Arthur glanced briefly at his status, going over the temporary additions it had received. First came the debuff he’d been placed under by close proximity to the lesser Hydra. Then came a small subsection denoting the stored healing affinity he’d placed there for himself and Alyssia last night.
Personally, it wouldn’t do much for him, a mere fraction of his total health pool. Perhaps enough to heal a broken bone or two, which on second thoughts could be the difference between life and death in the upcoming fight. A lot more important than he’d initially given credit for.
For Alyssia, that life-saving ability was multiplied tenfold. A fraction of his health pool was equivalent to the entirety of hers, it was quite literally enough healing to bring her back from the brink of death. Honestly, the skill was kind of broken, despite it only being at Rare rank. Granting healing based on the host's total health pool would be pretty terrible for the average healer, being the mages that they were. In his hands though, it provided the regenerative buffs you’d expect from a high-end elite skill on the cusp of epic rank.
The third and final addition to his status came from the tonic Alyssia had given him to drink. He didn’t know what made it different from a standard potion or elixir but its effects were quite similar to what he’d come to expect of such things.
Health, Stamina and Ether regeneration Increased by 5% for 57 minutes
All things considered, it was a very small boost in power that would only make itself known if the battle dragged on for long enough. Fighting against a hydra, however, meant that a battle of attrition was the exact opposite of what they wanted. Hydras were known for their ability to outlast anyone and everything. No, if they wanted victory today, they’d have to be swift and decisive.
In mythology, the beasts were killed by sword and fire. Unfortunately, reality presented no such weakness. If they were fighting a water Hydra, then flames would have been a viable form of attack. Sadly that wasn’t the case. Their enemy according to Alyssia’s aura reading skills was a form of poison/swamp variant and fire was something it was very familiar with, as in one of its heads could breathe the damn stuff.
This was all knowledge that had been relayed to him after Alyssia had scouted the beast. He hadn’t laid eyes on it yet. She’d employed a nifty aura technique that masked her presence and some good old stealth to get a good look at their enemy. The beast already knew they were there and so Alyssia’s aura mask was more something that made her look unthreatening than a complete disappearance that Arthur knew she was capable of.
Suddenly dropping off the monster's radar this close to it was a sure way to agitate the beast. Arthur's job, currently, was to use his own unique aura skill, whatamIevendoing, to minimise his presence as much as possible. It helped a little and Alyssia was working double time to cover any gaps in his skill with her own. It was tiring work and without the infusion of power her elixir had given her, she’d be hard-pressed to maintain it for as long as she had. As enhanced as she was now, it was only a minor inconvenience.
“Alright,” Alyssia said in a low whisper. “This fight might be a little easier than expected.”
The words coming out of her mouth sounded strange, and it took Arthur a moment to realise that once again, she was using her aura to make them as stealthy as possible, the sound she produced had a direct conduit to his ears with no leakage into the space around them. It was like he had earphones on and off at the same time, a contradiction that his brain couldn’t quite grasp.
“The hydra is pregnant. She’s in the process of producing eggs to lay. And no before you ask, I don’t know how hydra procreation works. I’m not even sure if what's happening in the locus is how things work in the real world.” Alyssia shut down his question before he even had a chance to ask it.
“The locus spawned a pregnant beast to make the task more manageable for its challengers, I guess,” she continued. "If we weren't trying to kill it, I’m sure I could go and get these golden apples in the next sixty seconds. The overgrown lizard is conserving all her energy for the birth. Even fighting it will be a lot easier now. About 25% so if I were to put a number on it. The beast is slower, lacks energy and her movements are severely limited.”
Arthur took the new information in his stride. It didn’t change what they’d planned to do. The monster was a fake imitation and its babies were fake too. Hell, this entire locus was fake. He wanted that core and he’d be damned if he let a little infanticide get in his way, not when he was killing things that didn’t even exist. Even if they left the layer with the hydra unharmed, those children would never be born, the apocalypse beast would simply cease to be, and the energy used in its creation recycled for the next challengers that came through, perhaps repurposed for another beast altogether.
