Pain was a symphony, and my body was its unwilling instrument. The Chimera's venom burned through my veins like liquid fire, a corrosive poison that fought against my mana, my very life force. I lay in a heap against the shattered remains of a petrified tree, my vision a swimming, nauseating blur. Across the ravaged clearing, the rest of my team was in a similar state of disarray, their bodies battered, their spirits on the verge of breaking.
The S-Rank Chimera stood at the center of the chaos, a triumphant, terrible monarch surveying its dominion. Its three heads moved independently, a grotesque trinity of death. The dragon head let out a lazy plume of black, acrid smoke, its molten-gold eyes glowing with a cold, reptilian intelligence. The goat head bleated, a sound that was a discordant, maddening shriek that seemed to tear at the edges of our sanity. And the lion head… the lion head just watched, its gaze sweeping over us with a chilling, analytical precision.
