The scene at Shadowcliff had descended into total chaos.
What had started as a controlled hunt had turned into a bloody skirmish following the explosions from their battle.
Lohan and Lisa had already wiped out more than 20 creatures, but the rest of the swarm showed no signs of retreat.
Ahead of them, the remaining wave of 40 Gremlins was regrouping in the crevices of the rocks.Lohan, using his Instinctive Perception, assessed the threat and finally showed concern...
there were still 5 Level 13 Gremlins left, the leaders of the pack who exuded an unstable and violent mana; 8 Level 12s, who coordinated the flanking attacks; 15 Level 11s and a dozen Level 9s who served as cannon fodder.
Lisa let out a panting growl, her two tails swaying erratically.
The constant use of Spectral Step to dodge the bone spears and the Gremlins’ traps was draining her stamina and Spiritual Energy at an alarming rate.
Her white fur, though protected by Lohan’s living armor most of the time, now bore smudges of soot and small cuts where Lohan’s defense had faltered for milliseconds due to sensory overload.
"Halon... they just keep coming..." Lisa transmitted through the mental link, her voice sounding weak between heavy breaths.
Lohan, still in his Living Armor form, could feel her exhaustion through their symbiosis.
His own biomass reservoir was steadily depleting as he tried to repair the Obsidian Exoskeleton plates shattered by the Level 13s’ coordinated attacks.
He realized that if they didn’t change the pace of the fight, they would be overwhelmed by the superior numbers of their opponents.
"I think we overestimated ourselves a bit, heh... we thought that because of our rare base we’d be invincible, but I think we’re still going to need a few evolutions to get to that point, haha." Despite his exhaustion, Lohan still managed to laugh at the situation.
Considering the many life-threatening risks they’d faced before evolving, taking this risk now wasn’t the end of the world, given that they still had the ability to flee if they really wanted to, so it was good that this reality check came now, but they didn’t want to flee.
"Lisa, stop chasing the scouts!" Lohan commanded, activating the Parallel Processing Core at maximum capacity to manage a risky maneuver. "I’m going to extract our fuel from the ground. Just focus on maintaining the defensive position for thirty seconds!"
Without hesitation, Lohan used Partial Division to expel five clones directly onto the pile of Gremlin corpses lying in the clearing.
The clones’ gelatin began to boil over the remains.
Lohan wasn’t just digesting the brains to gain evolutions; he was disintegrating every ounce of flesh, bone, and residual mana from those high-level creatures, saving only each creature’s eyes in the Astral Chest after cleaning up everything else.
In seconds, the Gremlins’ greenish ichor was refined into pure biomass and pulses of mana that flowed through the [Bio-Synthetic Mana Circulation] back into the main body.
Lohan then activated the [Weaver Mother Lv 6]. Through symbiotic contact, he forced open energy pathways within his own body, injecting the refined biomass and mana from the slain enemies directly into Lisa’s system, just as he had attempted to do in the past.
Unlike when he did this with Natural Energy, which only temporarily boosted Lisa, the injection of Biomass brought not only rapid recovery but also smaller yet permanent gains in her development!
The fox shuddered as she felt the torrent of energy.
The sensation was like diving into a chamber of heated nutrient solution. Lohan’s heat washed the fatigue from her muscles, and with faint traces of Holy Light that Lohan had also injected along with it, it instantly closed the superficial cuts in her fur.
After reaching Level 11, Lohan’s control over the Sacred Light was getting better and better, with him being able to use it in small amounts just as he used to with Natural Energy.
Sure, for now he could only use it in tiny amounts, but given how intense the effects were, that was more than enough for Lisa.
"That’s... invigorating!" Lisa exclaimed, feeling her white flames take on an intense blue-gold glow.
"Don’t waste any..." Lohan transmitted, feeling his own membrane vibrate with renewed stability. "I’ll keep processing ’lunch’ while you clear the cliff. Treat every dead Gremlin as a stamina potion for yourself, right?"
Renewed and fueled by Lohan’s vitality, Lisa let out a howl that echoed through the rocky crevices, charged with a ferocity that made the Level 11 Gremlins instinctively retreat.
She dashed forward again like a blur, but this time, every flaming kick was fueled by the continuous digestion of her own packmates.
The war of attrition, which had previously favored the swarm, had now completely shifted in favor of Lohan and Lisa!
As she dashed like a blur, Lohan, utilizing his Parallel Processing Core, managed the battle across multiple independent threads:
Thread 1: Maintained the flow of [Weaver Mother], monitoring Lisa’s heart rate and energy stability.
Thread 2: Coordinated five clones acting as a biological suction network on the ground.
Track 3: He remained alert for another surprise attack that might arise, not wanting to be caught unprepared again.
Track 4: He carried out support attacks in sync with Lisa.
When the 5 Level 13 Gremlins attempted to coordinate a desperate charge with their mana-saturated bone spears, Lohan acted.
He didn’t let Lisa waste energy on defense. Anchored to her back, he projected the Obsidian Exoskeleton again, which absorbed part of the kinetic impact of the Level 13 attacks, even though those spears still pierced his skin and struck Lisa’s body from below.
Although he was strong, the two-level difference with "enchanted" equipment existed, but fortunately he was holding up very well against it.
"Now, Lisa! Focus on the center of the swarm!" Lohan transmitted through the mental link.
The moment Lisa leaped into the midst of the leaders, Lohan utilized [Vacuum Detonation Lv 4].
He struck the air, creating a sudden collapse in atmospheric pressure that pulled the surrounding Gremlins toward a central point, right in front of Lisa’s claws.
The fox, feeling her body grow lighter and the white flames glowing with an intense blue-gold hue, unleashed a massive radial wave of spiritual fire.
The impact was devastating.
AAARRGGHH
GRRRGRR
BOOOM!
The Gremlins, trapped by the suction and unable to dodge, were charred in seconds.
Thanks to Lohan’s Holy Light, Lisa’s flames now possessed a purifying quality that bypassed part of the monsters’ magical protections.
Lohan vibrated his crystalline membrane, feeling a deep sense of satisfaction. Though exhausted, seeing the level of destruction they could cause together made his blood boil with excitement.
"Dinner was excellent, right?" Lohan remarked, laughing at Lisa’s eye-roll upon hearing his joke.
But despite rolling her eyes, Lisa was also feeling incredible.
They would likely encounter stronger monsters with more powerful races in the future, but for now, the dominance they had shown left her very excited.
And seeing the number of corpses and thinking about how much Gold that would convert to, even she, who had never placed much importance on money, felt tempted.
After all, she didn’t have unlimited funds in Elysium, and considering that another group of players was coming to the guild today, that money would be very welcome.