Apexus had three good reasons to keep engaging in physical fights.

One was the obvious, he was the sturdiest of the lot. His bones, already respectably solid from their human origin, had been modified. The ribcage was practically melded together, other bones thickened, and all of it evolved to become stronger as the chimera evolved. His slime was easily healed. All his limbs were replaceable. He only had one internal organ that could be damaged by physical trauma. One could hardly ask for a better body to take blows with.

Second was what Apexus had discovered since first using his muscles: physical dominance was enticing. Battling things straight on, rather than relying on ambush tactics, had a nice feel to it. Victory was sweeter this way. The combat and general options that strength opened were numerous. Utilizing his body to hunt was deeply ingrained in Apexus’ instincts and doing it well was a rewarding feeling.

The third was a reward of a different kind. Every time Apexus demonstrated his mastery of his body, his women were enticed by the show. Reysha more so than Aclysia, certainly, but both still noted this positively. Everyone wanted a partner that was smart, strong and beautiful. Apexus had always been strong in certain ways, but physical presence was easiest for the brain to recognize. Especially, for humanoids, if it came in the shape of another humanoid.

Rewarding as combat was, Apexus still saw it as a road to a goal. To get food, traditionally. To pass through a dungeon, oftentimes. To establish dominance, rarely.

They were sitting among the corpses of three more bears. They had been in the dungeon for about a day now, and those massive monsters had been all they had encountered so far. One at a time, the group could very easily deal with them. Their main weapon was the same as Apexus’, raw physical strength. As it so happened, the slime matched them in that department and one-upped them through his regenerative capabilities.

Reysha and Aclysia were less sturdy and would be in serious trouble if they got caught by a paw swipe or bite. The damage to their bodies would be the immediate concern, the damage to gear long term. Broadly speaking, that was always the case. The frozen environment only exaggerated the importance of functioning clothing. The difference between whole and broken armour was, usually, only important in combat. In dungeons like White Ice, the environment itself was a steady source of danger.

They could still deal with larger groups of these bear monsters relatively well. They were pretty slow, so Reysha could keep her distance. Whether she did it with her axe or dagger, the tiger girl could take them out with one or two well-placed strikes to the neck. The throwing knives were useless, though, unless they hit the eyes. Between fur and fat, the bears had enough of a barrier to ignore the small blades.

Aclysia could deal with them by not really dealing with them. The ceiling of the caves was usually high enough that she could hover out of their range. From there, she supported the other two with simple Sunlight Bolts, aimed at blinding the bears. One bear was a trivial encounter, two bears simply handled, but three were an issue. Apexus could overpower and Reysha easily dodge one. Outnumbered, those advantages were greatly diminished. Simple-minded beasts as they were, the White Ice Bears were not stupid enough to try and snap at Aclysia’s unreachable heels.

They dealt with these groups one of two ways. Either they tried to separate individuals from the group, only possible if they were wide enough apart that one bear’s attention could be grabbed without the other two (or more) noticing, or the trio pulled them into a narrow corridor where the number of enemies didn’t matter as much. In the case of these three carcasses, it had been the latter strategy. They had moved them into the main cave afterwards, for ease of consumption. As for the crystals, they were inorganic and attuned specifically to the dungeon monsters and therefore useless to Apexus and Reysha as food.

Apexus bowed over one corpse and sunk his teeth into the fur. His teeth closed around a mouthful of flesh and fuzzy biomatter. Slime from within his throat filled his mouth and then transported the fully engulfed food deeper inside him, to digest while he took another bite.

One of the drawbacks of muscles was that he couldn’t open his membrane as easily as before. Whereas he could have expanded his stomach area previously to encapsulate what he wanted to eat, he was now hindered by a bunch of abs in the process. Moving them to the side would have worked, but would have forced the slime to spend time afterwards to reconfigure the entirety of his midriff. Expanding the membrane on some part of his body, his hand for example, could have worked but taken forever and required concentration. Although more involved and messier, all around, munching down on his food the Reysha way was more convenient all around. Eating in smaller chunks also quickened the dissolving process, which was a minor benefit to balance things out.

