Glancing around the arena, Herja could see that many of the other slaves had already been pitted against a wide variety of opponents. Most of the demons and creatures she was able to recognize, having faced others of their kind in battle before, but there were one or two that even she was less familiar with. She quickly switched her focus back to what was going on closest to her as another of Lucifer's pets was summoned in the same circle that she stood in. Planting the butt of her spear in the sand, the Valkyrie batted her majestic wings forward a single time, dissipating the thick cloud of smoke almost instantly with a powerful gust of wind. Herja stood stoically with her head held high as she gave the beast a slow once-over, studying its features so that she may be able to decipher any strengths or weaknesses.<br/><br/>She'd slain more than her share of similar monsters in the past, but that was when she possessed the full range of her powers as well as the finest weapons that the forges of heaven could produce. Even then, hell's beasts had always presented a good challenge and they were not to be underestimated. In her current conditions which were considerably unfavorable to say the least, Herja realized that this fight would be far more challenging than anything she'd undertaken in the past. Still, she seemed to know no fear. If she did, her stone-faced demeanor and zealously determined glare certainly let no part of it shine through.<br/><br/>Using the fact that the Chimera had decided to advance upon her very cautiously to her own advantage, Herja continued to analyze the beast. Using all of her previous experience and knowledge, she was able to make at least a couple of educated guesses about the beast's nature. The first thing that stuck out at her was the grotesque perversion of a human head. It was safely tucked away in the creature's chest and had no neck, meaning that it would probably not be very practical for the Chimera to attack with it. That led Herja to the conclusion that the other two heads would probably be doing most of the fighting, while that one was the more intelligent of the three. It was either the one calling the shots for the other two, the one that controlled the majority of the other body parts, or perhaps even both. In any case, she was fairly confident that slaying that head in particular would yield the greatest results, although it would also be the most difficult of the three to reach.<br/><br/>The anaconda was the one that Herja needed to be the most weary of, since she had no doubt that whatever venom it possessed would be enough to either incapacitate or kill even an angelic being such as herself. The goat-like head was the biggest mystery to her, as she had little idea about what its powers might be. That made it substantially more difficult to prepare, but then again one always had to be ready to adapt to the unexpected in battle. She ignored the beasts taunts, if they could even be considered as such, as she'd never been the type to partake in such things. The crowd would probably disprove of her lack of showmanship, but Herja was a warrior, not a jester.<br/><br/>Both the Valkyrie and the Chimera completely ignored the fact that the ground beneath them had begun to float up into the air, neither of them taking their eyes off of each other as they continued to square off. Even as the three headed beast was just a few feet away from being in range of striking, Herja kept her guard low, allowing her shield arm to hang loosely by her side rather than holding it up in front of herself. Being the head with the longest reach, the anaconda stretched its neck out and snapped its jaws at her even though it was still slightly out of range. Testing her resolve, probably. Herja didn't flinch, knowing that she was safe since she'd already gauged the distance between herself and the demon.<br/><br/>Having decided that it had had enough of the preliminaries, the Chimera finally made the first move, advancing upon Herja with surprising speed as the anaconda once again lashed out at her, only this time it was for real. The Valkyrie been counting on it, in fact, and so her reaction time was but a fraction of a second at most. Whipping her shield up, she swung it in an outwards arc with as much force as she could muster, swatting the snake's head away violently as well as puncturing it with her buckler's crude spikes. An ear piercing mixture of a sharp hissing sound fused with a high pitched squeal filled the arena momentarily as the wounded anaconda snapped back and withdrew. A dark green ichor - almost black - poured out of the gashes along the side of the serpent's head, and more of it was splashed onto Herja's shield and arm. In addition, the snake's left eye was no longer in it's socket, finding a new home upon one of the skewers on the Valkyrie's buckler.<br/><br/>There was no time to bask in that minor victory, though, as the Chimera continued its assault with even greater ferocity now that it had been wounded and enraged. The goat head charged directly at Herja, aiming to strike her dead center in the chest. Her plan had been to impale the humanoid head with her spear as it approached, but the beast's surprising speed caught her off guard and caused her calculations to be slightly off. Her weapon buried itself into the monster's extremely muscular shoulders, probably causing it some amount of discomfort but nothing that was immediately noticeable. Realizing that her attempt had failed, Herja just barely had time to let go of the spear and turn her right shoulder forwards so that it absorbed most of the upcoming impact. A broken or dislocated arm was better than having her ribs shattered into a thousand pieces and her lungs collapsed.<br/><br/>Had she waited a moment longer to shield herself, she would have been dead. Instead, the force of the goat's sturdy head colliding into her body sent Herka flying several feet backwards, all the way to the edge of the invisible platform and beyond. Thinking quickly, she used her shield arm to draw the sword from her waist and stab it into the platform, using it to hand on as her body dangled over the side. She could hardly feel her right arm at that point, let alone use it to help herself climb back up, and her right wing wasn't doing amazingly either. Still, she was at least able to flap her wings a couple of times and push herself back onto the fighting circle where the Chimera was already upon her. Quickly ripping her blade back out of the ground, Herja tucked her wings in as much as possible and rolled away from a heavy talon swipe that would have shredded her entire body to bits. She groaned in pain loudly, having been forced to land on her injured side in order to avoid the strike. Scrambling back up to her feet, the Valkyrie discarded her shield as it made using her sword with the same arm awkward and uncomfortable.<br/><br/>Realizing that she'd be better off not trying to absorb another one of her opponent's deadly charged, Herja took the initiative and ran at the beast instead. Her idea was to fake an attack directed at the goat head right before leaping over the creature's body, using her wings to help launch herself towards the anaconda so that she may sever it completely. She'd come in from the Chimera's left side where the serpent had already been blinded. Hopefully that would give her the edge that she needed to kill it without being bitten in return.