With Slimebane Strike now active, if my calculations were correct (and they were) a single perfect strike at the weak point would now deal roughly forty points of damage.
Five good strikes, and the creature would die at exactly 0 HP.
I stepped into the rhythm: one, two, breathe.
A telegraphed spit soared toward my visor. I bent at the knee, sidestepping perfectly. The mucus spat whistled past where my head had been a heartbeat ago, and the Slime King had overextended its pseudopod.
I lunged.
So my calculation was correct! The technique stacked additively, not multiplicatively. (9 + 10) × (2 + 1.5) - 26.
Nineteen base. Three-and-a-half times output. Sixty-six and a half. Subtract the creature’s Endurance—twenty-six flat—and that landed at 40.5.
Rounded down.
Forty damage.
Good. Ceralis rounded halves down. That mattered.
If the multipliers had been separate—(9 + 10) × 2 × 1.5—that would’ve implied independent damage layers. Which didn’t make sense. That kind of math snowballed. Every new modifier would inflate the next, turning modest bonuses into exponential spikes.
My math is mathing! Yes!
No.
For the first time, the creature lurched back. Steam rose where my blade had passed clean through.
It was actually hurt.
Anabeth’s voice rang out. “I knew it!” she declared, almost trilling the words. “You have been concealing your true output all along! Look at that impact radius! Your strikes are clearly stronger now, and you’re still not drawing on any aether!”
“Behold!” Ceralis thundered through me before I could stop it. “As I demonstrate the extraordinary art of non-aetheric evasion, an ancient form lost to lesser minds!”
I pivoted half a step to the side, narrowly avoiding another sluggish pseudopod slap.
Flawless.
Anabeth tilted her head, unamused. “That’s... just what you’ve been doing.”
For a moment, I thought I’d lost her interest. Perhaps she’d finally realized this was just glorified slime-dodging with better lighting.
But then she added, “But it’s still splendid the fifteenth time I see it!”
It occurred to me that in the old days, things rarely lasted more than a few exchanges. Jousts ended in a single hit. Sword matches, ten at most. Even the dramatic ones ended with a bow and someone dramatically bleeding onto the parquet.
The good old days.
But this? This was thirty seconds of glorified cardio between meaningful decisions.
Ceralis, of course, was thrilled.
“Observe,” it boomed through my lungs as I found a space to breathe, “the sacred discipline of Interval Recuperation! A technique once lost to all but the highest order of duelists!”
I surged forward again, catching the line that marked the creature’s core displacement—
—and missed.
The blade sliced clean through a section of membrane that was definitely not vital.
No! My perfect math! I can’t get it down to exactly 0 anymore now!
The creature jiggled indignantly and swung a pseudopod the size of a boulder at my head.
I ducked just in time, nearly slipping on the gelatinous floor. The effort alone cost me more breath than I wanted to admit.
Now, another thirty seconds of time-wasting terror.
By the time the cooldown ticked back to zero, my arms trembled and sweat beaded inside my gloves. Luckily, the creature wasn’t smart enough to corner me, so I could just move around the cavern wall and stayed relatively safe.
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I lunged again—this time true.
I adjusted at the last instant, not for speed, but for angle.
A fraction shallower. Less torque through the shoulder. Enough to keep my STR expression at nine, not ten.
if I pushed perfectly, I’d overshoot. Forty-one, maybe forty-two after rounding. That was overkill and not a round number.
Momentum carried me into another perfect arc, thirty seconds later. Too perfect. I realized my swordform was too clean and efficient. If I let it complete naturally, the system would read it as superior execution—eleven, maybe twelve effective damage before mitigation.
I couldn’t afford that.
At the last instant, I sabotaged it with a micro-delay in my wrist.
Yes. My form was still acceptably sloppy. Predictable, mathematical, beautiful.
Not beautiful.
My vision blurred and my movement slowed just enough to mistime my next dodge, and a stray pseudopod slammed into my side.
