On a dark night when the moonlight dimly shone.
“Crack!!”
With an unpleasant pffft! sound, a single scream before death echoed through the alley.
A man’s body, pierced by spikes of shadow, hung limply…
“Seriously, they’re like cockroaches or something…”
Wiping the droplets of blood from his cheek, Rudell grumbled.
No matter how many he killed, the church’s forces stubbornly showed up.
Like cockroaches, it was impossible to guess their numbers.
“So? You wanna jump in too?”
“Hii, hiiick…!!”
He approached the man cowering in a corner, glancing around fearfully.
With a quivering voice, the man feigned submission…
“Don’t be too scared. I’m not planning to kill you.”
“I-I’ll do anything if you spare me!!”
“Yeah, yeah. It’s nice when we can talk.”
Rudell’s goal was always the church’s forces.
He had no intention of killing civilians as long as they kept their noses clean.
In fact, it was far more beneficial for Rudell to shake them down for information, just like now.
“This drug. Where can I get it?”
“Th-that, I’m not sure…”
Rudell pulled a small bead from his pouch and asked him, but he shook his head.
And at that moment…
Crack!!
A black spike emerging from the shadows grazed the man’s cheek and embedded itself into the wall behind him.
Red droplets flowed from his cheek, and the man stared at the shadowy spike with trembling eyes.
“I’ll ask one last time. Where can I get it?”
“I-I’ll show you if you follow me!!”
You should’ve said that from the start instead of twiddling your thumbs…
Rudell flashed a grin as he hurriedly followed the man.
Navigating through a tangled alley, heading down a sparsely populated passage, after quite some walking, Rudell arrived at…
“H-here it is…”
“Hmm…”
It was a dead-end.
Of course, just like the church’s hideouts he’d dealt with until now, what you see is not always what you get.
“You can go now. If you appear in front of me again… you know what’ll happen?”
“Is there any possibility of that!!?”
The man bowed his head to Rudell and hurriedly left, watching him, Rudell let out a short sigh.
“How much longer do I have to keep doing this…”
By the way, it seemed like the other side should be reacting soon…
Muttering to himself, Rudell touched a brick that jutted out from the wall, and as usual, with the sound of scrape, a large passage appeared before him.
Hiding his body in the shadows, Rudell advanced toward the dark corridor.
Thud. Thud.
With the thud of footsteps echoing, as Rudell reached the end of the corridor, he hid in the darkness and assessed the situation.
Fortunately, there were no ambushes or traps in sight.
With a short sigh, Rudell carefully emerged from the corridor…
“It’s empty, right…?”
A dazed voice slipped from Rudell’s lips as he scanned the surroundings.
The hideout was completely empty.
Not a single shadow of a person was visible, and the only thing seen in the vacant space was the flickering blue flame.
“I’ve never experienced this before…”
Feeling puzzled, Rudell stepped forward, and as he surveyed the area…
Grrrr…
“…?”
Startled by the sudden growl, Rudell turned his head with a confused expression.
And what caught his eye was a pair of glowing red eyes glinting in the darkness.
“Don’t tell me…”
As that thought crossed his mind, a dark figure emerged from the shadows.
What stood before him was, in short, a creature made up of countless monsters intertwined.
Right there before his eyes were a Mad Lion, a Basilisk, and a Gryphon…
Monsters capable of turning an entire small village to ashes in an instant.
“A Chimera!?”
Its identity was none other than a regularly seen monster in the fantasy world.
At the same time, it was a monster that should not be here in front of Rudell.
Kyaaaaaah!
With Rudell’s shout, the combined monstrous roar reverberated around.
The Chimera lunged straight at Rudell.
Damn it…!!
As the Chimera swung its sharp claws towards him, Rudell hid into the shadows and dodged.
If it had been an ordinary human, it wouldn’t have been able to find his position hidden in the shadows, but the opponent was a wild monster.
The Chimera chased Rudell as he emerged from the shadow, swinging its massive front paw again.
