Morphling

On a hill overlooking the edge of the great forest, many armed warriors were preparing a camp. What was peculiar was that all the warriors either had ash, greyish red, or brick red skin and had horns. All these people were Kaijin.

As a red-haired single-horned Kaijin was looking over the forest, a black haired one with two horns walked up to his side.

“The Lakorn war party should be finished soon. I heard the Seed manifested close to their village, so their warriors managed to get a head start. Lakorn is larger than our village, so they should be able to deal with it without our interference.”

The red haired Kaijin, Rakai, sighed as he heard his brother’s words. “I trust the Lakorn, Rikarn. I’ve seen their young best ours in the last War God’s Reverie, so I know they’ll do a good job.”

Rikarn, his brother, shrugged as he crossed his arms. “Then why look so worried? Is it about that slime?”

Rakai remained silent as he closed his eyes. He may have kept quiet, but his brother understood him well.

Letting out a sigh, his brother placed his hand on his shoulder hoping to comfort him. “Listen… I know I’ve said this many times, but what happened back then wasn’t your fault. There was no way we would’ve known. Urumar wouldn’t have blamed you. You became a Seeker to honor him, did you not?”

“I became a Seeker… to know what our enemies could become. To know how we could fight them. And… to understand why we can’t ignore them. Back then, I should have listened to Urumar.”

Sucking in a breath and letting out a deeper sigh, Rikarn could only shake his head. The death of their best friend had always been a burden to Rakai. Things were complicated back then, but he knew his brother wasn’t at fault. No one blamed him, not even the Elder, but Rakai still fettered himself.

Just as Rikarn was about to say more, they suddenly heard yelling coming from the north of the camp.

They looked at each other briefly before wordlessly nodding in agreement. The two of them bolted towards the northern part of the camp to see what was happening.

When they arrived, they were shocked to see the Lakorn war party had returned with so many casualties. They heard that when they left, they had close to forty warriors, but now barely twelve remained.

Elder Uruwan stepped forward to assist the injured Kaijin leading from the front. “Chief Lakorn, what happened?”

“Urgh… we… were careless. What we thought was a simple Fallen Seed… was actually a Fallen Bloom. It… had a way to hide its energy locus. Very unpredictable… wouldn’t die… as long as there are bodies. Ugh.” Their chief, Lakorn, barely able to stand, fell to his knees as he responded.

This was bad. A Fallen Seed was already a problem, but for it to be a Fallen Bloom would mean it could turn into a Disaster.

Just as Uruwan tried to help him up, he grabbed Uruwan by the shoulders with urgency in his expression. “You… must hurry! It ran… before we could completely seal it. We lacked the strength… to chase it… moving… south…”

Lakorn fainted before he could finish, but the meaning of his words didn’t escape Uruwan’s or the others’ notice.

The Fallen Bloom was heading towards their village.

***

The great grey beast stood there motionless. Since it successfully consumed its nemesis, it should have been at ease, but it simply stood there motionless.

The remaining black beasts were worried and got closer, but as soon as they neared it, they all toppled over in pain.

As soon as they all turned into a twitching mess, their leader opened its mouth to reveal its contents. White vapor rose into the air as blood and innards poured out along with a pale-green blob.

The little jelly made another excessively risky gamble. Seeing their leader in trouble, it knew the other beasts would get in its way if it tried to attack it directly. In order for its final plan to succeed, it needed to make them think it was safe to keep biting at it and let itself grow smaller and smaller.

As a final measure, the little jelly consumed as much poisonous plant matter it could find within the two days prior to its hunt. Different kinds of fungal species were consumed and concocted in its system to form the most lethal poison it could. Combined with its own natural acids, it created an incredibly terrifying chemical cocktail.

The only problem was that it didn’t have the means to inject said poison into its prey. Lacking enough bio data on the tiny six-legged creatures from before, the stingers it created were melted off by the very poison they were supposed to inoculate.

With this option being blocked off, the only other way for it to transmit the dangerous chemicals was through its original body. The new problem was that it needed to have enough of itself within the beasts for its poisons to be effective. It wasn’t sure how potent it would be, so it made sure not to take any chances by letting itself be entirely consumed.

