Hades crawled out of the crater, his body still fuming. It had taken him quite some time to regenerate this time, probably a few minutes.
"Nope, that only took out one of Hades' lives." The relief was evident in Selina's voice, even as she traded blows with Anastasia and dodged her poisoned daggers. Right now she was so flustered and preoccupied with fighting her opponent that she couldn't even see what I was doing. "Any more tricks, boy?"
"You mean them?" I asked, gesturing to the gigantic silhouettes, half-concealed by the smoke that now filled the city from my fight against Hades. "We've been waiting for your spirit. He took so long that I thought he had finally died, you know."
Hydra and Draco stood behind me, growling and snarling ferociously. What? Did you think I just stood around for several minutes doing nothing while Hades regenerated? Of course I used that time to quickly complete the summoing of my most powerful Constellation spirits.
"Well, I'll be. You never run out of giant monsters, do you?" Selina risked a glance at me, her lips pursed in annoyance. As for Hades, he merely raised his hand. Annihilation flew back to his grip. I was slightly disappointed that Cerberus's Herculi wasn't able to destroy the weapon, but I refused to show my dismay. Instead, I smiled.
"What do you expect? I'm the Summoner Sovereign." I shrugged and then pointed upward. "Go check the title of this garbage story if you don't believe me. It says right there…well, okay, maybe the title might not be referring to me, but still…"
"Stop breaking the fourth wall!" Selina snapped irritably. "It ruins the immersion and annoys the readers!"
"But we need to pad the word count for all those spirit stones," Anastasia pointed out. Okay, we didn't, but whatever. In any case, I returned to the issue at present.
"Six more lives, right?" I asked, as if to confirm with Selina. It was possible she wasn't telling the truth, but she had no reason to lie and lead me on a merry goose chase. Not when she was so confident that I couldn't kill her contracted spirit. I still went and provoked her anyway. "Still think I can't defeat your Hades?"
"You have a snowball's chance in hell of winning against my Hades!" Selina sneered, still confident in her inevitable victory. Responding to her resolve, Hades gripped his Annihilation tightly and lumbered forward.
"Well, I won't know until I try!" I yelled and charged forward. I slashed my golden sword down, only to meet the berserk spirit's Annihilation in a destructive clash.
This time, however, Hydra had joined me in the fight. His serpentine heads began biting away at Hades, who was forced to disengage from his clash with me to defend himself from my Constellation spirit. He desperately loped off one of Hydra's heads.
Three more heads grew back in its place. The newer, more ferocious heads renewed their assault even more aggressively than before.
"How…?" Selina growled as she glanced in her spirit's direction, watching Hades fight Hydra's heads away by decapitating another one of them. However, he only increased the number of heads of his opponent. "Impossible!"
"I suppose I should tell you the legend regarding the Hydra." I sighed, knowing that it was unlikely that Selina would persist in ordering Hades to continue beading my Constellation spirit. "Whenever you chop off a head of the Hydra, three more heads will grow in its place, stronger and more ferocious than before."
"Damn it!" Selina cursed and flung out a mental command at Hades. At the same time, Anastasia struck, pressuring the already beleaguered Assassin. "Get away from me!"
"Not so confident now, are you?" Anastasia taunted. A vein bulged in Selina's temple and she slashed at Anastasia, who gleefully danced away. The blade sliced through thin air, missing the green-haired beauty completely. "Oh, getting mad now, are you?"
"Shut up!"
Despite the momentary distraction, it appeared that Selina succeeded in getting her command through. Hades leaped away as one of Hydra's heads attempted to crush him. Instead, the Constellation spirit only left a crater in the already devastated ground. Hissing, the head responsible for that attack rejoined the other brethren in pursuing the fleeing spirit.
The flailing heads struck deep holes into the ground, raining dirt and concrete onto the evading Hades. Hades swung his Annihilation out to parry a blow from the Hydra, but accidentally severed one of his heads.
"Shit…!" Selina swore as three more heads grew from the wound. "Hades! Stop cutting off that damned serpent's heads!"
"It's not as if he can help it," I explained sympathetically, mercilessly slashing Hades across the chest. He stumbled back, caught off guard by my sudden appearance and speed. The dozen Hydra heads then smashed into him.
And exploded.
I could only watch in horror as black purplish mana surrounded Hades and consumed Hydra, disintegrated the titanic Constellation spirit in an instant.
