We peeped through the bushes at the ginormous chimera circling the skies. It landed close, but not close enough to spot us. Even though I saw it before, it was still an unfairly strong adversary, not something you’d mess with. The black tongue of the snake took in whiffs in search of whatever it was looking for. Suddenly, the lion head faced our general direction and released a deathly breath of fire.

I grabbed Doran and decamped that area with lightning reflexes. Conceal hid our sound and scents as I changed positions. We gauged our escape routes and my mind rocked back and forth like a pendulum between survival and insanity. “I’m gonna hunt it,” I told Doran.

“Are you fucking stupid?!” he retorted. He certainly never held his tongue back when it came to danger. “You’ll die like a dog! Let’s just run away!”

“I can’t. I have to eat him!” The thought crept into my mind like a licentious lady looking for company in the night. I wondered what was the best way to take it down, and of course, that was as a wizard. No sane person would fight that thing up close; the muscles, weight, and strength it touted were in leagues of their own. “Head south! I’ll run and find you if I can’t win!”

Okay, so, a fire breath and really strong melee combat. My best bet was to stay far enough away so that the fire breath wouldn’t be able to get to me. It was more of a cone attack than a projectile, so the range wasn’t the best. I sent a couple Undead Knights to attack it and prod its weaknesses; they were quickly sent to hell.

I groaned because I knew wasting mana was a bad idea for me. It was time to test Shadowbind, and that was, successful, for a while. Shadowbind was a good spell, but the fear effects were nothing against that A-rank behemoth, and the actual physical restriction only held for a few seconds before the chimera simply powered out of it and tore the shadow tendrils to pieces. Oh, and it was pissed. Fire breaths made a wasteland out of a portion of the nearby forest.

Okay, that’s progress. I used Shadowbind again and immediately sent two Shadowspears its way. The latter spell managed to pierce and give a shallow cut, but it appeared that the chimera’s hide wasn’t to be underestimated. The sad thing is, the Shadowspears’ trajectory gave away my location. The chimera turned around with pure fury in its eyes. Ah fuck…

A primal blast of fire erupted from its maw and encircled the dozens upon dozens of Earth Walls that I used to defend myself. Just when I thought it was finally over, the walls crumbled like a sandcastle under the mighty swing of the chimera’s paw. One of the claws passed mere inches away from me. Holy f—

The damn thing cut my shock in half and forced me to use Wind Kiss in quick succession on myself, that way my body moved fast enough to avoid that life-ending bite that the lion head shot out with. I rolled away and bolted towards the valley. As I got deeper into the place and noticed the amount of rotting corpses and skeletal remains, I realized that I made a dumbass decision. The fire breath would fill the narrow path of the valley up easily and its reach would be extended.

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But, for some reason, the chimera flew up and chose to cut me off by landing in front of me in the valley. Fucking hell! “Okay, you wanna play?! Let’s play!” I focused intensely on its paws and used Sand Trap to make it lose its balance a bit, then summoned two each in undead knights, undead archers, and undead wizards. The wizards were atop the cliffs that sandwiched the valley. Their job was to use as many annoying spells as they could, like Sand Trap, Ignite, and Water Jet.

I bolted towards the walls and picked up enough speed to run on it for a while, then I leaped and rolled until I was standing behind the chimera. The undead archers constantly used skills to empower their arrows, so it actually pierced the hide of the chimera, but only the arrowhead was able to submerge itself.

In that short space of time, one undead knight was already destroyed, so I summoned three more to keep the chimera’s attention away from me. Alright, what now? I shrugged, and decided to use the strongest spell available to me, but in large quantities. Shadowspear began bombarding the chimera, but the lengthy snake-tail coiled up and made something of a shield, protecting the chimera. A fire breath turned one of my archer’s bones to dust. A single sweeping paw massacred three knights at once.

I summoned five knights and two archers again. Fuck, I can’t keep this up. I sighed, jumped on the spot a couple times and turned my staff back into a dagger; it was time to get up close and personal. I imbued my entire body with skills except for my head and neck and zoomed towards my catastrophic adversary in speed that wasn’t too far off from what the chimera was capable of.

The second I came into range, the snake snapped at me, but I managed to dodge it. The second strike forced me to deflect it with my blade. The sparks and screeching sound were like metal hitting metal. Alright then. As the chimera decimated its opponents, its tail apparently synchronized with me and decided on changing its strategy. My dagger lit up as my intentions were to cut that annoying fucker off. When I got in range again, the entire snake lit up, then it violently swung down at me. It was no longer trying to bite me, but using itself as something of a whip, a whip that would crush my bones if not for the skills somewhat protecting my body.

I made a big dent in the stone wall as it bashed into me then I fell and rolled on the ground. It continued pounding down like a suicidal maniac, without pause. With every hit, it tore through dozens upon dozens of Earth Walls. I used an Earth Wall to push me away and returned to my feet, timing the next sideways attack perfectly and extending my arms to catch it.

I summoned yet more undead to keep the main body busy and tried to stab through with all my power behind the skills but not even with the enhanced dagger itself could I pierce that steel-scaled bastard. Well, shit, I’m out of options! I decided to do something that was, admittedly, the craziest thing I think I’d done in this world thus far. I dropped my dagger to get better grip on the snake that was busy thrashing me about, and gave it a taste of its own medicine when I bit down into that motherfucker. Maybe my skill enhancements and spells weren’t strong enough, but Consume didn’t give a damn. My mouth was my strongest weapon.