At this point, I got up and ran. Not towards the village, of course; I was not a coward. Instead, I ran towards the fallen gun which was laying on the ground around five feet in front of me. I was not even sure if I could use it, but I had to try something.
The moment I got up however, the Chimera snapped its head towards me. A small ball of fire flew out of its open mouth and straight towards me. I immediately dove for the gun, barely grabbing it as the fireball exploded a foot behind me, knocking me forwards several feet.
My legs were covered in severe burns up till my knees, where the burn marks were significantly less pronounced. It still hurts a lot!
I pointed the gun at the Chimera, and channeled the mana through the crystal, firing a bullet straight at the beast. Oh my God, it actually worked!
The bullet struck the Chimera on the chest, and hardly seemed to faze it. A second struck it in the face where Adrian hit it before, drawing more blood, and a third went over its head. Oh yeah, recoil.
I immediately adjusted my aim, and shot a bullet at the Chimera’s face. As I did that, the Chimera opened its mouth wide and fire began building up on its gaping maw. Luckily for me, the bullet went into its open mouth, and struck the fireball before it shot out, causing it to explode on the Chimera’s face.
Unlike the mana bullets, where each seemed to do as much damage as a paper cut, the explosion of its own fireball seemed to actually hurt the Chimera. It reeled back in pain from the explosion and dropped Adrian from its tail. I pelted it with more shots as this happened.
With its now free tail, the Chimera lashed out at where I was laying. It tried to pull me towards it. But I rolled out of the way of the tail, and prepared for the follow up strike by pushing myself to the side. This saved me from being hit by the leaping claw attack which immobilized Adrian.
The Chimera then pulled back its other claw, loading it for an uppercut-like swing to my still downed body. I propelled myself off the ground with both hands, took a step back as I leaned out of the strike, just dodging it. Unfortunately however, I completely forgot that my legs were badly burnt.
The excruciating pain from standing up was numbed by the adrenaline, but it did not fix my wounds. So as I tried to dodge the Chimera’s next swing, all I did was stagger on the spot.
The Monster’s claw connected straight to my chest, drawing lots of blood, and was immediately followed up by another strike that knocked me prone on the ground. It pinned me on the floor with its claws, digging even deeper into my flesh.
I screamed as the Chimera snarled at me, digging further into my skin as it pressed me on the ground. Huh, didn’t know Humans could bleed that much, the casual thought crossed my mind.
To be honest, I did not really care if I died. I’ve already died once to some stupid jerk fake god for some stupid jerk fake reason, so dying to some monster wouldn’t make much of a difference to me. My life in this world never once mattered to me.
And yet, if I did die, I knew that my mom would get really sad, and I didn't want that; I didn't want my mom to blame herself for my death, thinking that I could have survived if she didn't refuse to teach me magic a couple months ago. So, gathering all my strength, I attempted to lift my right arm up.
I may not have learned magic, but I did learn how to use mana tools, and I was going to put everything I learned to survive. The Chimera saw me move my arm, saw how I was struggling to even lift my hand, let alone the gun held in it. It was quite clearly intelligent, since it quite clearly taunted Adrian earlier, and was doing the same thing now to me with what appeared to be a smile— a terrifying and toothy smile— as it seemingly took pleasure in his suffering.
Smarter than I thought.
Slowly, I began to grab the mana inside the gun as I lifted it up. The Chimera already knew that mana bullets wouldn’t be able to kill it, so it simply just pressed harder into my chest to inflict more pain. The pain seemed to give me the necessary push to jerk my arm up and towards the Chimera.
But…
Thinking that I was going to shoot it again, it decided that it had enough fun hurting me, and moved its maw forward towards my head to finish me off. At the same time, powered only by adrenaline, I moved the pistol towards the Chimera’s open mouth.
With all of my remaining strength, I shoved the gun straight inside of it, while I simultaneously felt myself shoving all of the mana inside the gun’s mana crystal at once. The Chimera immediately jerked back and closed its mouth, but it was already too late.
The gun was inside the Monster, and its mana crystal was overloaded. Less than a split second after I let go of the weapon, an explosion blew me 20 feet away from where I was lying.
I saw my right arm flying far past me as my limp body slid to a stop on the hard dirt. The rest of me managed to remain intact, only because the Chimera’s massive claws that pinned me down ended up protecting me from the explosion.
The Chimera however, wasn’t so lucky. Its head exploded into a thousand pieces, and its two front legs were blown off
