Stowaway vampires have a tendency to set up incredibly convoluted schemes to take ownership of anything that catches their fancy. You may not immediately pay for neglecting your checks, but you will pay for it. Often disproportionately so.


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    It was not easy.


    Against the hydra’s relentless and targeted assault, he had to revert constantly. Jair had Bladewalk, Lift, and Darkflame for mobility, but none of his attack spells did more than irritate the creature.


    The frantic chaos of hydra necks and heads and teeth was more of a dance of evasion than anything. It attacked relentlessly in rapid sequence, phasing itself in and out of reality as it slid through obstacles and struck out with a dozen attacks at once.


    Jair darkflamed behind it. Three of its tails lashed for him immediately, the first very nearly hitting him the moment he appeared.


    He teleported in front of it and one of its heads was ready and waiting for him. Its golden-glowing eyes stared into his as he twitched and teleported himself back away, only to meet another of its tails lashing out to coil around his leg.


    Mere moments into the fight and he was already on the back foot against this thing.


    He slashed out at the tail that held him, but it hurled him away before he could complete the strike. He caught himself with Lift and stabilized in midair, then threw himself upward and out of the way of a lunging head.


    Jair darkflamed again, landing atop one of the nearby trees and fully out of sight from the monster''s swamp.


    Qahrvirna''s vampiric attacks, Eythron''s Soulcutter, and Maelstrom would all be sufficient to damage it even when incorporeal, but the creature was too fast and had too many attacks of its own. Any time they attacked from a distance, it predicted the attack and moved out of the way before it could get anywhere close. For any of them to get in close enough to checkmate the thing would mean getting close enough for it to bite back in retaliation.


    It had the advantage of multiple angles of attack, its long necks able to snake around to attack from unexpected directions, and there was nothing any of them could do to hold it back. It was too big, too heavy, too fast. They simply didn''t have the size or strength to do anything.


    Jair could have stopped it with magic very easily if it had been any other type of hydra, but that did them no good here.


    Jair took a moment to reorient himself and give the hydra a chance to forget about him and refocus on someone else, then darkflamed himself above it with Maelstrom already pointed down.


    "Bladewalk," and he was diving at the hydra''s back—


    But its golden-eyed head was already there, again, its mouth perfectly positioned to bite down on his arm as he flashed past, so he aborted and reverted before it could bite down.


    The speed at which the thing could move put the rest of them to shame. When it decided to rush through, they could do nothing but scatter out of the way. Its low body was solid enough that even if you tried to duck and managed to avoid being stepped on, it would still crush you flat from sheer impact.


    The hydra’s bulky main body didn’t turn very fast, but its heads whipped around at unbelievable speeds. It could snap out and bite with pinpoint accuracy mid-charge, and only needed one of its heads to be paying attention to driving.


    It reminded Jair of a carriage full of archers running at full speed, except instead of arrows they had magically-enhanced soul-eating hungry hydra heads to deal with.


    It was a perfect stalemate. The hydra had insane mobility, enough to match Jair and Eythron evenly, and such a wide variety of attacks at its disposal. But they had enough dangerous weapons of their own to keep it from fully engaging. It knew as well as they did that the first one to move would be just as dead as the other.


    The problem was, the hydra had a lot more lives to play with. Each of its heads had its own independent life and soulspell, so as long as it traded one for one it could kill them all with heads to spare.


    It shied away from anything short of a killing blow, but the number of times it found an opening and Jair had to revert to save one of them bordered on ludicrous.


    Unlike most fights he’d experienced, which he could reverse even after physically and magically dying, in this conflict he couldn’t allow himself to be hit. Being killed or even injured would leave terrifying long-term repercussions.


    Only a minute had passed in real time despite the fight going on for nearly an hour; he’d needed to revert that many times.


    The whole thing was an exercise in frustration.


    Every advantage Eythron and Uqiar had spent years building up, all of it was enough to level the playing field just closely enough for Jair to stalemate the thing with his best efforts and full exploitation of Temporal Reversion.


    Finally, when they’d shown no indication of being able to outmaneuver the monster, Jair reverted all the way to before he woke it up.


    “What’s this for?” Eythron demanded. “We barely got started.”


    “This isn’t working.”


    Okaya stared out across the calm flat surface of the swamp that a moment before had been thrashing with hungry hydra heads. “It wasn’t this fast before.”


