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The path to Diana was clear.

Revenge, at last, would be...

An iron grip on his leg interrupted his advance.

Selene, her face covered in blood from the explosion but her eyes burning with fierce determination, had managed to reach him.

With a movement that mixed perfect technique and brute force, she used the monster\'s own momentum against it.

The transformed artromus was sent flying, its monstrous body impacting the ground with devastating force.

When it raised its gaze, it saw Selene between it and Diana, her protective stance charged with a fury that rivaled its own.

"If you want to touch my niece again," Selene\'s voice cut through the air like a blade, "it will have to be over my dead body."

The artromus rose slowly, processing this new information. The relationship between the humans explained the defense\'s ferocity, but it didn\'t matter.

It just meant he would have the pleasure of destroying both.

♢♢♢♢

Back in the battle against the other 9 artromus...

The group had entrenched themselves in the deposit\'s crater chamber.

Eight of theirs had fallen before Elio made the crucial decision that had led them to this point.

"Maintain formation!" he ordered while another magical attack impacted against the combined defenses of Lila and Aria\'s enormous summons.

"Don\'t waste mana on attacks that won\'t connect!"

The decision to descend to the chamber and end up confined hadn\'t been easy.

Initially, Elio had considered descending the deposit\'s long slope, but the inclined terrain would have left them exposed for too long.

The artromus, with their air dominion, would have decimated their ranks even more during the descent.

The chamber, though effectively leaving them "trapped," offered crucial tactical advantages.

The confined space severely limited the artromus\'s flight capability, denying them their most significant advantage.

Of course, the enemy wouldn\'t follow them to a place where they\'d lose their advantage so easily.

The artromus had quickly adapted their strategy. If the humans wanted to lock themselves in a hole, they would destroy them by filling it with attacks from outside.

"From above!" Mei warned when a new wave of elemental power descended upon them.

They were practically using the same tactic that Elio\'s own group had used against the earth and water Artromus.

However, there was a crucial difference.

The artromus couldn\'t create acids or powerful chemical explosions to drive them out.

"Their attacks are powerful," Elio explained while his four-elemental sword cut through a magical projectile, "but the god\'s words were right. We know their elemental weaknesses now!"

Through the crystal in his book, Elio had seen the numbers: 200 points of magical damage, a figure that should have crushed the 110-120 points of most.

But the elemental weaknesses allowed even their weakest attacks, when correctly aligned, to counter the artromus\'s magic.

Aria and Lila especially had perfected their coordination. When water or earth projectiles, the only ones Elio\'s sword couldn\'t completely disperse, descended toward the group, their summons moved in perfect synchrony to absorb them.

"The elephant salamander is at its limit!" Aria warned, sweat drops running down her forehead while maintaining control of her summon.

"It\'s Aria\'s turn to cover the entrance!" Elio shouted, taking advantage of the earth accumulation in Aria\'s summon to defend.

The summon would lose some earth matter each time it was attacked and become small again... Only to absorb earth attacks again.

This way they had achieved a cycle in which they saved a great amount of mana.

"Lila, how\'s yours?" Elio asked while catching his breath.

"Gorgita can resist a bit longer!" Lila gritted her teeth, forcing her frog salamander to absorb some of the water attacks that Aria\'s summon wouldn\'t take so well.

It was a stalemate, but Elio knew they were still at a disadvantage.

While they could counter the elevated magical damage, the artromus excelled in all statistics.

Some of their base values surpassed even the elemental artromus in metamorphosis.

All except the metamorphosis final resistance and perhaps the wind artromus\'s maximum speed.

The monsters luckily seemed not to have the ability to enter frenzy, but their speed was already quite high despite this.

But in everything else it was like fighting against the best of all elemental artromus in one... though these were 10 damned monsters, 9 with the one that went after Diana...

\'The goddess\'s equipment,\' Elio thought while studying their enemies\' divine weapons and armors. \'That\'s the real problem.\'

The divine equipment greatly amplified their natural power. And that was without considering true metamorphosis, a power that, according to Elio\'s predictions, would take them to impossible levels to contain.

"So far none has transformed," Mei murmured, as if reading his thoughts. "But they won\'t waste mana eternally in this exchange."

Elio nodded.

The artromus were testing their defenses, looking for cracks in their formation. At some point, when they get tired of this game...

"Get ready!" he shouted when a new wave of attacks descended. "We can\'t afford a single mistake!"

The group moved like a single organism, each member fulfilling their role in the collective defense, but Elio knew they were walking on a knife\'s edge.

♢♢♢♢

Zentros observed the deposit chamber from the heights, his frustration growing with each failed attack.

The indestructible structure created by the gods had become an impenetrable refuge for the parasites.

\'How much wasted mana,\' he reflected while another elemental assault was neutralized by human defenses. \'And not a single casualty since they became entrenched.\'

The artromus had maintained a constant bombardment, hoping the pure power of their attacks and superior mana amount would eventually overcome enemy defenses.

But the humans seemed to have an inexhaustible mana source, responding to each wave with perfectly coordinated countermeasures.

"The leader," Zentros murmured, his multifaceted eyes fixed on the figure wielding the four-elemental sword. "That weapon is too troublesome..."

It was irritating to see how a simple human dispersed their most powerful attacks with precise sword movements.

Where other parasites needed to spend mana to defend themselves, he simply... cut through magic.

And those cursed magical creatures, those damned horrible globes completely negated earth and water.

"Zentros," Zyval\'s mental voice resonated in his mind. "Our mana reserves are diminishing. At this rate..."

He didn\'t need to finish the sentence. Zentros could see the numbers: if they continued with this strategy, eventually they would run out of resources with nothing to show for it.

\'Should we lower ourselves?\' The idea of descending to the "hole" and facing the parasites in a two-dimensional space turned his insides. It was unnatural for an Artromus to abandon air dominion, reduce themselves to crawling like inferior creatures.

But...