“As expected, pure strength builds are the way to go…” Ellis muttered to himself as he stared at his own hands with a look of ecstasy.
The black-scaled hydra stood a few feet away from him. Its original ferocity was gone. Right now, it looked like a defeated dog. Out of fourteen heads, twelve of them were unconscious. The remaining two sported ugly expressions. Anxiety and fear. Anger and frustration. Such emotions clouded their faces.
On the other hand, Ellis somewhat surprised himself. After months of holding back, this was the first time he had ever properly unleashed his full strength. To be honest, the fact that their heads did not immediately explode surprised him. He had overestimated his own strength. Either that or he had underestimated the hydra’s durability.
Still, the results were the same.
With a single fist, he had knocked out twelve of the hydra’s fourteen heads.
“Just a little bit more effort and I’ll finally finish.” Ellis looked back up at the multi-headed dragon. His lips twisted into a smirk. The hydra reacted to that smile. The two heads quivered uncontrollably. It was the same spine-tingling smile that Ellis wore every time he threw a punch. The hydra had grown to both hate and fear that smile.
With his hands raised in front of him like a boxer, Ellis slowly walked forward. Each ominous footstep echoed quietly through the forest.
The hydra instinctively tried to take a step back, but it quickly discovered that it couldn’t. It was still pinned to the ground by the spear.
The two heads momentarily made eye contact with one another. A silent agreement had been reached. Almost immediately, they bellowed out a furious roar. At the same time, the left head spat out a plume of dark-purple smog.
Ellis didn’t even attempt to dodge. He had already experienced what the smog could do and going by his standards, it truly wasn’t much.
He confidently walked directly into the purple haze. Like before, a sense of disorientation washed over him, but it quickly disappeared. This time though, he noticed that the smog smelled faintly of lavender. Did it always smell like that?
Just then, the second head spat out a scorching ball of green fire. Likewise, Ellis made no attempt at dodging. The fire could at most burn his skin. A hit or two was not enough to seriously injure him.
As the flaming ball drew closer, an uneasy premonition suddenly washed over him.
Without hesitation, he quickly raised his arms out in front of him.
BOOOOOM!
A violent explosion rocked him off his feet. Compared to the resulting light, his silhouette seemed tiny and insignificant. He hurtled through the air before he stopped at the base of a tree.
Ellis violently coughed. His eyes were still spinning. Distant echoes reverberated through his eardrums.
What the hell just happened? After recollecting himself, he immediately pieced together the current situation.
When the smog and fire collided with one another, something like a chemical reaction occurred. The end result was a violent explosion.
I knew it. There was something weird with that smog. The lavender smell had not been present in the past.
Ellis breathed out a sigh. He could only blame himself. Again, he was careless.
That thing had packed a serious punch. He looked down at his own body. To his utter surprise, Ellis no longer had arms, only stumps that ended right where his shoulders began. They had been completely blown away by the explosion.
In addition, the front half of his body was thoroughly scorched. His ribcage was exposed, his blood had cauterized and most shocking of all, his precious little brother was no longer attached to his crotch!
This sudden revelation brought on an immediate sense of panic. Thankfully, Ellis eventually calmed down. A few seconds after the explosion, his body naturally started to heal. From the stumps on his shoulders, a set of new arms grew back. His burnt skin flaked off and a new layer quickly replaced it. In addition, his treasured little brother slowly returned to perfection. In fact, it looked even bigger than before! The last part was probably all in his head.
“Damn, that blast seriously gave me a heart attack.” He swore to never get hit by that detestable combination ever again.
He suddenly turned back to the hydra. The heads looked absolutely defeated. To be more specific, they looked completely exhausted. One of the heads tried to spit out another plume of smog, but the only thing that came out was a half-digested carcass. It was already clear. The hydra had reached its limit.
With that, Ellis raised his fists once more. He promptly knocked the remaining two heads out.
“Whew…” He breathed out a sigh as he wiped away the bead of sweat trickling down the side of his face. In truth, the fight was a bit of an eye-opener. The existence of such boss-class monsters sent warning signs blaring within his head. How many such monsters roamed this forest? Were any of them stronger than the hydra?
Ellis did not know, but the possibility of that sent shivers down his spine. Whether those shivers were of fear or excitement was similarly unknown.
He turned his head back over to the hydra.
Right now, a giant black mountain stood in front of him. Aside from the rhythmic rise and fall of its chest, it was completely motionless.
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Ellis did not outright kill the creature just yet.
Staring up at the unconscious hydra, a certain curiosity soon took hold.
Back in his home world, the Hydra was rather famous. Its figure was immortalized not only in mythology, but also through various forms of media, such as books and movies. As a result, he was quite familiar with the hydra’s legend.
On Earth, the Hydra was most famous for its regenerative properties. If you cut off one of its head, two more would grow back.
He had to wonder, did the same ability apply to this world’s hydra? His hands were itching to find out.
Just as various thoughts and ideas filled his head, something small and red darted towards him.
“Kyu!”
It was Ena. She climbed up onto his shoulder and stared at the hydra with hungry eyes.
Ellis turned his head back. In comparison to the greedy fox, the wolves were noticeably less excited. Right now, they hid behind a giant tree nearly two hundred meters away from the battleground. Even after he had defeated the hydra, it was apparent that they were still very much afraid.
Wight was the only wolf that actively tried to fight her fear. She slowly approached the hydra. It was clear that she was trying to put up a brave front, but even then, her movements were stiff and rigid. Seeing her try so hard, Ellis couldn’t help but sigh.