"Draco! Fall back!" I yelled. My dragon retreated immediately, flapping his great wings in anxiety at the sudden turn of events.
"Destroy all of them!" Selina shrieked, no longer able to control her rage.
The purple and black glow around Hades expanded exponentially. The entire area around him disintegrated, the very ground crumbling under his feet, as a violent storm raged about him. The chill of death permeated the atmosphere, causing me to shudder.
To have taken out Hydra in an instant…what the hell was that spell? A spell that could decimate one of my most powerful Constellation spirits in a single hit?
The amount of mana that the berserk spirit was emanating was enormous. Just from being near him, my Herculean armor was already beginning to crumble. If I didn't do anything and soon, I would disappear along with the disintegrating surroundings.
"Draco! Thuban!" I ordered.
Draco charged up the black mana even as we watched the raging spirit discharge more destructive mana.
"You don't get it, do you?" Selina snarled, cold fury lacing her words. "My Hades embodies death itself. He's the strongest spirit that ever existed! Hades will never lose to anyone!"
"We'll see about that," I replied evenly, facing down the berserk contracted spirit with icy resolve.
The destructive black mana burst from Draco's jaws and slammed into Hades…only to dissipate as soon as Hades sliced the tremendous beam apart with his Annihilation.
My mouth fell open.
"No way…how is that…?"
I had a slight ray of hope when Cerberus's Herculi took out one of his lives earlier, revealing to me that a direct blast could still kill him. But right now, Hades just took a direct blast from Thuban (which was more powerful than the Triple Herculi spell) head-on, and deflected it away with his weapon. That meant I had to disarm him if I wanted to kill him with that spell.
It was a bloody nuke spell, damn it! One that could level entire mountain ranges, and the bastard deflected it with his bloody halberd!
"All your attacks are useless against Hades now, even your demigod strength," Selina crowed. "It's over."
I felt Annihilation smashing into me, destroying what remained of my Herculean armor. Rolling away, I finally came to a stop, coughing out blood.
"Argh…" I struggled to get up, leaning on the golden sword of Hercules.
"Stop fighting!" Selina bellowed from a distance away, though I couldn't tell if that was directed at me or Anastasia. Hades delivered a vicious kick in the ribs, throwing me into the air before sending me crashing heavily onto the ground several meters away.
Gritting my teeth, I struggled to my feet again.
"Why?"
For some reason, Selina was in front of me. I didn't know what happened to Anastasia, but I prayed that she was all right. I didn't see or hear anything that indicated her demise. She might have retreated…I hope.
Hades grabbed me by my left hand and hoisted me up for his mistress to study me.
"Why are you still holding your sword? Why are you still fighting? Don't you understand that you can't win any longer?"
I could feel my flesh burn away as the corrupted mana ate into me. Even so, I grinned and spat into Selina's face. "So what?"
Selina observed me calmly, despite the murderous rage evident in her eyes. "You're still lucid. You haven't gone into shock. You can still feel the fear." She made that last note when she saw my trembling arms. "Yet you still haven't given up hope. You think you can beat me?"
"It's not that I think I can beat you," I corrected. "But that I have to beat you."
"That's right!"
"!!"
Selina was forced to duck when Anastasia's dagger sliced from behind her, almost cutting her throat. It wasn't because Anastasia spoke – Selina was already dodging from instinct before Anastasia appeared. Dropping down, she lashed out with a kick, but Anastasia jumped above her leg and delivered her own kick that forced her to block with her arm. The force sent Selina staggering a few meters back, away from the aegis of her spirit.
Hades roared, dropping me as he spun around with Annihilation to defend his mistress from the other assailant.
However, he never got far. Draco emerged from behind him and slammed a paw onto him, crushing the huge spirit into the ground.
"So be it, the both of you." Selina's eyes flashed furiously as she glanced from Anastasia to me and back to Ana again. "I'll destroy you both until there's nothing left of the two of you, I'll thrash the both of you until every single cell in your bodies fears me, I'll crush you until the very mention of the name Grim Reaper brings you immeasurable despair."
Purplish black mana exploded from under Draco's claws before blasting the great dragon off balance. Twisting around, Hades thrust Annihilation into Draco's belly, pumping destructive mana into him. Draco roared in agony before vanishing from existence.
"I dare say that was your most powerful trump card, wasn't it?" Selina glanced at me triumphantly. "With even your dragon gone, you have nothing left to face Hades. Not even your pitiful demigod sword can stop him now."