Seeing the reactions of the other black beasts, however, it seemed to have underestimated the potency of the cocktail.

Just as it was looking towards the other beasts, the great grey beast crumpled over. The jelly then hopped over to face it. It truly admired this species’ intelligence and tenacity. Seeing how they’ve fought, it had nothing but respect for them.

With its life draining away, the great beast’s breathing slowed as it stared at the little jelly. It resented it, but it also understood that this was simply nature. The strong consumed the weak and this creature was the strongest it had faced. Knowing its fate, it looked at the jelly with knowing eyes before it closed them and simply waited for its end.

Time passed slowly until the great beast breathed its last. When it passed, the jelly finally began its work.

Hours passed until it finally consumed all the bodies of the entire pack. Excited for another complete assimilation of a genome, it began its little experiments.

However, before it could start, it sensed an overwhelming presence observing it from beyond the mist.

Looking towards where it could feel the presence, all it saw was a great black undefinable silhouette. Confused, it looked upwards and became extremely terrified at what it saw.

A titanic beast unlike any its ever seen before, stared at it from above. Its presence and size were so overwhelming, it was the first time the jelly was paralyzed in fear.

“□□□□□ □□□□? □ □□□□□□ □□□□□□ □□□□□□□□.” 

The creature made unique sounds that seemed to string together. This was the first time it was encountering language, but somehow it understood it was trying to communicate. Unfortunately, the little jelly didn’t understand anything, so it only stared back in confusion.

“□□□ □□□□□□□□. □ □□□□□□□ □□□□□ □□□□ □□□□□□ □□□ □□□□.” 

The titanic beast continued to speak, but the little jelly could only wobble in reply. It was still afraid, but the titanic beast’s lack of hostility calmed it down a little. As the titanic beast observed it, it observed it in return.

“□□ □□ □□□□□□□ □□ □□□□ □□. □□□ □□□□□□□.” 

Seemingly content with itself, the titanic beast began to unfurl massive wings that blotted out the sky. Its sudden action blew away the mist that covered the basin, revealing the bright light of day shining upon the land.

“□□ □□□□ □□□□□ □□□□ □□, □□ □□□□□ □□□□ □□□□□ □□□□□□ □□□.” 

After one final message, the titanic beast flew away into the distance.

The little jelly was in complete awe. Never would it have imagined such a creature to exist. Not only was its presence almighty, it even had the level of intelligence to communicate in such a unqiue way. Its goal is to one day reach the peak of existence, and seeing this creature for the first time made it burn with ambition.

Looking around from where the creature took off, it found some shedding and a few large scales. Seeing this, it immediately went to greedily consume as much of the remains as it could.

The scales were incredibly dense, with the first one nearly taking it the entire morning. With each new scale it consumed, the process became increasingly easier and faster.

After finding no more remains, it then began to reflect on the recent encounter. Understanding its own properties, with how much biomatter that creature possessed and counting the remains it consumed, it immediately understood that it only needed to consume one such creature to completely assimilate its biological data. Perhaps one day it would find one it could consume, as it felt amiable towards the one that showed it mercy while leaving behind some gifts.

Nearing evening, the little jelly felt like heading back home. Before it does, however, it remembered it needed to make one last little detour.

– - –

Just as night came, the little jelly finally arrived at the hill where it found the pack.

As soon as it arrived, it immediately searched for the corpse of the alpha’s young. Currently in the form of the great grey beast, it found that its sense of smell was incredibly refined. In no time at all, it was able to locate the corpse.

It felt that leaving the corpse was such a waste, so it decided to come back and consume it. Thankfully, none of the forest slimes seemed to have to picked up on it yet.

Just as it was about to begin consuming it, it suddenly heard familiar weak cries coming from behind a rock on the hill.

Curious, it decided to follow the cries and found a small opening from underneath the rock. When it got closer, two small white bundles of fur suddenly ran out and jumped at it. It felt no hostility from the action, so it didn’t defend itself out of reflex.

Seeing the two small fur bundles, it came to realize the two were the offspring of the black beasts. Seeing the two small creatures frolicking around it, it believed that they may have mistaken it for their parent.

Upon this realization, the little jelly blanked in confusion as it was left with a strange dilemma.

***