“Well, I feel a lot better. Not sure about you though, are you still with me?” Chimera said with a smirk as the young scalekin commander of this mining operation, who was twitching from her own cocktail of truth serum and toxins.
“Rehtbedfdddf.”
“Hmm, still here but unresponsive.”
Chimera placed her with the other napping enemies, wrapping them all thoroughly with an adhesive that she had made for her star ship pods.
Needless to say, unless they had access to a potent acid, no one was breaking out of that stuff.
Which was good, because from what Chimera just learned, she didn’t need to worry about these people chasing after her.
A processing center, a place where people get indoctrinated to follow this ‘Verdant Goddess’ the Hood is obsessed with. With that strange cocktail and pheromones, it's likely that they have a large amount of followers already.
Chimera walked deeper into the cavern, the open area slowly shrinking down to a track that held only a small opening, big enough for the cart she was moving to sit into.
With a crank of her tendril, the brake on the minecart released as she slowly began to move forward.
Can I help them?
Chimera felt her mind shift to the images of euphoria that she gleaned from the serpent people, the ones on her own ship, The Meras, painting a very bad looking scene.
I got to try, that’s all I can do.
The cavern darkened, no light began to show after a minute on the track, and it took Chimera a moment to generate some light of her own just so she could make her way forward.
Lights covered the cavern ceiling, a fungus that lined the walls with an eerie green.
Her red light in contrast gave her a deeper look inside, spreading out her senses to cover the walls and floor.
Tinged in red, she could make out the shape of elfish bodies lining the walls and ground in rows. They all wore looks of intense worship, eyes glazed over in a manic light with drool slowly dribbling down their mouths.
None of them were lucid, and most of the people were simply praying in a sing-song way, oblivious to their terrible circumstances.
Chimera had already seen something similar, but in those few eyes she met, she recalled a certain scientist she had failed to save, who had also been abducted by a person with a god complex.
If there’s a god out there that condones this, I’ll punch them in the face, I swear it.
Chimera slowed her cart, checking the vitals of the people she could reach, and doing her best to treat them. She would then add them to her cart, connecting them in a small train so the people could lay on the carts. This took some time, but after a half hour, most of the people were lined up on the carts, asleep and restful.
It gave her small comfort to know she had helped these people, as for everyone she placed on the cart, another two or three lay dead on the cave’s floor.
Some were even children, which only caused her heart to feel cut at the serene, cold faces of the deceased.
Still she gathered those bodies as well, placing them within her to prevent their decay.
I’m sorry I wasn’t faster… but I’ll make sure those that know you will get to see you one last time.
With the last of the men and women placed in the pseudo train cart, Chimera made her way to the structure in the cavern.
So far she had yet to see another of the Verdant Hood, and with the noise that she had made in the cavern nearby, Chimera had assumed someone would have gone to check on it.
Her question came to why, why was she not being bombarded by reinforcements?
Her answer came when she entered the pyramid like structure, the door sliding to the side with an audible click and hiss.
Chimera peered inside.
What the hell?!
Inside the pyramid, a large chamber decorated with green glowing sigils illuminated a cage filled with calcified bodies. Earthen faces of people with knife-like ears stared forward, their eyes forever glassy and dead.
Chimera felt her rage start to bubble.
Inside the chamber was over hundreds of bodies, all turned to white chalky stone.
It was clearly some kind of experiment, as the gear around the center chamber was indicative of scientific study, so far as she could tell. It reminded her of the chamber below the fighting arena back on Asta, a lab made to test things that no one should know about.
That's what this felt like to Chimera, a cover up, a way to hide the truth of whatever these sick monsters were trying to do.
But she got here, she was close by and with enough time, this place would tell her what she wanted to know.
She rushed to the equipment.
Only for a spear to lance out and strike her.
Shing!
Chimera moved to block, only for the spear to dance around her and stab her arm.
“AGH!”
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.
The glowing green tip seared off her arm with a thump, and the spear made another move to assault her with its razor-like glowing teeth.
Chimera jumped back, bouncing over the spear and landing on the other end of the chamber.
With distance achieved, she scanned the environment for her enemy, her eyes, senses, and even her magic flooding the room with a density only she could feel.
There!
Chimera quickly turned her stump of a right arm into a tendril with jagged hooks, grabbing at the body of the spear and the hidden assailant behind it.
She pulled back, pulling the spear upward and out of the serpent-kin’s hand.
Not that he appeared to need it, as his claws glowed with that same green energy, moving to swipe at her just as she caught the spear in her hands.
She tried to move, but the claws were faster, slicing into her flesh and leaving scorched burnt marks all over her body.
Pain, so much pain shot through her mind that it almost seemed impossible.
Why? I shouldn’t be in pain… I don’t have any nerves in this form and my body is able to absorb heat enough to prevent burns from lasers or gas. Just what is that energy?
Chimera moved to use the spear, her body contorting around the strikes and stabbing forward with tendrils whenever she could.
