The hydra bellowed in rage as it was furious at Rena. All three maws opened up and a shockwave of sound erupted from them and blew the group away.

Everyone fell on their behinds when they couldn’t keep their balance. Then, once they started to try and get back up, they realized something. They couldn’t get up.

It was as if an invisible weight was pressed down upon them and the ice underneath was also crushed and mud spewed upwards. They even found that they had trouble sitting up with their heads barely above the mud and ice layer.

The only good part about the current situation was that the hydra was not attacking. All of its eyes were closed, while one was bleeding, and it seemed to be concentrating. Then, as if it sensed a new presence, it opened its eyes with immense speed.

It turned its middle head to an area behind it and saw the life form. The rest of the group couldn’t see it, but it was wolf monster that just happened to wander into the area. It was scorched by the lightning that the middle head let loose.

The other two heads glared at the rest of them and started to open their mouths and seemed to chant something. Whenever they chanted, it sounded like hissing in a soft and creepy voice.

The two heads cast spells around it and five balls of electricity appeared and floated around the hydra. Each one crackled with energy and, whenever sparks flew out from it, it evaporated the surrounding ice and mud.

The group, now able to stand, hopped upwards, onto the ice still above the mud, and spread out. Rouna decided to take the being head on with Erin following behind her. Rena took the left and Hika took the right.

The middle head soon returned to its original place and looked about itself. It saw that it was surrounded and the other two heads were still chanting. It took this chance to fire something from its mouth.

It landed on the ice in front of Rouna and seemed to pulse as it stuck to the ground. Then it pulsed, like a heart beating, and blew up. Smoke appeared from seemingly nowhere and bolts of electricity lashed out.

Rouna was hit by several of them and jumped away after she got hit three times on the arm. Lichtenberg marks appeared in the places it hit her arm and she winced in pain once she realized that she had gotten hurt.

Erin was caught up in the smoke and soon couldn’t be seen. Rena quickly glanced at the smoke and Erin to see if he was alright, but she couldn’t see him, even with night vision. However, one should not take their eyes off of the enemy when in battle.

The hydra’s middle head let loose a torrent of lightning that swerved around in the air, like a stream, and formed a shape. It became the shape of a dragon with the body of a snake or, to be more precise, a snake with a dragon’s head.

It moved around in the air majestically for several moments before looking down at Rena and lunging at her. She was staring at it and seemed to be entranced right up until the moment where she leapt from the lightning.

It sank into the ice and, through the ice’s translucent form, she could see the lightning swerve around in the mud. Hika saw this and evaded an attack from below. She was forced to do a barrel roll just to avoid the large spell.

The middle head threw one more of the same spell into the air and, once it tried to get Rena, it flew up into the air. Rain evaporated around it and steam formed above it.

Then, the smoke cleared and everyone could see Erin. He was convulsing on the ice and was frothing at the mouth. He was marked with lichtenberg marks everywhere on his body and he stopped moving.

Rouna hesitantly moved towards him and the hydra grinned in glee. Then, to the hydra’s dismay, it was shot. Shot with a large caliber bullet that traveled at immense speeds from a chain gun that was in Erin’s hands.

Erin saw up with a lot of discomfort and coughed. When he did so, a small bit of blood emerged and landed on the ice. He stared at it with a little bit of disbelief before looking at the hydra. He raised his chain gun with a single arm and fired it.

Thirty five bullets in total landed in the hydra before it stopped casting and jumped away. The defensive balls of electricity dispersed while the dragons formed of lightning flickered as the middle head’s concentration wavered.

The ice under the hydra broke under its weight once more and mud covered its lower body. It was bleeding red from the thirty five holes in its chest. The right head started chanting something and several holes vanished with the bullets being pumped out of it. The rest were anti-magic bullets while the ones that exited were elemental bullets with the Ice attribute.

It looked down in surprise with all three heads as it noticed that several holes were still bleeding. It staggered and blood gushed forth from the wounds like a waterfall of red. It landed on its side and slowly turned over onto its stomach.

All three heads closed their eyes and chanted magic spells. It cast three barriers, two orbs of electricity hovering around it, and five lightning dragons appeared. All three spells surrounded the hydra which was now closing its eyes and the wounds were slowly closing one at a time.

The group, however, could not wait that long and decided to attack while it was still recovering. Everyone shot in seemingly synchronization as their guns were trained on the heads. None of the bullets reached them whatsoever, but they managed to disrupt the middle head’s concentration and one of the five lightning dragons vanished.

