After escaping a fiery death by flying lizard, I curved the land ship towards the north east. I would follow the desert around its circumference to swing east along its edge and back to the point where I was buried alive. I would then head north. I would pass near Str but hopefully I could get by without problems.

What I was focusing on now was how I would be able to kill a dragon or even wipe out a nation. Thinking back on it, I probably would have survived the initial dragon blast to then be killed by molten earth. Boiling water had an impact on me since it was primarily water. Molten earth would probably be mostly earth and have an impact as well.

Also the attack probably had a magical component. While I had thirty percent resistance to magic, I didn’t think I would hold up to a dragon blast which was a thousand percent magic. This made me focus on myself. Training up more active skills would just put more of a burden onto my MP. What I really needed to do was to stop holding back and go all out.

I wasn’t going to survive by not using every advantage I could. I considered Kek wrapped around my chest. Replacing out my blood was still an option, just one I was hesitant to make. It was tempting but it would be defeatist in the long run. Kek was now my teammate and we needed team work. I kept teaching him his letters as the Wish coasted through the desert.

The night was uneventful and he spent it in the barrel rather than sleeping on the sand under the land ship. I had looked up at the stars during the night and realized I still had an easy quest to learn about the constellations. Maybe that was how Tafe sucked people in, she gave them easy quests to condition them and then they would do the harder quests. Temptations indeed.

The next day we set out again and I curved a bit to the south as I saw the mountains start to rise up out of the ground. Cruising along the mountain side I spotted a cliff face surrounded by a number of boulders along with a small spring fed by a mountain stream. It was perfect. I parked the land ship out of the way.

It was time to train Kek to fight with me as a teammate and not an add on. “Kek, we are going to practice a bit. We need to learn how to fight together and this place of the desert should be deserted.” Kek squeezed my right shoulder. That was good, he was agreeable.

“Okay, from what I have seen you can burn through things, stick to surfaces, and solidify to a slightly tougher texture. You are also millions of little slimes that act independently as a collective. Did I miss anything?” A squeeze on my right shoulder. Things were going good so far.

“I want feedback on these ideas. The first is that I have a portion of you solidified in my mouth. At a command or a facial expression you can break down to liquid and I can spray you into an enemies face.” I got a squeeze on my right shoulder. Three for three, which was really good.

“You understand what eyes are?” I asked and got a squeeze on my left shoulder.

“Okay then. Most creatures have specialized body parts. I have legs to walk, a digestive track, a mouth, and so on. Again, most creatures have a number of sensing abilities located in their head. The portion of the body that is highest up. The head has ears, eyes, nose, and a mouth. The eyes allow a creature to see, ears allow one to hear words, nose allows a creature to take in smells, and a mouth allows a creature to take in food to dissolve inside themselves.” I got a squeeze on my right shoulder.

“The main thing is that most creatures depend on their eyes. Don’t just attack anything, but go for the eyes. Come onto my hand and I will point out each of these on myself.” I went through each part of my head.

“The eyes should always be your main target. Then the nose or mouth. They lead to the brain of a creature inside them. Rather than consuming an entire creature, you just take out the eyes and go for the brain behind them.” Kek appeared to be picking this up really quickly. Which was either scary, brilliant, or a combination of the two.

I then spent time taking a portion of Kek into my mouth. The signal was worked out to be my tongue clicking from the top of my mouth to the bottom. Kek rested back near my molars and gave my cheeks a slight puffy look. Spraying the black slime out was trickier. It was like oil and sticky. It took the rest of the day but Kek was finally able to figure out how to turn off his stickiness and I was able to get four sprays up to ten feet with good accuracy with how much I could hold in my mouth.

The following day we worked on letters while I considered more ideas. Kek could only dissolve organic matter, which meant that having him coat my blade and melting other blades wasn’t possible. That did give me an idea to use him with my throwing daggers. The next day I worked it out so with a command a small portion of Kek would coat a dagger. It was an on command poison and would make sure anyone hit would stay down.

While Kek could separate and act independently, the collective was drawn together. I couldn’t work out if it was instinct or a higher power, but I couldn’t start a wave of black slimes consuming everything. The larger he became the slower he was able to react across all his body. Each drop got a vote on every single decision and the more there were the harder it was to reach a consensus.

The next aspect was dodging. Kek was weak to sand, heat, and fire. I had him work on transforming quickly by dodging pebbles I threw and water I squirted at him from the leather canteens. It wasn’t the greatest training but he was highly flexible and instantly adaptable. The training was about putting those skills to use in combat without hesitation.

I also took time to learn how to handle myself with one arm. My entire fighting style had to change from a dual style and it was a slow and painful process. Foot work was much more important since I needed to dodge rather than deflect. It would also allow for my blade to move about my body more quickly Finally I had to work on keeping my blade close to cover my whole body rather than using sweeping attacks or extended jabs.

