though, that fight with the toad ainful enough to knock me out… Yes, I do tradict myself, a lot—so fuck you, too! heless, each blow served as a grim reminder of my mortality. Miraculously, the chimera’s momentum carried it past me, its struggle to stop in the sandy terrain w to my advantage.

  I quickly regained my footing as the chimera slid to a stop, its lioilting back to fix its gaze upon me, a predator eyeing its prey. Determio fight back, I lifted my arm once more, invoking spells—Blight, ic Fme—but to my dismay, once again, nothing happened. Frustration clouded my thoughts, plungio a state of fusion and anger. Overwhelmed by a sense of helplessness, I couldn’t think clearly.

  Seriously, how long does it take for the system to replenish my mana?

  The chimera’s ge in tactics sent shivers down my sloppy body as it started cirg me, its movements predatory. The hissing of its sail only heightehe sense of impending doom. It was toying with me, sav my helplessness. At that moment, all hopes of returning to that sexy vampire were dashed, and a wave of desotion washed over me.

  “Perhaps this was for the best,” I breathed out bitterly.

  I was no champion, not destio asd to anything magnifit, but a twisted monster bitch with a taste for murder and an insatiable appetite for rotting flesh—particurly iines. Seriously, what’s wrong with me? Maybe this new world, with all its magid delectable corpses, was better off without the likes of me.

  I let out a resigned sigh as the chimera abruptly stopped its cirg and crouched low, raising its sail high in the air, wiggling its butt with an uny resembo a pyful felihe absurdity of the situation struck me; I had never owned a cat. I was always more of a dog person, particurly fond of Great Dahose big, zy, snuggly giants had been a stant presen my life since childhood. Yet, as I watched the chimera shake its booty in a bizarre dispy, a sinking feeliled in my stomach. I kly what was about to happen.

  There was no escape, no pce to hide from the impending doom that awaited me. No matter how fast I ran, I couldn’t outrun the iable. I was pletely and utterly screwed, on the verge of being turned into nothing more than bck gooey cat shit. My only glimmer of hope resided in my Corrosive and Venomous passives. When the chimera devoured me, I po give it a taste of its own medie. However, as I watched the yellow drool dripping from the lion’s head and the green drool from the snake, a sinking feeling washed over me. It seemed likely that the undead beast possessed some form of resistao acid and poison. It was a losing battle, and I was resigo my fate.

  In the blink of ahe dreaded moment I had feared unleashed itself. The chimera, an rown mutant lion, unched into the air, creating a burst of sand that obscured my vision. As it soared above, only to hurtle back down with terrifying force, my survival instincts kicked into overdrive. In a blind frenzy, I screamed spell ands, a wild mix of known and unknown intations, refusing to succumb to what seemed like my iable end.

  Desperation fueled me, and I found myself shouting out skills, ging to a sliver of hope that they might miraculously ma. Panic gripped me, knowing the system’s mana was exhausted, and this frenzy impaired my ability to ect with the ambient mana arou was a battle waged more with raw emotion than magical prowess, a torrent of curses spilled from my lips in my defiant frustration.

  “BLIGHT! ic Fme, damn you to hell! YOU FUG DICK! Life Drain, no, that’s a passive—damn it! Terror’s Infusion! No, that’s another passive. Fuck! Venomous! Ugh, same. What’s with all these passives? Astral Insight! You asshole skill, where’s some of that insight now? Corrosive! You piece of shit passive! Silk Webbing? e on, you motherfug Astral Insight? Stelr Void! Oracle, I could use some orag! FUG ANYTHING!” I cried out.

  V:\Assion>SAFE_MODE

  AdminSystemOverride

  Admin:\Magic>Login_

  System Access Granted     [SAG]

  USER_Skills_Override.

  Refiguring...

  1 Skill Point Unlocked.

  10 out of 11 Skills Activated.

  Data Accepted.

  Seleg Skill...

  [Burst] has beeed as an active skill.

  11 out of 11 Skills Activated.

  V:\>

  “Burst!” I screamed.

  My world screeched to a halt as time seemed to sm on the brakes. The undead lion’s gaping maw loomed ominously close, poised to snap shut on me. Would it have been curtains for me? ’t say for sure—I’m tough as diarrhea, but testing that theory wasn’t high on my to-do list.

  Before its rottih could take a k out of me, something bonkers happened. Another system prompt from the admin popped up. Without pausing to sed-guess, or even ung into my usual rant, I bsted out the skill, Burst. Propelled at a speed that practically turned my body into a liquid streak, I zipped uhe beast’s sprawling paws and its stinking underbelly, only to be greeted oher side by two massive orbs that smashed into my face like a pair of steel wreg balls.

  The hit sent me spinning into a daze, knog me off my feet and sending me rolling across the coliseum like a discarded ragdoll. I left little ks of pudding in my wake, marking a trail of gooey defiance across the sand. The sensation was akin to a giant, ft-handed sp on bare skin. As I skidded to a stop, skipping like a stone across water, a numb fuzziness washed over me.

  “Ouchie,” I groaned.

  Trying to pull myself together, I frantically sed the area, but a thick haze of sand stirred up by my dramatic tumble cut my visibility down to a measly teers. Amidst the chaos, a pierg, high-pitched screech sliced through the air, sending an involuntary shiver down my spi was the sort of noise you’d expect from a cat in its final, gruesome throes. For the first time, I genuinely grasped what they meant by ‘sounding like a dying cat.’

