The Chimera had vanished from the view of the 3 front fighters with the step, and they could only keep their guards up. Zahun was the first to notice as he felt something go by him towards the city.
"It's attacking Mary!" He yelled.
Noah reacted first and immediately got between the Chimera and Mary, looking as if he had teleported. In truth, Noah had only applied Light mana to his body. One of the ways of using mana was to use their "Concepts". Light is high-speed, so what would happen when you applied that concept to your body using mana? The result, it would make you as fast as light, but as no one had the actual mana capacity to go the speed of light, it just made you significantly faster.
That was how Noah managed to intercept the Chimera that was a whole two ranks ahead of him. Upon, arriving Noah quickly set up an earth barrier, and once again set off toward his wife. He knew the Chimera would easily get through the barrier, but it still bought him time to get to safety.
John and Zahun also set off to intercept the Chimera. John enhanced his body with air magic and Zahun propelled himself by using the earth as a slingshot. In the blink of an eye, they were on top of the Chimera and attacking. John made water bullets and sent out air blades, while Zahun disrupted the beast's footing and pierced it from underneath with spikes.
These attacks hardly did anything to the animal, as just its natural pelt was enough to disrupt them. The little damage the Chimera did take, its natural regeneration took care of. Despite John and Zahun barely doing any damage, the Chimera turned its attention to them and attacked.
The snake tail reached them first and sprayed out its venom, but they easily dodged. Immediately after, the wolf head reached them and bit down missing them by inches as they dodged.
Mary, who had reached safety at this point, shot a powerful lighting arrow at the Chimera, and it managed to pierce the skin. Upon insertion, the arrow exploded in a show of lightning and shrapnel. This managed to damage the Chimera even more and even gave it a shock.
The Chimera turned to face its aggressor but only saw Noah lunging towards its eye, sword outstretched and light mana infused throughout his body and weapon. It tried to turn away but it was too late.
Noah's sword penetrated the eyelid and blinded the chimera in its left eye. Immediately, Noah used his strongest attack yet and flooded his sword with light mana as the Chimera felt a burning sensation.
"[Divine Wrath, True Fire of Samadhi, Zeus's Lighting, Purify and burn the blight before me] (Light Purge)!" Chanted Noah, and light shone out from his sword. The Chimera roared in pain from all three of its heads.
The Chimera shook Noah off, and having used the last of his energy in this last attack, Noah flew to the ground and landed with a thud against the packed earth. Sickening cracks also rang out as his ribs broke and his right shoulder dislocated.
The Chimera lashed out with violent rage, but before any of the attacks could hit, Zahun created an earth wall and defended Noah. John redoubled his attacks sending more mana into each as he captured the beast's agro.
Major damage had been done to the beast, but it was nowhere near enough to kill it. John and Mary baited the Chimera further away from Noah as he recovered and Zahun fed him some healing pills.
John only had half his mana pool left, and Mary had only a little bit more than that. Noah had just used up the last of his mana, and Zahun wasn't much better having only a third of his mana left.
Zahun also joined the offensive against the Chimera after helping Noah to the best of his abilities. Elemental arrows, water bullets, air slashes, and earth spikes all constantly rained upon the Chimera, but it also sent out its attacks. The snake spit out flesh-dissolving venom, the goat bleated ear-splitting sounds, the wolf spat out water columns, and fire erupted wherever the lion paws stepped.
The battle seemed to be balanced at first, but the Chimera's bigger mana reserves were winning out. Something had to give if the humans were to win. John saw this and prepared to send out his biggest attack yet.
"Mary, Zahun! Cover me!" He yelled out.
"We'll be able to give you 20 seconds top." Yelled back Zahun.
"That's plenty."
John stepped back and started casting his magic as Zahun took his place. Mary bombarded the Chimera with a shower of arrows as Zahun prepared his magic. Zahun sent out a flurry of hardened earth spikes that pierced the Chimera's underbelly and manipulated the earth around its paws to destabilize it.
"[...as the passage of time progresses, water, and air shape the earth. Elements obey my command and tear down my enemy](Erosion Storm)!"
John finished casting and in the air above the Chimera water and wind gathered. Clouds were drawn in and it looked like a lightning storm that was forming just above the Chimera. Before the Chimera could even react or dodge, the full force of the cloud crashed down on the beast.
The air around it felt restrictive as if it couldn't move even if it wanted to. Breaking bones could be heard as the 100-tonne cloud fell on the beast. This final move drained all of John's mana, yet still couldn't kill the beast. Zahun had just ~100,000 points of his over 16 million mana left and Mary faired only a little better with just 200,000 mana. Although these numbers seemed high, a spell using all of the mana these two had would barely injure the Chimera. At best, with maximum mana efficiency, Mary and Zahun would be able to blow off one of the beast's limbs, but it wouldn't die.
Noah who had been recovering all this time, set off again to finish the Chimera off. Noah used all the mana he had recovered which was half a million to do one final spell. Out of nowhere, Noah appeared behind the Chimera, and once the cloud dispersed, he jumped up on top of the chimera.
Once again Noah used his ultimate spell, (Light Purge). Noah drove his sword through the body of the Chimera and reached the heart. In its last moments of life, the Chimera also summoned its final spell.
'So this is how it ends. I've lived a long and fruitful life at the very least. I hadn't really given death much thought before this, but I thought I could at least accept my mortality. I guess no matter how long you live, you can't really come to terms with death until it's right in front of your face.
Well, I have no regrets. But, even that isn't true though. I wish I could've seen Alex grow up. Maybe even see another grandchild or 2.
How will my family take my death? Alex won't even remember me. John will try to tough it out. Kathy..., well I just hope she doesn't take it too badly. And Mary, the love of my life. Promise me you'll move on. I don't want to drag you down forever.' Noah's final thoughts flowed through his head.
Massive amounts of mana came out of the beast's body and gathered above it. A massive fireball was created looking like a second sun in the sky. It then crashed down, destroying everything in its path including the Chimera that summoned it.
"Noah, No!" cried out Mary, but it was too late. The ball of fire had already consumed Noah and was about to envelope them.
Zahun used the last of his mana to create an earth wall between the 3 and the fire. After the fire died down, nothing remained but white ash.