Leonidas felt his heart thundering in his chest with adrenaline, and at that point, it may have very well been the only thing keeping him going. His health was still dropping, albeit at a truncated rate thanks to his Vitality increases, and his mana was steadily ticking down. His stamina, despite his growing exhaustion, was still managing to steadily rise—and his psi, while not draining, was kept at a steady neutral by the pull of his [Psionic Focus].

  The integrated amplifier of his helmet was pulling its weight, too.

  His spatial awareness, in fact, was the only reason he wasn’t already dead.

  His [Archon’s Psiblade] hummed in his grip as he charged, and he breathed through bloodied lips while he sighted his target. The Hydra’s five remaining heads loomed ahead, their golden eyes blazing with a cocktail of rage and, according to his [Psionic Focus], something alien to the creature: panic..

  He had them scared. Good. Fear made monsters sloppy.

  Every breath rattled wetly in his lungs, indicating that the damage he’d sustained was almost as bad as he’d thought—cracked ribs or worse, though he didn’t have time to check. His [Cataclysm Core] pulsed hot in his gut, begging to be unleashed again. He’d already carved two heads into ruin with it, and the memory of ‘One’s neck dissolving into sludge fueled a grim smirk beneath his visor.

  Five more. Five more, and he would earn his salvation.

  The System never rewarded anything less than total victory.

  ‘Three’ lunged first when Leonidas closed in, jaws snapping with a hiss of venomous mist boiling between its fangs.

  Leonidas sidestepped, feeling the heat of the poison graze his armor, and swung his blade up in a brutal arc in response.

  The mana-charged steel bit into the Hydra’s jaw, shearing through scales with a spray of neon-green blood, and igniting the mist in a sudden and unexpected reaction. The head recoiled, shrieking as flames engulfed it, but his focus was not on the now-wounded head—which was even then spinning itself to try to disgorge the cataclysm mana burning its maw.

  His eyes darted around to spot ‘Six’, and he marked its position specifically with his passive psionic awareness, while surging toward ‘Two’.

  The second head saw him coming, and it redoubled its efforts to free itself—thrashing like a thing possessed and displacing dust, rock, and steel in an effort to writhe away from the pinning rock. Leonidas tightened his grip on his sword and took a running leap onto the remains of the lower part of the first head’s neck.

  The moment his feet touched down, he bent to absorb impact and then springboarded forward again.

  ‘Two’ freed itself at the same moment, and Leonidas leaped forward and onto its rising neck in a sudden surge of devil may care madness. The Hydra’s heads snarled in response, and he saw ‘Six’ surging in to dislodge him, though without corrosive breath in its jaws.

  Interesting.

  In response to the creature, Leonidas slid down the short length of the second head’s neck as ‘Six’ rushed past him with a screech of hatred, and lifted his sword as he did—shifting his grip to reverse and raising it as if to stab down into the ground.

  “Sixth Sword Art,” he growled with a ruined throat, “Shatter the Earth!”

  Stamina fled his body in a rush, and Leonidas felt his arm vibrate with the force of his blow as he impaled his sword into the base of the neck belonging to ‘Two’. The [Archon’s Psiblade] bit deep, and bioluminescent blood spilled out like an unearthed well as he hit something vital. His Core snarled like an enraged animal, and Leonidas let it loose when his blade sank in up to the crossguard.

  The condensed power of multitudinous natural disasters blistered and boiled within the base of the second neck, and ‘Two’ unleashed an unearthly wail to mimic that of ‘One’ before its demise.

  The Hydra’s body spasmed, and Leonidas wrenched his sword free as ‘Three’ and ‘Six’ both twisted to strike at him like gigantic vipers. The former was a quarter-blackened husk, and its hiss was filled with abject loathing; while the latter was as hale as could be reasonably expected.

  Leonidas managed to dive across the Hydra’s body to dodge three, with one of its eyes glassy from his attack—but ‘Six’ was not so easily deterred. The sixth head had pulled its velocity, having learned from earlier experience, and only after Leonidas completed his dive did it properly attack.

  Pain exploded across his body as the Hydra’s jaws locked around his left arm and, instead of biting the limb off, used it to lift Leonidas from its back and throw him away like an unwanted chew toy.

  A skull icon shrouded in green appeared above his health bar at the same time as a notable chunk of its remaining percentage vanished instantly, and Leonidas barely had time to process the information before he slammed into the wall of the holding bay with a dull crunch.

  His vision flashed from black to white, the air fled his lungs in a choked wheeze, and Leonidas found himself sprawled on the ground with his left arm unresponsive. His eyes, unfocused and blurry, desperately sought the Hydra—and found it where he’d left it, now attempting to free itself in a frenzied storm of movement.

  ‘One’ and ‘Two’ were gone, the first severed two-thirds from the base of its body, and the second had completely rotted away—leaving a bleeding, rotted base still festering with glowing lines of cataclysm mana. ‘Five’ was a headless stump, dead on the ground, and ‘Six’ was viciously snapping at masonry to try to free the writhing ‘Seven’ while ‘Four’ struggled alone.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  It was ‘Three’, however, that truly caught his attention.

  The head he had already wounded was screaming, and undulating like it was drunk, panicked, or both. His eyes drifted down its neck, and he realized with groggy shock that the mana he’d injected into ‘Two’ had travelled to the base of ‘Three’.

  Even as he watched, rot and corrosion were spreading along the Hydra’s body, partially obscured by the dust and debris—and Leonidas could sense terror in all the remaining heads.

