Chapter 179

◈ Chapter 179:

One flap of its wings was all it took. One moment the chimaera was stationary, the next it was nearly on Quistis, launched through the air at frightening speed, like a bolt from a highly strung ballista. Quistis's arms shot up at the last possible moment, a wall of smoke rising that then peeled away revealing a stone wall formed beneath. The chimaera instantly twisted in mid air, crashing into it with its back hooves then launching itself free, the wall disintegrating under the impact behind. With a high pitched goat shriek it lunged for the overweight client leveler.

The chimaera was about to hit, then the next second it had passed, passed so fast Rain had barely seen it. He blinked at the thing in the goat's mouth, the leveler's arm ripped from his body.

Behind it the leveler let out a scream of agony and fell to the ground, blood already pooling from the stump as he clutched at his wound.

The audience stood in alarm, chairs falling to the sands, some taking uncertain steps toward the chimaera while pulling weapons free, others fleeing into the ruins.

The drake was already sprinting for the great snake, leaping into the air and landing atop its head, balancing carefully as the snake rose up, looking down upon the chimaera who had dropped the leveler's arm and was looking up at this new interesting threat. Fire was spitting from its middle stump in fits and starts, a great spurt of the stuff spraying across the ground for meters seemingly on accident.

"Quistis, your smoke is near useless against that thing. Take the new monsters and cage them before things get any messier."

"But-

"Go! I can handle this!"

The lamia grimaced in frustration, but turned and slithered away, smoke snapping out to grab hold of the harpy and to pull Rain and the goblin along behind her.

As Rain turned he saw the chimaera make a dash for the cluster of unsure clients in the same moment the great snake lunged for it, its huge snake body smashing down into the sand, sending a column of sand up from the impact crater a half dozen storeys.

Apparently that hadn't stopped the chimaera as he heard screams from behind, screams of immense pain. A few steps more and a woman ran past, her clothing on fire, she fell down and he stepped past as she burned. There wasn't anything to be done but to follow Quistis.

As their group rushed from the sands and came amongst the great black stone ruins the screams and fighting grew quieter, the sounds echoing off the broken walls. They acted as a muffler and soon only soft booms could be heard, the occasional trickle of dust falling from a wall as the ground shivered.

They jogged while Rain walked, his longer stride letting keep up. He began to notice cages amongst the roofless buildings, huge cages, and in each of the cages were monsters.

He stared as a panthara looked at him from behind its tree trunk thick bars, its glowing blue eyes staring in an unsettlingly knowing way, as if judging him as a potential tool to use to its own advantage. The calculating and malevolent intelligence in the eyes of a panthara was not something anyone wanted to acquire the attention of.

He passed another cage, also containing a full grown adult panthara, and another, and another, and another…

…and another, dear god that was a lot of panthara. This abattoir was run by mad people!

He passed by one cage that was full of leafery from end to end with nothing visible with in, another five cages containing what looked awfully like some cross breeds of giant cave bears, another containing what appeared to be an actual full blown wyvern, another that was just a mass of darkness, a cluster of red eyes within that followed them as they passed.

Some cages were nearly three stories tall, great monsters sleeping within, their backs turned.

They passed by one full of writhing pink tentacles and the lamia was forced to smack one back as it reached for her. She swore under her breath as she marched past before coming to a stop at the first cages Rain had seen that were empty, one massive cage and one much smaller beside it.

Keys formed from floating smoke and a moment later the doors were opening. With a yelp the harpy and goblin were tossed into the smaller cage and Rain was dragged into the larger. The door slammed shut behind and before he turned to look the lamia was already racing away, disappearing amongst the ruins and rushing back to the sands.

The flip from danger and battle to suddenly being left alone in a cage was jarring. The only noise around him was the pair of swearing girls in the smaller cage and the occasional gruff sound or shifting of bodies from other caged monsters.

After a moment the smoke around Rain started to come apart, whatever force holding it together weakening. The lamia might have ended it herself, but Rain thought it more likely that the distance was just breaking her Skill's effect. He shrugged his shoulders and smoke fell away from his fur. He lifted his upper lips and the cloying smoke in his lungs poured from his teeth, billowing into the air.

There was a lot of smoke, more than he had thought. That Skill was quite… terrifying. At Least he knew now he could stop it by simply putting distance between himself and her and she wouldn't be able to fill his lungs with poison or blades or both together… Not that he could find such distance easily, this place seemed to be a bubble in the earth just under the city, a bubble with no entrance or exit as long as the lamia wished it. He couldn't leave.

He breathed in long and slow as the last of the smoke seeped out, clean air entering his lungs and finally clearing his thoughts. He let the breath out with a long sigh and then sat down on the metal ground, crossing his legs and resting his paws on his knees.

Rain closed his eyes, trying his best to ignore the squabbling harpy and goblin in the cell over.

It seemed likely that he would be left until the 'main event' began at night so he had some time. That was assuming the confidence of the drake hadn't been misplaced. That Chimaera was quite dangerous.