Honestly, what an adorable child.
He ignored the wolves for now and turned his attention back to the hydra.
“Kyu! Kyu!” Ena repeatedly nudged him. She kept goading him to finish the job, but Ellis did not listen. He wanted to verify the legends.
He sought to sever one of its head.
Normally, he would have used his spear, but the spear was currently embedded somewhere within the creature’s body. Ellis did not want to dive down through stomach acid and muscle tissue just to retrieve it. Since he did not have a blade on him, he had to improvise.
He picked a random head and opened its jaw. He then promptly yanked out a tooth. The head immediately woke up with a roar, but Ellis reacted quickly. He punched it back into unconsciousness.
With the tooth in hand, a satisfied smile filled his teeth.
“This should work.” The hydra’s tooth was quite sharp. Add to that his strength and it should be enough to sever its neck.
Ellis did not waste any more time. He picked a spot right above the base of the neck and decisively slashed down!
After he successfully severed the neck, Ellis waited for a few seconds. Sure enough, something started wriggling out of its wound.
A minute passed and two separate necks grew out of the former stump. After an additional two minutes, the heads fully grew. The moment they opened their eyes, they immediately grew furious. They hurriedly scanned the surroundings, clearly in search of a certain someone.
It looks like all the heads are telepathically connected to one another. More importantly, isn’t the regeneration kind of slow? Ellis was somewhat disappointed. He had expected something like instant regeneration. While the rate of its regeneration was certainly amazing, it was by no means instant.
With a frown on his face, he quickly knocked the two new heads out.
Even after all that, he was still curious. There were a few more things he wanted to confirm.
He cut off another head. Before it had the chance to regrow, he asked Ena to cauterize the stump.
She acquiesced. A plume of fire quickly burned the stump black. It now resembled a piece of charcoal and even after ten minutes had passed, nothing happened.
“So that part’s true, huh? You can stop a hydra from regenerating if you use fire.”
He was pleasantly surprised by this new discovery. In retrospect, it wasn’t much of a discovery. After all, the head that suffered from friendly fire was still pretty unresponsive. Then again, that made Ellis wonder: was it like that because of the fire or was it because the head was still attached to the body?
Aside from the new questions that popped into his head, there was one more thing he wanted to confirm.
In Greek Mythology, there was a certain creature with over one hundred heads. It was a dragon named Ladon, and its job was to guard the golden apples of the Garden of Hesperides. A dragon with multiple heads… wasn’t that a hydra?
Of course, Ellis had no way of verifying this, but it did leave him wondering: just how many heads could a hydra grow?
With that in mind, he quickly severed another head. He watched two more grow back. When those new heads finished forming, he promptly knocked them out. Then the cycle repeated.
Cut off one head, watch two grow, and knock two out.
Cut off one head, watch two grow, and knock two out.
Cut, watch, knock out.
Cut, watch, knock out.
Cut, watch, knock out.
….
After a while, the heads attached to the hydra now numbered more than one hundred. Quite a few more littered the ground around him.
More specifically, there were one hundred eighty-nine heads currently attached to the Hydra’s body. Ellis had severed nearly the same amount.
Blood had already begun to pool within the crater. Maybe because of the process, the hydra’s body looked somewhat skinnier than before. In fact, with those wriggling necks growing out of it like that, it kind of resembled a carrot with an elongated stem.
Ellis moved to cut one more. Unfortunately, even after severing the 189th head, only one head grew back. It was clear that the number of heads capped out at 189.
Why this number though? Was it random? Was it like this for all hydras or was it different for each individual?
Although Ellis was still somewhat curious, for the most part, he was satisfied. More specifically, the bloodthirsty eyes staring at the back of his neck made him shiver. Ena had patiently waited up until now, but if he forced her to wait any longer, there was a very strong possibility that she might just outright attack him.
He was not really satisfied, but for the sake of that brat, he pretended to be satisfied.
He took a step back and closely observed the hydra. It might just be his imagination, but the hydra… did it get stronger? Right now, it exuded out a far greater sense of danger than in the past.
For the dull Ellis, just noticing this fact was already unusual.
Did it really grow stronger?
He was skeptical, but after a while, the wolf pack behind him quickly confirmed his theory.
When did they get all the way there?
Without him noticing, the distance between them and the hydra had increased. Right now, they stood nearly 1000 meters away from the unconscious dragon. Even Wight, with all of her bravado, was currently passed out on the ground. White foam dripped out from the corners of her jaws.
She had passed out from the resulting pressure.
“It really did grow stronger…” Was it because of the heads? After it grew more heads, more and more of its potential was unlocked or something along those lines?
This damn thing was exactly like a Saiyan. A creature that grew stronger after every defeat, or in this case, after each head was cut off.
He shook his head in dismay. He doubted that anyone had ever purposely done what he had and actually actively sought out the hydra’s strongest form. This was a unique occurrence. Either that or perhaps there was another prerequisite outside of just cutting off heads.
There were still a lot of questions rattling around in his head, but one particular thought stuck to him.
If this thing were to awaken now, could I still defeat it?
“…”
The answer in his heart told him no. No matter how confident he was in his regeneration or in his super strength, the current hydra was far too dangerous. It felt as if he was standing on the edge of a bottomless abyss.
“If that’s the case, I have to kill it quickly.” Feeling fear for the first time, Ellis immediately sought out to end the looming threat in front of him.
With hands like lightning, he sliced off all 189 heads. It only took him two minutes to do so, not even enough time for the first head to grow back.
Like that, the hydra from mythology had been slain.