Absolute Cheater
Chapter 342 - 342: Next Gates IX

Asher crouched briefly and dipped his fingers into the murky water. Ripples spread outward—and stopped. No concentric bounce-back, no reaction from the environment. Just stillness.

Too still.

"The water's dead," he muttered. "No mana conductivity. No elemental resonance. It's been artificially nullified."

Valeris' brow furrowed. "A null-zone? That shouldn't be possible at this scale."

"It is," Veyra said, her regenerated arm still glowing faintly with residual bloodlight. "If the alchemists here harnessed soul liquefaction, they could've rendered the very spirit of this land inert. This is etheric euthanasia."

The group paused as the mists deepened, crawling higher—up to their knees now, clinging like clammy silk.

Suddenly, a low thrumming sounded from beneath the waters.

Bum—bum.

Bum—bum.

The rhythm was steady. Heartbeat-like. It pulsed through the ground… and through their bones.

Valeris stepped closer to a shattered pylon, half-submerged and inscribed with runes in a spiraling tide pattern. She reached out—and recoiled. "That's not stone anymore," she said flatly. "It's transmuted bone. Compact. Hollow. Hollow, but not empty."

Asher extended his senses. His eyes gleamed silver.

"…They're alive."

Veyra tensed. "What kind of alchemy keeps bones alive after death?"

Valeris responded, her voice low. "The forbidden kind."

They advanced in silence, navigating the drowned architecture of the Abyssal Cradle. Tower fragments rose like fractured spires, and strange seaweed-like filaments floated in the air—not in water, but the air itself, as though reality were soaked through.

And then—the gate.

It stood tall, obsidian black, pulsing with a low throb that matched the heartbeat of the water.

Ten meters high. Carved with imagery of screaming faces, krakenic spirals, and something far older. At its apex was a symbol none of them recognized—a downward-facing spiral blooming into an eye.

Veyra narrowed her gaze. "That seal is something else."

Asher studied the map in his hand, the shifting glyphs glowing faintly in response to the gate's activation. "Hmm. This dungeon boss isn't a construct or guardian. It's a sealed Chimera. According to the data, it'll be released in ten minutes."

They didn't waste time.

Veyra rolled her shoulders and loosened her stance, already drawing her glaive. Her face was unreadable—focused, calm. She didn't ask what kind of Chimera. It didn't matter.

Asher turned toward her. "This one's yours. I'll handle the aftermath."

She nodded once, short and sure.

Valeris, without a word, stepped back from the circle. She stood near the edge of the mist, watching, hands ready but not raised. This wasn't her fight.

The seal cracked.

The gate shuddered open, and steam rolled out in great waves, fog-like and thick with chemical rot. The ground shook. A low, guttural sound—like something breathing through shattered lungs—echoed from the abyss.

Then it emerged.

The Chimera crawled out on four legs, each one different. A serpent tail dragged behind it, soaked in acidic slime. Its torso twisted midsection into a jagged humanoid frame, and from its back grew two wings—one leathery, the other feathered but rotted. The heads were worse. Three of them. A lion's, a goat's, and something unrecognizable. A fleshy dome, featureless—until it opened and revealed a cluster of blinking eyes and gnashing, crablike mandibles.

It roared. The entire swamp trembled.

Veyra didn't wait.

She rushed forward, glaive cutting through the mist as she struck the lion head first, forcing it to rear back. Her footwork shifted smoothly, each step flickering like a blink, her body phasing slightly as she weaved between the beast's massive limbs.

The Chimera spun violently, its snake tail lashing out. It caught her across the back—hard. She grunted, skidding across the wet stone. She caught herself mid-slide, kicked off the ground, and slashed upward. A trail of frozen bloodlight cut through the serpent tail, severing it halfway.

The goat head retaliated, breathing out a cone of burning acid. She raised her glaive to block, coating it in layered blood essence. The acid hissed and steamed as it struck the weapon—but didn't eat through.

She shot forward again, landing a heavy blow into its side. The Chimera stumbled, but didn't fall. Instead, its body reconfigured. Bones cracked. A fourth limb burst from its chest and clawed at her mid-air.

She barely dodged.

Her glaive struck back reflexively, catching the new limb and carving it off. The monster screamed—its strange, eye-covered face shaking violently. Psychic backlash hit her mind, splitting her focus. Her stance faltered.

That was enough for the Chimera.

