The jungle didn’t grow quiet.
It curled inward.
Thick with heat. Too thick.
Rell felt it first — a shift in the dirt underfoot. Then a crackle. A slurp.
A slime shot from the canopy. Viscous, oily green. Thick enough to burn through bark where it landed.
Rell raised a hand, flame already forming.
[SPEAKS]
“…No eat today.”
He fired. It screamed — not from pain, but excitement.
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It wasn’t alone.
Five slimes fell. Then ten.
Selena pulled her staff, flared fire around her like a shield.
Rell moved through them with fists and fire — ducking, weaving, crushing gelatin with every strike.
He swept one aside and slammed another with a heel kick that exploded its core.
But as the last one hissed and retreated —
Selena stumbled.
Her breath shortened.
Eyes unfocused.
“I… something—”
She collapsed.
Hours passed.
He dragged her to shelter — a cave ringed by moss and thorn roots.
She didn’t wake.
Her skin glowed faint green.
Veins like vines running up her side.
[THOUGHTS]
Not fever. Poison.
He tore through her things — something she’d never let him do if she were conscious — and found it: a field journal.
He flipped.
Beast entries. Arcane resistances. Habitat warnings.
[THOUGHTS]
There.
“Slime Class. Poison-blooded. Cure — Blood of the King.”
He stared at her.
Covered her carefully in his cloak.
Then walked into the dark.
[SPEAKS]
“…I come back. Burn all if not.”
What followed wasn’t a hunt.
It was a purge.
He moved like a broken fuse — wild and focused at once.
Any creature that got in his path — split.
Boars. Jungle birds. Even vines with teeth.
He didn’t stop.
Didn’t think.
Didn’t care.
Finally, he found it.
A crater full of green.
One massive Slime King — bloated, veined, glowing — surrounded by more than a hundred lesser slimes.
Rell stood above the ridge, eyes locked.
No words.
No chant.
Just flame building behind his eyes.
TO BE CONTINUED…