Vin had all of about a half second to panic as he shot through the air before he felt a band tighten around his core and the world lurched around him. Rather than becoming the first Earther on Edregon to fly from one fragment to another, he was snapped backwards, suddenly finding himself lying on the top of the wall beside Golrim, Spur, and Lumel right where he’d started.

  Letting out an appropriate groan after having gone from stationary, to hurtling through the air, to stationary once more, Vin struggled to focus his eyes.

  “That… was jarring.”

  “Thank the Gods it worked!” Lumel said, leaning down and pulling him into a hug. The small bits of her exposed gel-like skin felt fantastic on his burns, but the texture of her robe hurt like hell. “I know we tested Dimensional Anchor back in the sky fragment, but I was still worried!”

  Just in case he ended up sent flying from the force of the explosion, Lumel had cast Dimensional Anchor on him before his suicide attack on the monster. While they knew his divine boon would save him from blowing up, similar to what he’d told Alka, if the force of the explosion sent him flying, there was no telling where he would have ended up. And if he was knocked unconscious and the divine boon didn’t save him from meeting the ground once more, he’d become a Vin-pancake. Instead, Dimensional Anchor was cast so that if he moved a certain distance away from his initial point, he’d snap right back to it like someone bungee jumping through the fourth dimension. It was disorienting and not the most pleasant method of travel, but it worked.

  Lumel seemed to realize she was causing him quite a lot of pain pretty quickly, and she hurried to move back and feed him a health potion. Vin sighed as the rubbery liquid flowed down his throat and the magic swept over his body, doing its best to heal his horrific burns. Though while it offered him quite a lot of relief, it wasn’t enough to restore him completely from the damage the monster's acidic blood had caused. His skin had been melted completely away in a few spots, all the way down to the muscle. To his amusement, he actually looked like some weird, human-pulmon hybrid.

  On top of which, his clothing was looking a bit worse for wear. Or what was left of it anyway. While his enchanted boots seemed entirely fine, the rest of Vin's outfit was little more than melted rags at this point.

  Luckily for him, it seemed Lumel had prepared for this exact situation some time ago, as she quickly summoned a spare set of his clothes from her Dimensional Pocket and handed them to him with a bright red face. Giving her a sheepish grin, Vin quickly made himself decent once more. Ignoring the pain still racking his body and the handful of notifications the System was desperately trying to show him, Vin forced himself to his feet and followed Spur and Golrim’s worrisome gazes. They looked more concerned than anything, and he didn’t understand why until he spotted the smoking crater he’d created mere seconds ago.

  The attack had worked. The force of the explosion hadn’t just resulted in a deep crater, it had blown the monster completely in two, causing a massive portion of its body to be utterly destroyed.

  Resulting in the first reaction they’d actually gotten out of the gigantic ring of flesh.

  The two different parts of its body were twitching and writhing erratically, the head and tail of the monster raising up a few stories into the sky before slamming back down into the ground again and again, each strike sending powerful quakes across the ground that threatened to collapse the town walls. The fleshy-monsters attached to the tendrils were freaking out, the ones closest to the two ends of the body being dragged back and partially into the sky as the ends thrashed about.

  It looked like they’d successfully prevented the monster from coiling itself around town and crushing them all like a snake suffocating its prey.

  In exchange, they now had two giant fleshy worms to deal with.

  Not only that, but bits and pieces of the epic monster were raining down all around them, landing in the meadow, atop the wall, and even in town itself. The acid from within the monster wasn’t strong enough to eat through their buildings, but any bit that landed on exposed flesh caused horrific burns. Vin watched as already a handful of Earthers atop the wall began shouting and screaming as they were hit with bits of monster flesh that melted straight through their skin and muscle in seconds.

  “You saved the town,” Golrim said, conjuring an invisible barrier of air over his head to block a particularly large chunk of flesh before it could hit him in the chest. “Though we have a bit of a new problem, don’t we?”