"Don't you ever shut up?" Anastasia complained as she flipped over Selina's sword and countered with a riposte from her dagger. Selina merely parried her first dagger and then avoided a slash from her second dagger.
"It's fine. It's clear that the bitch never listened to anything I said." I sighed in exasperation. "For the third and final time, my most powerful attacks lie in my ranged spells, not my sword techniques."
Hercules had transformed from a sword into a golden bow, and I was already aiming several dozen arrows at Hades.
"This is the most powerful form of Hercules," I informed both girls before I released all the arrows. They struck Hades and sank into his obsidian skin, throwing him back. The berserk spirit stumbled, with the arrows protruding out of him like pins on a porcupine.
"You think this will work?" Selina mocked me as she watched Hades merely straighten himself and tear the arrows out of his body. "Those aren't even one tenth as powerful as your other arrows."
"Oh no." I shook my head in an almost sad manner. "Power isn't everything. And as it is, you have completely misunderstood Hercules's arrows."
"What?" Selina stared at me dumbstruck, even as she deflected Anastasia's dagger. "What do you mean by that?"
"A…AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!"
Hades bellowed and sank to his knees as excruciating pain wrecked his body. Even Anastasia paused for a moment at the horrifying sound, her eyes transfixed on the gruesome spectacle taking place before her.
Not to mention Selina, whose mouth was hanging wide open at the demise of her supposedly invincible Hades.
Boils began bursting out of his skin, turning his black flesh a dark green color. Hades howled in immeasurable agony as he held his head, his eyeballs melting into jelly in their sockets. Blood steamed from every single pore in his body, and began corroding and eating the ground the instant those drops made contact.
"What's going on?" Anastasia asked, utterly horrified even though she was supposed to be my partner.
"I presume you've never heard of the story regarding Hercules's arrows." I turned to the two stunned girls with a smile that must seem monstrous. "After Hercules had slain the Hydra, he dipped his arrows in the Hydra's blood. And the Hydra's blood was so toxic that just a few drops destroyed an entire river and its ecosystem. Yes, that's how poisonous a Hydra's blood is. When Hercules killed some dumb centaur called Nessus, his blood that was tainted with the Hydra's poison in turned destroyed the river Anigrus in Elis. Nasty little thing, eh? It's potent enough to take out a few million lives at once."
"Why do you know so much about these obscure legends?" Anastasia asked suspiciously, wondering if I was pulling her leg. I wasn't. Seemed like Greek mythology somewhat faded into obscurity in a thousand years' time, or at least the versions the people of this time was familiar with were different from those I had read. Actually, even back during my original time, not many people knew the original legends as well as I did.
"I read a lot," I replied simply with a shrug. "My hobby includes reading up on all these cool myths and legends."
Selina remained uncharacteristically silent the entire time, watching as her Hades struggled and flailed wildly while the potent venom took its toll. Within moments, there was nothing left of him but a smoking puddle.
"You've got to give me that poison someday," Anastasia remarked, her features pale. "It would put even the most potent and deadliest toxin that the Veneneum Sect owns to shame."
"Sorry, but it's not something I can just extract at leisure, you know?" I then turned away from my late opponent. "But it seems that I've finally won. You're up next."
I gestured at Selina with a jerk of my head. Anastasia smiled and was about to say something, but…
"Not yet."
Selina's voice froze me in my tracks and cut off Anastasia's reply.
I slowly turned around, even as fear began to seep into my mind.
"T…that's not possible," I muttered, shaking my head. "Not possible at all."
"I take it from your expression that you really have nothing left up your sleeve." Selina sounded gleeful and extremely relieved when she watched Hades emerge from the smoking puddle, totally unscathed. "Your Hercules's arrows are really impressive, I must admit. Surpassed even my expectations. That single shot took out five of Hades' lives in one go…you really are a scary fellow." She glanced at Anastasia. "Figures…given how you're in the company of a Veneneum Assassin."
The purplish black mana billowed about Hades again, destroying his surroundings. I could feel perspiration drip down my face.
"Now then, young Constellation mage. You shall die."
"Oh dear, oh dear." I sighed as I buried my face with my hand. "I never expected it to come down to this."
Selina frowned. "Come down to what, exactly?"
I drew Gan Jiang and Mo Ye and smiled cruelly. "I never thought you would be able to force me to use my real swords."