With the battle finally over, everyone finally had a moment to relax. Mala packed away a fair bit of the chimaera’s body, everyone familiar with Icy’s situation. Their young dragon in question, currently laid beside them, quickly extracted from a pit in the monster’s body after its soul collapsed. While none of them suffered any injuries in the fight, that was entirely expected. Throughout the battle, a single hit would have outright killed them.
Well, maybe not Korridan. But even he didn’t have a good chance of survival.
“Well, thanks for making it after we did all the work,” Jaren snorted as a Mithril rank warrior approached the group. A few more appeared not long after along with some Mature wizards.
No way a Blossoming wizard missed this battle, and yet, they did not come. Perhaps such age gave them a hint of honour as they kept out of this matter whilst at the side. It gave the group some breathing space as the fact a behemoth chimaera lay dead left everyone approaching quite fearful.
“How did a bunch of humans…” Such threats did not work on all though, and one of the few already believed this situation to be a ruse. That they merely took credit for killing such a monster. However, a warrior beside him slapped the elf’s head before anything irredeemable occurred.
“Why did the demon send this… Well, behemoth, after you?”
Korridan replied with tiredness, additionally motioning towards the initially hostile elf. “We killed a few pets, one about as good as this fool.” Taking a look at a few more wizards that appeared, a couple of them looked towards the group differently. One focused greatly on Raccelline, while the other on Icy, and so Korridan added, “Seems that one figured out another reason.”
Yet, as the number of these warriors and wizards ballooned to fifty in mere minutes, not a single stronger individual appeared.
More and more questions were asked, and it didn’t take long for the Gold ranks and similar to arrive at the scene. Uninterested in the body, and slightly recovered, the six of them removed Icy’s arrays and set off.
Rebecca and Jaren quietly thought that someone might stop them and make a fuss… But no one even tried. Korridan and Mala would’ve bet on some of those wizards stopping them to nab Icy for themselves, but they held back.
Perhaps they feared master tier lightning too much, a fair response all things considered.
Once they stepped past the desolate region destroyed in their battle, re-entering what was meant to be a forest, a few wizards appeared to burn away most remnants of the chimaera. A few samples were collected, but for safety’s sake, they destroyed almost everything.
No one raised a whisper against these wizards who performed a duty.
Not to mention, just the three of them alone could have killed the behemoth. After all, a master tier from physical might alone is truly nothing that impressive when compared to magic.
“We fended off a fucking master tier, even if we barely did anything, do they seriously think we can’t see them cause of some trees?” Jaren understood the attitude of these Blossoming wizards the least, but for Mala, it was entirely expected.
“It’s just a way to show off their stance. They didn’t appear in front of us, so they will not interfere. Sometimes a sign of respect, other times a warning.” With a solid enough explanation, Jaren let go of the matter. He found the ability to misinterpret such an action questionably useful, but socialising with anyone of noble background wasn’t exactly a skill of his…
Honestly, Mala handled those talks almost all the time. Korridan interacted as the leader when necessary, but most nobles liked talking to a female wizard over the muscled warrior.
“Is Icy gonna be okay?” Raccelline who kept quiet due to a mana-intensive battle, finally spoke up as the tension more or less broke and she worried for the young dragon whose long body hung over Korridan’s shoulder.
“He should be, but really cut it close at the end. Also, he’s probably going to be in pain for the next day or two. If he wakes up soon,” Darak gave a diagnosis after casting a few spells on Icy, these only identified physical problems though.
Mala chimed in with knowledge on souls as well, “He’ll be in a coma for a few days at least, no way his soul is even connected to his body right now.”
Overall, they could only hope he actually stayed in that coma, else constant pain awaited him.
“He’s probably really annoyed right now,” Rebecca added.
“I know right, at least that’s amusing.”
Jaren shared a laugh with her, with the others joining in soon after. They barely avoided this near-death experience, and this didn’t even begin to touch on the overarching problem of saving Raccelline’s father. Or even the entirety of the human continent.
But on a peaceful, unrelated note, Mala evolved only a couple days later. With Icy yet to awaken even at that point, he appeared far healthier than at the battle’s end.
