Chapter 21: Dreams die
Inside the boss dungeon.
The New team has started their attack on the two-headed hydra. They are using the same strategy they used when they fought the hydra the third time. Luke came up with this strategy.
The strategy is simple. Luke stays in the back and acts as a control. His job is to assess the enemy’s movements and attack patterns and also the movement of the team. He also uses his wind magic sometimes to either distract the hydra and gain its attention which would give the attacking unit a chance or assist his ally’s whichever way he can.
Around Luke are the defenders. They are made up of the best people in the team who specialise in creating mana barriers and their job is to protect Luke from any incoming attacks made by the hydra. Since their force is halved, the defenders are only about six people.
In front of the defenders are the support attackers which number sixteen. Their role is to support the attack team. The attack team is made up of Light, Kelvin and Marco. They are responsible of the charge.
Now, they are fighting the hydra. Light charges at it imbuing his sword with mana. He releases a mana slash which connects with the hydra. Unscathed, the hydra swings its enormous tail at Light but Kelvin manages to show up on time catching the tail.
The force of the tail pushes Kelvin a few paces as his feet dig through the ground but thanks to his humongous strength, he stops it.
“Thanks.” Light says before imbuing his sword with mana. He swings his sword with everything he has and slices the hydra’s tail.
“Step one. Done.” Says Luke in the back as he is monitoring the situation.
The hydra roars in agony as one of its heads releases a fire-based attack at the pair.
“Wind gale.”
Luke manages to release a powerful wind gale that blows Light and Kelvin away from the hydra’s attack. The scorching heat of the attack trails by them.
On the other side, Marco is distracting the other head of the hydra as he launches his lightning sword attacks on it. With the help of the support attackers, they managed to keep it at bay for the moment.
Marco jumps up in the air and with the help of Luke’s wind magic; he manages to reach the hydra’s face where he plunges his sword in its eye.
The hydra roars in agony as its head wobbles around. Marco smiles but before he could pull back his sword from the hydra’s eye socket, a fire attack comes spiralling at him. Luke manages to cast a wind gale to counter the attack, but it is too powerful. The fire attack overwhelms Luke’s wind gale as it hurdles towards Marco, scorching him to a crisp as he slams towards the ground.
“Marco!!!” yells Luke at the lifeless Marco.
The other hydra head had stopped attacking Light and Kelvin and instead responded to its other half’s cry and aided it by blasting Marco off it. Everyone is shocked. The hydra let out another fire attack which devastates the support attackers.
“Damn. We were so close.” Says Luke with gritted teeth.
He then notices the hydra head that spits fire look at the direction of the other head and nods. Luke realises that it was the same signal it had given the last time they were defeated.
“LIGHT! USE IT NOW! IT’S ABOUT USE THE MOVE THAT CAN PARALYZE US!” Shouts Luke at Light.
Light knows immediately what that means and takes the stance of the thrust of death technique. His job is to kill the head that uses the sound-based attack.
“Thrust of death.”
With the utter of those words, mana converges within Light’s sword as he thrusts it. A devastating attack hurtles towards the hydra’s head. However, aware of the might of this attack, the hydra veers its head evading the attack.
The attack blows the ceiling of the room structure. A look of disappointment drowns on Luke’s face.
The plan had failed. After so much effort, all their hard work went down the drain.
The hydra swings it’s second tail (two heads, two tails) pummelling Light towards the wall. The unconscious Light, heavy in injuries, thud to the ground as the remaining guards watch in shock.
The hydra releases a fire attack blasting Kelvin to the wall, rendering him incapable of fighting. Before Luke can give an order to the remaining guards, a piercing shriek from the other head of the hydra echoes through everyone’s eardrums, paralyzing them. This is followed by a devasting fire attack blowing them away.
After so much work. They still failed on defeating the hydra. Their dreams are crushed as each one of them fall unconscious.
As Luke tries his best to keep his blurry eyes from closing. At the corner of his eye, he sees a figure standing in front of him.
Who’s that? Did someone manage to stay standing even after that? No, everyone was blown away. Then who…
Luke’s thoughts are halted as his vision starts to capture the figure’s face.
It is Light. He is still standing in front of the hydra.
Wait, wasn’t he unconscious? Why is he still standing? He’s going die at this rate.
Luke tries his best to reach out to his friend. With his body shaking from the pain, he stretches out his hand and mutters.
“Light. S-stop.”
But his words are so weak that they can’t even reach Light.
He starts noticing something weird.
Light isn’t himself. He is oddly quiet and looks more like an undead. He has a soulless expression as if possessed. And then a grin that startles Luke himself rises on Light’s face. Mana starts radiating from him. The normal bluish colour of mana starts turning to an eerie black as it flows from him.
The soulless eyes look up at the hydra that is startled too. He then takes a stance of the thrust of death technique. The hydra responds by its shrieking attack but the usual effects didn’t take effect on Light. The eerie black mana radiating from him converges in his sword as an aura resembling a demon from the underworld discharges out of his body.
“Thrust. Of. Death.”
With the same words that Light would say when he delivered his devastating attack. A powerful blast emerges from his sword as he thrusts it at the hydra. A black vortex of energy hurtles towards it, blowing open its chest and piercing its heart. The hydra, motionless collapses to the ground like a boxer knocked out by a powerful punch. Slowly but still breath taking.
The aura surrounding Light disappears as he collapses to the ground. Luke is confused about the event that just took place, but it didn’t take him long to fall unconscious too.