None of it mattered to the assailant, who dodged with equal grace and strange contortions of his own. He only peered at Chimera with a bored expression, using occasional strikes to keep her in check as she desperately tried to find an opening.
“You,” he growled, a slither to his accent, “are not like those weaklings. Who are you?”
Chimera ignored his question, moving to use a spinnerette punch to attack him from multiple sides. They connected, but only seemed to impact a steel wall with how much of a response he showed.
“Interesting, a biology that would suggest amorphous properties. Perhaps a bio-weapon of those knife-eared fools.”
“Did you do this? Did you kill those people?” Chimera found herself asking, as she tried to attack again, only for his arms to block her strikes.
“The petrification is not my doing, but my associate has rather morbid tastes when it comes to asset removal.” The serpent-kin spoke with a tone that made Chimera’s anger boil.
Like it had nothing to do with him, or that he simply didn’t care that civilians were turned into that.
“I’ll make you all pay for this. War is one thing, but what the hell did these people do to deserve this?! They were miners, innocents!” She screamed, her need for an answer stopping her attack for a moment.
This wasn’t lost on the male serpent-kin, who widened his eyes at her response.
“The enemy is the enemy. It matters not if they hold a lance, or build a starship. An Empire like these fools claim to have, is all responsible for the war. You ask me how I can do this?”
The serpent-kin waved his arm over them all, “their mining helps build the weapons that kill my sisters. They may not hold a sword or spear, but they are deadly all the same.”
“Bullshit! These people did nothing to you!” Chimera lashed out again, whips of spiked tendrils aiming to gouge or wrap around the arms of the taller beast man.
The tendrils could not find purchase however, and simply slid off of his arms and legs with a slip.
“I do not expect you to understand, nor do I wish for your forgiveness. After all, a dead enemy ensures that my people live to see another day. I do not share your na?ve thoughts and never will. Only a fool believes in good and evil when war is raging.”
The serpent man’s body erupted in glowing green energy, blasting outward in a nova that destroyed everything it touched.
Chimera, caught in the blast as she tried to avoid it, was sent flying through the wall of the pyramid structure, smashing against the wall of the cavern, right next to her cart.
She pushed herself up, only to feel her left arm fall to the side, sliced off by the power of the nova blast.
I… I can’t beat him?
Chimera felt a chill as she watched the monstrous Hoodian slowly make his way towards her.
No… the people!
With a twist of her body, Chimera activated the cart, releasing the brake as it slowly started to trudge down the track towards the surface. Using her legs, she hopped on the last cart of the train, turning to face the serpent man that seemed to realize her plan.
“You will not get away from me!” he roared, his spear flying towards his hand as he once more coated his body in that ethereal green energy. His speed increased exponentially, to the point where even as the cart reached top speed, the Hoodian wasn’t too far behind.
Damnit, he’ll catch up if I do nothing!
Chimera shifted her limbless arms, placing them against the edge of her cart as an idea formed in her head.
Her arms shifted, spines and rocks that she picked up along the way filled her arms like cargo containers, barely kept inside by her tension.
With a bit of gravity magic, and an explosive force of magical might, Chimera began to fire back at the speeding serpent man, peppering him with an assortment of spines, rocks and any garbage she had left in her storage bag deep within her.
The attacks didn’t pierce the green glowing energy, but the rocks she fired would cause him to try and deflect the massive pieces, or slice them with his energy spear, which bought Chimera valuable distance as she started using bigger and heavy ordinance.
Fear and desperation mixed into Chimera as she tried to find a way to stop the angry green bullet train that wouldn’t stop.
She even tried to mix in some of the spines she used to knock out the other members, but the aura that surrounded him seemed to not only boost his abilities, but protect him from her attacks.
Nothing was working, and it was only a matter of time before he reached her.
The look of horror on the petrified remains of the people in the pyramid etched a resolve into Chimera.
She began to tap into her druidic magic once more, the barely understood incantations resonating with her desperation.
Bring me shelter….
Her own green glow began to form.
Save those in need.
She began to hum with the vibrant pulse she felt within herself.
Show your might.
Energy began to cascade off of her, and for a moment Chimera could feel all the lifeforce around her respond to her frantic call.
Please help me!
The lifeforce responded, and a wall of lava burst forth from the side of the nearest tunnel to flood behind her train. A growl of outrage was all Chimera could make out before the tunnel she just came from became engulfed in molten rock.
She sat back on the floor of her cart as she stared back at the red wall, watching it slowly chase the cart for a bit, only to slow down after a few hundred feet.
The cart began to circle, making its way up the cavern entrance that she originally came from, and slowly but surely making its way to the surface.
Chimera couldn’t relax though, as she relived the fight she had with the male serpentkin.
I was no match for that power, even with all my gifts I couldn’t break throught that green aura of his. I can’t be complacent anymore, I need more power. More DNA to use and splice.
As the cart made its way up Chimera contemplated, her worries darkening her thoughts in a shade of green light.
Then the wall of the cavern broke open, and along came a flood of magma that carried a green clad serpent man, rage and power coming off of him in waves.
What the absolute fuck?!
…
