It burns!

  I tried to let out a scream, but the blue Kaiju blood entered my mouth instead, causing me to cough.

  I squeezed onto Samsara’s hand, and I felt her claws dig into my skin. It didn’t feel as painful as my Core. That felt as if somebody had poured hot lava directly into my chest.

  A sharp sensation hit me at the small of my back. What the heck was this? I tried grabbing whatever had attached itself to my back. It felt hard and scaly. Was I growing a tail?

  As I held the tail, sensation bloomed along it. The feeling spread as the tail kept growing. But instead of ending at a tip, I felt a torso grow out of the tail. Just like at the center of my chest, the searing, burning pain etched itself into my 2nd torso’s chest. Did I just get a second monster Core?

  The sensation expanded until I could feel a head and two arms, with its left clawed hand digging into flesh.

  The fuck? Why did a whole other body grow out of mine?

  I tried controlling the tail and the other torso that had just grown out of me, but while I could definitely feel it attached to my body, I had no control over it. Instead, it seemed like the tail was randomly flailing around.

  Then, the hot pain drifted downwards in both of my torsos. My main Core drifted to the small of my back, right next to the tail. The other new Core drifted down the other torso and through the tail. It stopped once it got next to the other Core.

  Soon, the searing pain dissipated from my two Cores. It was replaced with a tingly feeling that spread all throughout my body.

  I began to feel my body grow. My muscles began expanding. I could feel the power of the Kaiju Core merge with my Cores. My hair tentacles started to lengthen, as well as the tail that I had just grown.

  I began drinking in the Kaiju blood as my growth accelerated. My head tore past the Corpse’s skin, and light entered my eyes. Both pairs of eyes. I crawled out of the chest cavity I was in and back onto solid ground.

  Time to see what my tail and extra body parts were. I turned around sideways. I couldn’t believe my eyes.

  Right in front of me was Samsara. Except that her tail was connected to my lower back. I didn’t grow a tail. Somehow, we got fused together. Was this because we split the Kaiju Core?

  Samsara also turned around to look at me.

  “My tail got stuck inside Ramona?!” She exclaimed.

  Except she didn’t say those words out loud at all. It was more like an echo inside my head.

  Also, technically, the tail isn't stuck inside me; it’s just attached to me.

  “Wait, I can hear your thoughts,” she said. “And you can hear mine. This is so weird.”

  Right. Was this how Chimeras were? I’ve seen a few before. We were going to be the world’s first Kaiju Chimera.

  This was fucking crazy though. I thought each of us would become a separate Kaiju when we split up the Kaiju Core, not that we would get fused together.

  “I didn’t even know that was a Kaiju Core,” Samsara thought. “It just smelled really good. Umm… Thanks for bringing me to the Core.”

  “You're welcome,” I replied. “Sorry for getting you stained in blue blood, though.”

  Blue blood stained both of our bodies. We both tried wiping it off, but it seemed to have dried quickly.

  The tingly sensation subsided, and we stopped growing. A worrisome thought came to mind. Where was that mech? I saw flat footprints in the concrete below. It must have come to check the Kaiju and saw it was decapitated. Then it left.

  Suddenly, our eyes were blinded by a red flash. We both froze. I could feel panic coming from Samsara. A black eye with a red sclera surrounded by interlocking crystal plates overlaid our vision. Red tentacles drifted off indefinitely into the distance. Its eye flashed red again, and a stream of words came into our minds.

  [Hello again. It is I, Devotio, here to congratulate you on evolving into a Kaiju. While no ability or physical evolutions are available at this time, your body has now grown to a massive height. Your new strength can help you against any foe that’s smaller than you. Your mana capacity has also increased to 10,000.]

  Seriously? I kept forgetting that Devotio showed up when we were ready to mutate. I had only mutated a handful of times during my 10 years as a monster girl. Other monster girls that I had spoken to have mentioned meeting different entities other than Devotio.

  Wait, we had to leave the city before that mech came back! I was getting distracted by Devotio appearing out of thin air. I picked up the Kaiju corpse and broke into a sprint on the main road. I had no idea where we were, so I just went in a random direction. We could eat the Kaiju corpse later if we needed to replenish our mana. Or we could even mutate by converting excess mana to radiation.

