Chapter : 545
Iffrit, standing silent and immense on the pristine green grass, seemed to take in the scene. The two points of white-hot fire in his helm flickered, and Lloyd could feel, through their new, nascent bond, a wave of what could only be described as… profound, almost divine, contempt. These pathetic, jiggly, insignificant lifeforms were to be the first test of his apocalyptic power? It was an insult to his very being.
Fang Fairy, beside him, seemed to feel it too. He is not impressed, Master, she noted, a hint of amusement in her mental voice.
“He will learn the value of a target-rich environment,” Lloyd replied dryly. He looked out at the endless, bouncing sea of blue. The last time he had faced this horde, it had been a tedious, soul-crushing grind. A battle of attrition, won through sheer, stubborn endurance. This time… this time would be different. This would not be a grind. This would be a glorious, beautiful, and comically one-sided, slaughter.
“Alright, team,” he announced, his voice ringing with the authority of a general about to unleash a new, and devastating, super-weapon for the first time. “New rules of engagement. Iffrit,” he focused his will on the massive, silent demon, “you are primary assault. Your objective is… everything that jiggles. I want you to carve a path of fiery destruction through the center of that field. Do not worry about finesse. Do not concern yourself with strategy. I want a demonstration of pure, overwhelming, and deeply satisfying, force. Annihilate them.”
Through their new bond, he felt a flicker of what could only be described as eager, bloodthirsty joy from the silent, armored demon. It was a being forged for destruction, and it had just been given its first, glorious command.
“Fang Fairy,” he continued, turning his attention to his other partner, “you are support. Flank security. Anything that escapes the primary kill-zone, anything that tries to scatter, is yours. Your speed, your precision… clean up the edges. Leave no survivor.”
A task I shall perform with the utmost efficiency, Master, she replied, her ethereal form already crackling with a low hum of anticipatory lightning.
“Good,” Lloyd said, a final, predatory smile spreading across his face. “Let the harvest begin.”
With a thought, he gave the command. “Engage.”
Iffrit moved. The earth of the Soul Farm did not just tremble; it groaned in protest. Each of his massive, magma-forged feet slammed into the pristine green grass with the force of a meteor strike, leaving deep, smoking footprints in his wake. He did not run. He charged, a nine-foot-tall, unstoppable avalanche of fire and rage.
He reached the edge of the teeming slime horde. And he swung his sword.
The colossal, twelve-foot-long zanbatō, its blade a roaring, chaotic inferno of crimson and orange flame, scythed through the air with a sound like a hurricane. It was not a cut. It was an event. A moving wall of pure, elemental annihilation.
The instant the flame-wreathed blade touched the first rank of bouncing, oblivious slimes, the world dissolved into fire.
The impact was not a series of individual pops, but a single, catastrophic, and deeply satisfying, FWOOOOM. A massive, rolling wave of incandescent fire erupted from the point of impact, a fiery tsunami that consumed everything in its path. Dozens, scores, perhaps a hundred of the slimes in the front rank were not just boiled or melted; they were instantly, comprehensively, vaporized. They vanished in a flash of brilliant, orange light and a cloud of superheated, sugary-smelling steam, leaving behind only blackened, scorched earth.
The kinetic force of the blow alone was immense, a shockwave that sent the slimes further back tumbling through the air like discarded, jiggly toys. But it was the fire, the all-consuming, world-ending fire, that was the true weapon. The flames did not just burn; they spread, leaping from the initial point of impact, a hungry, roaring wildfire that flowed through the densely packed slime horde, turning the serene green plain into a vision from a particularly spectacular, if slightly gooey, hell.
Iffrit did not stop. He was a whirlwind of destruction, a demon of the forge letting out millennia of pent-up destructive fury. He roared, a silent, spiritual sound that was pure, triumphant rage, and swung his massive, flaming greatsword again, and again, and again. Each swing was a masterpiece of brutal, artless, and overwhelmingly effective, carnage. He carved a massive, smoking, and ever-widening swathe of black, scorched earth through the heart of the slime horde, his flaming blade a blur of crimson and orange, a moving apocalypse that left nothing but the smell of burnt sugar and evaporating despair in its wake.
