As I charged up my second arrow, a not insignificant part of me hoped that the battle was already effectively over. Sporting a horrific wound and without its normally potent poison, the hydra was clearly on the back foot.

  Even when it shot all five of its heads into the air and billowed out a mass of toxic fog, I wasn’t worried. The poison was already heavily weakened, but even had it not been, Internal Breeze was more than enough to keep me from breathing it in.

  If there was one thing I hadn’t counted on, however, it was the hydra’s freakish vitality. Before I could launch my second arrow, I spotted the hydra’s chest wound start to morph. By all rights, black lines of necrosis should have been radiating out from the charred mess of flesh, courtesy of all the death mana I’d packed into the blow.

  Instead, what few signs of necrosis I could see were being undone. The burns were holding up a bit better, but only the most brutally charred sections were resisting the boss’s shocking levels of regeneration.

  Probably not worth hitting the torso unless I can hit its heart, then. Honestly, I wasn’t sure that would be enough either. After reaching 25 Constitution, I’d gained an ability that would theoretically let me live for a bit without my vital organs as long as I got healed immediately afterwards. With the real-time healing I was seeing, it was entirely possible that the hydra could regenerate its heart and keep on chugging.

  Take out the heads then. Theoretically, easy enough. Putting theory into practice, I fired my second shot, targeting the closest of the heads. At the last second, it jerked slightly out of the way, some preternatural instinct protecting it. Even so, it wasn’t a clean dodge, and the fiery, death-clad arrow cut into the side of its neck.

  Archery has reached level 19!

  Half of the neck’s width was entirely savaged in an instant, filling the room with the acrid scent of burnt hydra. Unable to support its weight, the neck collapsed, crashing to the ground with an earth-shaking thud. Whatever pained cry it would have normally let out was instead taken up by the other four as a booming wail assaulted us once again.

  You have been hit with Noxious Howl.

  You have partially resisted a poison.

  A quick check on Verin confirmed that she was now within a sizable block of ice, slowly growing with each passing second. Thankfully, the glacier didn’t stop me from targeting her with a Cure. The real issue was something else entirely.

  My eyes sought out the head I’d failed to entirely sever. Even now, the neck was starting to recover, on track to put the fifth head back in action well before we finished the fight.

  “Cal! The neck I shot is regenerating!” I hung back by Verin, entrusting the followup strike to Cal as I readied another shot.

  As much as she liked to goof off on her own time, when it came to serious fights, Cal came through. Presumably having run up the hydra’s neck while invisible, the warrior princess appeared directly below the wound I’d dealt it, straddling its scales as if she were riding a horse. A feathered blade appeared in her hands, and with a spinning, scythe-like motion, she slashed into the damaged area.

  THWICK. Empowered by her class skills, the blade cleanly slid through. Completely severed from the beast’s body, the rest of its neck fell to the ground with another resonant boom.

  As the hydra hissed and roared and attempted to furiously buck Cal off from its stump of a neck, the now-bloodied warrior shouted out. “Fuck yeah! Did you guys see that? I’m getting off to go hit its limbs so you don’t accidentally shoot me, but I want to do that again!” Having said her piece, Cal vanished once again.

  Unfortunately, the hydra was rapidly wising up to our tricks. Realizing that its poison wasn’t doing nearly as much damage as it should have been, the boss began to rely on its second biggest asset: its size. Trampling over its own neck, the scaly monstrosity charged forth.

  For all its mass and momentum, it didn’t make it far. A thin layer of frost formed on its stubby legs, and while that was hardly enough to lock the boss in place, a few ice walls sprung up directly in its path. Perhaps even that wouldn’t have been enough normally, but Cal made good on her earlier promise. As the hydra took a step forward, she reappeared right by one of its forelegs, her blade biting deep into its musculature.

  Already unbalanced from its icy footing, the hydra wasn’t prepared for the blow. Its leg crashed into the barrier of ice, and instead of barrelling through it, the boss tripped. To add insult to injury, it fell directly on the wall, its own weight driving the hard ice through its scales and into its leg.

