(Narrator POV – Year: 1980)

Location: Southern Asia – Site 22, Project Chimera

The year was 1980. Far from the crowded cities of Southern Asia, hidden beneath layers of earth and concrete, there stood a fortress that never appeared on any map. The world did not know it existed. The few who did whispered a single name—Site 22.

Its purpose was ambitious, almost divine in its madness: to create a new breed of human. Not merely stronger, not merely smarter, but something beyond both. A species born with the intelligence of mankind and the raw strength of beasts. They called it Project Chimera.

But the dream demanded sacrifices.

At first, they began with the unwanted—prisoners, the poor, the forgotten. Their bodies filled the laboratories, their blood stained the floors, and when they broke, they were discarded like failed experiments. Yet, even that was not enough.

The project needed more.

More bodies. More wombs. More children.

When the supply began to run dry, desperation drove the scientists to make a darker choice. They turned to the only allies who did not fear screams or shy away from suffering.

Demons.

Once inside Site 22, the contractors made themselves at home. To them, pain was not an obstacle—it was a resource. They did not flinch at the stench of blood, nor recoil from the cries of the dying. Where men hesitated, demons thrived.

The laboratories became a house of horrors. Women were chained to steel beds, their wombs twisted into vessels for unnatural seed. Some screamed until their voices shattered; others simply slipped into silence, their eyes blank long before their last breath.

Children fared no better. Some were grown in glass vats, their tiny forms twitching inside crimson fluid. Others were born only to be reshaped, their fragile bodies forced into something unrecognizable.

What had once been a research facility no longer resembled science at all. The deeper one walked into Site 22, the less it looked like a laboratory and the more it felt like a shrine. Not to progress. Not to knowledge.

But to cruelty.

And in that shrine, Project Chimera was taking its first breath.

Everything was spiraling out of control.

The scientists of Site 22—once men of vision and ambition—had long drowned themselves in madness. Their white coats were no longer symbols of knowledge, but butcher's aprons, stained with blood that refused to wash away. What they called "research" had rotted into something unrecognizable, a carnival of cruelty where screams replaced applause and corpses became the only record of progress.

They carved flesh with steady hands, spliced organs with clinical precision, and injected poison in the name of creation. They no longer hesitated. The suffering of their subjects was nothing more than background noise to their obsession.

And they were not alone.

The laboratories crawled with demons. Twenty of them haunted the corridors, their claws dragging against steel, their grins stretching wider with every cry of pain. They were wardens, ensuring no subject ever escaped. Outside, more of their kin prowled the wilderness, snatching women and children from the shadows of villages and alleys. Every captured body was dragged back in chains, destined to become fuel for Project Chimera.

The nightmare felt unstoppable. A machine of horror too vast for any mortal hand to tear down.

Until she came.

Sara Venom.

A name that dripped with blood and legend. A vampire who owed nothing to humanity, who cared little for the fragile lives of mortals. And yet, there was one thing she hated more than anything else—demons. Where others looked at them and saw power, she saw only decay. Where others feared them, she sharpened her fangs.

Sara did not come alone. Behind her marched a clandestine order of hunters—men and women who had dedicated their lives to opposing the rise of demon contractors. Their creed was grim but effective: kill the humans who bargained with demons. For to face a demon directly was suicide. Even the greatest hunter had only a thirty percent chance of survival in such a fight.

It was cruel arithmetic. But it was the only strategy that worked.

For everyone else.

Not for Sara.

She did not stalk contractors. She did not settle for odds. Wherever she walked, demons fell. One by one, their bodies burned to ash beneath her blade and fangs. The halls that once echoed with human screams now thundered with the dying shrieks of monsters.

By the time the night bled into silence, Site 22 was no more.

The laboratories lay in ruin—glass chambers shattered, machines twisted and crushed under the weight of Sara's wrath. Flames licked the broken walls, casting long shadows over the wreckage. She had cut down demons and their human masters alike, every one of them falling to her sword and fangs until the air itself stank of smoke, iron, and death.

The screams that had once filled those halls were gone. In their place lingered only the heavy, uneasy quiet of aftermath.

Dozens of women and children were freed that night. Many stumbled barefoot into the arms of the Agency Guards waiting outside, collapsing in sobs of disbelief. Others wept silently, clinging to life as though they had only just remembered how to breathe. For them, the nightmare had ended.

But in one forgotten chamber, Sara found something different.

The figure huddled in the corner was not an ordinary child. At first glance, it looked like a beast—muscles taut beneath tawny skin, claws half-buried in the dirt, a mane of golden hair wild and tangled, framing her shoulders like a lion's crown. Yet when the girl raised her head, Sara froze.

The face was human.

Eyes wide and trembling. Lips parted as if she wanted to speak, but had never learned how.

