After almost an hour, the little jelly was finally able to finish up the beast. It took longer than expected since at first it tried consuming it via its four-legged variant, but then realized it couldn’t properly tear through its flesh. It knew it was currently an herbivore, but only then did it realize that it truly wasn’t equipped to consume meat.

Seeing it was pointless, it decided to change back into its jelly state and only then was it able to begin digesting the beast. Unfortunately, it soon woke up afterwards.

Realizing it was in danger, it started to struggle and cry out. Seeing its current state and worried that it will scare the other creatures away, the slime hurriedly sprayed the same cocooning cement it used on the corpse towards its muzzle to shut it up.

While it worked to silence it, it only struggled harder. Although it was still bleeding, apparently it wasn’t dying fast enough and its continued struggle was starting to make the slime lose hold. Getting desperate, the slime remembered that the area it was bleeding had a wide gash as if something was ripped off from there. Having no alternatives, it doubled down on its hold at the creature’s rear end and forced a substantial part of itself into the wound.

This action made the beast’s entire body tense up with its head bending all the way back unnaturally. It eyes flared maddening red and its neck started twitching in weird angles. This made the beast lessen its struggle though, so the little jelly took this chance to swell the part of itself that entered and released copious amounts of acid.

Suffice to say, the beast soon died from the extreme shock well before the acid started digesting it. After it was finally incorporated, the jelly then began breaking it down and learning its biological components. Piece by piece, it shaped itself into its new form, from its impressive size to its splendid horn.

Once fully transformed, it now fully comprehended the beast’s previous actions prior to its incapacitation, and why its final struggle seemed so… painful.

Firstly, it now understood that this creature was male, and its previous form was female. Unlike the flying creatures before, the males of this species were completely different compared to the females. The little jelly somehow understood that the horned beast’s cry from earlier was probably its mating call since it took the form of a female. The males then fought over the females for the right to mate.

In other words, the beast that it recently consumed actually tried to mate with it earlier.

Upon this realization, the little jelly threw an enraged fit. In its anger it kept pounding the ground with its hooves, started bashing its horns on a tree, then kept rolling on the ground. It couldn’t accept that another creature would dare try to enter it to reproduce, and abhorred the very idea. It never dawned upon it though that this in itself was odd, since it was originally an amorphous genderless blob without prior information regarding the physiology of other creatures.

After it calmed down, it reassessed itself once again and found a good balance while readjusting its horns. It also noticed that for some unknowable reason it felt more comfortable as this version of the creature, especially around its hind regions. Not exactly sure why, it simply dismissed it and decided that from now on it will try and focus more on attaining the male versions of species if chance would allow.

The only problem it now finds is that this species’ male weakness is displayed out in the open. After understanding more of its properties, it was clear to it now that what it did to the creature from before was absolutely horrifying. Just the thought of it made it unconsciously scrunch its hind quarters.

It tried to make alterations to its physiological design, but found it needed more biological information if it wanted to make extreme adjustments. This basically means it needed to consume more of the creatures in order to gain a better understanding on how to alter their body.

The problem lies in the fact that it still lacks a predatory form, so it’s still incapable of hunting them efficiently. In this case, this means it needs to employ drastic measures.

***

At the bank of the lake, the scene of a herd of moose lazily grazing could be seen. The males were off contending against each other to win the favor of the females, while the females simply watched on or continued grazing.

After a winner appeared between the two competing males, the winner drove off the loser before it proceeded to head off and earn its prize. Before it could be on its way, however, another male seemed to enter and challenge it.

Snorting in dissatisfaction, the winner turned to face the challenger only to be met by the most impressive looking antlers it has ever seen. The rival male wasn’t any larger than itself, but the antlers it sported were much more splendid and shapelier than its own. This of course didn’t fail to escape the notice of the interested females.

Not deterred, the winner decided to face this new challenger and show it that it was the rightful male to this herd. They circled each other until the new challenger’s back was facing the females.

Rearing itself, it charged at the challenger, antlers forward, and met it head on. Instead of the usual pushing and scraping, however, it found that it couldn’t move an inch further and its antlers seem to be locked in place.

Looking at the challenger, it panicked when it noticed that eerily it didn’t seem to be reacting in any way. With this opportunity, the challenger’s antlers seemed to have moved and clasped the opponent’s antlers in place like a vice. The next thing that happened, away from the eyes of the females, was that its head shockingly quickly turned a full three hundred sixty degrees sideways vertically, pulling along the winner’s head and twisting its neck in place.

The action took only a few seconds and in an impressive show of strength, the new winner raised the body of the new loser and tossed it out of sight into the forest, covered by the trees and shrubs.

The females were excited as the new winner approached one of them. After choosing one, it nudged a female into the forest, making it seem like it was trying to find privacy for the deed.

The female, oblivious to what actually happened to the other male, followed along until they were both out of sight from the rest of the herd.

The female turned its back towards the new male, as if in anticipation for the act. The male then got on top of the female as if it was normal. The female felt something warm and rubbery touch it above its feminine entrance and was about to readjust itself, but then suddenly got pulled backward with the object being forced deep into the wrong opening.

The poor female was about to cry out, but its muzzle was suddenly blasted with something viscous that hardened very quickly to cut off its cry.

In its struggle it managed to turn slightly and see the creature that forced its way into it. The “male” started opening its body and spreading green viscous tendrils that slowly enveloped the female and pulled it closer into it.

The last sensation it felt was something being poured into its body that made it grow numb and slowly fade into blackness.

***

With this new couple of beasts secured, the little jelly will now have consumed four whole beasts. Only a couple more and it should have accumulated enough biological data to be able to completely utilize and alter this species’ genome.

Truthfully, it didn’t really like this method of securing prey since it played with its prey’s physiological needs, but it didn’t really have a choice in the matter since it still lacks a method to hunt other creatures efficiently.

Oddly enough, it felt like it could indeed procreate with these creatures as long as it decided to turn them into its gene anchor, but was clearly against it since they simply lacked any form of appeal towards it. It didn't even feel the slightest hint of sexual attraction towards the female earlier despite being genetically in the form of a male of its species.

As it continued to digest the female underneath it, it then planned its next steps in acquiring a predator genome. Since it already consumed the last of the two males in this area, it only needed to return to the remaining females and lure another two.

Since it was currently borrowing the form of a prey item, it felt like luring a predator will be an easier task. The only question is, how will it take down a predator that hunts the strongest beast it can currently turn into?