The air in the altar chamber shattered under the pressure of the corrupted mana exhaled by the Monster Spider.
In the split second that the Level 15 creature contracted its thorax to unleash the area-of-effect blast, Lohan acted with a sense of independence that surprised even Lisa.
Instead of merely passively spreading over the fox, the blue Slime used its mass to perform a coordinated separation maneuver through its parallel thoughts.
A considerable portion of Lohan’s biomass detached from Lisa, transforming into a translucent, pulsating dome that enveloped Alice and Dylan’s group.
At the same time, Lohan’s main body, now reduced to a denser, energy-charged form, remained anchored to the fox, but projected black tentacles that dug into the cavern’s rocky ground.
"NOW! ATTACK THE SIDE JOINTS OF THAT THING! DON’T STOP!" Halon’s mental voice echoed clearly in everyone’s minds, devoid of any hesitation.
The detonation of corrupted mana struck Lohan’s barrier with the force of a hurricane.
The obsidian plates he had formed over the group of Players cracked under the sonic impact, and his gelatinous body boiled as the dark static attempted to corrode his membrane.
However, upon suffering this massive damage, Lohan’s internal system reacted violently. His hemolymphatic tissue surged, accelerating the circulation of mana and biomass, converting the enemy’s shock into fuel for instant regeneration.
Fortunately, Lohan didn’t feel pain like a human here... just seeing that vast amount of biomass being destroyed so brutally caused a tingling sensation to arise in his body.
On the bright side, he was the only one "seriously injured" in this attack, consuming an enormous amount of biomass to protect the group and also managing to cooperate with Lisa for her protection.
Lisa, feeling the unshakable stability Lohan provided beneath her paws through gravitational anchoring, didn’t waste a breath.
She shot forward like a reddish-white bolt of lightning, her four paws leaving trails of white flames that now carried a residual golden glow, the result of Lohan’s constant infusion of holy light.
The legendary fox leaped onto the Monster, which was still recovering from the effort of the massive blow.
The Monster, realizing that the "Repugnant Light," though intensely consumed, had not been extinguished, let out a humanoid and bestial scream filled with hatred and unleashed a flurry of blows with its mantis-like claws at the nearest creature, the fox.
The sound of the combat became a terrible cacophony of metal grinding against metal, followed by grotesque screams of rage and pain.
For this battle, sensing the intense crisis they were in, Lohan did not limit himself to being Lisa’s armor.
While she dodged the magical attacks—spheres of acid web that melted the surrounding rocks—Lohan used his molecular flexibility to project independent limbs that attacked in sync with Lisa.
Using ice spikes, so dense they seemed made of diamond, they sprouted from Lohan’s mass and pierced the monster’s blind spots, guided by telescopic vision that mapped every weakness in the creature’s iridescent shell.
The synergy between the two had reached a higher level.
Lisa was the destructive force on the front lines while Lohan was the architect of the battle.
He realized that the Monster’s defense was not merely physical, but sustained by a network of mana threads vibrating around the altar, sucking the vitality from the other smaller insects to heal the wounds Lisa inflicted.
"Alice! Dylan! Take the flanks and destroy the silk connections on the columns! The Monster is regenerating through the swarm!" Lohan commanded, maintaining control over the defensive clones while his main body lunged to strike the Spider.
Alice, despite no longer having Lohan’s clone protecting and boosting her damage, still delivered an explosive punch that shattered the silk column on the right.
Dylan and his Players, now fully committed to the Slime’s tactic, moved like shadows, cutting the filaments that nourished the Level 15 Elite.
Feeling its energy supply cut off, the Monster roared, twisting its massive torso and firing bursts of dark mana directly at Lohan.
The Slime felt the instinctive repulsion from its sacred core, as if that energy were the antithesis of its current existence.
It was then that Lohan decided to test the true limit of his new integration.
He activated the parallel processing core to its maximum, splitting his consciousness into three independent execution threads.
One thread maintained Lisa’s protection, the second coordinated the peripheral group, the third focused entirely on his individual offensive.
Lohan’s gelatin began to pulsate with an inner golden light.
’Since he hates my Sacred Light so much, there must be a reason, so let’s find out what that reason is!’ Lohan thought. If he had a heart, it would be racing wildly right now at the madness of what he wanted to do, recalling the first Elite Monster they had faced in Elysium.
The sacred light, which he had learned to master after digesting the Light Guardian’s mana stone, flooded his blue mass, making it opaque and radiant.
He partially detached himself from Lisa’s back, shaping himself into a form resembling a serpent of light, and launched himself directly at the creature’s chest.
The impact was sharp and generated a micro-explosion of purity.
When Lohan’s membrane touched the monster’s corrupted carapace, the hissing sound of efficient digestion echoed through the chamber.
Unlike any other enemy Lohan had faced, this Spider possessed an extremely high biomass density, making it impossible for him to digest it as easily as Lohan did with other monsters, and surprisingly also a charge of divine energy that acted as a molecular shield, attempting to "neutralize" Lohan’s acidity.
But the Slime didn’t give up; even if this digestion was slow, when had he ever failed to digest an enemy?!
Even if it meant losing all the biomass it had accumulated, there was no other choice now: either that spider would die, or the Astralis Requiem would be completely destroyed.
So Lohan didn’t hesitate.
A tremendous sensation of resistance arose on the spider’s exoskeleton, as if Lohan were trying to eat concrete with a human body.
The sensation was terrible.