After the jolt of pain, Apexus had sensed nothing.

And that was an alien feeling indeed. No sight, no sound, not even the tiniest vibration reached Apexus. All he was, was a bundle of thoughts within his core. ‘Is this the afterlife?’ the slime had wondered at the eternal darkness. The concept of a life after death had been strange to him and now, it was downright terrorizing. Left alone to brood in his thoughts, with no way to know what had happened after the arrow had ended him.

After having been able to perceive time passing for so long, this darkness seemed eternal to the slime. His thoughts swirled from the start of his journey to this very point over and over again. With nothing else to do and nothing to look forward to, all Apexus could do was wonder where he had gone wrong.

There were a lot of mistakes along the path.

The first one had been to pick the pheromone duct. In the moment, that had seemed useful, but it had been based on the ultimately faulty information that ants were some kind of super predator that dominated the overworld. Without it, he would have never found Reysha, however.

‘Reysha… I hope she won’t take this too hard,’ Apexus thought, wondering how much the tiger girl had truly appreciated him. It had always been a bit hard to read her, between the slimes own inexperience with people and the redhead’s unsteady behaviour.

The second mistake would likely have been to awaken Aclysia when he did. Without any understanding of the humanoid tongue, or that speech existed in the first place, he had painted a pretty large target on his back. For his beloved metal fairy, Apexus just wished that she kept him in mind fondly. Selfishly, he would have loved if she stayed attached to him forever, but for her sake he hoped that she got over him quickly. It couldn’t be pleasant for her to be bound to the earth for feelings that were only bringing her grief now.

Funnily enough, trusting Gizmo hadn’t been a mistake. The old man had taught Apexus a number of things and the reveal of his alter-ego came at a cost not to Apexus, but to his assailants. If there was a further mistake, the biggest one perhaps, it was to let the group of adventurers around Mehily go.

However, as often as it had been discussed previously and no matter how often Apexus played out that scenario with shifting actions on his part, he couldn’t help but feel that he had made the right decision. Maybe he was illogically rationalizing things. It was certainly true that there were a number of paths that he could have taken that were safer. On all of them, however, he would have needed to become a character of ruthlessness at best and cruel sadism at worst.

He wouldn’t want to be that. Nor would he want to force Reysha and Aclysia to live with such a person. Particularly the metal fairy, delicate in her morals. Would she even have presented the wish to stay to Hashahin if Apexus turned out to be such a monster?

That question was where his brooding was suddenly interrupted by a feeling. Not a particularly pleasant one, it had to be said. It was as if the utmost layer of skin was peeled of him with a washing cloth. Which, as Apexus realized when it happened again, was exactly what was happening. The sense towards vibrations, the only one the slime possessed naturally, appeared and disappeared again as his nucleus got polished.

It took a couple of repeats, but eventually the slime figured out what was happening in detail. He wasn’t dead. He was bodyless. The hunter had removed the core from his slime without destroying it and now Apexus was stuck within the single important organ he had. An organ that, sensing it was clearly oversized for the amount of slime surrounding it, was now trying to dissolve to supply that body mass.

It was a process, so tiny and far in the background, that Apexus had never noticed it before. He had just found out that his core grew or shrunk with him, not giving that any further thought. It hadn’t come with a lot of changes, the tinier he was, the harder it was to execute more detailed motor functions. He had thusly just assumed the size came with more ‘thought-power’ so to speak.

That it was also his own equivalent of a fat deposit had not sprung to mind.

It was a wonderful revelation to not be dead, but Apexus didn’t really have any idea what to do with that knowledge. Not as long as whoever was holding that cloth kept swiping away the little slime that formed off the core.

Eventually, however, Apexus was put down somewhere. No more washing cloth. Just time alone. The core shrunk and the slime could finally sense again. There was air above him and something soft and fuzzy below. A cushion, presumably.

As the core shrunk, hunger flared up more and more intensely. Energy reserves had been burned and the little amount of water in the surroundings made Apexus feel like he was closer to a block of gelatine than liquid slime. It came to him that this state of survival was more borrowed time than an actual second chance. If he didn’t find food and water, the latter much more urgently, any time soon, that would be it.

