Chapter 1274: Chimera

「Ultimate Technique - Deva Crusher!」

「UWAAAAAAAHHHHH!」

Balfon’s scream was followed by a huge burst of light and mana. Was he trying to release a bunch of mana to weaken the power of Amanda’s whip art?

Light filled the underground room.

When it finally faded, we saw a girl collapsed on the ground with her lower body missing.

「Ah… Gah… Laran…」

She could no longer regenerate, so her blood and organs spilt out. The mortally wounded girl could do nothing but moan.

Like a shadow of her former self, clearly no longer capable of combat.

However, I felt a strange unease. What is this tension?

『Fran, finish them off!』

「Nn!」

「Fuhaha… to think I would be the one holding you back. Balfon-sama… I must apologize. It seems this is the end for us…」

Balfon’s aura changed again. Did he return to being Laranflura?

「But don’t expect my life to be cheap! Awaken now… Chimera!」

「Haaaah!」

Fran thrust my blade into Laranflura’s head, but at the same time the girl’s body swelled explosively.

Without flinching, Fran attempted to continue the thrust, infusing black lightning and flame magic. However, Laranflura’s expansion continued unabated, rapidly growing in size.

「!」

『Get back!』

Laranflura’s flesh morphed into tentacles that entwined themselves around me. It’s as if she was a slime.

And those tentacles began rapidly draining my mana.

I teleported us away to make some distance, observing the large wriggling mass of flesh that was once Laranflura. It continued expanding and morphing at an astonishing speed.

The extended flesh tentacles reached out to entwine the giant crystal, covering it from view. Moreover, they even went for the Hero Zombies and Holy Mother.

The Hero Zombies will probably be fine, but what about Maleficent? Oh, it looks like he already grabbed Persona and started running.

But the Holy Mother was in big trouble. She was already entwined with tentacles and getting pulled into the mass of flesh.

「Holy Mother!」

「Leave her! We need to worry about ourselves!」

As Sibylla says, the tentacles were flailing throughout the room. It may reduce our room for dodging, but Fran supported everyone by covering them with the Guardian Deity’s Shield. Furthermore, we had Teiwas use group teleportation to escape into the airspace above the research facility.

Even Maleficent was with us. He seems to have regained his sanity, judging by how he firmly held Persona and showed no signs of attacking us.

「O spirits of the wind! Grant us wings of soaring!」

Wilepho’s invoked spirit magic to levitate everyone. It seems he can freely use spirit magic here, after escaping the influence of the Great Spirit and giant crystal.

Stable flight of over ten people should normally be pretty difficult. He finally managed to accomplish a feat befitting a hero of the past. Urushi seems excited because having someone else fly him is a rarity.

We gazed over the research facility from above, which had already collapsed from internal pressure. Flesh tentacles were sweeping down the remaining walls.

Is this really going to keep growing? Apparently not, as the tentacles suddenly contracted like a receding wave, quickly gathering in the center of the room we were in.

The transformation took about a half a minute in all.

There stood a towering giant, having absorbed the giant crystal and the Holy Mother into itself.

The giant’s face was exactly the same as Laranflura’s. Though naked, she looked more like a mannequin than a person. This was no human, just an imitation of one.

Her height was approximately 10 meters, with white wings growing from her back. The entire body emit a divine aura, and we could see the Holy Mother embedded in her chest. Despite getting engulfed earlier, it seems she wasn’t completely absorbed.

Perhaps Laranflura released her limiter just like the other superhumans? If so, there’s no need for us to defeat her. She would die soon enough even if we do nothing.

「UROOOOOOOOOOOOOORRGH!!」

We heard a low, heavy roar, much like a kaiju, fitting for that colossal body. I felt like we might get blown away by the pressure.

「Zelyse may have been human scum, but he was a true genius! Behold, the fruits of his research! The Chimera Fusion Control experiment was a success!」

Did she just say “Chimera”? It seems her new form may be thanks to the Chimera Soul that Zelyse stole from us so long ago.

The Chimera was an artificial monster capable of razing an entire country, and said to always go berserk. And the Chimera Soul was supposedly the core for creating one.

So it seems Zelyse succeeded in controlling it.

Laranflura unleashed a massive burst of mana, but not at us.

It flew past us 20 meters to the side, so she must have missed us on purpose. However, we felt a scorching heat from the flash of reddish-black mana.

Even the shockwaves were enough to almost blow us away. Could we have defended against that if targeted directly?

I can’t say for sure. It contained that much power.

But where was she aiming then…?

I looked to see where the blast hit, and shuddered in realization. There was a mountain far to the south of us. But what lies beyond that?

The explosion came from the other side of the mountain, illuminating the mountain ridge with a light as powerful as the sun.

A split second later, a tremendous roar reached our ears.

「Fret not, I intentionally spared Alessa. But if you so much as try to run, you can kiss the city goodbye. Even if this body is fated to collapse within ten minutes, erasing Alessa will be as simple as snapping my fingers.」

Her words contained no lies. So that threat was how she planned to seal off our escape route.

「This power was originally intended for defeating the Evil God Fragments, which are on the verge of revival. I advise not underestimating me.」

「Defeat the fragments? Even though you’re the ones reviving them?」

「Hmph. We intentionally revived them before the seal by the first king was completely undone. All in order to defeat the Evil God Fragments with the power obtained from sacrificing our citizens and foreign soldiers!」

Wait, so they weren’t planning on using the Evil God Fragments to annihilate Kranzel? Unfortunately, that seems like a subject we’ll have to ponder later.

「Come at me, adventurers! I’ll turn the guardians of Kranzel into my sustenance!」