Swordfish

Ocean fishing hands this over as a spear, not the broadsword the name suggests. It jabs straight out along one axis and retracts, so it rewards standing your ground in a corridor or on a platform line instead of swinging wildly into a crowd.

Reach is the whole appeal. It outranges nearly everything else you can hold at that point in a run, and melee speed bonuses stretch the stab a little further while shortening the recovery between thrusts. The flip side is that you cover almost no vertical space, so anything dropping on you from above or burrowing up underneath will get inside the tip before you can react.

Keep it for tunnel fighting and for worm-shaped enemies that line themselves up for you. Swap to something with an arc when you are out in the open with slimes coming from both sides.