Chapter 175: Chapter 175: The Parasites of the Deep

Zephyria burst through the final layer of the mantle.

The suffocating, claustrophobic walls of the magma tunnel vanished.

The floating city erupted from a massive, dripping waterfall of molten rock and plunged into an impossibly vast, empty expanse.

The blinding, aggressive heat of the earth’s crust disappeared instantly.

[System Warning: Environmental Shift Detected.]

[Location: The Hollow Core (Nihilanth’s Nursery).]

[Temperature: Severe Drop. Ambient Abyssal Corruption High.]

Lucifer stood on the high balcony of the central keep. He didn’t activate Zephyr’s Grace to slow the city.

He tapped his comms rune. "Sarah. Level us out. Arrest the descent."

"Engaging stabilization thrusters, Lucifer," the Oracle replied from the Spire, her voice tight against the sudden shift in gravity.

The Aether-Nova Engine roared, firing massive, concentrated bursts of blue and purple energy from the lower thrusters.

Zephyria shuddered violently. The catastrophic freefall slowed to a halt. The five-mile-wide black mountain glided smoothly into a stationary hover near the edge of the cavernous, hollow center of the planet.

Lucifer looked out over the railing.

The core of the earth was not a spinning ball of molten iron. It was a massive, continent-sized biological nightmare.

Towering, fleshy pillars, pulsing with thick, jagged black veins, stretched for thousands of miles, forming a colossal, interconnected web.

The air was stagnant, freezing, and reeked of ancient blood and decay.

And directly above Zephyria, clinging to the jagged roof of the mantle they had just fallen through, were movement and shadows.

Before Lucifer could issue his next command, a massive, deafening THUD shook the entire floating city.

It was not a tremor from the core. It was a direct, physical impact against the pitch-black Void-shield enclosing Zephyria.

"What was that?" Elara demanded, spinning around and raising her violet-flaming spear.

Another THUD echoed from the opposite side of the city. Then another. And another. The impacts were heavy, rhythmic, and incredibly violent.

Down in the Aether-Forge, Vexia shrieked.

"We have boarders!" the Sanguine Princess yelled, her voice frantic over the magical link. "Multiple, massive signatures latching onto the exterior of the shield! They are heavy! They are dragging the city downward!"

Lucifer walked back to the edge of the balcony. He looked up, peering through the translucent black energy of the Void-shield.

He saw them.

Clinging to the outside of the magical barrier were colossal, grotesque creatures. They looked like massive, armored leeches, hundreds of feet long.

Their bodies were covered in thick, overlapping plates of glowing orange magma-scales, constantly weeping superheated liquid rock.

They had no eyes, only massive, circular mouths filled with hundreds of spinning teeth.

[System Warning: High-Tier Parasitic Swarm Engaged!]

[Entity: Magma-Leviathans (Level 60 - Deep Parasites)]

[Quantity: 50+]

[Status: Attempting to consume Void-Core energy.]

"They followed us down the tunnel," Lucifer observed calmly.

"They are parasites," Lyra noted, stepping out onto the balcony. The Dawn Saintess grimaced in disgust at the massive, slithering worms.

"They feed on the ambient energy leaking from the World-Eater. But our Void-Core Reactor is a denser, purer food source. They want to suck the city dry."

The fifty Magma-Leviathans were aggressively boring their spinning teeth into the pitch-black energy field.

The Void-shield was indestructible against standard magic, but the sheer, continuous physical grinding of fifty Level 60 beasts was slowly shaving away the outer layers of the barrier.

"They are too heavy!" Vexia complained. "The Sanguine Grid is trying to compensate for the added mass, but they are literally pulling us toward the fleshy pillars below! If we hit that web, we are grounded!"

"Isolde," Lucifer commanded over the comms. "Clear the hull."

"I cannot, Warlord," the Dragon Queen hissed back, her voice tight with genuine frustration.

High above the central keep, the fifty thousand Star-Forged Wyrms were swarming near the roof of the cavern.

"My brood is immune to the heat of the magma, but these parasites are secreting highly concentrated Abyssal rot to break your shield," Isolde explained rapidly.

"If my Wyrms bite them, the rot will poison them. They are biological. They cannot consume pure corruption without mutating."

Lucifer didn’t argue. He understood the tactical limitation. Dragons were apex predators, but they weren’t immune to everything.

"Pull the Wyrms back," Lucifer ordered. "Form a defensive halo above the Spire. Do not let anything drop on us from the ceiling."

He unhooked the ruby-red Blade of Ruin from his hip.

"If biology fails, we use machinery," Lucifer stated smoothly.

He tapped his comms rune, connecting to the lower deployment bays.

"Celeste," Lucifer commanded.

"Here, Grand Marshal," the High Ranger replied instantly. She was stationed in the armory, surrounded by the nervous mortal infantry who were currently useless in the high-tier battle.

