"Is he..."
Harvey stared at the wall of sli where Adam had disappeared, his jaw clenched. "Is he even alive in there?"
Beatrice launched another wind blade, and while her powers caused the flowing barrier to wobble violently, it didn’t do anything else as the cores were already deeper into the river. Her compressed air that could cut steel in half was useless.
"I can’t tell. My attacks aren’t doing anything."
She glanced back at the portal. The white light flickered, hints of blue creeping around the edges.
"We need to call it," she said.
"Hm..." Harvey flexed his arms, coiling them like springs, but stopped. "Fuck. This is why I hate these monsters. We need soone whose abilities can fuck these things up."
"Hmn." Beatrice nodded, wiping sweat from her forehead, leaving a streak of dirt on her face. Yes, slis were weak, and even weaker individually. But they were one of the trickiest monsters to actually fight—they were easy to overlook, too. If they were left alone to multiply, entire city blocks could dissolve in hours.
Beatrice was about to turn around to call for backup, but then, as she stepped—she heard a splash beneath her feet.
She looked down, and there indeed was a puddle slowly forming on the cavern floor.
"Wait," she whispered, focusing on the bottom of the wall of acid—and true enough, liquid was slowly oozing out from it.
"He’s... still destroying the slis’ cores."
And he was right. Adam was swimming through this liquid fire while still managing to destroy cores along the way.
He couldn’t see. Couldn’t breathe. But sohow, so way, he was still able to crush cores.
The acid ate through his throat faster than he could swallow. His lungs filled with burning sli, dissolved, reford, filled again.
But... sothing has changed.
His flesh started healing faster. Much faster.
The acid that had been winning the race against his regeneration suddenly fell behind. Skin ford faster than it could burn away. Muscle rebuilt itself in milliseconds instead of seconds.
Adam opened his eyes. They had completely lted, and when they healed, the acid ate through them and filled the inside of his skull. Eyes were soft, vulnerable, just ooze.
But then, sothing else showed itself—green.
Through all the burning and lting, the green of his eyes soon showed themselves. And just like that, although unclear and still flickering through the darkness and the pain of being eaten, his vision cleared.
He looked around, and there, a massive core, the size of a yoga ball, pulsing at the center of the river. Adam pushed off the cave floor and swam toward it, his teeth, which were exposed from his cheeks, gritting.
Bubbles then erupted from his mangled mouth as he let out a massive roar that caused everything around him to ripple.
And then, he slamd his fist against the core, shattering it like glass.
[1 Status Point granted!]
"Wh—?!" Both Harvey and Beatrice reacted as the entire river turned to liquid instantly. Thousands of gallons of inert sli rushed toward them like a tidal wave.
Beatrice instinctively lifted herself in the air, hovering near the ceiling. Harvey planted his feet and coiled his body, staying perfectly still as the wave crashed around him.
Both stared ahead, fixing their flashlights to cut through the settling mist.
"Is he—what the hell?!" Harvey jumped in shock.
How could he not, when he wasn’t expecting Adam to just be standing there in the center of the cave? There were only mild burns covering his body now, and even those were healing.
"Adam!" Beatrice flew closer, then stopped abruptly and turned around in the air. Harvey, who followed behind her, also stopped and pointed at Adam—or rather, at the lower half of his body.
"What the fuck?!" Harvey shouted. "You’re the one who should be called Snake’s Fist!"
Even Beatrice, whose facial expressions barely changed, glared at Harvey, quietly telling him to shut up.
Adam looked down at himself, then awkwardly crossed his arms to cover. "I... have another set of armor on my bike."
"I’ll get it!" Beatrice shot toward the portal like a rocket.
Several minutes later, Adam adjusted the straps on his tactical armor. He was now wearing the armor he bought from Clentine, hoping it wouldn’t get destroyed like everything else.
But it turned out, however, he didn’t need to worry at all.
"Huh. I think that cleared most of them, man." Harvey lightly hit him on the shoulder. "We haven’t seen one for a while."
They walked deeper into the cave, eting only scattered stragglers. Ten slis at most, and that number wasn’t even a problem at all.
And then, after a few more minutes, they saw her.
[Sli Queen]
The Sli Queen towered fifteen feet high, a translucent mountain of acid with a large core inside her body, that seed to hold more cores inside of it like stars.
And just like its na, it even had a crown on top of it.
Where... do you think it even got that, Adam? These monsters, do you think they... might also be part of their own civilization? That ans you’ve been killing innocent creatures, Adam.
"Hm..."
The smugglers’ den. That was clearly a mansion, Adam. Do you know what that ans? It ans that one of these days... a Leak would appear, and people would co out of it.
That’s... true. And what would you do then, Adam? Would you also kill them, like what you did to these poor blobs? What would you do...? You couldn’t even end Bjorn.
How do you expect to wage war against the Hospital if you don’t kill? It—that’s not important right now.
Adam readied himself, shaking off all the random thoughts he was having. But then, Beatrice pulled sothing from her pouch.
A small tal sphere... and then casually threw it at the Queen, using her wind powers to accelerate the projectile.
It hit the central core dead center.
And just like that, the Queen collapsed instantly, dissolving into harmless liquid.
"Oh..." Adam blinked.
Beatrice shrugged. "Slis are only a threat because of their numbers."
Ugh, Adam. The Status Points! That should have been yours, you—shut up.
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