Chaper 178

◈ Chapter 178:

The snake jerked to the side, missing being skewered by the very tip of the spear, the blade skittering off its scales as it passed.

The drake danced by with it, flowing with the motion and turning his miss-balanced lunge into an elegant spin then flipping over the top of the spear as it plunged down into the sand, tail and legs kicking up as he went over top. The snake's tail whipped around in an instantaneous counter, plumes of sand flying into the air with the vicious motion, tail on target to crash into the spear and snap it in half.

The drake reacted mid-flip, snatching the spear from the sand and spinning, torquing around the length of his body and slamming the blade down into the snake's scales just as the tail passed underneath.

Metal met scale and pierced, sinking inches deep causing the snake to hiss in agony.

The drake kicked off the snake's wall like scaled side, pulling the spear free and back flipping onto the sand, landing in a three point landing, the spear out to one side.

The snake… continued to roar in pain, writhing along its body before it let out a dramatic gurgling sound and flopped onto the sand, rolling onto its back.

It twitched a few times before lying still.

The drake rose from his three point landing in the sand, twirling the spear in his claws before turning and giving a low styled bow to the small audience of apparent clients.

They clapped politely, making amused noises.

"A leveler who kills when their blood is up will gain more than the leveler who kills a monster pinned down for their convenience, much the same as when a large number of levelers kill a monster together and gain little for it. The diminishing returns are not linear, they fall off rapidly, a problem that increases at higher levels."

He  thumped the butt of his spear on the sand and narrowed his eyes at the levelers.

"If you are not willing to put yourself in a modicum of danger then the Abattoir is not for you. We are not some monster farm that keeps monsters in cramped cages from the day they are born until the day they are slaughtered with a knife through the bars. We do not breed weak monsters in captivity who grow progressively more diluted and worthless with each generation. No, we source our monsters from the darkest most savage depths of the dungeon, a place where primal brutality rules, kill or be killed, eat or be eaten, concentrated ferocity, a ferocity that produces an exquisite amount of experience, a cornucopia of levelling unlike any monster on the surface. This is a place where only vicious monsters meet warriors seeking to kill, the optimal environment to level up in."

He started walking toward the collection of levelers.

"Tell me, do you want to spend an eternity walking down the aisles of a farm, stabbing to death a hundred thousand cage bred goblins until your arm falls off all for not even one level when you could potentially get multiple from killing one monster here? Do you want to go down to the dungeon where random and painful death can happen on a whim, a venomous snake bite from the shadows, a razor talon on the back of your neck? I thought not. This is where we step in. We provide what you need, real leveling in assured security."

There was something about the way the drake casually spoke of monster farms that unsettled Rain, there had never been something like that in Lynthia, at least nothing like the scale the drake spoke of. It bothered him in a monster and even a human way. The thought of a warehouse stacked to the ceiling with endless rows and rows of small cages? cages so small the monsters within couldn't move? Just thinking of it was weirdly uncomfortable.

There was a polite murmur from the group of clients, the lazy swishing of drinks and the raising of eyebrows in open curiosity.

The drake grinned. He had sandy yellow scales similar to the giant snake and piercing blue eyes. His teeth were large and predatory in a mercantile kind of way, it was a grin that knew it had these prospective clients in his clutches.

"As I suspected, you seem like a smarter group than the previous lot who baulked at a little fighting. For those of you harbouring unspoken doubts, rest assured, as part of our service if you find yourself in trouble you will be moved to safety before loss of life or great injury, although, ah, your chance at the monster will go back up for sale and there will be No Refunds."

He nodded in satisfaction, and glanced at the snake lying on its back, its tongue hanging from its mouth. The drake rolled his eyes and kicked the ground sending a plume of sand all over the dangling tongue.

The snake made a distressed cry and struggled back onto its belly, spitting sand from its mouth as it did so making phtphh pthhp sounds.

The drake finally seemed to notice Rain and the other monsters and with them the lamia. He smiled warmly and approached.

"Quistis, this is the new batch?" He glanced over the harpy and goblin and dismissed them, stiffened when he looked at Rain and then tilted his head at the baby panthara and the last smoke-covered monster. "A panthara is always a nice touch, sells like hotcakes once done with its growth spurt. This wolf though, you didn't tell me you had anything like this coming in. …Are we sure we even want to sell this one? We could kill it ourselves…"

"Perhaps. The thing fell into my lap, I hadn't been expecting it. An interesting specimen don't you think? I've never seen anything quite like it, it makes my threat sense Skill shut down from sheer overload, few monsters I've sourced have managed that. I thought it pertinent to acquire the thing."

The drake rubbed his chin and looked Rain over like he was a side of beef put out by a butcher.

"I don't want to hear how much you paid, but you also don't have to tell me it will be worth it whatever it was. I know more than a few who would cut off and sell their legs to kill such a thing."

"I demand this monster!" came a cry from behind.

"Speaking of which," muttered the drake, turning to see an overweight and jewel encrusted leveler storming toward them, a polished cutlass with a gold basket hilt clenched in one round fist.

"This monster is for sale, yes? Then it is I who shall purchase it. You've gotten my blood up with that flashy little performance of yours with the snake and whatnot so this is your fault really."