    “It’s predicting us. That top head, with the gold eyes…” Jair summoned Maelstrom and held it up to display the window into its gold-lined depths. Identical gold. “I fought this hydra once before, several years into the future, and it didn’t have this head at that time. But since my soulspell is temporal in nature, I believe that it’s inherited part of my ability. Whether to revert or see the future, I can’t guess, but it’s moving too perfectly. Predicting us too precisely.”


    Eythron grunted. “So we need to take out that head first.”


    Jair nodded.


    “But it must know that’s its greatest strength,” Raina pointed out. “Won’t it protect it above all?”


    “Yes. If you pay close attention to its patterns, you’ll see that head never makes attacks itself, always stays up out of range. Which is why we need to be unified and decisive. Have to get it into a situation it can’t escape no matter what it does. I don’t see any way to do that without any of us being in its reach.”


    “You’re quick to give up.”


    “No, I’ve assessed the situation and come to a conclusion based on that information.”


    Eythron scoffed. “Two minutes? Three? That’s not long at all. This is going to be a fight that lasts for hours and you’re upset that we haven’t won in the opening stanzas?”


    “We’re not going to survive hours at this rate. If I hadn’t been here, you’d have lost Uqiar and Qahrvirna already in the first eighteen seconds.”


    “Sounds to me like you’re giving up.”


    Jair flung his hands in the air. “What do you want, old man? It’s all I can do to keep you all alive! Any time I lose its full focus of attention, it would have one or more of you dead in moments. But without you all to split its attention, it would be able to kill me in moments. So what’s your plan?”


    “Kill it.”


    Jair’s tense breath was the closest he could come to control. “We can’t just kill it. That’s not how this works.”


    “It would if you stopped interfering.”


    Jair narrowed his eyes at his old mentor. “You really expect me to sit back and watch you die?”


    “I expect you to take advantage of the opening and kill it.”


    Jair took two steps forward and grabbed Eythron by the front of his robes. “That’s not how I operate, old man. You don’t get to die on me. I won’t allow it.”


    “This is inevitable. You only make it sooner.”


    “No. I do not accept that.”


    Eythron’s sword was between them, pressing against Jair’s throat. “Give up if you want, boy, but I will not be delayed any longer.”


    Jair stood still, but for the heaving of his chest. He tried to think of something, anything, to persuade Eythron against this course of action, but the way his mentor looked right now he wouldn’t put it past the man to actually stab him if he tried to hold him back.


    Raina’s voice broke the tension as she raised her hand. “I can do it.”


    Jair spun on her, prepared to argue.


    “It’s a trade, right? One head for one of us?” She hurried on before he could interrupt. “Maelstrom has highest priority on my soul, so it’ll hold it in escrow until…” She licked her lips and swallowed. “Until you can get me back out. Right? All I need to do is wait.”


    “And once the time-sight head is out of the way, the rest of us can finish it off quickly,” Qahrvirna said, eagerly. “It won’t be a match for us without that.”


    “I won’t do it. I won’t let you.”


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    Eythron didn’t relent. “Either help me or stand aside.”


    “I’ll find another way.”


    He threw himself back into the swamp, unwilling to budge, determined to find the way through. There would be a way. There had to be.


    He darted around the battlefield, slashing and darkflaming and moving through the chaos of flailing hydra heads.


    A one-minute fight stretched out into hours as he replayed it one moment at a time until each was flawless.


    Lift Qahrvirna out of the way. Fly at the teal head and it’ll back off of Raina. Darkflame out of reach and stab toward its foot to make it dance back. Block the blue head from getting to Eythron.


    Darkflame right up in the gold head’s face so it doesn’t see Okaya’s attack. Stab the crystal octide head when it comes in for a bite, then darkflame Uqiar out of the way as soon as his claws connect.


    In theory, the tiny damage his allies were doing could add up in the end, but the hydra would definitely be willing to overcommit to an attack long before it got anywhere close to dying of its dozen or so cuts.


    Each moment was harder than the last. The hydra kept pushing and pushing, always exactly where it would be most difficult for him to intervene, always going for a killing blow.


    He could only stall it for so long.


    Gradually his progress slowed, then stopped. The hydra had too many of his allies locked in place, could strike three at once and he couldn’t possibly save them all.


    Jair fought and he reverted and he fought and reverted and fought and reverted in an endless stream.


    The same half a word from Eythron.


    The same two steps from Raina.


    The same grin from Qahrvirna.


    That damnable hiss of triumph as the hydra knew it had him outplayed.


    The only two things to change were Jair and the hydra, as they played out this eternal war in micro reversions. The others tried to adjust, but there simply wasn’t time.


