And many of those were hidden behind the Hydra’s massive body.
It was a wall of gray-green scales that wrapped around the entire room, dwarfing them many times over. Its eyes blazed like lanterns of pale, deadly green…all six of them.
One of the Tomb Hydra’s three heads roared at Yerin, clearly enraged by the bloody cut her technique had gouged in its jaw. The other two spread out, leaning their necks around to get a better vantage point on the rest of the party.
But no one was waiting around for that to happen.
Blackflame roared from Lindon’s hand, empowered with soulfire. A hail of violet arrows erupted from Mercy’s bow. Orthos breathed flame, Eithan called stars down on each of the Hydra’s heads, and Ziel’s body began to shine bright emerald as he picked up his hammer.
The Hydra sent out a wave of death madra, but it still screamed from three throats as the barrage of techniques tore its body apart.
Not as much as it should have been torn apart, though.
Lindon’s Blackflame didn’t carve the Hydra down to the bone or melt through its scales, but rather scorched it like a superficial burn. Yerin’s Endless Sword left deep grooves spraying blood, but didn’t sever a head. Mercy’s arrows stuck in the scales and did nothing. Eithan’s stars passed into the Hydra’s spirit but didn’t come out the other side, indicating they hadn’t speared through it.
And in the same instant, its body uncoiled. It whipped at them, a wall of scales and muscle, forcing them all to take to the air.
One head shot toward Lindon and Mercy, one snapped at Ziel and Yerin, and the third lunged at Eithan.
At the same time, and at the worst possible moment, webs of hunger madra shot out of the tunnels from every direction. There was a distinct will behind these attacks, and Lindon knew they had finally caught Subject One’s attention.
Suspended in midair, with no aura to push against, Lindon felt the pangs of panic. If he had been drawing from his pure core, he would have had a better defense, but he was already channeling Blackflame to attack the Hydra. The Burning Cloak appeared around him, and he dodged most of the threads. One landed against his hip with a burning sensation, and he lost a little energy to it before he twisted to break it.
Then Little Blue screamed in his ear like a shattering bell. One of the strands had touched her.
And that was the moment when Lindon took the enemy seriously.
He dropped Blackflame and switched to the Path of Twin Stars. Little Blue cleansed her own channels at the same time, snapping the thread, but she was already weaker.
He surrounded himself with the Hollow Armor, letting the death madra wash over him, and landed on the body of the snake.
Then he slammed his palm down on its scales.
An instant later, a Forged hand bigger than his body followed the motion of his own palm.
Pure madra coursed into the Hydra, and the light in its six eyes flickered. The others exploded with their own techniques, and Lindon switched back to Blackflame.
He drove a beam of black dragon’s breath up through one of the snake’s heads.
Yerin sliced off a second as Ziel crushed a third, and then the room was filled with the hiss of rising essence and a tide of death aura.
Lindon grabbed Little Blue, checking with his eyes and spirit to make sure she was all right. She didn’t protest in his grip, instead sagging into his hand and whistling relief.
She had been weakened. Substantially. But her contact with his madra was restoring her strength.
“Eithan, you and I handle the Remnant,” Lindon called. His pure madra cycled faster.
Eithan was peering in the direction of the Hydra’s body. “No need. It’s a dreadbeast.”
Lindon looked at the creature, unconvinced. “Pardon, but it doesn’t look like one.”
Even the Dreadgods—at least, the ones he’d seen—didn’t look like sacred beasts that could occur in the real world. The Phoenix was made up of liquid blood madra, and the Titan looked to be made of stone.
The lesser dreadbeasts, even those with the power of Lords, had all looked like creatures from a horror story. They were twisted and mutated bodies, broken from the inside out.
“Look for yourself!” Eithan suggested. He gestured to the oozing neck stump.
Lindon placed his foot on the edge of the snake’s head, which was bigger than he was, and shoved it aside. Sure enough, lines burned with the pale, spectral green of death madra, running in veins all through the Hydra’s flesh.
“This is…” Lindon had dissected his share of dreadbeasts, and it was hard to put into words how shocked he was by this sight. “…it’s so organized. This looks like a real set of madra channels. And how can death madra, of all things, possibly exist alongside real, living flesh?”
Yerin was peering into the severed neck as well. He suspected that she was doing the same thing he was, and blocking off her sense of smell.
“You think this is what the Dreadgods look like inside?” Yerin asked.
Lindon remembered a vision Suriel had shown him, not so long ago. A white tiger the size of a house, strung up and splayed open so that he could separate its spirit from its body surgically. Its spirit had been every bit as intricate as its flesh, with the two layered over and into one another so it was difficult to tell where one ended and the other began.
“We need to find out.” Before Mercy could protest, he continued. “I know we don’t have as much time as we’d like, but this could end up being the most valuable thing we find down here. It’s a chance to study a small Dreadgod! If we come out with nothing else, this could be invaluable.”
[I agree,] Dross said. [Master Northstrider’s subordinates gathered and studied many dreadbeasts to better understand the relationship between the body and the spirit. They would have been grateful for this opportunity.]
Mercy leaned on her staff, shifting her weight anxiously. She glanced at the ceiling as though she might see her mother’s hand descending on them at any second. “I understand, I really do. But please hurry.”
Lindon triggered his void key.
It didn’t open.
He frowned at it, pulling the bronze key from the thread around his neck and sensing the script. It seemed to be fully intact.
He triggered it again. This time, light slowly zipped open, revealing the entrance to his void space.
“Eithan,” Lindon said.
“I saw it. Clearly spatial manipulation is restricted here. I suppose it’s to keep certain beings from escaping. Well, that prevents us from easily hiding in a void key.”
Lindon glanced to Little Blue. He had considered sending her and Orthos back into the Dawn Sky Palace to avoid the dangers here, now that it was clear that he couldn’t fully protect them. If there was a chance for them to get trapped inside, that option was no longer available.
But they were still on a time limit, and Lindon had work to do. He climbed into his void key, fishing around for his Soulsmithing tools.
He withdrew a pair of goldsteel-plated tongs and a knife, though after a moment of thought, he pocketed the knife. He blanketed the Tomb Hydra’s body in his spiritual perception, tracing the madra system that nested parasitically within its body.
“Dross, would you locate the binding for me?”
[Of course.]
“Yerin, can you open up the body? From here to about there, and I would be grateful if you could leave the madra intact.”