Sara knew instantly what she was seeing. She had encountered such beings before—not in this world, but in her own. A beastkin. A half-human, half-animal race known for their strength and primal spirit. In her homeland, they were a proud people—warriors, hunters, free. But here, on Earth, their existence should have been impossible.

And yet… humanity had done it.

The girl stared at Sara, a strange mix of defiance and fear burning behind those golden eyes. She was neither monster nor human, a fragile proof that something unnatural had been born in this place.

Sara's hand tightened around her sword. There were two paths before her.

The merciful choice: a swift, painless end—freedom from a life of chains and pursuit.

The lawful choice: to hand her over to the authorities, let them study her, cage her, dissect her.

Sara did neither.

She stepped forward, lowering her weapon. Her voice was calm, almost gentle.

"No… I'll choose for myself."

Kneeling before the girl, she placed a hand on the trembling mane, the gesture both fierce and protective.

"From now on," Sara said softly, "you belong to me. I'll raise you, protect you… you'll be my daughter."

The girl blinked—confusion flickering across her face before something small, fragile, and bright began to stir in her eyes. Hope.

And that was how Elga, the lion girl of Site 22, walked out from the ashes of her birthplace—no longer an experiment, but the adopted daughter of Sara Venom.

From that day onward, Elga's legacy began.

Under Sara Venom's guidance, the lion girl grew faster than anyone could predict. Her muscles, already honed by her unnatural birth, were tempered by rigorous training. Her senses sharpened, her instincts deadly. Within a few short years, she became more than just a prodigy—she became a force of nature.

Elga Herd 22.

The Agency had never seen a captain like her. Where others relied on careful strategies—killing a contractor first, wielding holy weapons, or depending on support—Elga faced demons head-on. On equal footing. Eye to eye. She could take down a demon without hesitation, without fear, without flaw. The battlefield bent to her will.

She fought countless demons and emerged victorious every time. Her name became a whisper among infernal circles, a shadow that demons dreaded. She was unbeatable…

But Elga was facing something she was never meant to fight.

Not a beast.

Not a demon.

A dragon.

And not just any dragon—the strongest of her kind. The Queen of Atlantis. The one who carried within her not only the blood of an Primal Dragon, but also the forbidden knowledge of Zani. Even with her true power sealed by the laws of Earth, she still radiated a strength that could shatter armies, a force that made the air itself tremble.

If Erza had willed it, Elga would have been dead in a single heartbeat. A flick of her blade, a breath of her magic, and the lion girl's story would have ended there.

But she didn't.

Instead, Erza moved slowly, deliberately, as though savoring the moment. She struck not to end, but to remind—to show Elga the difference between them. Every slash, every step, carried the cruel patience of a predator toying with its prey.

It was like watching a cat play with a mouse.

The outcome was inevitable.

Sara's eyes widened, her breath catching in her throat.

Elga—her Elga—was on the ground. Blood soaked the stone beneath her, her once-proud golden mane clotted and dark. Both arms were gone, severed as if torn from her very pride. Each ragged breath rattled in her chest, a lioness reduced to prey.

And walking toward her was Erza Kounari.

Step by step.

Cold. Unflinching. Drenched in the silence of a queen who carried death like a crown.

For the first time in her long, merciless life, Sara felt her heart break—not as a hunter, not as a Vampire, but as a mother. She had forged Elga into a blade, sharpened her against the world, taught her to never bow. But now that same pride had shattered into agony before her eyes. And Sara could do nothing. No weapon, no scream, no strength of hers could stop what was coming.

"Elga!" Sara's voice cracked with desperation, something raw and ugly clawing at her throat. "Stop this fight! Beg for mercy—it's madness to fight her!"

But Elga Herd had never been one to kneel.

Her body trembled, but her spirit burned. She staggered upright, legs shaking, chest heaving, blood pouring from her wounds. Yet her eyes—those untamed lion's eyes—still roared with defiance. She would not crawl. She would not yield.

Not to demons.

Not to fate.

Not even to death.

Across from her, Erza's violet gaze remained as still as a frozen sea. No flicker of pity, no tremor of hesitation. Only judgment, sharp as steel. She raised her blade, its polished edge catching the dim light, ready to strike again.

The world held its breath.

One heartbeat.

Predator and prey.

Elga planted her feet, her broken body swaying but her spirit unbroken. She dared the Queen of Atlantis to end her.

And in that moment, as the silence deepened like a grave, Sara could only whisper—half pride, half despair, her voice trembling like glass:

"Elga…"

Erza's gaze shifted. Beyond the blood and ice, her violet eyes lingered on the cocoon of healing light where Yuuta lay. His body—battered, bruised, nearly broken under Elga's fury—was slowly knitting itself back together within that fragile shell of magic.

Her hand tightened on her blade.

