Return to Jorgaldur Volume III: blood warrior

1 vs 8

She knew that skill from the game. The stare of each of the nine heads wasn't by itself terrible, although it was dangerous. The different stares could strike fear into the heart of their target, blind, weaken, paralyze, and so on to nine different effects. All at the same time, they were lethal.

However, the attack had two weak points. The first was that it was easy to avoid by hiding, by avoiding their stares. The second, that it was slow. It was this second weakness what the vampiress exploited.

There were a large number of threads that had been spread out across the battlefield, mostly to prevent the hydra from escaping. Therefore, the effect of Vibrate was even more powerful than expected.

The high-pitched sounds puzzled and deafened the eight heads, which caused them to cancel their attack. They moved from side to side, as they were trying to resist, to recover from the influence of those horrible sounds.

Gjaki jumped between two heads, whip in hand, and a handful of dirt in her other hand. She had taken it from her inventory. She had kept it there precisely so the skill could be cast if she was far from the ground.

Did you get something in your eyes? blinded both heads, thus rendering them momentarily disabled. She grabbed onto one of them with her whip, and pulled the weapon to dodge a Fireball. She took advantage of the move to come near the head responsible for the shot.

Gjaki was too fast for the other heads to hit her, or the target to dodge her. It received a powerful kick to the jaw, which caused it to swallow its next Fireball. It exploded inside, which made it burn from the inside out. The head collapsed badly injured, although it was still breathing.

"Got you!" exclaimed the second head.

It pounced on the vampiress, and gobbled her up. It had wanted to catch her with its teeth, and cut her in two, but surprisingly, its prey had dodged inward. Nonetheless, it didn't care, because the head was sure that she would die in its stomach.

Of course, that was difficult if its presumed prey ripped a hole open and shot out. She had seen it coming, and, instead of dodging, the vampiress had initiated the Drill skill. She had flown towards the head, had gotten swallowed, and had come out the other side.

"This time, my hair has avoided it," she sighed in relief.

She had put on a hood, so only her clothes were covered in the blood and the flesh of her victim. The second head fell lifeless.

Surprised, the rest of the heads took a few seconds to react. One that had remained with its mouth open received a burst of Darkballs. It showed that not only they could shoot.

On its skin, they would have been just annoying, but the inside was much more vulnerable. Especially, since it was a huge head, and the path to its brain wasn't much protected from within. The Darkballs finished off the third. Six remained. One of them were badly injured, and two were beginning to recover their vision.

However, there was an added problem. They were beginning to feel a bit Weak and Numb, due to the curses that had been injected into their blood.

No doubt, the hydra was a dangerous enemy, but they didn't know how to deal with the agile vampiress. To make it worse, there were the curses. Also, one of the enormous being's advantages played against them. They had an almost inexhaustible reserve of mana and energy, which was used by her enemy to replenish her own. Because of that, she could use all of her spells without worrying about running out of mana or blood.

For example, instead of dodging a Darkball that one of the heads could also throw, Gjaki parried it with her hand, and the help of Lady of Darkness. Her spell made her practically invulnerable to darkness attacks, so she was able to calmly finish biting the hydra.

It was then that the heads stiffened, terrified. As if their enemy wasn't enough, their worst nightmare had suddenly risen from the water. There was a huge Kraken.

They tried to flee, in a panic. They twisted to free themselves from the threads, which resisted. The tentacles came closer and closer, slowly, as if enjoying the terror of their prey, as if wanting to torture it, to kill it with fear.

"It's... Wait... How's a Kraken gotten in here?" one of the heads doubted.

"It's... It's true. It doesn't... makes sense, but..." another one of them was looking at their natural predator.

"A... An illusion?" another suggested.

They looked at each other, embarrassed for being so stupid. A Fireball against the illusion confirmed their deduction. Apparition had brought up their worst fear, and they had been too terrified to react with clarity.

The heads turned to all sides, to look for the most likely culprit. They found her killing another of her heads. While they were distracted, she had taken the opportunity to cut it like the first one.

Furious, the two closest ones lunged at the vampiress, who was forced to dodge. Meanwhile, two others looked at each other, with hate. They immediately charged at each other, launched Fireballs and Darkballs at each other. They were so close that it would be impossible to misfire, and they soon moved on to a more physical confrontation.

Aside from severing the neck from its root, Gjaki had injured those two, and enchanted them with Betrayal. Now, they believed that the other was its fiercest enemy.

Meanwhile, she continued to dodge, without counterattacking, without stopping smiling. It could seem like she had no choice, that she was narrowly dodging, that her trajectory was totally random and improvised. However, the two heads soon realized that this wasn't the case. They had tied a knot to each other.

Gjaki added Blood Bind to keep them from moving as she calmly cut them down. They wriggled frantically, trying to break free, but only succeeded in tightening the knot. They were unable to prevent her from severing them.

The vampiress looked at the two which were fighting against each other. One was frozen, defeated. The other was badly injured, with several holes in its long neck. It wasn't hard to finish it off. There was only one of them left, the one that had badly injured itself with its own Fireball.

Gjaki stared at her, uncertain. She could finish the head off, thus killing that being. That way, she could collect all nine heads, which were extremely valuable ingredients.

Her other option was to let it be, let it recover. That being could regenerate, although it would take it years to do so. Perhaps, in the future, she could pay it a visit again if she needed more heads.

"What would Eldi do?" she wondered.

She smiled. Surely he would let it be. He kept saying that predators were also necessary.

She turned around, and continued on her way.