    The hydra snapped and retreated, never quite catching him again but tearing little rifts into his armor with each bite. Jair slashed and stabbed, never quite connecting fully enough to get a real grip on the soul, and when he did it was always too brief to do any real damage unless he was willing to accept its bite in return.


    If it had only the one head, it might even be a tradeoff he could accept, but with how many heads it did have… giving it that much time to ravage his soul was not something he wanted to experience.


    The stalemate dragged on, and on, and on.


    He reverted further back, but that only shifted the battleground.


    The same slash from Eythron, the same yelp from Raina.


    The same darting array of strikes from seven of the eight heads as the golden-eyed one presided over them and watched Jair with unsettling intensity.


    He reverted and darkflamed, he slashed out and reverted. He darkflamed and stabbed down, reverted and roared as its fangs sank down and reverted before they could reach skin, and darkflamed and slashed up...


    This was too much, too painful, too draining. He didn''t remember ever being so miserable. Even Mercurios had been more interesting. Even Ryenzo had been more understandable. Sekir was downright fun in comparison, even if he was infuriating with his subversion and mind games.


    The star hydra was pure death. He''d watched this fight from every angle, every possible move. He knew its reactions better than he knew his own, and yet it wasn''t enough.


    Neither could win without subjecting themselves to the same destruction.


    The same judging glare from Eythron, the same pleading in Raina’s eyes.


    It wasn’t only himself he was subjecting to this endless nightmare, and he’d fully exhausted the possibilities.


    He couldn''t take it any more.


    That grinning hydra head watching him, necks twisting and flexing out of the way of his every swing, mouths darting in to snap at him then withdraw before he could target them to retaliate.


    Eythron’s eyes met his, cold and demanding.


    Jair looked between his two dearest friends, both of whom were so eager to throw themselves into danger. He hadn’t thought his heart could get any heavier, that any dread could come close to what he’d already experienced in the past.


    He’d been wrong.


    And something deep inside him cracked.


    He reverted one last time.


    “Fine. We’ll do it.” His voice came out flat, his body moved with collected calm, as though his heart wasn’t racing, as though his mind wasn’t collapsing in on itself. “Raina, with me. Eythron, take it head on. We won’t get a second chance at this.”


    Raina stepped onto Maelstrom’s flat with him. Lift and Bladewalk augmented each other, shooting them across to the center of the swamp. Raina held Tempest in both hands, ready.


    Jair mentally replayed the hydra’s rise and appearance, the exact positioning of each of its heads. He positioned Raina directly behind where the golden-eyed one would appear, then flew down to the place where he’d started the fight the previous time.


    "Do not hesitate."


    Raina nodded, picking up on his serious mood.


    Jair struck downward.


    The hydra rose up to face them. Its golden head whipped around, forewarned already, diving at Raina as she drove Tempest into its oncoming throat.


    It accepted the trade, biting down on her arm as it took the sword through the inside of its mouth, three other heads rushing up to finish her off.


    Jair darkflamed above it and drove downward.


    The time-sight head couldn''t release itself from its victim quite fast enough to react in its own defence, but it was able to bring two more of its heads up to meet him.


    Jair slammed down with Maelstrom through its skull just before the other two reached him.


    Raina looked up at him, trust deep in her eyes even as she cried out and the hydra tore her in half. He didn’t dare allow his doubt to show on his face. He’d experimented on his own soul enough times and ways, but always within his own control. Soul-eating enemies were not something to play around with or gamble.


    Jair''s turn wasn''t long in coming, but he was ready for it as the other heads reached him.


    The tradeoff would be a tradeoff. He’d already amply proven he couldn''t simply win without sacrifice.


    Time to meet this thing on its own level.


    Within his mind and soul, Maelstrom screamed and Tempest roared in fury.


    Their connection had always before been a brief thing, momentary as they consumed and divided their enemy’s essence between them.


    This was not brief.


    Tempest’s anger was a hunger beyond anything Jair had ever experienced before. It had its tiny teeth in the hydra’s soul and it wanted more. Maelstrom had never been so desperate, never needed so much power so fast.


    Holding Raina’s soul securely when she’d been killed by a sword was an entirely different thing from snatching it back from a soul predator’s grip. The only way to keep her safe was to consume the hydra whole.


    Each hydra head’s soul was connected to the others by a complex network of intangible mana threads. The golden-eyed soul went down easy, but all the rest resisted. The threads got tangled and choked his metaphorical throat.