There was no way I would work out an entirely new combat style in the two weeks I camped out with Kek, but it did help patch a number of holes in my technique and balance. I did practice with Kek on absorbing blows. I had him coat a rock while I worked on cutting and hitting it.

The key thing for Kek was learning how to condense at the impact site quickly. That would disperse blunt attacks. For cutting attacks he needed to increase the stickiness as well as condense to slow the blade down. I did note that his volume ebbed and flowed, but was slowly increasing. Right now he could adequately cover my torso but that was it.

The main concern were flame or heat based attacks. While I would be fine if Kek went up, it would catastrophic for him. The main issue were my demonic flames that puffed out from time to time. Apparently from consuming my blood Kek had developed some fire resistance. I kept feeding him my blood throughout our break so he could survive weak flame attacks.

After learning about his weakness that I thought back to how I could have killed him when I had gone down into the tower the first time. That was a path better left forgotten as I continued to work on developing my skills.

When I got back in the land ship I was feeling a lot more confident. “How do you feel Kek?” I asked and looked at my arm as Kek spelled out a reply.

‘Training. Good. Strong.’ He seemed to prefer single words. It was possibly how the monsters all thought since the Endolgon was the same, or was it a limit of FEAR itself. I wasn’t sure which, but it beat the hell out of shoulder squeezes.

“Well we are off.” The land ship began rolling out as it caught the wind.

‘Battle. Hope.’ Kek told me.

“Yeah, I hope the battle goes well and I get my arm back.”

‘Hard. Many. Many.’

“Yeah there will be lots of opponents. We need more teammates.”

‘Weak. Dissolve.’ Despite his odd way of communicating I was getting the hang of Kek’s responses.

“Yeah, hard to find someone not weak who we could team up with. Too bad The Encasement is after us.”

‘Hated. Feared. Bad. Book.’

“Don’t worry. We will get that book back someday. She is just insanely strong and that is the biggest problem. We are strong, but defeating her will not be easy. The arm first.”

‘Arm. Book.’

“Too bad we can’t get your big brother the Endolgon to help us out.”

‘Powerful. Crush. Great.’

“Well, he is supposedly the strongest monster. So anything you can tell me on Tafe?”

‘Creator. Beaowrqg.’ The second word kept changing letters. Apparently the Kek collective couldn’t agree on a word that encompassed Tafe. It was rare they became stuck like this, but it often happened on anything pertaining to Tafe and had become resigned to it. I had hoped it was a temporary thing, now it had become clear that it was somehow purposeful.

“Don’t worry about it. Tafe is a troll.”

‘God. Powerful.’

“Yes she is also a goddess and powerful. Being a troll means you are being annoying.” Kek didn’t understand genders really well. He was gender fluid in multiple ways. He produced by mitosis, the process of cell division. I wasn’t going to call him an it all the time, which was a good way to dehumanize him.

He was a monster though, so maybe it was demonsterize. There was one thing we needed to do. Kek could level, but the levels were centered on a single drop at a time. At his center He had shown me the core drop that represented the center of the collective.

The Drop of Black SlimeLvL: 104Strongest Stat: ConstitutionHP: 29812MP: 120SP: 4821Strongest Skill: Dissolve

Its color had been darker than the rest and it could also harden to the density of a rock. It had taken some convincing but it was agreed that more of the drops needed to level up. I kept my eye out for a village as we pulled around the mountains and began heading north east.

“So Kek, where did the people in the tower go?” I asked.

‘Projections. Guardians. Prison.’

“Wait? So they weren’t real? But I saw them fight the worms.”

‘Real. Guardians.’

“Another mystery. So they were somehow part of the tower and when it went down they disappeared?”

‘Yes.’

“That is interesting to know. So what do you think of this?” I pulled out the cube of Etherion. Kek sent a small portion to roam over the cube.

‘Power. Give. Tafe.’

“Maybe, if she stops being so difficult. Is there any way we can harness that power?”

‘Power. Great. Barrier.’

“So it can call up a great barrier?”

‘Yes.’

“Barrier activate!” I shouted out. There was no response. I muttered to myself, “I don’t think I ever tried this, never had MP to spare, Identification.”

Cube of EtherionLvL: 9999Requirements: 0 FateStats: 100x Barrier

Special: Shield of Etherion, Linked Enchantment (Unknown), Linked Enchantment (Unknown)

“Well that is interesting. Insanely high level, only requires zero fate to power an almighty shield. I guess I will need someone pure of heart to use it.” I tucked the cube back under my shirt. “The two linked enchantments are probably the old man and the hell portal.”

‘Power. Great.’

“Thanks Kek, I know I kick ass but no need to build me up like that.”

‘No. Cube.’

