Chapter 44

  Dalex charged forward through the air, his axe at his side. When he was back in the airspace where the invisible blow had struck him, he swung with all his might at the empty atmosphere. His axe connected with nothing. The force of the weapon’s swing sent Dalex spinning through the air, once, twice, three times before he could bring himself to a halt. His stomach twisted. His vision blurred.

  He was all alone in the skies over the forest.

  “Seventh, are you okay?” he asked, shading his eyes to look for the [android] in the airspace around him. She, too, must have been hit by the hydra—or whatever it was.

  “I am fine,” Seventh’s voice came. “I sustained minor damage to my beneplate armor. The benefine deposit is likely attached to the creature.”

  Dalex still couldn’t see her, but an arrow appeared in his peripheral vision, pointing him in her direction. She had been thrown away at a slightly different angle than him and was a speck on the horizon. She started to move toward him, but he put out a hand and said, “Stay there. Let’s not group up and make a bigger target.”

  Almost as an afterthought, Dalex checked his status and armor durability.

  Despite hitting him so hard, the hydra hadn’t done much damage to him. Its blows were magnified in the air where Dalex didn’t have anything to keep him grounded.

  But how to pin the creature down? He could probably bombard the entire area with high-damage skills, but the weak attack of this creature made him want to test himself; no instakill spells like {god’s tear} or {prismatic strike}. The only damaging weapon he would allow himself to use was {Skull Anchor}. For everything else, he would have to be creative.

  He initiated a system function he had worked on during the quiet moments of the ride the day before.

  Of course, he also didn’t want to ruin the ecosystem around him just for a quick payday, but he was self-aware enough to admit that thought came to him second.

  Before he did anything else, Dalex pinpointed Balgoth’s location. She was wandering in the forest nearby, probably still trying to follow him from the ground. He zoomed over to her, and she hissed in surprised anger when he appeared right above her.

  “Where have you been?” she demanded. “You did not slay the monster already, did you? You said I could watch.”

  “Don’t worry, the fight’s just getting started. I’ll give you a good seat.”

  He made her another {astral mortar} basket, but this time he included a float feature. It would keep itself airborne once he let it go and follow after him from a safe distance. Dalex placed Balgoth in the air and then returned to the airspace where he had last encountered the hydra.

  “Any idea where it is?” Dalex asked Seventh.

  She replied, “Now that I recognize the benefine signature, I sense a persistent benefine aura in this locale. However, I cannot accurately track its epicenter.”

  “Is there a way to dispel the invisibility?”

  “If we can retrieve the benefine deposit, I can neutralize the lensing effect.”

  Which was putting the cart before the horse. If he couldn’t see where the hydra was, he couldn’t grab the {adamantine} attached to it. He quickly formed a {flare launcher} from the {astral mortar} and fired a green signal flare into the sky, letting Yesui know he had made contact with the beast. He wasn’t sure what her capabilities were—he had asked and been given the cold shoulder—but she might be able to help narrow down a search. Plus, she would probably get mad at him if he left her out of the battle.

  A gust of wind hit Dalex in the side. It might have been a natural breeze, but he felt a presence. Something was pulling at him. Had the hydra taken a bite at him and missed? He {flew} towards the disturbance, wildly swinging his axe. He hit nothing, only performing a hopefully impressive acrobatic show if anyone was watching from below.

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  Hydra or not, he could tell the thing was big. But why couldn’t he see its footprints? Was it really flying?

  He heard a crashing noise from below. When he looked down, there was another crater on the ground. Again, there were no footprints, but it was some sign of the creature’s passing.

  Dalex shot through the air as fast as he could, trying to reach the spot before the hydra could move on. He passed over the impact zone and descended, expecting to come into contact with the creature at any moment. If the hydra hit him, Dalex wouldn’t mind. That would just give him more information to work with. Maybe it would swallow him and then he could chop it into pieces from the inside.

  But he made no contact with the creature at all. He went all the way to the ground, setting down without even the touch of another breeze to judge where the hydra might have gone.

  “What is this thing doing?” Dalex mumbled to himself. He had thought the hydra was after him, but now it seemed like it didn’t want to attack him anymore. “And why can’t I hear it?”

  He would have thought a creature like a hydra would make all kinds of roaring and hissing noises. A creature of the size he imagined couldn’t possibly be so stealthy, but it hadn’t made a peep so far. Dalex knew {adamantine} distorted light. Did it affect sound as well?

  As soon as the thought occurred to him, Seventh answered his question. “While light interference is the most noticeable sign of a benefine deposit, the substance can also interfere with atmospheric phenomena like sound waves.”

  “Now you tell me.”

  “Now I tell you.”

  Dalex chuckled to himself. Oh well, this is where his creativity came into play.

  But before he could enact any new ideas, things got a lot more noisy.

  “DALEX!” a shrill voice shouted at him from the edge of the crater. “What are you doing?”

  He looked for the source of the noise, expecting to find Yesui. The voice didn’t match her usual tone, but who else would be…

  Dalex’s eyes landed on Arnaut. He stood by a felled tree just inside the zone of devastation left behind by the hydra. The hero was encased in his full plate armor and carried his sword, finally prepared for battle.

  “Well, well, well,” Dalex called back at him, “if it isn’t sleeping beauty!”

  “You’re so crass, Dalex.” Arnaut made a show of looking left and right at the fallen trees and flattened ground. “Are you burning the forest down to find my prey before I can collect the bounty?”