    Jair felt the hydra''s soul within Maelstrom''s grip even as hydra fangs from every angle pierced through body and spirit. He pulled harder, pitting his soul strength directly against the hydra’s, but it was no contest. The hydra was ancient. Not prehistoric-ancient like Mercurios, probably only a few hundred years old, but its soul made Sekir''s and Eythron''s both look trivial and childish.


    It didn''t matter how much he was hurt in the process. There was more than just himself on the line. No room for hesitation or failure. All or nothing. Win or die.


    Any other fight, this standoff would have been enough to send him running to the past to escape. Anything pitting him soul to soul against something of equal or greater strength? Nope. No way. Do not want.


    Maybe Jair had been a little bit too cautious of soul attacks in the past. It was his one true weakness remaining. In hindsight, it seemed foolish to train only a little beyond the peak of human knowledge.


    The peak of human knowledge was a pathetic thing. Elven techniques took centuries, and they were in no hurry to share with lesser peoples. Beastkin had innate differences that made their techniques all but impossible to replicate for non-beastkin.


    Limits, barriers.


    But in reality, none of those could have stopped him if he truly committed himself to the pursuit. They were excuses he told himself. He saw that now. It had been fear that kept him from further developing his soul’s strength.


    He’d tested his soul, stretched it, and experimented on it. He’d used it as a weapon, and used it as a shield. He’d told himself he was doing everything he could…yet any adversary that could remotely threaten it, he avoided instead of confronting.


    Perhaps that had been the right call. Perhaps if he’d gone up against a vampire or star hydra or seascourge or any of the other soul-touching monsters, he’d have been destroyed for good. Or maybe he could have been better prepared for something like this.


    He hadn''t. Now was his trial by fire.


    Without having already consumed that first head’s fiery soul, without the threads dragging out to all the rest, he’d have been dead already. Maelstrom would not be so easily disregarded. It anchored him, prevented the hydra from slurping him in as easily as it wanted to.


    Yet neither could he gain any ground, one against seven. Within that suspended soulsight there was no room for either side to claim advantage.


    But this time, he wasn’t alone.


    In those moments between death and dissolution, his eyes flicked from the hydra to Eythron, to Uqiar and Qahrvirna and Okaya.


    They would take care of him, even if this fight left him helpless and shattered.


    He could, for once, trust in something outside himself. He didn''t have to be the only person doing anything. He didn''t have to fully deal with the fallout. Didn''t have to hide alone and run and scrape for every moment of survival.


    He''d survived years of recovery before, and he could survive years of recovery again. He could accept the damage and the pain and grow from it, and he could rely on his friends to keep him from being lost entirely.


    This wasn''t the first time he''d had people he could depend on. Some of these very people had been there for him in countless other situations across so many timelines he couldn''t count them, but there was a difference to it now. They knew. Not just believed, not just trusted, they were fully committed to his course. Their course. Their goals were unified, their destination clear.


    They travelled in time with him.


    They would finish Eythron''s hydra hunt together. They would deal with Sekir together. They would find Raina the materials she needed to reforge Tempest together. They would deal with the Beastlord and whatever other future threats may have come up beyond when Jair had gone forward into the future. Together.


    There was nothing to be afraid of.


    So he let go.


    He released every part of himself that had been holding back, trying to keep him safe at all costs, and threw his soul straight into the center of the hydra''s remaining tangle with a wordless roar.


    The time was now. And he was hungry.


    The hydra’s heads tore at his body and soul, but Maelstrom was beyond their reach. They could tear apart the connections that let him move, breathe, fight physically, but the star hydra was never going to be a physical opponent.


    This was always going to be a battle of souls. And Jair''s had been timid and avoidant for too long.


    Sometimes the only way to win was to throw everything into it, no matter the consequences. He''d not held back when he was forging Maelstrom, not to the very moment of his death. And he couldn''t hold back here.


    He''d tried that. Danced and danced that wearying fight of never engaging, of no sacrifice, of no risk.


    But when had he ever won by playing it safe?


    Maelstrom''s hunger would not be denied. Jair had never felt so desperately ravenous in his life. He''d been hungry physically, sometimes to extremes, and he’d experienced a severely depleted manabody, but he''d never had a hungry soul.


    It felt like what he remembered from having a chunk torn out of his soul, except worse. It wasn''t an external attack or superficial loss, it was internal. Like his soul was eating itself from the inside out.


    It would be excruciating under ordinary circumstances, but knowing that every second he didn’t finish this was another moment for Raina’s soul to be broken apart? Unbearable.


    He had to have it all.


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