When the beam of death faded, Yerin pulled her sword back.
“See how you like it,” she muttered.
And she responded in kind.
A gleaming beam of red-white light shot down the tunnel, lighting everything crimson. Her focused will to destroy pushed against Lindon’s mind, and he suspected Orthos and Little Blue wouldn’t have even been able to stand this close to the technique without his protection.
From the other end of the tunnel, they heard a monstrous scream.
“Wonder what that was,” Eithan said brightly.
It took them two seconds to clear the long tunnel.
The Tomb Hydra waited at the end of the hall, in a room that reminded Lindon of a honeycomb. It was spherical, like many of the other rooms they had encountered so far, but this time virtually every stretch of wall was filled with tunnel after tunnel. You could barely see any wall between all the doors, heading in every direction.
And many of those were hidden behind the Hydra’s massive body.
It was a wall of gray-green scales that wrapped around the entire room, dwarfing them many times over. Its eyes blazed like lanterns of pale, deadly green…all six of them.
One of the Tomb Hydra’s three heads roared at Yerin, clearly enraged by the bloody cut her technique had gouged in its jaw. The other two spread out, leaning their necks around to get a better vantage point on the rest of the party.
But no one was waiting around for that to happen.
Blackflame roared from Lindon’s hand, empowered with soulfire. A hail of violet arrows erupted from Mercy’s bow. Orthos breathed flame, Eithan called stars down on each of the Hydra’s heads, and Ziel’s body began to shine bright emerald as he picked up his hammer.
The Hydra sent out a wave of death madra, but it still screamed from three throats as the barrage of techniques tore its body apart.
Not as much as it should have been torn apart, though.
Lindon’s Blackflame didn’t carve the Hydra down to the bone or melt through its scales, but rather scorched it like a superficial burn. Yerin’s Endless Sword left deep grooves spraying blood, but didn’t sever a head. Mercy’s arrows stuck in the scales and did nothing. Eithan’s stars passed into the Hydra’s spirit but didn’t come out the other side, indicating they hadn’t speared through it.
And in the same instant, its body uncoiled. It whipped at them, a wall of scales and muscle, forcing them all to take to the air.
One head shot toward Lindon and Mercy, one snapped at Ziel and Yerin, and the third lunged at Eithan.
At the same time, and at the worst possible moment, webs of hunger madra shot out of the tunnels from every direction. There was a distinct will behind these attacks, and Lindon knew they had finally caught Subject One’s attention.
Suspended in midair, with no aura to push against, Lindon felt the pangs of panic. If he had been drawing from his pure core, he would have had a better defense, but he was already channeling Blackflame to attack the Hydra. The Burning Cloak appeared around him, and he dodged most of the threads. One landed against his hip with a burning sensation, and he lost a little energy to it before he twisted to break it.
Then Little Blue screamed in his ear like a shattering bell. One of the strands had touched her.
And that was the moment when Lindon took the enemy seriously.
He dropped Blackflame and switched to the Path of Twin Stars. Little Blue cleansed her own channels at the same time, snapping the thread, but she was already weaker.
He surrounded himself with the Hollow Armor, letting the death madra wash over him, and landed on the body of the snake.
Then he slammed his palm down on its scales.
An instant later, a Forged hand bigger than his body followed the motion of his own palm.
Pure madra coursed into the Hydra, and the light in its six eyes flickered. The others exploded with their own techniques, and Lindon switched back to Blackflame.
He drove a beam of black dragon’s breath up through one of the snake’s heads.
Yerin sliced off a second as Ziel crushed a third, and then the room was filled with the hiss of rising essence and a tide of death aura.
Lindon grabbed Little Blue, checking with his eyes and spirit to make sure she was all right. She didn’t protest in his grip, instead sagging into his hand and whistling relief.
She had been weakened. Substantially. But her contact with his madra was restoring her strength.
“Eithan, you and I handle the Remnant,” Lindon called. His pure madra cycled faster.
Eithan was peering in the direction of the Hydra’s body. “No need. It’s a dreadbeast.”