Apocalypse Redux

Chapter 282: World of Aspects, The Hydra

Two years to get the necessary [Skill], three days to fully incorporate it into his fighting style, one week to wait for a certain [Archsage of Magic] to come back from outer friggin space because Isaac didn’t have enough mana to summon the needed monsters and Patrick had the biggest mana pool of the entire team.

Not that Isaac begrudged him the chance to show off a little, he so rarely had the opportunity.

It still left him in an irritating situation, for now.

Normally, this would have been the time to prepare even more nasty surprises but he’d had years for that.

So for once, he’d wield his greatest foe as a weapon against the grandest power in the universe. With paperwork as his weapon, he’d kill time itself.

Requests for [Skill] training.

Requests for actual training.

Requests for monster materials …

Oh, request for the [Blessing of Innovation] … so someone could read their favorite book for the first time again. Sure, that was an interesting way of using it and Isaac would be lying if he claimed he’d never done so, but really, he was being very judicious when handing those out to others.

Yet there were several other interesting requests for that [Skill], including a few from Seoul. He’d pop over there in a few hours, maybe. He did have to deal with all this paperwork at some point, if Patrick wasn’t back once he was done, that should be a worthwhile use of his time.

And if he didn’t, then he’d send back a message along the lines of “[Skill] use granted, but you’ll have to come to me”.

But still, pa-per-work. Why had he thought this was a good idea?

***

“Ready?” Isaac asked.

“If something goes wrong, use the Spell prepared for that specific monster and fry it, if it survives, call Amy and try together with her, if that doesn’t work either, retreat and come back with the whole team, but that shouldn’t happen because no monster is going to be in a state to fight me after you’re through with it,” Patrick rattled off.

Unprompted.

But then again, Isaac now one-hundred percent knew that Patrick was aware of the plan. Better to go over things a hundred times as often as necessary than to have someone not know how the plan when things came down to the wire.

The others had already come and gone, charging up the circle, leaving Patrick here as a precaution in case shit really hit the fan.

After all, these were Tier 10s, so precautions were necessary. Unlike the Ankou he’d fought two years earlier, he wasn’t a good counter to these things. And up until now, he hadn’t had any new [Skills] to bring to bear, only slightly higher Stats.

Up first, the Hydra.

Hydras were interesting monsters, starting out at the third Tier with three heads and toxic blood. Then you had the five-headed version at Tier 5, which also had an extremely dangerous bite, the even nastier seven-headed version which could spit its venom and then, there was the Lernean Hydra.

Not just the standard Tier 10 Hydra, that one was called the Primordial Hydra, but the [Field Boss] version that had far more useful Aspect [Skills].

All around it, the very air itself would become toxic from its emanations, its blood so incredibly dangerous that its deadly power leaked out through its skin.

And, of course, the standard powers of the Hydra were amplified beyond sanity, with it having fifty heads, one of which was an “immortal” prime head that was almost impossible to destroy until the monster was already most of the way dead.

Patrick activated the circle and quickly stepped out of the pocket dimension while Isaac stepped up to the plate in his regular dragon-scale armor, Balmung held at the ready as the monster manifested.

The first thing that appeared was the stench, acrid and biting, like burning chilis mixed with paint-thinner fumes, but it was rapidly followed by the manifestation of its heads until the entirety of the monster’s fifty necks were present, each belching green gas.

Isaac’s [Freedom from Mortal Limits] might make him functionally immune to toxins, but this crap was corrosive enough to cause trouble if this battle went on for long enough. Not that he was planning to drag this out.

The monster’s first head shot through the space where he’d been a split second before, less than a single millisecond’s worth of [Aspects of the End: Speed of Hati] allowing him to dodge while Balmung flashed up from its position at his side, glowing a combination of neon-yellow and ruby-red. Finally, a brief burst of hellflame seared shut the stump.

One down, fifty to go.

Isaac ducked under a spray of venom, not because it would have damaged him on its own, but because it had enough force to push him back, and in this pocket dimension, that would become dangerous. The hydra already barely fit in here, if hit, he’d get tossed through the boundary and come flying out the other end, which was far closer to the beast.

Springing forwards, ducking under venom spray, sidestepping snapping jaws, running along necks that had been extended too far, cutting all the way.

