Strongest Incubus System

Damon narrowed his eyes.

"You were waiting for us to stop pretending."

"No."

Selection’s answer came from every direction at once.

There was no mouth.

The hundreds of eyes spread across the sphere simply remained open, watching every movement inside the chamber.

"I was waiting for you to realize that pretending was also part of the evaluation."

Damon fell silent.

Aria was the first to understand.

"It wasn’t evaluating only capabilities."

The sphere slowly rotated.

"Correct."

Aria looked at Damon.

"It was evaluating behavior."

"Deception," Selection continued. "Manipulation. Improvisation. Ability to identify incomplete parameters and exploit them. Resistance to instructions. Adaptation under pressure."

Damon slowly lowered his sword.

"You just turned my flaws into qualifications."

Ester did not take her eyes off the sphere.

"It doesn’t seem wrong."

"That was offensive."

"Survive first."

The sphere pulsed.

The Selection symbol engraved on the column disappeared.

Then it appeared on the floor.

Large.

Covering almost the entire chamber.

Mu Qing immediately stepped back.

"Don’t step on the lines!"

Too late.

The lines were already beneath all of them.

Damon felt the mark on his arm open.

Not like before.

This time there was no immediate pain.

There was a fit.

A terribly simple sensation of something finding the exact place where it was supposed to enter.

Xue Lian noticed the change in his face.

"Damon?"

"It found the Anchor."

Selection answered.

"Anchor confirmed."

Ester moved.

Four needles entered Damon’s arm simultaneously, forming a containment around the false Seed.

The dark line stopped.

For less than a second.

Then it passed beneath the needles.

Ester lost color.

"It’s ignoring physical circulation."

"Because it isn’t entering through the body," Xue Lian said.

Damon looked at the mark.

"It’s entering through the definition."

The sphere pulsed.

"Claim: first stage complete."

Aria quickly opened the notebook again.

"How many stages?"

Selection answered without hesitation.

"Four."

Damon closed his eyes.

"Naturally."

Xue Lian went still.

Four.

She looked at the symbol spread across the floor.

"Identification."

The sphere answered.

"Complete."

"Anchoring."

"In progress."

Xue Lian became more serious.

"Definition."

"Later."

Damon looked at her.

"And the fourth?"

Xue Lian already knew.

"Possession."

Selection corrected her.

"Claim."

"Same thing," Damon replied.

"Inaccurate terminology."

"You’ll survive."

The lines fired.

Damon jumped backward.

This time, he did not try to hide anything.

The Heavenly Ice Body responded.

Ice exploded beneath his feet, and a white wall rose in front of him.

The black lines passed through.

Damon immediately twisted his body and launched an ice blade sideways.

The sphere did not dodge.

Three eyes closed.

A red film appeared over its surface.

The blade struck.

Melted.

Damon frowned.

"It selected a resistance."

Xue Lian noticed.

"From the records."

Another attack came.

Damon changed.

The cold vanished.

His vampiric strength exploded through his legs.

He crossed the distance and punched the sphere.

The impact sank the floor.

The sphere flew.

Before it hit the wall, dozens of eyes closed.

Others opened.

Its surface turned gray.

The next impact was absorbed.

"Defensive adaptation!" Aria shouted.

Damon stepped back.

"No. Defensive selection."

The sphere stabilized.

"Correct."

"Stop confirming it every time I understand something."

"Why?"

"It’s irritating."

A line shot from the sphere.

Damon tilted his body.

It missed his face by centimeters.

Another came from below.

He jumped.

Jian Yue moved at the same instant.

The ancestral sword cut the line.

The entire sphere trembled.

Every eye turned toward Jian Yue.

"Incompatible artifact."

Jian Yue smiled.

"Excellent."

He cut another line.

Then another.

This time Selection responded.

Four eyes closed.

A symbol appeared in front of the sphere.

Jian Yue’s sword struck it.

Stopped.

Not blocked by force.

The blade simply lost the ability to advance.

Xue Lian’s eyes widened.

"It found a record capable of neutralizing recognition from the original network."

Damon attacked from the side.