  A moment of darkness washed over him, and he snapped back to alertness a second later. When he did, he saw ‘Three’ sway drunkenly and then crash to the ground; spasming and heaving as its base was further corroded, until finally and with a final ear-splitting wail, its own writhing tore it from the main body in a sickening squelch of boiled blood and rotted scales.

  The entire neck sloughed away, melting from the main body like fresh paint bleeding due to water damage, and Leonidas felt his lips spit into a grin at the sight.

  “Four down,” he breathed wetly, while blood dribbled from his lips. “Three to—” he shook his head to clear another dizzy spell “—three to go, b-bitch.”

  Leonidas stabbed his sword into the rubble beside him and dragged his armored legs under himself to push him to his feet with the blade, and felt a wave of nausea and vertigo consume him.

  It was hard to breathe. He felt suffocated.

  His eyes unfocused again for a moment, and he reached up and ripped off his helmet; fumbling with it in his fugue and with the [Archon’s Psiblade] still held in his grip. “Gotta… finish the…”

  He staggered and caught himself on his sword, and his attention drifted to his HUD.

  Health: 32 | Mana: 43 | Stamina: 27 | Psi: 7

  A groan left his lips, and he glanced down at his left arm, dangling uselessly at his side and twisted awkwardly—badly enough that it appeared nigh unusable. His gaze unfocused again, and he looked back at the Hydra.

  “...stupid snake bitch…” he mumbled deliriously, while staggering backward and turning to vomit blood and bile onto the stonework and metal below.

  “Not… not done yet…” he grunted while turning back to Hydra.

  The creature’s remaining heads turned to him as one, and at that moment, ‘Six’ managed to tear ‘Seven’ free, and—no longer weighed down by three of its necks and the rocks suppressing them—the Hydra’s powerful body pulled ‘Four’ loose as well by sheer merit of its movement.

  Leonidas lifted his right arm to wipe his mouth, and felt his mana flickering.

  “Come on, then,” he slurred while forcing himself to stand straight, and raising his blade before him. “Come on… COME ON!”

  The Hydra’s heads hissed in rage, in fear, in hate—and its multiple eyes swept over his broken form. A low, malicious rumble echoed from the remaining three heads, and the beast’s body shook itself. It took a step, shaking the ground with its weight and staggering Leonidas momentarily. He cursed in a drunk-like stupor, and his left eye turned hazy—occluded by blood that seemed to be clouding his vision.

  “One arm down,” he jeered relentlessly, “broken bones, broken fucking brain, and I’m still here you overgrown fucking gecko.”

  The Hydra breathed deeply, almost as if it was savoring the moment, and ‘Six’ hissed angrily. Poison started to accumulate in its maw, and abruptly both ‘Four’ and ‘Seven’ snapped at it without hitting it. ‘Six’ looked between them, and rapid hisses passed among the heads before all three returned their attention to Leonidas. Another rumble left their throats, and the Hydra took another ponderous step forward.

  Something about its movement told Leonidas that it was as badly hurt as he was—likely suffering from a significant loss of vitality, and whatever central system controlled its motion. Another laugh echoed from his lips, and he took his own step forward while pointing his blade at the Hydra.

  “Come and get me, asshole,” he taunted again, while funnelling what mana remained into keeping his wrapped cataclysm mana burning along his sword.

  The Hydra hissed again, and took another step, and then another.

  The intervening distance between them shrunk rapidly, and Leonidas stared up at the creature as it slowly came within striking range. The heads stared back at him, one part reptile cunning, one part predatory satisfaction, one part fear, and—perhaps most surprisingly of all—one part begrudging, loathing respect.

  It hated him, but it acknowledged a powerful foe.

  He knew it would not be enough to save him, but he didn’t care.

  “Do your worst,” he demanded, while coughing up more blood. “I fucking dare you.”

  ‘Four’ snarled at him, spitting saliva and corrosive acid from its maw as it did, though none landed on Leonidas. He did not react, did not move, did not stagger. He remained steadfast, and as the heads leaned in, he refused to be intimidated. Synthra had been scarier than this sorry excuse for a lizard. Azrageth had made the Hydra look like an afternoon amusement. The Corrupted he had killed in their thousands had affected him more than this big, dumb, stupid reptile.

  Leonidas raised his sword in a ready stance, and ignited every last drop of his Core’s mana into the blade. Power, fury, desperation, and relentless pride pushed him to withstand and so he did: defiant, unbowed, unbroken. He held his blade aloft, held his chin high, and he snarled right back at the Hydra.

  A mad, mirthless laugh spilled from his bloodied lips as ‘Four’ reared back.

  I’m going to die. He realized. Funny… I wanted to die so badly, and now that I finally am…

  He thought of his sister, his parents, his grandparents, Ceruviel, and the desperate hope in the eyes of the Terrans in the stands, watching him, believing in him; their proxy, their representative, their kinsman, their champion. They needed him, humanity needed him, and he knew he was failing them. He was failing them like he’d failed Miranda, like he’d failed the children, like he’d failed so many people. He was tired of failing. He was tired of giving up. Ceruviel had forged him into a weapon, and he was shattering upon his first true test. What a pathetic, wasteful tempering of steel he had turned out to be.

  It wasn’t supposed to end like this.

  …I want to live.

  Something in his Core clicked, like a key turning in a lock.

  The head descended, and in a flash of fangs, everything went black.

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