Perfect Assimilation: Evolution of a Shapeshifting Slime!

Sarah almost fainted multiple times today. Her daughter in law was so straightforward and had absolutely none of the shame a normal human woman was supposed to have.

Just a few simple indirect questions about health was all it took for the little girl to casually reveal every single explicit detail of their recent bedroom plays.

Sarah felt like she was floating in another dimension by the time she and Ayla finished talking. Only after hearing every single intense experience directly from Ayla’s mouth did Sarah truly understand how incredibly plain and boring her own husband Damien was in bed.

She genuinely wondered from where her usually emotionally wooden son had learned such embarrassing and aggressive physical actions. It simply did not make any logical sense for a clinical boy who grew up staring at strategy books and cold numbers.

She shook her head in a daze, rubbing her temples as she secretly decided that she would have to give a very good teaching to Damien the next time she returned to their private bedroom on Earth to shake up his boring style.

Anyway Sarah was in a very good mood now that the heavy air between them had cleared up completely.

"I was so scared before I came here. I thought you would be terrified to talk to me if I revealed that I already know about your relationship with Kenji," Sarah murmured softly.

She reached out her hands and gently combed her fingers through Ayla’s long damp silver hair to smooth out the tangles as she spoke, her touch carrying a true motherly warmth that felt very comfortable.

After finishing the large plates of meat they had come out to the private courtyard garden to enjoy some casual sightseeing and walk around the stone paths.

The atmosphere here was quite pleasant even though the entire environment was completely artificial, built by the military engineers to give the officers a sense of home.

The Solgrace sector was currently transitioning into its winter season according to the running system calendar.

Tiny delicate white snowflakes started raining down from the high glass dome ceilings, drifting slowly across the green manicured bushes and the fake stone benches.

Ayla blinked her golden eyes as the white flakes landed on the dark fur coat she wore over her shoulders. "Why should I be scared?" she asked.

She was genuinely confused by her mother in law’s words. She had been casually reading her fake mother’s mind, well her now turned mother in law’s mind, from the very moment the woman had arrived at the doorway.

And she genuinely wondered why her mother in law spent so much time overthinking things that had zero practical value to their lives.

Why should she be scared even if Sarah knew that she was not the real biological daughter of Damien?

The only reason Ayla had ever bended reality to manufacture a fake human identity in the first place was to safely bypass the high-security inspection nodes and enter the Crusade grid alongside Kenji.

She had never planned to keep up this tedious human act for a very long time because pretending to be a regular girl was exhausting.

But the consecutive situations across the Crusade had made her use this specific family identity because it acted as an excellent legal shield to stop annoying high-ranked people from bothering her marked territory.

Although Sarah and Damien were not very special to her primitive monster mind, their direct blood relations with Kenji made her be much more considerate toward them too.

This deep connection was the absolute only reason why Ayla had not simply opened her mouth and eaten Sarah to harvest her high-class human traits during their first dinner meeting.

She was more than strong enough with her new Silver Rank and near-Crown traits to instantly kill her mother in law and that high-ranking personal guard hiding in the shadows before they could even scream or draw a single defensive blade.

A sudden cold breeze flashed through the artificial garden path, scattering the falling snow across the frozen leaves.

The unassuming old guard who was currently hiding completely inside the deep shadows of the stone wall suddenly let out a violent shiver.

For a split second the veteran guard felt a terrifying, suffocating pressure drop over her chest, and she thought the silver-haired daughter in law of her master had been looking straight at her hidden coordinates with a cold predatory gaze that promised immediate deletion.

"That is good then," Sarah laughed happily, her warm voice breaking the heavy silence as she tried to change the subject since she realized her maternal worries were just a result of her own overthinking.

She definitely did not want to make her paranoid persona reveal itself too much before her new daughter in law, so she smoothed down her winter dress and looked out at the shifting flakes.

But she still had one lingering regret that made her chest feel tight.

"Sigh if only that boy were potent enough to give me a grandchild right now," Sarah sighed dramatically while shaking her head in deep sadness.

Ayla too nodded her small head in perfect agreement, her silver bangs swaying across her cheeks.

She completely ignored the fact that she had never actually told Kenji that she wanted to have a child before he left for the system trial.

She decided to put the entire blame on his physical performance instead since it was much more convenient to make him look bad.

"I wonder what my future grandchildren will look like," Sarah said as she suddenly cupped her own cheeks with her hands, her eyes shining with absolute excitement as she visualized a small baby crawling around the Vale estate.

"They will probably inherit his hazel eyes and your beautiful silver hair."

"Like small blue slimes," Ayla answered seriously, her face completely deadpan.

Sarah beamed brightly at that quick response, letting out a joyful giggle. "Yes exactly. Like little squishy slimes. That would be too cute to handle."

"Yeah. Too cute." Ayla nodded her head. Just like her. She smiled, dimbles appearing on her cheeks.

While the human mother thought that Ayla’s descriptive words were just a cute rhetoric or a funny joke meant to tease her, Ayla had meant it completely literally.

She thought that since her own true foundational form was a monstrous high-tier mimic slime, it would be entirely natural for her future children to be born exactly the same way.

Ayla firmly believed her children would follow her superior monster genetics since her biological blueprint was exponentially better and stronger than Kenji’s fragile human body.

Poor Sarah had absolutely no idea that in the near future she would really be entertaining a house full of rolling blue slime babies that devoured everything in sight.

That was a chaotic surprise left for the latter time when Kenji finally returned to the family home.

"What are your plans now that Kenji is gone?" after enjoying a good amount of time together watching the falling snow, Sarah asked in a more grounded, serious tone.

"To the Ascendant Academy," Ayla answered simply.

She reached into the inner pocket of her dark fur coat and recalled the heavy golden admission token that the Nexus had given her inside the white expanse.

The real Crusade territories that existed far beyond the mortal world were finally opening up for her.

She knew that entering the high-tier academy would lead her to much stronger factions and far more powerful monsters.

It was the perfect place for her to continue her hunting spree and evolve her new traits while she waited for Kenji to rewrite his parameters.

Sarah looked at the golden token in Ayla’s hand and nodded slowly, her expression turning into one of pride.

The Ascendant Academy was a legendary place that very few rankers from Earth could ever dream of entering, and seeing her daughter in law hold the direct admission key made her realize how far the girl had already surpassed the common limitations of the human sector.

"That is a good path," Sarah said, her voice filled with a warm encouragement.

"If you go there, you will become even stronger, and that boy will have to run even faster if he ever wants to catch up to your footsteps. I will stay here in the Solgrace barracks to handle the political cleanup and watch over my father’s recovery with Maren, so you don’t have to worry about this base at all."

"Okay," Ayla replied, her golden pupils locking onto the distant horizon where the system transport gates were pulsing with a steady light.

She didn’t feel any fear about leaving the familiar human territory behind to enter the higher rings of the Crusade alone.

To a predator like her, the entire world was just a massive kitchen filled with different kinds of food, and the Ascendant Academy was simply the next grand table she was going to clear. 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

She turned her face back toward the stone path, her fingers lightly tracing the edge of the golden token as she prepared herself for the journey ahead, knowing that every single beast she devoured would bring her one step closer to the day she could finally reunite with Kenji and make him stay inside her territory forever.