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Five minutes had passed, yet it didn\'t seem like the hydra was going to calm down any time soon. After constantly spewing poison gasses at Ashton, the Hydra had now decided to chop the zompirewolf into pieces using his thousands of teeth.

[It is obvious the bastard would go for the most painful way to kill someone.]

\'No thanks to your kind.\'

[...]

Despite what Astaroth had to say, Ashton could feel something strange. As if the hydra was only acting to hurt him. After all, the creature had so much poison within himself, that he turned an entire sea poisonous. Yet he wasn\'t making use of that poison whenever Ashton got close to him.

This was even more suspicious. If someone had a weapon strong enough to one-shot their enemy, why the hell won\'t they use it? No explanation came into Ashton\'s head except one... the hydra did not want to kill him and was only acting as if he did.

However, why would it do something like that? Especially since Ashton was a stranger to it. Could it be possible that the creature only retaliated seriously when it was under some sort of threat? That would make sense as Ashton had not attacked him even once based on the information he had.

\'If that was the case, Astaroth would have already pointed it out. Maybe he didn\'t because he didn\'t want to give me another hint? This entire situation is weird.\'

All of a sudden the attacks stopped. The Hydra stood still with his heads turned towards the centre. It almost felt as if the heads were having a conversation of their own.

"What\'s going on now?"

[I\'m as clueless as you are. The Hydra I knew was aggressive, really aggressive. However, his movements now have gotten a lot rusty. At least that\'s why I thought at first.]

"What do you mean?"

[Remember what I told you about the Precursors and how humans are their exact copies? My guess is, that Hydra is trying to figure out whether you\'re a Precursor or not. After all, he was trained not to hurt his masters.]

Astaroth\'s words carried some weight of sense. Since Hydra\'s trial was difficult, it wasn\'t given to anyone, not even the A-grade had any knowledge about the trial. Thus it was possible that the Hydra was seeing a human for the first time since he was imprisoned on Euphoria.

This would also explain why the hydra was only making half-assed attempts at striking the challenger down.

"If it\'s true, then it could work in our favour."

[That is if all the heads are in agreement.]

"What do you mean all the heads?"

[Nine heads. Nine brains. Nine personalities. If even one of them thought you weren\'t what they thought you were, they will stop at nothing to kill you.]

[Think of it like this, someone you\'re very close to died or left you without saying anything. Then someday a doppelganger arrived in front of you and you became the happiest you had ever been. But then you realised the person in front of you wasn\'t the one you thought. Wouldn\'t you be angry? Pissed? Confused?]

Ashton did not have to think about such a scenario. After all, he had undergone the same emotions when Avalina unintentionally caused him an existential crisis. He was pissed for sure, even though the emotions he felt back were nothing compared to what Hydra would feel.

For him, Ashton\'s appearance was like a miracle. A moment he had possibly dreamt about for hundreds of thousands of years, maybe even more. Therefore, when it would realise his emotions had been played with, Hydra would essentially lose his crap and might even destroy Euphoria altogether.

Sadly, there was nothing Ashton could do now. How was he supposed to know what Hydra was and his relationship with the godly race? But if anything went wrong, he would be the one to be held responsible for Hydra\'s rampage.

"Let\'s just hope it doesn\'t come to that." Ashton mumbled, "If we are hoping for things, I hope this hour would pass a bit faster."

He checked the clock and only 11 minutes out of the 60 had passed. It sure as hell didn\'t seem like Hydra would use the remaining time discussing the matter between himself. Sure enough the next moment all nine heads simultaneously turned around, staring daggers at Ashton.

"Uh-oh..."

Ashton rushed back to the sandy beach, but this time Hydra did not stop. They had decided to kill him and rushed onto the beach.

"Fuck! I need to stop it somehow!"

[Just keep running!]

"Where? In around the planet?"

[If it would take an hour, then sure, go ahead.]

Ashton used the wind manipulation skill once again to try and create some space between them. But one of the heads foresaw Ashton\'s move and spewed poisonous gas all around the air. Even the poisonous smoke appeared to be faster than before and the smoke cloud covered the twin-star above, shrouding Ashton in complete darkness.

Ashton instinctively covered his nose and kept using his wind manipulation skill to push the smoke away. But he couldn\'t do it indefinitely and he knew it.

\'I have to get rid of this fool before he kills the entire planet! Severing the heads should stop them from gushing out poison.\'

[I wouldn\'t recommend that if you don\'t plan on fighting an eighteen-headed bastard.]

\'What do you mean?\'

[If you even managed to sever one of the heads, two more will take its place. How do you think it has so many heads now? The Xyrans tried to do what you want to for quite some time.]

\'So that\'s why you mentioned Hydra was essentially immortal?\'

[Yes. So keep running and hope for the best-]

Astaroth did not have to tell him twice. Ashton was well aware that stopping right now meant signing his suicide note. But there was one thing that confused him the most.

\'Wait, you said severing his head, spawn two more, right?\'

[Yes.]

\'Then why does the Hydra has nine heads instead of 10?\'

[We don\'t know but, my master, Seraph did manage to permanently sever a head without the beast sprouting new ones. Sadly, no one knows how.]

Upon hearing this, Ashton stopped in his tracks, changed his direction and charged straight toward the Hydra.

[The fuck you think you\'re doing!?]

"What your master did... probably."

A moment later Ashton turned off his werewolf genes so that he wouldn\'t need to breathe. Since the poison was in gaseous form, he would essentially become immune to it as long as he did not open his mouth.

The next moment, he summoned Balmond, jumped straight on Hydra\'s back and swung it with all his might. However, one strike wasn\'t enough to sever the head, forcing Ashton to keep hacking it away all the while dodging the attacks from the remaining heads.

At times he closely managed to save himself by jumping back down and climbing up again. But these close calls could not dissuade him from doing what he wanted to and soon enough, one of the nine heads fell down like a severed tree.

Almost immediately, Hydra\'s black blood solidified and it felt something was about to pop out of it when Ashton blasted the fresh wound using Seraph\'s Flames. The severed head was cauterised and surprisingly, no new heads popped out from there.

\'I told you there had to be a way.\' Ashton thought before checking the time, \'Wait, taking out a head took five minutes off the timer! I can finish the trial earlier than expected-\'

Before Ashton could complete his thoughts, one of Hydra\'s tails whipped him off his back. The hydra did not appear to be pleased by Ashton\'s actions. Just like it wasn\'t pleased when Seraph did the same to him.