Chapter 69: The Chimera’s Secret

#69

Han Dokyeom stopped abruptly, his gaze fixed on the Chimera.

The Chimera’s beak savagely pecked at the serpent’s head, which had a cheek gruesomely torn open.

Behind the tearing screams, the serpent lunged towards its master’s face, effectively igniting a battle between the two monsters.

Piiiieeeek-!

Swoosh-!!

As the two beasts bared their fangs and lunged at each other, Dokyeom’s vision became obscured by bubbles.

Blood spread like paint, hindering his sight, and torn flesh floated through the water.

The Chimera showed no distinction, even from its own body.

Without a single blink, it bit, chewed, and tore at its own tail.

Its vicious attacks didn’t cease until the serpent was shredded beyond recognition.

‘This is strange,’ Dokyeom thought.

As Han Dokyeom recalled, the Chimera was a remarkably intelligent monster.

Its brilliance shone even brighter after it devoured Taeseongyeon in the original story.

In Korea, every conceivable method and means had been employed to capture the Chimera, yet its cunning always led to failure.

The very reason for requesting international aid was its unique intelligence and shrewdness, as the Chimera would set traps and hunt the hunters.

However, now there was no trace of such cunning to be found.

All that remained was a creature flailing, utterly dominated by its instincts.

‘What if its intelligence was gained by consuming humans…?’

A hypothesis flashed through his mind, accompanied by a puzzling question.

‘Why wouldn’t I know this, even though I created it?’

Piiieeeek-!

Having torn at its own tail, the Chimera’s next target was Dokyeom.

Its savage beak plunged towards Dokyeom’s head like a drill.

Its unfocused pupils were now barely discernible.

“What the— Ugh!”

So fast!

He heard the piercing sound of it cutting through the water.

By a hair’s breadth, the beak grazed past Dokyeom’s side, yet blood surged from his arm.

A curse escaped his lips.

His entire body trembled as if he’d been electrocuted.

Dokyeom swiftly retreated, catching his breath and gripping his gun tightly.

‘I only need one chance,’ he thought. ‘Just one. If I can land a single shot in those hazy eyes of the Chimera.’

‘Just one shot, no matter what.’

He moved, clenching his molars until they felt ready to shatter.

Recognizing Dokyeom within its radius, the Chimera ferociously swung its forelegs, its beak plunging down relentlessly.

Perhaps his body had cunningly adapted after being struck once, for he evaded the attacks purely to survive.

He twisted his body desperately, sensing the Chimera’s killing intent with pure instinct, dodging and deflecting its assaults.

As he gradually penetrated the Chimera’s range, Dokyeom finally managed to aim his gun at its eye.

In the distance, the tattered serpent’s tail whipped like a lash.

Swoosh-!

It was a distance where a direct hit could mean death.

The hand gripping the gun trembled uncontrollably from tension and pressure.

Nevertheless, Dokyeom braced himself for death and pulled the trigger, whispering softly.

“, , .”

Bang-!

As if stung by a bee, its frozen eyes rapidly constricted.

When its trembling pupils terrifyingly shrank to tiny points, a deafening roar erupted, shaking the lake’s currents.

It was the Chimera’s shriek.

Immediately upon hearing the high-pitched scream, Dokyeom rushed towards the Chimera’s beak.

He grabbed the fur near its beak and punched it repeatedly.

Thwack! Thump-thump!!

It felt akin to striking a hard, sharp-edged stone.

Excruciating pain, as if his bones were crushing, coursed through him, and his knuckles throbbed.

Smash! Thump!

Blood burst from Dokyeom’s hand.

His eyes involuntarily shut, and his bones ached as if they would sever.

Even as his body convulsed, Dokyeom gritted his teeth and activated a skill.

‘The Deterioration of…’

Agon’s skill, which amplified power, was all he could rely on now.

He knew it was a crude method, a reckless act.

Yet, at this moment, no other way to infiltrate the Chimera’s interior with a skill came to mind.

Thump-!!

“Ugh!”

The bone-twisting pain spread to his elbow.

Wincing, Dokyeom squeezed his trembling fist and struck again.

He repeated this dozens of times.

Tiny fragments flew, and a cracking sound pierced his ears.

Piiieee!! Piiieek!

The Chimera’s struggles grew more violent in response.

It scraped its beak with its forelegs, trying to dislodge Dokyeom, and thrashed its shortened tail wildly, flipping over several times in the water.

When his swollen, abraded hand struck the beak forcefully once more, it shattered like glass fragments with a distinct cracking sound.

It left a gaping hole, just large enough for a fist to enter.

Inside, raw, crimson flesh pulsed like a heart.

“Haaah, hah….”

