While the Dominus Fortitudinis continued regenerating, I alternated between mopping up the slime on the floor, and using the mana it gave to spit out globs of oil at the writhing mass. I’m not quite sure why the explosion was able to affect the Dominus Fortitudinis, considering it should have just been able to ignore the force behind it. My best guess is that the oil, when mixed in with the slime, confused the brainless creature and made it consider the force behind the explosion its own. Whatever the case, I may need to take advantage of it again.

I noticed a rumbling out of the corner of my eye. The converging mass of slime took shape into a fist, and shot out toward me. Though diluting the Dominus Fortitudinis had slowed it significantly, it was still much faster than I am, and far bigger. I skirt to the side, transforming into another slime, barely missing my dodge by inches. The blow sent what was left of me flying and splattering hundreds of feet across the village cavern, but did not outright kill me. Of course, preventing my death wasn’t the point of transforming into a slime.

When slime meets slime, rather than spreading the liquid throughout itself, the slime body will eject the foreign matter that mixes with its own. If left alone, the mixed slime would eventually become a baby slime. Of course, the stronger slime can choose to re-absorb the mass before that happens if they so choose, unless the ejected blob is destroyed or moved somewhere it can’t be touched. Somewhere like, for example, a subspace.

And launched along with my splattered body was said blob, which I immediately phased to my subspace.

The Dominus Fortitudinis spread out, immediately re-absorbing the remainder of its slime and returning to its preferred form.

I returned to oil toad form, jumping to and eating a nearby goblin corpse, and pushing the fact that I technically just mated with a monster to the furthest recesses of my mind.

I pelted the Dominus Fortitudinis with oil as it ran forward, crushing tents and houses beneath its weight. Its front arm extended, turning its palm metallic and hardened — something I can’t merge with and dilute — as it reached me. I expanded a portal in front of me, hoping to capture some of the hardened webbing inside the portal directly. Instead, the portal somehow blocked the attack.

“Not what I expected, but this works too. Unstoppable force, meet immovable object.” I croaked. The portal shortly distorted, overloading with the force mana itself. Before it fully faded, I lashed my tongue out and around the portal, turning into a slime where the tongue touched the monster.

Our bodies merged, my slime mixing with the arm’s mana and cutting off the hand. I shifted back into a toad and phased the mixed slime into my subspace. The Dominus Fortitudinis quickly reshaped its arm and stabbed at me, interrupting my attempt to lick up and swallow the hand.

I jumped away, but it reshaped and bent to follow me, shooting out and piercing into my leg. I croaked out in terror, and the arm shoved itself down my gullet. I shifted into slime form, cutting off the slime inside me, to which the Dominus Fortitudinis responded by wrapping me in more and more slime, then hardening a cocoon around me.

I cut my losses, phasing the merged slime as I portaled back to my subspace from within the cocoon.

* * *

Damn it! It’s learning how to fight me faster than I can learn how to fight it. I can turn into a slime, so it counters by hardening itself. I learned I can use my portal as a shield. Its filter works both ways to prevent any living thing from entering as well as leaving, and since the portal isn’t a tangible object, force does not directly apply. but it can overload and destabilize the portal just by touching it. And to top it all off, it’s just plain old faster than me.

But there’s no need to panic. Not yet, anyways. It’s faster than me, so I’ll focus on slowing it down. Then I’ll need an army of slimes to match it, so an army I shall be. It is stronger than me, but can it outlast me? If it kills me, I’ll just come back again.

* * *

I returned to the Scolopendra section I’d prepared, and shifted only a single section back to another toad form.

The Dominus Fortitudinis stared back and forth between me and the cocoon it had trapped me in. After a moment’s hesitation, it raised one of its arms in the air, hardening a strand of slime into a silver spear, concentrating most of its mana in the tip.

It launched the spear, blowing away rubble and what few structures remained with a sonic boom. I leaped forth, dodging the spear, only for my forward momentum to be reversed by the shockwave, then blown forward again when the spear detonated where it landed.

My mana drained as both shockwaves pelted against my mana-enhanced skin, giving me the wherewithal to continue my forward charge and pelt the Dominus Fortitudinis with another blot of oil.

The Dominus Fortitudinis responded by making 8 more spears.

* * *

I returned to my subspace, my previous form torn apart, but my spirit unwavering. I ate another polypus, and returned to the fight once again.

* * *

I dug beneath the Monster, using the rock-worm form to approach, and slime form to block the spears the Dominus Fortitudinis drilled into the ground at me. I surfaced beneath the monster, who body slammed down onto me, a second too late to prevent me from phasing out another wave of water.

* * *

Again.

* * *

I drilled beneath the Dominus Fortitudinis, to which it responded by walking away from the hole I was digging. I shifted tactics again, shifting into the illusory image Dolosus Lupus, spreading out to surround it with false copies. It launched a barrage of spears at us all, to which I portaled in at the moment of impact. It shattered from the overload of mana, but I immediately remade it and returned back out again. The Dominus Fortitudinis retreated, trying to maintain its distance from the illusory pack. But after diluting it again and again, reducing its strength and increasing its mass, it could no longer outrun me.

It thrashed and thrashed against my illusions, but hit nothing but air and rock. I reached it, and dove right into its mass, shifting into slime, merging with it, phasing in the resulting mixture, and repeating. It hardened a layer around me, to which I shifted again and jumped out before it could enclose me. It struck out at me with another hardened palm, smashing into me mid-air, but not immediately killing me through my mana barrier.

It’s weak. It can’t kill me instantly anymore. It’s weak. It’s weak. It’s weak.

I cackled maniacally as I jumped off of its palm, and back onto its main body, merging and phasing again.

The monster responded quicker this time, and when I jumped away once more, shot out a spear instead of a palm, one strong enough to tear through my mana barrier.

* * *

Again.

* * *

Again.

* * *

Again, Again, Again, Again, Again, Again, Again, AGAIN!

* * *

My target was on the retreat now. Inching and running away through the tunnels. But it’s not enough. I ran out in front of it, phasing out a boulder to block off the tunnel. “Ah ah ah, no escape” I laughed, wagging my finger.

It inverted to face me, throwing another spear at me. I shifted again, taking the flesh alligator’s form, letting the spear pierce into and through me. “Weak” I smiled “Not even a shockwave? I’m disappointed.”

I pulled the spear through me, letting it fall to the floor, and my flesh alignment stitch up the damage as I advanced. My prey lashed its arms against me weakly, tearing off limbs, but nothing enough to kill me. I grabbed one of its arms, and slowly took a bite, making sure only to apply just enough pressure to cut off a section, rather than let it gain mana from the bite. It wiggled delightfully as it went down my gullet, unable to inch its way back to its body through my stomach.

What little remained of my meal rolled itself back into its long, thin travel form, drilling into the ground beneath it. I cut off most of the remainder of its body before it could dig very far, turning it to more pre-baby-slime to add to Rhannu’s collection (He’ll be so thrilled, I’m sure!) before worming my way after the attempted escapee.

I bit into the slime again, and it panicked, curling into a ball and trapping the rest of itself inside of its own hardened cocoon. But it’s too late, only a few feet in diameter. Just a little too small.

I transformed into my very first form, the former Ostean Giant Flytrap, and opened wide, tearing the edges of my mouth, then chomping down to eat it whole, web and all.