Fear spread rapidly through the crowd. The residents of Yufei City cried out in terror, turned, and fled in every direction away from the Hydra.

  The Hydra crawled swiftly through Yufei City, chasing after the nearby crowd and snapping at them with its heads. Several residents were seized in its jaws and swallowed alive.

  "Fall back — everyone scatter!" A rough, booming shout rang out from nearby. At the sound of that voice, several hundred soldiers armed with crossbows appeared around the Hydra, taking up positions on all sides of it and using the city's buildings as cover. They drew their bowstrings taut and trained their arrows on the creature's body, ready to attack at any moment.

  On the rooftop of a four-story building near the Hydra, General Zuodun stood with a longsword in hand, gring furiously at the creature in the distance. Some twenty people carrying silver staves stood beside him, raising them high into the air. Above the Hydra, the sky began to fill with a mass of crimson fireballs — roughly two hundred of them, packed densely together, gathering in the air overhead.

  "All is ready, Lord Euphemia. We can begin the attack at any time," said Lady Jessica. She was standing with Lord Euphemia and the Suzaku Guard Captain on a tall watchtower far from the Hydra, observing the creature through binocurs.

  Lord Euphemia gave a slow nod. Lady Jessica immediately raised her communicator to her lips and said, "General Zuodun — it's up to you now."

  "Attack — full assault!" General Zuodun swung his longsword and roared. At once, the archers released their bowstrings, loosing a volley of arrows at the Hydra simultaneously. The hundreds of fireballs suspended in the air plummeted from the sky like a meteor shower, raining down upon the creature's body. In an instant, the Hydra was engulfed in a torrent of arrows and bzing meteors, and its body began to catch fire.

  The Hydra thrashed its body wildly in the air. Enraged by the assault, it opened its massive jaws and spewed fmes at the crowd nearby. Several residents and archers were set abze and colpsed to the ground, screaming in agony.

  "Don't stop — keep attacking!" General Zuodun bellowed. The archers dodged the Hydra's attacks while continuing to fire arrow after arrow at it. The combat mages wielding silver staves kept summoning meteor showers from a distance, bombarding the creature with relentless force.

  Yet despite being struck again and again by fming meteors and pierced by countless arrows, the Hydra showed not the slightest sign of slowing down. The wounds on its body were healing at a tremendous speed — far faster than the archers and combat mages could inflict damage.

  The Hydra continued rampaging through the city, demolishing nearby buildings and attacking the crowd with fire and its snapping jaws. Countless buildings colpsed under its assault, and residents and soldiers alike fell in droves. The battle raged with brutal intensity, with people dying to the creature every passing moment. Ten minutes in, the Hydra was still relentlessly attacking those nearby, showing no sign whatsoever of tiring. If anything, it was the archers who had taken catastrophic losses — the combat mages, by virtue of their distance from the creature, had suffered comparatively little.

  "Damn this beast — it just won't die." General Zuodun cursed in fury. Realizing their attacks were having no meaningful effect, he spoke into his communicator: "Lady Jessica, this monster's regeneration is too powerful. Our attacks are doing nothing to stop it. I'm requesting authorization to deploy the humanoid armored soldiers."

  Upon receiving General Zuodun's message, Lady Jessica immediately turned to Lord Euphemia and said, "My Lord, General Zuodun is requesting permission to deploy the humanoid armored soldiers against the Hydra."

  Lord Euphemia said, "Then proceed as General Zuodun suggests."

  At that moment, the Suzaku Guard Captain spoke up. "Wait. We only have seven combat armor suits. If we use them all and still fail to bring down the Hydra, we'll be in serious trouble. I recommend deploying only five armored soldiers against the Hydra and keeping two in reserve as a contingency."

  Lord Euphemia found the Suzaku Guard Captain's reasoning sound and said, "Then send only five armored soldiers against this creature."

  Lady Jessica immediately contacted General Zuodun and granted him authorization to deploy five armored soldiers against the Hydra. General Zuodun ordered everyone else to withdraw. Ten minutes ter, five purple-armored soldiers appeared near the Hydra and charged straight toward it.

  "Die, beast!" General Zuodun's furious roar came from the lead armored soldier. A short bde made of silver light shot out from the forearm of his purple armor unit. The armored soldier rushed toward one of the Hydra's bodies and swung the silver bde with full force, carving deep into the serpent's flesh. Blood sprayed through the air as the razor-sharp silver bde cut a wound half a meter deep into the Hydra's body.

  With a rush of air, one of the serpent heads lunged and cmped its jaws down on the armored soldier's exterior shell. But the shell was extraordinarily hard — even the Hydra's massive teeth could not bite through it. General Zuodun swung the silver bde again and sshed into the serpent's mouth, carving a massive gash across its lower jaw.

  Feeling the pain in its mouth, the Hydra quickly released its bite. Another of its heads nearby opened wide and bsted General Zuodun with an enormous torrent of fme, engulfing the purple armored soldier completely. Yet even wreathed in fire, General Zuodun continued to move freely through the inferno, swinging the silver bde without pause in a relentless assault on the creature.

  "Focus all attacks on a single body — sever it completely!" General Zuodun shouted. The other four armored soldiers immediately charged in, bringing their silver bdes down on the same spot of the same serpent body, striking again and again in a frenzied assault.

  The Hydra fought back ceaselessly with biting, fire, and streams of venom aimed at the five armored soldiers, but the armor's defensive capability was extraordinary — the Hydra's attacks could hardly deal any effective damage to the armored soldiers at all. They used their armor to weather the creature's blows and continued driving their silver bdes into its body without letting up.

  The silver bdes were devastatingly powerful — each strike carved an enormous wound into the Hydra's flesh. Combined with the soldiers' concentrated assault on a single spot, the creature's regenerative ability could not keep pace with the damage being dealt.

  Suddenly, one of the serpent's bodies lurched sideways and its head dropped from the air. With a thunderous crash, it smmed into the ground. Under the combined assault of the five armored soldiers, one of the Hydra's bodies had been completely severed. The severed portion writhed on the ground like an earthworm, making its final desperate convulsions.