Chapter : 546
The slimes, their simple, amoebic consciousness finally registering the sheer, overwhelming terror of their situation, began to scatter. The orderly, bouncing horde dissolved into a frantic, panicked chaos, thousands of individual blue blobs bouncing desperately in every direction, trying to flee the unstoppable, fiery doom that had descended upon them.
They were fleeing directly into the storm.
Fang Fairy moved, a silent, silver-grey streak against the backdrop of the fiery cataclysm. She was the scalpel to Iffrit’s sledgehammer, the lightning to his inferno. Her movements were a blur of precise, deadly grace. The escaping slimes, scattered and panicked, were easy prey.
Chirp-SLICE. A shimmering Lightning Dart, a smaller, more energy-efficient variant of the Spear of Justice, shot from her hand, piercing three fleeing slimes in a single, perfect, instantaneous line. They popped, dissolved.
FZZZZ-T. She appeared in the midst of another fleeing cluster, her Lightning Cloak flaring for a fraction of a second, a contained, azure nova that instantly vaporized the dozen slimes closest to her.
She was a ghost, a storm, everywhere at once. Her Thousand Chirp Strike, which had once been their primary weapon, was now almost laughably unnecessary against such weak foes. She relied on speed, on precision, on small, efficient bursts of her immense power to clean up the edges of Iffrit’s fiery rampage, her movements a beautiful, deadly dance of death that was a stark, elegant contrast to the raw, brutal carnage her new partner was unleashing.
Lloyd watched from a safe distance, a silent, white-masked conductor overseeing his symphony of destruction. He felt a thrill so profound, so potent, it was almost a physical thing. This was power. True power. The perfect, brutal synergy of overwhelming force and surgical precision. Iffrit was the hammer, shattering the enemy’s main line. Fang Fairy was the cavalry, running down the routing survivors. And he… he was the general, the mind, the will that commanded the storm and the fire.
The kill counter in his mind, which had once been a source of such tedious, slow-moving frustration, was now a blur, a frantic, exhilarating cascade of numbers ticking upwards at a dizzying, almost unbelievable, pace.
[Slimes Killed: 121… 157… 214… 309…]
It was a glorious, beautiful, and comically one-sided, harvest. The Slime Plains were being cleared, not in hours or days, but in minutes. The sheer, overwhelming efficiency of it was intoxicating. He had spent what felt like an eternity grinding to earn his first 200 Farming Coins. Now, he was watching that same amount being generated in the time it took to have a cup of tea.
He let them work, his two magnificent, terrifying spirits, his partners in this strange, new war. He saw Iffrit, a silent, indomitable demon of flame, cleaving a path of black, smoking ruin through the heart of the plains. He saw Fang Fairy, a graceful, silver-and-azure goddess of the storm, dancing at the edges of the inferno, her lightning a final, beautiful, and utterly lethal, full stop to any who dared to flee.
They were his. His power. His creations. A testament to his will, to his vision, to the strange, impossible journey that had led him here.
He looked out at the burning, crackling, and rapidly emptying plains, at the rising sun of his own, personal dimension, at the two magnificent, deadly gods who served his will. And for the first time since his return, the Major General, the drab duckling, the soap-maker, the professor, the man of three lifetimes, felt a surge of something that was not just confidence, not just satisfaction, but a deep, profound, and almost terrifying, sense of absolute, unshakeable, power. The ghosts of his past were still out there. But for the first time, he did not just feel like he could survive them. He felt, with a certainty that was as hot and as real as the flames that now consumed his private world, that he could hunt them. And he could win.
—
The slaughter on the Slime Plains was a masterpiece of overwhelming, elemental violence. The air, once so pure and neutral, was now a thick, almost unbreathable haze of smoke, steam, and the sweet, cloying scent of incinerated gelatin. Lloyd stood amidst the quiet, smoking devastation, the thrill of the battle slowly receding, replaced by the cool, satisfying hum of a mission accomplished. He had unleashed his new arsenal, and the results had been… definitive.