The hit landed like a cathedral bell tolling inside my ribs. My thoughts staggered out of sync with the rhythm of the fight, a beat too slow, too wide. I could feel the metal flex and settle against me, hot from friction and acid, the air inside the cuirass turning sharp with the smell of singed leather.
This is not good. Cheap tricks might not get me there. I need something to revitalize me.
Then I saw a viscous and effervescent vial dangling along her belt pouch, beside her jars of slime. It must be a potion of some sort. Surely a mage of her standing would not venture into a slime-infested cavern without some kind of restorative elixir. Surely that liquid shimmer wasn’t just for her research. Surely the Saints would understand a little... tactical borrowing.
Now I just had to trick her into thinking it was for demonstration purposes.
I straightened, still winded but attempting to radiate divine composure. “Lady Anabeth!” I called out, with all the urgency of a battlefield sermon. “For the sake of the lesson, hand me that vial you carry! The glimmering one!”
She glanced down. “This? It’s for preserving biological samples.”
“Exactly! A perfect medium for testing resilience and cross-disciplinary restoration under duress!”
She hesitated, brow furrowing. “You want to drink it?”
‘Not want, no. Must. For pedagogy.’
Ceralis, never one to miss a chance at escalation, thundered through me: “Observe, disciple! The sacred rite of Reconstitution through Alchemical Faith!”
The Slime King took its chance to land another well-aimed spit at me.
“Oh, but I must say—”
“Give, woman! Give!”
“Surely the Knight of the Order knows more than I,” she glanced down a final time, pulling the vial from her belt. “Far be it from a humble scholar to question divine methodology.” Then she threw it over to me. It wasn’t a pebble, yet it followed the same perfect arc nonetheless.
I caught it against my gauntlet. “Does it have restorative properties?”
Anabeth called over, voice barely audible above the slime’s wet roar. “Yes, but—”
Good.
I had already popped the cork, lifted the visor of my helm, and downed the content.
Then I learned the cold, hard fact of life: Do not drink random liquid you didn’t know the use of.
It tasted... slimy.
The first sensation was immediate: a slick, gelatinous mass slid across my tongue with all the enthusiasm of a dozen tiny worms staging a revolt. It smelled of sour swamp water and spoiled moss, and the texture was alive in a way my analytical mind could not comfortably classify. The burn followed, a viscous heat crawling down my throat, sticking to my esophagus like slime-flavored honey. Each gulp made me wonder whether my stomach was already negotiating a truce with this foreign entity.
“What is this?” I roared.
“That’s nutrient broth. For cultivating slime cultures!” She said. “It’s non-lethal to humans, but I wouldn’t drink slime. Maybe the followers of the Saints have different digestive needs!”
‘No, I don’t! I have no need for drinking slime juice!’
“Aha!” Ceralis cried. “He who incubates the enemy within to understand it!”
This is ridiculous! Why wasn’t that a restorative potion? Why would she bring nutrient broth for the SLIMES and not for us?
Then, with a calm that made my blood boil, Anabeth reached into another pouch.
“Unlike you, Ser Knight,” she said, “I am not a follower of the Sainthood. I have a normal digestive system.”
Her fingers closed around a slender vial that shimmered warmly, clearly labeled Restorative Elixir.
“So I consume a normal restorative potion—”
YES! GIVE IT TO ME—
She popped the cork and drank it in a single motion.
NO!
“Oh yes!” She stretched her arms. “Refreshed. My fatigue is as good as gone now!”
You did NOTHING!
Why did you need to restore your stamina!
The next pseudopod swung toward me with the lazy inevitability of a slow-rising tide, yet I was too slow to sidestep. My gauntlet raised on instinct.
The impact reverberated through my arm.
By the follicles of the Saints, I am now slower than a slime.
But hold on. I stared at the numbers. Why did I only take 3 damage?
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Which cover should I put up?