"Deploy the Void-Breaker Dragoons," Lucifer ordered. "I need those leeches scraped off my windshield."

"Deploying now," Celeste confirmed.

The heavy iron doors on the outer flanks of Zephyria ground open.

Five thousand Void-Breaker Dragoons hovered in the deployment bays. The newly evolved, Mythic-tier mechanical centaurs did not hesitate.

Their jagged, dark matter armor absorbed the dim, sickly light of the core. Their massive Star-Metal wings flared, glowing with purple energy shields.

They didn’t just fly out. They engaged their thrusters and shot directly through the localized, temporary gaps Vexia opened in the Void-shield.

The Dragoons entered the freezing, corrupt atmosphere of the Hollow Core.

They were machines. They didn’t breathe. They didn’t feel pain. The corrosive Abyssal rot dripping from the Magma-Leviathans washed harmlessly off their Star-Metal plating.

The battle was not fought on a flat plain.

The five thousand heavy machines swarmed the outside of the pitch-black, spherical Void-shield. They fought entirely on the vertical axis, hovering alongside the colossal, clinging worms.

"Push them off!" Lucifer commanded, watching the melee from the balcony.

The Dragoons did not use their aether-cannons. Firing heavy artillery directly against Zephyria’s own shield would risk shattering the barrier.

They raised their ten-foot-long, crackling purple Star-Metal lances.

They engaged in brutal, point-blank melee combat on the sheer surface of the energy dome. The black-metal centaurs flew straight at the massive, fleshy sides of the parasites. They drove the lances directly into the thick, orange magma-scales.

The anti-demon munitions detonated deep inside the beasts’ flesh.

The Leviathans shrieked, a horrifying, wet gurgling sound. Their massive, circular mouths pulled away from the shield as they thrashed in agony.

But the Leviathans were Level 60. They didn’t die instantly.

A massive leech swung its heavy, magma-dripping tail, smashing a dozen Dragoons against the side of the Void-shield.

The black machines bounced off the barrier, their armor dented and sparking, but they immediately righted themselves, re-engaging their thrusters and charging back in.

"They are stubborn," Elara noted, watching the mechanical centaurs hack at the giant worms. "The Dragoons are strong, but the Leviathans are heavily armored and incredibly dense. It’s like trying to pry a mountain off a wall."

"They just need a push," Lucifer said smoothly.

He didn’t leave the balcony. He raised his right hand. The Gauntlet of the Void King crackled with fierce black lightning.

Lucifer targeted the space directly behind the three largest Magma-Leviathans clinging to the center of the shield.

"Gravity Crush," Lucifer whispered.

He created three microscopic, highly concentrated singularities directly behind the monsters.

The intense gravity violently yanked the massive beasts backward, pulling them completely off the city’s shield.

The sudden loss of grip left the monsters flailing helplessly in the empty, freezing air, their spinning teeth snapping at nothing.

"Now," Lucifer commanded over the Dragoons’ tactical network.

The Void-Breakers surrounding the three floating Leviathans didn’t hesitate. They aimed their shoulder cannons at the exposed, unarmored, soft underbellies of the helpless beasts.

They fired.

Hundreds of blinding purple aether-blasts tore through the air, vaporizing the soft underbellies of the monsters.

The three Leviathans shrieked and completely dissolved into showers of glowing orange ash and purple blood that drifted away into the void.

[Hostiles Eliminated: Magma-Leviathans (Level 60)]

[Experience Gain Suspended: Mortal Level Cap Reached.]

"That’s three down," Celeste cheered over the comms, watching the tactical feed from the armory. "Forty-seven to go. Keep ripping them off, Commander!"

The Dragoons adapted instantly to the tactic. They swarmed the remaining Leviathans, using their lances to pry the massive worms away from the shield just enough to expose their weak points, then blasting them into ash with point-blank cannon fire.

In less than ten minutes, the outside of the planetary shield was completely clear.

The last Magma-Leviathan fell screaming into the dark abyss of the Hollow Core, its body riddled with burning purple holes. 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

"The hull is secure, Warlord," Vexia reported, her voice thick with relief. "The Sanguine Grid is stabilizing. We stopped the descent."

"Recall the Dragoons," Lucifer ordered.

He lowered his hand. The black lightning on the Gauntlet of the Void King faded.

Zephyria hovered peacefully in the silent, terrifying dark of the planet’s heart.

Lucifer turned his void-swirling eyes downward. The fleshy, continent-sized biological web stretched out below them, a grotesque carpet covering the true core of the earth. And in the very center, the violet sun burned.

The Egg of Nihilanth.

"The parasites are gone," Lucifer announced to his council. He tightened his grip on his longsword.

"The path to the nursery is clear. We are going to the center."