Chp.29: The worst situation ever

Haku and Darbi dodged the heads just in time, an instant before their jaws crashed down on them. Luckily the hydra didn't seem to be very fast, but now they were in a really bad situation.

Haku was in a cold sweat. The hydra was a monster that he had absolutely no intention of facing. The creature could fight level adamantium opponents, and he certainly wasn't in that category. He was furious that he had let himself be fooled like that. He should have known something was wrong when he smelled all those dead bodies in the same spot, as if they were moving at the same speed. Wolves, lions, deer, and so on, all of them had different speeds; why should they move at the same pace? It was obvious they must have a reason.

Haku underestimated the hydra's intelligence. It had managed to cheat them in a masterful way: it had covered its smell using the stench of rotten flesh of its minions, and had hidden the sound of its footsteps in the midst of that of the dozens of creatures that followed it. The trees had done the rest, hiding it from sight and the dragons' other higher senses. And so it had managed to get close enough to attack them.

Haku couldn't figure it out. How had it found them? They had hidden their tracks very well... then he understood. The hydra probably had some kind of connection to its minions, and it had tracked them using the wolf and the tiger. Here's how it did it! How far did its ability to control the corpses of other creatures extend?

His thoughts were interrupted as he saw the hydra minions lunging at him. "More questions later... if I'll be able to make them!" he exclaimed dodging their attacks. Beside him, Darbi was also defending himself as best he could. The heads of several minions were torn apart by the two dragons' claws, teeth, and tails.

But the hydra certainly had no intention of standing idly by. Its six heads hissed, after which it opened its multiple mouths and an immense amount of green vapor emerged from them. Haku shivered at that sight. "Darbi, quick, climb the trees!" he screamed. There was no way to run fast enough to get far enough away from the steam, so the only hope was to go up. The two dragons quickly climbed the first trees they managed to reach. Below them the steam passed as if it were the water of a river, and the various beasts controlled by the hydra massed trying to uproot the plants.

Fortunately, the poisonous vapor must have been heavier than air, because it remained deposited on the ground, forming a green patina that paralyzed in an instant if breathed in. However Haku noticed a detail that clashed with the information he had. Insects, lizards, mice, and any other animal life touched by the vapor died instantly, but trees, grass, and other plants were unaffected. 'That must be why there are no signs of its presence… it can control what its poisonous breath kills' he thought in a cold sweat. 'This hydra is really different... it's smarter, more cunning, and can better control its powers than the one the old hunter described to my sisters... I don't know what happened, but clearly something must have got it changed!'

Two of the hydra's heads came towards him, opening their jaws. Haku leapt off the tree before they could close in on him. Fortunately, in a forest, what wasn't lacking were trees, consequently he could jump from one to another without having to go down to the ground and breathe the poisonous vapor. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Darbi do the same to two other heads.

The hydra only bit into the wood, but that only enraged it more. The two heads that hadn't done anything yet had their jaws wide open and from them the poisonous breath emerged again, but after a few moments it condensed until it turned into a blue and green fire. Two flames shot from its mouths up to the trees where Haku and Darbi were. The two dragons once again managed to dodge them, but they felt their heat behind them. The trees caught fire and so did the minions of the hydra that were trying to climb, and both were consumed to ash within seconds. When it realized that they had escaped, the hydra moved its heads to alter the trajectory of its fiery breath. Luckily it was rather slow; after a couple of minutes, Haku and Darbi were still alive and well.

'Damn, it's smarter than I imagined!' Haku thought when the hydra finally stopped chasing him with its fiery breath. It was clear that this had been a trap: the monster had used four of its heads to delude them that it wanted to bite them, while the other two were ready to breathe fire at them. 'Fortunately, it doesn't seem to have good coordination. It is as if it takes a few seconds to understand what is happening around itself. I guess it's because its brain is so far away from the sense organs…'

Haku and his siblings had hunted and killed countless creatures, and Haku had always noticed one detail: while other parts of the body sometimes changed position depending on the creature's anatomy, the brain was always positioned very close to the main sense organs, such as eyes, nose, tongue and ears. Haku suspected that the nervous system needed time to send information to the brain, so placing these organs together ensured greater coordination. Consequently, since the hydra's brain was located in its ribcage, the information transmitted by the sense organs positioned instead in its heads had to take a few seconds to reach it, and this was the reason for its slowness and lack of coordination. This was an advantage for him and his siblings: if the hydra was able to move efficiently, surely its trap would work and it would kill both him and Darbi.

'Maybe I can use that to my advantage. If the information from its eyes takes a few seconds to reach its brain, then it won't be able to avoid an arrow shot with all my strength!' Haku thought as he pulled an enchanted arrow from his dimensional bag. Continuing to flee would have achieved nothing: he had to fight back! With all his strength, he hurled it against the hydra's belly.

