Chapter 132 - The Hydra's Fall
Chapter 132 – The Hydra’s Fall
"You… lived?" Ragnar asked in shock., landing back on the ground a short distance away.
"You seem quite disappointed," Cyanide said calmly, not even bothering to shoot him a glance. "But unfortunately, I do not die that easily."
Saying this, he hugged himself with his wings of lightning in a defensive posture, charging them up, before suddenly opening them again wide as several powerful purple streaks of lightning thundered across the air, threatening to tear space itself open, and bombarded the Hydra's various heads.
The Thunderflight Soul Art created wings of lightning. And what better conductor was there than electricity itself? Cyanide had absorbed the lightning with those wings, charged them up further, and now, shot them back towards the Hydra.
"SKREEEEE!"
The creature howled in pain and agony as lightning entered its body and rippled through its blood. The lightning head was fine, but the rest were not. Its own attack had been turned on it, and instantly, the HP bar displayed at the bottom of Cyanide and Ragnar's perspectives went down to about 10%.
Ragnar watched, awe-shook, as Cyanide's wings disappeared and he landed back in the murky swamp waters.
"Goddamn… how do you always escape death like that?" Ragnar asked with a chuckle. "Teach me sometime."
"Were you worried?" Cyanide arched an eyebrow and asked, to which Ragnar gave a snort.
"Pfft, worried? Nah. Just a bit pissed off I wasn't the one to finish you off, fuckhead. But by the looks of it…"
He turned to the nine-headed basilisk, whose HP had already regenerated back to full.
"… Things ain't quite done yet."
Cyanide gave a nod. "They'll never be until we find the right head to kill. And fortunately enough… this dumb snake took the bait."
"… Heh. Ain't that right. A beast is a beast in the end, huh?"
The Hydra, now with all nine of its head squirming again, fully healed and without a scratch, was naturally confused. Its pea-sized brains (as a collective) couldn't fathom what the word 'bait' even meant.
It did, however, have the bestial instincts to know that this puny human that should be dead already had not only broken out of its grasp, but also used its own attack against it.
Now, the Hydra was pissed.
Before, it had just been mildly annoyed, thinking these were just another two clueless idiots who dared to disturb its slumber. But now? Oh no no no. The nine-headed creature was going to make sure these two humans wished they died nine times over—especially the shorter one.
Screeching in unison fury, noise loud enough to compare with the Shrieking Mandrakes from before, four of the monstrous creature's heads reared back towards the sky and began shooting beams of energy out of their mouths—fire, water, lightning, and wind respectively. The grass element head cawed like a crow, causing various tall vines to shoot out of the swamp waters and grab at Ragnar and Cyanide, but the two avoided with ease and narrowly dodged out of the way of the sharp icicles and rock chunks generated and falling from the air.
"Oi, assassin, if you don't do something quick, we're both gonna die!" Ragnar laughed wildly, blocking the dropping icicles and rock chunks with the blunt of his sword.
In response, Cyanide's reply was simple, blunt.
"… I know."
Immediately, he leaped into action, scaling the Hydra's body with his insane agility. The five heads who weren't busy charging up the destructive attack tried to snap at him and knock him off, but the assassin's moves were simply too quick and nimble. Due to the creature's huge body, it couldn't actually move much—making it an easy target for Cyanide.
Soon, he found himself on top of one of the Hydra heads, and boosted himself even higher up into the air. If he tried attacking from below, the other heads would block the one he was going for. But up here… that was impossible.
Drawing his gun from its holster on his belt, he aimed it at the head of the Death Element. That was the one keeping this Hydra from dying. Normally, people would intuitively think it was the white Life Element one—but that was nothing but a trick.
From the beginning, Cyanide had predicted everything—from his entrapment, to his escape, and now, the end result. All of it had went according to plan. The Hydra had been tricked from the very start, and even now, it did not realize that.
Narrowing his eyes and focusing his aim, he pulled the trigger.
The bullet made no sound as it soared out of the gun's chamber, and headed straight for the area between the Death head's eyes. But just as it was about to strike—the Life head jumped in the way and blocked the shot with a generated shield, hissing with venom.
But rather than being frustrated at the shot getting blocked, a slight smirk appeared on Cyanide's face.
And from below, in the water, Ragnar made his move.
"Take this, you bastard… FLAMING CRESCENT!"
In his Pyromaniac form, all of his Fire Affinity attacks, be it Weapon Arts or Soul Arts, are greatly amplified in power. The moon-shaped projectile blazed through the air, ashes trailing in its wake, and cut straight underneath the Life Head's shield before lopping its head straight off. The Death head screamed as the headless Life element stem writhed in pain. Just like how in mythology, Hercules used torches to cauterize the heads of the Lernaean Hydra to prevent them from growing back, Ragnar's fire served to delay the respawning of the shielder/healer head of the nine.
And that… opened up the perfect opportunity for Cyanide.
"Finish it, assassin!" Ragnar yelled, to which Cyanide gave a snort.
"You don't need to tell me twice."
The other heads didn't even have time to react before the executioner dropped down on them from above, «Anaconda's Fang» in hand. He didn't even bother using [Reaper's Cut]—this beast's DEF stat was practically negative. It was more than easy to deal damage to it—it was the fact that it kept regenerating that made it problematic.
But that would happen no longer as Cyanide's blade drove home, striking the black Death Element head straight in between the eyes.