Elio closed his fist.
Each movent of his fingers was reflected in the tallic construction, the stakes sinking deeper into the artromus's body with chanical precision.
The crunches that filled the chamber were horrific, the sound of a supposedly invulnerable creature being torn apart ending in a wet gurgle that echoed off the walls.
Zentros, his neck partially regenerated, watched his companion's destruction with horror.
In one final act of absolute desperation, he launched himself at Elio with all the strength he had left.
Elio didn't even move.
Selene appeared like lightning, her wind impulse striking Zentros with perfect precision, stopping his suicidal charge cold.
With the first artromus reduced to unrecognizable pieces, Elio turned his hand toward Zentros.
The expression on his transford face showed no emotion as he directed his power toward the artromus leader.
The look in Zentros's multifaceted eyes showed sothing no human had ever seen in a true artromus: Surrender.
It was the end.
♢♢♢♢
Trapped between two transford humans, Zentros knew his end was inevitable.
But one last question burned in his mind: had his companion managed to escape far enough?
In the instant preceding his death, Zentros made a desperate decision.
His thoughts accelerated to maximum by perception, he concentrated all his will into articulating three words with enough speed and clarity for Elio's superhuman perception to catch them:
"The Queen sleeps."
The words ca out so fast he feared he'd pronounced them wrong, rged into a barely comprehensible sound.
But he had to try, had to win even a fraction of a second more for the ssenger.
Elio's sword was already descending, its edge glowing with devastating power.
For an instant, an instant that stretched eternally thanks to his enhanced perception, Zentros saw that Elio had heard, that the words had reached his ears.
The blade paused for a fraction of a second while Elio processed the information.
♢♢♢♢
Elio heard.
For an instant, he wondered if he should delve deeper into the information when he realized...
He still had sothing to do and Zentros was trying to prevent it, no information from this monster would be reliable.
Hope died in Zentros's eyes when he saw the cold smile that ford on Elio's face.
The response ca with the sa supernatural speed with which he had spoken:
"I'll kill her too."
The last thing Zentros saw was his own face reflected in the crystalline layer of Elio's eyes, contorted in a mask of horror, before the sword split him cleanly in two.
Only one artromus remained...
Elio wouldn't rest until he eliminated them all.
His transford body rose from the crater with an explosion of speed that surpassed even his previous 350.
The air distorted around him as he erged to the surface, his eyes scanning the terrain for his prey.
What he found on the deposit's slope made his blood boil.
A line of bodies extended like a macabre trail, fallen soldiers, their system armor still glowing weakly in a futile attempt to regenerate fatal wounds.
Elio forced his enhanced perception to its absolute maximum, ignoring the pain as blood began to flow more intensely from his eyes.
The improved vision allowed him to distinguish a figure in the distance, the last artromus, moving at a transford speed of 100 to the first ring's outer barrier.
'Don't even dream about it.'
♢♢♢♢
Selene was barely erging from the crater when Elio had already beco a blur of movent.
His speed was so extre that the air visibly compressed in his wake, creating shock waves that marked his trajectory in the sky.
From her position, Selene observed with horror the bodies of the soldiers who had followed her so valiantly.
Trapped in the wrong place at the worst possible mont.
Guilt threatened to overwhelm her... but there was no ti for lants. Her attention focused on the pursuit unfolding before her. Though catching up would be difficult...
♢♢♢♢
Continue your journey on empire
Elio gained on the artromus with each passing second.
His transford speed, powered by fury and determination, rapidly reduced the distance between them.
But sothing in the monster's behavior troubled him, why fly directly toward the barrier?
The mory of Aranto, disintegrating upon touching the divine barrier, crossed his mind.
Had sothing changed? Could transford artromus cross it now?
The question burned in his mind while the distance continued shrinking.
The artromus was only a few ters from the barrier, but Elio had no intention of letting it escape.
The monster had to die...
But despite his transford speed pushed to the maximum, Elio realized that the artromus's initial advantage had been too great.
The distance was closing, but not fast enough, the monster would reach the barrier before him.
But one option remained.
At a hundred ters' distance, his control over magic in his current form was more than sufficient to create an effective prison.
And even if that didn't stop it...
If the artromus crossed the barrier, Elio would simply follow.
The level 2 monsters on the other side posed no real threat; while he maintained mana and stamina, while the potion's effect lasted, they would be insignificant insects.
The lithium prison ford just as the artromus crossed through the barrier.
But to Elio's surprise... only for an instant.
The mont the monster trapped by the construction completely crossed the barrier, it destroyed the prison as if it were paper.
Still, that fraction of a second's delay was enough for Elio to close in and cross the barrier as well.
A flock of winged creatures descended upon him imdiately.
They were different from the locus, their forms more stylized, their movents more fluid, but their threat level was comparable.
For Elio's current power, they were barely more annoying than normal locus.
However, sothing changed dramatically.
The artromus, which until a mont ago had barely been maintaining its lead, suddenly moved with a speed that doubled its already impressive transford velocity.
Wind impulses began erupting from its form, each more powerful than the last, gradually increasing the distance between them.
Elio, surprised by this sudden change, used the crystal in his book.
The statistics that appeared before his eyes left him stunned: all the artromus's values had doubled upon crossing the barrier.
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