Leaving the two furballs in their nest as morning came, the jelly made sure to close the entrance in order to keep them safe. Its current plan was to head down towards the lake then hunt whatever isolated beast it could find.

Of course, despite being in the form of a predator, it hadn’t forgotten that the beast it chose was a pack hunter. While it had keen eyesight, smell, and hearing, it didn’t possess as much speed, bulk, or natural stamina as the horned beasts. However, this was easily offset by the fact that their late leader, the grey beast, could use a mysterious power. Unfortunately, due to the sudden baggage it had come to carry, the jelly hasn’t fully grasped the means to use it yet.

The use of said power it displayed when it chased after the two little furballs before they fell was more an instinctual display borne out of panic. To be able to freely use said power was something still out of its reach, let alone being able to disperse it like how the grey beast did with its black minions.

This was actually quite surprising to the jelly as it previously believed that once it consumed the beast, it would come to understand its biological functions and that manipulating the energy would come naturally.

Never did it expect that the energy required personal mastery over its use.

Perhaps this would explain why the other beasts couldn’t use it and only the grey one could, hence why it became their leader. Regardless, this power was still outside of its means, so it could only rely on its biological enhancements for now.

Just as the jelly was pondering on how it could combine the traits of the two genomes it currently has in its possession, alarm signals suddenly went off in its head forcing it to quickly jump out of whatever it felt was coming its way.

As soon as it moved, the area it was previously standing on was smashed by something heavy and powerful, sending dirt and rocks flying all over.

When the dust cleared, the attacker revealed itself to be one of the massive maned beasts.

It glared at the jelly with fierce eyes while snarling at it. Up close, the maned beast was a towering behemoth that dwarfed the grey beast at least three times over. Brown thick-looking fur surrounded its entire body with a thicker layer of it covering the back of its neck. Finally, a long terrible looking scar marred its large nose at the end of its muzzle.

The jelly instantly recognized this particular maned beast. It was the one that fought and got driven away by the pack the jelly hunted down in particular. It remembers seeing the grey beast dealing a blow to its muzzle causing it to bleed then run away.

If it came back, then it must have somehow sensed that the pack’s presence was no longer as thick within the area. This is bad since that would mean the maned beast will now try and take over as the dominant predator of the region. Worse still, the jelly was currently in the form of the grey beast that injured it.

Putting all these things together, the jelly understood that it was once again left with another frustrating predicament.

As if to answer its misery, the maned beast let out a deafening roar as it charged towards the jelly.

***

Time seemed to slow as Rakai ran as quickly as he could towards the village’s northern great hall. His heart felt like it would leap out of his throat at any moment.

What Kirili did wasn’t wrong. She only followed their village’s safety measures and placed their daughter in one of the village’s designated safe houses. The problem was that the Fallen they are facing this time was too much of an anomaly.

This was why as soon as he got his answer from Kirili, he immediately ran towards the mentioned location while empowered by mana to his fullest.

As the northern hall came into view, his fears intensified when he saw that there was no one watching over the building’s entrance. No matter how dangerous their situation, there were always armed warriors tasked with watching over the safehouses in case any damage would escalate so that immediate action could be made.

Not letting his imagination grow wild and throwing caution to the wind, Rakai opened the hall’s entrance with extreme violence. Immediately, his nose was assaulted by a vile rotting smell.

Almost dazed by the putrid odor, Rakai collected himself and forcibly looked on towards the end of the great hall.

There, on the stage overlooking the entire hall, it sat.

Sensing the newcomer’s glare, it stirred itself from its position and stood.

Standing ramrod straight at eight feet tall, it was much smaller than the remnant of itself that was slain. It had a gaunt humanoid body with its skin being the color of ash. It had four arms that ended with four fingered hands with black sharp nails. On its waist and on its head dangled black squirming worm-like hair. Still sporting twisted antlers with an oil-like dark green luster, its head was that of a skull of a stag but with interwoven muscles lacking skin. The creature stared back at Rakai with its sinister bright-green glowing eyes.

Rakai was shaken. Littered across the hall were multitudes of desiccated bodies. Their eyes hollowed, each of their expressions locked into the last vestiges of despair and terror. Worse still, some bodies appeared bloated while standing still, something writhing beneath their flesh. The most disturbing thing about the strewn bodies was that there were no small figures or corpses. Just what did it do with the children?

Seeing the aftermath of this creature’s handiwork, the gnawing fear in his mind turned into boiling rage as he churned all the mana within his body to the limit. Whatever this creature did, it needed to die.

In an explosion of wood and dust, Rakai charged towards the Fallen channeling all his rage into a fearsome attack. Despite the sudden attack, the creature merely tilted its head in reaction as if in wonder.

Not caring about its actions, Rakai swung his bone war hammer to crush its chest, aiming for its Heartseed. However, before it could connect, Rakai forcibly stopped his attack inches away from its target as a cold shiver ran down his spine.

All over the creature’s body grew large tumor-like growths. Just as Rakai was about to strike it, one of the tumors opened up to reveal the head of a little girl.

Misesha.

