novelraw Chapter 87 On the Upper and Lower Limits of Slimes
Chapter 87 On the Upper and Lower Limits of Slimes
Chapter 81 On the Upper and Lower Limits of Slimes (3K)
"Let me see—the tree is normal, it has growth rings and leaves, it won't suddenly stretch out tentacles and hang someone up."
The soil was normal, brownish, not the kind of purplish-red humus that seems to breathe, and certainly not the kind that suddenly opens into a gaping maw full of fangs.
"And there's a squirrel—well, two eyes and a tail—eating pine cones instead of gnawing on human finger bones. Very good, very energetic."
After all, no one knows which universe this portal leads to.
What if the landing site is the Tyranid hive from Warhammer 40?
Or worse, you might fall into the backyard of some Cthulhu god, where a single glance would drain your sanity.
But now it seems that luck is on his side.
Pei Qi landed slowly on the soft grass.
The specially designed shock-absorbing soles bent the grass, making a soft "rustling" sound.
Not far away, under a huge oak tree, a furry gray squirrel peeked out cautiously, holding a nut in its paws, its small, black bean-like eyes scanning its surroundings warily.
After confirming that the silvery-white two-legged creature had no intention of attacking, he focused on eating his lunch.
"So cute."
Pei Qi rarely showed a fatherly smile, and even considered taking out a piece of [Panmas Farm] from his backpack.
Feed it some bread.
"In this world filled with killing and monsters, to see such a healing little creature is truly a cleansing of the soul."
However, Pei Qi's sigh was not yet finished.
A sudden change occurred.
Boing
'
A strange, elastic, and leaping sound came from above the treetops without warning.
Pei Qi subconsciously looked up, but before his dynamic vision could capture the full picture of the object, he saw a semi-transparent dark blue shadow falling from the sky like a cannonball.
Its landing point was so precise it was outrageous.
It hit the squirrel squarely on the top of its head.
There was no screaming as expected.
There wasn't even a second of struggle.
"Splat!"
What happened next left Pei Qi stunned.
The squirrel wasn't crushed or bled when it touched the blue object.
Its body — shattered.
Literally, "broken".
It's like a cheap Lego brick being hit by a heavy hammer, or a rag doll with explosives inside.
With an excessively crisp sound, the squirrel's body disintegrated in an instant.
A head, four legs, a tail, and several pieces of unrecognizable torso exploded in all directions in a way that completely defied biomechanics.
The blood didn't even splatter; instead, it transformed into a red particle effect that lingered briefly in the air before disappearing.
The culprit behind all this, the blue dumpling, bounced high into the air the moment it landed, thanks to its excellent elasticity.
It traced a graceful parabola through the air and landed steadily a few meters away.
It shook its bouncy body and made a jelly-like trembling sound.
It was as if it had just crushed not a life, but an insignificant pixel.
Pei Qi:
He looked down at the pile of squirrel corpses on the ground that had been turned into "parts", then looked up at the blue dumpling that was still hopping around in place.
"Wait a moment----"
Pei Qi's lips twitched.
"Something's not right. Is there something wrong with the physics engine?"
"That was just a collision, right? It was definitely just a simple physical collision, so why did it produce a 'shattered corpse' effect? Is that squirrel made of porcelain?"
More importantly, that blue thing—
It was a gel-like, semi-fluid organism, its entire body a clear, deep blue, and sunlight could even shine through its body onto the grass.
Its interior has no bones, no internal organs, only pure gel flowing inside.
"And—why does this thing look so familiar?"
An alarm bell rang in Pei Qi's mind.
He immediately brought up the mini-map interface in his field of vision.
As the core mod of Minecraft, the minimap can detect all living things in the surrounding area.
Hostile creatures are red, neutral creatures are yellow, and friendly creatures are green.
"No red dots."
Pei Qi confirmed it again and again.
Within a radius of 100 meters, there were no red markers representing hostile creatures.
Directly in front of him, there was only a lone yellow dot representing a neutral creature, which was rhythmically bouncing on the minimap.
In Minecraft, yellow dots usually represent creatures like wolves and polar bears that are "never bothering you unless provoked, or docile during the day and ferocious at night."
"Yellow? Neutral?"
"You call this a neutral creature? This thing just calmly and physically exorcised a cute mammal!"
"This level of brutality would at least warrant a charge of intentional homicide on Earth, and you're telling me it's neutral?!"
Pei Qi stared in disbelief at the culprit who had just crushed the squirrel to pieces.
"Could it be that—it hasn't attacked me yet? Or is it that, according to the rules of this world, this level of killing is merely a 'natural phenomenon'?"
Pei Qi narrowed his eyes, trying to analyze the essence of this creature.
The data came back quickly:
[Target composition: gel, water? ————]
Threat Level: Low?
