Adrian was assaulted for three rounds by the Hydra, from where the heads twisted around to attack the silver-haired boy standing on its dark, scaly back.
By the third round, he began to struggle suddenly against the speed of their attacks.
Within this third round of attacks, Adrian bolted back to avoid two of Hydra's heads in a combined attack.
Through the lack of coordination between the two heads, they bumped into each other at the last moment, which resulted in them missing Adrian by a narrow margin.
Although even then, Adrian had already thrown himself out of the way.
Though it was precisely because of this, Adrian suddenly found he was in trouble…
In that window of time, the third head of the beast had chosen to attack, unknowingly gaining a great advantage within Adrian's awkward footing.
Fortunately, Adrian's arms were still free.
From where he leaned back, sliding along the scales of the Hydra, his feet were yet to touch the ground.
His head twisted toward the third head crashing toward him first.
A pair of blood red eyes, with black slits like a cat's, buried in a face full of black rock, sped toward him like a piston.
Then his cream-uniform crinkled as his torso followed, his lightning crackling sleeves rising, as his arms quickly snapped out to catch the beast by its face.
His right palm held up the third head's upper jaw by its right lip.
His hand immediately felt like he was touching obsidian rock, and not the lips of a creature.
His palm size against the massive monster was the equivalent of a human finger on human lips.
His left hand caught the bottom jaw by the left side of the bottom lip.
Without the appropriate footing, Adrian could only grasp its face for a moment before the force of the lunging head pelted him through mid-air all over again.
The beast's jaws snapped shut as soon as Adrian flung away, not able to catch Adrian from how he had obstructed it with his hands, also creating the surface he needed for enough of a collision to blow him away.
Instead, once the jaws closed, they managed to snip at the distant strands of blue sparks around Adrian, clenching a portion of his lightning between their teeth.
Adrian however, whilst having evaded the jaws, was nowhere to be seen.
The force from the collision was like a tidal wave, or a wrecking ball, already in mid-air, it wasn't hard to send Adrian flying.
Though this actually worked in his favour, even as he failed the landing and tumbled along the ground.
He finally caught himself when he slapped against a tree like a wet fish against a wall.
The tree cracked upon impact, showing a brown pillar in the distance snapping inward before crashing down, leaving a collection of dust and a sudden silence.
The beast continued to watch the distance, already taking another step to charge when it saw the tree shift.
Adrian sat hidden under the tree, as he stood, pushing the brown pillar off from him with a slight effort.
He pulled himself to his feet, his clean cream uniform now a stain of dust and dirt.
His cool silver undercut hung loosely with sweat now.
"It wasn't that they were getting faster, but that I was getting slower." Adrian finally realised as he slowly marched out of the tree line, approaching the opening once more.
The static clinging to his frame, compared to earlier, there seemed to be far fewer sparks circulating around him, gently sparking the air around him.
His expression was far darker now as he approached, the frustration of this fight now affecting him.
Though his steps were slower as they came back to the battlefield, it wasn't because of his thinning lightning.
"How am I supposed to beat this thing? Can it eat my lightning? I could barely scratch it before and-" Adrian's mind worked through the situation with a mix of emotions.
His legs slowed, not because of his magic, but because he was hesitant…
He could lose this, he could die, this wasn't like anything else he'd fought before.
In fact, as he thought about it now, he was pretty sure even this 'Thurid' would struggle with such a beast.
Then for a moment, Adrian Zephyr thought about running.
But then…
"You are no son of mine."
Adrian's fists tightened, his feet stamping on the ground now as an anger carved a narrow tunnel, blocking all things from the world.
The light at the end of the tunnel stood across from him now.
A hulking mass on one end, with three writhing heads, all with pairs of blood eyes, signalling Adrian's death.
Adrian willed from a thin veil within his being, both an immensely big and immensely small space.
A flow of midnight mist warped on a vibrational level, twisting and turning into jagged lines at imperceptible speeds.
Then as it was transported out into the world, it rippled into streaks of powerful, zapping strands of lightning.
The thin lightning around Adrian's outline immediately thickened, the volume of it like a miniature storm moulding over him.
BANG!