Damn!!
Rudell clicked his tongue, swiping his hand through the air, as shadows wriggled beneath his feet and formed a sphere around him.
As the Chimera’s claws slammed into the sphere, it sparked with a sound like metal scraping against metal.
Kyaaaaaah!
Seemingly excited that its attack had been blocked, the Chimera began to slam the sphere with astonishing speed.
Crash!
With a foreboding sound, cracks began to form on the sphere, prompting Rudell to launch the shadow beneath him at the Chimera.
As the sphere shattered, a sharp blade sprang forth, aiming for the Chimera’s side, but…
Grrr!
In an instant, the Chimera twisted its body and dodged it, leaping back to create distance between them.
Grrrr…
Realizing this was a formidable foe, the Chimera began to circle around Rudell, growling.
“Damn…”
Watching the scene unfold, Rudell clicked his tongue, thinking of his next move.
But in that moment…
Kyaaaaaah!
With the Chimera’s roar, the Basilisk’s eyes glowed, and Rudell quickly shut his eyes and hid in the shadows.
At the same moment, a brilliant beam of light burst from the Basilisk’s gaze, illuminating the spot where Rudell had been standing.
Sharp stones grew like icicles in the place where the beam had passed, and Rudell emerged from the shadows, swallowing hard at the sight.
“This is just too much…”
If he hadn’t known about the Basilisk’s existence, or had been even slightly late in avoiding it, he would’ve likely turned into a cold stone statue by now.
The reason the Chimera was troublesome was not only due to its overwhelming physical abilities but also its keen instincts akin to foresight; it could replicate the abilities of its original components.
Bzzzz!
This time, with the Gryphon’s cry, its wings spread wide, and as the Chimera violently shook, countless feathers flew at him.
Each feather from the Gryphon was as hard as steel, making them no different from lethal weapons.
With a flick of his hand, Rudell summoned another shadow barrier to block the feathers…
“Why on earth is that creature showing up here…?”
Rudell felt a hint of absurdity as he looked at the growling Chimera.
The Chimera was at least a mid-boss level creature that usually appeared after the mid-game.
For a single protagonist to deal with it alone was no easy task, let alone someone like Leje.
“Did I go too far…?”
Having mercilessly swept through the church forces, it was entirely expected they’d take some action in response.
However, throwing in a mid-game boss like the Chimera this early was beyond Rudell’s expectations.
“This is getting troublesome…”
If things dragged on like this, the first one to drop would be Rudell.
No matter how much he had trained his magic over the years, his magic power was still finite.
In the end, to resolve this situation, he needed one big move.
“Can I even do it…?”
But that was far from easy.
Before his eyes stood the Mad Lion, which the Chimera was based on.
The skin of this giant lion was nearly immune to physical attacks.
In other words, it meant that piercing and stabbing physical attacks like Shadow Magic were at a disadvantage.
Moreover, the Chimera, being fundamentally a magical creature, had considerable resistance to normal magic.
In short, it was a typical cheating monster with high resistance to both physical and magical attacks.
“I guess there’s no way around it…”
However, Rudell had no other options.
Taking a deep breath, Rudell summoned his mana, and his shadows turned into a shroud, wrapping around his body.
Grrr!
Seeing that, the Chimera lunged at Rudell.
With a roar, it swung its front paw, crashing into Rudell’s shadow barrier which began to crack with the sound of metal scraping.
“It’s still not enough.”
Watching the barrier crack further, Rudell spoke.
To penetrate the Chimera’s defenses, he needed immensely powerful magic.
He had to pour all of his magic into that spell.
Crash… Crack…
Grrr!
In the meantime, more cracks formed in the shadow barrier.
As the barrier reached its limit, sensing it was the last straw, the Chimera raised its colossal paw with a roar.
Observing this, Rudell began to chant his spell.
“Execution of the Shadow King.”
And in that instant, all light around them vanished.
