Delicious Slime

A divine spear pierced the clouds, leaving thunder in its wake. It flew through the stormy skies with the humming sound of its shaft overshadowing the sound of the raging storm. But that spear was not supposed to be in this place. However, its owner didn't care for it.

Nevertheless, it continued its straight path unimpeded, with the ground getting closer and closer. Even before it hit the ground, a visible air pressure, as if a meteor was going to fall on that piece of forest, began to tumble the trees over and brought the wild life into chaos.

All sorts of noises sounded out from wild animals as they tried to run away from that pressure. At this time, the spear came crashing down on the ground with multiple times the speed of a supersonic aircraft and with the divine might of lightening trailing behind it.

The ground ruptured and rocks flew through the air as the earth quaked and rumbled. The sound of the shockwaves spread like a volcanic eruption, piercing the eardrums of all those who heard it for several kilometers outwards.

When the earth settled and the divine spear was finally embedded into the ground. One could see the pathetic corpse of an eagle stuck in the middle of the spear tip. It had been hunting for prey, before it found out about the looming danger above it. Unfortunately, by the time it found out about the danger, it had already been too late.

The eagle was especially unlucky to be pierced by the spear. Its feathers were pulverized and skin smashed. By the time, the spear pierced it, it was already dead.

In the middle of the bare hole made by the impact, the spear hummed as blue light emanated from the corpse of the eagle. Blue particles of light were coming out of the corpse into the air like bubbles and the corpse itself was visibly shrinking.

When the strange phenomenon ended, the corpse was gone and the spear went silent again. The strange event that was caused by the spear attracted the attention of the planet's inhabitants, but that is a story for another time.

****

In a dark rocky space, the sound of dripping water could be heard as a sudden burst of pale blue light illuminated the dark grey rocks in the surroundings. The light slowly molded into the shape of a bald eagle. Bit by bit, the light dimmed down and an eagle could be seen in its place.

You have entered Azurath's dungeon

A screen appeared in front of the eagle. But the eagle, being an animal of limited intelligence, completely ignored it. The bald eagle slowly started to survey its surroundings. The last thing it could remember is chasing after a hare in the wild before it felt that strange air pressure and tried to run away. After that… was nothing.

It flew on top of a nearby rock to look around. Its wings made an audible sound in the air as it moved in this enclosed space. From its view, it could see small puddles of water dispersed on the ground. The eagle was currently feeling hungry, so it was looking around for prey.

From its vantage point, it couldn't see any of the prey it was used to seeing. In fact, it couldn't see any animals at all nearby. However, using its sharp eyesight, it could see that among the water puddles there were also a few round watery bodies. The reason they stood out was that they were actually moving around.

Even though they weren't very fast, the eagle could still see them clearly. The reason it took a while to realize they weren't other water bodies was because of the dim lighting in this place. The only sources of light in this place were a few bioluminescent plants. They dimly lit up the rocky cave in multiple different colors.

With its curiosity peeked, the eagle flew to one of those moving bodies of water. As it got close, there was no reaction from the round puddle. It simply continued to move to wherever it was headed. The eagle landed a few centimeters near it.

It started to poke the round body with its beak. But to its surprise, its beak slipped off its body. It kept trying a few more times to no avail. It finally changed its strategy and tried to grab it with its vise grip. Its talons managed to encompass over a third of the body of water. Putting strength in its grip, it slowly took hold of the body.

But before it could press more, the whole body popped like a balloon. Surprised, the eagle flapped its wings to retreat. But, it realized that was unnecessary as the body stopped moving. Now, it looked no different from normal water.

[Vise Grip lv1] Skill Gained

Another screen appeared in front of the eagle. As before, it ignored it completely.

The eagle was intrigued by the water. It decided to dip its beak into the water to drink it. Its color was different from normal water. It had a blue hue to it, but its smell was enticing enough for the eagle to give it a try. The water tasted sweet like honey and yet it also filled the eagle with energy as if it had eaten a whole rabbit.

It finished drinking all of the bluish water and felt bloated.

[Small Blue Slime Essence] Consumed

Since it already had the nutrients its body required, it started to look for a place to sleep. It was used to sleeping, whenever the sun set, in its nest. But since this place wasn't the environment it was used to, it decided to look for an elevated flat rock to sleep on.

Soon enough, it found a suitable rock and went to sleep.

****

When the bald eagle woke up from its sleep, it decided to explore its surroundings some more. However, it first looked for one of those round moving water bodies. Its deliciousness made the eagle crave more of it.

It found one pretty quickly and as before, it gripped it until it was squashed. This time it was even easier than before. Just a little bit of strength made the water body explode, splashing the water outwards. This made it a little difficult for the eagle to drink its fill. Therefore, it looked for even more of those bodies and squashed and drank and squashed and drank again and again until it was satisfied.

Afterward, it started to look around for a different environment than the one it was currently in. It was used to the feel of a forest, not a rocky cave. It flew to the place where there were more bioluminescent plants around. The place it was in was an enclosed space which meant there were no exits to lead to the sky. If there were any the eagle would have felt or heard the wind coming from outside by now.

It flew for a while before finally encountering a strange new watery body. This time its color was not a faint blue like the previous ones it encountered. This one had a faint red color to it. Even the environment, which only had very few plants, now had a lot more scattered about. It made the ground look like a rainbow.

The eagle flew to the red watery body immediately after finding it. The body was a little bigger than the previous ones it encountered but it was still small enough to be squashed by the eagle's strong grip and sharp talons. This time when the eagle put its scaly leg on the body, it felt its leg warm up slightly. But that wasn't enough for it to let go. It was similar to a human holding a warm cup of tea.

