“| Final Wave. Begin. |”

The fifth announcement rang and Rakna grunted noncommittally, Sonata slightly steaming in his hand as its inherent heat cleaned the blade. The pair of chimeras he had just defeated, clearly twins in origin, disappeared from the ground and left the place for a surge of light much larger in size.

He frowned deeply at the sensation of power. Once again, there was a dreadful sense of familiarity, but it was doubly so with this specific one.

“Kekekeke…” A rather infuriating cackle echoed in the room as the final chimera materialized. Its overall appearance was undoubtedly far less hazardous than the others. The limbs were grafted seamlessly and it had a consistent form.

The legs and body of a werewolf, the arms of a bear, and the head of a giant rat… wearing glasses in a weirdly scholarly manner.

Rakna’s eye twitched at the features. Not to mention that, somewhere deep inside, a small part of his newfound Pride was offended by the disgusting defilement inflicted upon the race he was the emperor of.

“Kekeke, a fresh prey…” The rat head rattled its teeth as it laughed. It stared at Rakna and its eyes noticeably lit up. A forked tongue came out of its mouth to lick its lips while it readjusted its glasses at the same time. “Yes, yes, yes… I’ll defeat you, gain my freedom, and turn you into my woman!”

The disguised therian groaned silently. “Even experimental abominations like you think with their dicks in this Plateau… is it a virus?” He spat out. “Let me warn you, rat. If I see a ‘sheath’ come out, I’ll chop it off first and feed it to you.”

“Kekeke! Feisty, I see,” the rodent chuckled maddeningly before blanching completely. “…I don’t like that,” it suddenly uttered with a sinister tone. Then, in the blink of an eye, cracks formed on the floor it stood on and its claw found itself on its way to hit Rakna.

‘Fast--!’ His eyes widened under his mask and he instinctively expended one mana point to trigger an improvised version of Flash Step, since his Star Flash was unavailable to him. The bear claw phased through his afterimage and he promptly counter-attacked.

This chimera was admittedly fast. At the very least, more than what he could do without shifting into his werewolf form. But there was simply no way for him not to be able to react to it.

With the combination of his instinct, senses, Crystal Sight, and Eye of Symphony, nothing at this level was fast enough to outpace his reaction time.

‘Come back when you have a few hundred more attribute points in speed,’ Rakna snarked internally as he channeled his Internal Energy for Ripple of Rupture. He dashed behind the large chimera and swung Sonata at the back of its neck.

However, to his surprise, before he could strike, a tail moved to hit him. It was an appendage that matched the body’s head; a rat tail. Rakna grunted and used an insignificant amount of mana to step on thin air and pivot his body to dodge it.

Without wasting time, the chimera turned around to claw him while he was in midair. In response, Rakna swung his sword at the bear arm and nearly cut the hand off to deviate it. He then triggered Ripple of Rupture around his left hand and hit the chimera’s body right in one of its Focal Points.

On impact, the dimensional bonds that linked the chimera’s body together were destroyed and its lower torso suddenly had a large hole in it, opening as if it was a maw. The creature flew back from the shock and crashed against the wall.

Rakna landed on the ground afterward and for some reason, he was completely frozen as if he had seen something he couldn’t believe. “This is…” He muttered out loud as he stared at the chimera slowly standing up.

“{What’s wrong?}” Fray asked worriedly.

‘…I used Crystal Sight to target his Focal Points,’ Rakna replied solemnly as he straightened himself and watched the rat-headed creature hiss angrily, moving as if its injuries didn’t exist. ‘I saw more than I expected; I know this guy.’

“{What? You’ve met this chimera before?}”

‘Not exactly…’ Rakna replied without further explanation and the monster shouted angrily.

“What is this?! Why won’t it heal?!” It yelled as its body seemingly tried to regenerate itself. The large hole in its stomach was struggling to stitch itself but it would eventually succeed. But on the other hand, the cut Sonata had inflicted upon its arm didn’t show any trace of recovery.

“Give up,” Rakna spoke up. “It’s my weapon’s curse. It won’t heal anytime soon.”

“You…!” The rat’s face distorted for a second before it forcefully calmed itself down with a deep breath. Its uninjured claw pushed the glasses up which had not suffered even a crack. “All right, it seems my composure almost fell. It is indeed hard to control this grafted brain…”

Rakna scowled at the sudden switch in behavior. ‘Looks like my hit shook its mind a bit. It’s unstable; a human mind stuffed into a rat’s skull and linked to incompatible organs...’

“It’s just my luck that an opponent like you would be my last,” the rat huffed. “Oh well, I’ll be sure to have you pay me back with that body of yours.”

“…your last opponent, huh?” Rakna replied, without even humoring the creature’s carnality.

“Why, yes. All the Grafted of Plateau Zero get to return to the System once they have accumulated enough kills in the Arena. Kekekeke, I’m excited beyond belief,” it admitted with a maniacal laugh before stopping. “Eh? Why did I just answer?” It tilted its head blankly like a faulty machine.

Rakna didn’t say anything as Sonata sneakily vibrated in his hand. “Do you remember your name before being turned into a chimera?” He asked and the rat gave him a confused stare.

