Jonah secured the Primordial Geode in a padded pouch on his belt, the warmth of it seeping through the fabric. With the treasure secure and the Artificer's warning still ringing in his mind, he stepped out of the vault and crossed the wrecked control room.
"Seraph, I'm coming out," he said into his comms.
"Acknowledged," her voice replied, sharp and relieved. "We're at the entrance. The Golem hasn't moved."
As Jonah approached the main entrance, the massive stone doors began to grind open. He stepped out into the open air, blinking as his eyes adjusted.
The first thing he saw was Seraph's tense, worried face. The other three soldiers stood behind her, their weapons still aimed at the silent Golem on its throne.
As Jonah emerged, the Golem's molten silver eyes seemed to track him for a moment. It gave a slow, single nod – a gesture of acknowledgment from one Creator to another. Then, its eyes went dark, its ancient power receding back into the stone. It was dormant once more.
"Mission successful," Jonah said, patting the pouch on his belt.
A wave of relief washed over the team.
"Good work, Jonah," Seraph said, and for the first time, she placed a firm, approving hand on his shoulder. "Let's get out of this graveyard. I'm calling for extraction."
She tapped her comms unit. "Extraction team, this is Seraph. Mission objective secured. We are at the primary coordinates, ready for pickup. I repeat, ready for pickup."
"Copy that, Sergeant," the pilot's voice crackled back. "ETA five minutes. Sit tight."
Five minutes. It felt like an eternity, but it also felt like victory. Jonah let out a long, slow breath, the tension of the last few hours finally beginning to ebb. They had done it.
One of the soldiers, a man named Marcus who had a kind face despite his scars, grinned at Jonah. "Have to admit, kid, when you walked up to that thing, I thought you were toast. Never seen anything like it."
"Neither have I," Jonah admitted with a weak smile.
He could feel it then - a subtle shift in the way the soldiers looked at him. It wasn't just curiosity anymore. It was respect. He had proven himself in a way their guns and training couldn't.
But their relief was short-lived.
As the distant whump-whump-whump of the returning helicopter grew louder, the swamp water around the temple plaza began to churn. It started as a few lazy bubbles, then grew into a violent, boiling foam.
"What is that?" a soldier shouted, pointing his rifle at the water.
"Get ready!" Seraph commanded, her brief moment of calm shattered.
The raw life energy of the geode, unshielded and pulsing at Jonah's hip, had acted as a beacon. And it had called something from the deep.
With a roar that shook the ancient stones, a massive beast erupted from the water. It was a Hydra. Five long serpentine necks, each topped with a vicious, fanged head, rose from a massive, scaly body. Its eyes, ten of them in total, were ancient, cold, and filled with a predatory hunger.
This wasn't a common Demonic Beast. This was an Apex Predator, a living legend from a bygone era.
"Abort extraction!!" Seraph screamed into her comms. "We are engaged with a legendary-tier hostile! Repeat, LEGENDARY-TIER!"
The team opened fire. Their shots barely scratched the Hydra's thick scales. One of the soldiers launched a micro-rocket that struck a neck squarely. The head shrieked then blew apart in a spray of gore.
"Target confirmed hit!" the soldier yelled.
But their triumph turned to horror as two new necks, wet and pulsing with life, grew back almost instantly.
A creature that healed faster than they could wound it.
"We can't kill it!" Marcus shouted in despair, his face pale. "Every head we take, two more will replace it!"
"Fall back! Defensive positions!" Seraph ordered, her voice cutting through the panic.
The team scattered, taking cover behind stone pillars as the Hydra's heads lunged, snapping their jaws and spitting streams of corrosive venom that hissed and steamed where it struck the stone.
Jonah hid behind the Golem's empty throne, his heart pounding with a familiar, terrifying rhythm. He was outmatched. They all were. Even Ascended-Rank Elites would struggle against this monster.
"We need a way to stop its regeneration!" Seraph's voice yelled, a hint of desperation creeping in.
Jonah's mind raced, flipping through every scrap of beast lore he and Vanessa had dug up in the Restricted Section. Hydras… regeneration… He remembered a passage from a dusty, forbidden book. Hydra regeneration wasn't magical in the normal sense; it was biological, fueled by an incredibly fast, supercharged core metabolism.
You couldn't beat it from the outside. You had to disrupt it from the inside.
An idea sparked in his mind. An idea so wildly dangerous, so sacrificial, that it made his blood run cold.
He looked at the pouch on his belt, where the essence of the Swamp Stalker was safely stored. Then he thought of the Raging Boar essence still in his mental library – a chaotic force of pure fury and strength. They were powerful, but incompatible. Like oil and water. Or, more accurately, like gasoline and a lit match.
If he could get a Progeny with one kind of energy inside the Hydra… and then remotely force-synthesize it with an opposing energy…
The chain reaction inside – biological and magical – would be devastating.
But it would mean sacrificing one of his own creations. Not in battle, but as a living, breathing bomb. He would have to command it to its death.
He had promised the Artificer he would be a responsible Creator. But he had also promised Seraph and Vanessa he would come back alive.
He looked out from behind the throne. One of the soldiers screamed as a venomous glob caught his leg, the armor sizzling and melting away.
There was no other choice.
"Seraph!" he shouted, his voice cracking with the terrible weight of his decision. "I have a plan! But it's… it's going to be messy."