Time went by and Ariel would everyday go out to look for interesting magical beasts. He found many of them, some of them even at the level of the crimson fur hunter, but none of them made him feel like they are fit for him.

Through the days he killed many monsters trying to find something unique and it didn’t matter to him if it was powerful or not, however the times was almost up and Ariel still hasn’t found a creature he was satisfied with.

On one of the last days he was treading the forest while being frustrated at his failure, suddenly he heard a loud roar coming from the right of him, turning to look he noticed a very powerful Mana source in that direction, more powerful than any he had seen in the purple wilds.

His curiosity was instantly peeked as he started jogging towards the source. It didn’t even take 10 minutes for him to reach the place that the beast was at and hide behind a bush. Looking towards the creature he instantly froze as what he saw was frightening monster.

It was 3 meters in height with a body of a lion which had eagle wings growing from its back. However its tail was also replaced by that of a scorpion’s, Ariel knew only of one such a creature, a chimera. When realizing this fact he was completely petrified since chimeras are all at least at the early Master rank, which by teacher’s Albert’s words shouldn’t exist here.

Only after several moments of shock did Ariel finally manage to snap out of his daze and notice the other creature fighting against this monster. The person was definitely a human girl which had long, golden hair cascading her back coupled with fierce blue eyes staring at the enemy in front of her. Her cheeks were flushed from overexerting herself while her alluring lips were slightly open as she panted for air.

As soon as Ariel realized who she was, his mind went completely blank. No matter how many times he looked over her he saw that standing there was his fiancée Erna, who was seemingly fighting against the monstrous chimera.

However when the monster started going for a swipe attack he got his wits back together and his expression became extremely serious as he began running towards her and the creature, completely forgetting his usual caution. While running he managed to cast an ice spear towards it just as it was about to swipe reach Erna.

The ice spear travelled quickly and managed to hit the claw of the unexpecting monster. Unfortunately the spear was able to only slightly injure it with out any outstanding damage, but it did manage to attract both of their attentions.

Turning to look Erna was stunned to see Ariel as he was running towards her and became slightly absentminded. “Why is Ariel here?” She softly muttered watching as Ariel got closer.

The chimer on the other hand was furious. It looked at him with anger in its eyes, turning his target off of Erna and on Ariel.

For him however it was perfect and just as he reached Erna’s location he cast an ice wall separating the two sides. Then he took Erna by the waist and retreated a few meters, however when he was about to talk, Erna was the one who spoke first. “What are you doing? Why didn’t you run away, the chimera is too much even for you? You should have gone to get some help.” She was extremely confused at Ariel actions and at the same time frustrated at the fact she had to be saved, but his next actions shocked her on a completely different level.

Ariel looked back with a serious expression and started scolding her. “Do you think someone like you who can barely stand can keep this thing occupied? The reason I came to help is because you are unable to survive so instead of me who is capable of fighting it should be you who goes to get some help. That’s why stop talking and start moving before I die.”

His words made Erna want to protest, but he didn’t let her speak before shouting again. “Go, NOW!” Erna’s body started to slightly shake as she bit down on her lip and turned her teary eyes to look at him. However after several seconds she grit her teeth and started running at the fastest speed possible, to look for some help.

Seeing this, Ariel let out a sigh of relief, before hearing the sound of shattering ice behind him. Turning around he saw the chimera standing there in an arrogant pose staring down at him with its menacing eyes.

He suddenly felt that he was truly unlucky, but still managed to prepare for combat by summoning three ice shields, around himself. The chimera still had its arrogant look while watching this and didn’t take any action as if waiting to see what he would try to do.

Ariel wasn’t a person who would be polite about these things and instantly made his move to attack. From the very start the manifested ten ice spears to attack and threw them straight at the enemy. Not expecting such an aggressive approach the creature managed to barely dodge a couple of the spears letting the rest hit and leave some shallow wounds in its body.

The pain made the chimera turn completely bloodthirsty as it looked towards Ariel, but it didn’t expect that he would continue his assault without pause. He stretched out his arm and began using one of his newer spells “Ice cone” which just like the name states, creates a cone shaped area of effect attack that freezes everything inside it.

His enemy didn’t know much about magic and easily got caught in it, making its body full frozen. However knowing that his spell wouldn’t last for long Ariel quickly ran past the monster and began running to the opposite direction Erna, has gone, while leaving behind him a trail of ice so he would be harder to catch.

Moments passed and the thin ice covering the chimera broke apart as it let out an angry roar. Seeing that Ariel was getting away it began to chase him, but the coldness made its body a bit slower to move.

Their chase lasted for half a minute until Ariel turned around to look at the situation. He let out a breath of relied when he saw that the coldness from his previous spell and the ice he was laying down were slowing down the beast by quite a lot. However he calculated that it was still not enough to keep it off his tail for the time he needed.

Ariel’s plan was to get over to the ravine he has seen while coming here, which had a log across it, but the chimera would soon catch up, so he needed to do something about that first. After a couple of minutes of running, Ariel felt that it was already extremely close to him and was about to catch up.