Another, immediate problem presented itself. When Apexus’ core had shrunk from the size of a clenched fist to that of a big marble, the regeneration attempted to also restore his permanent Growths. Apexus was highly certain he had no energy to restore all of them, even in an adequately miniaturized state, in his still shrinking nucleus.

So, he had to spent all of his mental capacity, struggling against hunger and thirst, on figuring out how to guide that process. It was a process with mediocre results. The best case would have been to completely control the rate of slime regeneration and which of his Growths regrew completely in which order. Much like a humanoid couldn’t control their sweat glands and only had limited control over their heartrate, however, Apexus’ efforts were rewarded only with the prioritized regeneration of his eyes.

A highly viscous slime began exploring his surroundings with immensely slow, crawling movements. A being that had been about two metres long, reduced to the size of a thumb. It took almost a minute just to reach the edge of the glass case that was surrounding the podium. Half grown; flightless wings lay still on the blue creatures back as he looked beyond the translucent barrier.

There was a bunch of stuff elsewhere, displayed under their own glass, much of it edible, as Apexus reckoned. However, he couldn’t even pass this one case. The glass was inedible and even if he somehow managed to get through the cushion, acid doing no good against things that may have been organic and nature, but had clearly been dead for a while, and his teeth being just short, dull stubs right now, there was hard stone underneath.

Hopeless, Apexus trailed the outside of his confinement. If it came to the worst, he would have to wait, hiding as best he could and wait for someone to check on this room. He wasn’t quite clear what this was, having all of these powerful or tasty things standing around unused or uneaten alienated him, but everything was clean so there had to be people checking every now and again.

That plan was unneeded, however, as it seemed that luck was on Apexus’ side for one small thing. There was a crack in one side of the case. Not particularly large, but certainly large enough for a semi-liquid creature with only one truly solid organ to fit through.

From there, Apexus crawled down the side of the podium. If there was one advantage to being this small again, it was being light enough to not care about slants and the pull of gravity. Afterwards, Apexus was presented with a gamble. To try and search for a way out or for a crack in one of the many food deposits. Not wanting to push his luck, and not seeing anything that looked like it contained a whole lot of water around, the slime decided the latter.

Although it may have been more accurate that his instincts decided at this point. The need for sustenance was slowly overwhelming whatever reason he possessed. He crawled over the ground, feeling the slightest draft of air and following it towards a door. Squeezed his way down under a frame. His halfway functional ears picked up a conversation, the grumbling sounds of humanoid males exchanging words. More importantly, he heard the quiet sound he was all too accustomed to. The sloshing of water.

His eyes quickly localized the source. A container for liquids that humanoids used. A wooden mug. Two of them, to be exact, standing on table a terrible distance away for the slow and weakened slime.

Instincts dictated the need, suppressed all thoughts of morality or doubts and forced the active mind to create a plan to get access to that water. Survival, only survival matters right now. Anything else was a luxury for the survivor. The guards were distracted playing cards. Even if they weren’t, missing Apexus wouldn’t have been too odd. Parts of his mass were now falling off as the nucleus ran so low on energy that it was unable to control even the minimal amount of slime. Apexus had been reduced to a fingernail, by the time he positioned himself on the ceiling above the table.

Then, in a manoeuvre that would decide life or death, he dropped. If he missed, that was it. If he got noticed, that was it. That not a single thought about that desperation entered his deprived mind was just another sign of how close to starvation he was.

Plop.

Making an almost unnoticeable sound, he landed in the water. Immediately, his mind was hit by a wave of clarity. The most immediate urge had been quelled. It wasn’t enough. He needed to recover at least some mass. There was no middle choice, he had to go through with the plan his amoral survival instinct had birthed.

He almost wished that he hadn’t gotten enough reason back to realize that he was about to kill a man. All he had to do was wait. Eventually, the mug full of water was raised, lips pushed against the round edge and then, the whole thing was slanted. With a torrent like a waterfall, Apexus was washed down into the man’s throat.