  “Woah!” Samsara panicked as she dragged along with me. She quickly adjusted herself to slither behind me.

  [To reach the next evolution stage of a Kaiju and gain physical and ability evolutions, increase your soul power to 1,500 souls,] The eldritch entity continued to explain as I ran. [You may also continue to obtain radiation via excess mana. However, you will need significantly more radiation to get ability and physical mutations due to your increased size.]

  And how many souls did we have? I thought as I ran across the road. Abandoned cars were easily crushed beneath my feet.

  [1,002. Feel free to [Track] souls just like you [Track] mana.]

  If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  That’s a lot of souls we would need. And the tiger Kaiju had 1000 souls?

  “She ate hundreds of monster girls?” Samsara asked. “I’m not sure if we could even find 498 feral monster girls.”

  Technically, we didn’t need to limit ourselves to feral monster girls. There were always non-feral monster girls and humans. I felt Samsara mentally gasp. "Huh?"

  But that would definitely be an issue. Unless we somehow encountered a Kaiju. Then we could quickly take all the souls from her. But that was risky too. Surely there had to be a way to get to that 1500 number quicker.

  [To gain souls, eat any Core or creature containing a soul. Or you can have a creature worship you, and half their souls rounded down will be added to yours, as long as that creature stays alive.]

  Worship? Like how humans used to worship the Demiurges? I doubted any human would want to worship us in the city, so that won’t help. Also, any creature we ate would give us a soul? That couldn’t be true. I have had both human and monster girl meat before, and I don’t think that increased my soul count at all. I once ate the Core of a feral monster girl, but that only increased my soul power by one.

  [Good luck on your path of evolution.]

  Devotio’s eye flashed red again and vanished.

  Samsara took a look at her tail as she slithered along with me.

  “Um, am I just attached to your butt?” She asked.

  “Technically, it’s my back, not my butt. But yes.”

  “Close enough,” she giggled.

  It was nice seeing her happy again. Hopefully, it stayed this way. I’d make sure of it.

  “Also, it’s weird seeing you from my eyes and seeing me from yours,” she said.

  Right. We were both covered in blue Kaiju blood. Our clothes were obliterated. Not like it made a difference anyway. My body was still producing a viscous, black ink that covered me up to my collarbone. And Samsara had her scales.

  I rubbed Samsara’s tail as my legs ran. She wiggled it in response. My hand could feel the rough scales obscured by the blue blood. I also felt my soft hand grab her tail. We didn’t just share our sense of sight, but also our sense of touch as well.

  “I’m not sure how to feel about this,” she said. “It’s definitely… interesting sharing our senses, but I don’t know how I feel being permanently attached to you.”

  It was awkward. I mean, I’ve lived with Samsara for over ten years, but I’m not sure I was comfortable sharing both my thoughts and my feelings with her.

  “Do you want to focus on other things?” I asked in my mind. Or was it our mind?

  “Sure, but what do you want to focus on?” she asked back.

  “We could focus on our new height instead,” I said, taking notice of an office building up ahead on the road. The concrete and glass structure only reached my knees. My hair tentacles ripped the building off the concrete foundation and carried it in front of me. I took a quick peek down to see inside the windows while continuing to sprint.

  “What if there are people inside?” she asked.

  “I doubt there’s anyone still inside,” I said, turning to look back up. I had my hair tentacles suspend the building in mid-air behind me so Samsara could see it. “Besides, if there is anyone, they should be glad they are getting a free ride from a Kaiju.”

  She took a look as she continued to slither. It didn’t look like anybody was here. They probably evacuated much more quickly than we did. In fact, I think mostly everyone did. I hadn’t seen anybody ever since I went back to rescue Samsara.

  “Sorry about that,” She said, her body slithering closer to me.

  “Don’t be sorry about that,” I said. “It was my fault, I shouldn’t have left first.” I would never abandon her again.

  I could hear debris falling from the building I was holding behind me. Cracks began to form near my hair tentacles. I doubt it was meant to be picked up. Eventually, the whole structure came apart. Oops. I didn’t have any glue to attach it back to the foundation. Or would I need to use cement? Sadly, I wasn’t an architect.