Chapter : 547
He looked at his two Trans-level spirits, who now stood at his side. Iffrit, the silent demon of flame, was a towering monument of cooled magma and dormant power. Fang Fairy, the graceful goddess of the storm, stood beside him, her ethereal form once more serene. They were a study in contrasts—the brutal, earthy power of fire, and the swift, ethereal grace of lightning. His hammer and his scalpel.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
He checked his System interface, a slow, deeply satisfied smile spreading across his face as he reviewed the results of their brief, brutal work. The progress bar for the repeatable slime quest, a new version that had appeared after his first foundational clear, was ticking up at a dizzying rate.
[Repeatable Quest: Slime Field Maintenance]
[Objective: Eliminate 1000 Glistening Slimes.]
[Reward: 100 Farming Coins (FC)]
[Progress: 250/1000]
Two hundred and fifty slimes, eradicated in what felt like no more than thirty minutes of exhilarating, if comically one-sided, combat. At this rate, he could complete the full quota of one thousand in less than two subjective hours. The 500 FC he needed for his first major System Upgrade felt not just achievable, but imminent.
“Excellent work, both of you,” Lloyd said, sending a wave of approval through their bonds. He did a quick internal check. His unified core felt strained, but not depleted. The new architecture of the 2.0 system was proving its worth. He estimated they were at about seventy percent of their total capacity. More than enough for another round.
“Alright, team,” he announced, his voice ringing with a renewed, almost cheerful, purpose. “Phase one of the harvest was a successful field test. Now, for phase two. Let’s clear the next sector.”
He turned, his gaze sweeping across the plains, expecting to see the next teeming, jiggly horde of oblivious slime-fodder waiting for their appointment with fiery, electrified oblivion.
But he saw… nothing.
The Slime Plains, which had been a vast ocean of bouncing blue gelatin, were now empty. Completely, utterly, and strangely, unnervingly, empty. The scorched, blackened earth from their recent slaughter was a stark, ugly wound, but beyond it, the pristine grass stretched on, devoid of a single, bouncing slime.
Lloyd froze, his brow furrowing in confusion. “What…?” he murmured. He extended his senses, reaching out across the empty plains. He felt… nothing. No life signs. No gurgling. No jiggling.
Master? Fang Fairy’s mental voice was a hum of shared confusion. The prey… it has vanished.
Iffrit shifted his immense weight, and Lloyd could feel a wave of what could only be described as profound, almost childish, disappointment from the massive fire-god. He had been promised a glorious, endless slaughter, and it had, it seemed, ended prematurely.
“They can’t just be… gone,” Lloyd muttered to himself, his own mind racing. He had assumed the slimes were a limitless, respawning resource. But the sea had, apparently, dried up. He turned his focus inward, to the one source of information that might explain the rules of its own insane game.
“System,” he commanded. “Report. Status of the Slime Plains biome.”
The cool, blue interface shimmered into existence, and the voice of the Administrator, calm and synthetic, replied. “Query registered, User. Current hostile lifeform count in the ‘Slime Plains’ biome: Zero.”
“Zero?” Lloyd’s voice was incredulous. “That’s impossible. I cleared a section. Where did they go?”
“The entities have not ‘gone’ anywhere, User,” the Administrator replied with a hint of pedantic correction. “They have simply reached their designated spawn limit for the current temporal cycle.”
Lloyd stared. “Spawn limit? Temporal cycle? Explain.”
The interface displayed a new, and deeply frustrating piece of information.
[System Functionality Note: Soul Farm Biome Population Dynamics]
[Each biome within the Soul Farm is governed by a Spawn Rate Protocol. This protocol dictates the maximum number of hostile entities that can be generated per a standardized unit of Primary Reality Time.]
Lloyd’s mind seized on the last four words. Real-world time.
“Elaborate,” Lloyd commanded, a sense of cold, dawning dread beginning to creep up his spine. The beautiful vision of a single, marathon session of grinding was rapidly being replaced by a much grimmer, more bureaucratic reality.
“The Soul Farm’s monster generation engine,” the Administrator explained patiently, “is linked to the temporal flow of your primary reality of origin, Riverio. It is not an infinite, self-contained system. It requires a baseline of one real-world hour to fully repopulate a designated biome to its maximum capacity.”
The words hit him with the force of a physical blow.
