Alistair swung his poleaxe, meeting the hydra's darkly rippling clawed hand with a resounding clash. Thanks to his body purity refinements, he resisted the waves of pain and misery surging through the contact, though the creature seemed equally unfazed by his attempts to rob it of momentum. Still, that didn’t matter—Alistair was better armed, quite literally. With his Blazing Edge skill empowering his weapon, he cut through the hydra’s arm, sending it sailing through the air. Magic flames licked hungrily at the severed limb, burning it and impeding its regeneration.
To his disgust, the hydra shuddered with delight at the loss of its arm, its other claw arcing toward his face, sharp and menacing. Alistair scoffed, batting it away with his shielded arm, the jagged edges of the shield tearing into the creature’s flesh as he twisted it. As if in response, more heads and limbs sprouted. Alistair fired a point-blank kinetic strike, blowing a chunk out of the hydra's rippling torso and scorching away parts of its grotesque jacket—stitched together from the writhing bodies of its victims.
The bastard snarled in fury as his jacket was damaged in the attack. He lashed out with a savage kick, but Alistair countered with his own, the full force of his Kinetic Combat-enhanced kick snapping the hydra's leg, threatening to tear it clean off.
Hydras were a real pain in the ass when it came to regeneration—worse than wendigos, and that was saying something. Alistair couldn’t help but wonder if King had cursed him to keep fighting enemies that refused to stay dead. He made a mental note to either improve his Blazing Edge or another skill from the ground up, to the point it could cripple regeneration outright or push his Kinetic Strike far enough that it could blast apart even massive creatures like this so they couldn’t pull themselves back together. However, he suspected that wasn't feasible against opponents of the same grade.
As frustrating as it was, to make things worse, his telekinesis wasn’t effective against the hydra. The bastard simply had too much damn energy to throw around. Despite Alistair's superior combat skill and strength, the hydra’s nearly endless reserves of power gave it the upper hand in a prolonged fight. Its sheer magical weight made it impossible for him to move the main body as he pleased. Alistair knew he couldn’t outlast this thing; his power, though formidable, wasn’t limitless like the hydra’s deep wells of dark magic—especially since most of its attacks weren’t kinetic or were too infused with dangerous energies for him to absorb.
Meanwhile, Fluffy had been resummoned and continued her assault, hurling her remaining plates at the hydra while trying to inject venom wherever she could. Alistair caught the name Eberus whispered through the battle, likely from suppressed words surrounding them, as the hydra’s isolation magic started to crack under their combined efforts. Running the name and the fact he was a hydra through the AC Bounty Board immediately spat out Hydra of Misery Eberus. A cold sweat built on Alistair when he realized he was among the highest bounties.
Suddenly, Eberus moved faster than expected, claws lashing toward Fluffy’s neck. Alistair barely had time to react, hooking the hydra’s claw with his poleaxe and wrenching it aside, stopping the strike just before he could rip her throat out or worse.
Alistair maintained his relentless assault, blocking and slashing with precision as he drove the hydra back, occasionally using telekinesis to hurl severed body parts toward Riseth. She was deep in concentration, forcing open a volatile tear in reality—a dangerous vortex of energy that grew more unstable with each passing second. The very essence of the planet resisted her efforts, straining against the unnatural rift she was creating. But Riseth pressed on, expanding the tear, ensuring it would obliterate the hydra and anything else unfortunate enough to be caught in its reach.
Unfortunately, this was the kind of fight where Riseth, King, and Fluffy had to carefully pick their moments, wary of disrupting the battle’s rhythm and causing chaos. Alistair did his best to create openings for them to exploit and to shield them if they overextended—or worse, if Eberus tried to pick them off. But this was exactly where Aegis Stride thrived, forcing Eberus to play by his rules.
Alistair tried to telekinetically hurl Eberus into the vortex, but the hydra’s magical weight resisted him, barely budging. Still, it was enough for Alistair to notice something important—the seemingly endless energy Eberus wielded was starting to diminish, ever so slightly. The combined efforts of him, Riseth, Fluffy, and King were finally taking their toll. The fight was far from over, but they were chipping away at the monster’s power, drawing closer to victory.
“You think tearing both me and reality apart will stop me from butchering the lot of you once you run out of steam?” Eberus taunted, his laughter dark and mocking.
Alistair shot back without missing a beat, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "Quit your yapping. I’ll have you parceled up and tossed into a shredder soon enough, you miserable pain in my ass."
The hydra scoffed, but Alistair caught the faint flicker of annoyance crossing its twisted features. He rewarded that reaction with a kinetically charged punch from his shield hand, the sharp ends of his shield stabbing through the creature’s thick scales and driving into its head and brain. The impact was so fierce that the humanoid hydra’s neck snapped violently, but the tough bastard merely smiled, even as the bones knitted themselves back together in a fraction of a second.
Despite the oppressive isolation magic, Alistair was surprised his voice could be heard. The hydra must have realized communication wasn’t the key to stopping them, so he shifted his efforts, refocusing his energy from the concept of isolation to empowering himself. But Alistair knew they were wearing him down, bit by bit; while he couldn't use the telekinesis to move his opponent like usual, he could kick, punch, and carve him up just fine, driving Eberus closer to the rift.
As the fight got fiercer, the combat style Eberus was using grew more vicious and smoother as desperation mounted. But Alistair could tell his technique was superior, and coupled with his superior power, he battered the dark hydra, carving it up piece by piece, King's sharp dark feathers cut into Eberus who disregarded them like the metal plates but his eyes widened in shock as the sharp feathers unleashed the new cursed energy that was now violently coursing through his veins and rampaging through his magical pathways tearing and ripping at them. A vicious new technique he and King had devised where his cursed energy would be injected through King's newly upgraded Cursefeather Cascade, a compound skill that would unleash a selected assortment of horrible curses and hexes rampaging through an opponent's body that gets hit by the feathers.