Okay, maybe I’m feeling a little guilty, trying to justify it so much. It doesn't change much though. That core, even if it was fake, existed for as long as they were on this layer. If he consumed it whilst on the second floor, he'd make it a permanent addition to his strength and the locus would take a hit to its total energy reserves, an exchange he was more than happy to take part in.
“So, how are we going to kill it?” Arthur asked. “As far as damage dealers go, I'm pretty limited. At least until my soul affinity finally becomes unlocked. Until then, I'm restricted to shadow bombs and water bullets. Shadow doesn't have any penetrative power and water bullets, at least as small as they'll need to be to get past the beast's defences, are far too tiny for a monster as big as the one they were facing. It'll be like poking it with a needle.”
Alyssa smiled, a look of smug satisfaction coming over her. “Right now, after drinking that elixir I've got well over 1500 effective agility. Unencumbered as I am on a tier-one planet, I can move at five times the speed of sound. Probably way faster. I've never tried it before.” She laughed loudly. “These grieves we got really changed the game for me. It let me free up some of the magic I'd been using to reinforce my body to go even faster. About 30%, maybe 35%.”
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She was on a roll now, extolling the virtues of her build and she'd yet to answer his question. Arthur didn't interrupt her. She wanted to have her dramatic moment; Arthur would give it to her just this once.
“The path I'm currently travelling is one notorious for its difficulty. No one has been able to walk down it in the past three centuries. It treads through the realms of the legendary Tamed Lightning that encompasses the heavens themselves. I'll be the first to take it further, beyond Mythical, to the heights of known power and beyond.”
Arthur couldn’t help himself. “Can you get to the point?” He deadpanned.
“You-you bastard. Just let me have my moment,” she spluttered, her cheeks flushing in embarrassed rage.
“Okay, I’m sorry,” he chuckled, waving his hand dismissively. “Continue as you were.”
Alyssia glared at him, a frown on her face. “No, I don’t think I will,” she said. “Suffice to say that when it comes to dealing damage, after eating that elixir, I don’t think even Kazi Alukai, your planet's current greatest torchbearer, can even come close to me. And he's a damn prime with the planet behind his back.”
“You noticed the last time we sparred that my strikes lacked true power behind them. I remember you telling me that I needed to strike through my targets. With magic involved, I need to merely touch an opponent to deal resonant damage, it’s a mix of wind and lightning magic that targets the very makeup of my opponents. The more strikes I land, the more potent my attacks become. Right now, I would hit you 27 times before you'd even realise what was happening. Even with your health pool, you’d be dead by the 19th strike.”
“Wait,” Arthur interrupted. “You're saying you can kill me in less than a second?”
Alyssia nodded her head enthusiastically, oblivious to how her words had affected Arthur. Less than a second, as fast as he could blink. He’d thought he was building himself up to be pretty tanky and here she was, telling him he’d die in a heartbeat if they ever fought using magic.
She’s twice my level but still, what the hell. My health pool is insane even for someone twice my level. Same with my constitution. And what? Does it mean nothing?
Alyssia finally seemed to realise the implicit meaning within her words. She’d practically told him the current path was useless. “This IS only because of that elixir I drank,” she clarified. “The thing was built for me, each and every ingredient used in its creation harvested with my build in mind. The only reason it wasn’t legendary rank was because of how specialised it was,” she explained. “Its effects are exponential, lets me ignore certain rules that snowball my damage through the roof.”
“Without it, well-” she laughed. “I could still hit you 20 times in a single second, but the cumulative potency of my strikes would be significantly diminished. I’d deal 2,000 damage. Perhaps not even that.”
She paused in thought for a moment. “If I had a big knife, I could still kill you in less than a second though. Chop your head off before you know what hit you,” she mused idly. “I’d boot it like a football to make sure you couldn’t attach it back in time too." Alyssia sighed. "I’m sorry Arthur, I was trying to make you feel better.” She shook her head sadly. “I guess the path of Tamed Lightning is just too overpowered.”