Chapter : 548
“Your recent harvesting operation,” the Administrator continued, its voice a calm, clinical, and utterly devastating, final nail in the coffin of his dreams, “was, by all metrics, highly efficient. You successfully eliminated the maximum hourly spawn allocation of two hundred and fifty Glistening Slimes in approximately… thirty-two subjective minutes of Farm time.”
A new line of text appeared, stark and unforgiving.
[Current Spawn Allocation for ‘Slime Plains’: 0/250]
[Time until next full respawn cycle: 57 Real-World Minutes.]
Fifty-seven minutes. He had to wait nearly a full hour, in the real world, before another single, pathetic, bouncing slime would even deign to appear. And worse, his current kill count of 250 was just a fraction of the full quest. The quest was all or nothing. He had to kill the full one thousand to get the 100 FC. This meant he would have to wait, leave the Farm, and return at least three more times, over the course of three more real-world hours, just to complete a single, low-tier quest.
The time-dilation effect, his greatest strategic advantage, was still there. But it was… neutered. Gated. Throttled by a resource cap that was tied to the one thing he couldn't control: the slow, relentless, and now deeply, profoundly, frustrating, march of the clock in the real world.
He stood in the silent, empty plain, the frustration a cold, hard knot in his gut. He had the power to annihilate thousands, but the System would only feed them to him in bite-sized, hourly portions. It was a maddening, artificial bottleneck, a clear and deliberate throttling of his potential.
He looked at his quest log. 250/1000. It was a monument to his own wasted effort. He had expended a significant amount of his own energy for a quarter of a quest that yielded absolutely no reward until it was fully completed. This was not just a grind; it was an inefficient one. And for the Major General, for the engineer, for the man who saw the world in terms of systems and optimization, inefficiency was a cardinal sin.
A grim, stubborn resolve settled in his heart. He would not be beaten by the System’s frustrating rules. He would optimize. He would conquer.
He sat cross-legged on the empty plain and entered a state of light meditation, letting his and his spirits' reserves slowly recover while he waited. He felt the subtle shift in the dimension as the real-world hour passed. The air was once again filled with the gentle, squelching gurgle of a fresh batch of 250 slimes. The hourly cycle had reset.
“Alright team,” he announced, his voice a low growl of pure, unadulterated determination. “Let’s finish this.”
He spent the next subjective half-hour in a state of mindless, efficient slaughter, clearing the new wave of slimes. His quest log updated. 500/1000. He waited again. Another real-world hour. Another wave. He destroyed them. 750/1000. He waited one last time. The final wave appeared. He annihilated them.
Finally, after a long, frustrating, and strategically fragmented battle that had taken four real-world hours to facilitate, the notification he had been waiting for chimed.
[Repeatable Quest: Slime Field Maintenance - COMPLETE!]
[Reward: 100 Farming Coins (FC) Issued.]
He checked his new balance.
[Current Farming Coins: 350 (Previous) + 100 (Reward) = 450 FC]
Four hundred and fifty. The slow, inefficient process had yielded its reward. He was now just 50 FC short of his goal. He could repeat the entire four-hour slime process for another 100 FC, but the thought was a wave of pure, unadulterated dread. There had to be a better way. The economics of the Farm were screaming at him to find a more valuable target.
The silence of the now-empty, four-times-scorched Slime Plains was a profound, mocking thing. The 100 FC he had just earned felt less like a victory and more like a paycheck for a long, grueling, and deeply unsatisfying shift at the world’s most dangerous gelatin factory. The grand, strategic vision of a high-speed grind had collided with the cold, hard, and deeply infuriating, wall of bureaucratic reality.
This is untenable, his internal eighty-year-old sighed, the voice a mixture of weary resignation and a new, grudging respect for the sheer, elegant cruelty of the System’s design. The slime fields are a low-wage trap. Continuing this way is the definition of insanity. It’s not about how fast I can kill; it’s about the value of the kill.
The revelation was a clarifying, if deeply frustrating, one. His own personal time, even with the time-dilation, was his most valuable resource. To spend it clearing out low-yield, time-gated mobs like the slimes was a strategic, and deeply, profoundly, unacceptable waste. He had to find a more profitable venture.
