Getting Ahead of the Situation

"A visit?" Noble furrowed her brow.

Jet nodded. "If we wait until that thing gets to us, everyone here is as good as dead. We may as well abandon the citadels now. Our only chance to get ahead of this is to check out the Titan before he arrives."

The Corrupted creature was coming ever closer. They needed to act quickly.

And the only person who could take the Saint safely across the plains was the Master with the swirling eyes.

Noble nodded.

"Let's go."

'Hold the line,' Noble told Sarai through the Memory.

'I will,' the redhead nodded subtly.

'If I don't make it back, tell Fort and the kids that I love them.' The Dreamscape Champion lifted off of the ground.

'You'll tell them yourself soon enough,' Sarai tapped her polearm on the ground. 'Good luck!'

Luck? They would need it. 

Looking over her shoulder, Noble wished the soldiers of Crestfall and Ender's Deep well. She desperately wanted all of them to survive.

Something in her stirred and flowed outward. She could feel it settle on those around her like a blanket.

'Hopefully, that was my Kingdom Keeper attribute and not a burial shroud.' Noble shook her head. She needed to think positively.

Jet lifted off of the ground, her face changing imperceptibly with surprise.

With her pale skin and icy blue eyes, she looked even more like a wraith than usual.

It was time for Soul Reaper to live up to her name.

The two ladies flew over the flames and soared over the sea of waiting abominations. Some were wary of the flames, while others threw themselves on the pile, roasting their own bodies in a bloodthirsty rage.

"Quite the bonfire." Jet glanced at the mayhem. "I doubt we will be singing campfire tunes any time soon."

Noble wouldn't have minded a little singing just then. She would be willing to listen to just about anything except a funeral dirge.

Dismissing the half of the Other's Voice that Sarai possessed, Noble recalled it to her palm. Passing it to Jet, she pointed to the counterpart behind her ear.

'Just think something toward me and I'll hear it,' Noble instructed.

'Handy,' Jet nodded silently.

Now that they could speak without words, coordination would be much easier. Since Noble was controlling both of their flights, she needed to be able to hear Jet's orders clearly. 

Together, they raced forward across the broken landscape. 

The closer they got to the Titan, the more terrible and terrifying the minions became. Gone were most of the Dormant and Awakened Beasts, replaced with Fallen Monsters or worse. 

Yet all of them paled in comparison to their harrowing master. Now that they were drawing close, Noble could see the creature in its full glory. She wished she hadn't. 

The Corrupted Titan was so tall that the wall of the Crestfall would barely be a step in its forward march. Unlike its countless servants, the scaly monster had sixteen arms and legs. 

Its colossal body held six swiveling heads on its wide shoulders and a stalky tail tucked underneath its hips.

'Six sets of eyes. Six sets of fangs...' 

Why did any creature need more than one head?!

At least the monster was only using two of its legs to lumber forward. The rest waved wildly as they jutted out from the Titan's upright body. 

'It looks like a hydra,' Jet's voice entered Noble's consciousness. 

The professor had heard of the mythical creature. What she recalled made her shiver. When one of its heads was cut off, another two took its place.

That was not an appealing proposition. 

Steeling her nerves, Noble responded evenly. 'Soon enough they will have another thing in common. They'll both be nonexistent.' 

Jet smirked. 'I like the way you think. Let's make it happen.'

It took another couple of minutes for the ladies and their foe to close the distance between them. In that time, Noble gathered as much information as she could. 

There was no doubt that the hydra was immensely powerful. Noble was positive she had never seen anything so massive or strong in her life. It was more than twice the size of the Lord of the Mountain and could have picked the Bloom of Doubt like a pansy. 

How could something so large even exist?! 

More importantly, how could it be defeated?

The only mercy was that the creature did not seem to be in any hurry.

If it had used the power of all of its arms and legs it would have undoubtedly reached the citadel by now. Instead, it caused a small earthquake with each of its gargantuan steps.

Noble searched for any weak point. The six heads swayed on long necks, preventing anything from escaping its notice. The body itself was made of viridian scales. Each plate was bigger than Noble's body and tougher than any alloy.

Any Awakened would kill to have armor made from a piece of that hide, assuming the hydra didn't manage to kill them first.

Each of its arms and legs was a powerhouse of its own. Like the head, they could sway in any direction and did not seem bound by the laws that joints would normally impose.

The end of each limb had six taloned fingers sharp enough to rip even the strongest human in two. Noble was quite sure that a single hit from any of them would be the end of her.

There was only one solution.

'Don't get hit.'

That would be hard enough on her own, but while also directing Jet through the air, it was an impossible goal in close combat.

Perhaps there was another way. A way they could take down the Titan without having to engage in close quarters.

But Noble doubted it.

In her musing, Noble had not realized how close the towering fiend had come.

One of the slitted pupils locked onto the undefiled humans. It shot forward, ready to make a tasty meal of the two petite morsels.

'Watch out!'

Rather than rely on her floating ability, Noble took hold of Jet's arm and pulled them both toward the ground.

Noble felt the wind of the hydra's jaw snapping shut, and her breath caught.

It had been too close.

They stopped short of the ground and went wide, avoiding the arms and legs of the ferocious monster.

Thankfully, the promise of thousands of human souls in the citadel was too tempting to stop for the missed meal. The Titan continued forward without pause.

A moment later, they were staring at the scaly spine of the behemoth as he left them behind.

'Behind!'

Noble's eyes opened wide. Catphine's final words popped into her mind.

'What?' Jet raised one eyebrow.

'The back of the Titan. Maybe…'

Noble instinctively flew forward toward the tucked tail.

'Maybe the back is our way in.' Jet filled in the blanks. Soul Reaper raised her weapon. With a ghostly vapor surrounding it, the weapon transformed into a Bec de Corbin. 

'Get a little closer and then on my mark, you can drop me…"

Jet's instructions were cut off as the pair lurched to one side.

From between the Titian's legs, the tail suddenly shot out of its hiding place and whipped toward them.

Noble's face paled.

The thing coming toward them wasn't a tail at all.

It was a seventh head.