Darren stood motionless as the creature before him fully revealed itself, every instinct in his body screaming that what he faced was profoundly wrong.

  This was no ordinary monster pulled from some forgotten bestiary.

  Its body was a swollen, restless mass of sinew and flesh, bloated and warped beyond any natural design. The surface of it writhed constantly, muscles shifting beneath scales that seemed to stretch thin as if the creature could not settle into a single shape, like even its own body rejected what it had become.

  From that obscene bulk rose multiple serpentine necks, each one twisting and undulating with independence. There were nine of them by Darren's count. They sprouted at unnatural angles, overlapping and coiling around one another before ending in heads that looked as though they had been torn from nightmares rather than born. Every face bore the same grotesque grin, jaws pulled wide in a permanent mockery of joy, packed with rows of needle-like teeth that glistened faintly in the pale light. The flesh clung tightly to their skull-like structures, leathery and stretched thin, half-concealing hollow contours that suggested rot beneath the surface. Their mouths were torn open far wider than any living creature’s should be, locked forever in an expression that resembled laughter far more than hunger.

  Tongues lashed and writhed within those grinning maws, long and slick, flickering in and out like vermin fleeing a disturbed nest. The heads swayed and twisted constantly, each moving to its own rhythm. Some tilted sharply, snapping at the empty air as though testing the space around them. Others gnawed their teeth together with wet, grinding sounds, saliva stringing between jagged fangs before dripping down into the folds of the creature’s body. Their eyes were little more than empty lightless pits, yet Darren could feel their attention all the same. It was this overwhelming sense of hunger which acted as its sole reason for existence. The tongues flickered again, tasting the air, savoring the scent of prey long before the kill was ever made.

  The sound of the beast’s breathing was the worst of all. It was wet and rasping, a collective chorus of labored inhalations and exhalations that overlapped into something disturbingly organic. It echoed through the air like the moans of the damned, each breath scraping against Darren’s nerves until his stomach twisted in revulsion. When the creature growled, it did so through many throats at once. The low sounds layered over one another, rising and falling in uneven harmony until they formed something that came uncomfortably close to laughter. It was a cruel, mocking sound for all to hear, and Darren was convinced that the creature reveled in the fear it inspired.

  The only way the man could even imagine its formation was if corpses had clawed their way free from their graves, only to be fused together into a single obscene parody of life. Flesh stitched to flesh, death denying its eternal rest, before being unleashed upon the world to tear and devour as it pleased. This thing was not merely monstrous, it was blasphemous. It carried no hint of nature’s balance, no sense of a predator fulfilling its role in the food chain.

  It was something that should never have been allowed to exist.

  Whatever stood before him was far beyond a common beast, and he knew that instantly. This monster was something ancient and catastrophically dangerous.

  A familiar voice began to speak, “The dragon that stands before you is the first recorded Named Monster in all of existence! The creature's most famous sighting was its battle with King Arthur—”

  The creature moved.

  Hot sand and debris exploded as it surged forward, its bulk tearing through the space it occupied.

  Darren reacted on instinct alone, throwing himself aside as the monster began its path of destruction.

  “I don’t need a gorydamn history lesson, Merlyn!” Darren shouted as he rolled clear, already pushing himself back to his feet.

  His eyes never left the monstrosity as its many heads twisted to follow him.

  “Just tell me what I need to know!”

  The Internal Arts surged to life as Darren felt the familiar rush as magical energy spilled from his Pool of Mana, in a reckless flood that threaded through every muscle and nerve. His body responded instantly, strength, speed, and perception elevating far beyond human limits. The world sharpened around him, every movement slowed just enough for him to react.

  But this would not last.

  He had to end this fight before he had no magical energy left to draw upon.

  The Hydra’s heads lunged in near-perfect symphony, multiple necks striking at once from different angles. Their elongated necks allowed them erase distance entirely, stretching and coiling to reach wherever Darren tried to retreat. He twisted and weaved through them, boots skidding against the ground as snapping jaws closed inches from his limbs. Needle-like teeth clashed together with wet, violent force, and more than once he felt the creature's hot breath as a head passed close enough to tear flesh if he had been even a fraction slower.

  Merlyn’s voice cut through the chaos, crisp and urgent.

  “The Hydra is known for both its speed and its venomous gas of which you are to avoid at all costs.”

  As if on cue, the monster reared back and roared. From its gaping maw, green fumes poured out, rolling outward in heavy, toxic clouds. The haze spread quickly, clinging low before rising, turning the space into a choking fog of venom.

  Darren’s eyes widened as the stench hit him, sharp and acrid.

  He could cut through it.

  One swing of his power could part the clouds, tear open space itself. But to what end?

  Cutting the gas would do nothing to stop more from pouring out, and lingering even for a moment could mean death. Even then, it would simply continue to fill the air even as he sliced the clouds apart.

  The System was right.

  He had to avoid at all costs.

  So he moved.

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  Darren became a blur of motion, darting through gaps between the drifting clouds, his body pushed to its absolute limit. Every step was calculated, every shift precise as he avoided each puff of green haze by the narrowest of margins. The Hydra’s heads followed relentlessly, snapping and striking in rapid succession. Jaws lunged through the venomous mist, their owners unconcerned by the poison that filled the air, focused only on tearing him apart.

  Then he saw it.

  An opening!