Horrified by what he almost did, Rakai was stunned as he lost his momentum. Completely unguarded, the creature stabbed his shoulder with one of its clawed fingers, drawing blood.

Rakai jumped backwards but found that he suddenly could no longer draw strength. Black ooze leaked from his shoulder as he realized the thing must have poisoned him.

The creature half-raised one of its arms and made a motion as if crushing an object with its fingers. Suddenly, two of the bloated corpses twitched then leapt with preternatural speed towards Rakai’s sides, grabbing his shoulders to forcibly make him kneel while holding him down.

The creature’s eyes raised into a crescent shape as if it found glee in what it was about to do.

From its antlers, a spike elongated and separated from the rest as it fell onto its hand forming a spiral spear, dripping blackness at its end.

It then raised the spear as it prepared to stab Rakai.

Time seemed to slow as he saw the creature bring down the cursed object. Rakai never closed his eyes as he slowly thought about his death… but he would soon wish he could in the next few moments.

With the terrible sound of pierced flesh, the lance stabbed through… but not at Rakai.

Before him, Kirili stood. The evil thorn piercing through her back along with the echoes of the creature’s bone-chilling laughter.

***

The little jelly narrowly avoided the maned beast’s strike once again as its thunderous blow caused stone and dirt to erupt once more.

Seeing its mass and the force of its attacks, the jelly believed that this beast possessed the means to control that mysterious energy as well.

Instead of balance, it seemed that the maned beast preferred enhancing its raw power. This gave it a small sense of relief. If the maned beast was as intelligent as the black-grey beasts, it would have instead enhanced its speed instead of its power when dealing with the jelly’s current form.

Seeing its mass, the jelly understood it already possessed a great amount of strength, enough to easily crush even a male horned beast, so enhancing its power was redundant. In fact, each time it struck the ground it caused a cloud of dust to interrupt its field of vision and its sense of smell, so it had to look for the jelly each time it did so.

Seeing how clumsy this creature was, the jelly was once again miffed at itself for previously thinking that such a creature was ever worthy of being its gene anchor. Even if it was a top existence in this forest, it was simply a brutish creature that prided itself in its strength.

Combining the best attributes of the two genomes it possessed, the jelly was successful in creating an enhanced form that borrowed the features of both the horned beast and the grey-black beasts.

Its form was that of a large black-brown furred beast that had the overall body of the grey-black beasts with the horns and leg muscles of the horned beast. It was also significantly larger as it neared the size of the maned beast.

Intimidated at the sudden change of its prey, the maned beast stood on its hind legs as it let out a mighty roar. No longer did it recognize the jelly as prey, but instead as a challenger to its dominion.

The jelly hasn’t fully tested the effectiveness of this form yet, but it was left with little choice as it knew the maned beast would never leave it alone. Not to mention the two little furballs it decided to take under its protection, it was determined to defeat this creature to remove its threat for good.

The two beasts glared at each other with both refusing to make the first move.

Silence permeated throughout their standoff, as both creatures seemingly refused to budge. Time moved on, but the first to lose its patience was the maned beast.

Since it could no longer stand the wait, it recklessly charged at the jelly with all of its power. The jelly, as if responding in kind, charged towards it as well with its horns facing forward.

Just as they were about clash, the maned beast raised its paw to make a wide slash, but instead of taking it head on, the jelly dodged upward leaping onto its back. With its swipe missing, the jelly took this opportunity to sink its fangs onto its back, but immediately let go when it felt the resistance.

Its fur was incredibly thick. The jelly felt like it was biting through something incredibly tough and wiry, with little to no chance of it piercing through.

Enraged at it missing and its enemy’s attempt at biting it, the maned beast charged mindlessly at it again. Not knowing how to attack it yet, the jelly chose to avoid its attacks for now in order to tire it out.

After several exchanges, the maned beast started foaming at the mouth. Seeing its exhaustion, the jelly felt like it was the best time to take another risk.

While avoiding another attack, this time the jelly made sure to lure the maned beast towards a group of trees with some large low-hanging vines.

Carelessly attacking, it wasn’t long until the maned beast entangled itself in the vines. Seeing this opportunity, the jelly leapt backwards and prepared a familiar attack.

Its massive horns twisted into the shape of a large spiral horn at its forehead. It then positioned its body low on the ground, finding anchors in place as it twisted its muscles nearly in the shape of a spring. Doing this was incredibly painful, but it endured it as it slowly transformed into something like an organic spring-loaded lance.

The maned beast roared just as it was almost free, but before it was completely untangled, the jelly launched itself with the force of a cannon.

Causing a deep depression on the earth where it stood, the jelly exploded forward in an incredible show of power.

The maned beast could only watch as the lance appeared near-instantaneously before its opened jaws then proceeded to tear through its head starting from its throat.

The maned beast instantly turned into a ragged piece of meat as the jelly victoriously plowed through the side of a large tree.

Successfully, the jelly was not only able to defeat one of the top predators of the region, but also succeeded in creating a powerful attack.

Now, it would’ve already been celebrating its victory and enjoying the rewards of its kill, but its last attack completely drained it of most of its stamina.

Not to mention its currently pitiful situation of needing to unscrew itself from said tree.

***