The citizens cried out as the slime leapt from the remains of the house's foundations and towards them. Several round globs were launched out from its undulating body.
Sid had already called down his Wulfrum mech suit to blast the Ebonian Slime God, while Meg was firing what looked like streams of razor-sharp feathers from a spell tome.
William ran up to the slime's side and started slashing at it with his Perfect Dark sword. Some of the other citizens were also starting to attack it, notably Red Beard's minigun and Faye's Resonance Scepter.
The slime leapt again, up into the air and hovering in an odd horizontal trajectory towards Meg before slamming straight down, though she was quick to get out of the way.
Its health level was over 9000. Next to the Hive Mind it wasn't as strong, but it was still threatening. It fired another volley of slime globs, this time at the group of citizens. A few of them got hit, taking some damage.
"Robyn, get the citizens to safety!" William shouted.
Robyn did so, making a large leap as she fired arrows at the Ebonian Slime God with her Galeforce bow.
"Into the village!" she called to the citizens, waving one of her hands. She fired and fired, laying down cover fire as the citizens ran past her and into the street. Now a safe distance from the Ebonian Slime God, they all kept on launching their attacks at it. Robyn grappled up to the roof of one of the nearby houses for a better vantage point, allowing her to easily arc arrow after arrow into the giant slime's gelatin.
"Uhh... guys?" Bart called. "Robyn, you might want to take a look at this!"
She spun around, and saw that something was coming towards them from the Crimson side of the village.
It was another slime, as massive as the first one William, Sid and Meg were facing. The Crimulan Slime God. It started firing red slime globs towards the citizens, the balls hitting the ground and rolling towards them, one bowling the Pirate over.
"Arr, ye won't be sinkin' me today!" he shouted.
Robyn turned her arrows to the Crimulan Slime God, but it was bounding down the street extremely quickly. As it took damage, smaller slimes began to ooze from its side and join its charge, a few of them ridged with hard spikes.
She fired and fired, but it wasn't losing health fast enough. It would soon reach the citizens.
"No!" she shouted, leaping off the house roof.
She landed in front of the group of citizens, firing arrows as fast as she could.
"Get back!" she yelled at the citizens. Spotting a side street just ahead, she made a dash for it, hoping to lead the Crimulan Slime God down there and away.
She turned around, starting to walk backwards with her Galeforce bow held out, ready to fire.
Wait... where'd it go?
Then she looked up.
She screamed as it slammed down on top of her.
***
"Aaaaaaaaahahahaha!" Sid cackled as he called his mech suit down for a second round against the Ebonian Slime God.
"You don't want to become dependent on that thing if it's always needing recharging, you know?" Meg asked.
"Who cares? It's way cooler than the whips I used to use. Who needs them when you can simply become the summon yourself?"
Sid's Dank Creeper summons and his Fungal Clump were all latched onto the slime god's body. William was batting away some smaller slimes that had sprouted wings upon oozing from the mega slime. And Meg was just contributing an all-round great amount of damage.
The Ebonian Slime God soon reached half health, at which point it split into two smaller slimes. But that wasn't a problem in Sid's eyes. One leapt for William, which he started to slash at with his sword while Meg fired her razor-feathers at it. That left the other for Sid himself, which he revelled at.
"Let's dance!" Sid shouted. "I'll do the robot while you put on your best slimestep! Oh that's right, you don't have feet, guess I'll have to blast some for you!"
That was when a round purple-and-red sphere dropped from the sky, shooting into the slime and getting absorbed by it.
Which caused the slime to start glowing.
Suddenly it started leaping towards Sid at an even faster rate. He tried running away from it with his Hermes Boots, but it was gaining on him. He jumped to try to avoid it, but it matched his movements, and they ended up colliding.
The impact shattered the mech suit that served as his exoskeleton. He fell to the lavender grass as the glowing Ebonian Slime God hovered past him and landed about ten blocks away. At the same moment the purple-and-red sphere that had entered the slime earlier popped out, shooting up into the sky.
Sid's eyes skimmed over its label as he watched its arc. 'The Slime God: 4000/4000'.
***
Robyn kicked and flailed, stuck in the viscous substance of the Crimulan Slime God's innards. She could feel her health being drained away by the second. Soon she would be nothing more than the husk of her armour.
She tried to 'swim' her way out, but there didn't seem to be an edge.
Not like this!
I can't die! Not when we only just met William and Sid again!
Nooo...
That was when the universe suddenly felt like it had been torn in two.
The Crimulan Slime God had split into two smaller slimes.
She was half expecting William, with his large indigo sword held down, to be in front of her. Having cleaved the slime in two to save her.
But it was Meg. Now just turning her Tradewinds spell tome onto one of the split slimes, blasting it with rapid streams of feathers. She glanced up at the sky.
"Incoming!"
Meg started firing at what looked like a purple and blue meteor streaking down at her. She jumped up to avoid its swoop, but the meteor turned in mid-air and caught her in the stomach.