Twenty necks were down after less than twenty seconds, but Isaac could already tell that this wasn’t going to work. By the time he won this, he’d have run [Aspects of the End] dry and he kinda needed that for the subsequent fights.

He’d allow himself to burn two trump cards, and leave the rest in case something went wrong.

[Champion of Mankind: The Cleansing Flame] erupted around him, black, red, and orange fire condensing around him to form armor that covered him from head to toe, the only gaps being the eyeholes of the Corinthian Helmet that protected his head, an emerald glow shimmering in their depths.

Heat washed off him in waves, searing, scorching, flames crisping the Hydra’s skin even at the [Skill’s] maximum range.

But where the monster’s body parts were right next to him, they literally fell apart the instant the wind generated by his movements hit them.

There was a counter to this [Skill], sure, but that counter was distance, and distance wasn’t something that could be achieved in the pocket dimension. If the monster backed far enough off the edge, it would pop out on the other side of the dome.

No retreating, no getting away, no nothing.

The flames were so powerful that Isaac couldn’t even get close enough to any of the Hydra’s body parts to cut them before they were destroyed without wasting a considerable amount of mana and [Speed of Hati].

After thirty seconds, only one head was left, looming in the ash-filled air like an angry dragon, glaring down at the puny human who’d injured the rest of its body.

The main head was completely undamaged, unfortunately. In the original myth, that thing had been literally immortal, so Hercules had hacked it off with a divine sword and left it buried under a rock.

Isaac, meanwhile, was covered in ash, monster blood, and there were several scratches on his armor where he’d cut a dodge just a little too close.

They made quite a pair, didn’t they?

A human, dirty and dusty.

A snake, head raised proudly as it stared down at its “prey” … it might have looked intimidating if it hadn’t been for the forty-nine seared-off stumps in the place where the necks used to diverge, and how the body was looking more and more scorched the further it was from the head.

A burst of venom, a brief tap into [Speed of Hati].

A pair of snapping jaws, [Phantom Step] to the side.

A body slam, and the monster was aligned juuuuust right, where Isaac’s blade could meet the descending body with every sharpness and power [Skill] he had reinforcing an all-powerful [Legendary Blow].

As useless as the flame field around him might have been against the final head when used directly, once the monster’s last lifeline had been removed, the wounds were seared shut in an instant.

The head continued to flop around for a bit, going into contortions normally only managed by a cat chasing a laser pointer, trying to chomp down on him. That didn’t work any more than the venom spray did, all that achieved was flinging the body further away.

After around twenty or so seconds, the kill notification finally flashed up in Isaac’s vision, and the last bit of the monster burned to ash in the field of flame. At this point, if it had dropped an Aspect, it’d be real easy to find … if there had been one present.

Lernan Hydra (Lv. 160) has been slain. 50,000 XP gained

Oh well, if at first you don’t succeed, and all that, … after he’d figured out what to alter the next time.

So, [The Cleansing Flame] had been a lot more powerful than expected. He hadn’t needed the Lernean Hydra’s Aspect, but he might have, yet … his knowledge of highest Tier monsters was more spotty than that of the lower ones. He knew about those he’d fought personally, the ones he’d watched others fight, but when they’d been summoned, global communications hadn’t been up to the task of sharing every single bit of information of every monster ever summoned. General strengths, weaknesses, powers, nasty surprises, but nothing beyond that.

Isaac had been Level 180 when he’d whopped the ass of seven Lernean Hydras in an hour while working with Cade, gotten two Aspects, and left it at that as there’d been literal hordes at the gate that needed dealing with. He’d had no idea that the water monster was that vulnerable to fire. Beyond the fact that cauterization blocked regeneration, it shouldn’t have burned that easily … or maybe [The Cleansing Flame] was just that powerful compared to the monster.

He’d known enough about it that he knew he could take it, but apparently not enough to avoid overestimating it. It was just that it had been so incredibly weak compared to him when he’d fought it the first time around. Bloody hell.

After canceling [Champion of Manking] and making some basic efforts to clean his armor off, he headed out to meet Patrick. A bit of conversation, some light verbal sparring on a topic that wasn’t particularly important but still somehow worthy of discussion, the others dropped by to reset the summoning circle, and then he could face the damn monster again.

This time, he wouldn’t be wasting his time playing around with just [Speed of Hati] and instead going all in with [Form of Horror] from the start. With his revised opinion of the monster’s strength, he was sure that should be enough.