“Of course, I do…” It said then froze again. “Huh? Eh? What?” It started snapping its neck in every direction like it was experiencing some sort of internal malfunction. “Why did I answer again?”

‘The Answerer compels one to say the truth,’ Rakna thought. ‘It does more than deny the ability to lie; it forces them to speak. This guy is too weak to resist it.’

“And what’s your name?” He asked in a casual tone.

“Herts,” the chimera promptly answered and its eyes narrowed. “You are the cause; how are you doing this?”

‘As expected, it’s that bastard…’

“{Who?}” Fray interjected. “{I have never heard of this person.}”

‘It was before I met you. He’s a typical scum that was in the same batch of Hosts as me this year. He tried to get his hands on Flavia during the Initiation. I would have normally killed him but I decided to err on the side of caution due to my lack of information on the situation. And here I assumed he had died in some ditch… though, you could say this is a worse fate.’

“{…}”

“You know what? You remind me of a hateful kid. Maybe I’ll just kill you after all,” Herts suddenly said with a growl. His veins bulged and his arms began to morph into something longer; the bear claws becoming sharper and more dexterous.

“A hateful kid, huh?” Rakna almost chuckled at that. In the next instant, both of them had vanished from their respective spots. Sonata clashed with one of the arms, which surprisingly managed to resist the sword’s sharpness, with only a small cut to show and no blood to be seen.

‘Some sort of armor?’ The therian posited before stepping back as the second claw came swinging at him from the side. ‘It feels like hitting wood... He changed the composition of his body to something more durable than flesh… how? And he’s even started using Reinforcement. But why can’t I sense any mana being used?’

They exchanged dozens of blows whilst navigating the fighting area, creating more than just a few marks on the walls. Rakna had already started using Sonata’s Blood Units to boost his statistics instead of mana. It wouldn’t hurt to save as much as possible until necessary.

Triggering Ripple of Rupture around his arm, Rakna huffed and struck the chimera’s shoulder blade with his elbow. The rat let out a breathless cry and he followed up with a precise thrust of his sword into one of the visible Focal Points near its heart.

Herts’ chest quite literally imploded and he found himself lifted off the ground again. Ruthlessly, Rakna used Flash Step to appear above him, and with a leg cloaked by Rift Shuttle and ripples of ki, he kicked his neck and hooked him before slamming the chimera’s body against the floor. The material splintered and cracked under the shock, spreading to the walls.

The masked therian calmly landed on his feet afterward, Herts letting out strangled noises as he tried to push his neck and spine back in place.

“It’s enough; you will never defeat me,” Rakna stated with finality. He walked around his downed opponent and unceremoniously booted the rat’s neck back into place. A dreadful crunch echoed in the room and Herts cried out in pain.

“Aahh! You bitch!” He instantly roared, trying to stand back up, but to no avail. The attack that had torn his chest apart had been handed out by Sonata. Despite the dimensional damage diluting its effect, The Retaliator’s curse stopped him from regenerating.

“How about you answer me this?” Unbothered, Rakna loomed over the former human and Herts shuddered. “How did you find yourself in Zero?”

The rat visibly tried to hold itself back from replying, but the gap between itself and its questioner was far too big. “I-I was… fooled… After the Tutorial… we were… not invited… by any of the official Guilds… Kratos… lured us to this Plateau…!”

“And turned you into one of these ‘Grafted’ you spoke of,” Rakna nodded in understanding, he was about to ask something else when a beep resounded.

“| Competitor Ranka Valcroft, we advise you to mind your inquiries. |”

The therian smiled furtively as the woman warned him. “I see,” he said out loud and crouched next to the chimera. He clenched the rat’s skull as it thrashed about, effectively shutting its mouth.

“Well, then, I suppose I shouldn’t test my luck. I’ll simply kill you,” Rakna said as he roused his soul power and passively created a telepathic link with his enemy. “{I admit I was a bit annoyed when I had to let you go back then.}”

The chimera’s eyes dilated in confusion at that statement before it suddenly felt a gut-wrenching pain that was anything but physical.

Herts seemed to have evolved enough to stay sane and control the strange power allowing him to regenerate. But, in exchange for that, it appeared that he had regained a fully-functioning soul with said power being contained inside as one entity.

“{But luckily, you gave me a nice bit of info in return,}” Rakna added with a chuckle. “{Thank you and have fun in hell, teacher.}”

“YOU--!” The chimera widened its eyes in recognition right before its head was crushed along with the pitifully weak soul sustaining the creature's life.

“| Final Wave. Cleared. |”

Rakna stood up quietly as Herts’ corpse was quickly repatriated.

‘Kratos abducts estranged Hosts after their Tutorial,’ he thought sourly as an exit opened for him.

“{And turns them into… this,}” Fray continued for him. “{I have never seen this before. They don’t feel like normal chimeras, undead, golems, or even homunculi. It’s as if their body is randomly put together for some purpose… and then converted into a completely different kind of existence.}”

‘I have a conjecture,’ Rakna narrowed his eyes, their color flickering. ‘And I fucking hope I’m wrong.’