Utopian System

Chapter 357 System's Parasites

'Impressive,' thought Zantem while preparing for the final assault, 'but useless.'

With one arm less, Selene's ability to control impulses would be severely compromised. Her speed, her main advantage, had been significantly reduced.

She would be easy prey.

Zantem launched forward, his claws extended for the final blow...

The impact came from nowhere.

Once again a damn fool interfered at the worst possible moment.

Like a meteor falling from the sky, a new figure struck Zantem with a force that shouldn't be possible. The power behind the blow defied all previous encounters with humans, a level of strength that shouldn't exist among these parasites.

The transformed Artromus was sent flying through the air, his body spinning uncontrollably. The sheer force of the impact scattered nearby cores like leaves in a storm.

But the most shocking aspect wasn't the blow's force.

It was the pain.

For the first time since adopting this aberrant form, Zantem felt real pain. Not a nuisance, not an irritation, but genuine, searing pain that radiated through his transformed body. The sensation was so alien, so unexpected, that for a moment he couldn't process what had happened.

'Impossible,' his mind screamed while stabilizing in the air. 'More than two hundred damage points? From a human?'

The figure that had interrupted his victory now interposed between him and Selene, its presence radiating a power that felt fundamentally wrong to Zantem's senses.

♢♢♢♢

A moment before...

Selene's strength was rapidly depleting.

The loss of her arm and the massive damage she had received were pushing her to the limit, but her soldiers hadn't yet completed their retreat. Blood dripped steadily from her severed limb, though the system armor was already working to regenerate it.

She had to resist, had to gain every precious second she could.

Each moment she bought could mean another life saved, another soldier who made it to safety.

Her speed, severely compromised by the loss of her arm, barely allowed her to maintain distance. The imbalance made each movement a struggle.

The monster launched forward with devastating speed, but Lucien didn't retreat. Instead, he released a frontal magical explosion that not only stopped the monster... it did the unthinkable: damaged the artromus.

Before the creature could process what had happened, Lucien's sword found its mark.

An acid cut appeared on the artromus's face, the damage real and visible for the first time since its transformation.

The monster's expression was a mixture of disbelief and rage. Its transformed jaws contracted in a fury grimace while processing the impossible: a human, though one who seemed to have stolen characteristics of their species, was capable of causing it real damage.

"Impossible," roared the artromus, his voice mixing disbelief and fury. "You... you dare to imitate our sacred form!"

♢♢♢♢

The wall's transformation caught Zantem's attention for an instant.

The blue lines pulsing through the divine stone were an unmistakable sign: the parasites had managed to connect their parasitic mouths more deeply to their mana cycle.

Ten percent.

The realization hit Zantem with greater force than the transformed human's attack.

A 10% of their future siblings, 100 million sleeping innocently in their eggs inside the chamber, would never wake up.

They would silently dry up, victims of a mana flow diverted toward these usurping parasites.

'My Queen...'

The sadness his sovereign would feel upon discovering this loss made his fury grow even more.

But it was knowledge she would never have if he didn't return and give it to her. The eggs would simply wither in darkness, with no one knowing they once contained life.

Zantem's rage acquired a new shade of desperation.

It was no longer just about the insult of this human who dared to imitate their sacred form. It was about his mission's failure, about those lives that would never come to be.

"Tell me, aberration," Zantem snarled, his transformed features twisting with fury, "how dare you steal what belongs to the goddess?"

Zantem launched himself against Lucien, filled with rage.

Lucien didn't respond with words. Instead, his sword traced another arc in the air, the promise of more damage gleaming on its edge.