Liquidation: From Big Boss to Bloody Demon Sauce Chapter 9: Chapter 9: Master, Master!

Read chapter 9 of Liquidation: From Big Boss to Bloody Demon Sauce by Magic on NovelPedia.

The enraged, deafening howl from the beast violently interrupted my tactical analysis—a stark, blaring reminder that I didn’t have the luxury of time to strategize. I decided to immediately try my hand at my untested pseudo-weaponry. Focusing all my remaining intent on a single point of my mass, I began solidifying parts of my goo-like form, heavily compressing the Ether until it felt dense and rigid. I forced a significant portion of my mass to rapidly jut upward, creating a dense, sharp construct that closely resembled a foot-long, jagged spike. Just as I successfully formed the crystalline spike, the beast lunged towards me, its jaws wide open to crush me against the floor. My already exhausted, sluggish form reacted with sheer, unadulterated desperation. Instead of trying to dodge a creature three times my speed, I simply anchored the base of my body to the cobblestone and precisely maneuvered my solidified point. I angled myself perfectly so that the heavy, descending bulk of the beast hurled itself directly onto my waiting spike. Confirming my violent theory, the beast let out a shrill, highly pained outcry as the dense Ether spike effortlessly punctured through the thick hide and muscle of its chest. The momentum of its own attack drove the spike deep into its flesh. It recoiled violently in pain and profound shock, scrambling backward and giving me a highly valuable moment's respite to assess the damage. However, the maneuver had come at a massive cost. I was now in a significantly compromised position. The sheer effort of compressing my Ether to create the dense spike, combined with the energy required to hold it rigid against the beast's weight, had drained me considerably. I felt dangerously thin, my consciousness flickering. I was finally beginning to truly understand the core economics of how exactly my new biological form functioned. I needed to consume energy to expend energy. I needed to eat. And just like the ambient dust of the castle I had been surviving on, I could distinctly feel a massive, radiating source of potent Ether bleeding from the open wound within the beast. This was an opportunity for a hostile takeover. Before the two-headed dog could fully recover its footing or formulate a counter-attack, my gelatinous red and white body launched forward. I spread rapidly over the beast's front legs, climbing its bulk with desperate speed. The two-headed beast was visibly shaken, still reeling from the intense pain and shock from the entirely unexpected impalement. As my liquid form squirmed upward and expanded aggressively over its massive, fur-covered body, it panicked. It attempted to violently shake me off with flailing, desperate, thrashing movements, slamming its own body against the stone walls of the courtyard in an attempt to dislodge me. But I adamantly persisted, pushed onward by base instinct and the sheer, overriding corporate drive for survival and acquisition. I clung fiercely to its coarse fur. I rapidly formed hundreds of minute, microscopic spikes on my undersurface, burrowing them deep into its skin and pores. They were perfectly designed to latch onto the biological material and actively absorb. The moment the connection was made, I could feel an incredible rush of something profoundly akin to sustenance. My body acted as a siphon, pulling raw, unrefined energy directly from the beast's vascular system. It was a bit akin to the concept of feeding off ambient Ether, but magnified by a thousand. Each passing moment, as I drank deeper from its reserves, noticeably toned down the beast's frantic, violent struggles. Its massive, thrashing movements slowly degraded into sluggish twitches, stifling its painful, booming cries into short, pathetic whimpers. While the massive beast actively succumbed to my aggressive draining, I began realizing the sheer magnitude of the energy I was acquiring. The amount of raw power I was receiving was significantly more than what I had ever managed to glean off