The Extra is a Genius!? Chapter 597: The Last Percent [I]

Shadow guided Noel downward along the mountain slope through a series of calculated bounds, each "Shadow Step" shifting him from one dark spot to another until the ridge overhead faded amid the ebony boulders. Noir remained nearby, hushed and watchful, her feet creating scarcely any noise when the landscape permitted her to dash at his side prior to vanishing into his shadow once more. The deeper they went, the more bizarre the valley appeared.

The air's density altered at the outset. It turned weightier, though distinct from the surrounding peaks. Higher on the slopes, the mana within the chain always came across as savage, agitated, pulsing with erratic vitality. Down here, it seemed stable. Aged. The hush grew thicker with each stride until the breeze itself appeared to forsake the depression ahead.

Noel touched down on the valley bottom at last, where a ghostly haze was already drifting near the earth, slithering amid the stones as if it were native to the place. The hollow extended in a lifeless expanse of dark rock and fractured structures that seemed nearly deliberate, like remnants of something ancient that had crumbled ages past.

A few of the stones jutted up at tilted positions mimicking destroyed shrines. Skeletons scattered among them, some partially covered by debris, others fully revealed beneath the faint silvery vapor.

A fractured chest cavity surpassing Noel’s stature lay beside one of the rock projections. A cranium bearing three snapped prongs rested deeper within. Ancient bones littered the area, sufficient to indicate this location had sustained some entity for an extensive period.

He selected it precisely for that purpose.

The spot was secluded sufficiently to avoid disruptions from higher elevations, and confined enough that those positioned above merely needed to monitor the entrances. Most crucially, he had already eliminated all other threats in the vicinity prior to their arrival. No additional hunter would intrude on the battle. No concealed danger would demand divided attention. Just a single beast lingered in the hollow.

A final percentage point.

Noel’s gaze swept over the valley once, gauging ranges, hidden areas, retreat paths, and advance routes. Then he halted.

'It’s here,' Noir whispered softly.

He spotted it moments afterward.

Initially, it blended with the valley terrain, a form lounging amid two shattered dark structures where the fog was densest. Then its silhouette detached from the rock. The beast possessed a sleek lion-like build, yet its dimensions felt off in a manner that unsettled the viewer. Its skin was shadowy and thick, more akin to smoothed stone than pelt, draped over a structure designed for abrupt aggression. Its visage appeared reduced to ghostly bone, skeletal and exposed, devoid of any tenderness near the jaws. Buried within that ivory framework, a pair of faint golden orbs observed him steadily without a flicker.

Its horns arched overhead in a broad forked array, ashen and fissured, expansive enough to evoke a fractured white coronet reformed unevenly. A snake-like appendage undulated lazily at its rear, elongated and sinewy, terminating in a slim maw filled with tiny fangs. Encircling its throat hovered a whitish mane that didn’t drape like locks. It wafted in lazy wisps around the creature’s neck like shredded mourning fabric held in liquid.

Noel sensed the aberration of it sink into his core.

The dragon had proclaimed its presence with clamor and power. This entity required neither. It perched in the hollow as though it had long claimed the encompassing peak as its personal burial ground.

Gradually, Noel unsheathed Revenant Fang. The edge slid out with a soft metallic sigh that echoed over the barren rock. At his side, Noir crouched a bit, her petite frame’s every fiber coiling as her concentration peaked.

Noel fixed his stare on the beast.

"This is the last one."

The Palecrown Chimera unveiled its eyes completely.

The gold within them intensified, and the haze encircling its form started to stir.

The chimera struck first.

It neither bellowed nor crouched like an animal ready to pounce. In one instant, it was motionless amid the ruined rocks, and in the next, it was racing across the hollow in a streak of shadowed sinew and ghostly vapor, its frame slicing the cloud so swiftly that sight grasped only glimpses of the advance.

Noel disappeared.

"Shadow Step."

His form melted into the closest shade and reappeared a few paces away right as the Palecrown Chimera ripped through his prior position. Debris burst under its talons. The viper tail lashed out right behind the failed charge, its slender mouth clamping through the fog at chest height before Noel could fully pivot.

Noir was darting outward rather than confronting head-on, looping around the hollow in a stealthy low sprint while hugging the mist’s borders. Her violet gaze stayed locked on the monster, yet she held back. For now.

The chimera’s horns angled.

A faint noise emanated from them.

It wasn’t a bellow, nor a drone, nor any sound pure enough to label. It resembled a tremor channeled via skeleton, a slender overbearing tone that warped the mana across the hollow for a brief instant. The fog densified right away, and the chimera’s contour divided.

Two.

Then three.

Indistinct figures surged via the pale cloud from multiple directions simultaneously.

Noel reacted without pause.

"Chain Flash." A keen streak of electricity burst from his palm and hit the closest figure, the collision immediately fracturing into forking surges that ripped across the remaining two shapes too. Two dissolved into tattered vapor. One persisted.

The true form. It bridged the gap in yet another fierce dash, horns slashing laterally as whitish moon-like mana edges launched from the gesture and cleaved the atmosphere with power enough to cleave the dark stone in their trajectory.

"Frost Wall." A solid shield of frost rose sharply between Noel and the cut. The initial arc gouged deep into the iced face before the follow-up demolished the barrier in an explosion of shards. Noel burst from the crumbling ice with his palm already pressed to the earth. "Ice Spike." Serrated spires of frost thrust skyward over the hollow’s base in a jagged row targeted at the chimera’s route.

The monster weaved amid them with eerie accuracy, its physique threading gaps that shouldn’t exist, though the magic still deviated its straight path. One shaft grazed its side. Another clashed with the snake tail and knocked it aside.

That sufficed for another probe. "Voltage Needle." A slender bolt of thunder shot from his fingertips, exact and slim, directed right at the chimera’s left orb. The beast flinched its skull sufficiently for the spike to bypass the cavity and impact one of the ashen horns, embers erupting over the pale material.

The haze surrounding the chimera throbbed outward briefly once the horn took the hit, and one of the faint duplicates faded delayed rather than immediate.

'Not just illusion.' The horns were powering it.

The chimera charged anew, nearer to the ground this time. Noel employed "Shadow Step" and surfaced behind a leaning dark boulder, but the snake tail had foreseen the direction, lancing via the fog from the unseen flank with its fangs aiming for his torso. He contorted barely enough to avoid a solid bite, yet the dentition still scraped his flank and shredded fabric. A slender sting trailed.

Noir responded at once. Her shape melted into obscurity and swelled as she charged back into the hollow in her expanded state, ebony coat elongating into an eight-meter phantom wolf veined with subtle violet glow.

She assaulted the creature’s right flank and bore down fiercely enough to divide its vigilance. The Palecrown Chimera swiveled its bony countenance her way and its horns resonated once more, the fog condensing around both figures instantly and trailing phantom traces with each shift.

Noir restrained from diving in completely and retreated a short measure instead of bounding. Had she targeted the false one, she’d have struck empty air.

Noel smeared the crimson from his flank using his hand’s reverse, sight pinned on the ghostly coronet atop the fiend’s skull. The fog wasn’t shaping the arena unaided. The horns were enhancing the warp, supplying the deceptive spots and twisting mana currents throughout the hollow until no direction felt reliable. While the coronet stayed whole, the chimera dominated the clash.