  Temporarily immobilized, the boss could do nothing but watch as I fired off my third arrow. This time, my aim was true, and I struck dead center, right beneath one of the heads. With a deafening explosion followed by a loud thud, a second head joined the first on the ground.

  With another bellowing cry, Noxious Howl triggered once again, but this time only with three different poisons. Bit by bit, the boss was growing weaker. Hoping to speed things along, I readied another arrow.

  Only two things stopped me from considering this fight as good as done. Firstly, the neck Cal had chopped off was slowly growing back from the stump. Assuming the hydra could regrow an entire head and brain, then we were on a time table before it rejoined the fray.

  Secondly and perhaps more concerningly, no amount of frost was going to keep the hydra locked down for good. Even with its leg impaled with shards of ice and sporting a giant gash, the hydra righted itself in moments and continued its charge.

  While Cal and Verin made sure that the boss’s every inch forward was hard won and paid for in blood, eventually the hydra trudged forward all the way to Verin’s glacier. With the time they’d bought, Verin’s defensive skill was now fairly large, having grown two about thrice the size of one of the hydra heads.

  Using its remaining three heads as a flail, the boss bashed into the glacier. Reinforced with mana and impossibly hard, the defensive skill staved off most of the impact, but giant chips flew from the ice mass.

  Damn. Not fast enough. My fourth arrow sailed forth, claiming a third head, but I could tell I wouldn’t have time to charge a fifth and sixth before the first of the heads regenerated. Nor was I certain that Verin could hold out for that long, either.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Think. What else do I have? Scanning the hydra, I noticed that chunks of Verin’s ice wall were still embedded in its leg. Does it have trouble pushing things out of its body when it tries to heal? I could work with that.

  Whenever at all possible, I strongly preferred not being in range of titanic beasts that could flatten me with a twitch, but I hadn’t spent so many class points on my defense for no reason. Flaring Overload Armor, I took to the skies with a few quick Jet Steps.

  Here, I could only be thankful for Tal’ket’s talon guard, as my aerial maneuverability was quickly put to the test as I dashed straight for the hydra’s back. Momentarily abandoning its assault on Verin, the boss attempted to snatch me from the sky with its remaining two heads. With a loud SNAP, one of its fanged mouths closed shut right where I’d been less than a second before, as I dashed through the air directly onto its back.

  The moment I landed, I summoned my harpoon spear, one of the only five physical weapons I’d arrived here with. With Arcane Armament fully upgraded and evolved, I theoretically could summon as many different weapons as I wanted at once. I rarely had a use for such an ability, but there was a first for everything.

  Supercharging my spear with fire mana, I plunged it into the neck that was closest to recovering. Rather than pull it out, I simply left it there. If the boss somehow regenerated around it, then we would see how well its neck could move with a burning spear lodged inside.

  With my knives and a handful of physical arrows, I repeated the process with the other two stump necks, peppering its wounds with a flaming shrapnel of weaponry. No matter how much the hydra attempted to buck me off, it was no use. Friction Feet and my own heightened Dexterity gave me a solid grip on its scales, and when that wasn’t enough, I stabbed it with a spear of mana and hung on.

  None of this, it turned out, made the boss very happy.

  Still, it came as a shock when the hydra suddenly stopped battering away at Verin. The once proud glacier was more of a glorified ice cube at this point, and in another few seconds, I would have had to intervene before the hydra stomped on it. Saving me from the trouble, however, the boss completely sidestepped the mass of ice, starting a mad dash towards the nearest wall.

  Does it have a plan, or did the pain from the burning weapons drive it crazy? As best I could tell, there was nothing in front of it except for a wall full of thick, gnarled roots. If it wanted to bash its own heads against the wall to save me the trouble, I wouldn’t say no, but that felt a bit extreme.

