[Infernal Hydra (The Eternals)]
[Level: 10]
[Eternal Talents: 2. Hellfire; 3. Bloodlust; 2. Regeneration; 5. Desecrate]
[Mental Resistance: 30]
Four Eternal Talents.
Calder’s pulse steadied as he processed the data bleeding into his vision. In this world, an Eternal Talent was a death sentence for the unprepared; they never ranked below S-class. Facing four of them meant this Infernal Hydra possessed at least four S-rank abilities—a terrifying prospect when paired with the naturally bloated base stats of The Eternals.
Even without those talents, a member of that race could crush ninety-nine percent of their peers through raw physical superiority alone.
However, a sliver of fortune remained. Royal bloodlines of the Infernal Hydra usually boasted five or more talents at birth; the true monsters of their race started with nine. Had he encountered one of those anomalies, Calder would have taken his chances against a Level 100 Feral Beast in the wilderness rather than stand on The Proving Grounds. Against a Level 100 beast, he might have found a gap to slip through. Against a royal Eternal? Death was a mathematical certainty.
This Hydra was mediocre—at least by its own race's standards. But for Calder, "mediocre" was still a mountain he wasn't sure he could climb.
"The Ancient Ones really don't care if I breathe my last here, do they?" Calder let out a dry, rasping chuckle.
The gulf between a human from Azura and one of The Eternals was an ocean. Given time, he could bridge that gap. But here, trapped in the Novice Grace Period, the disparity was a physical weight pressing down on his chest.
A wet, jagged hiss tore through the air. “Not coming closer? Then I’ll come to you!”
The Hydra didn’t just move; it vanished. To Kemi, watching from the sidelines, the beast simply erased itself from existence, moving at a speed the eye couldn’t hope to track.
"Blink."
Calder’s pupils contracted to pinpricks. His silhouette blurred, flickering out of reality a microsecond before the Hydra’s massive bulk slammed into his previous position. When they reappeared, they had traded places.
The Hydra slowly coiled its central neck, nine sets of eyes swiveling to fixate on the human behind it. It let out a guttural scoff. “Tricks. Pathetic.”
To The Eternals, technique was a crutch for the weak. Why study the blade or the flow of mana when you could simply delete your enemy with raw power? To them, "strategy" was a waste of time better spent tempering their Innate Abilities.
Calder saw the unfiltered contempt in those vertical slits, but his expression didn't flicker. This was the human advantage. From the dawn of their evolution, humans had been the underdog, forced to learn, to adapt, and to distill victory from the ashes of defeat.
The strong sharpened their fangs; the weak sharpened their minds. To remain the underdog was the only way to eventually become the apex.
“Die, monkey!”
One of the heads lunged, its maw unhinging to reveal a throat glowing like a forge.
"Hellfire!"
The air screamed as a torrent of white-hot flame erupted. The ambient temperature spiked instantly, the heat so intense that Calder’s skin began to blister before the fire even touched him. If he took a direct hit, his health bar wouldn't just drop—it would evaporate. Even a basic fireball from a creature with over a thousand points in Spirit was a tactical nuke; an S-rank Hellfire was cataclysmic.
"Blink."
Calder flickered through the searing air, the flames licking at his afterimage. But the Hydra was no mindless beast. As Calder materialized, a massive, scaled claw slammed into the floor of The Proving Grounds.
The shockwave was deafening. The indestructible stone buckled and cracked, and the sheer force of the impact sent Calder spiraling into the air, his "Blink" momentum shattered.
“Hellfire!” another head roared, tracking his mid-air trajectory.
"No!" Kemi cried out, shielding his eyes from the impending incineration.
"Void Step."
Calder didn't plummet. His boot caught an invisible ripple in the air, and with a sharp grunt, he kicked off the vacuum itself, vaulting higher into the sky. The pillar of flame hissed harmlessly beneath his feet.
“Stop running!” the Hydra bellowed, its frustration mounting.
It could sense Calder’s stats. The man was stronger than a common grunt, sure, but the Hydra had butchered countless "elites" with higher power levels than this. Yet, every time it closed the trap, the human slipped through the teeth.
"You're incredible!" Kemi cheered, bouncing on his heels.
"You're in the way," Calder snapped. He reached out, grabbed the Pygmari by the collar, and hurled him toward the far edge of the arena.
Kemi tumbled through the air, landing hard near the abyss. He stared back in terror, but the Hydra’s nine heads didn't even twitch in his direction. To a Hydra, a Pygmari was a gnat—something you might accidentally kill with a stray drop of acidic saliva, but never something worth hunting.
"Thank the ancestors for making me so pathetic!" Kemi scrambled away from the heat, whispering a frantic prayer. He watched the battle with wide eyes, realizing that his life now depended entirely on a man facing impossible odds.
"Hellfire!"
The Hydra stopped playing. All nine heads arched back, their throats igniting in unison. A second later, the arena vanished under a blanket of undulating, apocalyptic flame.
"Blink."
"Void Step."
"Blink."
