CHAPTER 209: THE BLACK SLIME

From this distance, it was massive, its body must have been at least three meters thick and over twenty meters long.

It was the kind of beast that could swallow a cow whole.

Even in the demon realm, this was terrifying.

Then the black slime attacked the serpent.

The snake tried to strike back, it’s jaws opening wide to reveal gleaming fangs but before it could move, the black mass surged over it, crushing its head and covering its entire body.

Despite being far from the lake, the creature’s body stretched and rippled endlessly and it was flowing like liquid shadow until the serpent was completely engulfed.

"That serpent is called Calakmul," Dominic said quietly. "They live in the desert, but they’re never that large. It must have become a monster. When cooked, though, their meat tastes quite good."

Shiao Yi blinked his eyes. "That so? What a waste."

Wait, what was he saying?! He wasn’t about to eat a massive demon snake, whether it was delicious or not! What the hell was wrong with him?!

The miasma of the demon world was still messing with his mind, making his thoughts drift in strange directions.

Dominic’s voice pulled him back. "Look. It’s feeding on the serpent’s magic power. You can see it, its body is collapsing."

Shiao Yi focused his gaze. Through the translucent surface of the black slime, he could barely make out the snake’s form as it disintegrated.

The creature’s body lost shape, its structure breaking down as its magic was devoured. It’s flesh, cells, even its essence dissolving completely into nothing.

Before Shiao Yi’s eyes, the serpent’s shape vanished completely.

The black slime having devoured everything, began to retreat toward the lake where its main body was hidden.

Its dark spreading mass slid backward and drawn in as if being sucked into the depths. It sank deeper and deeper until even the faint shimmer from below disappeared.

The lake, which had been bubbling violently, soon stilled. Within moments, the surface was calm again, as if nothing had ever happened.

Perhaps the creature had emerged from some deep spring or hidden fissure far below the ground.

If that was true, then whatever it was, it had to be enormous, something far beyond human imagination.

"What... is this?" Dominic muttered, breaking the heavy silence.

Shiao Yi followed his gaze back toward the open field.

There, the remains of the serpent that has been melted into a dark liquid mass were starting to change shape again.

Its color deepened to a dull blue-black as the dissolved flesh began to reform.

Before their eyes, the remains molded themselves into something resembling a Lakamul, a kind of twin-headed serpent-like monster.

However, this one was different. It was larger, with four heads instead of two and a lizard-like body with short muscular limbs.

Still holding Dominic around the waist, Shiao Yi used his power to jump back to the rocky cave where they had hidden earlier.

With the black slime gone, it seemed the cave was safest place for now.

"It seems we just witnessed the birth of a new monster," Dominic said quietly.

He stepped to the edge of the cave entrance while scanning the plains below.

Shiao Yi looked with him, but the strange creature they had seen before had already vanished from sight.

"I don’t know what that monster was," Dominic continued, his tone grave. "But its power was different from ours. It was pure and immense. It was magic itself. And that black slime, I feel like it almost the same as when the miasma corrupt a creatures. The serpent that became that Lakamul-like creature—it gave off the same kind of magic."

His face was pale and tense as he spoke.

"That thing must feed on magic power," he said. "And anything whose power it consumes probably changes, like that serpent did. It becomes a monster. It makes sense now, there’s a clear difference between magical beast and magical creatures. Those creatures born from the black slime don’t live by our laws. Their very existence is made of a completely different kind of energy."

Then Dominic turned to Shiao Yi and gave a small, sincere smile. "Thank you, Shiao Yi. If you hadn’t saved me, I would have been swallowed by that thing and turned into one of them."

Shiao Yi smiled faintly back. "You don’t need to thank me. I wasn’t about to let something like that eat you. I just did what I had to. I’m just... glad you’re safe, Dominic."

Shiao Yi buried his face against Dominic’s bare chest.

The faint scent of Dominic’s skin that was warm and slightly damp with sweat, surrounded him, giving him a small sense of relief.

However, then, as the tension eased, fear returned, his body trembled.

Yes, there was no doubt about it now.

This really was the demon world.

"What is this black slime you spoke of?" Dominic asked, his tone calm and curious, completely unaware of how shaken Shiao Yi felt.

"In my world," Shiao Yi explained, "there’s something called black slime. That thing reminded me of it somehow. Dominic... this world is insane. There are giant serpent monsters and now that black slime creature too. It went back into the lake after eating the snake, but who knows when it might come again, maybe it’ll go after your magic next. We can’t stay here for long."

"Do you think it was drawn to the magic I released earlier?" Dominic asked thoughtfully.

"It must have been," Shiao Yi replied. "It came from the lake right beside this rock shelf and it kept moving toward you. It definitely sensed your power. Now that it knows who you are, it’ll probably come again to devour you."

Dominic’s gaze turned distant, his voice low. "We never saw its true body. We can’t even guess how large it is. But the way its energy spreads across this entire underworld... it might be big enough to cover the whole land beneath the demon world itself."