Adrian shot off again, whirring across the battlefield at his peak speed once again.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The two exchanged blows like mad titans, the three heads throwing themselves recklessly at Adrian like they were possessed, whilst Adrian dodged expertly.
The heads crashed into the ground as they missed Adrian, but not without nipping a stand or two of lightning with them.
This time however, Adrian ran, circling the beast whilst throwing his fists into its sides.
The beast immediately felt as though it were being assaulted by two people and not one.
BOOM! BOOM!
Under Adrian's assault, carefully abusing a hit-and-run tactic, the Hydra showed signs of struggling.
"EEEERRRRRGHHH." The beast howled from all three heads, summoning a vestige of power then and there.
Every living thing had mana, even Hydras were magical creatures.
Affinity didn't only just affect magical ability, it was also part of how a magical creature inherited physical aspects from its ancestors.
Core move - Fire breath
At once, all three heads huffed to the sky, as if calling out to a deity in the sky.
Then suddenly pointing down to the ground, and exhaling, blew out a death sentence of flames.
The orange wave quickly swallowed the floor, Adrian didn't think twice before abusing his lightning to speed along to the other end of the clearing.
All the while the flames spurted out, devouring a patch of land, painting the ground a scorched black when the Hydra exhausted their breath.
Another plume of smoke wafted through the air, filling a patch of space, drafting a canvas for the Hydra's body to appear like a living shadow within the smoke.
The beast stepped out of the smoke, as Adrian tightened his resolve.
His fists hung by his sides, but that didn't mean they were loose…
"RRRRRUUUAAAGHHH." The beast roared, swinging its three necks wildly before leaning forward, pushing off the ground and charging toward Adrian.
He huffed another breath, eyes like steel tips, watching from the opposite ends for a third time as he caught some of his breath.
Then suddenly.
"…It seems I was a little late." An emotionless voice sighed from behind Adrian followed by a series of graceful steps, like the world was calculated to absolute control under him.
Adrian recognised this voice, his body tensing with rage even further, if not for this boy, he wouldn't even be here.
Julius Sparrow!
Flick
A bead of golden styrofoam shot past Adrian out of the corner of his eye, landing directly into one of the beast's mouths.
BANG!
Distracted, Adrian fell to the floor by one of the heads, his two arms holding the creature above him with all his might as the creature sapped his lightning.
Another one of the heads was still dumbstruck, feeling an immense taste in its mouth, followed by something dissolving slowly inside its stomach, fortunately deactivating a mysterious unnatural acid within its stomach.
The last head, torn between the boy pressed to the floor, and the new dark-haired boy slowly walking to the scene of destruction, zoomed forward with dark blood-red eyes.
Flick
Another golden speck flew, this time it was toward the zooming head of the three.
The golden bit flew into the head's mouth, instantly stopping it in its tracks, an inch away from a boy's face.
Blood red eyes met with dark muddy eyes.
The blood red eyes were unmoving, while the muddy eyes narrowed subtly as if studying the face.
There was a long silence, the creature froze similarly to the first head, the only other sound in the moment was the sound of Adrian struggling underneath the only moving head.
Though that head was now beginning to slow, until he abruptly pulled away, its blood red eyes now brightening into a bright yellow pair of eyes.
Instantly Adrian rolled away, pulling himself to his feet as he watched with a mouth huffing like a goldfish, a sweat-swept undercut out of place, and wide confused eyes.
His lightning died down as he watched from the side of the clearing.
The head of the Hydra that previously pressured him, now began to sniff the ground, before slowly turning toward the dark-haired boy directly in front of one of the heads.
"Sit." The boy demanded in a dark voice that seemed to lack any patience, yet still so perfectly controlled it somehow seemed not to be impatient either.
The head didn't respond, though it moved, its blood red eyes, like the other head, shifting into a bright yellow.
"Are you an idiot?! What are you doing?" Adrian finally snapped in a loud growl, finally straightening to stand after recovering.
Julius paid no attention, instead breaking off another piece of the golden biscuit in his pocket, slipping it into the Hydra's mouth.
Julius smoothed his other hand along the scales of the head in front of him.
"Sit." He ordered again, configuring his tone to mimic something softer and more soothing.
The Hydra sat.
End of chapter 31