Calder became a ghost. He danced through the gaps in the inferno, his movements fluid and precise, a masterclass in kinetic desperation. Every twitch of his muscles was calculated; every breath was rationed.
Sweat poured down his face, evaporating before it could hit the floor. His limbs, which hadn't felt a hint of fatigue after two days of constant warfare, began to throb with a dull, heavy ache. Against The Eternals, there was no margin for error. One slip, one delayed reaction, and he would be ash. His 【Infinite Proliferation】 was powerful, but he wasn't yet at the level where he could regenerate from a single charred cell.
To Kemi, the fight was a blur of chromatic fire and sonic booms. He caught flashes of Calder—a silhouette against the white heat—before the man vanished again.
"Just a little longer," Kemi whimpered. "Maybe it'll run out of breath..."
Evening bled into midnight. Midnight faded into the pale grey of dawn.
For ten grueling hours, the game of cat and mouse continued. The Hydra wasn't just tired; it was losing its mind. Kemi, tucked into the "best seat in the house," was nodding off despite the constant threat of becoming a roasted Pygmari. He survived only by his racial talent, 【Threat Sense】, which forced him to scurry like a cockroach every time a stray ember drifted too close.
But Calder... Calder was a machine.
“Vermin! Stand still!” the Hydra screamed.
"He's a monster," Kemi whispered, awestruck. He knew Calder's fragility. He knew one hit would end it. Yet, for over half a day, the Hydra hadn't managed to graze the man’s clothing.
"Blink."
"Void Step."
Calder’s face was deathly pale, but his eyes remained chips of frozen steel. He didn't need a thousand skills. He needed three, executed with god-like perfection.
The Hydra’s coordination was breaking down. Its nine heads were powerful, but they lacked the singular focus of a seasoned warrior. They fought with the arrogance of the strong, leaving tiny, microscopic windows in their overlapping arcs of fire.
Calder saw them all.
“Die! DIE!”
The Hydra’s fury peaked. The arena’s surface was now a heat-sink, the stone glowing a dull, angry red. But the beast was flagging. Even a thousand Spirit points couldn't fuel a ten-hour S-rank bombardment indefinitely.
The Hydra let out a frustrated hiss. It didn't fear Calder; even if its mana ran dry, its physical shell was an impenetrable fortress. It was simply annoyed that the "monkey" was still breathing.
As it paused to draw breath for a final, desperate burst, it felt a sudden, unnatural chill at the base of its necks.
SHLICK.
One of the heads abruptly lost connection to the body. It spun through the air, eyes wide with shock, before bouncing off the glowing stone.
Before the Hydra could even process the sensation, another head fell. Then a third.
Calder was no longer dodging. He was above them, his arms morphed into jagged, ivory-white blades.
"Steel Cleave!"
He was a whirlwind of bone and steel. He moved like a thunderclap, his dual blades shearing through the Hydra’s thick scales as if they were wet parchment.
“HELLFIRE!” the remaining heads shrieked in a panic.
Calder twisted in mid-air, using Void Step to pivot around a desperate gout of flame.
"Regeneration!" the Hydra roared.
The severed stumps bubbled and surged with localized tumors of flesh. Within seconds, the five lost heads had sprouted back to full size, their scales hardening instantly.
“You think you can kill me?” the Hydra spat, though its voice trembled with newfound fear. For the first time, it realized the "monkey" could actually bite. It had been playing a dangerous game, and it had almost lost its life in a single heartbeat of arrogance.
Calder landed softly, his brow furrowed in genuine annoyance. Tsk. My Agility is still too low. If I had another hundred points, those heads wouldn't have had time to grow back.
The Hydra narrowed its eyes, its murderous intent now cold and focused.
"Bloodlust!"
One head lunged—not with fire, but with a physical speed that defied the laws of inertia. Calder’s reflexes fired, but the distance was too short.
A sickening crunch echoed across the arena. The Hydra’s jaws clamped down, and with a violent tear, it ripped away Calder’s entire right shoulder, his bone-blade arm, and a massive chunk of his torso.
“Ssss!” The Hydra tossed its head back, swallowing the bloody mess of meat and bone in one gulp. It felt the stolen vitality rush through its veins, accelerating its own recovery.
"MASTER!" Kemi screamed, his heart stopping.
To Kemi, Calder was a dead man. The right side of his chest was an open crater; lungs and internal organs were visible through a curtain of gore and shattered ribs. It was a wound that should have ended any living thing instantly.
But Calder didn't fall.
He stood there, looking down at the empty space where his arm used to be. Then, the wound began to hiss.
Pale, translucent filaments of flesh erupted from the jagged edges of the injury. They wove together with the speed of a loom gone mad, knitting muscle, bone, and skin back together in a grotesque display of biological acceleration. In seconds, the "crater" was gone, replaced by fresh, unscarred skin and a newly formed arm.
Calder looked up, his eyes colder than the void.
"Regeneration," he said, his voice level and terrifying. "Isn't a privilege reserved for your kind."