Chapter 598: Chapter 598: The Last Percent [II]

Noel changed his approach immediately.

There was no point chasing a body that could blur itself across the basin and bend the mist around every movement. The chimera had built the fight around uncertainty from the moment it opened its eyes. Fine. Then he would stop fighting the body first and start dismantling the structure holding the battlefield together.

He exhaled once, grounded his footing against the black stone, and raised one hand. “Cooling Veil.” A thin wave of frost spread outward from him and rolled low across the basin, slipping through the pale mist and dragging the temperature down with unnatural speed. The white fog reacted at once. Instead of drifting freely around the chimera, it thickened, condensed, and clung in heavier sheets to the true body while the false positions lost cohesion and began to peel apart in ragged fragments. For the first time since the fight had started, the blurred outlines around the beast lagged instead of flowing naturally with it.

The chimera felt the change immediately. Its skull-like face turned sharply toward Noel and the serpent tail shot through the fog in a pale blur, coming from behind a broken altar-shaped rock and angling straight for his thigh. Noel’s eyes tracked the motion cleanly this time. “Glacialis.” A concentrated shard of ice flashed from his hand and struck the tail near the jaw, freezing over the narrow head and part of the neck in a layer of hard frost. The tail snapped sideways in sudden resistance, its movement stuttering just long enough to throw the creature’s balance off for a fraction of a second.

That was all Noir needed.

Shadow rolled off her giant frame as she shifted angles through the basin, her body sinking low before the darkness around her thickened and surged more violently along her limbs. The purple streaks across her fur brightened faintly as she accelerated across the chimera’s blind side. Then she vanished into the mist for half a heartbeat and erupted forward with “Night Pounce,” her eight-meter body slamming into the creature’s flank with enough force to lift one side of it off the ground. The Palecrown Chimera twisted hard under the impact, claws gouging through black stone as it was forced to rear higher than it wanted, the pale crown of antlers rising cleanly into Noel’s line.

Noel moved at the same instant. “Ignition Surge.” Fire wrapped around Revenant Fang in a sheath of burning orange that clung to the black blade and sharpened its outline against the white basin fog. The chimera reacted fast, faster than before, the antlers releasing another crescent of pale mana while the serpent tail, still half-frozen, thrashed wildly through the air in a blind killing arc. The slash and the tail closed toward him together from opposite angles.

“Shadow Rift.” A thin black tear split open beside Noel like a wound in the air itself. He stepped through just as the mana blade carved across the space where his chest had been and the serpent tail snapped through the afterimage he left behind. A heartbeat later he emerged beside the chimera’s raised head, so close he could see the cracks already running through the pale crown.

Revenant Fang came down.

The flaming edge bit into one of the great antlers with a violent burst of sparks and fire. For a brief instant the white structure held. Then the fracture spread with a dry splitting sound through the length of the branch, and the chimera screamed.

The entire basin changed.

The mist that had obeyed the crown all fight convulsed outward in a violent pulse. False bodies collapsed at once into torn sheets of white vapor. The warped mana flow around the black stones shuddered and broke apart, leaving only one real shape standing in the hollow vale. The Palecrown Chimera staggered sideways with its skull-like face twisted in rage, the broken antler shedding pale fragments that dissolved before they reached the ground.

Now Noel could see it clearly.

Beneath the throat, where the dark stone-like hide met the upper chest, a narrow seam of lighter tissue ran between the plated muscle. That was the weak point. Not the skull. Not the flank. The throat and chest line, hidden before beneath layered distortion and false positioning.

But breaking the crown only made the beast more dangerous.

Its speed surged. No more careful control, no more patient dominance over the field. It launched itself through the basin with raw desperate violence, body low and claws ripping stone apart under each step. The serpent tail tore free from the last of the ice and whipped through the air in savage, erratic snaps that no longer followed clean patterns. The mana in the basin began vibrating hard enough to be felt in the ribs, and high above, even the ridge where the others waited would be able to sense the change rolling up through the mountain.

The chimera lunged for Noir first, trying to remove the heavier pressure from its side, and Noel used that instant to cut across its angle with another burst of speed, forcing it to split its attention again. The beast turned back toward him with murder in its golden eyes, throat exposed for less than a second before it tucked the line away behind a sweeping shoulder.

