[Skill-Eater2] Chapter 97: The Hydra (Patreon)

Later that day, Edge encountered the third elite monster roaming the Savage Garden—a colossal amphibian that he decided to call “the hydra.”

He had just set foot onto one of the largest islands bordering the boundary of the swamp, getting ready to explore the cluster of ruins it contained after scouting the perimeter. Only seconds after he used Foebinder to climb into the branches of a towering tree to survey the structures, something massive breached the water.

He immediately Concealed his presence—heart hammering as he absorbed the full implications of what was happening. Even if his Guide hadn’t appeared to inform him that he had a quest update waiting, he would have known the monster’s identity the moment that he laid eyes on it.

At last, Edge found himself staring at the final elite that called the dungeon home. The hydra was the largest monster that he’d ever seen. It was even bigger than the bone slime, although it probably weighed about the same, given the composition of the amorphous creature.

The monstrous amphibian was twenty feet tall and almost as long—perhaps twelve feet wide at the shoulders. It walked on four powerful legs that were as thick as the trunk beside him. Its body was covered in dark green skin that glistened in the sunlight. While he hung from the branches, not daring to breathe, he ran his gaze across the hydra’s bulging muscles, rows of slitted gills, and a broad tail that could break every bone in his body in a single flick.

But the real kicker was the heads. Seven wedge-shaped heads sprouting from serpentine necks to be precise.

Edge had heard of creatures that had more than one skull, but this was his first time seeing one for himself. At the moment, two sets of eyes were looking inland, while the rest were peering down into the water, occasionally dipping beneath the surface like the hydra was looking for something.

I think it’s hunting for the corrupted resource that appears in the swamp. With any luck, it will leave as soon as it finds it.

No sooner had that thought crossed his mind than the branch he was hanging from creaked beneath his weight. From the other side of the island, all seven of the hydra’s heads came whipping around to stare straight at him. Holy shit. It heard that from way over there. If it comes any closer, it will sense my heartbeat even with Conceal running.

Edge remined frozen in place, willing his thundering pulse to slow. Branches creak in the wind all the time. It has no reason to suspect I’m here. Be patient and it will go away. It was hard to stay still with so much adrenaline sloshing through his bloodstream, but he managed to do it through sheer effort of will.

For a second, it seemed that the crisis had passed. But then the monster started heading his way fast, moving with a liquid grace that belied its bulk. Oh shit. That thing is way faster than I am, and its Perception is off the charts.

He was about to spring into motion and try to outrun the monster on the open water, when something landed in front of the hydra, causing it to come to a skidding stop.

Edge’s gaze followed the motion. He realized what he was looking at the same moment that a familiar reek assailed his nostrils. A pair of slime-coated skeletons rose from the ground, just as a great gray body broke the surface of the river.

One of the hydra’s heads lashed out with blinding speed, tearing the skeletons apart as the rest swiveled to face the bone slime. The blob launched a dozen more in half as many heartbeats as the two elite monsters went barreling toward each other.

They must be fighting over the corrupted resource. Edge watched on from Concealment as the impact from the hydra’s footfalls vibrated his teeth inside his jaw. He was ready to bolt at a moment’s notice if the warring monsters drew near his position, overruling the instincts that were urging him to flee before it was too late.

While it was a sensible suggestion, he couldn’t afford to squander this opportunity to learn more about the elites and find out what they were capable of. If he were to have any chance of defeating the hydra, he had to risk watching the fight from the periphery of the battlefield.

The showdown was gripping right from the start. As skill-wielding skeletons rose from the soil, the blob formed an array of pseudopods, reaching out with its life-draining touch. In that moment, it seemed like the hydra was in trouble, but then mana erupted from the monster’s core as two of the heads opened their mouths.

One of them unleashed a searing torrent of flame, transforming three of the slime’s minions to dust in the blink of an eye. The other head sprayed a cloud of acid mist, turning bones to rubber before reducing them to goo. The slime pumped out more troops all the while, in a seeming inexhaustible supply. Before the hydra could unleash another skill, the blob attacked the amphibian head-on.

As an army of skeletons surrounded the hydra, it launched a counterattack. While two heads dealt with the legion of walking corpses, the rest turned to meet the bone slime’s advance. At this point, Edge learned a valuable fact. In addition to their breath attacks, the hydra’s heads could Lash out with incredible force, like its necks were made of rubber.

It showed no fear of the blob’s deadly touch, striking its mass without hesitation. Five heads formed a blurring barrage of whiplike strikes that tore chunks out of the slime’s mass. At first, he thought they were impervious to the creature’s corrosive effect, but that wasn’t the case. After executing two or three heavy hits, the hydra’s heads dissolved all the way down to the bone. But even then, they never stopped swinging.

Before Edge’s eyes, the amphibian’s tissue regrew—muscle and flesh blossoming to restore the appendages the second they pulled free from the slime’s deadly goop. Skill-Eater mentioned that this one was a hyper-specialist. This high-speed regeneration must have been what it sensed.

