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Eve stumbled backward with her fists raised defensively to her chest. Blood-red mana surged around her body as her heart beat loudly in her chest. All her trained senses screamed absolute danger when she laid eyes on the shadowy man. It was both material and a total illusion, but the amount of raw power behind its manifestation was beyond anything she had ever seen.

The shadow man gave his greetings and stood there, motionless, waiting for her reply. Yes, the guild master wanted to see a necromancer, not some shadow man that crawled out of some other dimension! Eve screamed in her mind while her mouth remained motionless. This creature could obliterate her with a simple thought. Maybe it didn’t even need to think! She would die simply being in its mere presence.

But then the crack in space closed. The man remained, but the intense pressure that weighed on her like a god’s wrathful gaze disappeared. She gasped as she let out a breath she didn’t know she had been holding.

Only with the immediate threat gone did she take a moment to realize how pathetic her state had become. Eve went to speak, but her mouth felt dry, and the words died in her throat.

“Lady,” the thing spoke, and its voice rippled through the air. The noise was artificial and terrifying, like a chorus of the dead uttering straight into her mind. “My time is short. I was told by my subordinate here,” the shadow man gestured to Andrew, and the pot-bellied fellow froze, “that your guild master wishes to speak with me? Lead the way.”

Eve had no idea of what to do. On the one hand, she had a contractual obligation to lead the shadow man to the guild master, but she was also terrified. What if I bring the thing past the city’s defenses just for that pressure to return and for the real creature to emerge from that crack in reality? What if I went down in history as the foolish Delver that brought an end to humanity? she thought as she debated her options.

Finally gathering the courage, she stopped trembling, and she bowed slightly. She realized what she had done as she was midway through the action. It felt so natural as if she was paying respects to a higher being. Then, quickly raising her head, Eve decided to ask the one burning question in her mind. “What are you? Are you even real?”

The shadowy man stared at her with its featureless face. With every second, Eve felt closer to death than she had ever felt before. Eventually, the shadow man raised his hand to his chin and stroked it while looking around. “Real?” it asked. Suddenly the shadowy man multiplied a hundredfold and surrounded her. She spun around, but she was encircled. The shadow men all spoke in unison, grating on her brain. “What even is reality?” They all took off their top hats, held them in their hands and then made them vanish, only for them to reappear on their heads. “Reality is what you make of it. It’s all about perspective.”

Eve heard one of the voices right next to her ear and suppressed a scream. One of the shadow men, likely the original, had broken formation and was only a few centimeters away from her. Two blue eyes formed on its blank face but were slightly curved upward like teardrops. “I have seen things you can only imagine, you may consider me an illusion, but this world is entirely fake to me. Merely a playground for self-proclaimed gods.”

With a snap of its finger, Eve saw all the other shadow men vanish from existence as if they had never existed. She struggled to stand on her wobbling knees. Luckily the shadowy man seemed to change targets and focused on Andrew.

“This human seems overloaded; let’s give the squishy mortal time to recover.” The shadow man walked past Andrew and gestured for him to follow. “Come with me. We need to get you and…what was his name?”

“Er, Toby?” Andrew hesitantly replied as he fell into stride behind his master.

“Ah yes, Toby.” The shadow paused briefly, looked toward the gates, and then carried on. “He will meet us at the ice statues. It’s about time I powered you two up.”

Andrew almost missed a step as his brain froze. We aren’t getting punished? To Andrew and Toby, they had been dreaming of the day they could merge with their chosen monsters. But after today’s disaster, they assumed everything was lost.

“Don’t look so down, Andrew,” his master said without looking back. “Rome was not built in a day. Accidents happen, but it wasn’t entirely your fault. I forced my powers upon you without warning or any training. The fact half the town is still standing is a win in my book.”

Andrew had no idea what this Rome place was, but he liked the idea that none of this was his fault. He felt the power of that purple lightning and had a general idea of the destruction it could cause, but he just couldn’t help it. “T-thank you. I will continue to strive forward and please you,” he managed to stutter out as he quickly caught back up.

The pair went through a newly created hole in the town’s wooden walls and, within a minute, were at the site of the ice statues. Hundreds of goblins armed with crude spears created a border around the area while other goblins dragged logs and were in the process of constructing a ten-meter-high wall.