With sweat dripping down his back, he decided to use a risky plan and started waiting until it attacked first. It didn’t take long before he felt a gust of winding going towards his back, from the corner of his eye he saw the chimera’s claw reach towards his back, but just as it collided with one of his ice shield, he dodge rolled to the side.

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The ice shield that was hit shattered, however Ariel didn’t pay mind to it and cast the already prepared spell ice slice towards the chimera’s belly. Thanks to it being softer, the wound inflicted was much greater than the ones before and made the beast howl in pain.

He on the other hand, once more began to run towards the ravine, he wasn’t so optimistic to think that such a wound would manage to kill it so he didn’t have time to waste.

Due to the damage he inflicted he had plenty of time to reach his goal before he was caught up with. That’s why he quickly jumped up on the fallen log and got to the other side. Just at that time the chimera’s growls got laude and it emerge from the forest with an enraged look in it face.

After searching a bit, it located Ariel and a murderous light appeared in its eyes. Although it was too big to use the log to cross over, Ariel still didn’t let down his guard, and that was a wise choice. Unexpectedly the beast leaped over the ravine to go after him, but thanks to Ariel being prepared, he instantly reacted and cast a frost bolt towards its face.

However his attack didn’t go as expected since it brought its hard scorpion tail in front of it to deflect the ball of ice. Fortunately Ariel had expected something a like this to happen and he managed to launch another one right after the firs, heading towards the creatures serious wound.

Not having a way to block, the frost bolt hit its target and did extreme damage, once more in raging the chimera. Unfortunately it had already crossed over and he didn’t manage to make it fall, however Ariel didn’t have time to grieve as the beast had already got up and with a face saying it would never let him live, again started chasing Ariel.

With such a short distance, the only thing Ariel could do is try to dodge around in the thick woods. Since the trees were close he managed to get into the forestry and avoid the chimera’s rage. Unfortunately it was quite agile and it could keep up with him running through the trees.

They played this cat and mouse game for quite some time, Ariel would try dodging its claws and tail with magic, while it tried to catch him off guard. Currently this was a stalemate, but Ariel knew that his Mana was quickly running out and he will soon not be able to keep up with this, but he didn’t have much of a choice.

As he was continued his dance, he notice the scorpion tail once more moving into action, it as actually the thing he worried the most, since he didn’t know if it had actual poison. This time however, due to his already wary mind he didn’t notice that it was a faint and that its claw was coming at him from behind.

In this moment of carelessness, Ariel got wounded on his chest just as he turned around to look, making him loose a large amount of blood. Luckily he was able to at the same time use another ice slice to leave an injury on the beast shoulder and at the same time slow it down.

This was a small victory, but he also had a large loss. Seeing that his strength was quickly leaving him, Ariel abandoned all thoughts of attack and put all of his efforts into fleeing. With this desperate struggle he managed to get away some distance, but as he ran he noticed that something was wrong. Looking in front he saw that he came at a dead end with a small clearing in front of it, this made him despair as he heard the growls behind him.

Continuing to run he finally reached the stone wall and turned around to face the beast behind him. Noticing the deep hate in its eyes and seeing no way out he started cursing the teacher in his mind. ‘Who said there was nothing above Elite rank, what a bunch of bullshit.’

When the chimera saw that he had nowhere left to run, a sadistic light appeared in its eyes as it started to slowly move towards him, not hurrying at all. This made Ariel feel livid and he decided to at least bring this fucker as much pain as possible, even if he had to die.

With most of his leftover strength he manifested fifteen spears and launched them all at the same time. Seeing this, the chimera which let down its guard paid the price again and felt many more wounds appear on its body.

Feeling humiliated again the chimera stopped playing with him and decide to finish him off as fast as possible. It lunged towards Ariel and tried to bite into his neck in one move.

However, seeing this opportunity, Ariel with his one last ditch of effort tried to fight back. He cast another spell he hadn’t used before “Ice lance” it created an ice lance around his hands, making him able to attack up close. Ariel didn’t use it immediately and waited for the last critical moment when the beast would open its mouth.

Thankfully it went according to plan and the chimera opened its maw when it was about to bite, at that time Ariel thrust his hand down its throat and pierced a large amount of the beast inner organs.

Unfortunately it didn’t die immediately and closed its maw as it bit into Ariel’s hand. The pain was unbearable, but Ariel tried to put in all of his left over Mana to try to freeze it. His reserves tough didn’t have anything left and all of his efforts were in vain.

As he was about to loose hope and saw the chimeras tail rise too attack, he felt a familiar burst in his core, the feeling of breaking through. A large amount of Mana came bursting through into his body as he had the feeling of breaking through, all of that Mana however was instantly let out and started freezing the magical beast inside out.

Due to the sudden coldness its reaction was a tad too late, and its entire insides became completely frozen. Ariel saw as the chimera’s eyes glazed over and it fell to the ground dead. He however didn’t have time to rejoice about winning or breaking through since he felt him vision become blurry as he slid down to the ground.

Ariel felt as his blood was spilling out of his wounds, just like in his past life. A sense of nostalgia overcame him as he knew the last bits of life were leaving him. The last thing he felt and saw was a gentle coldness coming from his upper chest and a weak Mana source floating in front of him as he slowly sunk into darkness.

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