Chapter 321: The Parasite King
The entity sitting on the throne of bone and black crystal didn’t look like a creature born of biology. He looked like a tear in the canvas of the world.
He was a humanoid void, a silhouette cut from the fabric of reality, filled with a swirling, starless night.
A crown of purple fire floated above his head, but the flas didn’t burn upward; they dripped downward like liquid neon.
He was the Parasite King. The Corruptor. And in ga terms, he was a virus that had gained Administrator privileges.
"You are smaller than I expected," the entity rumbled. The sound didn’t travel through the air; it vibrated directly in the bones of my inner ear. "The Anomaly that cracked the algorithm of the Dungeon... is just a human boy."
He stood up. As he did, the static in the sky intensified. The chained World Spirit behind him let out a silent scream, her light dimming as the chains pulsed with hungry, violet light.
"Who are you?" I demanded, my grip on the dagger tightening. "You aren’t a standard Demon Lord. My System can’t even scan you."
The entity laughed. It was the sound of a hard drive grinding to a halt.
"Your ’System’ is a cage designed by the World Spirit to manage her pets," the Parasite King sneered. "I am not a pet. I am the hunger that exists between the servers. I am the Void that waits when the screen goes black."
He descended the steps of the throne. The ground beneath his feet turned into pixelated grey sludge.
"Eighteen years ago, the Elves called to the Void. They begged for mana. They offered a door. And I answered."
"The Verdant Pact," Selena stated. She stood beside , her scythe held in a relaxed, non-threatening posture. Her obsidian eyes were tracking the entity’s movents with machine-like precision. "My father’s records ntioned a ’price’. You are the price."
The Parasite King stopped ten paces from us. He looked at Selena, and his faceless head seed to split into a wide, white grin.
"Your father... Malakor," the King mused. "He was the only one smart enough to see the trap. He tried to burn the roots to stop . A pity the Council loved their beautiful, dying city more than they loved the truth."
He gestured to the colossal, chained giantess behind him.
"Look at her. The World Spirit. She was dying long before I arrived. The Elves drained her dry with their greed, their floating cities, their immortality. I didn’t kill her. I put her on life support."
He raised a hand, and the violet chains glowed.
"I feed her the Void. She feeds the Elves. And in return... I eat the world, slowly. A bite at a ti. It is a perfect symbiosis."
"It’s not symbiosis," I said, stepping forward. "It’s a hostile takeover. You’re overwriting the world’s code with Abyssal Mana. You’re terraforming the planet to suit your kind."
The King paused. He leaned forward, his form flickering.
"Code..." he whispered. "You use words that do not belong in this era. You see the ’glitches’, don’t you? You see the wirefras behind the walls."
Suddenly, my vision lurched.
[System Warning: External Intrusion Detected.]
[Admin Access: Unauthorized.]
A window popped up in front of my eyes. But it wasn’t blue. It was purple.
[Quest Offer: Join the Administration]
[Reward: Rank SSS / Immortality / The Truth of the Ga]
[Penalty for Refusal: Deletion]
"Join , Anomaly," the Parasite King offered. "The Elves are cattle. But you... you are a Player. Why fight for the NPCs? Let us rewrite this broken world together."
I stared at the prompt. The "Truth of the Ga." It was the ultimate carrot.
But then I looked at the chained World Spirit. I looked at the "cattle" he spoke of—people like Leon, like Lysandra.
"You think this is a ga?" I asked, looking up at the void. "Maybe it is. But in my ga, the final boss always drops the best loot."
I slashed my hand through the purple window, shattering it.
"Decline."
The Parasite King sighed. The purple fire of his crown flared.
"Disappointing. Then you will simply be deleted."
The King raised a hand. The static in the air coalesced into a swarm of jagged, black spears.
"And as for you, little vessel," he turned his attention to Selena. "Your blood is the key to the final lock. The Usurper’s blood will open the Spirit Gate fully, allowing my physical form to enter the material plane."
He unleashed his aura.
It wasn’t just magic; it was pure, distilled terror. In the Spirit Realm, Willpower is armor. If you fear, you take damage. If you panic, you die.
I felt the fear hit like a physical wave. My knees buckled. My breath caught in my throat. The shadows whispered that I was weak, that I was going to die a aningless death.
But Selena didn’t move.
The wave of terror washed over her and... vanished.
The Parasite King paused. "You do not tremble?"
Selena tilted her head. She looked at the cosmic horror in front of her as if he were a math equation she had already solved.
"Fear is a physiological response to anticipated trauma," Selena explained, her voice cutting through the static. "It requires an emotional baseline to function. I possess no such baseline."
She raised her scythe.
"Your intimidation tactics are inefficient. You are wasting mana on a target that cannot process the signal."
The Parasite King recoiled slightly, confused. He was an entity that fed on souls, on fear. He had never encountered a Null.
"What are you?" he hissed.
"I am the antivirus," Selena stated.
She looked at . "Michael. Analysis of the entity reveals a structural weakness. The chains binding the World Spirit act as his mana-siphon. If we sever the connection, his power supply drops by 60\%."
"Sever the chains," I repeated, forcing myself to stand despite the crushing pressure. "Right. Simple."
"Simple?" The King laughed, and the ground turned into a sea of grasping hands. "You are in my domain, flesh-bags. Here, thought becos reality. And my thoughts are far darker than yours."
The grasping hands clawed at our legs. They weren’t just hands; they were the mories of everyone the Rot had consud.
"Selena, clear the path!" I shouted.
"Affirmative."
Selena spun her scythe.
[Skill: Reaper’s Domain (Spirit Mode)]
She didn’t cast a spell. She imposed her will on the environnt. Because she had no fear, her will in the Spirit Realm was absolute.
A circle of pure, silent darkness expanded from her feet. The grasping hands dissolved instantly upon touching it. The static noise of the realm was silenced within her radius.
"I have created a localized zone of logic," Selena said. "Stay within the circle, Michael."
"You reject my reality?" The Parasite King roared. He drew a sword from the empty air—a blade made of screaming faces. "Then I will shatter yours!"
He charged.
The fight for the soul of the World Tree had begun.
(To be Continued)
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