  Dalex debated whether or not to tell him the truth. In the end, he decided it wasn’t worth keeping the nature of the beast a secret.

  “The creature did this. We’re dealing with an invisible hydra.”

  Arnaut let out a cocky laugh. “You may have the species right, but hydras aren’t capable of such magic. Your eyes must just be cataractous.”

  “It’s not magic,” Dalex explained. “It’s {magic}.”

  “Or maybe it’s your mind that’s breaking down,” Arnaut said.

  Dalex hadn’t expected the hero to know the difference. It was just fun messing with him.

  Arnaut walked deeper into the devastation toward Dalex. “Well, where is it then? Or are you going to—”

  Something unseen smashed him into the ground. Arnaut vanished in a cloud of dust and rock debris. Bullet-like pebbles bounced off Dalex’s {wall of force}. The space around the impact distorted. The debris obscured the forest beyond, and yet Dalex could still see green trees behind it. Dalex put a hand out in front of him and he saw it bend unnaturally as if he were looking at a reflection in a hall of trick mirrors. His stomach turned. He was at once upside down and right side up.

  And then, a moment later, the effect ceased and Dalex was just looking at his ordinary arm swathed in its pale blue gauntlet, along with an ordinary cloud of pulverized dirt beyond it. The cloud cleared to reveal a new deeper crater. The hydra had struck the same place. Arnaut was nowhere to be seen.

  And then a cascade of blood rained down over the crater. Dalex looked up to see it pouring out of a cloudless sky. It splattered over his armor, briefly staining the metal crimson red.

  “So much for the monster-slaying hero,” Dalex mumbled.

  The raining blood did not abate, but it moved. Dalex watched the downpour drift away in a southerly direction toward the deeper forest, leaving a streak of bloody ground and foliage behind.

  That was a lot of blood to come from one human.

  And then Arnaut fell out of the sky and belly flopped on a boulder. The boulder cracked in half and the man slipped between the pieces until he came to a rest on the ground. A moment later, Arnaut jumped up, full of vim and vigor.

  “Damnation but that was frightening!” he exclaimed. “I didn’t see it coming.” He glanced around. “I still don’t see it.”

  “Told you it was invisible.”

  Arnaut’s eyes landed on the raining blood moving farther and farther away. “Yes, but I marked it! Before I let go of its hide, I plunged my sword deeper into its body. It bleeds even now.”

  “Hmm, good move,” Dalex said, forced to admit the hero had acted quickly. He looked Arnaut up and down. “Your armor isn’t even dented. You’re one tough son of a bitch.”

  “Language, Dalex. It is unbecoming of a man of your stature to resort to such base tonguemanship.”

  “Seriously? Tonguemanship?”

  “Come, let us pursue the beast. The hunt goes on, and I must retrieve my sword!”

  He sprinted away toward the crimson downpour, crossing the crater and disappearing into the forest in record time. There was a chance he was as fast as Dalex over ground.

  “{Fly},” Dalex said, and zoomed over the forest after the hero. He buzzed the tree tops, just a few inches off the canopy. He caught flashes of Arnaut running below.

  But before they could catch up to the blood rain, it stopped. Dalex hovered over the trees where the spatter trail came to an end. He checked every direction around to see if the downpour had changed trajectories, but it was just gone.

  And then a sword fell out of the air, plummeting point-down toward Dalex. He dodged out of the way and the sword fell through the tree canopy to plant itself in the dirt, embedding in the ground almost to the hilt. Arnaut pulled it from the ground without much trouble and then clambered up one of the taller trees. He sat down on a branch. Dalex let himself drift over to the hero.

  “What are you, a monkey?” Dalex asked.

  Arnaut ignored the jab. “It appears the wound closed. Hydras are quick healing creatures, though I have never heard of one that can fly.”

  “Are we working together now?”

  Arnaut shrugged. “It seems we are destined to fight the creature at the same time. We may as well join forces.”

  He suggested the idea with remarkable ease.

  “Fine, but I get the bounty,” Dalex said.

  “Very well. I suppose, if you are needy, I will not deny you a reward.”

  Since Arnaut let the monkey thing slide, Dalex decided not to let himself be bothered by the hero’s mockery of his net worth.

  Dalex was needy, after all.

  “As for whether this thing is a Hydra or not,” Dalex said, “Yesui guessed as much based on its footprints. Could it actually be a dragon?”

  Arnaut grimaced. “Technically, it is my duty to execute you for insinuating that a noble dragon could be similar to such a base creature, but killing you is impractical.”

  “I would say so.”

  “No, I do not think it is a dragon. An experienced hunter would judge monster sign well. I have no doubt Miss Yesui made the correct identification. How this hydra is flying and why it is invisible are mysteries we will have to expose as we go.” Arnaut adjusted his helmet. “Though how to find it now that its wound is closed…”

  “I may have a way to mark it again,” Dalex said. “Give me a minute to sort out the details.”

  “Very well,” Arnaut said. He hopped off his tree branch and plummeted to the ground, landing on his feet like a cat. “I will continue to explore from the ground.”

  He loped off through the forest and Dalex connected to the inventory of the {steel wyvern} orbiting the area several miles over his head.

  “Could we change the payload of this [airburst shell] to something nonlethal?” Dalex asked Seventh.

  “Do you have a particular replacement in mind?” Seventh responded.

  “I’m thinking a whole lot of paint. Non-toxic, if we can swing that.”

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