Chapter 631 Valg Parasite
Usually, such unnatural beings required a sacrifice for them to be summoned, and Maeve was no exception to the rule. She had undoubtedly killed the Salamander King despite its pledge of utmost loyalty to her.
But because of her Fey powers, she was able to reduce the amount of sacrifice needed to call upon her beloved type of unnatural beings, the Valgs.
Besides, the Salamander King was solely seen as a mere pawn in her eyes. Maeve had never really needed him in the first place, and his entire Salamander Family acted as a sort of vacation home for her to fool around while escaping from her actual duties given by Queen Mab, the Queen of Winter Court.
With just one sacrifice, she managed to open the metaphysical realm to call upon the hordes of Valgs as her plaything against the incoming foes. She never knew how Gaeru managed to get reinforcements, much less humans when they were supposed to be extinct or at least turned by her mother's curse.
But since there were playthings around, Maeve obviously would like to have some fun. Yet, it would be equally dull if those humans dash straight towards her. Thus, she provided them with obstacles like the Valgs to test their strength so she would fight against the few who were worthy.
As for the Valgs, they were a sort of parasite which latches onto beings, feeding them off their vitality and subsequently killing them. That was how they usually gain form and eventually terrorise people with it. Be it a corpse or a living person, as long as they have something to feast upon, they will grow in size.
There were few instances in the Giant World's forgotten history of these valgs plaguing their lands. But the most recent and devatasting event was actually the Giantism virus in action. The virus was supposedly a rare variant type of the Valgs which the Queen Mab decided to play with when she was younger. Instead of the Valg leeching mana or life from the host, it did the reverse.
By taking magic particles from the surrounding atmosphere and feeding its host with mana. It injects so much mana into the host body that it surpassed the body's limit and thus explodes. During such explosion, the variant Valg parasite as a method of dispersal so that it could latch on something.
The only problem was that humans cannot see them, and they quickly die off if there are no bodies to infect in the surrounding. So, like every being who strived to survive in the harshest of conditions, it adapted and evolve. Eventually, it was able to infect the surrounding environment and other creatures as well.
The giantism virus which everyone feared was no doubt a metaphysical parasite which still exist up to this day and this type of parasite managed to leave a strain of their DNA and infused with the current nature of Hamatarou's world.
Hence, everything turned big and filled with mana and life. Ironically, when the actual Valgs invaded the Giant World, all they had to do was to leech the mana and life from the world itself for them to manifest physically.
In short, what Queen Mab did previously against Hamatarou's supposed killer as part of her fun in the contract loophole, eventually infected the entire human population became an unintentional playground for Maeve to use. The daughter of the Winter Court Queen knew for sure that her mother did not plan to make the world a place for the Valgs to manifest and survive with a proper physical body.
However, it was a surprise that the cultivators did not get infected by, and it was mainly because they have yet to evolve to infect humans from other worlds. (And oddly enough, the use of chi deterred the parasites.) The System had also previously noticed such anonymous elements ledged in Qiu Yue and Lynn as well but did not know what it was and had decided to eliminate it in the name of safety when they returned back to their world. (They also thought it was a simple decontamination shower just in case. Besides, they stink so badly from the adventure, they gladly took the shower.)
Now with a number of valgs manifesting under its radar, there was a striking similarity in the elements the System previously detected. Hence, it already prompted the System to immediately take precautions against these parasites the moment the cultivators returned to the luxury recovery instance.
It even contacted Hamatarou who was busy with improving Masamune for the spells that changed the humans into animal people for analysis as part of a countermeasure. If the Valgs never appear, the System would not have known about a possible parasitic infiltration into their current ecosystem. To the System, it was a blessing in disguise for them to fight against Maeve. (Naturally, the System kept quiet and let Jin focus on the current raid.)
The Valg parasites that appeared in the castle grew the moment they came in contact with this world. All sorts of monstrous features one could think of, the Valg parasites were able to grow as such. From insectoid forms to even human shapes, they rushed out from the portal gate created from the body of the Salamander King and helter skelter into the depths of the castle.
Gaeru saw the abomination of an unnatural being right in front of it, dying to use its claws and fangs against him and Jing Yu. As for the elderly lady, it seemed as if she had seen her fair share of monsters and was not afraid to face it.
She summoned her cultivation out, and a series of Condor vultures appeared right above her. Without hesitation, she went for the first strike by extending her arms out. In an instant, two swords flew from the scabbards that were attached to her waist and went towards the direction of Valg.
Attached to the swords were pieces of cloth which were identical to the black Hanfu outfit that she was wearing. Her cultivation, the Hungry Condor Style was a cultivation style that placed great emphasis on the control of chi as compared to swordplay. It was to the point that Jin once thought that this was the few older styles that might have spark the fusion of eastern and western styles together.
The smoothness of controlling the swords from a distance via the cloth that attached to it made it looked like advanced telekinesis, but it was all about the precise control of using chi. As the swords flew towards the Valg, it tried to block the incoming projectiles with its claws, but Jing Yu easily moved the swords away from its swing trajectory and attack it from another angle.
Gaeru now partially understood why the old lady decided to wear a Hanfu clothing. It was to hide how she controlled the swords via the cloth that was attached to it so that the enemy could not predict her movements. He was amazed by the Condor Cultivator and only until an impromptu shout from Jing Yu awoken him from the daze looking at the elegant beauty of sword control.
The frog swordsman quickly shook his head as he leapt forth and gave a straight stab towards the Valg. While it seemed like a suicide attack from Jing Yu's point of view, especially since it looked like a straight, sincere strike, she had underestimated the frog's flexibility.
Like her swords, the frog was able to turn mid air evading the Valg's swipe while he cut the hand down with his new sword and used the momentum from spinning to give an extra impact to the strike right in the middle of its torso. Unfortunately, the attack seemed like it was not enough to kill it and Gaeru hastily used his tongue to stick to the ceiling and pulled himself away from the Valg.
Now Jing Yu began to understand the unnatural being in front of her. It was a monster with a high constitution and perhaps a considerable amount of strength, but agility is definitely not its strength.
With that in mind, the Condor Cultivator pushed in more chi into her swords to made them hit harder while maintaining the grace of movement.
However, little she did know that not all Valgs were the same as the one that preyed on Zi Dan and Xia Mao was of a direct opposite. It was to the point that the two had to use the kitchen appliances as part of their defences.
It was extremely unsightly to see two old men desperately trying to dodge the Speedy Valg, but they were genuinely doing all they can to survive.