The Cardinal appeared beside me like a blur before coming into focus, taking in the monster from a distance. I chanced him a glance. He looked old, but not incredibly so. He seemed to be in his sixties. His hair was mostly white, with but some strings of black interspersed in them. He was tall and well built; although I dwarfed him in both size and height, I reasoned that to be normal—few people could match my size after I had awakened.

“Congratulations are in order,” the Cardinal said, bringing me out my musings. His brown, hazel eyes fixed upon mine, and for just an instant I felt naked before his gaze. “How long ago did you Ascend?”

“A couple of months,” I told him honestly. He just nodded.

“Anyways,” he said, turning back to the monster. “We should focus on the task at hand. It’s a tough one.” He nodded towards the hydra, which was now regarding us coldly without moving. “Every time I kill it, it comes back, and stronger too at that. I already killed it five times, and my spells are dealing less and less damage each time. I would use one of the six greater offensive Stanzas, but I fear that even consuming all the light attuned mana I generated wouldn’t be enough to bring it down once and for all. Seeing as it still has four heads, and considering they seem necessary for it to heal, I’d say we have to kill it four times more. Any ideas?”

“What is that fog?” I asked instead of answering.

“An annoyance.” The Cardinal frowned, looking pensively at the layer of clouds blanketing the area. “That too is becoming stronger each time it comes back from death,” he supplied.

“I could try getting its attention while you deal more damage to it,” I offered.

“It isn’t sustainable. We would kill it once, twice maybe, and then, if its strength keeps on increasing at the rate it already has, it would become too dangerous to face in open combat.”

“How much time does it take to recover?” I asked, an inkling of a plan forming in my mind.

“Anywhere from thirty seconds to a couple of minutes. It depends on the entity of the damage it sustained. Why?”

I raised my hand in response, and the thick, viscous liquid circling me, which was my Law manifested, formed a globe hovering over my palm. “If we give it enough time,” I said to the Cardinal while looking at the black substance. “Then it can get the work done.”

The Cardinal eyed the globe skeptically, but he nodded nonetheless. “Buy me a couple of minutes and you will have just as much time to get rid of it.”

I acquiesced and he was off. He reappeared high in the air, mumbling words far too softly to be heard. Light streaked to him in rivers, amassing above him in an enormous glorious circle. A suffocating stillness spread from it like wildfire in a dry forest, freezing both the hydra and me in wonder and fear. It lasted but an instant, then we both exploded with movement.

The hydra’s hisses turned to full-blown roars as four gigantic serpents rose out the clouds like hungry hurricanes, aiming to stop the magic from completing. I was there before they could cover half the distance to the Cardinal, however. I pushed as much qi I could within my weapon. It shone the pearly white typical of a warrior’s signature energy and then swung it horizontally.

The light left the edge depicting a wide arching crescent, cutting the serpents at their roots and dissipating them. The hydra turned to me and two of its heads darted forwards. By enhancing my reflexes and the strength of my legs and torso, I ducked beneath one and sidestepped the other, also bringing my weapon down on the neck of the latter and drawing blood.

The hydra hissed in pain, but it didn’t stop its attack. A third head came down from above, even as the two, which had already tried to get to me, cocked back to ready for a second assault.

I focused on my Law and it turned into a sphere around me, becoming solid at the very last second. Like a nail hit by a hammer, the head of the hydra drove me into the ground, but to very little effect.

I turned it to liquid again and jumped out, sword already aflame with qi, and unleashed a wide white energy crescent at the monster. The attack impacted the scales of its torso to almost no effect, but I had achieved my objective—now all four heads were looking my way.

A blur swooped in from the side. I raised my shield by reflex—feeding it as much qi I could, given the short amount of time. I was swept off my feet and sent flying before I could even realize what had happened. I rolled on the ground thrice before I managed to get my feet under me, and, even then, the strength of the blow left me skidding a good four, five meters back before I stopped.

I looked at the hydra, and at the tail, which now moved to stand back at the ready behind it. I turned to my arm. It was bent, just like the shield and the armor that had protected it from the worst of the damage. The pain came unbidden, but I barely flinched—any warrior or knight worth their salt had suffered worse.

I oversaturated the limb with qi and watched as it straightened back with a satisfying pop. The arm hadn’t healed like it would have if I had been a knight with prana at my disposal, but with qi, I could force it to move as if it had. God, if I loved being an S-ranker. With a wide, manic grin, I dashed forward, shedding the shield and the dented armor covering my left arm.

Appearing before the hydra’s foremost leg, I rained a flurry of energy blades. They bit into the scales, drawing blood but not much more. On a whim, I decided to try something new. I pointed at the monster's forelimb with my naked arm, commanding my Law to pierce it. The liquid surged like sea tides from the skin of my arm, forming a spear of whirling blackness.