Chapter 430: Invasion

As we invaded the castle grounds, the first thing we noticed was that the enemies had traded quantity for quality. No longer were there hordes of yetis with the occasional wendigo; instead, the latter and their elite version seemed to be the entire combat force. Not only that, but the energy in the castle itself was filled with malice, as the cursed energy had reached horrendous levels.

The effects of such corrupting energy were unclear, although it was enough to make one's skin crawl. That was until we saw two wendigo monsters fighting each other in a mindless rage, with the victor eating the loser with a ravenous and primal hunger. Yet the more it ate, the more its body seemed to wither away in response, only further fueling its frenzied eating, until there was nothing left, and that was when it changed.

Before our eyes, the monster underwent a mutation, with its flesh tightening and its stomach hollowing out. What was once an ordinary wendigo rapidly transfigured and became one of the elite versions that had greeted us at the gate. I immediately moved to attack it, hoping to catch it off guard before it became familiar with its newfound abilities or had time to recuperate, but that seemed to matter little.

You'd swear the monster hadn't just freshly evolved, as it fought with honed yet animalistic instincts. Not only that, but it appeared that it wasn't as low on cursed energy as I had originally assumed, and it became a relatively drawn-out fight of my whittling away at its reserves until it finally collapsed. Our strategy of not severing any limbs seemed effective, keeping those ghostly appendages contained within its body until the very end.

"They are annoying as all hell, but at least they give decent experience," Vee said, reveling in what must have been another level up.

My current strategy was to use [Draining Ray] or [Drain Touch] to speed up the process, and then I just needed to expel the energy myself. Having witnessed the two monsters fighting each other, it seemed that, in this case, fighting fire with fire was an effective option. I still hadn't experienced any side effects from containing the cursed energy, but I still kept it relegated to a [Sub-Core], just in case.

It wasn't just my paranoia talking in this case, as while we were wandering the castle, we saw a rather unsettling scene of a swarm of rats fighting and devouring each other. It seemed the ominous aura radiating from the castle wasn't just for show; it had actual effects on the weak and susceptible.

Vee and I were thankfully unaffected by energy, which we suspected was either due to our reasonably high levels or perhaps from the mind-protecting effect of the crown my hat had devoured. Either way, it put both of us on high alert, and we were both monitoring our own thoughts and each other's for any oddities.

"If this curse targets your hunger, then you're definitely at risk," I warned Vee.

"Oh please. You're the one who had the gluttonous slime evolution," Vee snapped back. "Not to mention that you're the one messing with the curse itself. You don't see me absorbing it."

"Yeah, but I'm a slime. I'm usually immune to most of that nonsense. Plus, if you looked at my 'stomach,' you'd see it's absolutely flooded with slime. I could go weeks, if not months, without food and still be fine."

"Yes, yes. We all know you've got a lot of dimensional weight."

Damn. I walked right into that…

Our casual banter was a good sign that both of us were fine, and we also hoped that [Companion Bond] would play a role in potentially spotting anything wrong. However, our own mental state wasn't the only problem, as we figured we could theoretically be under a time limit during this stage.

"What do you think happens if two of those elite ones meet and fight? Does the winner eat and become a super elite?" Vee asked after we finished defeating another one.

Usually, I'd gladly welcome such an opponent, but with the annoying way we had to fight these, combined with my inability to properly eat them for a profile, they became quite unappetizing. My own imagination was also fueling my concern, as a further mutation might allow them to use those ghostly limbs without dismemberment. Sure, it would also mean more experience, but I'd grown a little bit more cautious over recklessly pursuing gains with Vee's presence.

My own life had a considerable amount of backups, but the same couldn't be said of my spidery companion. If anything happened to her, I'd probably never forgive myself…

"Whoa, are you turning cursed slime on me? What's with all the negative thoughts?" Vee suddenly spoke out.

I mentally slapped myself and smiled reassuringly. "Sorry. I had a bit of a neurotic moment."

"As long as you admit it, I guess that's fine," Vee chuckled before redirecting the topic. "Anyway, if we do have a time limit, should we call in reinforcements to clear this place out, or should we head straight to the throne room?"

"The throne room?"

"Well, obviously the boss is going to be there, right? Some wendigo emperor king who's been secretly corrupting all of his subjects behind the scenes to reap the cursed power for himself."

"That does sound plausible… Although why not an empress queen?"

"Because that sounds gross as hell. Can you imagine the sag?" Vee asked, before making various exaggerated retching sounds.

I couldn't help but giggle at her antics, but she had a good point. Whether we wanted to or not, we did have some kind of time limit on our hands. That was also ignoring the possibility that letting too many of the monsters eat and evolve might bring about another type of fail state, sending us right back to the start.

Heading straight to the boss came with its own risks; not only could it potentially reset our progress, but if the other monsters happened to be drawn in and the boss consumed them, what then? The boss could be empowered further, healed to full, or worse.

"I think it's time to call in the cavalry," I agreed.

"Screw the cavalry, we need the slime generals!"

And so I sent out the call, and thanks to my earlier message, they quickly started depositing their cores, leaving only one behind in Keld, and Pi obviously still remaining on the island. It was required, as the cores couldn't store themselves in themself, or they'd be reenacting the unfortunate accident of Kappa. But since this would also function as two emergency revival points, it wasn't exactly a bad thing.

Sylbera was the first to arrive, and she immediately lit up upon seeing Vee before examining the strange surroundings. As with anything I pulled out of my [Core Storage] while inside the snow globe, they were immediately subjected to the rules and reduced in size. Not that they noticed it, unless they happened to use [Spatial Sense] and notice the abnormality.

