"HALOOONNNNN!!!"

Lisa’s scream echoed through Lohan’s mind, going completely unnoticed by the fairies below, since they communicated telepathically.

Without giving Lohan time to explain himself, the white fox shot forward like a flash of white light, reaching a speed that turned the surroundings into a blur to any ordinary eye.

Lohan, realizing that the "danger" was real, activated the internal flow of his gelatin, moving with an agility that now rivaled that of a human at full sprint.

Thanks to his enhanced reflexes, he executed a sharp sideways spin, feeling the vibration of the ground betray Lisa’s trajectory even before she drew near.

The fox didn’t stop. She reached her eighty-meters-per-second mark, becoming a neon trail that ricocheted off the walls of the throne room. At that point, Lohan realized she wasn’t just playing around; she was testing the limits of that new two-tailed form.

"Wait, Lisa! If you bite me now, you’ll break a tooth!" Lohan transmitted through the mental link, while her blue biomass was instantly covered by rigid black hexagonal plates that glowed in the forest light filtering through the cracks in the tree.Lisa stopped abruptly, her claws digging grooves into the revitalized wood.

She took a deep breath and her golden eyes sparkled with surprise, but then, looking at Lohan, a smile appeared on her lips, with white flames tracing the outline of each of her teeth as she smiled at Lohan. "Are you sure about that?"

But instead of focusing on physical combat, this time she tried to focus on long-range attacks. Unlike before, when she had merely fired bursts of heat, the fox began to shape the white flames creatively, spinning on her own axis and creating rings of fire that floated around her like satellites, firing one of them at Lohan like a circular blade.

Lohan was even more surprised than she was, but he didn’t back down. Using his ability to split his consciousness into independent streams, he expelled three masses of his own gelatin that rolled rapidly in opposite directions.

Thanks to the synchronization between all his fragments, he began to process the battlefield from multiple angles simultaneously, nullifying any attempt by the fox to flank him.

Just as the ring of fire was about to hit him, Lohan formed a tentacle and struck the air with explosive force, causing a collapse in atmospheric pressure that sucked out the oxygen and deflected the flames’ path, causing them to crash harmlessly against the ceiling.

"Nice move!" Lisa praised, already rising above him with a powered leap.

She delivered a downward kick, but in the millisecond of contact, Lohan’s membrane altered its molecular viscosity, becoming as hard as granite and dispersing all the kinetic impact.

Lisa felt as if she had struck a plate of armor, but she used the recoil to gain distance. Lohan reacted by firing bluish biological filaments from the sides of his body, attempting to trap the fox’s paws while she was still in the air.

Lisa weaved through the strands with her superior speed, but Lohan, using his long-range focused vision and taking advantage of all the tracking abilities he and his clones were employing at that moment, materialized dense, translucent ice spikes that sliced through the air toward her. 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖

Their exchange of blows lasted for minutes, with Lisa’s flames increasing in intensity and melting the ice before impact, while Lohan’s defenses absorbed the bursts of heat and capitalized on his information advantage.

They finally came to a halt on opposite sides of the room, both exhausted.

Lisa watched Lohan with admiration and astonishment.

Even though she knew he had developed significantly over the past few days, and that after his evolution he had become even more powerful, at first, she was the one who needed to protect him; now, even as a legendary creature, Lohan could predict her movements and nullify her attacks with a seemingly endless variety of techniques.

At Level 11, the gap that had existed between them at the start of the game had vanished!

"Huff... I think this is our first battle against each other, right?" Lisa asked breathlessly, her eyes shining as she looked at him.

After all, she knew that in addition to his high individual combat power, Halon could also split into several smaller parts and act as a general buff for the party members, boosting not only his own power but also the power of everyone around him!

Her living armor was an example of that; fighting Lohan now and having to deal with skills that were normally used only to her advantage, Lisa realized just how difficult and stressful it was to have this little Slime as an enemy.

"Haha, I guess so. Before that, we only fought enemies together, or me fighting alone against the Goblin you brought to test me." Lohan mocked.

Hearing that, Lisa felt even more embarrassed. "Don’t mention it anymore, I’m sorry..."

Lohan was also very satisfied with the level he had demonstrated. Although he still felt he was slightly behind Lisa in a direct confrontation, with his growth rate far surpassing hers, he sensed that he would likely have overtaken her before their next evolution at Level 21.

Suddenly, a notification sound echoed through the silent surroundings of the tree. Lisa quickly opened her system screen, and the smile Lohan had so feared seeing appeared once again.

"Halon, Dylan just sent a message! He and his group crossed the Thalendor border and are at the entrance to our headquarters right now!" Lisa exclaimed, her two tails wagging frantically with joy.

Lohan felt his core vibrate with a pang of insecurity once more.

He recalled Alice’s description of that inseparable "childhood friend." Internally, Lohan began preparing for the worst. ’Here comes the perfect heir of the Upper Zone,’ he thought, adjusting his spherical mass to look as "imposing" as possible for a Slime.

He subtly activated his energy contraction technique, dampening his aura so he wouldn’t look like a beacon of mana, but keeping the density of his gelatin at a level that exuded authority.

"Let’s go out and greet them," Lisa said, already starting to walk toward the opening in the tree.