Logan felt the sweat pooling against his back, his body tense as he narrowly avoided yet another stream of fire. The hydra was only warming up, its attacks growing more intense with each passing second. He grinned despite the pressure, his mind racing with various strategies.
Once tad, the long lived beast's would no doubt evolve at least twice—he could only imagine how many levels it would evolve, and the thought excited him even more.
He activated Celestial Veil, Silvia's shield spell, before channeling Aetherial Cataclysm. The shield would absorb mana from incoming attacks, replenishing the reserves he had already lost, while his grand-scale spell, infused with darkness, targeted the hydra's greatest weakness—its reliance on its seven heads and fourteen eyes to track prey.
The mont he committed to the attack, he felt the strain of his magic—nearly half of his mana drained to fuel the spell. The hydra, sensing the imnse power gathering, reacted before he could complete it.
All seven heads moved in unison, forming a circular pattern before unleashing a concentrated blast of fire, rging their individual flas into a single devastating beam aid directly at Logan.
With no choice but to evade, he twisted away, relying on Celestial Veil to absorb the brunt of the attack while feeling his mana being recovered. Even under the protection of Infernal Flow, which granted him heightened resistance to heat, he could feel the scorching intensity searing his skin.
Gritting his teeth, he forced himself to endure it, unwilling to disrupt his casting. Aetherial Cataclysm required ti—two minutes of unwavering focus—to manifest fully within the domain of darkness.
The battle had only just begun.
Logan kept moving, never letting up as the hydra's heads tracked his every step. He hoped it would stick to its predictable ranged attacks rather than closing in—because if it did, those claws and that whip-like tail could tear him apart in seconds.
The creature's scales, normally silver, glead like diamond, catching the fiery glow of the lava below and shifting between hues of gold and red. Even its most subtle movents radiated power, reminding Logan exactly why he needed to stay out of reach.
One minute. Just one more minute.
He pushed himself to keep going, dodging left, then right, his wings carrying him above the burning battlefield whenever the molten ground beneath him gave way, consud by the magma below.
Then, the hydra paused.
A deep inhale—its monstrous lungs filling—signaled the briefest mont of stillness. Logan felt a rush of relief.
Thirty seconds. That was all he needed.
With a final push, he poured the last of his concentration into completing his spell. His voice rose, edged with fury, as the casting reached its peak.
The mont was here.
"My turn!"
As soon as his voice rang out, the gathered mana surged forward, unfurling a dense fog of darkness. It was blacker than the smoke billowing from the volcano, obscuring vision in the precise area Logan intended. He kept the fog hovering above his head, making it difficult for the five-ter-tall beast to see him.
But that was only half of the intended effect—the fog also carried a mana-draining property, rapidly sapping energy from anything it enveloped. Logan watched as the massive creature began to struggle, as if drowning in the thick, suffocating haze. The danger was undeniable—pillars of fire erupted wildly, scorching the battlefield. With seven heads, the hydra struck most of the surrounding area, turning the landscape into chaos.
Logan had to keep moving. The fog was being devoured by the flas, its inevitable dissipation clear—it wouldn't last more than a minute.
Logan activated Arcane Displacent, teleporting behind the hydra in a blink. Without hesitation, he unleashed Permafrost Grasp—Luna's latest skill—imbuing each strike with freezing energy. If all went as planned, he'd turn the massive creature into an icy monolith, weakening it.
A shiver ran through him as the cold magic wrapped around his fists. He launched into a rapid barrage, pounding into the hydra's legs and belly while carefully avoiding its tail and the sweeping claws that lashed out in reaction to the blows. The beast's thick scales resisted the frost at first, but with the second, then third impact, the magic seeped in. Slowly, the hydra faltered, stumbling to one side.
Then danger struck. Logan's instincts scread a warning just before twin fire blasts tore toward his position. He barely evaded them—but that was only the beginning. Another four columns of fla rained down from above. Despite the lingering darkness obscuring its vision, the hydra had found a way to lock onto him.
Logan unleashed Frozen Echo, channeling magic into his cry. The sound reverberated through the battlefield, striking each of the hydra's seven heads with equal force—its fourteen ears amplifying the damage. The beast shuddered, its movents faltering as the overwhelming resonance took hold. So heads resisted, roaring in defiance, but Logan didn't linger. With most of the fog now dispersed, he took flight once more, avoiding the inevitable retaliation.
Before retreating completely, he had left a hidden surprise—blood magic, infused with darkness, discreetly injected into one of the broken scales he had exposed during the ice barrage. A sinister grin crept onto his face.
"I wonder how your seven heads will handle the ntal battle we're about to begin," Logan mused, feeling the hydra's formidable resistance. This was unlike any creature he had ever faced, but fortunately, he had the perfect counter.
"We will be great together. Let's join forces to defeat the demons!" Logan's voice rang out as he activated Ms. Claire's skill, Persuasive Speech, stacking it with the Orator's Hero skill, Voice of Authority—abilities she had gained upon evolving into an Arcane Arbiter at level 40.
The combined power of both auditory skills sent an intense vibration through the hydra's fourteen ears. The beast reeled, its entire form quivering as though struck multiple tis. Frozen in place, it now fought an entirely different battle—the one waged within its own mind.
While its heads remained locked in the ntal struggle, the hydra summoned what little control it had left, sending its massive tail whipping forward in a desperate attempt to break free. The two-ter-long appendage lashed toward Logan, aiming to crush him.
Sensing the danger, he focused, narrowly dodging the strike by a hair's breadth. But instead of retreating, Logan pressed in closer—fully committed to maintaining his grip on the battle raging within the creature's mind.
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