Enough.

He had seen the opening.

Now he only needed to make it stay open.

The opening was there for less than a second each time the chimera shifted its weight, hidden beneath the violent movement of its shoulder and the constant pull of its serpent tail, but Noel had already seen enough. He no longer needed to search for the weak point. He only needed one clean moment.

The Palecrown Chimera came for him again in a burst of speed that shattered the black stone beneath its claws. Its serpent tail snapped wide through the basin, jaws tearing through the mist at waist height while the broken crown above its head released another distorted pulse through the valley. The pressure rolled outward in a harsh wave.

Noel raised his hand.

“Gravity Collapse.” The air around the chimera twisted violently and crashed downward in one brutal instant. The creature’s body slammed into the basin floor hard enough to fracture the stone beneath it, its limbs buckling as the sudden weight pinned it low. The serpent tail thrashed immediately, trying to rip free, but the opening had already begun.

Noir hit the flank a heartbeat later.

Her giant shadow-wolf form drove into the chimera’s side with crushing force, claws digging into dark hide while her weight dragged the body further off balance. The beast twisted in fury and tried to rise against the collapsing gravity, but the shift in angle exposed the seam beneath its throat again.

That was all Noel needed.

Electricity exploded around him.

“Stormpiercer.” Arcs of pure lightning wrapped around his body and compressed into a blinding streak that split through the basin in a straight line, faster than the eye could properly follow. One instant he stood several meters away, the next he was already at the chimera’s throat, Revenant Fang driving forward in a clean thrust that pierced through the exposed core beneath the chest line. The impact sent a violent shock through the creature’s entire body. Its limbs jerked, the serpent tail spasming wildly as golden light burst from the wound.

Noel did not stop there.

“Eclipse Rend.” Darkness surged from Revenant Fang in a sweeping black arc that cut through the exposed core and tore upward through the remaining crown energy like a blade splitting through the last light of dusk. The broken antlers shuddered. The pale energy running through them fractured visibly, then burst apart in cracking white lines that spread from branch to branch before the entire crown began to crumble.

The chimera screamed once.

Then the sound died with it.

The pale mist throughout the basin collapsed inward as if the valley itself had exhaled. The antlers broke apart into ash-like fragments that drifted through the air and dissolved before they touched the ground. The serpent tail convulsed two last times, jaws snapping uselessly at empty air, then went still.

Silence returned to the hollow vale.

For a second Noel remained where he was, Revenant Fang still buried in the dead creature, his breathing heavy, the last traces of electricity fading from his body. Then the system window appeared before his eyes.

[You have slain Palecrown Chimera (Archmage – Elite). You have received 1% Core Progress. Current Core Progress: 100.00% — Mana Core: Archmage]

A second line followed immediately after.

[Limit reached. Manacode unlocked.]

Then a third.

[Transforming core into Manacode…]

Noel’s eyes narrowed slightly.

The pressure hit him all at once.

It was not pain in the ordinary sense. It felt deeper than that, like something inside his chest and mind had begun to turn itself inside out. Mana surged through his body with violent force, too dense, too heavy, too much for a normal flow to contain. His knees gave a sharp warning that lasted less than a second.

Then the world tilted.

Up on the ridge, the others felt it the moment the valley changed.

Daemar was the first to move when Noel’s presence abruptly destabilized. Marcus cursed under his breath and ran after him, Garron close behind, Laziel forcing himself forward despite the cold dread that had already climbed into his spine. Selene was faster than all of them.

By the time they reached the basin, Noel was already falling.

Revenant Fang slipped from his grasp as his body hit the black stone hard, unconscious before he even touched the ground. Noir had made it two steps toward him before the same force struck her as well. Her body faltered mid-motion, her purple eyes losing focus for a brief instant before all strength left her at once. She collapsed into shadow instead of flesh, her form unraveling into black strands that slid across the stone and fused directly into Noel’s shadow beneath him.

No one spoke for the first second.

They did not know what they were looking at.

The dead chimera lay split open behind him, its crown reduced to drifting ash, the mist across the basin collapsing into nothing.

And Noel—

Noel did not wake up.

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