Taking a deep, calming breath, I marched back into the hydra room, pulling my bow from in inventory and charging up a pre-emptive soul shot.

  “Is everyone clear on their roles?” I asked and the others nodded, steely determination etched into each one of their faces. Not even Bell was taking this lightly.

  As I entered the room I moved to the right-hand side, hugging the wall. Jack did the same on the left and Bell stayed close to the door. Rex, as our only dedicated melee fighter, walked calmly towards the centre. As he reached the halfway mark, and just before the lights came on, he moved into a jog. His axe glinted over his shoulder, bulging lycanid muscles twitching as he tightened his grip.

  The lights came on with a flash, the hydra stared at him, all nine heads.

  Welcome back! The hydra has been replenished and is ready for your… hey wait, you can’t attack before I’m done talking!

  This time we completely ignored the tannoy message. I had realised in the previous encounter that the hydra wouldn’t attack until the Marquess had done speaking. It was almost as if it was programmed somehow. Either way, we’d be stupid not to take advantage of the exploit.

  Rex jumped up, severing the middle head of the hydra. Its other heads screamed, blood spurted from the top and the severed head hit the floor and immediately burst into glittering dust.

  “Bell!” I shouted.

  She responded by shooting off a ferocious fireball aimed right at the severed part of the wound. The blood stopped leaking; a nasty, putrid charred scent wafted through the air. The smell of burned flesh. No matter how many times I smelled it a wave of nausea still threatened to show me my dinner.

  As that happened I fired off my soul shot arrow. It was full strength, or as full as these arrows could handle. It flew through the air, a majestic harbinger of death, exploding through the upper chest of the beast.

  Letting out an ear-splitting scream, it slumped to the floor.

  Thank fuck for that.

  Originally I had wanted to specifically aim for its legs, but knowing Panda was underneath, I decided the risk wasn’t worth it. Instead, I adapted my role in the plan to aim just below the area where all nine necks met. I figured that in the best-case scenario it would sever all the heads at once and if not I could infect that area with acid which might slow the regeneration of the other heads.

  My shot didn’t sever any of the heads, but the base of the necks began to pustulate with popping, gory bubbles of skin and blood.

  Meanwhile, Rex would chop off one head at a time and Bell would cauterise the wound, preventing the healing process from taking place. The hardest part would be preventing the other heads from attacking whilst they did this.

  The leftmost head opened its mouth, fire blazing from its breath and without missing a beat, Jack severed it with a well-aimed shot from his magic sniper rifle. He was fulfilling his role admirably.

  Maybe I should ask him to join the team permanently.

  Rex sliced through another head and Bell hit the wound with a fireball. Another head over on the right opened its mouth and shot a myriad of icicles, like little daggers, straight at me. Kicking off the wall, I dived to the floor and Jack hit it with a magic missile, severing that head.

  As I landed I fired off a weaker soul shot, severing the second head on the left whose teeth sparked with electricity. My stamina was about halfway depleted but, thanks to my armour bonuses, that would be enough to see this through.

  Rex severed another head, and another, as Bell cauterised the wounds and Jack and I kept the remaining ones busy. It was exhausting, both mentally and physically, but it was working.

  Just as I’d told the team; in the story of Hercules he used a burning torch to set fire to the wounds as he decapitated them, preventing them from regenerating. I knew it was kind of a long shot, but the system notification did say I needed to know my mythology.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  Though I had learnt to take everything the system said with a pinch of salt, sometimes there were clues. And I got the distinct impression that it wasn’t overly fond of people creating their own monsters, like they were poaching on its turf. I wondered about the system sometimes, its personality almost seemed human, or at least animalistic. It was nothing like the gaming systems I’d come to expect from video games. But then again, this wasn’t a game at all.

  We whittled down the hydra heads one by one. The plan was working well, a little too well if anything. As soon as we finished it off we’d have to high tail it to the Marquess if we wanted to finish her off before she set anything else on us. But that was a problem for later.

  Rex severed the penultimate head leaving only the ice mana head left. I already had an arrow ready to go and as Bell fireballed the wound on the previous head, I loosed my arrow at the final one.