  “It’s a bit early to be saying anything's saved,” Spur pointed out, frowning at the thrashing ends of the monster. “If that thing comes closer and keeps that up, it will smash straight through the wall and destroy everything anyway.”

  “Speaking of smashing through the wall…” Golrim craned his neck as he tried to look down and to the side. “Exactly how confident are you in your friend’s indestructibility?”

  “What do you-” Vin gasped as he spotted what Golrim was looking at. A portion of the town wall not far from them had been utterly destroyed, and people were helping one another out of the dust and rubble. A few Earthers were doing their best to yank Alka’s lifeless body out from under all the stone, but she seemed to be wedged in pretty bad.

  “Alka!” Vin shouted, before turning to look at Lumel. “Could you..?”

  “On it,” she nodded, taking his hand and warping them directly next to her body. Nodding his thanks, Vin ignored the screaming of his fresh skin as he dropped to his knees and grabbed the largest rock on her with his golem arm. In an electric flash of blue that blinded everyone nearby, he hurled the rock off to the side, not even caring about how heavy his arm suddenly felt as he freed Alka from her burial.

  “Alka, are you…”

  Vin paused, staring in confusion at the scene before him. Alka’s lifeless body was lying there before him, covered in dust and bits of stone, but that wasn’t all he saw.

  Sitting on her chest, leaning down and poking her face like it was trying to wake her up, was a tiny, one-foot-tall replica of Alka made entirely out of slime.

  No, not slime, he realized with a start, watching the small Alka continue poking her face. A schlime! And one I've seen before.

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Epli?!” he asked, startling the miniature Alka as it turned around. The moment it spotted him, its form shivered and morphed into a tiny him instead, complete with horrific burn wounds covering its entire body.

  “Friend,” Epli said, smiling at him with his own mouth before pointing to Alka. “Hurt.”

  “I can see that,” Vin said, still trying to figure out how on earth Epli had gotten here. “Wait… are you why Alka’s been acting so weird lately? Did you hitch a ride with her out of your fragment?”

  “Yes,” Epli said, nodding up at him. “Travel.”

  “I know you wanted to travel, but how-” Vin shook his head, realizing now was not the time for this conversation. “Never mind that. What happened?”

  “Explosion,” Epli explained, throwing its arms out wide. “Impact. Silent.”

  “So something about either the explosion or hitting the wall rattled her,” Vin murmured, wondering what could have happened. Maybe she short-circuited? Is that something that can even happen? She did hit the wall with an incredible amount of force. “Wait, Epli. You guys fed off of lightning in your fragment to survive. How has Alka been feeding you?”

  “Gem,” Epli said, tapping at the back of its head as it morphed back into Alka. “Mana.”

  “Okay, is there any way you can give some of that mana back to her?” Vin asked, tapping at the back of his head as well. “I’m not sure what happened to Alka, but we might be able to jolt her back awake, kinda like shocking a patient in a hospital. I’d try, but I’m not sure how to transfer mana directly into her own gem, and I’d be afraid of damaging it.”

  The last thing he needed was to accidentally blow Alka up rather than save her. They’d had enough explosions for one day.

  “Try,” Epli agreed, before transforming into a small ball of slime once more and moving over Alka’s face. Vin blinked as it flatted down and seeped into the thin space between Alka’s head and her helmet, answering the question of how the hell Alka had been hiding it all this time. As Epli vanished, Lumel leaned down and whispered.

  “Is that the schlime you said vanished out from under you guys?”

  “Yeah, though it looks like Alka took advantage of being alone with it to offer it a ride,” he said, still staring at Alka’s still face. There was something about her lack of glowing green eyes that disturbed him. It was like looking at a mannequin. “I don’t know why she felt the need to keep Epli a secret from us, but hopefully we can ask her ourselves soon enough.”

