Chapter 299: Lernaean, The Reformed Self Vs. Chosen of Aelia Pt. 3

Attacking as one, the odd combination suddenly shifted. The Spear charged forward directly, as Rory and the Rogue went in opposite directions, forcing the hydra, reduced to two heads, to awkwardly figure out how to handle it. Having little direct knowledge of Rory’s hand-to-hand capabilities, but first-hand knowledge of The Spear’s capabilities and the potency of the Primal Night affinity dripping from the Rogue’s shadow weapon, the hydra focused its heads entirely on the latter.

Which proved to be unfortunate as Rory’s axe suddenly massively increased in speed, cutting through wind resistance as the edge reinforced itself with blood-red crystal. Striking the weakest point between scales, the axe left a weeping wound in its path; the affinities utilized in the outer crystallization upon the axe prevented the hydra from healing. In return, a swarm of snapping shadow snakes tried to rip into Rory, only to be rebuked by his shield swinging upward, an outer ‘wall’ projecting from the front of the shield.

Realizing that Rory could wound it, the hydra attempted to shift targets, focusing less on the Rogue, as while the Primal Night bullets had a hell of a punch, they hadn’t lingered.

Or, they hadn’t initially .

No longer in bullet form, when the Rogue stabbed his glaive into the hydra, making use of the same weak point vision that Rory could, the hydra suddenly found itself being dosed up with the energy that now behaved as if it were an extremely potent venom or poison.

“ Sssever the sssoul!”

Roaring out, the hydra released a pulse of power that caused anything in the vicinity to instantly split directly in half. The Rogue wisely hid in the shadows, but Rory and The Spear found themselves too close to avoid the magic. Wearing two layers of armor, the Spear managed to largely withstand the magic, though it was cracked all over, an exhausting errand for future Rory to handle.

Rory was… less lucky. His armor, armor he had for ages , was fashioned from the former scales of the Tyrant of Earth and Scales.

It failed.

It was a bit of a lesson on conceptual strain. Repair and maintain armor as long as you like; while it could still be at 100% integrity, over time, it would wear down, and without the necessary skill sets, repairing conceptual strain was nowhere near as easy as physical strain and damage. Not to mention, the material used in the making of the armor had been essentially a random chance mutation of the scales into an aberrant grade resource.

Fuck me!

As a final hurrah, the armor soaked up the entirety of the attack, probably the reason it had shattered in the first place, looking like it had gone through an industrial grinder and shredder several times in a row. As much as Rory wanted to be sentimental, now was the time for action. Vanishing the armor into his inventory and instantly re-equipping new armor –something that took a shocking amount of mental precision that only higher tiers could do on the fly– Rory jumped back into the fray, now wearing a set of armor mixed up between gravite, night copper, and promethium.

The one benefit was that with temporary armor on, Rory had utterly zero qualms about using it the same way he treated almost everything else.

Utterly expendable.

“ Burst!” Rory shouted as several gems embedded in the temporary armor exploded, the armor radiating energy. An overcharged effect, it was something he’d last utilized decades ago with armor he’d made long, long ago. It guaranteed the destruction of the armor after a certain time limit, but that didn’t matter to Rory at this point.

What mattered was killing the damn Hydra.

Still feeling like he was burning up inside, Rory swung with reckless abandon, all the while a runic array slowly expanded around them, no longer requiring Rory’s active effort; just so long as he kept himself centered,he could dig through the ground with his will alone.

Every stab of the Rogue’s weapon caused the building poison to grow; the significantly weakened and hurt hydra was no longer capable of fully crushing it now that the sideral brand was burning away inside as well.

Not to mention The Spear. The battle had reached the point that her attributes had climbed to the point that she was like a force of nature herself, fighting with a ferocity that would make someone think there were three of her at any given point.

The cold environment was slowly beginning to warm, though, and if it lasted much longer, the frozen stillness which had locked the hydra’s aura would be free to crush them entirely.

Meaning it was time to go for broke.

Counting down the moments until the giant magic circle finished manifesting, Rory flickered away the moment it had finished. Still, not before flicking two droplets of blood between the Spear and the Rogue, the final moments of his plan transferred instantly.

Here we go.

Taking a deep breath, Rory flew above, hands gripping his staff as he mentally prepared to cast two simultaneous pieces of major magic.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“ Sidereal Liberation!”

A column of red energy exploded outward, enveloping not just the hydra but also Rory, purposely making himself a target as well to empower the magic.

With whatever was left in the tank, Rory gritted his teeth.

“ Sunder the Earth: Fulmination!”

Having taken an ungodly number of attacks, scoured by Sidereal Liberation, and then slashed by the largest slash so far, with a titanic thump, one of the remaining two Hydra heads fell to the ground.

And with it, so did Rory, unable to hold out any longer as the damage and exhaustion overwhelmed him

I leave the rest with you two.

When the second head fell, the remaining two Founders knew the fight was coming to a close, one way or another. The hydra's endless regeneration had waned, and, reduced to a single head, it was far less capable of assaulting them with anywhere near the same savagery.

Of the two, The Rogue was in much better shape, having kept far away from the hydra’s withering aura. Weakened as it was up close and personal, it still had some serious bite.