[Race Classification: Slime]
slime.
This is probably the most widespread and diverse group of creatures in all the myriad realms, besides humans and goblins.
They are also the most easily underestimated race.
In most people's stereotypes, they are "experience packs in the newbie village," the first whetstone for heroes to hone their skills, and useless weaklings who are good for nothing but being cute and corroding clothes.
But this does not mean that slimes are a weak race.
They are incredibly resilient and highly adaptable, existing in everything from floating islands thousands of meters in the air to the darkest depths of the abyss.
From frigid ice fields to scorching lava lakes, and even radioactive wastelands, their bouncy forms can be seen everywhere.
But if you underestimate them because they are common, you are not far from death.
Pei Qi silently assessed the danger of this species in his mind.
The combat power range of the slime race is even greater than the distance from the slums to the palace.
It is an extreme race that truly embodies the principle of "lowest limit as low as dust, highest limit as high as gods".
If it's like the kind in Japanese Western fantasy, such as "Dragon Quest," then it is indeed a mascot.
Round and silly, its only skill is to bump into your knee, and the damage is probably less than if you trip and fall while walking.
But if it's a fundamentalist Dungeons & Dragons world—
Pei Qi remembered the transparent cube called the "Gel Monster".
They lurk in the corridors of the dungeon, blending into the environment with their transparent bodies. Unsuspecting adventurers who stumble upon them are instantly digested by the strong acid, reduced to a clean skeleton.
They have no intelligence, only a pure appetite; they are perfect scavengers and killers.
In the Japanese-style isekai (otherworld) setting, slimes point out various strange evolutionary paths.
Some can mimic beautiful girls, some can devour everything to gain skills, and some have even been reincarnated as demon kings, establishing a vast demon federation.
That "Slime King" named Rimuru is one of the strongest of the slime races, and his strength is enough to make him roam freely in this universe.
It proves that even a lump of slime can become the master of the world if it has enough cheat codes.
Even in the Cthulhu Mythos, there are the Shoggoths who guard the Mad Mountains—
That thing can essentially be classified as a protoplasmic slime with infinite plasticity. It is covered with countless eyes and mouths, writhing to the mad flute music, and even the ancients are afraid of it.
A black slime of amorphous shape, covered with eyes and a mouth, and made of protoplasm.
They can mimic any form, possess boundless power, and can completely extinguish one's sanity with just a glance.
Jelly that can be easily crushed by humans is a slime, acid monsters that can devour dragons are slimes, and those indescribable ancient god familiars are also slimes.
And this blue guy in front of me—
As Pei Qi watched its bouncy jumping movements and its signature "Terraria-style" dismemberment attack, a guess began to form in his mind.
The slimes in this world are probably more than just "jelly".
In a world called "Calamity," there exists a being that transcends ordinary slimes.
Initially, it may have been a collective of wills born solely to protect its weaker kind—the Slime God.
However, in certain distorted timelines, when this will has devoured enough power and merged with all the gels and impurities in the world, it will evolve into an ultimate form.
That was a singularity of a gel-like organism.
It was no longer a cute jelly, but a twisted, black and red vortex.
It can devour all surrounding matter like a black hole, and can even corrode space itself.
Slimes of that level are no longer "jumping," but rather "carrying out dimensional attacks through gravitational waves."
In that form, it is no longer the target of the hero, but a predator that can rival or even hunt down the gods.
If a mortal were to look directly at it, their soul would be assimilated by that endless abyss of gel.
Before it, even dragons and demons are nothing more than slightly larger snacks.
"Although this little blue guy in front of me looks weak, I could crush him with one stomp."
"But if the underlying logic of this world supports slime ascension," then who knows if an armored slime might be hiding behind this bush? Or if a slime god might suddenly fall from the sky?"
"Therefore, never underestimate any living being."
"Even if you think it's just a slime that you can see anywhere on the roadside, if you dare to underestimate it, it might transform into a star destroyer in the next second, beat you up in all sorts of ways, and turn you into a piece of digestive residue in its body."
Just as Pei Qi was engaging in profound "slime philosophy thinking," the blue slime seemed to have finished processing its previous bloodlust.
It turned around—if it had a front.
The jelly-like body trembled slightly.
Then, it seemed to sense Pei Qi's presence.
"Boing!"
With a light, springy bounce, it leaped high into the air.
This time, its target was no longer the squirrel.
Instead, it was that silver tin can standing on the grass, radiating an alluring energy.
Pei Qi sighed and helplessly raised the nanosword in his hand, which was powerful enough to cut through a tank.
"Well, it seems our neutral relationship is over."
"Come on, little jelly. Let me see if you can burst out the gel I want from your belly."
He decided to have a friendly physical exchange with the blue slime who had just committed murder, about "the conservation of matter and the ownership of dropped items".