“Okay, Alyssia,” Arthur said in exasperation. “I get it. Your class is very cool. Only the big girls get to-”
“It is, isn’t it,” she interrupted him with a massive grin splitting her face, completely oblivious to his mocking tone. Arthur quickly brought the conversation back on track. “So what’s the plan?” He asked. The smirk that came over Alyssia’s face told him he wouldn’t like it. What did she mean he was probably fireproof by now? And why was she laughing so deviously?
Arthur was very, very glad the bugs had stopped bothering them a while ago. Otherwise, things would be quite uncomfortable right now. He was standing ten metres away from the sleeping hydra, a massive beast about the size of two school buses stacked on top of each other.
And he was naked as the day he was born.
If he went back in time and tracked all the choices he’d ever made, he wondered which decision of his life, decided all those years ago, led to this particular moment, where he stood naked, crown jewels hanging free, before a monster that could swallow him whole.
I want a damn restart button.
Being the party's designated tank meant he’d be facing flames nearly hot enough to melt stone. While he could survive that, at least according to Alyssia, his clothes certainly couldn't. He‘d insisted that he at least keep his underwear on but Alyssia had just looked at him like he was stupid. Why waste a perfectly good piece of clothing, she’d asked. It wouldn’t survive the flames any better than the rest of his clothes would.
In the end, she’d persuaded him by showing him a hidden function his mask of mirrors possessed, the item he’d received from the Serako assembly and all but forgotten about. Turned out it could be used to censor some of his body parts from the casual observer, hence why Arthur currently looked like a video game character, his genitals and ass blurred areas that the eyes couldn’t focus on.
He could still feel the humid breeze blowing across his balls, a sensation he could have lived his entire life without experiencing. Despite all the moisture in the air, Arthur’s mouth still felt dry. This was it. Here he was, standing across a monster that was feared across the cosmos, an apocalypse that if unleashed on Earth and allowed to grow, would decimate the planet and make it a habitat of poisoned swamps and marshes.
It would then leave the planet, intelligent enough by that point to use spacial magic and seek out new life. This was according to all the stories Alyssia had heard about such boasts, which would explain why they were called The Lords of Gluttony.
The overgrown serpent was an imitation of that grand legacy, a fake with seven heads instead of the usual nine it should have at level 99. Arthur took a deep breath and let it out, imagining the tension in his body leaving with the exhaled air. It helped a little.
Alyssia was somewhere behind him, using her aura to mask his presence and her own. It was time to wake the beast up, preferably in a way that would deal significant damage. He hadn’t deployed his domain yet, and he wouldn’t for the duration of this fight. He wasn’t able to isolate targets for its slowdown effect yet and until he could, he’d be hurting Alyssia far more with the skill than the hydra since speed was her entire shtick.
Molecular water shot was currently his most damaging skill but they’d decided that in this opening salvo, they were better off using a shadow bomb. There were three reasons for this, primary amongst them being the hydras' increased resistance to all magics that contained a liquid component. Being a beast that made its home in the swamps and marshes, it felt at home amongst water.
The other reason he was using his shadow affinity, however, was because of the inherent stealth the magic contained. With Alyssia’s aura manipulations helping things along, the hydra wouldn’t know what hit it until the damage was already done. Arthur poured ether into his domain skill, preparing himself to isolate specific parts of its effects. He didn't want to deploy his domain, but that didn't mean it'd be useless for this fight. Compared to what he’d been doing the past few days, it was honestly quite easy.
Arthur poured in as much ether as his shadow traps could take. 100. 200. 300. At 600, it felt like a balloon that was about to pop. Arthur pushed in a few more points and settled at 638 points.
He targeted the shadows at the centre of the coiling serpent heads, the point where he could do the most damage to all of them at once. A drop of sweat made its way down his eyebrow. There was a big reason why they'd decided to start with this particular attack. Now he’d just have to wait and see if it worked.
They were ready.