This marked the beginning of an epic struggle between corrosion and healing. A no-holds-barred death match between skills that stole life and those that renewed it.

He realized that Skill-Eater had awoken during the last exchange, witnessing the fight through his eyes. His core was eager to steal the hydra’s skills, but it wasn’t pushing him in that direction, since it was an impossible goal at present. Together, they watched the incredible conflict play out.

From time to time, one of the hydra’s heads pulled back long enough to fire off a breath attack, whittling down the endless battalion of bones. Its feet and tail engaged them too—each strike shattering skeletons and sending them flying. Although the reanimated corpses were dishing out considerable damage, the hydra didn’t seem worried at all. It heals so fast that these wounds are inconsequential.

Meanwhile, the main battle between the bone slime and the hydra continued unabated. Its heads kept on flailing like hydraulic battering rams, caving deep gouges out of the blob’s gelatinous form. They were eaten away over and over again, only to Regenerate within a handful of heartbeats, forming a seamless dance of destruction and renewal. Edge wasn’t sure that he could handle one head at a time, let alone the whole septet.

All the while, the bone slime’s army swarmed the green monster from all sides, contending with the hydra’s feet and tail, along with an occasional blast from its breath. Whenever there was an opening, it breathed on the blob directly, destroying more tissue with every strike. The mana rippling across the island was staggering to behold as dozens of skills filled the air.

Edge had no idea what was going happen, but in the end, the slime was the elite to retreat. While both monsters possessed a seemly endless well of magicytes, the slime couldn’t heal indefinitely like they hydra, and its supply of minions was a valuable resource. There wasn’t any point in wasting them fighting an opponent that it couldn’t finish off.

The blob recalled most of its skeletons, leaving a few behind to secure its retreat. The hydra finished them off a few seconds later, then turned to look at the fleeing slime. It considered going after it, before deciding that it wasn’t worth the effort.

Instead, it resumed hunting along the shoreline, eventually reaching into the water and pulling out what appeared to be a pestilence-ridden clam. When it cracked the shell open, a putrescent pearl gleamed beneath the sunlight—formed from corrupted magicytes so concentrated that they warped the air around it.

After the hydra swallowed the pearl, it stopped to rest for a few minutes, then left the way it had come. Edge hung from the branches with his heartbeat thundering in his ears, grappling with the implications of what he’d witnessed.

Watching the fight had justified his decision not to battle the bone slime. In addition to being one of the strongest monsters he’d ever seen, it could easily counter his Regeneration, which wasn’t anywhere close to as fast as the hydra’s. And after the incident with the flat monster, he was certain that Intimidating Roar wouldn’t work against it or its skill-spawned skeletons.

Killing the hydra was a tall order too, although he had an idea that just might work. But he had no chance of pulling it off without putting several more cycles into Amplification and ranking up a few key skills first.

Now that he had met the final elite roaming the Savage Garden, Edge summoned his Guide to check out the reward for defeating it.

Supplementary Quest: Open the Boss’s Chamber

My day just got a lot more interesting, and something tells me that yours did too.

Here’s the deal. The door to the boss’s room was sealed after an unsuccessful “attempt.” To break the seal, you must first defeat three elite monsters roaming the Savage Garden. You can think of them as mini-bosses, including the slimy fellow you came oh so close to getting to know on an intimate basis before hiding like a bunch of cowards.

Stop edging me and fucking fight it already! But all risk and no reward makes for a dull show. So, in addition to opening the door to the final room of the dungeon, each person participating in a mini-boss kill will receive a fantastic prize, the details of which will be revealed after you encounter them for the first time.

Your reward for defeating the slime mini-boss will be (divided evenly by your team): 250,000 Credits. 50 Mortium. 25 high-grade potions.

The monkey mini-boss has been defeated, and its reward has been claimed.

Your reward for defeating the hydra mini-boss will be (divided evenly by your team): 100,000 Credits. 15 Mortium. 5 high-grade potions. 3 Rare skill gems that are compatible with your skillset.

Note: Since you are unable to use skill gems, an alternative reward will be provided.

One monster in a portable pocket dimension (this monster will have two Rare skills and an Uncommon skill of your choosing).

Another fantastic reward. He dismissed his Guide. The portable monster is fucking weird, but I suppose that it’s kind of like a skill gem because I can steal those skills once I defeat it.

Since the System had warned him that the convicts were ready to kill the slime and he wasn’t ready to face the hydra, it was time for Edge to toss a wrench into the jailbirds’ plans. Fortunately, the battle he’d witnessed had given him an idea.

Now that he knew what the corrupted resources in the swamp looked like, he was ready to make his move. Before the Claws could kill the elite blob, he intended to trick the monster into slaughter them instead.

If this doesn’t work, I’m about to have a bad day. But if it does, I’ll buy enough hours to bring my plans to fruition. Come on, big guy, he addressed the giant watching from within. It’s time to wreak some havoc.