SON OF THE HERO KING

In the mortal world, Chimeras could be said to be the apex predators from birth.

Thanks to Echidna's power, <<Cursed womb>>, she had memorized the genetic information of absolutely all races and subraces in the mortal world and even obtained the information of some divine beasts.

That’s why they were called Chimera.

That’s why she was known as the mother of a thousand monsters.

No one knew why she was doing this.

Was it to gain more power?

For more resources?

Perhaps only a few people knew the truth.

At the end of the day, what mattered was that Chimeras were strong.

But, even between all those chimeras, 12 of them stood at the top.

They were known as royal chimera and each of them was represented by one of the 12 constellations.

Though their numbers dwindled quite a bit over the year and about fifteen years ago, they lost most of their numbers when they faced Mars and Lustburg. The cancer constellation, in particular, having been killed by Lilith.

What made Atch so startled at the sight of Nuwa was that, aside from Sechs, all the other royal chimera were supposed to be dead or sealed with Echidna.

What’s more,

‘A snake?’

Aside from Echidna herself, none of the other royal chimeras had snake traits.

‘I should abort the mission.’

He immediately decided to give up and flee.

All dwarves were cowards at heart. The first thing they learned before being taught how to fight or how to make money was how to flee.

In this world where dwarves' sole talent was their metallurgy skills, there had been many instances where the entire race had been treated as slaves by the others.

That's why fleeing when the odds were against them was the most important lesson they learned.

Atch, had a clear code of conduct, 'Be fearless in front of the weak and fearful in front of the strong.'

Facing a royal was no joke. He didn’t have fake bodies like Drei and he didn’t wish to be resurrected as some kind of mindless zombie either.

But, just as he was about to step back, he suddenly frowned,

“You...Why are you so weak?”

Every time he faced Funf, he felt like he was standing next to an immeasurable mountain.

As a royal chimera, even if that girl wasn’t as powerful, she should still be at the Duke level at least.

He decided to probe a little and shot three bullets in quick succession. Two towards Lilin who was trying to sneak up to him and one toward the silver-haired girl.

Even though Nuwa could clearly see the bullet, she was unable to properly react and could only use her hand to protect her face.

Finally, under the worried gaze of Lilin, the bullet collided with Nuwa’s hand.

The result?

*Clang*

“The fuck!?”

Seeing the surprising result, he immediately took five steps backward before using the cover of a building to vanish from their line of sight in order to more carefully observe the situation.

Watching him vanish like this, Lilin who felt a little tired, decided to check on Nuwa,

“Are you alright?”

Lilin couldn’t help but ask. She had watched how Nuwa stopped the bullet and even now she was still completely astonished.

“I am not. It hurts. I don’t like pain.”

Nuwa frowned while massaging her hand. On the zone of impact, aside from some skin's bruise and a streak of blood, there were no other damages.

Seeing this, Lilin could only click her tongue. Then finally asked, “What was his deal, again? Royal chimera?”

Nuwa shook her head, “I do not know. I only know that Theresa stole my egg in the royal palace while fleeing.”

“I see.”

Lilin nodded before giving her back to Nuwa once again and taking her stance.

“You aren’t scared?”

Even though she wasn’t a fighter, she understood what it meant to give your back to someone during a fight.

She couldn’t help but feel a little emotional.

“Why should I be? Mother trained me to be omnidirectional. If you try anything fishy, trust me, no matter how tough your skin is, I will still bisect you.”

And like that, all those emotions vanished, “You are quite honest about killing me.”

“You were also honest about ditching me and running away.”

The two shared a look before chuckling a little,

“Anyway, I know your body is strong. But you should use reinforcement. Otherwise, you are going to die.”

Nuwa frowned, she didn’t know how to use reinforcement. But it shouldn’t be hard right? it was just about circulating mana in the body, wasn’t it?

“So, could you beat him?” She decided to ask the most important question.

Lilin sighed, ‘I have one technique, but I still didn’t perfect it and I need time to use it.”

“I see.”

Nuwa simply nodded and didn’t continue.

----

Standing on a building and observing his two targets, Atch began to reassess the situation.

The princess had been able to cut his normal bullet perfectly, but the chimera wasn’t even able to react. Though it seemed that her body was extremely sturdy.

Still, this didn’t matter. After all, he was now sure of one thing,

“She doesn’t know how to fight.”

A large grin split his face.

“Hahaha, this is gonna be fucking interesting. I wonder how Funf will react if I bring back the dead body of her sibling.”

Thinking about that crazy psycho, his smile wavered a little, “Yeah, let’s not kill that girl.”

After all, he knew how fanatical Funf was about Echidna. If she were to learn that he killed what was most likely a direct sibling of her, he was sure that she would kill him even if she had to betray the Wings of Freedom.

Still, even then he wasn’t worried. The girl might be weak, but her body seemed to be quite freaky.

The bullet she took on without any mana protection was only a little less powerful than the one that took down the wyvern.

“This is going to be fun.”

Saying so, he touched his ring and nine rifles appeared before floating on the air under his control.

Each of those rifles were made to hold more than 6 bullets at the same time. Though there was a slight delay in the reload time, he was pretty sure that it wouldn’t be a problem.

<<Zone: Mind Eyes>>

At that instant, his eyes emitted a golden shade as the world around him began to change.

Zones could appear in all kinds of shapes and effects.