* * *
In what could previously be called a lab, smashed furniture, broken glass, and fluids of all sorts covered a messy floor like that of a tavern after a brawl. Within the room was just one elf who repeatedly slammed heavy fists into the remaining stone desks, furniture which survived due to their toughness.
“Why! Why! WHY!?” He screamed at the top of his voice, and ignored how the basement itself shook due to the power involved. But rather than anger on his face, distress and sadness revealed themselves. Saying with a wavering breath, “Why did you fail me so?”
Everything went up in smoke. First the years of secretive recruitment and demonification, then his chimaera research, and now what little that remained just died from a damn dragon!
His greatest creation, something which approached the masterpieces of chimaera, and it was felled by a child dragon and some hooligan humans! If he at least got that young girl’s corpse, it’d have made up for such a mournful loss… But on top of the emotional pain, his only avenue of possible control dried up. Barely safe in this basement lab as is, he knew of only a single way to gather more suitable resources.
The remaining chimaera spread out too far for his liking, unable to bring regular supplies.
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“You let me down so much. To fall to the strange dragon is fair, but to be so lacking that you didn’t hurt a single one. Was it a flaw in creating a behemoth? Indeed, my children should not be so unnecessarily large. Artificial strength will never match true magic…” As his anger at the group and his creation subsided, he began to think through what improvements resolved this battle the fastest.
As a wizard, he knew how to analyse with great depth. If anyone wanted to reach his level they needed such a basic skill.
While unsure of the dragon’s lightning, he realised the danger of its arrays extremely quickly. That spell, while just equal to Adept one in power, dealt with his chimaera whose defences were not up to scratch.
Master tier power but mithril tier defences left a grievous weakness. Not to mention, he only supplemented this problem through regeneration, which meant nothing against soul attacks like they utilised in this case. A correct guess regarding mental defences at least resolved that threat, however, he knew better than to take this fringe-case of a party and build all chimaeras around that.
The slightly weaker mental defences of Type-As dealt with most Blossoming wizards, those with focus in psychic spells are quite rare. Besides, such spells are hard to acquire at this level… Unless one has a dragon’s knowledge at hand.
Several flaws through the past week grew clearer, and he lowered his baseless pride to correct his flaws. Saying with conviction and madness, “Indeed. I– I was at fault. But I will not allow for another mistake!” Mind set on what to do next, he cleaned up the lab and prepared his next move.
For now, chimaeras followed behind the group and simply kept watch over them, every day gathering little bits of information to counter them. Day and night, without sleep or food, he obsessively gathered anything of relevance to their power.
The only way to resolve his flawed product was to create a new, perfect one from the bodies that revealed this truth!
* * *
“My chest… still hurts,” Icy’s voice broke the silence of the group, and they all turned to see his eyes open while hanging over Korridan’s shoulder.
“Not much we could do for your heart… I was able to get a Mature priest to cleanse some of the toxic buildup at least, but the deeply rooted stuff has to be cleared out by your body,” Darak briefly mentioned what happened as they passed a church with a surprisingly powerful bishop in charge of the parish. But outside of that, they only fed him stabilisers to ensure the remaining mana within his body did not harm him.
Luckily, his soul fully recovered with no injuries. Compared to the heart issue, any permanent damage would’ve been far worse.
“Use it on me.” Icy spoke vaguely, and Mala understood his intentions immediately as she instantly cast Soul Link on him too.
Immediately, they all swapped over to talk through the link. “Chimaeras have been tailing us for eight days now, roughly six hours after the battle ended.”
While the mithril tier monsters tried to maintain a stealthy attitude and stay beyond the group’s sight, this obviously failed due to everyone's changed eyes. Jaren noticed easily, as did Mala.
But this never remained consistent, every day or two the chimaera’s ability to hide changed wildly, dropping to the point where even Korridan caught sight of one, and they realised that those watching arrived and left as they travelled northward.
“If only that were the end of it…” From the moment he awakened, a sense of the dreadful storm to come returned to Icy. He almost couldn’t believe that the previous one caused by the behemoth even scared him, this one likened it to a weak shower. An earthquake compared to a hurricane… The analogy still applied to this case, but instead of a hurricane, he preferred to use something a bit more fitting.
