Lue stepped forward to observe the monster amidst the clouds of white ash. Wind thrashed Lue's red cape as his gaze unwavered in its resolve.
In the middle of the partially dead forest, only Lue, the cloaked figure, and the monster stood alive. And Mytri is far away, somewhere stuck in the forest.
"This is Triad, and he will kill you." The cloaked man was wrapped from head to toe in pitch-black material.
"Are you sure about that? How can I lose?" Lue said.
Keeping his eyes on Triad, a strange feeling arose in his chest. It's a tight, gripping feeling.
Triad stood on thick, powerful legs that held his thin waist and broad shoulders. In front of his body hung two arms, and above them sat three heads—skulls, really, with muscle connecting them. On his back, two more arms lay waiting, perfectly poised to strike.
Behind him, a tail pointed directly at Lue.
"What is that?" Lue asked.
"A chimera, in a sense,"
"Why… would you…" Lue gritted his teeth. "How could you do such a thing!?"
Triad slowly walked forward towards him as the man behind words echoed, "Angry? Why? It's blessed to be in this form."
Lue blinked, and as he opened his eyes, he was flying through the air as he rotated; pain struck him in the side. "What… happened?"
"This speed… I couldn't see it," Lue thought.
"The Chimera is a beautiful creation. It is a combination of three people, each possessing one of three perfect traits: speed, strength, and agility." The cloaked figure said while slowly stepping back to admire the battle, " No single person can possess all three, only one. Therefore, by combining them, we create a chimera. It is perfect. It is beautiful."
"The chimera will bring my mission forward by years!"
Triad stepped forward and flew towards Lue. He ran, but his feet barely touched the ground, each step covering yards as if the world had loosened its grip on him.
All four arms drew back at once, then he lunged. The first punch landed. Then another. Then three more before Lue could even react. Punches connected again and again, so fast that a punch hit and another came without even any reaction.
After fifty-five punches, the combined force finally sent Lue hurtling through the air. A whistle echoed as Lue crashed into the ground. Slamming off the ground for seconds until he stopped, lying on the ground as he coughed blood.
"What is this?" Lue coughed relentlessly as he gripped his side. "This is…UGH!"
"I get it…" Lue slowly stood up, gripping his side. He slashed diagonally to deflect the attack of the Triad. "I just need to predict it…"
"Heh, you're something… Don't fret, It won't stop me!"
"I will free you. You will finally leave for the paradise."
Exhaling, Lue gripped tightly the hilt of his sword and consistently slashed, blocking Triad's attacks.
Each attack caused the sword to vibrate, making it utterly uncomfortable to hold. But the pain was unnecessary, distracting at the very least.
Triad slammed its foot into the ground as he punched upward with its two right arms, sending Lue soaring through the air, into the clouds.
Watching as he disappeared, Triad reached into the middle head's mouth and gripped something. Slowly it ripped the second head out of the body. With a spine alongside it.
He held the revealed sword—sharp, wet, terrible—at his side as he searched for Lue through the clouds.
***
Amidst the clouds Lue soared through the air, "I misjudged the whole situation! In no way can I deal with him by myself without losing something!" Lue said,
"I have to do something… At this point I will die!"
Wind thrashed past his ear, hurting his eardrums, like a hurricane.
"I can't die; she is still waiting! I promised her."
"I need to run! How? Where?"
"Run?" Lue muttered to himself as a realization hit the back of his head hard, like a whiplash.
"What am I doing? I can't leave Triad the way it is. Their souls are trapped within one body; it's pure agony to be melted together,"
"I'm a failure; Theo was right… I do hesitate when it mattered most… was this what he meant?"
"I will prove you wrong, Theo! I won't leave him be…!" As Lue emerged out of the clouds, pain shot down his spine as he instinctively slashed at the air, expecting an attack. And an attack it was.
The clouds split in half; as far as an eye could see, the clouds were split.
Lue's sword crumbled to thousands of shards while Lue himself was propelled far into a black sky. The vast expanses of the blue skies turned black as he struggled to breathe.
Lue looked down, and with shock he was amazed by what he saw; he held his breath. "It's the whole continent!" he thought.
As soon as he finished his thought, he began falling at an unprecedented speed. A blanket of red fire overlapped him as he fell to the ground, and a massive explosion devastated the whole forest within hearing distance.
Triad slowly emerged out of debris, his sword crumbled to pieces, and his bottom left arm was ripped out of his body. But there was no blood seeping through the wound.
The cloaked figure was unharmed, standing afar and ever watching
But Lue wasn't in the best shape. He dug through the debris, and his bloodied armour punched through the ground. A gurgling sound echoed from within the armour as it escaped slowly.
"I… will not… give up!" Lue's voice gurgled as he slowly emerged from the debris.