Of all the miserable god damn demons you can face in the cleaned hells, few ruffle my feathers more than the false hydras.

They're not even fully physical entities to start with.

They exist relative to your memories.

Their bodies are a composite of psionic essence and hellish flesh.

Creations spawned from the circle of envy.

False hydra isn't just a mindless demon, but also a form sinners can inhabit.

If you can afford the paltry price of a few billion sins, and if you have an association with the circle of envy, the flesh priests of the cleaned hells might just be able to carve you into something more than mortal, more than material.

But be warned, though the false hydra feeds upon memories and burrows through minds, the old adage stands truer for it than most others, for when you dive into the abyss, sometimes you don't know what lurks there, and it didn't take much for a hydra to be turned into prey once it goes past deep waters.

-The Trespasser’s Compendium

64

Form of the Harvester (III)

Wei barely had any time to consider what this Object Impermanence effect was before the next attack came.

Two Dilation Echoes triggered, revealing portents of the coming assault. He witnessed the first blow descend upon Roggi, a massive form crushing down upon the Oathbearer as if a boot stomping upon a bug. At the same time, something would sweep across Wei and send him through the walls of the ruins, trapping him beneath the debris.

At once, the Young Master dismissed his Lesser Hollow Mind and triggered his Form of the Resonant. He didn't need to know what Object Impermanence meant to guess that it was a psionic-based attack. However, the sheer influx of sensory detail flooding into his mind also strained his focus. His omniscience was slowly becoming a double-edged sword.

Fighting through the sensory chaos, the Young Master triggered his Heart of Calamity, and a storm erupted from his Eidolon as wind, lightning, water, and stone shrouded his body. As his relativity foresaw, an attack came, smashing against the protective whirlwind, while Wei twirled his spear, sending Roggi aside just in time to save him from certain death. As the Oathbearer bounced a few times, his filth-caked wings flapping as he tried to get his bearings, an immense shape pressed down upon the terrain and plunged deep through the ground. It was as if a massive worm had burrowed clean through the matter without any difficulty.

Concurrently, Wei felt the weight of a smashing tide crash against his winds, and though his power held for a moment, his protections buckled—but not before he could project his intent and shatter a few hundred meters of distance. In a moment, Wei blinked backwards, and as he materialized seventy-five meters higher in the sky, he witnessed the form of his enemy for the first time.

To call the demon a serpent was inadequate. Scales of pulsating brilliance dotted the upper half of the creature, while the underside of its body was a pale membrane, lined with pulsating hearts and other organs. Most disturbing was its face. It was not that of a reptile, but the vagueness of a human. It lacked eyelids, ears, lips, and even a proper nose, but those pitch-black orbs, elongated nostrils, and jagged teeth presented an uncanny facsimile of mankind all the same. Worst of all was how one of the Oathbearers was fused within this creature's skull, slowly being absorbed into its body.

Wei immediately triggered several of his active skills, marking the creature with his Minor Icon of Domination, before it vanished from his sight immediately. The Young Master blinked, and another piercing pain drilled deep through his skull. He bit back a cry, but managed to keep his concentration. His Form of the Resonant resumed, and another dilation echo warned him of a series of oncoming attacks.

As the Young Master dove, he thrust out with his spear, and lightning leapt from its tip, curved through the air as if a sailing whip. Though Wei couldn't see the creature anymore, the dilation echo still betrayed its oncoming attack. The bolt struck the side of the creature with a thunderous impact, and for the first time, the Young Master heard his adversary cry out in agony.

However, the shriek was mind-rending. The world went white, and stars flooded Wei's vision as his head began to spin. Lashing out using his spear on instinct, he was stunned to discover how he could carve through the psionic sound wave as if it was matter. At the same time, Wei saw ciphers fill the air, expanding in a wide 150-meter sphere. Reference circuits were rapidly being drawn between the signs, and a vast web-shaped working was slowly coming into shape.

Rafael hadn't run off. It was actually happening this time. That was almost heartening for the Young Master. The craven was trying to get back in his good graces. People could change.

Even the dead ones.

A deafening chorus of voices erupted from the many-headed beast. Wei distinguished seven from the group to be low and nasally, while another six sounded like the other Oathbearers speaking alongside the Trine. A sudden forewarning filled Wei's vision as a new attack was set to come. This one, however, held no physical dimension. Instead, the Dilation Echo resembled a fold of space collapsing around Wei's mind.