Over time, the eagle learned to control its grip strength so that the water inside the body wouldn't splash everywhere when it squashed it which made it easier for it to drink its fill. This time, however, it needed a little bit more strength for the body to be squashed. The water didn't leak or splash out as the eagle expected, instead, it slowly deformed into a puddle from its round shape. This red water was much more viscous than the blue water.

This didn't alarm the eagle at all, however, because the fragrance of this water was even more vibrant than the blue water. So, it immediately started to drink it. The sweet taste overwhelmed it and made it drink even more vigorously. It was as if a drug addict was consuming his favorite drug.

[Small Red Slime Essence] Consumed

The feeling of this water going down its throat filled the eagle with ecstasy.

It continued to head where the density of the plants was higher and the deeper it went the more watery bodies it found. They came in different varieties of color and taste but the most dominant ones were the blue and red ones. There were even some gathered together around particular plants. The variety of plants also increased, with some looking like the trees that the eagle was used to living in. Those had a bark that was pale white with luminous bases like the rest of the plants in this place.

The eagle headed for the trees to rest for the day after having its fill of the delicious water from the water bodies. This was practically a paradise for the eagle, with delicious and nutritious easy to feed on water and good sturdy trees that kept it off the ground, the eagle had nothing else to complain about. Except… for a mating partner. Sooner or later, it will want to mate like any other creature in the animal kingdom. The time here was skewed because there was no sunlight. But the eagle's desire was now to find a mating partner, this was the only missing part of its life right now.

The eagle stayed in its current area for a few weeks, drinking the delicious water whenever it felt like it and sleeping whenever it felt tired. But its urge to mate continued to grow stronger until finally, it decided to move on from this area even deeper inside, in the hope that it would find a partner.

As it went deeper the plants got more bizarre, with some even growing out from the ceiling. As for the water bodies, they started to get noticeably bigger. The eagle now had to use its full strength grip to squash them. A few days of flying later, it came across a much bigger body than the usual ones.

The watery bodies it was used to seeing were indeed getting bigger but this one was bigger than the rest in its area by at least two times. The ones in this area were as big as a melon, slightly smaller than the eagle. It could still squash them using its full strength grip. But the one in front of it was two times their size.

The smell coming from it tempted the eagle to head to it and try to squash and drink it. From its experience with those watery bodies so far, it knew they were no threat. The only reason it was hesitating slightly was that this watery body was bigger than itself.

Even though, the eagle squashed a lot of those watery bodies and drank from their water. Since their size kept increasing, it didn't have to hunt as many. In this area, it only needed to squash one watery body. Their water was much more viscous than the ones in the area it stayed at previously but much more delicious.

It would even squash a few of them and only drink a small amount from each as if it was sampling food in a buffet.

Determining it was safe, the eagle dove down from the sky to aim at the big watery body. This one was from the red variety and the eagle loved their taste very much. It decided to use both of its feet for this one and squash it. Slowing down its descent, it aimed its sharp talons on the body. Once its feet felt the watery texture of the body, it clamped down on it. But unlike what it expected there was no squishing sound indicating that it succeeded. Instead, it felt that its feet were holding onto a rubber-like transparent membrane. When it clapped down, that membrane simply stretched a little but didn't pop.

What it didn't realize was that this membrane was on all the watery bodies it encountered before. It was only that those ones were terribly thin that the eagle couldn't bother to concentrate on seeing them.

Suddenly, the watery body's shape distorted and a few red tentacles took shape on its top. They wrapped around the eagle's legs and tried to pull it into the body itself.

Startled, the eagle shrieked and flapped its wings trying to fly away from the watery body. In a situation where it didn't understand what was happening, it decided to fly away quickly. But the tentacles were more tenacious than the eagle thought. Their texture felt like rubber yet they were as strong as iron.

Its feet sank into the membrane of the watery body slowly and the rest of its body followed. The eagle continued to struggle uselessly until only its neck was outside of the watery body. The tentacles were gone but the water inside of the body felt like quicksand that was pulling the eagle in.

It couldn't flap its wings anymore and could only wait until it drowned in the water it liked to drink. Suddenly, its craving for the water made it dip its beak into the membrane allowing itself to be swallowed faster. If it was going to die, it might as well take a sip of its favorite drink.

Its beak sank into the membrane and it could feel the water entering its tongue. It vigorously swallowed all of the viscous red water until its stomach couldn't handle it. But this water, in particular, tasted heavenly. It was so delicious that it made the eagle forget about its situation, its desires or its own stomach… It only wanted to drink more.

It drank so much that its stomach area expanded and the water inside of the watery body reduced until the body itself couldn't contain the eagle anymore.

[Large Red Slime Essence] Consumed

[Slime Organ] Unlocked

Beginning the merging process

At this time, the eagle and the watery body started to be enveloped in a faint blue hue and they slowly started to merge into one whole body. The watery body's membrane enveloped the eagle's skin slowly and became more compressed until it couldn't be seen. While the red viscous water that was inside of the eagle and the rest of the water in the watery body merged with the eagle's feathers, giving it a faint red color. The eagle, that originally had a head full of white feathers and a body of black feathers, now looked more scarlet. It gave the eagle a fiery look.

The eagle's expanded stomach went back to normal. It felt very tired and fainted on the rocky floor.

****

Skills:

- Vise grip lv 3

Extra parts:

- Slime organ