Chapter 333

Chapter 333

Hisssss!

Nine heads flicked their tongues while glaring at Zeon from different directions.

Because Zeon had completely blocked the passage to the outside, there were only two beings in this space now.

Zeon had hardened the cave entrance firmly, but with the Bone Hydra’s strength, it could break through at any time.

The reason it did not was Zeon.

The presence of this tiny human, who was not even one-hundredth of its size, kept the Bone Hydra from moving any farther.

The Bone Hydra had no reason.

It was already dead.

It existed only to obey the commands of its master, the Necromancer.

The order given to it was the extermination of the humans who had recklessly entered the Necromancer’s domain, and the gathering of their blood in one place.

Zeon was an obstacle to that master’s command.

The fact that it could not carry out its master’s order unless it killed him made the Bone Hydra move.

Graaaah!

The nine heads each spewed Breath.

It was Poison Breath.

The tremendous poison the Hydra had possessed while alive was being released in the form of Breath.

Drip, drip!

The poison was so vicious that the walls and ceiling bubbled and melted.

Just brushing against it would melt skin and muscle, and inhaling even one breath would force a person to writhe in pain as their entire body burned.

If the Hydra had fired Poison Breath indiscriminately in the space where the Awakened were, countless people would have died without even getting a chance to respond.

That was why Zeon had blocked the entrance.

Before they could suffer massive damage.

Of course, thanks to that, Zeon took the Poison Breath head-on. But even within the barrage of Poison Breath, Zeon was unharmed.

Fwoosh!

It was because of the Fire Shield surrounding him.

As the name suggested, it was a shield made of flames.

Thanks to the authority of the Ultra-Heat Gauntlet, he could deploy Fire Shield freely as well.

Fire was poison’s natural enemy.

It did not matter how vicious the poison was.

Ultra-high heat flames burned away all toxins.

Thanks to that, Zeon could remain unharmed even inside the Poison Breath.

Unfortunately for the Bone Hydra, Zeon was its natural counter.

Paht!

Zeon kicked off the ground and flew upward.

The sand on the floor supported his body, allowing him to meet the Hydra’s gaze on equal footing.

Nine pairs of huge eyes glared at Zeon. Even so, Zeon did not show the slightest sign of shrinking back.

Graaaah!

When its Breath did not work, the Bone Hydra opened its mouths and attacked Zeon directly.

It intended to chew him up and swallow him whole.

Zeon moved his body in midair and dodged the Bone Hydra’s attack.

The nine heads chased after Zeon like guided missiles from different directions.

Zeon dodged diligently, but at one moment, every direction he could evade was blocked.

It had cleverly sealed off all his escape routes.

For a mindless undead, it was a fairly intelligent response.

It was acting according to habits ingrained in its body while it had been alive.

After blocking every direction Zeon could dodge, the Bone Hydra’s nine heads lunged at him at the same time.

Zeon’s small body was on the verge of being torn apart by nine mouths.

Ruuumble!

A massive subspace opened behind him, and an enormous amount of sand poured out.

The sand from the subspace combined with the sand already piled up in the underground space and formed nine enormous sand pillars. The sand pillars created that way strangely resembled the Bone Hydra’s heads.

It was the Sand Hydra Zeon had created.

“Go!”

No sooner had Zeon spoken than the Sand Hydra collided with the real Bone Hydra’s heads.

BOOM!

Graaaah!

With a thunderous explosion, the Bone Hydra’s heads were knocked away.

Without missing that opening, the Sand Hydra’s mouths bit into the Bone Hydra’s necks.

If it had been an ordinary living creature or monster, the attack would have dealt severe damage.

But the Bone Hydra did not feel pain in the first place, and even if it was wounded, it regenerated quickly.

Its counterattack soon began.

BOOM!

BAAANG!

The Bone Hydra’s massive heads slammed straight into the Sand Hydra’s heads.

Unable to withstand the tremendous mass attack, the Sand Hydra’s heads burst apart.

Zeon was not particularly surprised.

The Sand Hydra he had created was, in the end, nothing more than a large sand doll modeled after the Bone Hydra.

It was merely being controlled by Zeon’s will.

Its actual power fell far short of the Bone Hydra’s.

It was only natural that it would burst apart under such simple attacks.

But even the Sand Hydra, a mere doll, had its own advantage.

It could regenerate.

The heads that had been destroyed regenerated in an instant, just like the Bone Hydra’s.

As long as there was no shortage of sand and Zeon’s mana, it could regenerate at any time. That was its greatest advantage.

Graaaah!

Crash!

A total of eighteen heads tangled together like snakes and fought.

While the Sand Hydra served as a tank like that, Zeon was able to observe the Bone Hydra closely.

Behind the Bone Hydra, enraged by the attacks of the Sand Hydra that resembled itself, an ominous blue-green aura rose.

The distinctive tentacle attack he had seen from the Bone Drakes had begun.

BOOM! BOOM! BAAANG!

Along with the nine heads, dozens of tentacles made of blue-green aura joined in and battered the Sand Hydra.

The Sand Hydra’s body repeatedly broke apart and recovered. But as time passed, the time it took to recover increased noticeably.

The Bone Hydra spewed Poison Breath to melt the Sand Hydra so it could not regenerate after being destroyed.

Just as the Sand Hydra he had gone through the trouble of creating had become almost useless—

“I found it.”

Zeon’s eyes shone.

His gaze was fixed on the Bone Hydra’s seventh head.

Unlike the other eight heads and the tentacles, which were busy neutralizing the Sand Hydra, that one acted particularly passively.

It attacked from the very back and only moved after its safety had been clearly secured.

“That one is the leader.”

