The chimera was rather weak; it was sliced in half in a single blow of Jinhyung's blade. Those vampire freaks made such twisted creatures. What for? A regular ghoul was way stronger anyway.

Various animal noises surrounded us. But I felt them even before as their presences caused perturbations in the ambient magic.

I noticed that I relied more and more on my 'sixth sense'. Sadly, more powerful foes had ways of hiding their presence.

"So many, so weak," said Jinhyung after murdering about twenty of them. His breathing got barely heavier, defeating them was an easy task as he didn't even enhance his swordsmanship with magic.

Although every chimera was unique in its ungodly mix of animals, they all had something in common.

They all had the head of a solitary beast. Tiger, snake, lizard, and so on. But they all fought together against us, how odd.

"Jinhyung, I feel weird about this; they shouldn't help each other."

"Something’s wrong."

After about a half an hour of merciless slaughter, they stopped coming at us. Most likely, they were scared or somehow ordered to stay away from us.

The once green and flamboyant garden was now ridden with the corpses of the poor, fated, tortured animals. Jinhyung sheathed his sword and remarked,

"Are they failed experiments? I doubt they were the final product."

"Then where is the 'successful' one?"

If the vampires sustained such a grandiose inner garden with even an artificial sun, they surely had some success in their project, right?

It was very odd that they stopped their assault. If they feared our power, they would've stopped after the first two or three were slain without much of a fight. Most certainly, they were controlled by a greater force.

In a moment, my guts clenched; I felt as a mere leaf before a great tornado. An all-encompassing roar spread across the castle. All of the trees tilted outward from its origin.

"The 'successful' one, huh?"

I wasn't very confident in our power right now; the pendant was still recharging, and I wasn't at my peak magic capacity either.

"Friedrich, I will tell you in advance; I doubt I have enough fire power."

This was really griming to hear from someone you consider times stronger than you.

Soon, the ground below us cracked, and the beast could be seen in the distance.

Its front limbs were akin to bird's one, but in size comparable to towers. The soil seemed as fluid as water under the terrible power of such a beast. The front limbs dragged through the earth, a building-sized body covered in bare skin. It lacked back limbs, and the torso seemed deformed, but the most horrifying parts remained its head.

A giant bull's skull with glowing red eyes. Magic scriptures could be seen on its forehead, clearly with a missing key piece. Maybe was it a broken seal?

I understood now that it wasn't the 'successful' chimera; it was the biggest 'failure'.

"I cannot imagine a way of defeating such a monster; I am sorry, Fred," said Jinhyung in a trembling voice.

For the first time, he felt despair standing before a foe.

Wits and techniques could help bridge a gap between a weaker and a stronger opponent, but in our case this wasn't a 'gap' as our enemy was dimensions above us. No amount of tricks could help us against an enemy so strong, it could crush our very being simply with their presence.

The only right choice was the easiest: run!

Without wasting words, we ran as fast as we could. We hoped that we could outspeed such a large enemy, but it didn't start to pursue us.

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Instead, it opened its jaws as wide as it could; a crushing magical power could be felt. A sphere of flames similar to the fake sun but smaller appeared.

The growing power of the sphere was unleashed at once, a large beam of flames pierced the space between us missing by a hair-thin gap.

The heat burned away my cloak, and I quickly stuffed my items in my pant's pockets.

This blaze consumed everything in their path, trees turned to ash, rocks melted into the ground, and even the earth itself started to vaporize.

Furious at such a miss, the beast roared anew. I almost lost my balance from the powerful sound waves. Good thing most of the trees were either burned or torn apart; running through a forest was never as easy as right now.

We soon saw the limits of the garden—a plain wall without any openings, our hearts dropped.

We both were getting slower from fatigue; running away indefinitely wasn't an option. We had to find a way through the castle.

Charred bones stuck from the smoking ground, the poor chimeras got caught in this monster's blind wrath.

"Friedrich, be ready to summon the Gate, an emergency exit could be our only chance this time around," yelled Jinhyung, dodging a falling tree.

Suddenly, another beam of flames flew right above us, hitting the wall and melting a large hole through it.

"Not yet; we still have a chance."

It gave way onto a raising staircase.

"Jinhyung, no time to explain but follow me."

If we manage to find a way to control the 'fake sun', we could let it go directly onto the beast. It was about twice its size, and on impact, certain death awaited the chimera.

Such an immense amount of magic could only be controlled from up close or by being that strong. I hoped for the former.

As we ran upstairs, the attacks continued, and the integrity slowly decreased with each hit. Even this far away, the ground shook under such power.

The stairs gave way to a slim corridor, leading to an open room with a tinted glass floor. We were right above the 'fake sun'.

A hooded vampire sat in the center of the room; magic scripture connected him to numerous crystals.

"Welcome, intruders," said the man.

Jinhyung then immediately leaped toward him and put a sword around his neck.

"Don't kill him," I yelled at Jinhyung.

In an attempt to intimidate the man I said, "Want to live? Drop the sun."

"Well, it seems you are unwilling to converse," answered he, abnormally calm.

As the man was talking, Jinhyung's blade was deepening, and black blood started to flow.

Then, from the shadows, two figures appeared behind him. Before I could even open my mouth, I also was dragged backward. My bones screeched and organs crushed, it was terrifying how strong vampires were.

The man in the middle continued his tirade; the stab wound on the neck had already closed itself.

"Idiots, collapsing such amounts of magic will wipe at least half the castle."

We had no way out.

"We offer you a choice: either you go down and fight the chimera king, or we kill you right now. We are fond of witnessing such strong 'flames' dying out."

"But teacher, Lord instructed us to..." a harsh voice from behind asked.

"Shut, Lord is away, this girl knows nothing!

Again, a tremendously powerful impact scattered throughout the castle. the vampires let their grip on Jinhyung and before they realized what happened, they all fell behaded to his sword.

The grasp of those restraining me also faltered, without wasting such an opportunity, I took cover behind my companion. The headless foes blazed as Jinhyung crushed their spirit cores.

The hooded mage looked in panic and a powerful magic barrier encircled him pushing us back.

Another impulse shook the whole palace. The beast seemed to struck the sun? Did it have a death wish? The sun flashed and started to shake.

The magic scriptures binding the sun let out a bunch of sparks as if they cried in pain.

The overload of energy followed the circuitry until it crashed into the hooded mage. He moaned in pain and lost control over his shield

Jinhyung gathered a hefty amount of power and slashed before him; white flames leaped from the edge of his blade, quickly cleaving and tearing apart everything in their pace.

No screams were heard from the vampires as they perished faster than they could realize it.

"What was that?"

Between heavy breaths, he said, "A partial release of my Dawnbriger; I'd call this one 'horizon’."

Although he managed to circumvent the energy restriction by limiting the output, his body still bore drawbacks. The arm that held his sword was charred and was heavily smouldering

The magic chains restraining the sun loudly broke as nobody controlled the circuits no longer.

The abdominal amalgamation of flesh roared in fear as the sun began its descent. It struck the sun again and again, making it grow even larger.

"If this thing explodes, we are done for. We need to get out", screamed my companion through the roars.

"I know, but how?"

This situation was indeed bad; I was eaten away by despair. The sun was already almost at ground level. In no more than a few moments, we would be cooked.