Chapter 500: The Heavens Shall Fall (XLI)

CRAAAAACK!

The white head shattered into thousands of ice fragments that scattered across the arena floor, and Sythara screamed, two voices now instead of three, the remaining heads shrieking in pain and rage.

Her coils released me immediately as she recoiled, and I dropped to the ground hard, my broken leg sending fresh waves of agony through my body.

But I didn’t have time to recover.

The poison was still spreading through my system, and even with my ice slowing it down, I could feel it reaching toward my vital organs.

“Fuck… this is definitely going to hurt.”

I made a decision in that split-second.

I channeled the Authority of Ice inward with deep precision, flash-freezing the poison in my bloodstream and forcing it to solidify.

Then I clenched my fist and punched myself in the chest with enough force to crack my sternum.

CRACK!

“Keguhhh!”

My mouth opened involuntarily, and a stream of strange light blue liquid spilled from my lips, the frozen poison being forcibly expelled from my body in a semi-solid state that looked disturbingly like melting ice.

I spat out the last of it and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, breathing hard.

The pain was excruciating, but at least the poison was out of my system now.

I looked up at Sythara, expecting to see her still reeling from losing one of her heads.

Ckrghh…

Instead, I watched in disbelief as flesh and bone began to regrow from the stump where the white head had been, new scales forming over muscle, new eyes opening as the head regenerated completely in the span of maybe ten seconds.

“Tsk…” I clicked my tongue in frustration.

Of course, she could regenerate her head that I crushed using a God-Killing Authority!

Why would anything in this arena be simple?

All three heads were back now, though the newly regrown white one looked slightly smaller and less developed than the others.

But it was functional, and that was what mattered.

I scanned the arena quickly, looking for any advantage I could exploit, and my eyes landed on the edges of the fighting space.

The boundaries.

In most arena fights, being forced out of the designated combat zone meant automatic loss.

’It seems I’ll need to kick her out of the arena to be able to win.’

That changed my approach entirely.

I reached back and drew the Heaven Swallowing Sword, leaving Midnight sheathed.

I only needed one sword for this… the one designed specifically to cut through divinity itself, not physical surfaces.

Sythara’s three heads all focused on the blade, and I saw recognition flash across their features.

“That sword…” the purple head hissed.

“That’s the Heaven Swallowing Sword. Where did a creature like you get a divine weapon of that caliber?”

She knew about this weapon?

“Does it matter?” I asked, settling into a new stance with the blade extended.

“It won’t save you,” the stone head growled.

“We’ll see.”

CRACK!

Her whip lashed out again, but this time I was ready.

The Heaven Swallowing Sword cut through the divine energy enhancing the whip, and suddenly, it was just normal material that I could dodge more easily.

I pressed forward, my broken leg screaming in protest but still functional enough to move, closing the distance between us with careful footwork.

Sythara’s eyes narrowed, all three heads watching me approach with growing wariness.

Then her entire body began to pulse with energy, and I felt reality itself beginning to warp around her.

“You dare,” all three heads spoke in perfect unison, their voices overlapping in a way that made my ears ring.

“You dare destroy one of my heads, even temporarily? You dare force me to regenerate?”

The air around her shimmered, space bending inward as massive amounts of divine power concentrated in a single point.

“I invoke my Domain!” all three voices roared together.

“Domain of Hydra!”

Wait, what?

Domain of Hydra?!

BOOOOOOOM!

Reality shattered like glass, and a new reality imposed itself over the arena.

The white stone floor dissolved into murky water that came up to my knees, thick and stagnant and smelling of decay.

The open sky above disappeared, replaced by a cavern ceiling dripping with moisture and covered in hanging vines.

The temperature spiked upward, humid heat pressing down on everything.

And Sythara transformed.

Her body expanded rapidly, growing from four meters to ten, then twenty, then more.

Additional heads erupted from her shoulders and back, each one fully formed and different from the others, until nine distinct serpent heads towered above me on long, sinuous necks.

The legendary Hydra.

The mythological beast from ancient stories, the monster that grew two heads for every one that was cut off, the creature that dwelled in poisonous swamps and could only be killed through very specific means.

She’d manifested the myth itself as her domain, turning the arena into the Hydra’s natural habitat and herself into the creature at full power.