Once again, the monster appeared, the stench somehow managing to be far worse than before, now that it was combined with the ash of its predecessor.

[Form of Horror] might not have gained a big boost in raw power when it had maxed out at Level 30, but its utility had gone through the roof. He could now freely switch between the various forms he’d set up based on his Aspects and any non-mana expenditures wouldn’t carry over between them.

So he’d set up the [Skill] around that trick.

His opening form was one he called “Perfected Amalgan”, his standard long-limbed, blade-wielding, combo, subtly guarded by illusions and spatial distortions on his skin that would mess with attacks.

The boost gained merely by activating [Form of Horror] was enough to carve through several necks, but then, a wave of venom bore down on him.

[Form of Horror: Speed Demon] was specialized in speed, obviously. Sleek, wiry, flexible beyond all sanity. Every muscle was off the highly energetic, quickly tiring kind, allowing him to eke out every last bit of his Agility for a few seconds at most, but he didn’t want to keep it up for that long.

Dodge, shift back, decapitate, switch to Speed Demon to dodge again, rinse and repeat until that particular form was a panting mess on the ground, but he’d already switched out of it and he was at the point where the necks met.

[Form of Horror: Acid Horror] was one he’d never be in for more than a split second, but in that second, it would inflict horrific damage.

A skeleton-thin main body, covered in Lindwyrm acid barely held in by spatial magic and an Ankou’s spectral robes. A tiny spark of dragon flame from the rings of dragon fire organs that covered him caused a small amount of venom to boil, expand, and splatter the outer “shell” all over his surroundings.

Right now, what surrounded him was the central nexus of the monster. He was rewarded with not just an ear-splitting screech of pain, but also a whole bunch of weak spots for him to drive his blades through.

The monster finally managed to at least coil around him enough to restrain his movement, which might have led somewhere … if he hadn’t had yet another form to draw upon.

[Form of Horror: Death Titan] was all about his undead Aspects, a combination of Death Knight armor, Draugr flesh, and the spikes of the armor made from the Ankou’s scythe. That particular weapon was strangely limited in how much he could add to his forms, he couldn’t even use enough for a proper weapon.He’d even tried adding just a thin layer of the material over the top of standard spikes, but apparently, that wouldn’t fly either. Godsdamnit.

But even as things stood, it was enough to make the Hydra howl in pain and it couldn’t uncoil quickly enough, inflicting further damage upon itself in its haste.

Every single one of those wounds wouldn’t heal, would constantly bleed, and leave wonderful gaps he could stick daggers in without them being expelled, later.

By the time [Form of Horror] ran out, the Hydra was down to twenty heads, and he’d identified the prime head.

… And he was currently ankle-deep in blood.

Reaching into his storage space, he pulled out a brace of his cursed daggers, and tapping into his ability to remotely wield his swords, plunged each into a wound caused by the “Ankou spikes”.

The Curse of Bloodletting, which would increase blood loss which would require mana to replace, mana which, incidentally, would also begin to bleed from the pool.

The Curse of Sundered Health, which would reduce recovery overall.

And finally, the Curse of Arcane Suppression, which increased the mana cost of all actions, including regeneration.

Throw in the fact that a Hydra’s capacity for mana recovery was linked to the number of its heads and that thing was screwed.

He kept attacking, occasionally tapping into [Speed of Hati] to walk on air where the blood lake was too deep, and when the forty-first head was removed, all regeneration just … stopped.

No more new blood, no more fixing overly stressed muscles from a too-quick movement, no nothing.

With how many shallow cuts the monster had sustained from just the spikes alone, it would have been dead in half a minute.

Given that it had just lost a head and he hadn’t cauterized the wound yet, the monster’s remaining lifespan was much, much shorter.

Lernan Hydra (Lv. 160) has been slain. 50,000 XP gained

And the fucker had dropped an Aspect.

Aspect of the Lernean Hydra:

This is the distilled essence of what makes a Hydra a Hydra. Not just any Hydra, though, but the fundamental essence of this many-headed serpent beast, the monster who fought Hercules himself.

A monster able to regenerate from even the most gruesome of injuries as its blood kills those who dare strike it, its breath bringing pestilence and death, and whenever it loses a head, two more grow back, ready to tear apart its attacker piece by bloody piece, completely ignoring its own injuries in the process, and even its very breath brings death. Nothing can end this beast!