  A flash of green light radiated out from under Alka’s helmet, and the entire golem twitched as if its muscles had been moved involuntarily. A second flash blasted out, and suddenly, Alka jerked up into a sitting position, the glowing green balls of light that functioned as her eyes igniting as she gasped. It seemed despite the lack of lungs, certain habits died hard.

  “What happened?” she demanded, her head whipping around to take in Vin and Lumel. “Everything just went black all of a sudden, like Deorer used that stupid disruptor tool again.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I think you hit the wall hard enough to stun you,” Vin explained, tapping his head. “And then Epli revealed herself, of all things. I asked her to give back some of the mana you’ve been feeding her in the hopes it would jolt you awake. Why the hell do you have the missing schlime hidden away under your helmet?!”

  “Not the time,” Alka snapped, jumping to her feet and getting straight to business. “Did the plan work?”

  “We blew the monster in two, but now each half seems to be functioning independently of the other,” Vin explained, wincing at a devastating roar and impact somewhere off in the distance. Whoever the monster was fighting, he could only hope they were okay. “The town won’t be squeezed to death, but we still need to take down each half before the monster realizes it can just crawl over to us and start smashing.”

  “Alright. I’m going to go meet back up with the Slayers, you head back to the Strategist and see if she’s come up with anything yet,” Alka decided, climbing out of the remains of the wall and taking off back toward the battlefield. Following her orders, Vin and Lumel warped back to the top of the wall, surprised to find Frank of all people standing there beside Spur and Golrim.

  “Frank?” Vin blinked. “Shouldn’t you be in the hospital?”

  “Frank can see the health and status of living things,” Spur explained. “He’s one of our best bets at finding this monster’s weakness.”

  “Already found one,” Frank snorted, pointing at the giant crater Vin had created. “The massive gaping hole in each half. Shouldn’t need a fancy passive to see that.”

  “Obviously, we can see that!” Spur snapped. “Can you see anything else?”

  “Listen, you dolt,” Frank said, glaring at Spur and thrusting his finger harder toward the monster. “The monster is bleeding profusely. It will bleed to death soon enough, if you can keep it distracted.”

  “But it can regenerate,” Golrim pointed out. “Why not just seal the wound?”

  “Look,” Frank snapped, thrusting yet again toward the monster. “See what’s happening? The two halves are close enough that rather than seal each side it’s trying to reform.”

  Sure enough, Vin started as he realized Frank was absolutely right. Already the jagged hunks of flesh were beginning to regrow, and the two halves of the worm were stretching out toward one another, each half a few feet larger than they’d been a minute ago. Based on the speed of which the two sides were regenerating, Vin guessed they’d reform in only a few minutes.

  “We’ve got about four and a half minutes before the two halves reconnect,” Golrim said, his class allowing him to calculate the speed of regeneration in a fraction of a second. “Frank is right. Even as it’s growing, more and more blood is still flowing out. If we can keep the two sides from meeting, it should bleed to death before long.”

  “How long will it take for it to bleed to death?” Spur asked, turning toward Frank.

  “Dunno,” the Healer shrugged. “It’s a pretty big bastard, and I don’t know the rate it’s making new blood. Fifteen? Twenty minutes maybe?”

  “So we just need to spend that long hacking away at the regrowing portions and keep them from meeting up again?” Spur asked, his eyes shining with hope.

  “Well, yeah,” Frank nodded, scratching his chin as he stared at the monster. “And dealing with all that.”

  “All wha-”

  Spur’s voice faltered as he finally noticed what Frank had, and Vin was only a second behind them both. His face paled as he realized that new flesh wasn’t the only thing the monster was growing.

  It appeared the monster was prepared for something like this to happen, as both of the severed ends were now rapidly growing flesh tendrils with those imitation-monsters sprouting from each one. And not just a few dozen.

  Hundreds and hundreds of fake, elite-strength monsters were forming one after another, guarding the very location Vin and the Earthers needed to attack.

  why that happened as time goes on, but the party has secretly had an additional member for a little bit now haha (though she doesn't really do much, obviously).

  Discord