System Programmer Chapter 13: The Hydra

Joshua counted the heads of the hydra. For now, he counted five of them. Being a cultivated person, he was familiar with the legend of 'The Labours of Hercules'. Hercules faced a hydra for his second task. According to the legend, if you cut one head off, two other would grow in its place. That was of course nonsense in Joshua's mind. For starters, if you kept cutting heads off, the hydra would eventually have so many it couldn't support its own weight. Still, the creature in front of him was apparently able to separate its heads and send them individually on errands. It was a spirit though, so maybe he should compare those snakes to the drones he made.

A lot of random thoughts filled his mind. For example, he had seen several mythical creatures since he came to this world. Amongst others, there was a pegasus, an angel, a dragon, … Joshua couldn't help but wonder why people on Earth knew of those creatures that didn't exist there. Were they once real on Earth too? Did Earth have summoners as well? So many mysteries! That was so much fun for him to think about.

The hydra's roar interrupted his daydream… Oh right! He better had to help the others first, he could be philosophical later.

The group had sprung in action, while the creature was more dangerous than before they were no longer on a boat and had thus more room for movement. Cynthia, Catherine, and Boris drew their weapons and took a step forward while Lydia, Eric, and Joshua remained in the back.

Eric didn't waste time and unleashed a big ball of fire against the creature. Due to its size, it couldn't dodge and one of the heads was. .h.i.t and started to burn. The head screamed, but then Joshua noticed an all too familiar process, the creature simply dismissed its head.

"Did it work?" Eric wondered, hopeful.

However, before he could have his moment of glory, the head simply reformed, no damage to be seen.

"d.a.m.n you!" Eric cursed.

"This thing is similar to me, it can dismiss and reform its body at will," Joshua started. " So in order to defeat it, we should apply the same method we would use to destroy me..."

Saying this made Joshua realize… how could he be destroyed? One of the perks of this new form of his was that he enjoyed being nearly invincible.

"Hmmm, Catherine, you're the expert in spirits, how do I destroy myself?" he asked her, forgetting the main issue.

If there wasn't a gigantic monster in front of her, Catherine would have facepalmed before slapping some sense into him. The beast made its attack though, so she focused on dodging the incoming heads. Her body had reached the fourth level a few days ago, increasing her agility to an impressive level. As a head was rus.h.i.+ng toward her, she dodged out of the way at the last moment and struck it with her rapier. The blade was glowing with a white light, indicating she had activated the rune inscribed on it. The holy blade seemed effective, penetrating the creature's scales quite easily. The head yelled in anger and tried to knock Catherine over by making a sudden movement. She was too fast though and jumped above the head after retreating her blade.

As she was jumping up, another head tried to make a bite attack toward her. Lydia shot a few arrows toward it, but they all bounced off. The creature's mouth was wide open, so Catherine had an idea. She waited until she was about to get swallowed to summon a pillar of ice right in the monster's maw. The ice would only last a couple of seconds, but it gave her enough time to stab the inside of the mouth a few times before retreating. Since the mouth was stuck open, Joshua used the opportunity to send an explosive drone inside that head's throat and blew it up immediately.

Meanwhile, Cynthia was not having as much success. Using her own martial skills and wind magic, she didn't have too much trouble evading the heads attacking her, the problem was her staff couldn't penetrate the beast's thick scales. Both opponents were getting pretty irritated at this stalemate and it was the beast who broke it. As Cynthia was continuing to avoiding blows, one of the heads vanished. Unlike Catherine, she couldn't see spirits so she had no idea where it went. Suddenly she was surrounded by darkness as something was taking form around her and she realized too late the beast recreated its head with her already inside the creature's maw.

Plunged in darkness, Cynthia didn't realize what had happened. Her feet landed on something wet. She bit her lip and surrounded herself by a thin layer of air, but the ground suddenly moved. She was thrown backward as the beast executed a swallowing movement.

She finally understood what was going on as she was going down the hydra's esophagus and fear overcame her, but she wouldn't go down without a fight. She tried to spread her staff in order to prevent herself from reaching the stomach. Unfortunately, her staff broke in the process and she kept being slowly being pushed down. She tried to grab anything she could but any part she came in contact with was extremely slippery and she couldn't get a hold. With no other choice, she used her wind magic to try and push herself upward, but this merely slowed down her descend. This was the best she could manage and she had no other choice but to hope her friends will help her out of there.

