Utopian System

The core bearer had finally made a mistake, and now there was nowhere to hide. Zantem's jaws curved into a predatory smile while his divine armor gleamed with the goddess's power.

'Time to end this game,' he thought while preparing for the final assault. 'The core is ours...'

A barrage of magical projectiles rose toward him. The air crackled with magical energy as multiple attacks intertwined in a deadly display.

Zantem dodged with a fluid movement, his chitinous wings cutting through the air while studying the attack pattern. Fire and ice interlaced in the air, creating thermal change zones that intended to destabilize his flight.

The strategy showed a level of tactical understanding that was almost impressive.

'Clever,' he admitted while spinning between projectiles, his movements displaying a grace that seemed impossible for his big alien form. 'But insufficient.'

His own attacks descended like deadly rain. Wind blades and elemental fire discharges that would have shredded any solitary human.

But the soldiers moved in perfect coordination, their overlapping defenses absorbing or deflecting each impact.

It was then he decided there was no point in attacking them more from above.

He had a single objective...

Diana.

Zantem's multifaceted eyes processed every detail of his prey in an instant. The way she moved, how others protected her, the way her hands clutched something against her chest.

His enhanced perception missed nothing, cataloging every minute detail with inhuman precision.

There was no doubt: she was the one who had the core.

The attacks from the ground intensified. Electric energy rays, fire projectiles, and condensed ice, even some summons tried to keep him at a distance. Each attack was calculated to keep him occupied long enough for the escape group to move away.

The humans' coordination was remarkable, even if ultimately futile.

Zantem felt they were wasting their time and mana foolishly.

The humans were persistent, he had to grant them that.

But it was time to end this game.

He rose higher, apparently retreating before the intensity of the fire. The soldiers maintained their attacks, but he could see a glimmer of hope in their eyes. They believed their strategy was working. The deception was almost too easy.

Then Zantem folded his wings and dove with a wind impulse.

The attacks intensified until becoming a solid curtain of magical energy. Any rational being would have hesitated to crash into such a display of power.

But Zantem wasn't interested in rationality; he had seen his prey and nothing would stop him, least of all such weak attacks.

The impacts began to arrive. Twenty points of damage here, twenty there. His divine armor gleamed while absorbing each hit, the goddess's power making their strongest attacks seem like mere annoyances.

The humans redoubled their efforts, desperate to stop his descent, but it was like trying to stop an avalanche with bare hands.

Diana was right there, almost within his reach.

The soldiers surrounding her stopped attacking, as if they had accepted the inevitable. Zantem's weapon sang in the air, tracing a perfect arc toward his target's neck.

Severing the poor girl's head.

Or that would have happened, but...

The blow never connected.

In an impossible instant, Diana simply... vanished.

Zantem's enhanced perception barely registered the movement: a speed explosion that defied all human logic, between 60 and 70 points. The air itself seemed to part before her impossible acceleration.

But he had no time to process this impossibility. At the exact moment he had attacked Diana, the true plan revealed itself.

The soldiers who had been "protecting" Diana moved as a single organism.

Metal bands emerged, interweaving around Zantem in a perfectly coordinated prison. His supernatural strength strained the restrictions, metal creaking under pressure, but for each band he destroyed, two more took its place. The trap had been meticulously planned.

And then, the counterassault began.

Magical attacks rained from every possible angle. Individually, each impact was insignificant, barely 20 points of damage. But they came in continuous waves, overlapping, accumulating. What they lacked in power, they made up for in relentless persistence.

Through the curtain of attacks, Zantem saw Diana's figure moving away, the Fire King's core still secure in her hands. The distance between them grew with each second he remained trapped in this improvised prison.

The frustration roar that escaped his jaws made several soldiers instinctively retreat.

But many more maintained their positions, their attacks, their trap. They knew they couldn't keep him contained for long if it transformed, but they didn't need to do it forever.

They just needed to give Diana enough time to escape.

♢♢♢♢

Diana had been worried.

The speed with which the artromus had identified her among the group had surprised her.

Not even running alongside several girls of similar constitution could generate confusion... it hadn't served to deceive the monster's superhuman senses for even an instant.

But that no longer mattered; the plan had worked enough to give her this chance to escape.

Now she ran alongside her five surviving companions, their legs moving at the limit, forcing their base capacity of 10 to almost 20 points.

The rest of the group had stayed behind, containing the monster, perhaps buying with their lives these precious moments.

Elio's teachings resonated in her mind while maintaining the pace.

The combination he had shown her was a bit complex: 30 additional points from an impulse of her combined summon, 20 from taking her legs to the limit in a perfectly controlled jump, plus the 10 points that neon provided.

Diana hadn't managed to completely master the full impulse to reach 70 points... She lacked adding the wind emblem's speed too as Elio showed, but had compensated for that deficiency by overloading her muscular impulse until reaching 65 points of speed.

The moment of attack repeated in her mind: her enhanced perception had barely given her enough time to react.

An instant of doubt, a fraction of a second slower, and her head would be rolling among the cores. Death's proximity had been so real she could still feel the air displaced by the artromus's weapon grazing her neck.

"Keep the pace!" she shouted to her companions while continuing their frantic race. "Just a few more minutes!"

The core had to reach the city; they couldn't afford to fail.

The wall rose in the distance, each step bringing them closer to salvation. They just needed to maintain this impossible pace a little longer, force their muscles beyond their limits for a few additional minutes.

'The city depends on this,' Diana reminded herself while ignoring the burning in her legs that threatened to slow her down. 'The others are risking their lives to give us this opportunity. We can't waste it.'

Victory, which just moments ago seemed a remote possibility, now began to feel real. Just a few more minutes of this desperate race and they would have fulfilled their mission.