It slammed her with its whole body. The weight alone sent her flying into a stone pylon. It cracked from the force. She coughed—blood.

Asher didn't move. Valeris flinched, but her hands stayed lowered.

Veyra got back up.

She didn't speak. Just flicked blood off her face and advanced again.

The Chimera rushed her now, faster than before, muscles surging with a second wind. It struck low. She jumped. It struck high. She twisted mid-air, leaving behind a blood clone that exploded in a flare of frost.

It reeled back—but the lion head caught her with a bite across the thigh. She screamed and stabbed downward, glaive lodging in its neck. Then she dragged it sideways and twisted, snapping the blade free and taking the lion head with it.

Black blood sprayed out. The Chimera shrieked in pain and fury.

Still, it didn't fall.

It switched tactics, leaping back and flapping its mismatched wings. Wind and rot blasted outward. Veyra dropped low, sliding under the gale. She threw three knives made of compressed blood—they struck the goat head, one hitting the eye. It staggered.

That's when she activated Bloodflare Step.

She blinked forward three times in quick succession, each step layered with explosive force. The third strike hit the Chimera square in the chest, knocking it flat onto its back.

She pounced.

Her glaive spun in a downward arc—but the eye-face opened wide and released a beam of pure distortion.

It hit her squarely in the chest. She screamed again, flipping backward from the force.

She hit the ground hard. Smoke rose from her body.

Her armor was partially melted. Her breathing—shallow. But her grip on the glaive? Still tight.

The Chimera stood again, now breathing raggedly. Two of its heads were gone. It dripped black ichor. Its limbs trembled.

But it was still alive.

So was she.

And neither of them stepped back.

Veyra closed her eyes for half a second, muttered something under her breath—and her aura flared violently. Blood and frost exploded outward. The glaive hovered behind her, spinning in wide arcs like a signal of judgment.

She charged.

The Chimera met her halfway.

The next minute was chaos—clashes of tooth and blade, frost and bile, blood and claws. Veyra lost her footing once, took a claw to the shoulder, and her arm went limp—but she rammed her glaive through the Chimera's belly in response. It roared and bit her again. She stabbed it through the mouth.

They fought like beasts.

Not heroes. Not monsters. Just two forces trying to outlast the other.

By the end, Veyra was kneeling, glaive buried in the Chimera's spine. Her breathing was shallow. Her body, scorched and bleeding. Her armor cracked, her left eye swollen shut.

The Chimera finally stopped moving.

Its body fell to the side, the last of its heads twitching once—then going still.

Valeris approached first.

"You're a wreck," she said quietly, kneeling beside her.

"I'll heal," Veyra muttered.

Asher walked up next, looking down at the Chimera's corpse. "Took you long enough."

Veyra cracked a tired smirk. "Guess I'm not a boss-fighting speedrunner."

He didn't smile, but he did reach down and place a hand on her back. A shimmer of energy passed into her—stabilizing her pulse, calming the internal damage.

As Veyra leaned against a broken pillar, catching her breath, Asher stepped past her and approached the Chimera's corpse. His shadow stretched unnaturally across the wet ground, dark tendrils flickering at the edges like smoke underwater.

Then came the shift.

His aura deepened—dense, gravitational. The air grew cold, not from temperature, but from presence. Authority. His irises flickered with rings of gray, black, and pale violet.

Soul Reaper Monarch.

The command didn't need to be spoken aloud. The moment he raised his hand, the residual soul-energy of the Chimera began to rise like steam. It twisted, struggling to form—until Asher's will snapped into place. Three entities began to take shape.

One reaper emerged cloaked in bone-white flames—Reaper of Soul, drawn from the Chimera's fractured spirit.

Another, stitched together from the tangled nerves and raw physicality—Reaper of Body.

The last bled into view, eyes like dim stars, made of memories and instinct—Reaper of Blood.

They circled Asher once, silently, waiting for the next command.

He didn't hesitate.

"Fuse."

The three reapers began merging mid-air, writhing and collapsing inward. Their forms melted together in a swirl of dark light and channeled intent. Asher stood completely still, one hand raised, the other behind his back.

The final form solidified—a single Reaper, cloaked in liquid shadow, armored in runes. Taller than the last, thicker with essence. It stood behind Asher like a loyal executioner.

With a motion of his fingers, he dismissed it into his internal domain. It vanished instantly, joining the others.

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