Adam stared at the endless mountain of corpses, his mouth slightly agape, not in shock, but in sheer, reluctant realization.
He hadn’t expected this.
Even with all the insanity he had lived through lately, this wasn’t something he was ready for.
Somewhere in this mass grave of butchered flesh was one of his DLC Items... and there was no easy way to find it.
"Tch... Just my luck I guess."
He muttered under his breath.
"Of course it’s buried somewhere in this shit."
The hole above was still faintly visible, the light from the outside world barely reaching him now.
There was no going back from here.
No matter how much it sickened him, the only path forward was through.
And the quickest way... was to consume it.
He placed his hand on a nearby corpse, skin cold and waxy, as he set his mind on using Resolve of the Unbroken to self learn and push his body through another evolution.
The power surged through his body, his training begins now, responding to his will, his Shinso ability activated the moment Adam began to train.
It was a blessing built on perseverance and adaptation, and right now, he needed to evolve in the most literal sense.
"I need to learn how to digest this organic material."
He growled with determination.
It wasn’t going to be quick. It wasn’t going to be pleasant. But Adam set to work immediately.
The first two days were nothing but failure for Adam, currently he was in his slime form.
But the form itself couldn’t break down complex organic matter fast enough. The enzymes he generated were too weak. His absorption process too inefficient as a result.
Every trial left him reeking of rot, blood coating his body like molasses.
Once in his human form, he vomited black bile more times than he could count. The taste of spoiled meat clung to his tongue, refusing to leave.
But he didn’t stop, he couldn’t, he just needs to train some more, and that is exactly what he set out to do.
He eat, and eat, eat, just as he vomits, as he forced his body to eat, and assimilate, but after so many trials, he keeps on failing.
Well atleast for the first four days.
By the fifth day, something changed.
His slime cells began adjusting, and mutating at the same time. They started identifying key enzymes in the dead flesh, mimicking the ones used by scavengers and carrion monsters
Slowly, he developed a more potent digestive field, now he was able to melt muscle, fat, and sinew like acid through paper.
By day seven, he was eating without stopping.
He could wrap himself around a body, and easily reduce it to paste in minutes, and absorb it.
Every organ digested fed his evolving system. He began recognizing tissue patterns, bone density, magical residue.
By day nine, he had finally mastered it.
He didn’t need to open corpses anymore, and eat the flesh slowly
He moved through the pit like a phantom, leaving nothing behind but cleaned bones and a chemical stink.
And still, the DLC Item eluded him.
But it didn’t matter.
Even if it meant devouring every last body in this frozen pit of hell.
And that’s exactly what he did.
From time to time, however, some of the fairy monsters would come to collect large piles of meat and haul them away on carts through a massive metal door.
At the very least, Adam now knew there was a way out of here.
Eventually, as Adam continued dissolving the dead human bodies, he began to pick up on something new and handy; snippets of memories lingering in the flesh around him. Most of them were fragmented, unclear, but a pattern started to emerge.
Nearly every corpse shared the same final moments. Being dragged, dropped into the pit, then falling into eternal darkness... before hitting the ground with a sickening crunch, their bodies reduced to pulped meat on impact.
But that aside, he kept eating, devouring everything within reach, stuffing it all into his slimy body till more than a week had past.
Currently he was snacking on yet another mountain of flesh, on the last end of this one. He was pretty sure there were still hundreds more of these grotesque mounds scattered around.
And that was when the system finally notified him.
Somewhere deep within his stomach, something began to shine, faint at first, then clearer, as it reflected the natural bioluminescence of his form, which pulsed with a deep crimson glow.
『A DLC Item has been found』
『Congratulations, you have picked up the Safe Stone』
The name rang in Adam head, as he transformed back into his human form.
The memory of what this thing does, still fresh in his head.
As his body reformed into a physical whole, his slime form contorted and helped move the stone into his right hand before fully manifesting.
Looking at it, anyone could tell this was a beautiful necklace, featuring a small gemstone encased in gold plating.
It looked like it once belonged to someone of noble blood. Clearly, this lovely pink stone had been mistaken for an ordinary piece of jewelry, and someone had crafted a gorgeous necklace from it.
But that someone was now dead, most likely one of the many corpses he had consumed.
"Safe Stone... Hahaha, I remember this thing. I bought it back in the day to protect my kingdom in Kingdom at War, a popular MOBA game. When inactive, you could use this pay-to-win item called the Safe Stone. Its function was simple, it created a supernatural barrier, according to the item’s lore, that made it impossible for invaders to attack your kingdom once you went offline. I paid like two bucks for it back then. That was during the game’s peak... the hype died pretty quickly after that."
"Sadly it can’t be used as a personal barrier, it only works on places fill with a lot of people. Still, a DLC item is a DLC item, so score."
Adam said as he swallowed the necklace whole, storing the item inside his body, skillfully shifting his organs to tuck it into a suitable place.
"Now then, let’s get the next one... First, I’ll wait for those guys to show up. Not a single day has passed without them coming to collect meat from here."
With his plan in mind.
Adam went ahead and buried himself beneath a collapsed mound of corpses, his body pressed deep under the bloated weight of flesh and half-shattered bone.
He had chosen this spot carefully, just twenty feet from the giant metal door where the meat collectors always entered and exited.
The air here was thicker, and soaked in the stink of blood and guts, but it masked his presence well enough.
It had been five hours since he last moved.
Five long, silent hours.
But Adam waited with patience, his breathing slowed to an unnatural rhythm, his heartbeat dulled by his partial slime form.
Even his internal movements were restrained, his organs held in a suspended state, muscles locked in place.
His eyes, hidden beneath a skull cap of half-melted flesh, stared out toward the door, unblinking.
Just like they always do.
Then, without warning, the iron door let out a deep thunk, followed by the screech of ancient hinges as it cracked open.
Pale purple light spilled in from the other side, swirling like mist, followed by the faint mechanical hum that always accompanied their arrival.
Two beings floated in.
From afar, they looked like glowing spheres of soft violet energy. But as they approached, their forms solidified, small humanoid shapes with the usual halo, or rings behind the back.
Each one guided a rusted iron cart behind them, its wheels rattling along the blood-slick stone floor.
One of the fairies stopped, its head tilting in a strange, twitchy motion. Its glowing eyes dimmed briefly, as it scanned the surroundings.
The other continued on, pulling its cart to a fresh mound of flesh and beginning the grim process of sorting and collecting.
The first one eventually joined it, and soon the two were working together methodically extracting large sections of meat, severed limbs, whole torsos, anything within sight.
They moved quickly, as an invisible force lift the meat and place it on the cart.
Seeing his chance, Adam slithered across the floor, staying out of the fairies’ line of sight. Just like before, he hid within the pile of collected bodies.
Another twenty minutes passed.
The fairies themselves were capable of pushing more than eighty tons of meat with each cart.
As they began to push their collection outside, they made sure to close the massive metal doors behind them.
"Hehehe... Tonight’s another big feast. The king is such a loving leader, choosing to eat with his people every night."
"Yes, far better than the former queen."
Their small voices were cute, but the sheer amount of monster energy these little guys produced could level multiple cities.
And this place wasn’t just crawling with a few of them, oh no, there were hundreds of thousands, each one a power house in their own right, and together, their combine power could easily destroy an entire planet.