It was useless. The hydra was unable to avoid the arrow, as Haku had expected, but it bounced off its skin as if it had just hit a stone wall. The hydra didn't even seem to notice the blow received, but it had seen the arrow being shot at it, and it wasn't hard for it to understand what Haku's intent was. Furious, the beast let out a screech and opened its mouths wide, spewing huge quantities of its poisonous breath and forming a veritable cloud in front of it. Haku and Darbi had to quickly get away by jumping from tree to tree to avoid it. Fortunately, the green cloud collapsed after just about ten meters, dispersing on the ground as it had done previously. However, this time it wasn't a small layer of vapor, but a dense and very high fog. By now, even descending more than halfway down the trunk would have been life-threatening.

'Shit! How tough is that leather!?' Haku screamed in his mind. 'It shouldn't be like this! What is it, another modification from the regular hydra? What the heck happened to this monster to become so superpowered?'

According to his information, the hydra possessed extraordinary regenerative abilities, but it shouldn't have had an impenetrable skin. Instead it seemed that its leather was very hard!

"Haku!"

Haku froze when he heard that voice. Leaping from tree to tree, Rhaegal joined him on the tree where he was. Behind him, his sisters also appeared. "Kotaru warned us... even though we already heard your commotion from far away. What's the plan?"

As happy as he was to see his brother, Haku couldn't help but be worried. "You should have escaped while the hydra was busy with us" he said.

"Are you out of your mind, Haku? We don't let any of the family die, forgotten?" Rhaegal asked. "You and Darbi fit into that category, so we won't leave you here. We may have our differences, but now's not the time! I ask you again: what's the plan?"

Haku punched himself in his mind. Rhaegal was right: whatever problem there was between them right now was secondary. Now, the goal was just to survive. "The plan… I'm still working on it" he admitted as he watched the six-headed creature approaching rapidly.

"Oh, come on, brother, don't you remember? This bastard is sensitive to fire!" Darbi said as he fumbled with his dimensional bag. From it he extracted some potions of fire and smeared them on his claws, being careful not to touch the skin. He had also already engraved several fire runes on his body. "All we have to do is burn its wounds!"

"Darbi, no! It's total idiocy!" Haku yelled, but Darbi wasn't listening anymore. He leapt from tree to tree and circled, and then landed on the hydra's back. With all the strength he had in his body, he dug his claws into its skin and activated all the fire runes. The explosion that was generated was so strong that Darbi was thrown back towards the monster's tail. But when the firelight went out, it hadn't left a single burn on the hydra's skin.

Darbi's eyes widened. "How hard is that!?" he exclaimed, only to see one of the hydra's heads turn and try to bite him. Darbi avoided it and the hydra's head bit into its own back. Since the brain took time to send the command to let go of the skin, the head tore off a whole chunk of it before opening its jaws and screeching in pain.

Darbi almost laughed at seeing that scene, but his amusement was short-lived: the ripped off skin began to heal with impressive speed. Within seconds, not even a scar was left. "Is this the hydra's regenerative ability...?" he murmured, but immediately after something hit him with extreme violence. The hydra had lifted its tail and struck it, sending it flying at least twenty meters. Darbi crashed into a tree trunk and was knocked unconscious. For a moment Haku feared he would fall, but luckily Kotaru and Keita managed to jump onto the tree in time and grab it before it ended up in the poisonous vapor. "Is he okay?" he asked.

Kotaru nodded. "He just passed out" she replied. "He'll recover... if we get out of here alive". She said the last part with not much confidence in her voice.

Haku understood why. The hydra was practically invincible. None of the tricks they had could hurt it, and even if they could, it would regenerate almost immediately. This time, Haku was out of options.

The only option that came to him was to use the portable gate. He'd been saving it for an emergency, and this was an emergency. But sadly, the situation made that impossible. The portable gate teleported any living thing within a three meters radius, but sadly none of the trees there could support the weight of all seventeen dragons, and getting down to earth was impossible due to the poisonous vapor.

Haku couldn't use the portable gate.

Unless... he left someone behind.

The thought crossed his mind for an instant, and that was enough to make him feel self-loathing. Suddenly he thought he heard his parents' voices again: "Why not, son? You can't save everyone this time... so save just a part of them, the part that deserves to live!"

'No!' he screamed in his mind. 'I won't! I won't leave anyone behind! All my siblings deserve to live!'. He wouldn't use the portable gate, not if there wasn't a way to teleport everyone away. He didn't care about the consequences; that was his choice.

Come on, there had to be a way. Every living being had a weakness. He just had to find it...

The hydra opened its jaws again and belched its green and blue fire, this time from all six mouths. Haku, Rhaegal and their siblings again had to jump from tree to tree. Haku gritted his teeth, desperately trying to get his brain to work.

That was truly a desperate situation. The worst they had been in up to that moment.