"Harden Skin!"

"I'll kill you! I'll kill youuu!!!"

A large number of heavy swings of the Soma's sword rained down onto Lestia's arms, which were already solidified with her Harden Skin.

But it was still chipping away at her health. I still had her Status Window up just in case, so I could see the consistent decreases in her health.

Health 3,879/4,200 Mana 4,000/4,200 Health 3,650/4,200 Mana 4,000/4,200 Health 2,131/4,200 Mana 4,000/4,200

At the third strike with the Sword of Bloodwell, Lestia's life fell to a little over half of her health bar.

-SHRIIIINNNGGG

A shrilling noise came from the repeatedly battering. It was loud enough...

...to alert the Abomination again.

"Wha-! Harden Skin!"

Another 100 MP was consumed.

?! Was that a critical hit?! Lestia took way more damage on that hit, she's on orange numbers now?! Fuck, it's aware of us again too... Urghhh...!!! We don't have time to play here!

"M-master, this woman...! It's okay to kill her... right?! Yes... yes... we have... no choice after all... huhu... It's kill or be killed after all..."

"!!!"

Lestia's face lit up as she said that, her mouth curled into a smile... probably unconsciously.

Character: Lestia. Race Instinct triggered; Monster Aptitude has been raised by 1%. [11%]

I knew it...! Lestia gets this curse percentage increased, everytime she succumbs to her lust for killing... Even thinking about it had already increased it...!

"Oi! Disregard attacking, keep up your defenses and hold her at that position! Use your Banner of Protection while keeping up your Harden Skin. If the armor points for Harden Skin wears off, recast it instantly! Hold your Slime Veil, you'll cast it on that mad woman over there and leap backwards immediately when I give you the signal to! Did you get everything?!"

"DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE!"

"Tch! ...On her?! WHY?!"

"Don't ask why. Just do it, steady your defenses and keep her here until I give you the signal!"

"! ...O-okay, I...I got it... Banner of Protection...!"

Lestia did not seem to budge, so I had to compel her to an order with my Aspect of a Ruler. Fortunately, it seemed to hold enough influence over Monster Aptitude. Lestia immediately became docile and nodded, a tinge of fear present on her face.

Banner of Protection LV1 consumed 2000 MP, to grant Physical Damage Resistance LV5, Magic Damage Resistance LV5 and Displacement Resistance LV5 to all party members including the user for 5 minutes; increasing the defense and magic defense of party members and herself. This effect was doubled with the ceremonial sword she had unsheathed with a grown tentacle coming out of her chest. Her two hardened hands were occupied with Soma's relentless attacks after all.

Incidentally, Harden Skin worked in the form of armor points. And it was considered extra health points and would convert 70% of the physical damage taken and reduce that from those points. When activated, this Active Skill would turn into a Passive Skill. Moreover, when it reaches 0, Harden Skin would lose its effectiveness and would need to be recast again. LV1 of this ability would net 100 armor points, and scale by another 100 with each increasing level.

Lestia's Harden Skin was at LV MAX, which was technically LV11, so the total armor points she would receive from each cast of Harden Skin was 1100. Adding Snowfall's 20% bonus effectiveness increase to its wielder's Passive Skills raised each cast to 1,320 armor points.

The fact that Soma's critical hit from that last swing had taken out so much of her health and broke Harden Skin along with that chunk of health, showed how powerful Soma was in an extended slugfest even without using her sword skills.

Additionally, I needed Soma to sacrifice herself for this gamble. If she dies once, it should bring her to the Soul Forest forcefully. That goddess should remove her Chaos Serum and bring her back safely, since she's also a problem created by the Parasites...

Ruler... should be there... probably...

Are you... OUT OF YOUR MIND?! GET ME BACK IN THE BODY! NO-

I quickly stuffed White back into his inner consciousness. My role was not finished, I had to see this through.

...She should... Trust me, I don't like to do this to my woman either... but we have no other choice. She is beyond reasoning. The only way to clear her head is through this method only. ...It's a gamble, after all.

All of this was also dependent on Soma's remaining mana, so we had to do this quickly before Soma exhausted everything trying to take out Lestia's defenses. I didn't want a repeat of Inaho's incident after all, since I needed a Passive Skill aside from Immortality converted before she passed on. Soma was still under the influence of my Aspect, so I could see her remaining mana points.