Rather than skinning a bear of her own, Reysha decided that she wanted to eat from the same one as him. Aclysia stood three steps away from them. The sight of their bloody gorging, primitive as she found it, hardly fazed her. That she didn’t want any of the fluids or gore hitting her feet was another matter entirely.

“We should consider skinning some of these bears,” Aclysia stated. “The additional supply of furs may serve as an emergency barrier between either of you and the cold, should the clothing fail.”

Apexus contemplated the suggestion. It would slow them down and they would have to largely improvise the process. It also meant he would have to skip out on eating the hide, which was a minor sacrifice, taste considered. “We can try, if we find a healing fountain,” he said, between bites.

When he bowed back down, he and Reysha bumped heads. The tiger girl growled. He growled back. Her tail swayed softly, the motion agitated but the fur still sitting flat as it usually would. She bowed down again, glaring at him to dare and stop her. Apexus did, putting his hand on top of the opening in the carcass. Reysha hissed and they stared at each other.

It was a very primal exchange, one wholly civilized people would never have had. Which was why Aclysia sighed and took another three steps backwards. First step, Reysha tried to slap Apexus’ hand away from ‘her’ meal. Second step, Apexus shoved her away from the corpse he had claimed first. Third step, Reysha launched herself at the humanoid slime.

‘Why they must engage in these playfights is beyond me,’ Aclysia thought, watching the two roll over the icy ground. Apexus was still shirtless, Reysha in her complete armour, but the state of their equipment hardly mattered. All the scratching the redhead did, she did with her claws withdrawn. All the physical force Apexus exerted came purely in the form of grappling.

It was almost always Reysha that initiated these little bouts. The more savagely attuned parts of her mind urged her to test where she was in the physical pecking order of the group. Occasionally, Apexus would start such a playfight to remind her of the same. It was a part of social bonding for those two. Something that Aclysia, who saw this as an unnecessary conflict over an abundance of food, which could be solved with conversation, could barely empathise with. She accepted that this was natural for those two and just left them to it.

It was the first time they had this bout since Apexus had developed his muscles. When the two of them locked hands and entered a simple pushing contest, Reysha felt herself give in a matter of seconds. Previously, she had to succumb when Apexus got on top of her and dominated her with weight alone. Now he had weight and force on his side.

Rather than let herself be folded like a pretzel, Reysha suddenly ceased resistance. Apexus couldn’t cease his assault quickly enough and fell forwards, while Reysha slipped out to the side. She quickly mounted the slimes back and attempted to lock his arms at the joints. When he twisted them by 180 degrees and reached behind him as if that was his front, she was already escaping.

“Freak,” she cussed, giggling with a smile on her bloody lips.

Apexus didn’t honour that with a response, only kept a keen eye on Reysha as she slowly circled around him. She stopped in her stride, for no apparent reason. Then she slowly reached out with her hand. A quick, weak jab to his shoulder came quicker than Apexus could react. Smirking like a kid that had found the sugar pot. Reysha jabbed him a second time. Then a third. Apexus tried to grab her arm, but was too slow. She purred mockingly. He took half a step towards her. She took a full step back. Then she lunged at him.

Again, his attempt to grab her arm failed. The tiger girl had made her point that she was quicker and Apexus saw no other choice than to leverage the brute force advantage he had. Arms wide open, he chased after her and tried to confine her with a bear hug. Having seen this coming, Reysha dodged away under him, slid through his parted legs and knocked them away under him.

Apexus hit the ground. He was halfway through the motion of getting up, when the redhead suddenly had her thighs around his neck. What was fundamentally a pleasant sensation, still had him underneath her.

“You really need to watch your feet more,” Reysha mocked him, as fighting friends tended to mock each other.