  It missed.

  Or rather, the final head dodged. Severing viciously it dived towards the central head and chomped down in the wounded part of the neck with ferocious precision.

  “Sever that head!” I shouted, “don’t let it undo the cauterisation!”

  Blood gushed from the freshly formed wound and Jack fired but it swerved again, biting down on yet another head. The middle head regenerated and black and red aura spilled from its mouth.

  Shit, not this again!

  “Rex-” before I’d even finished calling his name, the lycanid dived at the centre head severing it once more. Bell immediately followed up with a fireball. We all knew that of all the parts of this monstrosity we needed to keep at bay, the centre head was the highest priority.

  Taking a calming breath, I fired off another arrow at the ice mana head and this time it hit. Acid streaked down its neck as pustules and sores began to sprout down the length. Bell hit it with a fireball just as Jack took out the final head mid regeneration.

  “Not this time,” I said, following up with another soul shot for good measure, but it was unnecessary. The moment the last head hit the floor the beast burst, showering us with blood, guts, and viscera before erupting like a confetti volcano. There wasn’t even anything left to loot.

  “I can breathe again,” Panda gasped, pulling himself up out of the gore and turning. Seeing me, he ran with open arms towards me, tears glistened on his large, round eyes. It must have been scary for him being trapped under that thing. As he reached me I dodged and he skidded on the floor, looking up at me with a hurt expression.

  “I’m glad you’re safe, but you’re covered with hydra goop,” I said, “it’s really gross.”

  “Yeah,” Bell joined in with a laugh, “you look like Bollywood Deadpool.”

  His mouth hung limp as he looked incredulously from Bell to me and back again. “I nearly die and all you can do is crack jokes? How insensitive, and by the way, I am ten times more mentally stable than Deadpool.”

  “That’s not the flex you think it is,” I said, relenting and picking him up, placing him behind my head like how a father carries their toddler around the supermarket.

  I felt his blood-soaked fur scratching against the back of my head, but it wasn’t any worse than the guts that hung loosely from my armour. It had taken a while for it to fully repair itself after the first encounter and I wondered if it was because the central head had used an aura attack.

  Congratulations! You have defeated Hydra lvl 100.

  Bonus exp awarded due to level disparity.

  Bonus exp has been split equally between all participating members.

  Extra bonus exp has been given to the participant who scored the killing blow.

  You have reached lvl 58.

  That was new, it was the first time I’d ever seen experience points split equally between the entire party. I wondered if that was because it was such a thought out, team effort. If that was the case it gave us even more of a reason to practice our teamwork.

  I quickly added my five free points into vitality. One can never be too hard to kill and I’d promised Panda I’d be more logical with my point distribution in the future. He had thrown a fit when I’d dumped points into intelligence just to make it triple digits. I did, however, plan to find out just how much of a difference that would make to my invisibility skill soon.

  “I’ve levelled up!” Bell announced happily.

  “As have I,” Jack added. “I was just awarded a new skill selection. I’ll have to look properly though them later.”

  So he was awarded the bonus experience, you only get skills every ten levels.

  I wasn’t surprised that Jack was a higher level than me, but I was shocked at how close our levels were. When we had fought together at the Morningstar Hotel and Spa, his abilities seemed vastly higher than my own. Had I really caught up so quickly, or was this due to my own personal growth in developing such a strong team?

  As we all stopped for a momentary breather, a blue portal appeared at the back of the hall. It reached high up, touching the roof and disappearing through it; a cyclone of waving, swirling energy.

  “I take it that’s the exit?” I said, equipping both my daggers and raising my hood.

  “I would assume so,” Jack said, “my intel didn’t give specifics but if I were a gambling man I’d bet that on the other side of that portal we’ll find Marquess Tabitha.”

  I nodded, looking at each of my team in turn. Rex smiled, blood dripping from his fur, as he lifted his axe with both hands. Bell flickered fire between her fingers and grinned in her malicious, battle-junkie way. Jack simply nodded, a true professional.

  “Alright guys, ready to smack a bitch?” I asked, stepping into the portal and activating my invisibility.