"ARGH, STEP ASIDE ALREADY!!! Breakmoon! Breakmoon! Breakmoon! Breakmoon!"

A series of shockwaves created invisible explosions in the air.

It was down to a little under 1000 now.

Health 3,956/4000 Mana 940 (+939/41,655)

"WHY! WHY! WHY! WHY! WHY! WHY!"

Soma swung her blade mindlessly, stricken with rage from her repeatedly failing attempts of repelling Lestia away from me.

"Kuhhh!!! Harden Skin!"

And another 100 MP was consumed.

Lestia was an impeccable wall. But for how long... Soma's mana consumption was an issue too. I was playing a mental game of MP see-saw at this moment, except that I had no control over the outcome. I needed Lestia to defend with all of her mana, while keeping Soma in check with her own limited amount of MP which I needed to preserve some of for my plan.

Although it would be detrimental to face the Abomination without any mana left over, I had already decided that I would cross the bridge when that time comes.

For now, staying alive was the top priority. Still...

...Tch... We are racing with time here. She is definitely going to use even more skills like this...! Please... you fucking monster... come faster already...!!!

The sound of steel clashing with steel continued to resound within the cave, which had now completely drawn a complete focus from the Abomination.

! That's it... come here... come here quickly...

Soma had an ugly expression cast on her face. With her body coated in pitch black bloodlust, she had not noticed the impending presence behind her.

...Unless, she no longer cared in the slightest about anything else; the trajectory of her sword would always swing towards Lestia, which would be repulsed with her high defense immediately after. Soma's tunnel vision had become so narrow, that it had made her focus even more stronger.

While the two tangled in their dance of death, the Abomination slobbed towards us uninterruptedly, its various heads planted all over its body groaning and screaming as it did. More than a battlecry, it felt more like cries of despair... from the humans and elves consumed within that absurdity.

My face wrinkled slightly at the thought of its origins.

It was a result of failed Alchemy. ...Peeking into the memories of Lestia through White's Origin, both of them were aware of the malformed creature's roots... but only Kuro took in the graphic side of that memory for White.

...Yes. In an attempt to revive Inaho, Lestia had done something unimaginable.

...The corpses of her classmates in the Stalite Caves, she had preserved them somewhere discreet without Tricia's knowledge. And attempting to learn the ability Mana Angel from Arakawa Yanagi, the bookworm Cleric to implant artificial mana values into Inaho's body which Tricia had held hostage of.

This experiment... had given her the title: Mad Scientist involuntarily... and caused something to form in place of a miracle. It had created the inverse.

...It began as a harmless substance stored in one of her various Empty Flask she had obtained from the emptied High-Grade Elixirs the heroes had consumed during an internal conflict with Kains.

Then, as Lestia attempted to use Slime Veil on the substance to store that property of the Passive Skill: Mana Angel LV MAX, it happened.

The substance started to become thicker, exploding itself out of the flask due to its surging size. The contents spilled to the surroundings, where it began to move.

At first. It sucked in the nearby grass.

Then it moved dangerously close to Lestia's feet, back when she was still using the body of an elf.

Unable to escape in time, the substance created from her Alchemy had taken its first body. It used her as a core.

Gaining all of her Slime physical properties and abilities through the Slime Veil planted on that body double.

Lestia's main body was somewhere else in the cave at that time. Hidden... consuming grass repeatedly in an attempt to multi-task the various ways she had theorycrafted in an attempt to revive Inaho. She had goblins in the cave doing work as well. Every single one of her summons, worked like a hive mind. That was another unique characteristic of a Queen Slime's Slime Veil; coordinated control. Lestia had the powerful ability to coordinate a hive mind with her extensions of herself using Slime Veil.

And because of this distribution, she had neglected the fact that all of the heroes' corpses were located near the place she was experimenting her Alchemy with. She didn't have spare hands to deal with situations like this. ...When she had sent some of her summons over to stop the substance, it was already too late.

It had already consumed the remaining heroes. And took the summons' lives along with them as well.

Lestia was at a loss.

The alchemic lifeform had successfully taken various powers, and was beginning to gain a more sentient mind as it had usurped the identities of certain individuals which were kept in a vegetable state due to Lestia's Slime Veil that barely kept them alive, just like with Inaho.