A great flood which claimed the land they walked upon, drowning everything in its path. This was not a catastrophe they stood a chance of fighting, unlike an earthquake where many avenues for survival existed. Unless they gained enough power to control the weather, none of them stood a chance…
He easily pieced together the source of this danger given what happened. To arrive moments before the behemoth’s death, in fact precisely the moment he completed Severing Blade and released aura for its enhancement, what else could it be besides that chimaera creator?
The demon elf of an uprooted organisation who recently lost all status!
But Icy knew nothing of what he planned to send. Ruling out another behemoth, the prime guess obviously became another master tier chimaera. But this time, a proper one with innate abilities and a body which stood up amongst this power tier.
If anywhere near as fast as the master tier vamox they met on the island… None of them stood a chance. Slow and powerful could be managed with lightning, but good agility meant that everyone died.
After a few minutes of deep thought, Icy decided to speak out loud about a separate matter, “Congratulations on your evolutions. If I guess, then Mala upgraded her bloodline, and Jaren chose something based around rapid fire?”
“Close.” “Bingo.” The two replied in unison.
But both only gave more detail over the link. Mala started, “I was able to choose between enhancing the library's growth speed, or changing it slightly to turn it into a real Mind palace building. I just need to improve my mental space now.”
“The specific rapid-fire I chose focused on using various arrow types in order. As well as an ability to amplify elemental interactions. It’ll probably mean I need a whole armoury of bows and arrows.” Jaren’s final choice surprised him a bit in the end, as he easily saw the almost possessed archer choosing an evolution to let him fire 30 or more arrows a second.
Mala’s choice mattered a great deal in the long run, but Icy also agreed with the decision. The great difference between reinforcing one’s mind and a Mind palace is so important at higher levels that every one of them would struggle without it.
Such a thing might be Raccelline’s biggest weakness right now as well, along with her soul.
“Onto the more pressing matter then… There’s a bigger storm in the distance. Definitely a lot more than a week, but if I’m receiving feedback already then…” He purposely cut off the sentence’s end in the message, everyone understood what he meant.
Korridan and Jaren came to the same idea immediately, albeit for different reasons. The former sent the message first, “Think we can delay it by hiding in a cathedral or large enough city?”
With a Sage or Cornem rank as intimidation, they may be able to survive until someone else killed the chimaera creator. However, as it took well over a year just to prepare an assault on their base, and still fail to kill several leaders, no one placed much faith in this idea.
More realistically, they all hid until at least two of the group hit Starlite rank, or Mala rose to Blossoming. Icy could technically output relatively high mithril tier power with the help of some evolutions that had yet to make their debut.
He opted to ignore his personal strength in favour of summoning another storm.
[Killed Level 64 behemoth chimaera! Received 1183% (580% * 2) EXP]
Most of him felt cheated out of a lot of experience from killing that master tier behemoth, as its level was closer to that of a weak mithril tier beast. But the Nexus simply waved away his problem by referring to the fact that for such a clunky opponent, its level wasn’t a useful indication of strength. But more importantly,
[Behemoth’s are failed, magicless beings. Anything ordinary with a similar lack of magical ability would be deemed a cripple and lucky to exceed Level 5, so, we do not encourage the growth and production of further cripples. Also, It is unnecessarily cruel]
He understood the premise rather well, after all, he also spent time considering if it was right to create offspring with fatal flaws. Was it a selfish thing that only resulted in unnecessary cruelty for those further generations? Though it did make him wonder what the Nexus thought of similar beasts who held magical talent, but off the top of his head, the closest Icy could think of were certain deep-ocean beasts with massive bodies.
[Non-failures are called Gigantes, few exist on this world]
Besides that bit of knowledge, this whole matter of a behemoth came down to one matter. The Nexus asked whether power is real if it cannot be exercised, and he already knew the answer to that.
Meanwhile, Icy continued his consumption of life essence to finish this growth phase as soon as possible. On his back, two small bumps appeared, but the wafer scales remained plastered over them for now.