Andrew decided to fill Victor in on the situation when he noticed the shadows’ attention on the wall. “After completing the town, we realized that the ice statues were our most important asset at the moment, so we have begun efforts to protect them. Luckily nobody has come by recently…well, until today.” He was going to continue his explanation, but Toby and Eve caught up with them. They both looked haunted, but Toby seemed less angry.

Victor’s avatar nodded. “Very good. Have you picked your monsters?” The shadow looked between Andrew and Toby, and they both nodded.

Toby, however, couldn’t mask his shock. “Master, have we really earned this?”

The shadow raised its hand. “It’s not about earning it anymore. It’s a necessity. You two are currently the only ones managing this place, so I need to give you bodies that suit your needs. Now come! Let us get this over with.” Victor’s avatar led the small group through the ice sculptures. Hundreds were haphazardly placed like a labyrinth, but they all had wooden signs with their names on them. Victor read a few as he passed, committing them to memory.

“So? Have you picked?” The shadow turned to Andrew.

“Yep. It was an easy choice for me.” Andrew walked off to the left, down two rows, and then turned right. He then halted before a massive ice sculpture as if he had found his long-lost lover.

Everyone else paused behind him with confused expressions.

Toby squinted at the sign and muttered, “King slime.”

“Yep!” Andrew laughed happily and slapped his gut. “I read about these bastards when I was young and always wished I could grow in strength through eating. If I could become a king slime…I could eat anything and everything!”

Victor had to applaud the man’s simple but sound logic. “Bravo! A king slime is a fine choice, indeed. But are you sure you want to become a slime? Plenty of other monsters can eat a lot, like war pigs, for example.”

“Blah. War pigs only get fat from eating, not stronger.”

Victor ignored Eve and Toby’s aghast expressions and walked forward. The man has made his mind up… Why do I feel like the goddess right now? I gave them the same choice she gave me, although it’s on a much smaller scale, he pondered as he placed his avatar’s hand on the ice. He then elongated his other arm and put a shadowy hand on Andrew’s shoulder.

A familiar blue screen appeared in his vision.

[Undead System User Detected]

[King Slime (A grade) and Zombie Human Found]

[Merge?]

Victor didn’t waste any time and accepted the System prompt. A crack in space formed between Andrew and the frozen king slime, and Victor felt tendrils of his body seep through the fracture. The ice shattered as a tendril of pure darkness wrapped around the frozen king slime and the startled Andrew. It then ruthlessly smashed them together as if it was conducting nuclear fusion.

Then everything went calm. As if it had all been one dreadful nightmare.

[New undead created!]

[Name: Andrew]

[Race: King Ooze (Empowered by: UNKNOWN)]

[Level: 7]

[STR: 300, DEX, 7, CON: 570, INT: 5, WIS: 6]

[Description: A king slime corrupted with necrotic mana. It grows in size and strength with everything it devours.]

With the dust settled, everyone stared at Andrew with blatant disgust on their faces. Andrew was a gray slime in the shape of a walrus with a wide, deformed human head, a jaw so vast it could swallow a person whole, and two stubby arms with three fingers on each hand below his mouth. Luckily, despite his horrendous appearance, he smelled of nothing and didn’t spill out any pus or other nefarious substances.

“Hahaha.” Andrew laughed, and his new massive body wobbled in excitement like jelly. He tried to turn, but it was painfully slow, like watching a beached whale roll around. His head mainly stayed the same with a tuff of brown hair on top, but the fact it was so wide made it creepy as Andrew grinned. He finally completed his turn and looked down at Toby. Like a massive land slug, he was over a head taller than Toby, who was already a colossal man himself.

“What do you think, mate?” Andrew asked his friend.

Toby reeled in his disgust and pondered it for a while. They were zombies already, and he knew better than anyone how miserable being one was; he would spend half his days just performing maintenance on his body to try and keep it in one piece. Was Andrew ugly? Yes. But was he falling apart? No. Did he smell of rotting flesh? No. And most important of all, was he intimidating? Heck yes. There was no way in hell anyone would stand up to him and not feel afraid, and that’s exactly what Andrew had lacked before, and the fear factor would be essential going forward.

“I think it suits you very well.” Toby decided to be positive. Who knew, maybe the monster he becomes might be even more hideous, so it would be rude to judge Andrew for now.

Andrew’s smile was ear-splitting, and he chuckled again. “I see you also have good taste! Now I am even more excited to see what you picked out.”

“Oh, don’t you worry.” Toby rubbed his hands together with an evil grin. “I found the perfect monster…”