In the meantime, the head that had swallowed Cynthia had taken a h.e.l.l of a beating. As soon as she got eaten, everyone focused their attacks on that head. Eric had burned it, Boris. .h.i.t it several times with his morning stars, Lydia even managed to piece one of its eyes out with several arrows, Joshua kept sending electric discharges against it and Catherine tried to get closer to stab it while shooting some ice arrows at it.

The beast was howling in pain but it didn't give in, it was clearly determined to keep this head alive until Cynthia reached its stomach. The head in question hid behind the others who formed a wall to keep it safe while the hydra sent energy toward the head to heal its injuries.

Catherine and Joshua were able to determine Cynthia's position thanks to Luna. At the speed she was being swallowed, she would reach the main body in about ten seconds. They knew once Cynthia got into the stomach she would quickly get dissolved by acid. The situation was looking grim and they needed to act without delay.

Joshua's mind was racing. They needed a solution immediately. He had tried to get swallowed too by the mouth to then unleash an exploding drone, but the hydra was weary of him and no longer tried to eat him. This trick would no longer work so he needed a new plan.

Software developers often had those plans of grandeur where they would design an elaborate solution for a problem that would last for years. But then they're told it needs to be done in an absurdly small delay. In those cases, they have no choice but to implement what is often called a 'quick and dirty' solution. Something that works, but is ugly and needs to be replaced as soon as the urgency is over. Fun fact, most of those solutions become permanent since they're never given the time to fix the issue permanently. Although different, Joshua couldn't help but compare the current case to such an issue. He needed a solution now, no time to experiment and test carefully.

If the hydra wouldn't eat his bots anymore, he would unleash them on something else. Hoping it would work, he sent his bots against the ceiling, right above the hydra. This obviously caused a big explosion and several pieces of rock fell down the ceiling, right on the creature. One of the heads got crushed by a giant stalact.i.te that fell right on it. The others did their best to avoid the rocks, but most of them were still hit. The head Cynthia was in was well protected though, and remained unharmed. Regardless, Joshua's plan more or less worked and the wall formation was destroyed. The party used the confusion to bypa.s.s the other heads and a.s.sault their target.

The head had healed most of its wounds in the meantime, they knew it wouldn't be dismissed like the others. They had no other choice than to cut the long neck open and get Cynthia out of there. Boris launched two attacks toward the neck, but unlike before he didn't strike the beast but allowed the chains of his morning stars to circle around the neck. The chains made a few rounds before trapping the beast. Using his enormous physical strength, Boris started to strangle it. This bought Cynthia a few seconds, as the pa.s.sage she was going down was suddenly blocked by Boris's chain. Unsure what was going on, she started to hit the walls from the inside with all her strength. In the meantime, Catherine was doing her best to cut the long neck open with her rapier, right above the chains' location, but the process was very slow and the other heads would soon recover and attack them again. They were running out of time.

Having no other choice, Joshua made an exploding drone appear and stuffed it in the small cut Catherine had made. He told her to get back and made the drone explode. It wasn't as effective as having it explode from the inside of the beast's maw, but it still did enough damage to make a decent hole.

Cynthia was blasted upward by the sudden explosion but was mostly unharmed. She saw a small light appear, which for her was a ray of hope and rushed toward it. The hole wasn't very big and her pet.i.te figure could barely crawl through it. On the other side, she saw her sister reaching for her and grabbed her hand. Finally, she was out of the beast.

There was no time to celebrate though, they all retreated out of the beasts reach in a hurry. They ran for a few hundred meters before halting and catching a breath. Cynthia was injured so Catherine administrated some emergency healing magic to her.

Joshua looked at the hydra. The beast was still busy healing its wounds, no end in sight.

"How much energy does this thing have? We've been smas.h.i.+ng its heads for a while and its still healing like nothing."

"You're right, with all the damage we've been administrating it, it should be out of energy by now…" Catherine started, "I can only think of one thing."

"It's being supplied by a constant flow of energy?"

"Probably... We have to find that source and cut it off."

Almost mechanically they both turned their head toward the old man trapped in the ice coffin.