Requirements for Activation:

10,000 XP

Open Aspect Slot

Grants:

+20 Fortitude

One of the following Skills:

Hydra’s Restoration

Vengeful Blood

Disposable Organs

Myriad Heads

Dismiss Injury

Adaptive Regeneration

Breath of Virulent Toxins

His second maxed-out Aspect slot, fi-na-ly.

There were a lot of useful [Skills] he could have picked up, from the ability to grow multiple serpent heads to a breath weapon of supreme nastiness, but in the end, he could pick up only one new trick, the rest were going to be upgrades on his previous [Skills].

[Adaptive Regeneration] wouldn’t be quite as impactful as it would have been before he’d become all but immune to fire, but it was still a vital [Skill].

Adaptive Regeneration (legendary)

Getting damaged is a pain. Getting set on fire and being progressively more injured is a significantly worse pain.

This Skill ensures that the user will not be washed away in a river of fire or acid, progressively enhancing their resistance to constant sources of damage.

For every 1% of the user’s body that is destroyed, the user grows 1% more resistant to that source of damage for 5 seconds, every time additional damage is taken from the original or a similar source (same monster, accelerant of the same type/brand, or spell-type), the resistance is increased and the timer is reset.

The resistance is gained at a one-second delay.

It was mostly useless against cutting weapons, the injuries those caused were too fine to “destroy” much of his body, but shockwaves that messed up his internal organs, acid, poisons and acids, frostbite, etc. would grow progressively less useful if he got hit with them in rapid succession. Big attacks would be bad for him, as well as slow and methodical foes, but all in all, this [Skill] would help quite a bit.

The final upgrade of his regeneration, on the other hand, was simple, boring, straightforward. Also incredibly powerful.

Hydra’s Restoration (legendary)

Wanna see a magic trick?

Here’s a part of my body, now you see it, now you don’t. Where did it go? Why, I chopped it off, of course. And now it’s back! Awesome, right?

The Skill allows the user to rapidly regenerate from injuries at the cost of mana. Stab-wounds and cuts are easier to repair than anything that destroys or completely removes flesh.

Regenerating large amounts of flesh can be uncomfortable.

Cost: 50-1,250 per second of use, 50 mana per kilogram of flesh restored

He could add more mana to speed up regeneration, ‘nuff said.

Dismiss Injury (legendary)

Getting injured isn’t just painful, it’s also limiting. Even something as simple as damaged abdominal muscles can make standing straight difficult, not to mention the trouble that doing anything with a broken spine causes.

While this Skill is active in its normal mode (can be toggled on and off at will), the user is able to completely ignore any and all injuries, but all actions that would be impeded by injuries grow more difficult and draining. Moving a broken toe will be about as difficult as picking up one’s phone while moving the same toe with a severed spinal cord might be as difficult as carrying a mountain.

However, by paying mana, the user may fashion temporary, phantasmal, flesh that fills in injuries to allow the user to fight at full power. Missing limbs cannot be replaced like that, however, it can be used to bridge missing parts, such as acting as an arm as long as the user’s hand is still present and intact. Up to a quarter of the user’s body can be replaced at once.

Cost: 5-50 mana per second

This little trick had grown significantly stronger, not just allowing him to work while injured, but also mostly compensating for lost limbs or other forms of support. The cost would be painful, but it would make for a fantastic stopgap measure while he was regenerating.

And then there was the final piece of his immortal masterpiece. Well, sort of. He was by no means immortal, he’d never be, but still, his foes would need to be increasingly precise and exacting when trying to kill him if they didn’t want to fail by default.

Disposable Organs (legendary)

Organs are annoyingly important and frustratingly fragile.

Sad, but true.

This Skill enables its user to ensure that the loss of any single organ would not come with the usual negative consequences by ensuring that all of these organs can take over the function of multiple others in case of damage.

Furthermore, this degree of interconnectivity and redundancy enhances the user’s overall metabolism.

A heart that filtered blood, a liver that pumped blood, skin that breathed for you … well, he didn’t exactly need that last one anymore but the boost was still significant.

Now, on to killing as many Hydras as needed until every one of his friends who needed one got one, and if he didn’t get them by the time he hit the XP cap, someone else would take over. And someone else after that, and so on, and so forth while he went after other Aspects he wanted/needed.