Priming his teeth, Apexus let himself be guided entirely by his tremor sense. He hit a wall, squishy tissue, the back of the man’s throat, and held on with teeth and slime as tightly as he could. Immediately, the body surrounding him began to quiver and convulse, sensing some unwanted intrusion into its system. Powerful currents of air blew over Apexus, almost dislodging him and sending him flying back out the way he came.

Pressing himself tightly down, Apexus remained anchored like a tic. Time passed, the slime only wanting to remain undetected for the moment. It was best to wait things out for a little while, let more water come his way to leech off and give the guard time to retreat to their own room for the night. As far as Apexus had been told, people tended to be alone in those moments.

‘I am about to commit a murder,’ the slime had known perfectly well. He hadn’t wanted to do it. If he didn’t, however, he was absolutely certain to die. The humanoids around here had not given him any indication that they would ever see him as anything other than a monster to be hunted. That didn’t make the act any easier for the slime, as he very slowly began to eat.

Drop by drop of blood at first. Then piece of miniscule piece of flesh, Apexus carved out and devoured. It must have taken hours. With every piece consumed, the slime grew a bit larger, allowing him to eat quicker. He blocked the windpipe to prevent his victim from screaming, not wanting to alarm those on the outside anytime soon.

It was a terrible fight to the death. Not in the sense of difficulty. All Apexus had to do was to remain in the way. Just in the length of time it took for the guard to suffocate. Apexus hated all of this. The only thing he would hate more, however, would be to die, to end his own being and leave behind a suffering Aclysia and a Reysha whose reactions he still couldn’t gauge, but really wanted to learn to.

He wasn’t yet done with this world.

With his unwilling host killed, Apexus made sure his surroundings were safe by taking an unpleasant peek out of the mouth. They were in a bed chamber of some sorts. Apexus didn’t need to know a lot more. He was still famished and his instincts urged to finish what he had. Over the course of the night, Apexus devoured the man. Every last bit of him, from the hairs to the toes, nothing remained.

And his reward was another permanent Growth. Humanoids were, doubtlessly, the apex predator of the leaf, so that wasn’t too surprising. It was a hollow victory, however, and one sacrificed to necessity a few moments later as Apexus searched for his way out and found it in a suit of armour nearby. The complete metal casing would be perfect to walk unseen, but the liquid body of Apexus couldn’t properly carry it. Its design didn’t go along with a boneless, limbless creature.

The bones that Apexus could get as a normal Growth would be the human average. Crawling into the armour, still on the stand, the slime realized that he wouldn’t be able to properly move in this one, as it was a custom fit. Still, he would have tried it, if a voice at the door hadn’t startled him.

“Dude, get up!”

There were more words, but Apexus missed him over the attempt to keep his balance. Something that ultimately failed, as the new bones were a bunch of static, jointed things in a body that had been previously internally fluid. He fell over, the armour loudly rustling even with him in it.

“Are you okay?” the voice from the outside echoed genuine concern, only reinforcing the guilt Apexus felt for what he had to do. “Hello, are you there or do I need to break open this door and drag you to the healers?”

“…Yes,” Apexus answered, hoping his voice wouldn’t be too far removed from whoever he had eaten.

A relieved joke came back, “Yes you’re back or yes you need me to break in?”

“Former,” Apexus answered quickly and decided quickly to just acquire the bones permanently. He needed to get out of here and he couldn’t be caught as what he was before he got somewhere from where he could fly away. Armour scraped over the floor as bones lengthened according to Apexus’ will and the slime tried to get up. It was easier now, the bones could carry the distributed weight quite well. Without muscles and with his much squishier body, it still wasn’t optimal, but Apexus could move in it now.

“Dude, you can just let me in, I’ll help you,” the friendly guard offered. “If the cap’ asks, we both overslept.”

“Thanks, but not needed,” the slime got up with slow movements. He made sure every bit of his true body was hidden under metal, all ahead that the visor was down. Then he opened the door. “I… re- I AM ready for guarding… friend.”