blacksmithoftheapocalypse
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1189. Pointing her-?
🕑 Added 2024-10-06 15:49:33 +0000 UTC--- Southwest of Delta, Field of broken Mountains---
Slithering along the slopes below Delta was a giant snake, aiming for the dragon skeleton and golden colossus wrestling in the distance. She was as put as Python before her ascension, roughly 100 meters in length.
But it wasn't just a snake. The first third of its body was split into a dozen necks and heads which all connected into a thick node and only the last 2/3 after the node looked like a normal snake. A genuine hydra had appeared!
<Ding! You have witnessed Fafi, the Hydra of the Vale. You have been temporarily paralyzed in its presence. You receive double Poison Damage>
“Backup 6, do you see it?” the voice came from the comm-link.
He looked at the beast with mixed feelings. The sight brought back some bad memories for him. The last time he fought a hydra, it was just a hatchling far from being a legend. Rayki thought of his partner for this endeavor. He now understood why he was given Backup 2, but would they be okay?
Thinking of Backup 2, if he was honest, his feelings about his unexpected ally that was placed in his care were not much different from the ones he had looking at the legendary beast. How would the golem feel? Technically, Rayki knew this was a chimera Seth created, but...would Heads feel anything killing a being so similar to itself?
He shook his head, to get rid of these thoughts. He had to concentrate. Rayki took courage, just like this was not a hatchling, he was no longer a young, naïve bard, looking for his lost love. His hand gripped tightly onto the guitar; Seth had given him.
“I have visual confirmation. It’s really an undead hydra. It’s aiming for Hellion and the skeleton dragon. Should we engage?” she asked, readying his instrument.
“Yes, engage,” Leana gave the order to release another member of the beasts of calamity onto the field.
...
Natina called, and Minas Mar answered, however, not in the way she expected. Instead of the tree, another legend they had not known about appeared. A lightning eagle was circling over Uz’Roc’s position, ready to engage.
The worm and pseudo-dragon were also managing to keep Piotr at bay. Who would have thought that the legendary lich wasn’t going to be enough? At least Fafi was about to help Kalzemir. She had just finished this thought when the appearance of a new beast close to Fafi had her reeling back.
An abomination had suddenly appeared on the slopes below Delta, just behind the giant hydra. For a moment she couldn’t categorize what she was seeing. At first, it looked like another hydra had appeared, as it possessed eight serpent heads, but that was where the similarities ended.
The eight serpents, each roughly 50-60 meters long were joined together, not into the body of a snake, but on the shoulder of a scaled giant! A 40-50 meter tall, wide, humanoid body of a giant, covered in the same scale as its eight heads and necks was rushing toward her Fafi!
Dragging behind the hydra giant was a massive black club that looked like a branch of a guardian tree. Rushing at her giant hydra, it lifted the weapon for a devastating surprise attack on her baby! At the same time, a song suddenly sounded across the mountains, to the point even she, at this distance, was able to hear it faintly. The moment the club descended, the lyrics started.
“Whoa, Black Batty! Bam-ba-Lam! Whoa, Black Batty! Bam-ba-Lam!”
A pitch-black aura of dark flames burst forth from the bat, ready to smite Fafi. She watched what happened next with a grim, satisfied smile. As if that giant beast and its loud stomps could have sneaked up on the legendary hydra. It was a trap!
When the massive creature jumped up, lifting the weapon in midair, the dozen heads of the hydra snapped around and bathed the falling giant in poison and acid. For a moment, the creature’s figure was hidden in the torrent of toxins.
“After this, it will just be mush,” Natina thought to herself, already imagining a half-dissolved hydra giant fall limply to the ground. Despite her strong conviction, what emerged from the acid was a steaming hydra giant, who was otherwise perfectly fine.
Its giant club came down and it was one of Fafi’s heads that became mush. However, the impromptu torch had been doused, so there was no fire damage involved. From the crushed skull, sprouted two new heads that attacked the giant.
The thirteen heads from one and the 12 limbs from the other side quickly became entangled, embroiled in a deadly mess. Heads were biting, hands were grabbing, and maws were spitting magic and various kinds of substances. It was so chaotic, that even Natina couldn't make out who had the upper hand.
“The damn thing gone wild! Bam-ba-Lam! I'm worryin' outta my mind! Bam-ba-Lam!”
However, the music didn't stop, and the black bat didn't either, as the bard tortured his instruments, playing quick ecstatic chords.
“Whoa, Black Betty! Bam-ba-Lam! Oh, Black Betty! Bam-ba-Lam!”
As the music went on, the black bat, one of the few clearly visible things in the battle, started hitting quicker and quicker, as if it had a mind of its own. it quickly sacrifices accuracy for speed, as the surrounding landscape was also quickly reshaped.
“The damn thing gone blind! Bam-ba-Lam! Oh, Black Batty! Bam-ba-Lam!”
But despite missing a lot, it also hit very often, crushing the Hydra's skulls and burning the wounds. This was the way to kill a legendary hydra according to Herakles' story, but Natina wasn't worried in the least.
Why?
Fafi was already an undead Hydra. When alive, a legendary Hydra had an immortal head, not too different from the phylactery of a Lich. A head, not even Herakles was able to kill. Natina's Fafi on the other hand had a genuine phylactery, that was made from its immortal head, but was no longer bound to its body.
This meant, that even if they kept crushing the head and burning the stumps, Fafi would eventually regenerate more heads. Yet, it didn't change that Fafi was caught up in the fight, unable to free Kalzemir.
She had no time to come up with a solution, as the lightning bird made its move.
---Southeastern wall of Delta----
<Ding! You have witnessed Ceres, the Tormentor. Fear has taken hold of you.>
His undead bones shook, without him being able to do anything about it. His thoughts were flowing slowly like syrup as he stared into the sky. Up there, the figure of a blue eagle circling over their position had appeared.
The dark clouds above growled and lights flashed as lightning cracked within them.
“Look at all the trash littered in the front yard. I think some spring cleaning is due~ ”
A bad premonition overcame Uz’Roc as the way the creature spoke reminded him of himself. it was the note he struck, whenever he found some wandering merchants, or gathering children crossing the plains alone.
He was seen as an easy prey, a fun plaything. The blatant disrespect would have angered him at any other moment. On the contrary, his mind grew incredibly cold and calculating. To be affected by the aura of its legend, even for just a moment, alarmed him greatly.
He had just shaken off the effect of witnessing the bird when lightning started raining from the clouds. Dozens of lightning bolts descended on the army, blasting away the shields. Many of the Liches staggered and even collapsed from the backlash.
“Tick, Tock, it's Monsoon o'clock!”
Following the childish phrase, the gates of heaven opened, and an ocean was unloaded on the mountain slope. Heavy rain drenched them in a second and turned the slightly snowy field into a hell of mud. Unheavenly amounts of water flowing down the mountain quickly created heavy flash floods that pulled away the ground from under their very feet.
Without the barriers, there was no resisting this. Technicians and humanoid undead were swept away immediately, like leaves in the wind. Bigger undead beasts were barely able to claw to rocks and boulders, resisting the rapids pulling at them.
Uz’Roc had lodged his staff into a crack in the rock to resist the stream and looked up at the city wall. Big, heavy monsters had pressed themselves into the breach, blocking the water and forcing it to flow past the district's wall.
His eyes looked up at the female necromancer in her black armor, standing on top of one of the watch towers along the wall. Maybe it was just his imagination, but was she smiling at him? Why was she pointing her middle fingers at him?
Before he was ripped away by the overwhelming amounts of water, he understood why she never sent any of her undead outside the walls.
