"I've got it, Grandpa."
Cian extended a tattered spectral tentacle, gently helping Max to his feet while sliding a high-tech Plumber sidearm toward him.
He then drifted over to Ben. The younger boy understood immediately. He dialed his watch and slammed the core. "Gwen, it's hero time! Go hide with Grandpa!"
"Ben... Cian... just be careful!" Gwen, usually the first to snap at them, left them with a look of genuine worry before ducking behind Max.
"Uh..." Ben, now transformed into Four Arms, looked down at his massive hands. "Why is she being so nice all of a sudden? It's creeping me out!"
"Haha, Ben, you're looking at it the wrong way," Cian chuckled, his blood-red tentacles unfurling like the petals of a carnivorous flower. "Let's go!"
THUMP! THUMP!
The two of them stepped out of the house and onto the lawn. The neighborhood was crawling with Limax. Their human disguises were melting away, revealing shifting, yellow-brown bodies. They morphed their limbs into maces and blades, circling the cousins.
"You can't escape!!"
"Two pairs of arms against dozens of us? Even if you're stronger than humans, you're just a snack!"
"Accept your end."
They closed in, their slime-coated faces cold and predatory.
"Escape? Who said anything about escaping?!" Ben roared. He lunged forward, slamming all four of his palms together in a massive thunderclap.
BOOM!!
The resulting shockwave was like a localized hurricane, flattening the grass and sending the lightweight slime aliens tumbling backward into the dirt.
"My turn!"
Cian's skeletal, shrouded face twisted into a mask of lethal intent as he glided over the pile of struggling sludge. Before they could reform, his blood-red tentacles stiffened like spears, plunging into the ground and pinning the Limax through their cores.
"Cian, we're crushing these geeks!" Ben cheered, feeling the rush of victory.
Slop. Squish.
The Limax he had just flattened began to pull themselves together, the slime flowing like liquid mud. "We are immortal!" one gurgled, its face reforming with a smug grin. "Go ahead—kill us! We'll just come back!"
Ben's jaw dropped. "Immortal? That's totally cheating! It's like a God-mode hack!"
"Ben! Cian!" Max's voice rang out from the porch. "Their bodies are pure energy-dense matter! You have to wear down their reserves or use water to dissolve their molecular bond!"
"This old man knows our weakness?"
"So what if he does? There's no water source here! You're dead!"
The Limax renewed their struggle, their bodies thrashing against Cian's tentacles.
"Water? Who needs water?" Cian's voice rasped with a dark amusement. He retracted his tentacles and snatched one of the Limax, dragging it onto the roof of the house.
"Go ahead! Tear me apart! It just takes me a little longer to reset!" the alien boasted.
"Hahaha! Let's get the four-armed one!!" The rest of the swarm ignored the roof and surged toward Ben.
RIP!
Cian shredded the Limax in his grip, then twisted the Glitch Watch. He didn't just dial; he shifted his body into a specific predatory stance. A flash of red light bathed the rooftop.
Standing where the ghost once was was a short, squat alien. It stood barely a meter tall, looking like a bloated, upright toad with dull green skin. It looked physically weak... until you saw its face.
Instead of one mouth, Glitch Upchuck had three large, circular maws positioned side-by-side across its face, all of them dripping with a thick, corrosive green slime.
"Haha! That's your ace in the hole? A fat frog?!" the shredded Limax laughed.
Ben even looked up and groaned. "Cian, that looks... really pathetic."
"You..." Cian's three mouths spoke in a wet, layered harmony. "You smell... delicious!"
"W-what?" The Limax felt a sudden, icy chill. It wasn't just fear; it was the primal dread of a prey animal looking at its natural predator.
SCHLURP!!
Cian lowered his head. His three mouths acted like a high-powered vacuum. The shredded pieces of the Limax were sucked into the air, flying into his maws like noodles being slurped up. His belly distended, gurgling loudly, before settling with a satisfied thud.
"He ate him..."
"HE ATE HIM!!!"
"THAT'S INSANE!!!"
The battlefield went silent. The remaining Limax stared at Cian as if they had just watched a god die.
"Hmm? You guys want a taste too?" Cian turned his triple-maw gaze toward the lawn.
PTUI! PTUI! PTUI!
His mouths unleashed three separate yellow-brown energy pulses. The projectiles hit three Limax squarely, detonating their bodies with such force that there was nothing left to regenerate.
The rest of the swarm didn't wait. They broke formation and fled in every direction.
"Don't run! I'm still hungry!"
Cian leaped from the roof, landing with a heavy squelch. He sprinted down the street, vacuuming up the scattered bits of Limax biomass, converting them into volatile energy, and spitting them back out.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
His energy bolts chased down the fleeing aliens. Thanks to his Plumber Apprentice marksmanship, every shot was a bullseye. No matter how fast they slithered, the "spit" found them.
Cian single-handedly conducted a massacre across the entire retirement community.
Immortal? Not if you're digested.
" Max's eyes were full of shock. He realized Cian wasn't just using random aliens—he was choosing perfect biological counters.
"Grandpa, you're pretty tough too," Gwen whispered, looking at a pile of pulverized slime Max had dealt with using his Plumber gear.
"No... more..."
Cian skidded to a halt, spitting out one last glowing energy orb. It struck the twenty-eighth Limax a hundred meters away, vaporizing it instantly.
Cian collapsed onto his back, patting his bloated stomach with a contented sigh. "Ugh... that was actually a pretty good meal."
[Ding! Host has defeated 28 Limax through pure predatory dominance, bypassing their elemental weakness. Progress +2!]
Cian sat up, his eyes bright. Holy crap! A +2 jump?!
[Template Progress: 10/100. New Evolution Path Available: Glitch Shocksquatch/Feedback Hybrid?]