  Red magical energy crackled into the air all around him, sharp and violent, like lightning barely contained. The Divinity of Dissection answered his call. The slash sang through the air, a flawless arc of destruction that caught five of the Hydra’s necks at once.

  There was no resistance.

  The flesh parted cleanly, scales and sinew severed as easily as paper.

  For a heartbeat, it seemed like victory.

  Then the severed necks writhed.

  They did not fall limp. Instead, they twisted violently, spasming like severed serpents still filled with life. Darren watched in disbelief as new growth surged from the torn flesh. The regrown heads heads forced their way into existence from each stump, pushing outward in a grotesque display of regeneration. Bone, muscle, and scale formed rapidly, mouths opening as fangs finished growing, venom already dripping from teeth that had barely finished forming.

  Merlyn’s voice followed, just a second too late this time around, “Cut one head off and two will take its place.”

  Despite Hades’ hopes, luck was not with him. It was beginning to seem that she hadn’t been with him for a very long time now.

  Darren darted forward again, weaving through thickening clouds of toxic gas and slipping between the snapping maws. He continued to attack, slashing through flesh again and again, many of his strikes cutting so deeply they reached the creature’s main body.

  Knowing the truth did not matter.

  Wounds closed almost as quickly as they were made. Heads regenerated endlessly, sprouting in wriggling clusters, multiplying faster than he could destroy them. The Hydra’s mass grew larger with every moment, its body swelling into an even more colossal mountain of scaled flesh driven by hunger. It pressed forward relentlessly, its sheer size bearing down like a living landslide, promising only his end as it advanced.

  The System had gone silent.

  There was no more information to impart.

  No screens flashed across Darren’s vision. There were no more prompts or warnings. It withdrew completely, stripping away even the faintest trace of its presence. The absence was deliberate, and Darren understood why instantly. A single distraction—one misplaced glance, one intrusive line of text—could be the reason he died here.

  Against the Hydra, hesitation was a death sentence.

  The Named Monster's reputation echoed through history for a reason. Of all its recorded appearances, only one battle was remembered above all else. The Hydra's most famous clash was against the man who had ruled over Humanity’s Greatest Empire. It was famous because that man had been the sole exception.

  King Arthur had won.

  Every other time the Hydra clawed its way up from the deepest depths of Tartarus, the outcome had been the same.

  The monster had prevailed.

  By every measure of logic, Darren should have been no different.

  That was the conclusion Merlyn had reached, though the System did not say it aloud for the man to hear. Patterns, probabilities, historical precedent—all of it pointed toward a single outcome.

  Darren's defeat should have been guaranteed.

  But at the same time, the System was sure of another truth.

  This man was not bound by the rules of logic.

  Merlyn had watched as Darren continued to move through the chaos, every step precise despite the storm of snapping jaws and poisonous clouds. The System began to realize that the slashes that once seemed reckless and desperate were far from mindless.

  Each cut was intentional. Each strike dug just deep enough—never more, never less—biting past the Hydra’s scales and into the flesh beneath.

  Darren was not trying to overwhelm the creature, the System realized.

  This man was studying the monster.

  Because despite its grotesque form and endless heads, the Hydra was still something that Darren understood intimately.

  It was a dragon.

  Regeneration of this magnitude was not natural. No living being could sustain it endlessly. Not without an external force sustaining it.

  That force was magic.

  The Hydra’s regeneration was not a trait, it was a spell of which it relied on to defeat its enemies.

  Darren had simply been searching all along for the source of that power. And now he finally saw it. Brief flashes beneath the creature’s scales as it shifted and lunged—a pulsing glow, green and sickly, buried deep within its massive body.

  The Heart of a Dragon.

  It was the answer he had been looking for all along.

  Darren moved.

  He launched himself forward, planting a foot against one snapping head and using it as a springboard. The Hydra barely had time to react as he became a red streak cutting through the air. Magical energy engulfed his entire body, violent and lethal, tearing through everything in his path. Scales split. Flesh parted. The Divinity of Dissection carved him a path straight toward the glow he had seen moments before. Just above the Hydra’s left hind leg, the Heart pulsed wildly, its unnatural green light flaring as if sensing danger.

  Darren reached it.

  His hands closed around the organ, and he roared as he tore it free from the creature’s body, needing all of his strength to rip it out. The moment it left the monster, the glow faltered.

  The Hydra screamed.

  Heads shrieked in discord, their movements turning frantic and uncontrolled. Wounds that should have closed remained open. Severed flesh no longer stirred with new growth. The creature’s massive form convulsed, its endless regeneration finally denied.

  Then, it fell.

  The screen appeared once more in Darren’s vision.

  The System no longer needed to worry about distracting the man.

  Because this fight was already over.

  // The Hydra has been defeated.

  Darren stood amidst the aftermath, breathing hard as the adrenaline slowly ebbed from his body. And in the distance, through the settling stillness, he finally saw it.

  The Ferry of the Dead.

  Just like the System had said it would be.

  Merlyn’s voice followed, lighter now, almost satisfied with the data it had acquired from everything that it had seen thus far. The man could have sworn that there was even a hint of relief from the System. This machine was beginning to feel more alive as time went on.

  “Congratulations, Darren. Rewards from fallen foes and completed mission objectives shall be handed out accordingly. You have completed the Tutorial.”