Some zones only affected the users, while others affected the surrounding, or simply created another effect altogether.

The zone of Atch was born from his understanding of what was supposed to be a sniper and his own nature.

The effects weren’t offensively oriented like Lilith’s Zone, nor was it a buff type like Tyr’s zone.

Rather, it allowed him to amass an incredibly large amount of information and create a map of his surroundings in his own mind. The increase in perception allowed him to process that information at a speed hundred times faster than normal.

Thanks to this, as long as his target was in his zone, he did not have to ‘see’ them and could shoot them from anywhere without even showing himself.

This was without a doubt the perfect skill for a coward at heart like him.

But Atch never cared. Ever since he escaped from the slums of Greed Dike, he always kept this truth in mind.

“Better be a coward alive, than a dead hero.”

Murmuring so, two rifles settled in his hands while the seven others formed a circle around him and aimed at the wall.

Waves of mana began to enter the rifle as they slowly charged,

<<Super charge>>

*BOOM*

The wall was literally blasted open as seven out of the nine bullets rushed toward Lilin while the last two targeted Nuwa.

Atch had already determined that Lilin was both the strongest and the weakest in this team.

The moment those bullets entered her domain, Lilin immediately knew that those were at a completely different level and that it would be impossible for them to dodge all of them.

‘I need to make some sacrifices.’

Moving her sword and body in a flurry of movements, she managed to cut three bullets with great difficulty and avoided two others who lightly grazed her forehead and her cheek, causing her to bleed lightly. She angled herself so that the last two wounded her in non-lethal parts of her body.

Blood splashed as the last two bullets tore open her reinforcement and traversed her body like butter.

*Cough* *Cough*

Despite grimacing a little because of the pain, she still managed to stay steady and not lose her stance as she readied herself for the next attack.

“Haha, the training of that shitty mother always comes handy in situations like this.”

She was already used to receiving bone-breaking pain long ago. Compared to her training, her current wounds were nothing.

Still, even though she was laughing, no joy could be seen in her eyes.

The current situation was incredibly unfavorable for them.

Not only was cutting bullets that moved at the supersonic speed not an easy task, but when you added her new wounds, she would most likely bleed out and die because of the effort rather than the enemy itself.

She had never felt so frustrated. She understood now why her mother’s zone allowed her to attack from a distance. Fighting against long-ranged enemies was really a pain.

“If only Clara was here.”

Her elf friend wasn’t the strongest, but she was a competent archer.

Thinking so, her focus couldn’t help but falter for a short instant. An instant that Atch did not miss.

*BOOM*

This time, the whole nine bullets were focused on her, and she had no time to defend.

At that instant, as she saw the bullet approach her, she understood that she had absolutely no way to defend herself.

Her heart felt bitter at the realization that she would die in such a stupid way.

‘To think that I didn’t even manage to lose my virginity.’

Chuckling, she was about to give up when a blur went past her before standing in front of her, arms wide open.

“Nuwa!”

Sanding in front of her was Nuwa.

Her white maid’s clothes were dyed red and Linlin could see her falter a little bit before standing proud and tall.

“Hehe, as I thought, reinforcement isn’t that hard *Cough* * Cough* Though, it really hurts a lot.”

“Nuwa! Why!?”

Lilin screamed, she couldn’t understand.

Even for Nuwa, taking those nine bullets head-on wasn’t something easy. She could have very well died, rather, she should already be at death’s doorstep.

Turning her head to face Lilin, Nuwa gave a smile full of blood as said in her usual calm voice,

“I told you, right? That I would serve as a shield if necessary.”

Lilith’s eyes shook and she bit her lips so hard that blood was drawn.

It’s said that only in moments of adversities could you distinguish your true friends.

How could she allow her near-sacrifice to go to waste?

Gritting her teeth, Lilin lowered her center of gravity and tightened her grip on the handle of the sword.

Unbeknownst to her, her aura began to condense while her pupils slowly began to change from the normal round form to a more slitted one, akin to that of a demon.

All her senses were extended and amplified.

She could feel everything in her body, from her heartbeats to the circulation of her blood. The rise and fall of her chest, the rustle of the wind on her skin.

In this moment of extreme tension, she suddenly felt herself becoming incredibly calm and detached from everything.

<<Zone: One with the World.>>

All her life, she had been compared to her mother and always been left wanting.

All her life, she had followed in the footsteps of her mother and had always been dissatisfied.

That was why, slowly, as a sign of rebellion, she began to search for things that could differentiate her from her mother.

That was why, rather than following the fighting style of her mother, she had begun to seek her way.

The very moment she heard the gunshot, she moved.

She neither moved at an incredible speed nor acted so fast she became invisible to the eyes.

All she did was take one step.

“One step to reach the speed of sound…”

As a close ranger fighter, she at first chased pure speed.

“...Two steps to go beyond sound…”

But she soon gave up. After all, no matter how fast she wished to move, she would always be limited in a certain. Then, why should she run?

“...Three steps to go beyond space.”

After all, if the problem was the distance between her and her enemy, all she needed to do was to erase that very distance.

<< Re-Immortal Slaying Technique: Zero Distance.>>

In three steps.

Three simple steps,

She covered a distance of hundreds of meters and stood in front of Atch, and swung her sword with all her might.

A fountain of blood sprayed the wall.

---

(AN: One more chapter and we go back to Sol. Hope you liked the little display of Lilith and Lilin. As well as the others)