He let a little dark slip from his fur, a few small black rats. The rats were of course only partial predators and were quite fragile, but he found them amusing, less horrifying than most predation, almost cute in a way. He formed a house cat and it prowled from his fur, looking over the rats with curiosity, and then increasing interest as they darted around. The black cat's whiskers twitched and its rear perked up in the air, wiggling back and forth before it pounced, leaping on the nearest rat which puffed into a cloud of darkness with a squeak and slowly drifted back to his fur. The rest of the rats squeaked in alarm at this and backed toward the bars.

This was his power as a monster, the literal material form of predation itself. It felt almost comfortable when used for little things, but larger? The ones with red constellations in their eyes? His mind drifted back to the panthara unleashed in the mansion. That thing would have killed him in a heartbeat if it had noticed him and there wasn't a thing he could have done to stop it. His own power, killing him. Not exactly ideal. It made pushing his limits insanely risky

But he wasn't just a monster, he was a leveler too, albeit one that was apparently neglecting that side of himself. It wasn't like he had meant to, he just hadn't happened to kill a monster since arriving at the city, his urgent focus and frequent distraction had been set on other things. He'd almost gone after a warehouse filled with goblin slaves a few times… but then the complicated and troubled expression on Opal's face had stopped him…

He was still level seven. Nearly level eight. And he had four basic skills, most of which, he had come to realise, weren't very useful. They were very situation dependent, requiring time to trigger and planning ahead. That or they wouldn't have made a difference, hitting extra hard or just really hard with his predation mostly didn't matter, flesh would still part either way and with the same ease. He had experimented with all four basic Skills on and off in private away from Lyra and Opal's eyes, but was… repeatedly underwhelmed.

The last Skill he had really used had been to slow his fall when he had dropped from Erin over Warwick's compound. Feather Fall. That had slowed his plummet maybe all of two percent. It almost seemed like the Skill was only taking into account his human weight, which considering he had been a starved wretch was about as heavy as a wet dish rag. That left the rest of his very very very heavy monster form to fall out of the sky like a lead brick.

It was a little irritating if he were honest. So many years waiting and waiting for his first Skills and now he had them they were massively overshadowed by his overwhelming monsterness.

A tentacle wormed its way into his cage, the tentacle monster it was coming from straining at its bars as it reached for Rain.

Rain unthinkingly reached out and started eating it, chewing on the tentacle as he pondered what to do. Judging by the sounds the tentacle monster was making it wasn't very appreciative of his snacking habit.

Really he just needed a Class to make the leveling more useful, a way to get powerful and focused Skills. Well, that had been part of the calculation when agreeing to come here, although he hadn't told that to Opal and Lyra. He had come not just because of the gang, but because of the monsters. Powerful monsters. Monsters prime for leveling and- hopefully if he was lucky- to get a Class.

Speaking of which. He side eyed the two monster girls in the other cage. Their arguing had slowed as they had tired each other out and the silence of the ruins got to them.

The goblin flopped on the ground with her eyes closed, limbs spread eagled.

"You're not even an evolved anyway, you're just a half, some goblin boinked a bat monster thing, and you popped out. You're no stronger than a regular goblin, just a little more vicious," muttered the harpy.

The goblin grinned, flashing her fangs and pointing at them with one finger, still with her eyes closed.

"No, I definitely triggered this. Lost in a dungeon cave with no water, I had to drink something and there was only other dead gobbos and me. After a time like that I found I started to like it, and then one day I woke up and I was like this."

You still look like a half."

"Yeah, that's probably why no leveler takes me seriously. But then they completely lose their freaking minds over monsters with just a few more evolutions. Maybe that will be me someday if I evolve again..."

The harpy paused. "A few? What do you mean?"

The goblin cracked an eye. "There was one other gobbo in my tribe that evolved, and then evolved again, and then again, until he had evolved seven times. He was like some kind of super gobbo with way too many arms and eyes and teeth and greenness, each evolution came faster than the last, like his trigger to evolve could be anything, he was sure he was about to evolve again even though it had only been days since his last one."

"Birdshit."

"It's true. But then a group of levelers saw him. They didn't fight, they fled, and then the next day the dungeon was swarming with levelers storming down just to hunt him down and kill him, hundreds fighting him at once. I watched them burn his corpse in a fire so hot it melted the stone, and then they poured acid over the ashes. So many levelers just for one single gobbo…"

"Maybe if I stuff feathers down your lying throat you'll evolve again too," muttered the harpy.

The goblin waved an arm at Rain from where she lay on the floor.

"Hey, big guy, you want to kill the birdy for me? Wolves really love eating birds right?"

"No. Too many feathers." gravelled Rain climbing to his feet. The goblin blinked, arm drooping, apparently not having realised he could speak.

He approached the massive bars of the cage, each pillar of steel like the trunk of a tree, nearly a foot thick. Clearly past issues with escaping monsters had caused the abattoir to wildly over compensate.

He pressed his paws between two bars and then began to spread them, at first testing to see if it was actually possible, then gritting his teeth and exacting increasingly monumental strength, musculature bulging across his back and arms until with a metallic groan the bars started to bend under the pressure, faint runes flaring to life across their surface trying to hold it in place. Neither enchantment nor steel could hold up under his sheer brute force however and the cage started to buckle.

The goblin girl sat up and stared as the bars bent apart. Even the harpy uncrossed her wings in surprise.

A little more exertion and he managed to bend the bars wide enough that he could just squeeze through the gap between them if he exhaled.

He stepped outside.