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With the isolation concept vanishing, Alistair could sense that his clan had wiped out the remaining assassins and helpers who had survived his initial onslaught. They kept their distance, careful not to interfere or disrupt the flow of combat while things remained in their favor. James and Simon were the closest, poised to jump in if the situation grew more dire. Alistair silently prayed it wouldn't come to that. Thankfully, misery itself didn’t directly empower its wielder, nor did any of the related concepts Alistair could recall off the top of his head, his attention fully consumed by maintaining the relentless pressure, unable to review the information stored within his Akashic Link skill.
Riseth's strained voice reached him through the Akashic Link: "I can't push the tear very far, but if you get him within five meters, I can use my manipulation combined with your force to push him in."
He watched as she inched the rift toward them, painfully slow, sweat beading on her forehead, a trickle of blood running from her nose under the strain. Now that he knew the distance she could manage, his determination solidified—five meters was doable.
Alistair's battle spheres morphed into streams of flame, scorching the Hydra's flesh and further stalling its regeneration. Eberus thrashed wildly, trying to enlarge his form while swiping with claws and tails, pressing down on Alistair with immense magical force and focus. But Alistair’s heavenly purity foundation, combined with his natural resistance and sheer grit, kept the overwhelming tide of power at bay.
With a surge of effort, Alistair drove the point of his poleaxe deep into Eberus, forcing the Hydra to stumble back—one step, then another—until the weapon nearly pierced through his body. Eberus clutched the poleaxe shaft, desperately trying to tear it from Alistair’s grip, but Alistair slammed him with a backhanded blow from his shield arm, the impact cracking the Hydra's neck yet again. Channeling a surge of energy into a savage kick, Alistair sent Eberus staggering further, his clawed fingers ripped from the weapon as he was thrown off balance.
Closing in, Alistair unleashed a burst of telekinesis, locking Eberus in place for but a moment. The Hydra’s eyes widened in shock just before a Kinetic Strike from Alistair’s free hand obliterated half of his head as Eberus managed to prevent the worst by twisting out of the attack despite the telekinesis. Seizing the moment, Alistair swept the Hydra’s legs with his returning poleaxe, sending Eberus crashing down. With a final kick, he drove the falling hydra toward Riseth, clearing the last bit of distance.
At that moment, Riseth hurled her rift forward with sudden speed, catching the Hydra off guard as the previously semi-stationary rift screamed toward him, cracking reality as it went. Eberus screamed in rage as both Alistair and Riseth used their concepts to shove him deeper into the rift, which began tearing his body apart before disintegrating him. His enraged screams echoed as his form was consumed.
Sensing the volatile reaction from the ocean of misery’s energy as it responded to the disintegration, Alistair and Riseth moved quickly. They recalled their summons, teleporting away just in time, scooping up Simon and James to escape the impending explosive release from the unstable energy field.
An unholy mixture of magic expanded, swallowing the forest, hills, and fields in its path. Alistair and the others ran and teleported desperately to escape the massive black orb of death and misery. Alistair barely registered the series of chimes sounding in his head, his focus on grabbing anyone within reach using telekinesis as they rushed to safety.
Thankfully, the orb stopped its relentless expansion and began to contract. But as Alistair looked back, he was stunned. The landscape wasn’t obliterated—it was transformed. The oppressive concepts of Misery, Death, and Chaos lingered in the air, seeping into the earth, the plants, and the trees. The once vibrant forest had become a grotesque, twisted version of itself. Dark, warped trees now stood like sinister parodies of life, their blackened branches and roots clawing at the sky, as if the world itself had rotted from within.
Alistair grimaced at the sight before turning to Riseth. He pulled her into a tight embrace, kissing the top of her head. But even her safety and the death of the Hydra couldn't quiet the dark thoughts clouding his mind. If the Syndicate ever found their planet and sent more monsters like Eberus, they’d have no choice but to abandon everything—unless they grew significantly stronger and gained powerful allies. His senses picked up on approaching figures from multiple directions, and he knew they couldn’t afford to appear vulnerable now.
Riseth glanced toward their family, closing in. "We need to reach the next Grade," she said, steel in her voice.
Alistair followed her gaze and nodded. "And no more splitting up."
Riseth offered a half-smile, trying to lighten the weight of the moment. "Good thing I don’t mind your company."
Alistair chuckled, though the weight in his mind remained. There would be time to process what had just transpired, but for now, their mission wasn’t finished, and they needed to leave. It wasn’t out of the question that the Syndicate, with its vast universal network, was already aware of everything and might send reinforcements to finish what they'd started. Leaving now would likely do more good for this planet than staying.
Taking a deep breath, he glanced at his newly earned titles.
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TITLES:
Tier: [Legendary]
Name: Dark Hydra Slayer
Effect:
Grants a 20% bonus to [Control] and [Body] statistics and significantly enhances the effectiveness of all regeneration-disrupting and impairing skills.
Origin: Acquired through the slaying of the Hydra of Misery Eberus, a very powerful mythical dark hydra.
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Tier: [Legendary]
Name: Legendary Bounty Hunter
Effect:
Grants a 10% bonus to all stats and provides the [Sense Bounty] Skill.
Origin: A growing title acquired through killing an individual within the top 50 highest bounties within the freshly integrating universe.
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SKILLS:
Tier: [Epic]
Name: Sense Bounty
Description: The user is able to sense if an individual within his senses has a bounty on his head. Individuals with a bounty are highlighted through the user's Conceptual Awareness and may be shared through his Akashic Link skill.
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