Bait

10 minutes later...

'She's right. Their power is divided equally.' Achilles thought as a tentacle monster with a leech feeding on its body headed closer toward him.

While he was still feeling skeptical regarding the plan Sia had devised, he decided to put his trust in her as he believed that she wouldn't push him to die.

A tentacle shot directly at him which made him jump to his right, avoiding it by a close margin.

Boom!

The tentacles created a small crater on the ground and a second later, sacks of spores suddenly grew around the tentacles as they became larger.

'Shit!' Achilles retreated even further as he realized what the worm was trying to do.

Just like he had predicted, the sacks exploded as soon as he dashed away as it releasing infectious spores into the air.

'If I get infected by them, I'm a goner for sure.'

The spores would linger in the air indefinitely, he needed to come up with a way to deal with them, somehow.

Tread! Tread! Tread!

The sound of something heading toward him snapped Achilles out of his thoughts. He shifted his gaze to his right and noticed a giant bull was trying to ram at him.

Its horns were made from an extremely tough and sharp metal that could easily cut him in two.

Achilles didn't try to run away and stayed unmoving from his position as he confronted the bull head-on.

When the distance between him and the Corrupted was only a few meters away, he nimbly sidestepped and the bull missed him.

Utilizing an opening, he swung his axe upwards, striking the abomination's belly.

The attack that was enhanced with essences made the bull suffer a massive force in his torso.

But the creature was being parasite by a Higher Fallen so it was barely enough to injure the monster and only managed to inflict a small cut.

Blood spurted out at where Achilles was. He didn't pay much attention at first, but then he suddenly saw something mixed together with the bull's blood.

They were tiny worm-like creatures that were constantly wriggling, the worms bore a lot of resemblances to Achilles' worms. But there were also many differences.

Achilles noticed how they turned their eyes — if they had them, at him.

His natural instinct screamed madly as he instantly activated "Mantis' Armament" to prevent blood from sticking to him.

The blood and worms hit the energy-constructed armor and fell to the ground.

The latter crawled toward him in a desperate manner which caused him to jump away as far as possible.

'There are the Leechworm's tiny bodies hidden in the hosts' blood as well!'

Achilles ran away for a few moments before doubt started climbing its way into his mind.

'That's weird. Why didn't I get infected by the parasite back then? I remember getting a lot of blood on my body.'

'...Sia told me that the parasite can only exert total control over bodies that it has completely taken over.'

'...Maybe that's the reason why the other Corrupted didn't have worms in their blood?'

Achilles was not sure whether his theory was true or not, but he was glad as hell that he was not contracted with the parasitic monster.

The ten Corrupted began chasing after him again...Their movements seemed a little duller, though.

Achilles let out a smoky breath as he gazed up to the sky and muttered:

[The weather is surprisingly cold for June.]

Three abominations directly confronted him as one shot its feathers and the other two launched their barrage of assault at him.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Achilles dodged the fierce attacks and distanced himself away from the three beasts.

Unfortunately, he wasn't able to rest for long as something pointy-headed in his vision.

Bang! Boom! Boom! Boom!

He felt his right chest get pierced by a rusted lance as something pushed him throughout the woods while crashing onto multiple trees.

Everything happened so fast that he couldn't comprehend anything that was going on.

All he knew was that if this kept prolonging, he would be a dead man!

Achilles saw sacks of spores growing around the lance as it readied to burst at any moment.

'Fuck!'

He used all his willpower on the hand that was gripping the axe and cut off the tip of the lance.

He fell to the ground roughly as the Corrupted ran past him for a few seconds before stopping itself...or themselves.

He removed the piece of rusted metal on his right chest as a pained yelp escaped his mouth.

While he was still laying on the soft grass in pain, the ten Corrupted began surrounding him as they...or it looked at him with murderous intent.

The thing that had stabbed him earlier also stood in front of his view.

It was a suit of rusted armor riding on a rusted metal horse as well. The red visor in the knight's helmet and the horse's flaming eyes burned fervently.

Underneath all that metal, Achilles also saw something crawling inside it, feeding on the knight.

'Ahhh...a Higher Evolved really should not be fighting against Higher Fallen...' He complained in his mind as his fingers started experiencing frostbite.

The air turned cooler as the Corrupted approached him with calm steps. They all seemed to be a little tired and weak, for some reason.

[Gentlemen please...shouldn't we talk this through first?] Achilles asked in a nonchalant voice while clenching his right chest.

He looked around frantically, trying to find something that could buy him even just a split second more.

'Come on, come on...'

The cells inside plants around him began expanding and then ruptured due to the sudden bone-chilling cold. They started to slowly die out as a result.

At this point, the Leechworm had cornered Achilles entirely. He had nowhere to run!

The knight raised its lance and brought it down, intending to turn him into skewered meat.

However, the rusted weapon stopped itself mere inches away from Achilles' pupils.

After that, the ten hosts' bodies shook frantically as they collapsed one by one. It was as if they were experiencing a great deal of pain.

Achilles looked at the sight in front of him with an unamusing gaze.

A distorted smile gradually crept up on his face as he muttered, at the same time, three feminine voices that were overlapping each other also spoke from faraway.

[[...It works.]]