A vast number of Kaijin were quickly moving across the forest. As their bloodlust reached a fearsome high, all intelligent and sensitive creatures avoided their warpath.

Outside of the war parties, several people distinct from the Kaijin were traveling along with them. Standing out from the rest, an aged man in robes wearing a tattered wide-brimmed hat took the lead while pointing a flashing staff forward.

“It took some time, but it seems some of the Lakorn warriors have finally caught up with us. They’ll be a great help in the fight to come.” said Rikarn as he looked towards the great gathering of warriors all around.

“Mm. We’ll take as much help as we can get. Judging from the energy of the Nul traces we’re following, this Chimeric Bloom is on the verge of transforming into a Disaster. No matter what, we must stop it from any attempt it would make to absorb any more creatures.” replied Jortus as he continued to observe the markings they followed as revealed by the staff.

Hearing this, Uruwan voiced his concerns, “This will be difficult. The direction we’re heading leads to a medium sized goblin settlement. Their growth has stagnated over the seasons, but they’re an uncommonly intelligent bunch that managed to tame a manner of hounds and wolves they’ve come across.”

“I know of the horde you’re speaking of.” added Loen. “I’ve occasionally come to check on them from time to time to see if they ever get ambitious enough to go raiding. They’re decently strong. Last I confirmed, they had at least a couple of hobgoblins keeping the smaller gobs in check, but more surprisingly they’re led by a kobalos.”

Jortus raised his brows in surprise when he heard this, “Interesting. Kobalos are rare, but if this horde has one leading it then it has the potential to become dangerously large and cunning.” Jortus then narrowed his eyes as his words grew colder when he continued, “But this means we need to hurry. Even such a sizeable horde with a kobalos, wouldn’t last too long against that creature.”

Everyone nodded as they grimly understood. It cannot be allowed to feed or they’d have a bigger problem to face.

Jortus then turned to Uruwan with a serious expression, “Once we arrive, let me handle securing the children. The warriors will distract it, then once I’ve extracted them, I’ll leave it to you.”

“Consider it done old friend. That thing will pay a thousandfold for the agony it has caused our people.” Uruwan replied with a hint of cruelty in his voice.

Rakai kept silent throughout the entire exchange and only tightened his grip on his war hammer. His only thought was saving Misesha and the children at all costs.

***

On a raised earthen platform, a great grey beast was enjoying its meal with its two little ones.

Bones and other remains were splayed all around while a small mound of humanoid bodies was piled onto each other in the middle.

The two little pups haven’t seen so much food before so it was quite a sight seeing them frolic around looking for their favorite parts.

The little jelly yawned watching the two little ones peacefully. It already consumed all the biomass it needed, so it left all the excess meat for the two pups. Once they were full, it would consume the rest before they would leave.

It was in the middle of combining some gene strings when it felt something odd about the atmosphere. The natural sounds of other creatures that returned while they were relaxing suddenly disappeared, becoming unnaturally quiet.

Just like the time when the jelly attacked this encampment.

As soon as it thought this, it bolted towards the little pups and grabbed them.

No sooner than it did, something large crashed onto the platform directly above the pile of corpses.

With the pups in its jaws, the jelly turned around to look at their attacker when it was at a good distance.

Looking at the creature, it immediately became stunned. It was much taller than a maned beast, but sickly thin with its skin seemingly the only thing covering its bones. Odd bulb-like growths grew out of its skin from all over its main body. It had six limbs, two below and four on its upper body. Seeing its skeletal structure, it judged the creature to be bipedal.

What’s most eerie about it though, was that the skull of a horned beast appeared to be its head. The pair of horns on its head spiraled backwards in a chaotic manner, and black tendril-like hair grew out of its head and its lower body.

While staring at the abomination, it seemed to pay the jelly no heed as it held the remaining corpses and began to consume them as if they were its own prize.

The jelly felt annoyed at that, but was prepared to leave since the creature seemed dangerous. However, just as it was about to turn around, one of the creature’s arms stretched out at an incredible speed and tried to grab it.

Dodging the claw at the last second, the creature continued its assault despite it still eating the corpses. Seeing this, the jelly started becoming annoyed. This creature came out of nowhere, stole their food, and now it tried to attack them casually as if they were trifling prey.

Just as the hand was about to grab it again, the jelly finally had enough and grew a large appendage on its shoulder that had an enclosed fist to intercept it. The result was the larger fist summarily pounding the extended hand into the ground.