Catching his breath, Dokyeom gripped the gun with his mangled hand.

He then shoved the muzzle into the broken beak.

His body, pushed to its limits by mana depletion, screamed in protest.

His vision blurred, and a heavy weariness settled over him. ‘Just a little more.’

“…. … .”

Bang-!

The moment the gun pierced the Chimera’s raw flesh, blood mist billowed like smoke.

As he was mesmerized, following that crimson spray, his vision turned pitch black.

A profound hatred surged up his throat, and brilliant white letters filled his sight like the dawn.

[‘Specialized Skill’ is preparing to awaken.]

These resplendent words.

The Chimera’s movements became explosively violent, and its spread raven wings thrashed convulsively in a seizure.

Black feathers fell like autumn leaves, scattering everywhere.

When he saw the miraculous words amidst the feathers filling the water, Dokyeom pulled up his torn lips into a faint smile.

[‘Specialized Skill’ has awakened.]

‘This is why… I can’t give up,’ he thought. ‘It really plays with a person’s emotions.’

Dokyeom moved his trembling arm with all his might.

‘This is truly the last chance,’ he knew. His mana was at its limit, and he had only a few bullets left—at most, two.

Dokyeom decided to stake everything on them.

‘Confusion.’

He imbued the first bullet with the skill that had just awakened.

‘The Deterioration of…’

The second bullet carried the amplifier that would give that skill wings.

Bang, bang!

As the two bullets, making small, muffled sounds, tore into the writhing flesh, the world inexplicably fell silent.

A heavy anticipation, as if something was about to erupt, pressed down on his shoulders.

The outcome arrived like a tsunami.

Just as the Chimera’s belly seemed ready to burst, a torrent of blood clots spewed from its mouth.

Its eyes rolled back, its wings twisted, and its forelegs convulsed as the Chimera suffered a violent seizure.

There was no prelude to its rampage.

The monster’s eyes, rolled back in white, were filled only with bloodshot sclera.

Its coiling body, now limp, began to sink into the deep lake.

Dokyeom quickly released the Chimera’s fur and propelled himself upwards. Or rather, he tried to.

“…….”

From somewhere, the cry of a newborn bird echoed.

Dokyeom stiffened his shoulders, blinking as he looked down at the Chimera.

The moment his gaze met its frozen, white eyes, its life story flashed across his mind like an arrow grazing his cheek.

It was a newly hatched chick.

The cuckoo chick, ignorant of its true parents, had grown up in the care of the Agors, whom it believed to be its family.

It considered those who fed and embraced it to be its kin.

Months passed in this manner.

However, the Chimera could no longer satiate its hunger with only the Agors’ milk.

That was when everything began to unravel.

The hunger it felt when looking at the Agors, whom it considered family.

To suppress its appetite, the Chimera wept mournfully every night.

Something surged within Dokyeom’s chest, a mix of anger and grief.

The Chimera suffered from hunger for several days.

Its reason grew dim, and it endured until it could no longer perceive objects before its eyes, sensing its imminent death.

It was then that the ‘Metamorphosis,’ a stage unique to growing Chimeras, began.

Its body, once smaller than the Agors, grew colossal with each shed skin.

The Chimera’s ‘Metamorphosis’ caused its body to mature in an instant.

Seeing the terrified Agors flee, the Chimera shrieked, “Don’t go!”

After days of crying and collapsing from exhaustion during its metamorphosis, the Chimera was no longer the young creature the Agors had nurtured and cared for.

It had become a monster driven mad by hunger.

It resented the sky and loathed the world.

Each time its eyes, wild with hunger, devoured the fleeing Agors, excruciating pain, as if its heart was bleeding, pierced the Chimera’s chest.

Dokyeom stared with a heavy heart at the Chimera, which was weeping in resignation.

It was a mere hatchling, one burdened with many wounds and tears.

The Chimera’s profound sorrow and anguish surged, overwhelming Dokyeom, who, too, choked back his own grief.

‘Perhaps,’ he mused, ‘the Chimera had wished to live its entire life with the Agors.’

Foam washed over his eyes, blurring his vision.

When he opened them again, Dokyeom stood motionless, watching the Chimera sink towards the abyssal bottom of the lake.

Several internal conflicts arose and passed.

Ultimately, however, that struggle veered towards a different path than his previous choices.

He decided to save the child.

“I… hah, seriously.”

Even though he felt on the verge of death, his body cut through the water, descending towards the Chimera.

Dokyeom reached out and placed his hand on the Chimera’s beak, its eyes rolled back in white.

“From now on… you’ll listen to your hyung, okay?”

For the Chimera, everything must have been a second-best option. If not, then the lesser of two evils.