Soon, we had the whole team over, and Vee and I began briefing them on the current situation. We wanted to clean out the castle of all monsters before tackling the throne room, assuming that nothing had changed or we weren't thrown back to the start. Vee ended up spending quite some time ranting about her newfound hatred of loops and what we'd gone through.

The reactions to everything were mixed. Sylbera was sympathetic towards Vee, while Sylvain and Sylthaeryn only seemed interested in the upcoming battles. Meanwhile, Sylvester seemed to be the only one intrigued by the mystery and inner workings of this whole thing.

"Right, so what's the plan?" Vee finally asked.

"Divide and conquer," Sylthaeryn replied, earning nods from the other personas.

"It would be better in this circumstance," Sylvester agreed. "Rather than running around as a big party, it would be better to make our own informal parties using [Slime Puppetry]."

"Although we should still form a party so we can donate experience toward Mistress Vee's evolution," Sylbera quickly added.

Sylvain seemed a little annoyed by that, but Vee quickly spoke up. "Don't worry, I'm almost there. As soon as I hit it, you can take all the remaining experience."

"You might regret that if we get you there before the boss fight," Sylvain chuckled. "Just imagine the big chunk a boss from this place will give."

"Hopefully more than that demon," Sylthaeryn said with a snort.

After that, we formed a party and adjusted the distribution appropriately. The castle was large, but we had more than enough participants, especially since I was bringing out the slime wolves and ants as well.

Not to be outdone, Sylvester started withdrawing his golems, which were also appropriately sized thanks to the snow globe. If they were somehow immune to the reduction, it would have explained how Keldenar conquered this place so easily.

As for Sylvester's golems, he had more than just the ones crafted from permafrost this time, although, considering the enemy we were facing, he might have been better off sticking to ice. Still, compared to what he brought out in the demon labyrinth, it was evident he was working extremely hard to improve himself, as even the most basic of his golems had at least some minor enchantments engraved into them.

"I guess it's showtime," Sylvain said, and began creating his own minions.

While I'd gone for mass minions to be commanded by a leader, Sylvain seemed to go for the opposite approach, while taking a page from the underwater dungeon we had conquered. With that and his own time in the ocean, our collection of water creature profiles was through the roof. Yet despite having a plethora to choose from, Sylvain had created creatures similar to the dungeon's guardians; focusing on quality rather than quantity, he had a handful of sharkmen, each with one of his [Sub-Cores] hidden within.

As if taunted by his actions, Sylthaeryn also created minions, and soon there were numerous large cat monsters. It was very fitting for the supposed leader of the Feirelle, and one of them even looked like the bonded companion from that tragic day.

"Damn, does everyone except me just have minions they can pull out of their pockets?" Vee asked with a hint of envy.

"Don't worry, Mistress Vee, I've prepared for just such an inevitability," Sylbera replied confidently.

As expected from her actions, she was also creating slime minions, except this time they were all spiders. Seeing a swarm of spider slimes taking shape was admittedly a little off-putting compared to the other minions, and to our surprise, it was the spider herself who was the first to break.

"Nope! No spiders! Rejected!" Vee yelled out and cursed.

Sylbera visibly slumped in response. "But… I was going to let you command them. Isn't it very fitting?"

"Nope. Who needs minions? I'm perfectly capable of fighting on my own. Besides, they'd just slow me down, no way they could keep up with me and my [Veil Steps]!"

Vee then began laughing it off, as if it had all been some big joke. It seemed for some reason she was not a fan of other spiders, which was weird considering she seemed to enjoy her time with Qhilleeqeth.

Is it because they are slime spiders? Is it triggering her old trauma of when she thought I was going to eat her, or maybe the way they are formed and move around is too much for her?

"Hm… I'm not sure what I should pick for my slime puppets then…" Sylbera said, sounding a little dejected after Vee's vehement rejection.

Obviously, as slimes, we didn't need a shape, but it was nice to have a base form to work from. Sure, shapeless blobs of tendrils worked perfectly well, but by sticking to at least a vague shape, we could leverage [Chimeric Mimicry] to do a lot of the heavy lifting for us.

The trait and its support from the system could not be understated, but I'd also reasoned out my own explanation for why it helped. For example, as a formless slime, if you wanted to just move, there were probably hundreds of permutations that could solve that task. Whereas if you were in the shape of a creature, you were limited to the creature's method of mobility.

At the end of the day, basically, it made choices simpler by squashing the possibilities. Normally, that wouldn't matter too much, but when we were working with [Slime Puppetry] and a massive amount of minions, then every bit of mental workload that could be reduced was a blessing.

Going back to Sylbera's conundrum, there were a few things she could do. My immediate suggestion was for her to create fake dwarves, or any other humanoid and then equip them with weapons and armor, however she quickly rejected that idea. For whatever reason, my personas weren't too happy about creating dummy people, and Vee joined them in saying it was weird, leaving me alone.

"Okay… Then what about salamanders? That would at least match your fire magic, and I've proven that they can keep using [Inferno Sac] and such without the points allocated after breaking off."

"You'll have an army of little fake dragons," Vee giggled.

"I love that idea. Thank you, Master!" Sylbera replied with a beaming smile on her face.

She quickly got to work after that and soon had her own little squad of salamanders, taking a middleground approach between Sylthaeryn's horde of cats and Sylvain's elite sharkmen.

We'd spent quite a bit of time catching up, chatting, and planning, but we hoped that, with our new approach, we'd quickly make up for lost time. We each chose directions, with Vee's between Sybera and me, and began our proper assault on the castle. For days, we had seen this town overrun with yetis and wendigos, but now the castle was being invaded by an army of slime monsters, in all sorts of shapes and sizes.