This got a reaction out of the creature as it stood up screeching in pain.

Looking at its mangled hand, it finally took the beast before it seriously. Upon first inspection, it looked like an ordinary wolf alpha with its two pups, but the humanoid arm extending from its shoulder showed otherwise.

Whatever this creature was, it was merely mimicking a wolf. The arm extending from it appeared to be that of a bear with the fist of a goblin.

It was… a changeling, morphling, whatever you want to call it. This meant that this creature was something similar to itself. Something extremely compatible with its growth.

The abomination let out a bloodcurdling cackling cry of excitement. It was at first disappointed when it couldn’t find the source of the roar and only found the settlement devoid of its inhabitants while seeing what it thought was one of their escaped tames.

Never did it imagine that the creature before it was its target all along. Not only that, but as luck would have it, it was the best supplement for its metamorphosis. The closer a creature was to its original existential composition, the better it would nourish and guarantee its transcension.

It now had only one thought. It must consume this beast at all costs.

The jelly became confused at its earlier display. It first cried out in pain when it injured its hand, then it suddenly made a cackling noise as if it seemed to be enjoying itself. Finding the creature revolting, the jelly tried to slowly walk away but before it could move, the creature abruptly turned towards it.

Wondering what it was going to do now, it almost got caught off guard when the creature suddenly lunged at it without warning, jaws wide open.

Inches away from being caught, the jelly unhesitatingly dove under it, running past its legs while avoiding the arms that tried to reach for it.

Trying to make a run towards the forest, the jelly suddenly felt something dangerous coming, forcing it to evade backwards. The ground where it was about to run to suddenly exploded, scattering dirt as something long black and bony protruded from the earth.

Turning around, the jelly saw the creature pull out multiple shards of bone from its horns. With its makeshift weapons in each of its hands, it then proceeded to hurl the spikes at it.

The force of the thrown spikes was devastatingly strong enough to even shatter stone. Seeing the damage it could cause, the jelly focused on avoiding them until it slowly realized the creature was trying to entrap them.

It had to do something quick since it will soon become completely encircled by the spikes. It decided it would empower its hind legs like a spring similar to when it struck the maned beast, but before it could put it into action, alarm bells started ringing in its head.

Sensing danger from above, the jelly looked up to see the creature was above them with six of its limbs spread out while holding onto bone spears with multiple long spines sticking out of the sides. It hurled all the spears at the same time while in midair, forcing the jelly to either dodge backwards or forwards.

Since it took more effort to dodge backwards, the jelly chose to dodge forward. A thunderous thud sounded behind it while narrowly avoiding the spikes, but it couldn’t evade the oncoming hit that struck it mid-evasion.

Preoccupied with avoiding the spears coming from above and around its sides, the creature knew the jelly would be forced to dodge forward with its quadrupedal form. At the moment it leapt out of the way, the creature threw a kick at its side before it could land on the ground.

The wind knocked out of it; the jelly was thrown to the side smashing onto the shaft of several bone spikes until it hit the trunk of a large tree. Minimizing its pain sensors, it stood up in a slight daze and tried to run once more, but stopped when it realized its jaws felt really light.

Looking back to where it got hit, it watched in horror as the two little pups were held in the creature’s hands.

Waving the crying pups at it as if to make fun of it, the abomination soon brought one of the pups to the side of its torso. Its skin disturbingly opened up and stretched to grab the little pup, enveloping it until it formed into a ball of flesh that stuck to its side like one of the bulbs.

Disturbed at what it saw, the creature’s next apparent action would soon break its reason.

Lifting one of the pups high in the air over its head, it then let go. Letting the wailing little thing fall… into its gaping maw.

Once more, the feeling arose. Once more, the program took hold. And once more… it would unleash unbridled destruction.

With preternatural speed, the jelly morphed into the hulking avatar of violence. And… like a thunderous bolt of lightning, struck forward.

The events happened simply too quickly. The creature wondered amusingly what the little changeling was going to do if it consumed one of its little pets. It learned early on that the two pups with it were nothing more than regular beasts. It didn’t understand why the creature burdened itself with the young of others, but it would make sure to take advantage of this weakness.

Somehow in its hubris, it had forgotten the fact that the corpses it consumed were monsters this beast had slain. Had it known how much greater the horde this beast had singlehandedly decimated, then perhaps it may have been more wary.

These thoughts of amusement were its last before its skull caved in and its head smashed through a thick trunk with the force of a cannon.

***