The sun began to set on the appointed day. The clouds cleared, revealing a moon that was swollen, pale, and unmistakably full. Casting a pale, sickly light over the black water of the ambush site.
Red floated above the canopy, checking his stats one last time. The day of waiting had pushed his Causality Charge up another notch.
[ CAUSALITY CHARGE: 600% ][ DP: 164,900 ]
Below him, the swamp was silent.
The trap was set. The 'God-Spike' six feet of barbed iron attached to a heavy anchor chain hung suspended in the darkness of the cypress branches.
On the shoreline, the Grey-Fin Lizardmen stood waist-deep in the water. They were trembling. They were acting as a bait. Their job was to look delicious and terrified.
Hidden in the reeds, the Mud-Skippers clutched their nets. On the high branches, Krug and his Kobold elites held the release rope, their knuckles white.
Rumble.
The water in the center of the inlet bulged. A massive, scaled bulk rose from the muck.
[ BOSS: MOON-CRAZED HYDRA (RANK C+) ]
It was bigger than Red had anticipated. The main body was the size of a tank, covered in thick, mossy plating. Three serpentine necks stretched out, each ending in a head wreathed in bone spikes. The eyes glowed with the same pale light as the moon.
The middle head hissed like steam escaping a vent. It smelled the Grey-Fins.
"Hold," Red whispered to the void, though he knew Krug couldn't hear him without a direct link. "Wait for it to commit."
The Hydra lunged.
It moved with terrifying speed for something so large. It surged toward the Grey-Fins, water churning into foam.
"NOW!" The Grey-Fin Elder screamed.
The bait line scattered. The Lizardmen dove underwater, swimming for the underwater root systems Red had pointed out earlier.
The Hydra's left head snapped forward, jaws clamping shut on empty water. Frustrated, the beast dragged its massive bulk onto the mud-bank, chasing the scent.
It slithered directly under the cypress tree.
High above, Krug's eyes glowed violet. He slashed the vine rope with his cleaver.
SNAP.
Gravity took over. And the heavy iron harpoon fell thirty feet.
THUNK-CRACK.
The aim was true. The spike slammed into the Hydra's central mass, just behind the shoulder blades. The weight of the iron drove it deep, punching through the scales and pinning the monster to the mud.
The Hydra roared of pain that shook the trees.
"PULL!" Krug bellowed.
From the tree line, the Mud-Skippers and Kobolds grabbed the other end of the chain. They wrapped it around the trunk of an ancient iron-wood tree, pulling it taut. The beast was anchored.
"KILL IT!" Krug jumped from the tree, landing on the beast's back. He drove his spear into the wound.
The rest of the tribe swarmed. Mud-Skippers threw nets over the heads to blind them. Grey-Fins surfaced, stabbing at the soft white underbelly with their bone spears.
For a moment, it looked like they had won.
Then, the moon brightened.
The Hydra stopped thrashing. Its scales began to pulse with lunar light.
[ ALERT: BOSS ENRAGE DETECTED ]
[ ABILITY: LUNAR REGENERATION ]
"Of course, it wouldn't be so easy…" Red muttered as he watched.
The flesh around the iron spike bubbled. The Hydra didn't pull the spike out, its body simply became fluid, shifting around the metal, ignoring the anchor.
The Right Head whipped around, catching a Mud-Skipper mid-air. Instead of biting, it exhaled a stream of pressurized, boiling acid. The Skipper dissolved in mid-scream.
The Left Head smashed sideways, using its skull like a wrecking ball. It hit the line of Grey-Fins, crushing three of them instantly against the rocks.
The Central Head reared back and snapped at Krug. Krug blocked with his iron-tipped spear, but the force was too much. The spear shaft shattered. Krug was thrown backward, slamming into a tree trunk with a sickening crunch.
"No..." Krug groaned, trying to stand, blood leaking from his snout.
The formation broke.
"Run!" a Mud-Skipper shouted, dropping his net.
"Hold!" Krug roared, coughing blood. "God watches!"
But faith fights a hard battle against biology. The Hydra was a meat-grinder. It tore through the nets. It dissolved the Kobold skirmishers. It was healing faster than they could hurt it.
The beast turned its three heads toward Krug, who was slumped against the tree, weaponless. As if it sensed the leader, the source of the resistance.
The Central Head opened its maw. A ball of pale, green light gathered in its throat—a breath attack that would vaporize the Chieftain and the tree behind him.
Red watched from above.
His followers had done everything right. They had built the trap. They had executed the plan. They had fought with bravery he didn't know they possessed.
But they were mortals fighting a legend.
"You did good, Krug," Red whispered. "You got it to hold still. More than 70% of its body is finally out. I will take care of the rest."
Red raised his spectral hand. He looked at the Iron Harpoon still embedded deep in the Hydra's back which was acting as a perfect lightning rod connected directly to the beast's nervous system.
"System," Red commanded. "Target the Harpoon."
[ TARGET LOCKED: IRON SPIKE ]
"I don't need 600," Red analyzed. "But I need to make sure it doesn't get up."
He grabbed the output slider.
[ OUTPUT SELECTED: 200x POTENCY ][ REMAINING CHARGE: 400% ]
"Smite."
[ COST: 1,000 DP ]
The air above the swamp roared with thunder.
The Hydra's Central Head lunged to bite Krug.
It never arrived.
A spear of violet lightning, blinding and absolute, descended from the heavens. It didn't strike the Hydra's head. It struck the iron spike buried in its spine.
[ CONDUCTIVITY MULTIPLIER APPLIED ]
The electricity didn't splash across the surface. It was channeled inside. The iron spike turned white-hot instantly. The voltage traveled through the Hydra's wet, conductive biology, reaching every nerve ending, every organ, and every cell in a microsecond.
The Hydra went rigid.
The three heads snapped back, eyes boiling in their sockets. The regeneration factor didn't matter.
"You cannot regenerate ash."
BOOM.
The swamp water exploded upwards in a geyser of steam. The shockwave flattened the reeds for fifty meters.
When the steam cleared, silence returned to the swamp.
The Hydra was still there. It hadn't exploded. It was simply… cooked. Smoke curled from its mouth. The scales were blackened. The iron spike was glowing a dull, angry cherry-red in the moonlight.
Krug shielded his eyes, looking at the smoking corpse inches from his face.
He looked up at the sky, where the violet afterimage still burned in the air.
[ BOSS DEFEATED: MOON-CRAZED HYDRA ][ NODE RIGHTS SECURED ][ FOLLOWER FAITH: ABSOLUTE ]
Red lowered his hand, the smoke of the spell dissipating from his spectral fingers.
"And that," Red said to the quiet void, "is why you always use a ground wire."