Chaplain Beast: A 30-foot monster covered in fur from top to bottom, making it taller than the majority of the surrounding buildings here. With an elongated body, jaw, hands, and legs, it is something straight out of a horror gothic theme. It had plenty of horns protruding above its head, and it had excess skins that made it look like it had a cloak. It had three slits on its face, but only two eyes were open. Whatever this thing is, we need to bring it down fast.

  Cannon fires hit its mark, but nothing was slowing it down. It didn’t even faze it as it bounced off its body. We have no idea what its objective is, but it seems to be heading straight towards the city centre. We need to find a way to stop it in its tracks. But nothing seems to be able to pierce its thick hide. Not even Inazuma powered by Lightning Charge and Dark Slash can pierce through when it was capable of harming the Underwater Dragon King’s diamond scales with it.

  “What are we going to do? Nothing seems to be stopping this monster. Where is Peter when we need him?!” asked Rose in frustration.

  “He’s probably sorting things out in the city. Don’t forget, our daughter is with him. We need to figure things out ourselves. I have a dumb idea. Lily, follow me. Rose, you stay up here and keep a lookout for danger,” I leapt down from a building with Lily tagging along.

  “What do you have in mind?” asked Lily.

  “You remembered what you did to my wind pressure attack earlier? It literally froze any surrounding monsters that happened to be in its way. I want to see if it works on this Chaplain Beast,” I explained.

  “Uhh… alright, sure. What have we got to lose?” she shrugged.

  We stood behind the beast. It was still making its way towards the city centre for some reason. I’m amazed that it is even able to walk with those elongated hands and legs. Those are not normal appendages. Cannon shots were still being fired at its body, but it paid it no mind. For something to be tougher than dragon hide, I am tempted to flay this beast and turn it into my next cloak. Heh heh.

  “You ready?” I asked Lily.

  “I guess, hit me with what you’ve got, handsome,” smirked Lily.

  She’s enjoying this, isn’t she? I gathered power to Tengu-kaze and swung a wind pressure at her. She deflected it skilfully, but— it went the wrong way!

  “W… what are you doing?!” I shouted at her.

  “I’m not skilled at redirecting an attack, okay! I am trained to deflect, not redirect. Hit me again!” she shouted back.

  I almost chuckled at her remarks but curled my lips instead, holding back my laughter. Once again, I sent wind pressure towards her, but she only got it right on her third try. Did it work? Did we freeze the beast somehow?

  The Chaplain Beast stopped in its tracks and inspected its left hand, which was hit by our frozen wind pressure. It gripped its fist, which broke the ice that formed around it. In a span of a second, it suddenly shrieked and leapt at us. Holy shit! What’s with the sudden aggression?!

  “Get out of the way!” I shouted as I reached for safety.

  “Accelerate!” I heard Rose casting from a distance.

  The Chaplain Beast was chasing after us with aggression that I had not seen before. We need to split, or we’ll end up getting stomped on by it.

  “Split off! I’ll be the bait!” I shouted to Lily as I ran in a different direction.

  It definitely hated me as it chased after me intently, destroying any buildings obstructing its path like it was nothing just to bite or grab me. I leapt into the air as its jaw almost bit me. I pulled my cloak back, exposing my right gauntlet to charge it with lightning. I spun my body, avoiding its hands attempting to grab me. A trail of lightning followed behind me as it tried to reach my gauntlet as I ran full speed. I ran along its arm, heading closer to its face.

  I felt the impact of the lightning as it touched my gauntlet, and I roared with fury. I almost shouted “Chidori!” but sadly, it does not have the same effect. I gripped the Chaplain Beast in the face and released a point-blank Lightning Strike. That had to have done something; this was strong enough to kill the Demon Queen when she was in her first phase.

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  There was a moment of silence after I’d shocked it. Did I… kill it? That can’t be right. For something that was capable of withstanding cannon fire and my fully charged Inazuma combo, I don’t believe that it will fall that easily. Folklore creatures are in books for a reason.

  As if on cue, I swore I could hear Latin words being chanted in the background. In an instant, what I thought was a scar between its eyes turned out to be a third eye that opened vertically. A giant red eye with strange pupils and an iris was staring directly at me in the face. I started panicking and jumped as far as I could, away from the Chaplain Beast.

  It started shrieking extremely loudly, forcing me to use my hands to cover my ears. Its hands started moving towards the chest area. What’s it doing? Hang on, is it for real? It started gripping its rib cage so tightly that it was starting to bleed. What, is it going to pull out its rib cage or something?

  A loud crunching snap could be heard as what I predicted came true. The front half of its front rib cage was snapped apart as it held it up with both of its hands. W… what the hell is going on? Is it offering its rib cage to its God or something? But in doing so, it has given us an opportunity to attack its internal organs now that they’re exposed.

  The ribs started shining with blinding lights. I’m really at a loss for words as to what it’s trying to do exactly. I had to shield my eyes from the lights as I struggled to see what it was trying to do. The lights died down and the beast was no longer holding the half ribs. It seems to have wrapped around its body, providing a sort of blackish bone armour. Damn it! As though its thick hide wasn’t bad enough, now we have these obsidian bones to contend with?

