Before long, they were overwhelmed by slimes attaching themselves to different members of the group, draining their energy. Even Alan’s Computational Energy was absorbed by the slimes. Out of the corner of his eye, Alan noticed a slime he was trying to destroy that was leeched onto him turned from blue to purple. The purple nucleus split in two, forming two smaller nuclei that moved even faster and had a sort of blue energy field around them.

Alan frantically began trying to scrape the squishy slime off his armor with his laser knife, thankful that the slime was touching his armor and not him.

“We can’t let them keep evolving!” Aurora called out. “Is there anything anyone can do? My ice isn’t having any effect.”

Void, who was suspiciously absent of slimes, sighed. “Looks like I need to help you guys. I’d prefer to watch the struggle a bit longer, but it seems as though if I waited too long they’d become more of a nuisance. And I still haven’t healed anyone…”

He brought out a wooden staff, inscribed with what appeared to be runes, hieroglyphic images that Eve couldn’t decipher. He held it aloft, and an electrical white blade formed an outline around it.

“I have the power!” he yelled, winking at Alan.

Before Alan could even ask how Void knew that reference, white lightning surged out of the blade, striking and destroying slime’s nuclei in rapid succession. The attack seemed to in turn absorb the slime’s energy, as the white blade grew slightly larger with each subsequent slime it zapped.

As soon as the sword attempted to strike the two purple nuclei attached to the slime absorbing Alan’s energy, a small electrical shield formed around each purple ball, repulsing the lightning strike. The slime suddenly detached itself from Alan, splitting it itself in two, one nucleus in each of the halves. They each began rapidly absorbing the bodies of all the slain slimes around them as Void tried to fry them with lightning, splattering bits of slime everywhere.

Each strike was similarly repulsed. With a sweeping strike Kitana managed to nick one of the purple nuclei, but it simply split into two blue nuclei instead of being destroyed. Meanwhile, the other slime’s nucleus turned white after it absorbed most of its dead brethren. The moment the next lightning bolt struck at it, it absorbed the energy, turning black!

“Oops,” Void murmured, dismissing the lightning blade as the slime leapt at it in an attempt to absorb the energy.

As soon as the blade disappeared, the slime landed on the floor then leapt backwards at its spawn! The slime body was now the size of a large truck and moved just as quickly. It absorbed the smaller slime’s bodies. Then, the black nucleus shot forth as fast as lightning and devoured the two blue nuclei. It quickly turned on the rest of the small slimes with red nuclei that Void hadn’t finished off.

By the time it had finished devouring the rest of the slimes it was the size of a small apartment, taking up almost the entirety of the twenty foot wide stone walkway. At this point, the black nucleus had divided itself in three, and the slime had gained the title Unstable Experimental Warden.