But they were not pure emotions at birth. Carrying along all of their grief, sorrow, horror, anger, fear... the Abomination took on their feelings and inherited the persona of a dark, miasmic creature. Bent on destroying all life, devouring everything in its path. With its newfound powers, it rampaged the caves uncontestedly, dwindling the numbers of the monsters and elves around like a Grim Reaper.

As it got more powerful by absorbing even her summons which happened to stumble into it in the process, word of this lifeform had spread to the elves which were governing the mines from the surface. The creature was posing a genuine threat to the surface, so the Matriach Diet elders had to act to preserve the village. They wanted to remove all possible risks.

...And thus, it was sealed.

"Haahhh... haaahhh...Fuck! Fuck...! Fuck..."

Soma was almost running on empty at this point. Her swings were getting sluggish as well; a look of desperation hung on her face. She still had not given up, and was putting perhaps even more force into each swing. I also noticed, that the durability of the Sword of Bloodwell had decreased by a small number, although not as significant as her lack of MP currently.

She could not use the Active Skill of her Demonic Blade to end this too, because she did not slay anything with it recently. Of course, she had killed a village swarming with guard elves earlier, but the effective time frame to utilize Bloodwell Expend had already expired.

Durability: 9,210/9,999 Mana 131 (+130/41,655)

"Haahhh... haaahhh...so persistent...!!! Ha... Harden Skin...!!!"

But Lestia was not looking too great either. Even her untouchable defenses were beginning to show fatal openings, although Soma was equally too slow to capitalize on them. She didn't have enough to cast another Banner of Protection as well, and could only use one more Harden Skin before running dry.

Her health was now in dangerous territory, as it had finally fallen down to red numbers. Lestia's Immortality had been removed from her Status Window, so reaching 0 HP would finally be fatal to the unkillable slime she had once been. This was probably what Ruler had meant when she mentioned about the world's balance.

But right now, I hated that fact.

If only she had it still, this would have been a completely different situation altogether...!

Health 578/4,200 Mana 100/4,200

Of course, she still had many consumables in her Item Bag that she could drink to recover MP, but Soma was not giving her any semblance of opening to do so. Soma was an experienced adventurer that was keeping Lestia at full attention.

Come closer... please.... come closer...!!!

...As if answering my prayers, the Abomination picked up speed; as if its snail pace moments ago was a lie. Had it evolved even further after completely digesting all of those elves inside of its body?

I didn't know the truth, but its agility had definitely increased drastically. It was gaining on our position, where Soma and Lestia was at a deadlock which was nearing its end.

!!! ...Okay... almost... almost there...!

I thought in my mind, as the conditions finally started to lay in place. The Abomination flowed closer with its viscous body.

And closer.

And closer.

And closer...!!!

Now, it was right in front of us. The Abomination raised a portion of its body shaped like a foot.

Its target was clear.

The cave which was originally illuminated by the moonlight, had darkened all of a sudden. This sudden loss of vision did not impair Soma too much, who had her perception from her Passive Skills, but she regained a portion of her senses as something this peculiar happened.

A large shadow was cast on us.

And in this moment, I yelled out, running backwards as I did so.

"NOW!"

"!"

Hearing this, the grievously wounded Lestia leapt away from Soma as instructed, and held out her right hand with a hand gesture; assuming the stance that implied the invoking of an ability.

"...SLIME VEIL!"

Lestia called out. There were no issues with MP there, since it was an Active Skill that did not have a mana cost... and it was just enough to convert a Passive Skill that did require mana to be transferred over with Slime Veil.

Slime Veil LV1

Target individual to create an intangible and transparent Slime Veil around them.

Slime Veils last until target individual dies or experiences a debuff strong enough to negate the effects of Slime Veil.

Slime Veil copies all Passive Skills the caster owns over to the target individual.

(Any Passive Skills that has the potential to expend resources which the target individual does not possess at the time of casting Slime Veil, will not be applied until Slime Veil is recasted with the target individual possessing enough resources to use the skill/s.)

A translucent thin blue film covered Soma when Lestia had called out the skill name, and quickly became invisible a moment later.

Soma's pacing was slower, and it got even more so when she saw us retreating in coordination.

Finally, her warning signals from her body sprung her head up to look on top of her. Before even realizing what was about to happen, a voice leaked out of her mouth.

"Eh?"

-SPLAT.