“Yes,” Apexus admitted freely and grabbed his teammate by the waist. Both of his large hands together could almost reach around her. His attempt to pull her off competed with the lock of her legs. She grinned down at him, her thighs still squeezing him. His chin poked into her groin. The awkward angle made it impossible to overcome her resistance. “I could squeeze your organs out.”

“I could claw your eyes out,” Reysha responded with a big grin on her face. They both knew what the rules of this engagement were and who had won.

They stayed in their lock for a little while, until Apexus let go and spread his hands out in a surrendering gesture. At that point, Reysha dropped down from her lover’s neck. With a kiss to his check, she wandered back to the corpse that she now had the right to for herself. It was functionally the exact same as the other two but she still enjoyed it a lot more than Apexus did the one he started eating.

It wasn’t the first time Apexus had lost and it wouldn’t be the last. Their combat potential was about equal. Unpredictability was Apexus’ advantage, while Reysha had her few Skills, basic martial arts and weapons to lean on. He won most of the time because, taking weapons out of the equation, he had the advantage. Losing wasn’t too bad though. It did bother him that he could have fought better. Resentment for Reysha wasn’t a thing he had time for.

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The Frozen Wraith wailed, its scream cooling every fluid in the bodies of those that heard it. Literally, as Apexus had to experience first-hand, while he crushed the skull of the creature. It had the rough shape of a woman, albeit a heavily malnourished one, covered by a translucent veil of icy blue. Its body was similarly made from magical ice. Their magic power was respectable for their current level and they could hover, making catching them a bit of a pain. Especially since they liked to retreat, rather than stand and fight.

Between Apexus’ hands, the ice shattered, ending the scream with an impotent rattle.

“Tell your nieces to stop screaming so much, bubble butt!” Reysha demanded, dancing away from the claw swipe of a White Ice Bear. It hadn’t originally been part of this fight, the trio had just happened to run into it while they chased down the wraith.

“There is no relation between me and those creatures,” Aclysia denied, letting loose a Sunlight Bolt.

It hit the bear in the head, blinding it for long enough for Apexus to run over, despite his chilled sluggishness. He held the bear in place, giving Reysha the space and time she needed to swing her axe in a wide arch. The first hit broke the skull. The second sunk into the brain. The third properly killed the monster

“Female, god-created flying things that wail a fucking lot, I see a lot of parallels,” Reysha stated, turning head and ears in search of other threats. “Just saying.”

“Aclysia looks better than these things,” Apexus said, testingly shoving a shard of ice into his mouth. “…I hate elementals…” he grumbled, tasting only water. He tore the body apart in the search of a core or something else that provided some magical nutrition.

“I look better than all my siblings, doesn’t mean we’re not related,” Reysha responded. “I mean, most of them are only half-siblings, but still… do you hear that?”

Apexus swallowed the marble-sized core of the Frozen Wraith and turned his own ears.

“An enemy?” Aclysia asked, somewhat confused by their behaviour.

“No… water?” Apexus tried to pinpoint what he was hearing and got up. The noises in this dungeon were often odd. The ice wall bounced sounds between them, carrying them quite far, but the snow that often covered the ground did a fair bit to swallow other things. The two of them had to concentrate quite heavily to pinpoint a direction.

They had been inside the dungeon for three days now. Reysha’s armour was lightly damaged from one encounter, four slits across the left sleeve, creating a minor draft sometimes. Apexus’ habit to remove the top of his before engaging paid off in his clothes being unscathed. Both of their furs suffered from their eating habits, though, being stained and clumped from the blood they spilled in the process.

More bothersome than that had been the conditions they had to sleep in. Aside from the cold, taking their rest outside a healing fountain meant that monsters could walk in on them. Which, practically every ‘night’, they did. Aclysia watched them so they were never in real danger. Proper rest was something Apexus and Reysha desperately wanted though.

They left the bear corpse behind for the moment and followed the sound of flowing water. After about ten minutes of tracking the echo through the wind corridors. They finally found it. A chamber in the ice, fashioned almost completely from stone, with hot water constantly bubbling up in a circular pool.

“Bath!” Reysha exclaimed enthusiastically.