In an instant, he realized what was coming, slashed upwards with his Eidolon. A detonation of stones impacted the psionic assault, and Wei immediately felt a layer of black and gold fuse over his body. A cry of pain echoed through the air, and the young master realized he'd dealt true harm to his foe, and in dealing true harm, his Shroud of Scorn took effect for the very first time.

Just in time as well.

The air around Wei compressed as a sudden well of force collapsed around him. The attack struck at both his body and his mind, but rather than breaking, Wei’s newly manifested around rang out in defiance of the blow.

Fragments of gold shattered from his person, but he himself took no harm, and used the opportunity to inject his Intent into the psionic field assailing him.

Concept-Integrity of [Mind-Field]: 95/95

However, before Wei could strike the field, it suddenly dissolved, leaving him without a target.

But not a foe.

A ripple of force swept through the world, and Wei's adversary unveiled its true form, no longer content to hide. Seven colossal heads, connected to countless smaller bodies, rose high into the air, those horrid near-human faces, trapped on elongated serpentine torsos. Six of its heads sported an Oathbearer or Faeblood, partially fused to its form. It was then that Wei also uncovered the true name of his adversary:

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False Hydra: Level 54.

False Hydra. Why was everything in these claimed hells snake-themed? The Knight of Pride had some kind of blood hydra. The snakes with dubious holes he killed earlier also partially resembled the hydra. Was this entire place snake-themed?

Wei despised serpents. Damned legless reptiles. How could any cultivator respect something that had to crawl on their stomach?

Recentering his focus, Wei triggered his Form of the Resonant again, before also activating Minor Castigator’s Smite. He slashed out using the wind, sending cleaving blows across the vastness of space. The False Hydra responded by channeling a current of energy through the victims it had fused to his flesh.

Wei’s Omniscience sensed a strange essence pulsing out from their very minds. The Oathbearers and Faebloods weren’t just captives—they were conduits as well, used by the False Hydra as a channel for its power. Strange fractals burst out from atop the hydra’s heads, and suddenly, Wei felt pathways into other places materialize in reality. His strikes passed into tunnels composed of essence and promptly vanished. Then, another Dilation Echo formed—this time revealing an attack that would run him clean through.

Wei triggered his Essenceshift barely at the last moment, and an invisible bolt zipped clean through him. A dozen more quickly followed, and the young master still felt stings of pain dot his mind. Thankfully, his Shroud and Fortitude lessened the effect from earlier.

Rematerializing fifty meters away, the young master renewed his assault and kept an eye on his scorn.

Scorn: [242/3400]

He hadn’t managed to deal substantial damage to anything yet. It was gradually dropping. Such was one of the effects of his Class Divergence, but this could be to his advantage as well. At least his Shroud didn’t eat away at his Scorn when it was used.

A few exchanges followed between him and the False Hydra. Wei attacked from every angle, a relentless offensive that lashed and thundered. The False Hydra was far slower, but its reach was great and every one of its psionic emanations had an added effect of rattling Wei’s mind. More annoyingly, even as he tried to infuse the hydra with his Intent, it kept blinking in and out of his focus. It was almost as if staring at the sun. If the sun burned your near-term memories as well.

As the duel continued, however, the young master started having an idea. An idea that was further encouraged as Roggi slammed into one of the hydra’s heads.

"Alright, you big ugly bastard!" Roggi cried out, burrowing his wings into the hydra’s flesh. The Oathbearer was less like a filthy moth and more akin to a spot of spreading rot lodged on the side of the False Hydra now. The creature shook and shuddered, but Roggi simply refused to release his hold. A patch of darkness spreading fast along its sides and at once, the False Hydra angled its other heads to deal with Roggi—

Only for a rainstorm of bright and narrow beams to pierce its eyes. The creature reeled back, beset upon all sides, and Wei extended his Intent once more, seeking to finally capture his foe. At the same time, he formed a Lance of Calamity high up in the air, near the edge of his Omniscience. He didn’t know how far the False Hydra’s Perception reached, but with how it was sending out blasts of energy every few seconds. Rippling waves of psionic force pulsed out from the Hydra, trying to repel the onslaught befalling it. Roggi continued pumping his poison into the hydra, but Wei could hear the Oathbearer’s limbs straining.