Ice in his left hand.

Physical strength in his right.

The sphere changed twice.

One layer resisted the ice.

Another absorbed the punch.

Damon slid across the floor.

"How many responses can you use at the same time?"

Silence.

Selection did not answer.

Damon smiled.

"You didn’t like that question."

Aria started watching the eyes.

"Wait."

She counted quickly.

"When it blocked your ice, three eyes closed. For physical strength, five more."

Damon understood.

"Each response costs something."

"Processing capacity," Chen Mo said.

He advanced.

The void around his arm opened.

The sphere immediately reacted.

Almost twenty eyes closed.

A transparent layer covered the core.

Chen Mo touched it.

The void swallowed half the protection.

But not all of it.

He was thrown backward.

Damon saw it.

"That cost more."

Aria nodded.

"The more unusual the threat, the more resources it needs to select."

Damon smiled.

Ester saw it.

"No."

"I have an idea."

"That is exactly why I said no."

Damon had already moved.

"Jian Yue!"

The ancestral sword came.

"Chen Mo!"

The void opened.

"Xue Lian!"

She looked at him.

"I don’t have authority!"

"I didn’t ask for authority."

Damon pointed at the column.

"Figure out how to shut down the room."

She cursed under her breath and ran toward Mu Qing.

Damon advanced.

This time without choosing a single attack style.

He started with ice.

Dozens of spikes erupted from the floor.

Selection closed eyes.

Damon moved through his own spikes.

Vampiric strength.

More eyes.

Jian Yue attacked from the right.

The ancestral sword forced another selection.

Chen Mo came from the left.

Void.

Almost thirty eyes closed.

Ester threw needles.

The sphere ignored the first ones.

Mistake.

The needles were not aimed at the core.

They pinned four artificial lines to the floor.

"Now!" she shouted.

Mu Qing inverted a symbol.

The four lines were blocked.

The sphere trembled.

"Anchoring compromised."

Damon smiled.

"That was fast."

"Seventy-two percent."

"You didn’t need to say that."

A black line passed through his defense.

Hit his chest.

Damon was thrown into the wall.

The false Seed opened further.

He felt something change inside him.

Not power.

Priority.

A certainty appeared.

PRESERVE SELECTION.

Damon closed his eyes.

"No."

The certainty remained.

COOPERATE WITH CLAIM.

"Also no."

Selection stopped attacking for a moment.

"Cognitive resistance confirmed."

Damon wiped blood from the corner of his mouth.

"You already had that data."

"Update required."

"You’re going to update this too."

He attacked again.

The sphere changed its defenses.

Ice.

Strength.

Void.

Sword.

Needles.

Every response closed more eyes.

Fifty.

Eighty.

One hundred and twenty.

The sphere began to become less stable.

Aria noticed first.

"It’s losing vision!"

Damon looked.

The closed eyes did not immediately reopen.

"It isn’t only processing."

Xue Lian, kneeling beside the column, answered.

"It has to maintain each selection for as long as the threat continues to exist."

Damon smiled.

"Then we don’t stop."

"That was exactly what I did not want you to understand," Selection replied.

"Then you should talk less."

Damon raised both hands.

The cold exploded.

Not aimed at the sphere.

At the entire room.

Ice covered the floor, walls, and ceiling.

Selection had to respond.

More eyes closed.

Jian Yue drove the ancestral sword into the floor.

The original network responded to the weapon.

White lines appeared through the ice.

The sphere trembled violently.

"UNAUTHORIZED STRUCTURE."

Chen Mo opened the void behind it.

Ester blocked more channels.

Mu Qing altered the symbols.

Aria shouted positions and counted eyes.

"One hundred and eighty closed!"

Damon advanced.

A line struck his leg.

Another his shoulder.

A third tried to enter through the mark.

Ester saw it.

"Damon!"

"I’m fine!"

"Lie!"

"Later!"

He reached the sphere.

Did not attack.

He grabbed it.

Xue Lian’s eyes widened.

"Don’t touch it directly!"

"Too late."

The false Seed opened completely.

Selection reacted.