  In an instant, a ray of light shot from its third eye. Wait, that’s a laser! It swung its head up, and a loud explosion could be heard afterwards. Shit! How many casualties did that attack cause? We need to take this thing down right now before it fires that damn laser again.

  I leaped closer, trying to find a vantage point, but it immediately shot its laser at me. Once again, my left hand moved on its own and cast Rend, pulling my indestructible spectral cloak from the fabric of reality into this realm. It was luck that the laser hit my spectral cloak and not anywhere else, or I would have been dismembered or outright dead. But I was still being pushed back by the strength of the laser.

  I landed some distance away from the beast but was relatively unscathed. I know who was protecting me in my time of need. Kirin and Byakko, I thank you for helping me out. But how are we going to bring this beast down? Is there anything that it’s weak to in the first place?

  From a distance, I can see ice spikes being thrown at the beast and a small white being flying around. I know full well who’s fighting the beast right now, and I need to help them. I made haste towards the beast, making full use of my time to figure out a weakness that might be possible. It felt as though I was overlooking an important piece of information here. But what could it be? Hmm… I’m gonna need Rose to figure it out with me.

  ***

  The three of us hid behind some buildings away from the Chaplain Beast. It doesn’t seem to be firing its laser now as it was fixated on finding us instead of destroying the city. Glad we’re able to occupy its interest despite being a nuisance.

  “How long are we going to fight this thing? Is there really no weakness we can exploit?” whispered Lily.

  “Nothing I’ve tried seems to be working. Not even Lightning Strike or Charge is doing any effect on it. There must be something that we’ve overlooked,” I placed my hand on my chin.

  Rose turned towards me, and I nodded. Lily was confused about what we were planning to do and was surprised when the two of us sat down with our legs crossed and our eyes closed.

  “Y… you guys! Now is not the time to be thinking!” shouted Lily with a soft tone.

  “Shhh… we're trying to think here. Give us a moment of peace, please,” I shushed her.

  What are we missing here? Let’s start from the beginning. It started with us finding the two soldiers fighting against a single monster. But… why didn’t the other monsters attack them while the other soldiers were decimated? Is it because they were fighting? I highly doubt these beasts understand what it means to fight honourably. Or perhaps they had something that the monsters didn’t like? Hang on… can it be?

  I opened my eyes, and it seemed that Rose had reached the same conclusion as me. I think there is something we can try to see whether it works.

  “Lily, can you lend me your wine?” I asked her.

  “H… huh? Are you planning to drink it? Elven wine isn’t really for human consumption, Zen,” she warned me.

  “Just lend it to me. I’ll get you another one, don’t worry,” I assured her.

  She handed me her wine, and I took out a small bottle and poured it in. She seemed to be heartbroken when she saw me pouring quite an amount into my small bottle. Then I took out some of my bandages and soaked them with the wine. This is where my lighter comes in handy. I passed her back her bottle of wine, which still had a small amount remaining.

  I lit the bandages, which were attached to the contents of the small bottle, and tossed it towards the Chaplain Beast. A makeshift molotov using Elven Wine, which had a ridiculously high percentage of alcohol in it, was going to burn really nicely. Lily had her mouth agape when she saw what I did to her precious wine. To turn her precious wine into a molotov, she must have been speechless after she saw what I just did.

  “You… you… you… Zen!! You evil monster!! That wine was precious to me! And you just turned it into a molotov?! Now I barely have any left!” she started hitting me.

  “I’ll buy you more next time, alright? High-quality ones. I promise!” I grabbed her hand to stop her from hitting me.

  Even though she was not hitting me with much force, it still kind of hurt as her strength was way above that of a normal human being.

  “It’s Elven wine, Zen. You won’t be able to purchase any as it is sacred to the elves. Sigh, I guess I’ll just have to suck it up for lending it to you in the first place. Ugh, my precious wine,” she started sobbing while stroking her flask.

  “Try me, you’ll be surprised,” I told her.

  I was more fixated on what was happening to the beast. The Molotov landed beautifully on the Chaplain Beast, and it started to shriek. But it was not the usual shriek that it did before. This was the shriek of pain. I guess it seems to be working really well. It would seem that beasts are weak against fire. It’s no wonder the two soldiers were not attacked as they were holding torches. That was probably the reason why they were still alive when we reached them.

  “Lily, we’re going to need you for this. You’re the only one that can use the fire spell. You take point and I’ll cover you,” I told her.

  “Fine, I’ll do it. And I’m going to hold onto your words about you buying me an Elven wine,” she bump-fisted her gauntlets together.

  “Rose, announce to the soldiers and adventurers that they are weak against fire. Find whatever flammable they can and throw it at the Chaplain Beast when they can. It doesn’t matter if they are unable to light it, just toss it at it and we’ll handle the rest,” I advised her.

  “Will do. Stay alive you two. I’ll cast some support spells when I can. I’ll be back soon,” she cast Sacred Wings and flew towards her objective.

  I guess it’s just the two of us again. Now that we have found its weakness, it is time for us to end this. There’s too much destruction you have caused to the city. I shall grant you the peace that you were looking for, Chaplain Beast. I shall end your suffering.

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