  “Holy shit, you fug bitch,” I gasped.

  Shod disbelief surged through my veins as my mind raced back to the system prompt, trying to piece together what had just happened. I was supposed to be tapped out of mana, yet here I was, thrust bato the game, thanks to the admin bitch meddling with my system—again. While I grudgingly aowledged that this interference had just saved my ass—or skull, gooey as they may be—I was utterly sick of being at the mercy of her whims. Not only had I just gained a new active skill from my list of selectable options, but I also received enough mana to use it. She’d already nixed one of my skills. What the hell was she pnni?

  “Hey, t!” I yelled up at the stone ceiling while still lying on my back. “I could really use a mana bar or something to show how much I fug have to work with!”

  Nothing. No response. No new system prompt. Nothing at all! I arently being ignored.

  “It’s probably because it’s in safe mode,” I muttered bitterly.

  Great, out of all the reination stories, I’m the ouck with a broken-ass system.

  A feeling of unease mixed with annoyance washed over me, and a vague memory of my dream—a girl running through a forest—flickered briefly before fading. I turned my gaze back to the ter of the stadium, where the sand in the air was gradually settling. As the dust cleared, my attention was immediately captured by the three marble statues. They remained motionless, their cold stone eyes eerily fixed upon me.

  Fug creepy.

  As I turned my gaze toward the colossal deg cat with its snakehead tail curled underh, I couldn’t help but notice its pathetic state. It staggered around, its hind legs seemingly paralyzed. The undead beast was also emitting a dreadful screeg hat pierced through the air like a high-pitched tornado siren. A siing realization washed over me, and my hand instinctively moved to touch the side of my face, where I found a portion of my Silk Webbing had been torn off.

  “He. He. Tea-bagged me?”

  The undead beast, despite my nut shot, wouldn’t remain incapacitated for long. It was just a matter of time before it regais strength and resumed its attack. I needed a pn, and I fast.

  With ny f in my mind, I spotted a few corpses strewn along the es of the arena, remnants of the earlier battle. One of them was within reach. Seizing the opportunity, I spriowards it, my focus fixed oionless figure.

  I wished I had some impressive acrobatic skills to navigate the arena with the grad finesse of, say, a certain web-slinging superhero. Sure, I could manage a somersault or even a flip—nothing spectacur, mind you, but det enough. Instead, my attempt to e to a smooth halt by the corpse ended in a ical disaster. I tripped, fating directly into the groin of a headless zombie.

  Worst. Day. Ever!

  As I y there with my face buried in the foul stench of a putrid deg corpse’s crotch, a disturbing thought crossed my mind—I was salivating. I couldn’t deny the strange allure of the taste of dead things. It was a guilty pleasure that I couldn’t fully expin. Why did I find them delicious? Was it simply a matter of evolving taste buds? After all, many people appreciated the unique fvor of aged meat… right?

  With a muffled voice, I mao utter the and “Absorb” as I tio indulge in my rather grotesque meal. The Corrosive skill of my acidic touch had already eaten away at the dead zombie’s pelvis bone, revealing the grisly se.

  Oh shit! What does my face look like right now?

  Like someone who just ate a nasty ass!

  In any case, my skill quickly devoured the few nearby dead zombies, tentacles shing out on their own accord, pulling them into me for a mueeded meal mid-fight.

  Sadly, no system prompts or skills came; apparently, they didn’t t as boss monsters, and so, with the dungeon cone, I got nothing from them but some mueeded mass. I don’t know how much I’ve lost sihis whole fight started, but I was looking rather thin once again; those oh-so-sweet succubus curves were but a bitter dream. However, after my little snack, I was rog them once again.

  Casting a fleeting g the chimera, I let out a breath of relief as I withe foul creature engrossed in its delicate self-grooming ritual. I needed a game-ger, a lifelio shift the odds in my favor. Face-diving into its testicles wasly a sustainable bat strategy for me, after all.

  As I pondered how best to fight this bastard now that the admin had replenished my mana—or at least, I think it was now full—seriously, that biteeds to give me a mana bar—I heard a low, guttural growl, and I quickly turned my attention to the chimera, which had recovered from my little nutty headbutt. And wouldn’t you know it, the bastard was charging straight at me like a bull on steroids, hell-bent on turnio its chew toy. That lion head of his ewing out a thick, putrid yellow cloud, while that sail of his decided to join in on the fun by spitting green globs of phlegm my way.

  Talk about a tag team from hell.

  But let me tell you, I wasn’t about to piss my gooey dress in fear. Nope! I squared my slimy shoulders, raised my gloop-covered arms, and gave that undead monstrosity a defiant look that said, ‘Bring it on, you undead fucker!’

  I had a pn, and it certainly didn’t involve running away like a scared little chi. Nah, I was ready to give this rotten chimera a taste of my own special brand of ass-kig. That little feast had replenished my mass and curves, which was great, but it was the admin’s tampering that actually put a smile on my face—as long as that vile bitch had replenished all of my mana.

  The most annoying part about having no mana was seeing it all floating around me, like little strands of gasses, just begging to be maniputed.

  As the chimera charged at me, I mustered all the strength I could. Did I have a pn? Nope! So, I did the only thing I knew worked—I dove in face-first a out a war cry that would make a banshee proud: “Burst!”