“I was just teasing you a bit. I know what you meant, but it implied I am weak. I don’t like being weak.” Kek didn’t reply to that. We cruised on a bit more and I saw a village come into sight ahead. I sailed the land ship past the fields and stopped a couple hundred of feet away from the palisade surrounding the town.

“Kek, time for you to level up.” I clicked my tongue and a portion of Kek flowed into my mouth. I made sure the land ship wouldn’t move and then raced towards the town.

“Sound the alarm!” A man at the gate cried out. I had already closed the distance and clicked my tongue. I then hit him with a spray of black slime in the face. I watched as the black drops surged into his eye sockets. He began to scream and reach for his eyes as they burst and then melted out of his skull.

I raced into the town. Three players raced out, if there clearly different appearance from the villagers and their weapons were any indication. “Oh shit its-“ I unleashed black slime into each of their faces as they brought their weapons up at me. Two of them went down right away screaming while the third blocked the slime spray with a shield and backed up.

I clicked my tongue again and more black slime flowed up into my mouth and condensed. I clicked my tongue and a portion became a fluid. I then raced in and darted around the shielded warrior. My speed was far greater and I hit him in the back of the head with a spray of black slime. It dissolved into the back of his neck dealing critical damage.

After that I finished killing the entire village with Kek. I then walked back around and from each dissolved corpse I collected a single drop. Rather than focus on multiplying like they normally did, they would focus on pushing up the level of a single drop. I checked with an Observe.

Drop of Black SlimeLvL: 17Strongest Stat: ConstitutionHP: 3212MP: 21SP: 2Strongest Skill: Dissolve

It was clearly exhausted but a lot stronger than before. I let the slime drop flow back into the main portion on my body. With fifty seven corpses, that meant fifty seven leveled up drops that should be able to take more damage and harden more. The fact they could self-consume was a huge part of it. Normally the top drop would consume any drop that started going up in levels.

I didn’t mind that, we reached an agreement that it would only consume drops that were within twenty levels. More than enough for the top drop to come out ahead and still build a stronger black slime rather than a single drop.

With everyone in the village dead I looted it for food and supplies. I did find a small brewery and Kek consumed the beer and then self-consumed. It was a slime eat slime world out there. I packed up the supplies and left towards the north.

I came on the Vlat river and began massacring the villages along side it one after another. After my forth village it was getting dark so I parked the Wish in a barn and slept on the roof. The next morning I set off again east along the south river bank dissolving everyone in my path. Sometimes I ran into players, but they were no match for me.

I finally found a crossing where the river was only a half a foot deep and very wide. It was a simple matter of getting across. I then saw a large gathering of people in front of me. Their steel glinted in the mid-afternoon sun. I pulled the land ship to a stop and got out. I walked forward and a counterpart from the large force I was facing came out to greet me.

“Shield Mind.” It was a fair chunk of MP, but I didn’t trust people who spoke.

“Kenji Shadowen.”

“Michael of Solid Steel. I did not expect to see you again.”

“Indeed, you are alive and reasonably well I see.”

“I try. A bit hard when everyone is out to kill you.”

“I am afraid that all land here is under our protection. Solid Steel has a vested interest in not seeing a calamity hit this area.”

“I suppose I am considered a calamity rather than a valued customer.”

“Yes.” That was incredibly blunt. “Your very presence is disruptive.”

“I am the chosen of fate. So, we fighting?”

“Even if my side won it would be a pyrrhic victory.”

“What?”

“We would have lost so many people that victory is pointless. So I instead I am going to Command, surrender.” I felt the attack hit my mental shields like a sledge hammer. I considered playing along, but I was really pissed off now. I clicked my tongue and Kek formed into liquid.

“Lay down your weapons and come-“ I sprayed a stream of black slime into his face. My aim had really improved and it hit his eye directly, dissolving straight into his brain. “AHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhh!” Michael cried out and died thrashing on the ground.

“Fear Aura, ten minutes.” I then set off towards the hundred man force he had in tow and shouted out, “Well time to start dissolving people to eat!”

“Empowerment Aura!” A woman called out from the front line. “The only chance we have is to stick together.”

I clicked my tongue and mentally commanded Burst Speed. I crossed the distance in two seconds to her. She had managed to bring up her shield and have a sword ready. I moved to her side with the sword and sprayed her in the face. She went down screaming. I clicked my tongue and pivoted on my tri-pronged foot to avoid a sword slash.

I sprayed another soldier in the face and mentally issued the command Conceal Movement, one second. With that I prevented myself from being dog piled and landed a number of shallow cuts on the soldiers with Slice of Life.

I scanned the battlefield and noted ten people hanging in the back and chanting. I thought Burst Speed and rushed past the soldiers who had lost all form of structure from my previous attacks allowing me to slip by to their casters. I ran by them landing shallow cuts on them, not focusing on landing a killing blow.