Then the other four pounced onto to all of them. From the sky, each lightning dragon tried to take out a single opponent, but was met with ice as they all dodged, albeit slowly. They kept on attacking and the group was forced to dodge more and more until the lightning dragons vanished.

They had been hit with ice and mud far too much and was absorbed into the ground without further aggression. Everyone backed away from the hydra as it looked towards them.

All of its wounds had disappeared and it had stopped losing blood. All of its heads seemed to twist their faces into evil grins as best they could. The right head was still blind and it had been a bit too long for it to heal that wound, thus it was extremely furious at Rena.

All three heads lunged at her and every spell that surrounded it vanished into thin air. Rena, too tired to dodge, held up her gun to try and block it and was pushed back. She tumbled and rolled and broke the ice in several places until she found herself sprawled on the ice, like a squid dropped onto the floor.

She straightened her limbs and found that nothing was broken, surprisingly enough. Her clothes were torn in several places and she was getting rained on by enough water to fill several ponds. She shivered on the ice and sat up to look at the three headed beast.

The hydra started to run at her until, lo and behold, Rouna had replenished most of her magical energy and cast three spells. They all were spells that created poison, shaped them into spirals with grooves, and sent them barreling at the enemy.

They hit the hydra in its side and it did a complete 180 as it landed on its back. It flailed its six legs about before setting itself back on its feet and glaring at Rouna.

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Rouna turned to look at Rena, then at Erin and Hika who were behind they hydra. She cupped her hands to emphasize her voice.

“I think it can’t use spells anymore. Shoot it now!!”

Still, even if it couldn’t fire off any more spells, its speed was faster than everyone else’s at this point. It hadn’t used up a lot of stamina while the rest of the group did. It swung the left head and whacked Rouna in the side. It was trying to bite her, but its perception was a bit off as that head was still being affected by poison.

It kept on turning and ended up also hitting Erin who coughed blood on the clear ice and fell through it. Mere moments later, he gasped and his claws gripped tightly onto the ice and he dragged himself back up. He was shivering the most and was trying to crawl away.

The hydra looked at him with one head and took the opportunity to take a giant bite out of him… Or that would have happened if the other two heads hadn’t gone and left to go in the other direction to try and damage Hika who was almost completely fine. She was holding a small shield over her head with her left arm and had her rifle in the other to have better aim in the rain.

She fired three shots as the head was dragged back and they all landed in the leg as visibility was still very, very poor.

It was rather fortunate that she even managed to hit it while rain and wind were playing an important role in the current event. The wind and the movement of the hydra placed the bullets in its leg and it staggered once more as blood let loose.

She has hit an artery and was aiming to shoot a second time. Of course, it was just her luck that the beast regained enough mana for another spell just at that moment and a defensive barrier was thrown up, deflecting every bullet sent in its direction.

They all rebounded off and broke through the ice and cracks were made. Several holes formed and mud sloshed about in those divots. The hydra took the liberty to take a step forward, as all the heads turned towards her, and headbutted her with two heads at once.

They slammed into her stomach and chest and she spat out a mixture of saliva and blood. She was now bleeding internally from a broken rib that had slightly punctured her lung. She lay still on the ice, not wanting to attract any more attention and to let the hydra think that she was dead or dying when she was actually only in enough pain to kill an elephant.

The only ones standing now were Rouna and Rena. Erin had flopped over and was spitting out tiny chunks of coagulated blood in his mouth and Hika was busy fending off death.

The hydra turned on those two and it seemed like it really did want to finish them off. The middle head rose up, above the other two, and a bright, blue light appeared in the back of its throat.

It let loose a thunderous roar and five bolts of electricity shot forth towards them. Hika and Erin could only watch in a daze as it seemed like their death was nearing ever closer.

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In a certain nurses office in the Human continent, Riika was wearing a cast made of a flexible plaster casing with slight cushions inside. She was in the process of being healed and she was currently waking at the moment to take her daily prescription of healing potion.

Elisa was already awake, but still had a slight cold as she lay in her bed. The curtains were pushed back and they could see one another now and Elisa turned her head to the right to look over at Riika who was downing a bottle of red liquid that would help her leg heal faster.

“How do you think the rest of the group is doing?”

“Hmm?”

Riika turned to look at her and put up one finger to indicate that she was still drinking the potion. After there was barely a drop of liquid left in the container, she spoke to Elisa. She was feeling immensely better after the treatments and she was able to move her body without her leg hurting.