  “That was pretty cool, right?” I asked. “I was able to pick up a whole building!”

  “Yeah, it seemed so fragile, too,” Samsara said. “Is that why our apartment fell on me too?”

  Crap. We kept coming back to this topic.

  “Well, I don’t think buildings are meant to withstand a Kaiju or mech,” I said. “They are weak to them, but I’m not really sure if you could make a building durable enough to withstand it.”

  “I wonder how much it would take to make a building resistant to Kaiju damage.”

  “Probably way too much money,” I said, keeping up my sprint. The sizes of the buildings were getting smaller. No more skyscrapers in sight.

  “Oh, I meant materials,” she corrected, slithering over to follow me.

  “Yeah, I have no idea about that,” I said. My mind wandered back to the Kaiju corpse I was carrying in my hands.

  It was headless in addition to the giant hole in the chest through which we crawled out of. I didn’t see a head to pick up, so maybe the mech took it as a trophy. Still, we could make use of the corpse for food. My mana was up to full with 10,000 mana. I could probably get us a lot of excess mana.

  “I’ll just keep watch while you eat,” Samsara said, turning backwards while still slithering. Since she was attached to me, I kept pulling her along while I ran.“You don’t need to use [Serrated Tentacles] for me.”

  It was a shame she couldn’t eat the rest of the mana-rich Kaiju meat and flesh. With only fangs and no other teeth, there was no way for her to chew meat. And there was no way I was going to suggest she try swallowing a huge chunk of meat. I didn’t know how actual snakes swallow their prey whole without crying. Samsara said they don’t have tear ducts.

  I didn’t want to see Samsara cry again.

  I began tearing into the Kaiju’s fur and started chewing. The fur was very dry, but as soon as I got to the Kaiju’s skin, it was nice and salty. So was the metallic blood. My teeth easily tore apart the crunchy bones. And the organs were squishy.

  I licked my lips as I finished eating the remains of the Kaiju body. And then Devotio appeared again, nearly causing me to lose my footing. I really wished I could contact Devotio instead of them just appearing in my vision.

  [It seems that you have enough excess mana (10,000) to trigger a mutation. I can help guide the mana into one of two paths. Please let me know which mutation you prefer, or you can request I not interfere with the mutation process.]

  [Tentacle Durability + Hardened Scales]: Your tentacles are no longer fragile, and your scales are more resistant to damage.

  [Ink Throw + Acid Spit]: Your tentacles can throw a glob of blinding black ink, and your snake head can spit out caustic acid.

  Two mutations in one? Was it because we had two Kaiju Cores? Not that I was complaining. Also, a defensive vs a ranged attack mutation. I felt like we should go with the defensive mutation to be more on the safe side. “What do you think?”

  “I think a defensive mutation is better, too,” she agreed. “It’d be great if my tail never got crushed again.”

  “Okay, we’ll take [Tentacle Durability + Hardened Scales],” I said.

  [Excellent, I will guide the mana into that mutation then.]

  I could feel a tingly feeling in my tentacles, as well as Samsara’s scales. The tingly feeling quickly subsided. This was good now. Both my tentacle hair and most of Samsara’s body were protected.

  [You will need 12,500 mana for the next mutation.]

  And then Devotio vanished again.

  As I traveled significantly farther towards the edge of the city, the cars started to move and swerve away from me. This part of the city probably wasn't prepared to evacuate just yet. And in the distance, I could start to see a forest. Yes! Freedom! Samsara also cheered in her mind.

  And then I could hear the sound of an airship flying towards us. Samsara looked behind us while I kept running. And our hearts dropped. A huge blimp was rapidly catching up to us.

  The airship quickly passed ahead of us. The back end had six engines spewing out blue flames. A latch opened on the bottom of the blimp. It descended rapidly, and a claw placed a mech right at the edge of the suburb, blocking our escape route. It was about a head taller than me.

  This mech was covered in blue paint and had blue-stained blades along its arms. They just sent the same mech that killed the Kaiju tiger girl after us.