I Died and Became a Noble's Heir

Chapter 458: Show Yourself

All nine heads shrieked simultaneously, each one processing different sources of pain as demons attacked from beneath.

The creature tried to shake off its attackers. Still, more demons were already climbing onto its body from the corpse pile, using the Hydra’s own bulk as a platform to reach previously inaccessible areas.

The eastern quadrant of the demon army closed in, adding their numbers to the assault. The encirclement became a crushing vice of malicious intent.

But the Hydra was Disaster-class for a reason.

Three of its heads dove toward demons attacking its underbelly, jaws snapping closed with enough force to bisect Dread-rank creatures in single bites.

Two more heads released gouts of acidic breath that melted through demon flesh like water through paper.

The remaining four heads focused on creating space, using their mass and strength to throw off attackers.

Demons died.

Dozens of them in the first thirty seconds of engagement.

The Hydra’s raw power made individuals seem almost fragile by comparison.

But for every demon that died, five more took its place. The army was effectively infinite from the Hydra’s perspective, an endless tide that could absorb casualties and would break anyone’s mind.

And then the corpses began to move.

Minotaur bodies that had been still and cold moments before suddenly twitched. Flesh that battle wounds had torn began to regenerate with visible speed.

Bones that had been shattered reformed with wet cracking sounds that echoed across the battlefield.

The regeneration was different from when Jack had restored the panthers and Mistborn. Those creatures had required extensive reconstruction because their bodies had been severely damaged or completely dissolved.

But most of the minotaurs were relatively intact. Jack’s demon army had been efficient in their slaughter, killing quickly with minimal excessive damage. Bodies that retained structural integrity required far less energy and time to restore.

The first minotaur stood forty seconds after the binding was completed.

An eight-foot-tall creature with muscles like coiled steel and horns that could gore through armor.

Its eyes, previously glazed with death, now burned with red lightning that matched Jack’s own gaze.

The minotaur turned toward the Hydra with mechanical precision and charged.

Then the second minotaur rose. And the third. And the tenth. And the fiftieth.

Within two minutes, two hundred forty-seven minotaurs had regenerated and joined the battle.

They moved with coordinated purpose that living minotaurs had never demonstrated, each one responding to Jack’s will transmitted through the Soul Link.

The Hydra’s situation shifted from desperate to hopeless.

Nine heads against an army of demons and undead minotaurs, all while carrying a brand that made every attack three times as lethal as it should have been.

The math was simple: the Hydra couldn’t kill enemies fast enough to create space, couldn’t defend against attacks from all directions simultaneously, or escape an encirclement that had already closed completely.

But the Hydra still had one advantage that made Disaster-class creatures truly terrifying: regeneration.

A demon managed to completely sever one of the Hydra’s heads with a well-placed strike enhanced by the Branded mark. The head tumbled to the ground, eyes already going glassy, jaw working uselessly as it died.

The stump where the head had been attached pulsed with magical energy. Flesh writhed and reformed. Within fifteen seconds, two new heads emerged from the wound.

Each one is smaller than the original but fully functional, and they immediately join the battle.

The Hydra now had ten heads instead of nine.

A minotaur’s axe cut deep into another neck, nearly severing it completely. The damaged head died, and two more grew to replace it.

Eleven heads.

The pattern repeated as the battle raged.

Demons and minotaurs focused fire on individual heads, successfully destroying them through overwhelming force and the Branded mark’s damage amplification.

But each destroyed head spawned two replacements, and the Hydra’s body seemed to have no limit to how many heads it could support.

Twelve heads.

Fifteen heads.

Twenty heads.

Jack watched this from his seat atop what remained of the corpse pile. Most of the bodies had been scattered when the hidden demons emerged, but enough remained to provide an elevated platform.

His expression showed mild interest rather than concern.

The Hydra’s regeneration was impressive. The kind of ability that lets Disaster-class entities fight against overwhelming odds and emerge victorious through simple attrition.

Cut off one head and two grow back. Kill those and four grow back. Exponential growth that could theoretically continue forever.

Except that the Hydra’s body wasn’t infinite. Each new head required energy and mass.

The creature’s torso was visibly shrinking as it sacrificed body mass to fuel regeneration, scales loosening, muscles becoming leaner, its overall size decreasing incrementally with each new head that sprouted.

And every attack still dealt triple damage because of the Brand, meaning the Hydra was accumulating injuries faster than regeneration could compensate.

The battle had shifted from "can we kill the Hydra" to "how long until accumulated damage overwhelms its regeneration."

Jack raised one hand and pointed toward the Hydra, then sent a mental command through the Soul Link to all bound creatures in the area.

’Voidweaver. Show yourself.’

The ground twenty feet from the Hydra erupted as something massive burrowed up from beneath. Earth scattered in all directions as the Voidweaver emerged.

Forty feet of chitinous horror with eight legs and a body that seemed too large to have fit in the tunnel it had created.

The Voidweaver’s eight eyes fixed on the Hydra with malevolent lucidity, and it released a chittering sound that conveyed both hunger and malicious satisfaction.

Then the spider began creating webs.

Strands of silk shot from spinnerets with incredible speed, each thread thick as rope and sticky enough to trap creatures far stronger than normal prey.

The webs crossed the distance to the Hydra in seconds, wrapping around legs, necks, the main torso, anywhere the sticky strands could find flesh.

The Hydra tried to burn through the webs with acidic breath, but new strands replaced them faster than they could be destroyed.

It tried to tear free through raw strength, but the Branded mark meant every struggle caused additional damage as web strands cut into flesh like garrotes.

Within sixty seconds, the Hydra was partially immobilized. It wasn’t completely restrained, but slowed significantly, its movements restricted enough that demons and minotaurs could attack with reduced risk of counterattack.

Twenty-five heads now. The Hydra’s body had shrunk to two-thirds its original size, the torso looking almost skeletal as it continued to sacrifice mass for regeneration.

The Voidweaver climbed onto the Hydra’s back, using its elevated position to inject venom directly into the torso where all the heads connected.

The venom wouldn’t kill. The Hydra’s regeneration was still too strong for that, but it would cause excruciating pain and further drain energy reserves that were already critically depleted.

Then the Hydra did something unexpected.

Instead of thrashing randomly or trying to burn through the webs, all thirty heads stopped moving simultaneously. A moment of eerie stillness as the semi-independent minds achieved perfect coordination for the first time in the entire battle.

Then all thirty heads struck as one.

The attacks came from every angle.

Above, below, left, right, front, back.

Jaws clamped onto the Voidweaver’s legs, torso, and head. Acidic breath melted through chitin that had withstood arrows and demon claws. Raw strength tore limbs from sockets with wet popping sounds.

The Voidweaver chittered in pain and tried to retreat, but the webs it had created became its prison. The sticky strands that had immobilized the Hydra now trapped the spider against its own victim.

Five seconds. That’s all it took.