Team leaders shouted commands as adventuring parties rapidly mobilized. Booms of explosions, roars of rushing wind, and a chorus of magical emanations joined the loud splashing waves as countless adventurers along the beach employed their powers and abilities in a sudden rally.
Three huge, serpentine necks had risen from the waters just offshore, each lined with blue-white scales and ending in heads with ferocious teeth and backward facing spikes on either side of the jaws.
A massive wall of sand rose between Iris and the water, shielding her and countless others as one of the heads struck out towards them like a snake. It crashed through the sand and slammed into the beach, slowly rising back up, apparently dazed from the impact.
Titus stepped up beside Iris, conjuring his floating spears of light in a row stretching out along the length of the extended neck. He called them down instantly, penetrating through the creature and leaving blackened spots where they struck. A large, lion-like man ran from the side and swung a massive hammer into the creature's head, whipping it to the side like a powerful punch. The sand wall rose up again, this time enveloping a portion of the creature's neck and compacting down into sandstone to hold it tightly in place.
Iris looked back and saw Victoria retreating towards the forest.
"Go!" Victoria shouted, "this fight's too big for us!"
Iris looked around the beach, she saw countless people tripping in the sand as they fled. She realized not everyone on the beach was an adventurer, and even many who were weren't high enough level for a fight like this, and none were prepared for a sudden dire battle.
"I'm gonna help!" She shouted back, blipping across the beach to assist someone who had tripped. She helped them to their feet, oriented them towards the forest and pointed, then blipped away again.
Further up the beach, Eli charged his staff and released the most powerful shot he could. Red magic streaked through the air and struck an outstretched serpent, scorching the scales but causing no apparent damage. He swore, then charged another shot.
Victoria reached the embankment and deftly leapt from root to root until she reached the forest above, where she engaged her vision power and scanned the beach. Horror crossed her face as she realized it wasn't several creatures they were fighting, but one large, multi-headed body lurking beneath the water.
Just then, an adventurer with obsidian skin and angelic wings flew past one of the heads with a giant greatsword, slicing through it and sending a decapitated head crashing into the water. A fountain of shining blue blood spurted from the neck as it twisted and recoiled, whipping around violently as the flesh began to bulge and morph. The wound began to split at the stump until the neck ripped apart down the middle, fresh scales quickly growing to seal over the wounds as two new heads rapidly grew from the ends. The resulting heads were smaller and the necks were thinner, but the new teeth were just as sharp as the old.
Autumn stood on the beach, a hardened glass pickaxe in either hand, both formed from beach sand. She stared up at a hydra head intently, waiting for her chance. It slammed the length of its neck into the beach, sending adventurers diving out of the way from the crushing force. She ran, leapt, and screamed. She landed on the creature and drove her picks between the scales, clinging to it like a mountain climber as it rose back into the air.
One after the other, Autumn removed a pick and drove it back in, slowly climbing her way up the length of the neck as the creature whipped and whirled around. Countless attacks glanced off of it all around it, spikes of stone, bolts of fire, and arrows of all sizes. Still, she climbed. When she reached the creature's head, she waited for it to level out long enough for her next move. As soon its movement slowed, she clenched tight with her legs and ripped out both pickaxes, holding them together over her head and transmuting them into one long glass spike, which she drove into the creature's skull with all her strength. The spike stopped just a few inches deep, her eyes going wide as the head reared back with a roar. The creature's bulk shielded her from a hail of arrows that pelted it as it reared.
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A hulking mass of a man crashed into the creature from the side, clinging to the spikey growths on the side of its jaw. He had the head of a shark and a ferocious grin.
"Jump," he commanded.
Autumn froze for an instant, then let go of the glass spike and kicked off. As she fell towards the water below, she saw the man grab the top and bottom of the creature's jaw and wrench it open, climbing inside to push the jaw further open than it was meant to go.
Everything went dark as she crashed into the water. She whirled around, trying to orient herself to swim but unable to figure out which way was up. Large shapes loomed in the water, and vicious currents whipped her in all directions.
Something hit her and knocked the air from her lungs. Instinctively she sucked in a breath, instead getting only water. She caught a glimpse of one of the creature's necks slamming into the water, apparently lifeless. Then a figure darted towards her impossibly fast, leaving a wake of bubbles as it swam. It hit hard, scooping her up with an arm and continuing at speed.
She gasped and coughed as they rocketed out of the water at a wild speed. Her whole body lurched as her rescuer's feet crashed into the beach before roughly laying her out on the ground.
"Healer!" He shouted, his beady shark eyes giving one look down at Autumn before he turned and leapt back into the battle.
Titus slid into a crouch as he approached, screaming Autumn's name. She smiled up at him, coughing up a jet of water as she raised a hand to give a meek thumbs up and closed her eyes.
Iris appeared next to a panicked adventurer, handing her the crossbow she had dropped elsewhere on the beach a moment before, "here, get to the trees!"
Iris turned in time to stare in awe as the Shark Titan leapt fifty feet in the air, meeting the jaws of a hydra head as it struck downwards at the beach. He caught the creature by the mouth and twisted in the air, twisting the neck of the creature and snapping the bottom jaw of out socket. He kicked off it, rising even further into the air before coming down with a boom like he'd been fired from a cannon, sending him rocketing into the creature and pummeling it into the water.
Even in the turbulent waters of the battle, she saw the streak of bubbles as the titan rocketed through the water just below the surface. He collided with a hydra's neck below the water, causing the whole neck above the surface to recoil from the blow and soon retreat back below the surface.
Soon seven jets of water exploded upwards, forming a row of pillars just in front of the beach. The remaining hydra heads -- of which there were now several -- recoiled back from the jets. The heads roared and hissed, and a few tried to dart between the pillars to reach the beach beyond. Each one that tried was met with smaller, horizontal jets that shot out from the pillars on either side. One unlucky head got caught between the pillars as the horizontal jets shot out, they effortlessly sliced through its flesh and decapitated it.
Several more heads lashed out even as the neck of the severed head split and regrew. More pillars rose, forming a half circle around the hydra and blocking it off from the beach entirely. In the relative calm of the stalemate, many adventurers on the beach noticed the distant ship was now looming scarily close to the beach. Its massive sails fully unfurled, and a large black flag whipping in the wind. It turned and moved parallel to the beach on the other side of the hydra. Cannons boomed, a hailstorm of cannonballs enveloped the heads of the hydra, exploding flesh wherever they landed. The ones that missed flew over the beach and crashed into the trees of the forest beyond.
The remaining heads of the hydra roared in rage, and one by one they sunk into the depths. A massive, bulging wave moved on the surface of the water as the creature swam towards the ship. The wave crashed into the ship and rocked it heavily, but the ship held fast as the creature passed below it and rushed out further into the lake. Immediately, the ship was turning and starting a pursuit.
The Shark Titan rose out of the lake on a jet of water, landing hard on the beach as the wall of pillars came down into the lake behind him. Though he landed on sand, the ensuing waves soon enveloped him, washing violently across most of the beach before receding back again. He effortlessly marched forward, unmoved by the coming and going of the massive wave. As the water receded, he addressed the beach in a booming voice.
"You have fought valiantly, but today is not the day. All who join the hunt are welcome to fight by my side and bring this marvelous creature to heel."
The Shark Titan turned and leapt into the water, darting off after his ship.