The Spear, while her heart was nearing the absolute maximum for how much it could boost her, couldn’t magically restore what she had lost, worn down and as ready to pass out as the Architect who’d just opened the way for their victory.

“You saw the plan, you ready?” Allison asked, glancing at the Rogue for a single instant.

“Open the way, and I’ll finish it.”

Nodding, Allison yanked her arm back, mentally picturing everything flowing through her arm. The number of times she was pushed into a corner that required her to gamble on an all-or-nothing attack could almost be counted on one hand.

It was… exciting .

“Go!” She yelled out, throwing her arm forward as the spear shot ahead, silent, outpacing its own boom like an Olympian outpacing a child.

Like a puppet with its strings cut, the moment the spear flew from her hand, she collapsed, even her heartbeat unable to hold out any longer.

And then there was one.

“Leave it to me, folks,” Eric muttered to himself, the spear launched from Allison screeching forward in thunderous silence , slamming into the hydra’s chest as it wailed out.

If he didn’t finish the job here, the hydra would have all the time in the world to gobble them up, and that was that- lights out; the chosen of Aelia would be dead and gone. The First would consume Aelia herself, and the lord knew what would happen to the people of Aelia.

Nope, not gonna happen.

Taking his turn, Eric stepped through the shadows, appearing above the hydra, now more of just a regular ass snake with two heads dealt with, and yelled as he dropped from above.

Diving down, the issue with war cries was instantly exposed, as the hydra immediately turned its head upward, jaws snapping shut as the Rogue was gone in one bite.

Only for him to reappear, directly in front of the hydra’s chest, its mouth now nailed shut by the glaive that had been left behind.

“Stupid fuck,” Eric grinned as he grabbed hold of the shaft of Allison’s spear. The shadows holding his own weapon in its glaive form were already fading, reverting it into the base cylinder form that his new and improved weapon took. Meanwhile, Allison’s spear, which was chest deep in the monster, was instantly covered in a sheath of shadows. “Hope you enjoy this.”

Using the spear deeply embedded in its body as a conduit, the Primal Night energy flooded directly into the hydra’s body.

From there, it was simply a matter of who could last longer. And while at the start of the fight there would have been no question about the Hydra outlasting any of them, it had taken significant damage, down to heads, blown up, blown up some more, and pummeled by the strongest fighters in the universe as far as they all knew.

And Eric? Eric had kept himself prim and proper the entire time.

The seconds passed as the blood from the wounds that refused to heal thickened into thick black ooze, its internals consumed by the ever-building essence of the Primal Night.

Until, at last, the hydra stopped struggling, collapsing almost in slow motion.

“Boo-yeah, you stupid snake fuck ,” Eric announced, raising his fist triumphantly in the air before looking around and sighing.

“Just too bad everyone else decided to take a nap and miss it.”

Rory was not the last one to recover, which he considered a win. By a shocking turn of events, that ended up being Zoey, whose entire body was regenerating from a skinsuit filled with bone shards into a proper person.

He was second to last, though.

“And then bam , I finished the fucker off with a kick to the face, stomping its stupid head into the ground,” The Rogue said, flexing his arms as Tom rolled his eyes. He’d been the first to recover.

“Bull,” Tom said. “We all could see the body. Allison’s spear was basically drenched in your affinity.”

“Still got the killing blow, and that’s all that matters, 2place ,” Tom pointed out.

“Because of Rory’s plan,” Zoey said, before looking down at her arm –sans hands– muttering under her breath.

Something about never fails .

“We all lived in the end, and we won; that’s what matters,” Allison said. She’d been number two to recover.

“Uh-huh, says you, 3place , you didn’t have any super flashy moves the entire fight,” Eric said, teasing the woman.

“How could I? I can’t use any form of magic or whatever,” Allison said, lips turning downward. “Besides, did I not have a flashy spear throw at the end?”

“Ehh, it was fast, but that was about it. Couldn’t like, throw one of those nuke spears again?”

“Special occasion,” Allison sighed. “And that required sacrificing a weapon I’ve had for decades .”

“Uh-huh, excuses,” Eric said. “How about you, 4place ?”

“Must you call us by the order we woke up?” Rory asked.

“Yes, yes, I must. And you may all refer to me as ‘Champion of the Founders’ from now on,” Eric said, flexing his arms once again.

“Well, let me ruin the mood a bit,” Rory said, arms crossed, considering thoughts he’d been mulling over for a bit now.

“Oh, what could possibly ruin the mood? Are your parents transferring you to a new school and breaking up the championship team? Are we going to have to replace you with a golden retriever named Buddy?”

“I didn’t get that one,” Tom admitted, lost on the reference.

“Baby,” Eric said, mocking the man before turning back to Rory. “So, the problem?”

“That wasn’t a Kaiser,” Rory said with a shrug. “And we could have very nearly lost.”

Rory hadn’t been lying. The cheerful mood suddenly dampened as the consideration was fully ingested.

“So…. We’re fucked?” Eric asked after a moment.

“No,” Rory shook his head. “But.”

“But? C’mon, man. You’d think you’re a theater kid with the dramatic pauses.”

“But we can still be better. Right now, our gear is good for what we’d face on Aelia. But we have special advantages here.”

“See, look, he is doing another dramatic pause.”

“It’s time we track down one of these World Crucibles.”