"Contact confirmed."

A wave passed through Damon.

His knees almost gave out.

ANCHORING COMPLETE.

The second stage.

Damon tightened his fingers around the sphere.

"Perfect."

Selection fell silent.

Xue Lian noticed his expression.

"You wanted that."

"I wanted a direct path."

"Damon, Definition comes next!"

"I know."

The sphere spoke.

"Defining candidate."

Damon felt the pressure enter.

Name.

Body.

Race.

Root.

Memory.

Inheritance.

Each element began to be identified.

DAMON.

He waited.

VAMPIRE.

"Partial."

Selection stopped.

INCUBUS.

"That too."

Another pause.

ROOT BEARER.

"Temporarily."

HEIR OF XUE LIAN.

Damon smiled.

"Wrong."

The sphere trembled.

Xue Lian understood.

The Fourth Door.

"He refused that."

Selection tried again.

SUCCESSOR.

"No."

BEARER.

"Depends."

VESSEL.

"Define it."

Silence.

Damon started laughing.

"That’s the problem, isn’t it?"

The sphere tried to pull away.

He did not let go.

"You can evaluate what I accept."

The eyes began opening and closing chaotically.

"You can measure my body."

Damon tightened his grip.

"You can test compatibility."

The mark burned.

"But to possess me, you need to define me."

Selection answered.

"Functional definition is sufficient."

"Then define me."

Silence.

Xue Lian slowly stood.

Now she understood.

Damon had passed through four doors specifically by dismantling inherited definitions.

Successor.

Vessel.

Center.

Owner.

Selection had too much data.

And all of it contradicted itself.

"He does not possess a single function," Xue Lian said.

The sphere reacted.

"Silence."

Damon smiled.

"She’s right."

"You possess multiple classifications."

"But none are complete."

"One will be chosen."

"By you?"

Damon tilted his head.

"That sounds like Dominion."

The sphere stopped.

Everyone noticed.

So did Damon.

"Ah."

Xue Lian looked at the plate.

The lost Dominion circle remained dark.

"Selection cannot define," she said.

"It can only choose among existing definitions."

Damon looked directly at the hundreds of eyes.

"Then you can’t finish."

The sphere pulsed violently.

DEFINITION ERROR.

"Pretty."

REEVALUATION.

"We already did that."

RECLASSIFICATION.

"Good luck."

Then Selection did the only thing it still could.

It tried to flee.

The sphere shot upward.

Damon lost contact.

"It’s leaving!"

The space above the room began to open.

Xue Lian looked at Jian Yue.

"SWORD!"

He understood.

He drove the ancestral blade into the center of the column.

The white network exploded throughout the chamber.

The spatial tear stopped.

The sphere struck an invisible surface.

Recoiled.

All of its eyes opened.

For the first time, its voice lost that mechanical calm.

"RELEASE THE PASSAGE."

Damon stood with difficulty.

"No."

Ester almost laughed.

Xue Lian watched the white lines spread across the room.

"It entered completely."

Mu Qing understood.

"Into the facility?"

"No."

Xue Lian looked at Damon.

"Into the network."

His smile returned.

Selection noticed.

"No."

Damon picked up the black plate from the floor.

The Selection circle now glowed intensely.

Not like a distant presence.

Like a confirmed location.

"You came here to choose me."

The sphere began attacking the white lines.

The original network simply reorganized the paths.

No exit opened.

Damon walked toward it.

"Now it looks like we’re going to do the opposite."

Hundreds of eyes fixed on him.

"You do not possess authority to select."

Damon raised the plate.

"I don’t need it."

Xue Lian smiled behind him.

"The network doesn’t either."

The sphere went still.

Damon understood immediately.

"It only needs to refuse what does not belong."

For the first time since it appeared, the Selection core seemed to understand that it had made a mistake.

The white network crossed the room.

The plate reacted.

And a single sentence appeared over the Selection circle.

ARTIFICIAL STRUCTURE IDENTIFIED.

A second appeared beneath it.

REJECTION INITIATED.

Damon smiled.

"Now this is getting interesting."

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