“Hang on, brothers!” Roggi bellowed, calling out to his comrades, but they remained dormant fixtures nested in the hydra’s flesh.

At the same time, Rafael’s next barrage of beams splashed uselessly against the False Hydra's projected ripple. But finally, Wei’s Intent struck home. A stream of white and black pierced clean through the False Hydra's power, spilling into its very being. At once, Wei captured its aspect of mind, and at the same time, as he continued launching attack after attack, whipping down at the Hydra using lightning, water, earth, and air. And while the hydra batted and struck at his attacks, Wei brought the Lance down from on high.

The hydra sensed nothing. Not until it was too late. The air above cracked as a massive rod composed of water and lightning punched straight down. The final seconds before the Lance struck, one of the Hydra's heads turned upward, and its blackened eyes seemed to flash with psionic brilliance. A faint dome of psychokinetic force materialized around the False Hydra, but it failed to solidify itself before the Lance struck.

And struck it did, its effect compounded by all of Wei's currently active skills, creating a cascade of devastation, all targeted upon the False Hydra's Will. An echo of white and black exploded out from the massive creature, and with a final shriek, the Hydra twitched and went very, very still. Each of its heads crashed down onto the ground, and as its body twitched and its mind emitted projections of delirious agony. The Oathbearers it was trying to subsume popped free from its body, and the song of the Faebloods began to ring anew.

The hydra itself, meanwhile, began to uncoil and shrivel. With its Will shattered, Wei felt a faintness of power System while his Class notified him of levels gained. However, Wei felt a more pressing pressure emanate from within his Concept Core of the Harvest, and it called for him to seek out the hydra.

The creature was rapidly shrinking now, turning into a little more than a spongy splotch of flesh connected to seven oversized faces. Each of them drooled and wept, their voices sounding discordantly like that of an infant’s. But in them, Wei felt a strange power still resonating—a power the hydra was no longer able to wield.

Wei landed before the hydra a few moments later, the winds carrying him to a gentle halt. He regarded the False Hydra with a look of confusion. Just where did this creature come from? Was it a Knight of Hell as well? It didn't seem to be native to this Moongrave. Considering most of the surrounding demons were sub-level 10 and the False Hydra was at 46, there was something else at play here, and Wei intended to question this creature as much as he could.

“Wait!” Rafael cried out. The lich sailed on a chain of ciphers. A flapping cloak of invisibility drifted around them as they approached Wei. “Do not touch that! It’s a False Hydra—a demonic parasite! A Knight likely infected them with it! It grew inside them! If you touch it—”

“It is broken,” Wei said. The lich came to a halt right next to Wei, and he placed down a series of signs. Symbols came together in a complex overlay as the lich worked. “Enough. I said it is broken. It is not a threat. You can stop this now.”

“It’s a False Hydra, it will always be a threat,” Rafael said. “It devours your thoughts from the inside and grows out from your body. Any hint of consciousness and it will feed—”

“Not if it lacks the will to do so. It is like the Knight of Lust now. Its ability to decide has been taken, and now, only a husk of will remains.”

A husk of will. And a mangled little body. But inside it was a trove of strange energies and substances; the stuff which Wei’s Concept Core of the Harvest craved. He needed to claim it. And he needed to offer it to his core. It would fill the needs for his newest skill. This, he knew. He just knew.

Reaching down through Rafael’s ciphers, Wei took the hydra in his hand and studied the creature for a moment. From around him, he started hearing deep moans and coughing. The Oathbearers and Faebloods were waking up—the young master was pleased they were dead. He was more fascinated, however, with the sheer sensation of the Harvest that remained within the hydra. It was like the creature was filled with taken concepts.

And it likely was.

Memories. Minds. Hadn’t the hydra taken that?

“Well, now,” Wei muttered. “I wonder where you came from? And I wonder what you will provide.”

The hydra said nothing. It only stared with its empty eyes.

“Wei. I am not sure about this.” Rafael looked on the young master, but the latter showed no hint of fear.

“I am.”

And Wei poured his Source into the hydra and commenced his first true Harvest.