Perfect Assimilation: Evolution of a Shapeshifting Slime!

The runt was born last and smallest.

The horde had not even bothered to mark its hatching. Other goblins, when they came out of the breeding pits, drew kicks and cuffs as a kind of welcome.

The runt drew nothing. Its size was so far below the average that the mother goblin had simply looked at it once, decided it was too small to bother killing, and walked away.

That walking away was the runt’s first piece of luck.

It survived on what the others left behind. Bone scraps. Marrow the bigger goblins had not bothered to crack.

Sleeping spots near the latrine where no one wanted to lie. It ate only when other members filled their stomachs.

Its sleeping place was always the cold stone away from the rest of the horde.

Its only duty, for years, was to fetch and to clean. Pick up the bones. Drag the dead. Carry the leftovers.

Goblins did not give it a name. They only marked it as the smallest thing in the eating order, and they kicked it when they passed.

The runt accepted this. It did not have the words for resentment. It could only accept everything. It was alone in the darkness, until one day the shadows talked to it.

A larger goblin had been in the middle of breaking the runt’s arm again.

The runt had pressed itself flat against the stone of the warren wall, the way it always did, and the wall had not pushed back.

The runt slipped sideways into the dark. A breath later, it was on the other side of the chamber.

The shadows had taken it.

The runt had no concept for awakening. It only knew that the shadows had become a friend, and that friends could be used.

That night, the runt killed the goblin who had broken its arm.

The runt rose out of the shadow under the goblin’s sleeping mat, opened the throat, and stepped back into the dark before the body finished twitching.

The horde blamed a rival pack the next morning. The runt watched the funeral from the shadow of a stalactite and felt the closest thing it had ever felt to satisfaction.

After that, the kills came easy.

One by one, the goblins who had hurt the runt stopped existing. None of the bodies pointed back to the smallest member of the horde.

None of the survivors thought to suspect the one too weak to lift a cleaver.

The body did not grow. The body count did. Across two seasons, the runt killed more of its own kin than the Warrior had killed in its life.

Across two seasons, the runt killed more than the Mage had with all its acid put together.

When the horde finally found the culprit, the runt had become a hobgoblin. Not the way the Warrior had, with size and a greatsword.

Not the way the Mage had, with bone and acid. The runt had become a hobgoblin in its own way. Smaller. Quieter and lethal.

Now the runt watched the chamber from a shadow on the wall.

Six humans on the platform. The runt had counted them while the brothers had not yet noticed it was there. Two big swordsmen at the front. Slow but steady.

The fast one on the flank, also a threat, but tiring. The fire boy at the back, no threat. The healer behind him, the spine of the formation. Cut the spine and the body falls.

And the silver-haired one.

Standing a little apart from the others. No weapon. No armor. The smallest of the humans by build. Doing strange things to the goblins in the pool that the runt did not entirely understand.

The runt assessed.

The healer was the smart kill. The kill that broke the team. The silver-haired one was the easy kill. Distracted. Alone. No defense visible.

The runt’s lips pulled into a smirk.

Goblin lips were not built for the expression and the smirk pulled the scar on its face into an ugly shape. It chose the silver-haired one.

These humans did not know their pitiful lives were ending tonight. They would not know who had ended them.

It stepped into the shadow at its feet. It stepped out of the shadow behind the silver-haired girl.

For one half-second, the runt saw a pair of golden pupils already turned toward the spot where it had emerged.

Already waiting and locked with a hint of mockery.

The runt did not have time to understand the mistake. The blood inside its body heated. Then it burned. Then it burst.

*

* *

Kenji breathed in relief watching the body of the assassin hobgoblin fall lifelessly before Ayla.

No one in the team except her had realized a murder hobo had penetrated their formation. Kenji’s lips twitched.

In every loop this one had taken Sora and Kael before anyone noticing. In this loop it had targeted Ayla.

Out of every option in the chamber, the hobgoblin had walked up behind the most dangerous member of the formation and announced itself by dying.

Ayla glanced down at the corpse at her feet. The hobgoblin was small even by goblin standards. Wiry.

One-eyed. A body that had clearly missed too many meals across too many years.

She tilted her head.

No one was watching her. The team had returned its attention to the line. The Warrior was finally moving forward. The chamber’s noise covered everything.

Tendrils slipped from her sleeve. The harvest took less than two seconds.

[You have slain a Hobgoblin Assassin.]

[Biomass consumed: Hobgoblin.]

[Racial Form Acquired: Hobgoblin.]

[Trait Acquired: Shadow Step (D).]

[Notice: Host possesses two Shadow-affinity traits in catalogue.]

[Compatibility detected. Initiating combination.]

[Shadow Step (D) and Shadow Pulse (D) merging.]

[New Trait Acquired: Shadow Stride (C).]

Ayla read the description without changing her expression.

Shadow Stride.

Step into any shadow within range. Emerge from any other shadow within range, carrying a compressed pulse of darkness on emergence.

The pulse did not damage on its own. It muffled. Sound, light, and sensation all dimmed around the exit point for a single heartbeat.

A movement trait paired with a concealment trait. Not lethal alone. Lethal paired with everything else she carried.

Ayla considered the possibilities. With Shadow Stride, she could step into the shadow under a goblin’s foot and emerge inside the throat of its commander, with a half-second window in which no one in the chamber would hear or see the kill.

A sharp intent flashed in her eyes. The Warrior was already moving.

The Hobgoblin Warrior had finally made up its mind. The Warrior raised its greatsword above its head and bellowed a command that shook dust from the chamber ceiling.

The horde behind it surged.

Kenji raised his blade. Kael set his shield. Elara shook out her legs and rolled her shoulders. Sora’s white light pulsed brighter.

Jaxon swallowed and gathered what was left of his mana into his palms.

Ayla turned to face the Warrior. She did not hide her smile.

"Time to end this..."