Zantem watched with boredom until, finally... the first soldier emerged from the tunnel.
His elemental blade sang through the air, so fast that the human didn't even have time to register his death before his head rolled among the cores.
'Pathetic,' he thought as the body fell. 'He didn't even try to defend himself.'
The next two were equally easy. One didn't even manage to scream before his life was extinguished. At this rate, he would obtain enough kills to get the option to return and report to the Queen before recovering the core.
It was almost insulting how simple it was.
Until it wasn't.
The new soldier emerged differently from the others. His movements were cautious, measured. His eyes stopped on the bodies scattered outside the tunnel, and Zantem could see the exact moment understanding blazed in his gaze.
This human's summon was combined, and the attack Zantem launched at his neck... Only did 180 points of damage.
The human managed to deflect the blow enough that it wasn't lethal, but still, the impact managed to pierce his defenses and do significant damage. Though the system armor healed him soon...
'Interesting,' he thought while studying his new opponent.
The human's winged eel allowed him to move with impressive speed. Not as much as Zantem's 50 points, but enough to make things... entertaining.
When Zantem launched his next attack, the soldier responded with a devastating electrical discharge. The intention was clear: paralyze the artromus long enough to escape to the next section of the tunnel.
'Almost ingenious,' Zantem admitted while using his superior speed to intercept the human, crushing him against the core-covered ground.
He leaned over his prey, his chitinous jaws close to the soldier's ear as he struggled to break free. "Twenty points of damage per second?" he whispered with cruel amusement. "Is that all your best attack can achieve?"
The human kept struggling, but Zantem only increased the pressure to extract a choked cry from him. "In less than three minutes, that damage you managed to inflict will be completely regenerated. Do you understand now the difference between us?"
The desperation in the soldier's eyes as this reality sank in was almost as satisfying as the ease with which his divine armor had absorbed the electrical attack.
He didn't bother trying to eliminate them separately or repeat the attack, knowing that using wind that way wouldn't damage them too much.
But it was effective for breaking their annoying formations.
'The core is the priority,' he reminded himself while continuing his systematic demolition. 'Without it, they won't be able to improve their pathetic city, and then...'
His chitinous jaws curved into something resembling a smile while imagining the massacre that would follow. First he would find the core for his queen, then they would breach the barrier, and finally, the true cleansing would begin.
The tunnel's destruction continued, methodical and relentless.
Each demolished section was one step closer to his objective, each human he let escape was one less distraction from his true mission.
After several dozens of meters of systematic destruction, Zantem found something different.
A group of soldiers, instead of fleeing like the rest when exposed, adopted a defensive formation that bordered on suicidal. Not only did they stand firm, but they began launching coordinated attacks.
'Peculiar,' he thought while dodging a series of projectiles. 'Why waste energy in a lost battle?'
The answer came with the next tunnel assault.
While the front line intensified their attacks, a group began retreating from the broken tunnel under covering fire. Several female figures among them, all protected by a ring of defenders.
'An attempt at confusion?' Zantem almost felt insulted.
The humans apparently were unaware of the superior capabilities of the Artromus. Even with limited light, his photographic memory made recognition instant and unequivocal.
Zantem's multifaceted eyes focused on the group, his photographic memory processing each detail with inhuman precision. There, among the fugitives, one figure matched perfectly with the one he had seen holding the core: Diana.
The core bearer had finally made a mistake, and now there was nowhere to hide. Zantem's jaws curved into a predatory smile while his divine armor gleamed with the goddess's power.
'Time to end this game,' he thought while preparing for the final assault. 'The core is ours.'