While fighting this slime Ezekiel was confident in his ability to take out the creature as he only needed to slowly burn away the health.
Even if the kill was stolen he would get experience as he saw when the slime killed the packs he harmed.
He only had to bring the beast down to a low enough level to slay it with the efforts of the other players.
The rest had joined in as well, as there was a level difference between them he was doing the lowest damage per hit but he had dealt such a significant amount of damage that it didnt matter.
The boss was now down to ~30% hp and it seemed to activate an enraged state as it began to glow red.
The red haze over its slimy body was growing stronger and stronger as this creature was ready to hunt them down.
Through his mana sense he could see that when the red haze began the slime had a flash of mana spread through its body from its cores.
It was now at least 50% faster with the red haze and each creature that it consumed it began to heal.
When he saw it healing he started to use fire spells.
He had noticed over time that certain creatures had a naturally better regeneration than others and when he used fire magic something would happen.
Through a lot of experiments he had come to learn that the burned affect had a secondary feature and when a creature was at ~50% health it had a chance to sear the creatures body in a way that prevented healing for a short time.
When he asked the system about this effect it only gave him the name Cauterized.
Cauterized would not perfectly stop healing as more often than not it would only affect a portion of the body which seemed to only reduce the natural healing.
Other players saw him change to fire magic and the few mages present who could use fire spells joined in on it.
Ever so slowly the damage stacked up and the healing prevented allowed their damage to burn away what it had healed.
With each passing moment the slime took out another player, sometimes two.
When he saw how quickly they were falling he began to use spells to harm other creatures to slow it down again.
It would consume them and slow for a small moment before it continued at the same speed as before.
With the combined efforts of the dozens of players its health was drained to 20%.
Once the health got below 20% though that was when it finally stopped moving.
Moving to the farthest his range would allow he continued to bombard the slime with fire and shadow magic now that it seemed to not be regenerating anymore.
After a few seconds Ezekiel saw something concerning when he checked his mana sense.
The slime had a core rapidly draining mana into its body, the rapid draining mana was flooding its body.
The mana flooding its body pulsed sfter s second and the mana within began to expand and compress like a beating heart.
As he watched this pulse happen a few times he got a bad feeling.
When he saw the pulsing speed up he fled towards the city in the distance.
He completely ignored the slime as just ran as quickly as possible.
When he reached a safer distance he glanced back while pacing himself, what he saw was terrifying.
The slime created a burst of mana as it drained that core into its body, that mana flooded back in and began to recover its health rapidly.
He had escaped the slime's attention though so he just approached the city to take time to recover his mana.
~
His mana took some time to recover but only long enough to catch his breath.
Once he fully recovered his mana he left to observe the slime.
It was easily dispatching the players and once they were gone it returned to hunting packs.
He could not understand how this creature had used mana to heal itself so quickly but now he at least has something new to explore.
He knew that he would not be able to fight the slime yet but he had to put the effort in.
What worried him was that a few people were staring and they did not look like players as they wore very extravagant gear.
When one of the human npcs moved towards him he took a step back.
"Young devil, that was you using shadow magic yes?"
"Uh... why? It was helping me take out the slime..."
The human speaking to him sighed before resting a hand on his blade.
"Tell me, you are one of the otherworlders right?"
Ezekiel could remember that it was what the npcs in the village had called him so he nodded.
"You should be careful when using shadow magic, many cities would have you executed for even having the affinity."
"Wait WHAT?!"