Then, with a sudden motion, she raised it high—only to drive it down into the stone floor. The steel sank deep, splitting the earth until the weapon stood upright, rooted like a grave marker.

Sara's eyes widened. She knew the legend.

When the Queen of Atlantis raised her sword, she did not lower it until her enemy's head had fallen. To see her abandon it now, to leave behind the weapon that had ended kingdoms—this was something unthinkable.

But Erza was not finished.

She bent down, grasped the severed hands of Elga, and in a blur of motion gripped them as if they were weapons of her own. Then, without hesitation, she struck.

The blows came like thunder. Each one crashed into Elga's body with the same merciless precision Elga had once used against Yuuta. Strike for strike. Bruise for bruise. Wound for wound. It was no longer battle—it was retribution, carved into flesh. Erza did not fight to kill. She fought to make Elga feel. To drown her in the very suffering she had inflicted.

By the time the storm ended, Elga lay broken on the floor. Her golden mane was matted with blood and sweat, her eyes wide with something she had never known before. Not defiance. Not pride.

Fear.

Helplessness.

And in that fear, she finally understood. Yuuta had never begged her. He hadn't even shown fear when her fists shattered his body. He had met her rage with something else—something she couldn't grasp then, but which now clawed at her heart like a wound deeper than any blade.

An hour had passed. Elga's body mirrored Yuuta's injuries almost perfectly, as if Erza had etched his pain into her flesh. But she was still alive.

Erza had not killed her.

For the first time, the Merciless Blade of Atlantis had turned her back on an enemy. She left her sword buried in stone and walked away, each step ringing like judgment through the chamber.

Even Sara, hardened by centuries of blood, dropped to her knees in disbelief. Death she could have accepted. But this? Mercy from Erza? It was beyond imagining.

Elga lay sprawled in her own blood, tears streaking her broken face. With lungs rattling, she forced her throat to rasp the words.

"Why…? Why haven't you killed me… Erzaa?"

Erza's steps did not falter. Her voice was cold, cutting, heavy as iron.

"Be grateful. That foolish husband of mine asked me to spare you before he closed his eyes."

The words pierced deeper than any blade.

The very man she had beaten into the dirt—fragile, broken, humiliated—had begged for her life.

Elga wanted to scream, to demand why. Why would he spare the monster who had crushed him? Why did he protect her when she had shown him no mercy?

But before the questions could escape, darkness swallowed her. Her body gave out, and she collapsed into unconsciousness.

The chamber felt in silence.

Erza moved deliberately toward the glowing cocoon where Yuuta slept, his body slowly mending under the gentle, yet relentless power of her dragon-spit magic. Each step she took echoed softly against the frozen floor, the air around her shimmering with frost and light. The chamber felt suspended in time, a fragile calm in the midst of chaos.

Then, Suddenly—

A bullet tore through the air and struck Erza's head.

The impact was sharp enough to crack Skull, yet when the dust cleared, there was not a single mark upon her. She slowly turned, her violet eyes narrowing toward the source.

Standing at the end of the ruined hall was a familiar figure—A Women. In her hands, a demon-buster gun gleamed with cursed metal, and in her other hand burned the radiance of a holy sword.

Her face was twisted with fury, her voice trembling as she shouted,

"You've gone too far, Erza!"

Erza's gaze did not waver. Her cold eyes met Familiar figure with unflinching calm.

"Did I, Fiona?".

To be continued…

(End of chapter)

(Yuuta POV)

"Hey, it's your Yuuta here! Wow… I can't believe it—we're almost at 1,000 reads! That's huge for us!" I said, a grin spreading across my face.

Erza blinked at me, her usual calm expression tinged with disbelief. "Wait… we're close to 1K? How did this… stupid story of yours suddenly get hype?"

I shrugged, trying to sound confident. "Uff… well, it's not that stupid. And, of course, people would love it!"

She crossed her arms, raising an eyebrow. "It's just 1,000. That's not even popular."

I sighed, my voice dropping into a sad little groan. "Truth is… half of our audience isn't even reading on the official site. They're using some pirated website. That site already has 3,000 reads. But… the original? Barely making it."

Her violet eyes narrowed, and with a dramatic sweep, she raised her sword. "Then let me destroy that stupid website!"

I threw up my hands, laughing nervously. "No, no! You can't! That website is actually promoting our story… but yeah, I get it. Seeing our novel get famous somewhere else while we barely make seven bucks? Yeah… it stings a little."

Erza tilted her head, silent for a moment, before muttering, "Humans… always complicating things."

I just shook my head and laughed. "Yep. That's us. Complicating everything since forever."

"But yes—thank you all for reading our story! Love you all so much. ❤️ We're getting so close to finishing the Foundation Arc, so hang tight! The best is yet to come!"

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