"Watch out, Robyn!" Faye the Princess shouted.
Robyn spun around, the two split Crimulan Slime Gods leaping back towards her indicating that perhaps standing here dumbstruck was not the best idea. She jumped up, grappling onto one of the house roofs, and began shooting at the Crimulan Slime Gods with her Galeforce bow.
The two slimes leapt up at her, but she ran backwards along the apex of the roof, determined to not let those slimes swallow her up again. Adrenaline and fear coursing through her veins, she tried to jump over a gap between two houses, but slipped and ended up falling down to the street.
One of the slimes leapt off the roof and down after her. She tried to roll to the side, but still got hit by its gooey body. She thankfully wasn't sucked inside again, but the impact hit more than just her armour.
Why can't I be as good at fighting as Meg is? she wondered. Able to keep a constant level head like her. Never make any stupid mistakes or get too scared to do anything.
She ran down the street, firing arrows at the rapidly-bouncing slimes. She cried and screamed and shouted, anything so that they could go down faster.
Before suddenly... they did.
Her whole body was tense, high on the adrenaline of this fight. Her arrows tore into the slimes' health, both of them shrinking and shrinking as they lost more and more. Soon one burst into inanimate red goo, then the other.
She breathed, feeling the nerves wear down, then fell backwards onto the street pavement.
***
William, Sid and Meg were dealing with the two split Ebonian Slime Gods and the flying Slime God sphere – William decided to call it the 'Core'. The Core kept on bouncing between the two slimes, charging them up with glowing energy that made them harder to kill. The Core had the least amount of life, but it also moved fast enough that they didn't get many opportunities to deal damage to it.
William figured, if they could take down both of the split Ebonian Slime Gods, the Core would become vulnerable and they could finish it off. This thankfully didn't take long, in-between Meg's Tradewinds and William's sword. Sid had resummoned his mech suit, but it was proving to be surprisingly ineffective – the laser pellets didn't deal massive amounts of damage, and the slimes' natural defence was reducing it further.
"I might need to upgrade away from this armour soon," he said solemnly. "Is it weird that I don't want to do that for once? This mech suit's just so damn cool!"
"Maybe there's another type of armour that has a similar ability," William said.
Once both Ebonian Slime Gods had been reduced to sludge, the Core began frantically swooping at them. Meg kept blasting it with razor feathers while Sid shot at it with his mech suit, and had his summons clamp onto it.
William himself didn't get a lot of chances to hit it due to its erratic airborne movement, but his sword dealt around 50 damage with each blow, which was pretty decent. It was one of those swipes that would finally bring the Core's health down to 0, causing it to break apart, an array of items dropping out and rushing into William's inventory.
Its rupture also caused a wave of energy to blast out, William feeling the blast wave passing through him and knocking him from his feet.
He fell to the ground, winded, and reached out with both hands to push himself upwards.
His hands touched grass.
Green.
He looked around, shocked.
The Slime God's defeat was curing the landscape. Purity was rushing out, painting away the purple grass in one direction and the crimson grass in the other. Flowers bloomed and grasses raised. Tree trunks turned healthy and the stony foundations of the houses were cured of their diseases.
The world around them had been purified in one fell swoop. This Slime God had been the living personification of both the Crimson and Lavender in this world. Now that it was gone, both sides were retreating.
He pushed himself to his feet, saw Meg and Sid doing the same. But Robyn...
Robyn!
He ran through the village, desperately looking for her, but initially only finding the group of citizens.
"The evilness of these lands has been swept away," the fish-man said. William hadn't yet committed his name to his memory. "This village will be able to provide us shelter."
William ran past them.
What if she's...
Then he saw her.
Lying on her back on some stony pavement, green grass and flowers having sprouted around her.
He knelt down by her side. "Robyn?"
She stirred, her head shifting from the left to the right, then her eyes slowly opened.
***
The God had fallen.
The one who had been among those at the beginning of all time.
Its essence had been what her clan had once drawn power from.
But the power of the Jungle Tyrant had kicked the God to the ground, leaving it a portion of its former self. But slowly regenerating in power. She had sworn her life to protecting it. Keeping the balance, allowing its Corruption and Crimson to flourish, so that her clan may one day yet return.
But these people... they had ended it once and for all.
She looked down at herself. This grotty, sulphurous armor, scraped together from the acidic ocean far away. The ineffective weapons, sold to her by some bandit that had been wandering the wastelands.
She felt powerless. Pitiful. Nowhere near the power level her master had raised her to be, ever since he had been slain by the Tyrant. When her superior armour and weapons had been directly dismantled from her self and she'd been cast aside.
She should have died too.
But the world had chosen to let her live.
She was all that remained of the Statigel clan. If anyone was going to restore balance to the world, it was going to have to be her.
And she was willing to die trying.
Are you willing to die voting? Probably not, that would be such an anticlimactic way to go out :(