  Doesn’t matter. Still two necks to chop. With Hammers, Archery, and Spears being my highest-leveled weapon skills, chopping things wasn’t my greatest strength. Still, summoning my inner lumberjack, I conjured as large an axe as I could, creating it out of fire mana. Right as the hydra reached the wall, I cleaved into its fourth neck.

  Axes has reached level 17!

  Lacking the proper time to charge up my weapon, I didn’t manage to cut through in a single strike, instead only making it a quarter of the way. Thankfully, the hydra didn’t seem intent on stopping me, letting me land a second blow.

  Actually, what is it doing? For a second, it looked like its heads had smashed into the wall, supporting my earlier theory that it wanted to be put out of its misery. On second glance, though, it appeared to be… eating?

  Entire swaths of roots disappeared down its twin gullets, and only then did it occur to me to identify what I’d assumed was a mundane tuber. Sadly, both God’s Eye and Herbalism had a different stance on the matter.

  Somnolent Serpent’s Root

  Specially grown to aid the Adaptive Jungle Hydra, this root serves as a powerful somnifacient with both toxic and regenerative properties. After its victories, the hydra feasts upon these roots to send it into a deep, healing slumber. In a pinch, the root can also supercharge the hydra’s healing before it succumbs to the call of sleep.

  This root is best left to the hydra. A dose that would merely make the beast drowsy would render any smaller creature completely comatose.

  So it was some sort of super melatonin combined with a healing potion? The regenerative aspect was a pain, but it was doubtless too little too late. Even as the boss’s two heads greedily gulped down as many roots as they could, I finished my final swing. The fourth neck crashed to the ground, and then there was only one.

  Already, the healing aspects of the root were kicking in, with the newly severed neck regenerating at a truly mind-boggling speed. Would it matter, though? Even if I hopped off and left the hydra to its own devices, as best I could tell, it was only a matter of time before the sedative took effect and knocked the boss out.

  Maybe I can collect some of the roots for later. A sleep aid would be welcome if I could get the dosage correct, and it would fit nicely with the rest of my poison cooking.

  It was right as I had that thought that I froze, a sudden realization sending a spike of dread through me.

  I guess the root is poisonous, isn’t it? Which would mean-

  Understanding came far too late as the boss’s fifth and final head opened its root-filled maw once more. From the depths of its throat came an ear-piercing wail, gracing me with the same notification I’d received multiple times throughout the fight.

  You have been hit with Noxious Howl.

  Unlike the other times, however, there was one clear difference. The hydra could produce any poison it ate, and this time, it had consumed a boatload of sedatives.

  You have been poisoned!

  You have been dosed with a soporific.

  You are growing drowsy.

  The axe that I’d been readying for another strike suddenly grew impossibly heavy in my hands, and I felt my legs start to give out beneath me. Even with all of the mid-fight adrenaline still pumping through my veins, my eyelids began to droop. My skin started to feel tingly, and my vision blurred, growing foggier by the second.

  I need… Cure. I need to cure myself. I tugged at my mana core, trying to coax the threads into the proper form. Under the intense strain, I felt as all my active skills fell apart, both my fire axe and the extra protection from Arcane Armory disappearing.

  A muted flash from my Danger Sense was the only warning I got that I wasn’t fast enough.

  For one brief instant, I sobered up.

  In some ways, I wished I hadn’t.

  When I fully opened my eyes, the only sight that greeted me was a massive, fanged mouth, opened impossibly wide.

  In a heartbeat, those fangs closed in on me.

  The air was filled with the sounds of rending metal as its bite tore through armor and flesh alike. It pumped me full of its newfound venom, and even with its fangs drilling massive holes in my torso, I could feel as I lost my grip on consciousness.

  For a brief moment, I wondered if the hydra was about to swallow me whole, armor and all. But no. With a vicious flick of its head, it sent me hurtling to the ground.

  It was some small mercy that the poison at last grew too strong to bear.

  By the time I hit the earth, I was already out cold.

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