When the casters fell the battlefield dissolved into chaos with people running around screaming their heads off. I then began killing them one by one since they had no more unit cohesion. They probably figured Michael would be able to charisma me to death and the soldiers were there to get some exercise and protect him.

The woman I killed first had probably been their highest level player and with her loss, the failure of the noob swarm, and the injuries to the casters the battle had completely fallen into my favor. The Fear Aura wasn’t doing them any favors either.

Kek was having a field day as I sprayed him onto player after player. Over half of them had managed to run off, but the rest had been dissolved from the inside out. I picked out the nicest weapons and armor and replaced my own gear. An extra sword on my hip, new daggers, and high quality arm and leg guards. I also grabbed the spare arm guard and stored it for when I got my arm back.

With all of that completed I gathered Kek back up. I didn’t want to waste Observes on figuring out his average level. I figured with the villages and this expeditionary force defeated his average level of enhanced drops was around fifteen to twenty. He was composed of around a million and a half drops and the enhanced drops only numbered around a thousand.

I hoped back into the Wish and cruised past the battlefield. It would be dark soon so I traveled another hour and then parked the land ship. I slept on a nice blanket one of the Solid Steel people had packed and went to sleep.

I felt a tug and woke up suddenly. It was incredibly dark and I rolled out from under the land ship. I pulled Slice of Life free and looked around the area. I couldn’t sense anything. I felt Kek give me a hard pull forward and followed through with the movement. I felt a slight breeze from behind me. I spun around but didn’t see anything.

Invisible opponents, the worst kind. I clicked my tongue and some of Kek flowed into my mouth. The MP cost would destroy them soon enough. “Kek, lead me towards them, stop when they are in range.” I felt a pull towards my left and turned that way. The pull reoriented itself like a compass and I advanced quickly while maintaining a cautious approach. I clicked my tongue and readied myself.

Kek stopped advancing and I sprayed out. A figure appeared in front of me clothed like a peasant NPC, screaming and rolling on the ground. A pull to the right. I brought up my blade, pivoted, and clicked my tongue. A blade suddenly appeared stuck in place at my left shoulder. I sprayed out and another assassin went down. The blade fell out, having been stuck to Kek and not penetrating my body.

Kek stopped pulling me around, so the rest either retreated or there were only two. Kek had killed them off and I searched their corpses. There was just daggers, some coins, jerky, and nothing else. They looked very non-descript so they were either NPCs trained as assassins or players who actually had common sense and didn’t dress up as ninjas.

“Good job Kek. Guess I am staying up the rest of the night.” I stayed up the rest of the starless night alert for any more attacks but nothing came. In the morning I discovered something terrible. The Wish’s two axles had been shattered. I stood there in silence as a cool morning wind blew past me. This land ship, the Wish had saved me from walking everywhere and now they destroyed it. I needed a warm up before I went and killed all those priests. It was time to pay a visit to the Mystery Man and Solid Steel and kill them all.

Taking a deep breath I realized their strategy. They were hoping to wear me out. I looked around and didn’t see anyone. They couldn’t beat me in a head on fight so they would use a death of a thousand cuts and night attacks. If they were willing to sacrifice a person every night they would probably win in a week. Also they were probably hoping I was burning through MP and that once I ran out I would be easy to kill.

It was five days on foot to reach Str instead of five hours now. I began sorting through the ruined land ship packing up what I needed to take with me. Once I was packed up I set off. I was very near my weight limit carrying Kek, my supplies, and gear. Sure I had a pack filled with food, rope, canteens, and a striker to start fire, but all those items weighed me down. Kek wasn’t light either and he couldn’t move as fast as me which was annoying.

Kek was also my primary means of attack and defense now. I needed him at peak condition otherwise I would be in trouble. I still didn’t know how he saw, but from what he was able to explain it was a life sense. It made sense, since he was anti-life that he would be able to sense life.

***

UltimataSecret: Blood Rain is on the move, Solid Steel wets their pants

SolidSteel: All is under control. We shall finish off Blood Rain and end his threat

6996: I would say you and what army, but you have an army

TheWinzKid: They are really good and well organized, sorry Blood Rain

GambleMan: Place your bets, jack pot is now $567,342

Worm: If it gets high enough he might just kill himself

TheWhiteWoman: He is probably running it, and pocketing all the monies

BloodBank: Did you see that clip that leaked, spray of death

OwlEyes: Probably poison of some kind based on the black color, he might have poison glands

UltimataSecret: Poison glands....that isn't as dumb as it sounds, he has a bug foot

TheArm: I miss you Blood Rain, XOXOXOXO

***

Author's Note: Well that chapter took a bit of effort. So many little details to remember. Also no more land ship /cry. I loved the land ship more than you can realize. It cut down on travel so much. He could get to places in a day rather than a month. Oh well.