“They should be fine. They are much stronger than us. Even so, Rune is heading back to them as we speak. He might even already be there now.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right…”

Still, Elisa couldn’t shake off her uneasy feelings that something would or has happened to the group. The isle was unknown to all manner of intelligent life save for the dragons. Who knows what things could be there.

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Rune was having a bit of trouble now. He was flapping his wings in the sky and was looking about, but the rain was heavy and fog touched the ground. All he could see was the very tips of treetops and that there were several open areas shrouded by rain or fog.

If he tried to use his advanced hearing, he would be overcome by the strange noises coming from beneath him and, if he used advanced sight, it would prove to be of no use. Smell, touch, and taste would do absolutely nothing as there was nothing in the sky that those senses could be used on.

In the end, he just had to look through each of the large, open areas that may have the group.

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The lightning struck a barrier that Rouna only barely managed to throw together in front of them both. The barrier exploded in a fog of poison that dispersed without dealing damage to anyone. Hika and Erin finally understood what was going on and they crawled their way to the edge of the fight.

No one wanted to be caught up in a fight with a hydra, much less a really powerful one when you were severely injured and had very little stamina to work with.

The hydra seemed to grow increasingly more annoyed by the second and let loose another volley of lightning. They streaked through the air and Rena and Rouna watched helplessly as they could do a thing.

However, with the help of science, lightning is drawn to the ground and it likes to take the shortest possible route to it. Since those two had clearly gone quite far with just upper arm strength alone, the lightning changed its route and went spiraling downwards, through the ice and straight into the mud.

Only a caster with powerful enough magic potential could make the lightning fly farther. This was the limit of the hydra’s magical prowess.

Hika sighed a sigh of relief as she realized that, for the second time in the past minute, she was not dead. Erin just kept moving onward, completely oblivious to the fact that he almost died.

The two kept moving until… fwump. They flopped onto the ice with one last heave and stopped moving. They weren’t dead, but they were tired from everything and their entire body ached in pain.

The hydra snorted, realising that it could kill those two once it finished killing the current two that were standing before it. Rena aimed her gun and fired several shots. They all penetrated the beast in different places. The only similarity was that the neck of the left head’s base was being shot at.

Countless holes appeared in it with anti-magic bullets and she reloaded her clips at speeds only A and S rank adventurers could move at. She was filled with one of the most powerful forces a person could be compelled by: the will to live.

She didn’t want to be killed and she also wanted to save her friend from imminent death. That meant only one path stood before her. She must kill the hydra.

The hydra was still stunned by the display of speed and in enough pain that it stopped to try and block the bullets while lying down. The only thing that did happen was that the entire left head, neck and all, slide downwards and crashed through the ice and some mud made its way onto it after a huge splash.

Blood leaked everywhere and part of the spinal column could be seen jutting out from the meat hill on the hydra instead of a neck. Dark red flowed out like a river trying to escape the beast and it made several puddles that slightly melted the ice as the warm liquid became cool.

The middle head roared in rage and pain and let loose its most powerful attack on Rena. Its maw opened up farther than anyone thought possible. Its teeth glinted light from the crackling light in the back of its neck. Its tongue was flat against its bottom jaw.

Air whirled around the hydra and the right head closed its eyes as if focusing on something. It snapped its eyes open and opened its maw in the same way the middle head did.

Just then, a shot rang out. Several shots followed suit and bullets streamed through the air. The right head’s eyes widened in surprise as they didn’t think their opponents would go out of turn.

The ten bullets fired found themselves in the eyes of the middle head. Both eyes burst opened like a tomato being smashed by a baseball bat.

Once those eyes were out of the picture, the bullets flowed past the empty eye sockets and utterly and completely destroyed the brain. Brain matter flew out from the newly formed hole in the back of the head and through the eye sockets. Truly a gruesome sight as its head hung limply to the side.

The one who fired was Rouna. The only problem now was that she was too tired and both Rena and Rouna had been lucky to have their bullets hit their target while it was distracted. They couldn’t do anything now, but wait for their death.

Erin shakily sat up and propped himself up with an arm. He aimed his chain gun and… boom! An explosion of ice and mud rattled the area. Wind shook the group around and they were sent even farther away.

Once Erin landed on ice, he checked his gun. He hadn’t fired a shot.

What had happened was that something came out from the sky and landed on the hydra with enough force that it blew it to smithereens. No, with that much force, some pieces of flesh should have been leftover. It seemed like something absorbed it.

“Hey! You guys look terrible. Should I bring you back to the nurse’s office?”