**Chapter 163: Alien Parasites**
“Argh!” The man covered his eyes, wildly slashing his short sword in front of him in panic. While his flurry of five rapid attacks per second seemed agile, he was actually striking empty air, missing Jayad by a mile.
Jayad immediately retrieved and retreated. Unfortunately, his iron hammer was struck by the wildly swinging short sword, and the hammer head was cleanly bisected into two irregular halves.
I gained another piece of intel: the Hand of Glory requires conscious, deliberate control. Otherwise, it disengages if it misses its target; it doesn’t have an effect on everything within its radiance.
“Take his sword, or that hand!” I loudly reminded Jayad. This guy was covered in a flesh armor. It took multiple blows from the iron hammer to break his arm. Without that sharp short sword, his defense was impenetrable. It would be better to seize that troublesome hand.
The Spirit Cat Potion temporarily amplified a person’s Spirit Vision and inspiration significantly, but it didn’t alter their hearing. So, he still heard my shout. The man immediately and hastily retracted the Hand of Glory behind him, showing that, to him, the Hand of Glory was clearly far more important than his short sword.
This was perfect for Jayad, as he preferred the short sword he was accustomed to using. As for that strange, peculiar hand, he wouldn’t know how to use it anyway. Thus, Jayad swung the iron hammer, now with only half a head, and forcefully struck the man’s right hand, the one holding the sword.
*Crack!* The fingers snapped and broke. The man let out a suppressed roar of pain, and the short sword fell. Jayad snatched it up in one hand and swung it towards the man’s head, Holy Light empowering the short sword, forming a blade of light.
Even though he couldn’t see, the man instinctively raised his hand to block. His arm, covered in flesh armor, was directly severed by the short sword, followed by a flying head, his expression still etched with disbelief.
“Hoo… hoo… Did we succeed?” I looked at the headless corpse, blood splattering everywhere. He should be dead by now, unless he had a cat’s eye amulet.
After a few seconds, the still bloated corpse collapsed onto the ground, blood spreading all over. The flesh clinging to its body dispersed, indicating it was truly dead.
The fire over there was growing more intense, and we needed to leave quickly. Not only was there a risk of being burned alive, but there was also the problem that people outside would soon notice the large fire, making it difficult to explain.
Unexpectedly, just as I was about to examine the Hand of Glory he was still tightly clutching, a sudden anomaly occurred. A slippery tentacle suddenly emerged from the gaping wound at his neck.
Then, an even larger creature crawled out from within. It was a bizarre creature that resembled both a squid and a ray. Its skin was smooth and pale, covered in tentacles. Its entire body was bloody. When its tentacles unfurled, I saw a human face in the center of one of them.
Holy crap! What kind of monster is this? I was terrified and quickly tried to pull out the Hand of Glory to escape, but I was whipped away by a tentacle, crashing heavily onto the floor.
“Ow! That hurts! What kind of monstrous strength is this?” It felt like I had been struck by an iron bar, even though it was just a seemingly soft tentacle. The spot where I was hit burned like fire, and my left hand ached so intensely it contorted, possibly fractured.
I landed at least five meters away. If the ground hadn’t been covered in a thick carpet, I might have sustained even more severe injuries.
“Parul!” Jayad, seeing me injured, was furious. He charged forward and swung his sword at the monster. The monster seemed to know the sharpness of the short sword and chose to evade its full force, but it still had a tentacle severed by the Holy Light-infused short sword.
The severed tentacle twitched continuously as it hit the ground, spraying black, foul-smelling liquid from the severed end—I couldn’t tell if it was ink or blood.
Unfortunately, Jayad could only do so much. The next second, he was whipped away by another tentacle, slamming into the corridor wall. The wall cracked like a spiderweb, and Jayad was embedded in it.
The monster was about to pursue and finish him off when it saw Jayad rise again with his short sword. He was still capable of fighting despite such a heavy blow, likely due to the Holy Light protecting him and averting disaster.
The monster hesitated for a moment, weighing the threat of Jayad’s short sword against itself. It then turned, tore off the Hand of Glory, and rushed towards the two half-orc corpses lying on the ground.
There were two half-orc corpses. One was killed by the man’s heat ray, and the other was killed by my Life Absorption.
The monster quickly bypassed the half-orc it had shot and lunged at the one I had absorbed. It burrowed directly into its mouth, and the half-orc’s shriveled corpse began to quickly regain its plumpness.
Of course, no matter how much it recovered, the half-orc’s body was still its body; the texture of its skin was similar to old tree bark. However, as its muscles filled out, its hands and feet began to move.
It’s going to reanimate! I wanted to crawl up and finish it off while the half-orc wasn’t fully revived, but my whole body still ached, and I couldn’t move.
At this moment, Jayad fell from the wall, turned, and ran towards me. I anxiously shouted, “Don’t mind me, quickly finish it off!”
“It’s too late!” Jayad said, picking me up and running. Indeed, behind him, the half-orc had already stood up, and the other half-orc corpse exploded, its flesh and blood attaching to its body.
Jayad, carrying me, leaped down the stairs in a single bound, escaping its sight.
“W-what on earth was that thing?” Jayad asked as we ran, and I heard fear in his voice. It was understandable; seeing a giant squid fly through the air and burrow into a human body would naturally inspire fear.
“A Daya Parasite, a parasitic organism from space. It parasitizes humans, controlling their minds. They are inherently evil and cruel, and they gradually drain the host’s life, requiring them to change bodies.” I explained, drawing from my memories.
Actually, I didn’t recognize the name of that parasitic creature at all, nor could I pronounce it accurately. I could only approximate the pronunciation of “Daya.” Moreover, it was less of a parasite and more of a cephalopod mollusk, like a squid.
“Alien? What’s that?” Jayad asked with confusion. Well, he didn’t even grasp the concept of Earth being round, let alone understanding what an alien life form was.
Speaking of which, I was quite surprised myself to encounter extraterrestrial life. My civilization in my previous life hadn’t even discovered alien life. Of course, this thing didn’t look like it belonged on Earth at all.
“It’s a creature that fell from the stars in the sky,” I said concisely.
“This… monster, how do we fight it? Let’s just run! At worst, we’ll run out of the city and never come back.” Jayad said. This was our usual Plan B: when in doubt, run out of the city.
Just as I was about to agree, suddenly, all the lights in the entire mansion went out. Both the firelight and the light emitted by the strange gemstones were extinguished simultaneously, plunging the mansion into darkness.