"Apologies, but the main event will not begin until nightfall. The rest of the guests have yet to arrive as well as my, ah, compatriots. This was merely an education for our new clients to avoid bruised egos and confusion later."

"Nonsense! You just want to play favourites with those looking out for your little Abattoir, a backhanded favour for those in your back pocket. I'll tell you this my good drake, I'm not having it, no. In fact I'll simply pay later and take what is mine now."

The fat man suddenly lunged for Rain.

Rain wasn't exactly pleased with this turn of events as he looked down at the angry round leveler. From what the drake had said this wasn't the abattoir as it was supposed to be, which sounded believable, he hardly thought this entire supposedly massive gang consisted of a grand total of two people, the lamia and the drake. It sounded like there would be more levelers coming to buy monsters too. To break free just to eat these would not be at all worth it considering the amount of hassle and risk it had taken to get here… Not to mention the very real chance he might die if the smoke still sitting in his lungs transformed.

He reluctantly lifted an arm, forcibly moving the restricting smoke manacle. He caught the cutlass in his paw, the sharp blade impacting hard with his flesh… and completely failing to cut it. Rain formed a fist, his digits enclosing the blade and squeezed. With a sound of squealing metal he crushed the cutlass and then let go.

The fat man stumbled back in surprise. Then he held up his blade. His mouth fell open as he stared at his cutlass which looked more like a scrunched up candy wrapper than a sword. His jowls quivered as he tried to form words, his expression livid.

"This- Do you have any idea how much I paid for this sword?!"

The drake sighed and scratched his brow. "We're not replacing that to be clear. You attacked our monster, our property, without first purchasing an allotment to kill it. You're lucky that I'm in a good mood or I would otherwise ban you from the Abattoir." He leaned in on the fat man, his upper lip lifting showing a set of very sharp teeth, "Mind, if you had been successful I would have slit your throat and dumped your corpse in the river."

The man paled as he looked up into the drake's blue eyes.

"A-ah, I m-meant—

A blood curdling scream suddenly tore through the air. At first Rain thought the man had been stabbed by the drake, but then this noise wasn't like any sound a man could make. He turned to see the baby panthara, it was lying on the ground, talons grasping faintly at the sands, blood pooling around its chest as the monster that had been covered in smoke crouched over it, its head inside its chest, grizzly crunching sounds coming from the hole.

Rain frowned as he looked the monster over. Its tail and wings were like that of a wyvern, the back half of its huge quadruped body was like that of a goat, its front half like that of a lion with a lion's paws. The thing shifted in the dying panthara then slowly pulled back, a completely blood covered head coming free with a wet schlucking sound. It turned. It wasn't a lion's head, nor was it a wyvern's head, it was a goat's head that stared at them, its blood filled eyes marked with a slotted iris. Together with the blood it was a very disconcerting face.

"H-hey, what am I looking at here Quistis?" muttered the drake. "The hell did you get your slippery tail on?

Quistis frowned, clearly unsure why her smoke was now missing. "It's a chimaera, an evolved chimaera. Its trigger to evolve was for the goat head to gnaw off the lion and wyvern head, an unfathomable thing to happen, an act of pure insanity. Chimaeras are powerful monsters normally, this is something else altogether."

The chimaera took a step forward, its gaze unmoving from them. It licked its lips, torrents of gorged upon blood disgorging from its lips in long strings.

"More powerful than a regular chimaera? How interesting. Yes, now that I think better of it I will have one of these instead," said the man.

"Not this again," groaned the drake. "Quistis, smoke the thing before it causes any more trouble."

Quistis raised her arms and smoke rose from the sands, forming a collective grey that suddenly lunged for the chimaera, whipping around its body and head, shooting into its mouth and down its lungs. In a moment the chimaera was imprisoned once more and its movements restricted.

The crowd of wealthy levelers made polite applause, even giving a few encouraging cheers.

Rain narrowed his eyes at the thing. There was clearly something wrong here, very wrong, the chimaera while it looked like it had lost all sanity there was also a spark of intelligence there, in those slotted bloodied eyes.

A glow started to emanate from the smoke, an orange red dot. The dot grew brighter and then suddenly burst outward, a spray of liquid fire splattering across the sand. The smoke around the fire seemed to burn away at its touch revealing the stump of the missing middle head and a hole near its bottom that after a moment Rain realised was its throat. The open throat of the wyvern.

The goat head shook side to side, breaking its way free from the smoke through sheer brute force, to Quistis's surprise.

It then turned and put its lips to the exposed throat beside it.

And then it began to drink.

"Wh-what?! What is It doing?!"

"I don't know, do I!"

Rain knew, although he couldn't speak it aloud. The goat head was breathing liquid fire into its own lungs in an act of pure madness, it was burning out the smoke Quistis had just put inside of it. The goat's throat bobbed, once, twice, then it pulled back with a gasp, orange red liquid spraying from the stump.

The goat turned to look back at them, no not at them, at Quistis, the remains of its mouth a charred mess, its tongue a black coal. It smiled at her, lifting ragged partial lips to show burned teeth.

The drake gripped his spear.  "R-Ru-

The Chimaera Moved.