Chapter 2

He turned to look behind him, and what he saw put him on edge. There was a single green creature creeping behind him and he hadn't even realised.

He half-recognised the creature, as it looked somewhat like a goblin, but there was something strange about it. On its head was a clear blob that seemed to be controlling it, and it also looked as though it was infecting its body, as the goblin's movements were very flimsy, almost as if its bones had become jelly. 

Seeing the monster, and knowing that there was essentially no other option, Zen readied his sword and prepared to attack it. His stance was clumsy, and he didn't really know what to do, but seeing as the enemy was like jelly in consistency beneath its skin, he assumed a slashing attack would do very little, and that a stab would be better.

He assessed the creature to see if there was a weak point, and he noticed something glowing within the mouth of the goblin, which also suspiciously seemed to be the centre of the slime-like mass on its head. 

'I guess that's where I'll be aiming for then.'

The monster was walking towards him slowly, surprised that he had noticed its presence, seemingly not aware of the noise it made while walking.

Zen waited until it got close to him, as he planned to stab it without having to make too many movements, however, once it got to around five steps away from him, the goblin lunged forward. 

It grabbed onto his shirt, and knocked him to the floor, luckily for Zen, the goblin's chest was pierced by the sword. However, this didn't seem to do a huge amount of damage, as it attempted to scratch his face. 

Zen pushed his sword forward as hard as he could, and managed to roll the goblin off of him, now on top of the goblin. 

He pulled his sword from its chest and stabbed it down into the glowing area in the goblin's mouth. The sword connected with something hard, but managed to smash through it. 

The slime on the goblin's head began to shrivel before disappearing, and then the goblin slumped its head back onto the bridge before disappearing as well. 

In the place of the goblin, there was a bluish-green glowing orb that he felt drawn to.

'I guess that this is the soul of the goblin, I wonder why the slime thing didn't drop one. Maybe it's random. How do I absorb this then?'

"Soul manipulation."

Upon uttering those words, the soul of the goblin flew into Zen's right hand, and in the centre of his palm, there was now a swirling circle the same colour as the soul had been.

'Pretty cool, I wonder if there are any more of these goblin creatures around, I can't see a way out of here yet, so I assume there are.'

Instead of walking slowly like before, Zen ran to the other side of the bridge, as he would rather fight on land than on a bridge.

Once he reached the land, Zen looked back at the bridge for any more monsters and, to his surprise, he witnessed a group of the same goblins with slime on their head climbing up the side of the bridge. 

'Thank god I got off of there. Guess I should test out this power then.'

Zen aimed his palm at one of the goblins that were climbing, shutting one eye to line it up perfectly. He made sure that the goblin would be hit in the same mouth area that had killed the last one, and he released the soul from his palm.

It shot out, much quicker than he had expected it to, and smashed right into the head of the goblin, causing it to explode and disappear. 

A soul dropped from this goblin too, and he found that he could absorb the soul despite it not being right next to him.

Some of the goblins had made their way up onto the bridge now, and were charging at him, unlike the first goblin, it seemed as though they viewed him as a threat and wanted to get rid of him. 

He fired off another soul, but it missed the target as it was moving too quickly. Zen thought that the skill would have been better if he had been able to control the soul once it had been shot. 

While thinking about this, he pictured the soul boomeranging back through the head of the goblin. To his surprise, the soul did just that, and the goblin dropped dead on the bridge, and disappeared. 

Zen quickly absorbed the soul and shot it at the closest goblin to him, by now this goblin had managed to get onto the grass, and what was odd to him was that the goblin had not disappeared when it dropped onto the grass. 

Its soul still dropped, but the corpse was still there.

'That's weird.'

There were three goblins left now, and they had all reached the grass. He only had time to shoot the soul at one of the goblins, once again leaving its body on the ground. 

One of the other goblins was too close to him to use his soul manipulation, as it launched a scratch attack at him before he could even absorb the other soul.

He blocked with his sword and actually managed to cut off the goblin's fingers despite its gelatinous form.

He took a step back quickly, and slashed his sword upwards, going against his previous thinking after having been able to cut through the goblin's fingers. 

The slash connected with the underside of the goblin's chin, pushing through the slime barrier and the goblin's skin and bone. The sword managed to slice the front of the goblin's face off and crush the glowing orb at the same time.

With only one goblin left, and time to absorb the souls, Zen attempted to absorb both of the souls, but he was unable to. Only one of the souls was absorbed, and he assumed that it must have been a limitation of the skill. 

With this soul, he wanted to test out the limitations of soul manipulation. He shot it out, and immediately began to control it, moving his hand to have greater control. 

He quickly smashed it through the leg of the goblin, and he saw the soul get slightly smaller, he then dragged it back through the goblin's chest, and it came out of the other side much smaller and less colourful. 

He attempted to destroy the goblin's head with this soul, but it was unable to penetrate the slime barrier, and the soul dissipated. 

The goblin wasn't dead, but it was definitely injured, and with a single stab of his sword, Zen was able to take it out.

He absorbed the goblin's soul, and when he turned around, he saw a portal was open.

'I guess that's this floor done then? But I'm sure there's something else. Why did the bodies disappear on the bridge but not on the grass?'

Zen walked up to the side of the river and looked at the bridge from the side. It was strange, the bridge was not particularly wide, and it was open on both sides, but when he looked underneath it, there wasn't a bit of light escaping from it. 

He was sure now that something strange was happening that wasn't so obvious before. He took a closer look at the water, and he was surprised to see that there was nothing on the riverbed at all, it was completely clear.

The water's consistency was strange as well, he put his hand into it, and instead of getting wet and his hand being able to dip into it, his hand slipped over the top of it.

'Wait a second, this isn't water, this is slime.' Zen thought to himself, shocked at the discovery that he had come across. 

he walked closer to the bridge, wanting to inspect it some more, and the closer he got to it, the worse the bad feeling in his gut became.

He peered into the bridge, and hanging from the top of the ceiling were the bodies of the goblins that had been absorbed, they were coated in slime, except this time they were decomposing, not being controlled.

"What the Hell?" This surprise caused him to shout out loud, as he had come across something incredibly strange. 

The bridge began to shudder, and then it began to morph. It stood up tall, at least fifteen feet tall, and had a giant glowing core, the same colour as the slime barriers had in the goblin's mouths.

The river went up with it and created two large, gelatinous arms that immediately locked onto Zen.

One of the arms slammed down at him, and he quickly managed to dodge out of the way. 

'How am I meant to beat this thing? The portal, I can just leave.' Zen thought to himself, but when he looked over, the portal had disappeared.