"My dream…" Slime#47 muttered. He'd always gone with the flow.

When everyone studied IT, he followed—because his parents wanted him to. If he had lived on Earth, he would've married like the others, had children, and passed away from old age or some disease.

He never had a goal for himself. All he ever wanted was to live quietly, without suffering.

"Is it protecting Mama Slime, Elder Slime, Little Slime?…or returning to Earth?" he whispered, standing in the middle of images of Mama Slime and his old family from Earth.

"Damn it… If he regains his Will even a little, he can resist me," Vael muttered, furious.

The small humanoid didn't focus on corrupting the slime's body from the beginning. He wanted Young Slime's soul itself.

Due to Vael's manipulation—and the Edict of Yesterday—Young Slime's Will was completely gone, letting the sealed artifact slip directly into Slime#47's soul.

"Edict of Yesterday." Vael's eyes glowed as he decided to try his luck.

'I don't know if this skill works in the mental world,' he mused, wanting luck like never before.

The blue cloak on the slime's body glowed with black energy.

----

"This artifact…" the beautiful lady roared furiously. She extended her palm; it glowed with golden light. "I'll tear this creature's soul in half, leaving the fused half alive…"

"Indeed, you can save this slime that way," Time God agreed with a nod, then asked, "But can you keep watch on him every time?"

The woman pulled back her attack, bitterly.

"Unholy creatures are dangerous to begin with," Time God explained. "And a half-lost eldritch? It's even more dangerous. Unlike other beings, they can regenerate their soul—given time."

----

In the mental plane of Young Slime…

"What…?" Slime#47 muttered, finding himself in Mama Slime's warm hug.

"Child, I'm your mama," Mama Slime said, rubbing her body against him affectionately.

The deaths started to repeat.

"Hahaha! Luck is on my side," Vael laughed out loud in joy. 'Even in the mental plane, my skill works…'

The deaths began again as Young Slime experienced all the emotions in a body he couldn't control.

The light he had gained recently started to vanish.

"Do you know how sealed artifacts work?" Vael asked softly, glancing at Young Slime as he relived the loops again.

"How do we unholy creatures corrupt people if we are sealed? And how can we unleash our powers?" he muttered.

"Sealed artifacts… what are they?" Young Slime questioned weakly, his voice low. His memories started to disappear.

"Sealed artifacts don't fully seal us," the small humanoid said, floating around the slime as he was harvested by the slime farm woman. "They leave a little bit of space for us to unleash our skills. From that gap, we corrupt beings."

Vael explained it with a strange pride. "I really want to kill the creator of sealed artifacts… but his/her ability to design a weapon like a sealed artifact is mind‑blowing."

"That gap is our hope of escape," the small creature sighed.

He paused, then grinned, stealing a glance at Young Slime's agony as bursting slimes filled his vision. "Do you know why beings corrupted by us are called vessels?"

His smile widened, "You're close to death. You deserve to know."

Slime#47's eyes turned dim as he fought the slender armored lady—Baron's soldiers who visited the slime farm to help their third young lord level up.

"Because despite being sealed, we can enter our user's body with our soul… just like now," Vael said, pointing at himself.

"A corrupted being's soul loses all Will, emotions, and intellect… you're almost there," the small guy said, pointing at Young Slime. "And that's when the sealed artifact's soul devours the soul and takes over the corrupted body."

"Will is the soul's last defense," Vael simplified, stressing the importance of Will.

"That's why Will is targeted by us… sealed artifacts," the small humanoid said, then asked, "Do you think sealed artifacts can perform their abilities on their own without Will?"

He stared at the slime as he was killed by the slender woman multiple times in a row. "Hmm. You did die quite a lot of times in her hands." His lips curled up.

"Hmm… we can, like I just did." Vael sighed. "However, we are usually fully sealed. Only when we bond with a user does a small gap in the artifact open for us to use abilities."

He shook his head like a tired old man. "This is what it means to be sealed."

----

Vael had fused with half of Slime#47's soul and couldn't continue anymore due to pressure from the woman. But once that pressure was removed, he could continue to fuse—and finally devour the entire soul.

If the sealed artifact's soul was sliced in half, his memories and personality could be affected. Worse, Vael could destroy Young Slime's soul in a loop by blowing up his own soul, and if his personality twisted to an extreme, he might twist Slime#47's own soul—so the lady stopped her attack.

"This skill… authority of time," she muttered, glancing at Time God bitterly. "You created that sealed artifact, right?"

"I'll go to any extent to save this world," Time God said calmly, making her pause.

----

Outside…

"His soul is getting weaker… he doesn't have Holy Light of Purification to clear the negative emotions from multiple deaths," the beautiful woman muttered. She glanced at Time God and asked, "Is this why he failed in more than one billion timelines?"

"Yes," Time God sighed, and cast, "Rewind."

A transparent white magic rune formed on his palm. He pointed it at the slime, and the nothingness was soon filled with transparent white light.

"It hurts," Slime#47 muttered one last time, as a pitch‑black tentacle pierced his core.

"We'll share his body," the three sealed artifacts grinned.

Young Slime's soul started to disintegrate.

"I lost half of his soul… but I got the other half," Vael grinned, preparing to digest the half-soul.

Sealed artifacts absorb souls, then digest them. But Vael had only absorbed half of Slime#47's soul; he couldn't absorb the other half due to the pressure.

Things were going out of control, so he wanted to destroy the other half—so he could digest at least what he had gained.

"As long as he has a little intellect, I can't digest his soul," the small humanoid creature grinned. "Now he is dead… the other half can be digested."

Just when he started to digest the soul, suddenly the area began to rotate backward.

Slime#47's soul reintegrated, and he returned to life. The tentacle that pierced the slime's core withdrew.

Time rewound—back to when Young Slime stood in the middle of Mama Slime's images and his past-life family.

"Did I experience all those deaths again?" Young Slime muttered, feeling unreal, not understanding.

"Time God…" Vael roared. "He turned time back!"

"I won't admit defeat. Let's see how many times you rewind time," he vowed.

----

"So… is this the ending of those billion-plus timelines?" the lady inquired, her voice rising.

"Yes," Time God nodded.

The lady scowled. "So in those billion+ failed timelines, he keeps repeating the deaths and pain… can't you at least let him die peacefully?"

End of the chapter…

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.