Because it had nine heads, it seemed as though each head judged and moved on its own, but in truth, there was a central entity controlling them.

That was the seventh head, and it was controlling the other eight heads.

He had to remove that one first.

After that, he would find and destroy the core.

Otherwise, the remaining heads would keep reviving endlessly.

Thanks to the Sand Hydra buying time, he had identified the leader head and the core’s location.

Now all that remained was to move.

Zeon launched himself straight toward the Bone Hydra.

The Bone Hydra’s nine heads noticed Zeon’s assault and raised themselves all at once. Then they either fired Poison Breath or opened their mouths wide and attacked.

At that moment, Zeon unleashed Fire Rain.

Fwoooooosh!

A rain of fire poured down through the cave.

The rain of fire struck the Bone Hydra’s heads and tentacles directly.

It was a Skill that used White Phosphorus Flame, which never went out once it caught fire.

If it had been an ordinary monster, it would have writhed in pain the moment it caught fire, but the Bone Hydra was already a dead monster.

Moreover, its entire body was made of bones, so it did not catch fire, and the attack did not damage it much.

Only the blue-green tentacles it controlled were affected by Fire Rain.

Fwoooosh!

The White Phosphorus Flame burned the tentacles fiercely.

Although it was an undead that could not feel pain, it could not help being distracted.

Thanks to that, its attention was split, and Zeon was able to arrive in front of the seventh head.

For a brief moment, its gaze and Zeon’s collided in midair.

The seventh head opened its mouth and swallowed Zeon whole.

Zeon did not resist and entered its mouth.

Just before the sharp teeth could tear his body to pieces, black particles burst from Zeon’s body.

It was Exion, which he always kept stored in his pores.

It had truly been a long time since Zeon had used Exion.

Paaang!

Exion surrounding Zeon bounced away the Hydra’s teeth.

Exion did not stop there. It drew in the sand of the Sand Hydra, which had been beaten half to death by the Bone Hydra.

In an instant, Exion’s body swelled several hundred times larger.

GRIIIIIND!

Then it began rotating at ultra-high speed.

Sand Mixer had unfolded inside the seventh head.

The power of Sand Mixer with Exion added to it could not be compared to the original.

Hard bone shattered like tofu and scattered into dust.

The other heads approached to save the seventh head, their leader, but it was no use.

Originally, a Hydra’s head regenerated in an instant even if it was cut off.

The Bone Hydra was the same.

Even if it had been ground away by Sand Mixer, it should have regenerated. But because it was being ground away at terrifying speed without being given time to regenerate, there was nothing it could do.

After blowing away the seventh head in an instant, Zeon seared the neck with ultra-high heat flames.

He had sealed it off at the source without giving it any room to regenerate.

The remaining heads, having lost their leader, seemed to waver in confusion for a moment.

They could not agree among themselves.

If he gave them time, they would choose a leader among themselves. But Zeon had no intention of giving the Bone Hydra time.

While the eight heads were thrown into confusion, Zeon arrived at the central area from which their necks stretched out.

Crunch!

He rotated Exion like a drill and bored a hole into the hard bone.

The bone was so hard that he could only make a hole just large enough for one person to enter. But to Zeon, that was enough.

Without hesitation, he leaped into the Bone Hydra’s body.

In the depths of the darkness, he saw a blue-green light flickering.

It was the Bone Hydra’s core and heart, where blue-green aura had condensed.

Fwoosh!

As if sensing danger, tentacles extended from the core.

BOOM! BOOM! BAAANG!

Using Exion and streams of sand, Zeon intercepted the tentacles one by one and reached the core.

Thump, thump!

As if the core felt fear, it beat several times faster.

Even a monster revived from death seemed to fear death.

Moreover, if it died this time, it would never come back to life again.

A being whose core was destroyed could no longer revive.

BOOM!

Zeon’s fist slammed into the core.

It seemed impossible to break that enormous core with a human fist. But Zeon did not think it was impossible.

Because he had the Ultra-Heat Gauntlet.

The Ultra-Heat Gauntlet, set with a dragon’s eye, was the natural counter to all evil energy.

BOOM!

With his second punch, a crack appeared in the core.

Kuwaaaaah!

This time, perhaps it felt pain, because the eight heads thrashed madly in agony.

BAAANG!

With the third punch, a hole was blasted straight through the Bone Hydra’s core.

With his fist still buried inside the Bone Hydra’s core, Zeon muttered,

“Bloom! White Phosphorus Flame that burns all things.”

At that instant, a white flame blossomed inside the core.

It was White Phosphorus Flame.

Fwoooosh!

The flame rose like a flower and burned away all the blue-green aura spewing from the core.

Like a ravenous monster, the White Phosphorus Flame swept through and burned the blue-green aura that formed the Bone Hydra’s source down to the very bottom.

The eight heads went berserk and tried everything they could to extinguish the fire, but it was useless.

There was no way for them to put out the flames rising from within their body.

Kuwaaaaah!

Finally, the eight heads let out a great scream and collapsed to the floor. Then they stopped moving.

That was the Bone Hydra’s end.

For the end of a Grade S monster, it was rather anticlimactic, but it was only possible because its opponent was Zeon.

Zeon looked at the massive corpse of the Bone Hydra for a moment, then moved on.

The place he headed toward was deep inside the underground passage.

The place where he presumed the Necromancer would be.

At last, Zeon arrived before a large door.

Beyond the door, he could feel a dreadful energy of death.

After briefly steadying his breathing, Zeon finally pushed the door.

Creeeeak!

The massive door opened quietly without resistance.

At that moment, someone inside let out a slightly surprised voice.

“Hm?”