In the stands, the gods were leaning forward with renewed interest.

“Now this is more like it,” someone said with satisfaction.

“The Domain of Hydra. She hasn’t used that in years.”

“That boy is finished,” another voice added.

“No one survives the full manifestation.”

“Indeed. The creator will have to find another champion for the next tournament.”

All nine heads loomed over me, mouths opening to reveal fangs dripping with various toxins, eyes glowing with different colored energies that represented different authorities.

“In my domain…” the heads spoke in overlapping chorus.

“…I am absolute! The Hydra cannot be defeated. For every head you destroy, two more shall grow. The poison in the water seeps through your skin. The humidity drains your strength. This is my perfect hunting ground.”

Shhhhh…

“Ugh!”

The water around my legs was already making my skin burn where it touched, more poison trying to work its way into my system.

Several of the heads struck simultaneously, coming from different angles with speed that shouldn’t have been possible for something that large.

I cut through the first head with the Heaven Swallowing Sword, the blade nullifying the divinity that sustained it and severing the neck cleanly.

SLASH!

The head fell into the water with a massive splash.

But before it even finished sinking, I saw two new heads beginning to sprout from the stump, growing rapidly to replace the one I’d destroyed.

Exactly like the myth.

“Futile!” the remaining heads laughed.

“You cannot win this way!”

Another head struck from behind, and I barely dodged in time, the fangs passing close enough that I felt the heat of its breath.

I countered with another slash, cutting through a different neck, and watched in frustration as two more heads immediately began growing from the wound.

Now there were ten heads instead of nine.

This wasn’t sustainable.

In the original myth, the Hydra had been defeated by cauterizing the stumps after cutting the heads, preventing regeneration.

But I didn’t have a strong mastery of the Authority of Fire.

I had ice.

And ice could do something fire couldn’t.

I started moving with purpose, using the Heaven Swallowing Sword to cut through heads while simultaneously channeling the Authority of Ice into every wound I created.

Not trying to cauterize the stumps, but freezing them at the deepest possible level, attacking the regeneration mechanism itself.

Fwip!

Freeezeee!

Each cut was followed immediately by a burst of absolute cold that froze the severed neck down to the cellular level, crystallizing the tissue so thoroughly that regeneration became impossible.

The heads that tried to regrow found themselves unable to form properly, the ice disrupting the divine energy required for the regeneration process.

“W-What?! What are you doing?!” the remaining heads shrieked.

“Stop! STOP!”

I didn’t stop.

I kept cutting and freezing, working my way through the Hydra’s heads one by one, each successful kill making the domain itself begin to destabilize.

The domain was sustained by the myth, and if the myth couldn’t function as intended, if the Hydra couldn’t regenerate, then the domain lost its foundation.

CRACK!

CRACK!

CRACK!

The cavern ceiling began to fracture, the murky water started draining away, the humid heat gave way to normal temperature.

The Domain of Hydra was collapsing.

When I cut the final head and froze the stump, the entire construct shattered like broken glass.

Reality snapped back to normal, the white stone floor of the arena returning, the open sky reappearing above us.

“A-ah… y-you damn h-human… f-fugh.”

Sythara stood across from me in her original three-headed form, staggering, her divine core visibly depleted from having her domain forcibly broken.

She looked exhausted, vulnerable, and most importantly, off-balance.

I didn’t give her time to recover.

Fwoosh!

I channeled everything I had left into my legs, ignoring the broken bones and torn muscles, and launched myself at her with speed born of desperation.

The Heaven Swallowing Sword came up in a rising slash that caught her across the torso, not cutting deep but hitting with enough force to lift her off the ground.

Then I shifted my weight and kicked her, my boot connecting with her serpentine lower body with all my current strength.

BOOOOM!

The impact sent her flying backward, her body tumbling through the air in an uncontrolled spiral.

She crashed into the arena boundary and kept going, her momentum carrying her over the edge and out of the designated combat zone.

The moment she crossed that line, a chime rang out across the entire arena, clear and unmistakable.

Victory.

I dropped to one knee, breathing hard, my body screaming from a dozen different injuries.

But I had surprisingly won.

And my unexpected victory made the arena fall completely silent.

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