Chapter 1067: Promises of Vengeance

The nine heads of the Hydra that had been curled up gradually untangled themselves and lifted into the air, and the middle head, after rising high above the others, opened its eyes and revealed a pair of pale-yellow reptilian eyes with slit pupils that immediately locked onto Arthur and Alexia.

After the middle head opened its eyes, the rest of the Hydra’s heads slowly began opening their own eyes as well, and soon, Arthur had nine pairs of eighteen eyes staring directly down at him.

Arthur didn’t flinch under the Hydra’s heavy gaze, silently waiting a few seconds for the creature to blink repeatedly.

When he noticed that the haze in its eyes was now replaced with complete focus, Arthur stepped forward and spoke.

"Hello there, Hydra. Sorry for the rude awakening, but I wanted to speak with you, and I couldn’t exactly do that while you were asleep."

Wearing his usual casual smile, Arthur continued speaking, "First off, I suppose introductions are in order. I know who you are, but you have no idea who I am."

Arthur took his right hand out of his pocket, placed it on his chest and then said, "I am the son of Olympus’s King of the Underworld and Hell’s Archdevil of Destruction. My name is Arthur Vaughn, and I am the Progenitor of godslayers."

The Hydra’s middle head glowed lightly, its eyes narrowing slightly at those words.

"I came here with an offer, a proposition, a request, whatever you could call it," Arthur continued. "But before I do that, I suppose I should update you on the state of things across the universe and beyond. There are lots of things that are different from how they were since you got stuck here."

Moving his hand away from his chest, Arthur rapidly condensed knowledge law energy within his palm, forming a crystal about the size of his fist. He then tossed the crystal into the air and then hit it with his hand like a baseball, sending it flying all the way towards the Hydra’s middle head.

It drew a parabolic arc in the air, and the Hydra silently watched it fall down to the ground before its body.

"Take it," Arthur said. "It’s a memory gem with a summary of things that have transpired over the past hundred thousand years since Heracles put you here.

It’s from the perspective of an outsider of this region of the multiverse, so it’s fairly objective without any personal biases towards those who hail from this area.

Go ahead and review it. I’ll give you time. I’d like for you to understand exactly how things are before I make my offer."

With that, Arthur put his hand back into his pocket, and the Hydra’s middle head simply stared at him in silence before flicking its eyes towards Alexia, who was being stared at by its remaining eight heads.

Alexia simply stood by, tapping her feet on the ground while glancing around at the swamp, clearly having no interest in joining Arthur’s conversation with the Hydra.

After a few seconds of silence, the Hydra lowered one of its heads and, with the tip of its nose, tapped the memory gem. It rolled across the ground a little bit, and after seeing no reaction, it then tapped the memory gem again and infused magic power into it.

As the Hydra began to peruse the contents of the memory gem, Arthur brought out his phone to play a game to pass the time, coating it with cosmic energy so it wouldn’t melt from the poison filling the air around him.

Several minutes passed in such a manner before a deep, feminine voice suddenly echoed across the area.

"What do you want?"

Arthur’s fingers paused when he heard that voice, and he blinked several times in surprise.

’Huh? The Hydra’s female?’

[No,] Lostvayne immediately corrected. [It’s a unique creature to which the concept of ’Gender’ does not apply.]

As if to confirm Lostvayne’s words, three of the Hydra’s heads lowered and moved closer to Arthur, with all three parting their lips simultaneously.

"Speak, child of Hades."

This time, while the voice was still deep, it was no longer within the alto range, instead possessing a masculine baritone.

Arthur looked up at the Hydra’s heads, which were staring directly at him, before locking his phone screen and tossing the device into his subspace, then responded to the Hydra.

"If you’ve seen everything that there is to see inside that memory gem, you should know exactly what I represent. I also added a little extra into it. You saw that, right?"

To Arthur’s question, the middle head’s lips parted before it spoke.

"If you’re talking about being the one to orchestrate that war that’s currently going on outside, then yes, I saw that. What does that have to do with your presence here?"

"What it has to do with my presence here is that war is part of the first stage of my plan to deal with Olympus," Arthur said. "To be precise, to deal with the existences within Olympus that have really been getting on my nerves, even before I was born."

Arthur chuckled lightly after he spoke, but that laughter disappeared a second later.

"I’m putting together an army, and an army needs ’Generals’ to command them. I want you to become one of them, Hydra," he declared calmly.

"I want you to work for me, and in return, not only would I free you from your imprisonment, but I would also give you the opportunity to achieve whatever revenge you want upon the existences of Olympus.

It was Heracles who put you here, didn’t he? Then I’ll deliver Heracles to you to do with as you please. Coming under my wing would grant you the opportunity to gain strength even greater than what Heracles currently possesses, so when the time comes, he shall be the one to kneel at your feet."

Arthur cast a glance at the swamp around them before continuing. "Maybe you might put him in a swamp of his own, chained to the ground under a bunch of rocks."

Looking back up at the Hydra, Arthur asked, "So what say you, Hydra? If you accept my offer, I shall use my Authority as the Progenitor of godslayers upon you to transform you into a godslayer-dragon.

You would retain all the powers you have, and you shall have the racial ability of godslayers, a trait that I’ve recently taken to calling godsbane."

Arthur swirled Anti-Divinity around his body and then proceeded to explain.

"What I call ’godsbane’ is the ability to weaken those with the Divine Factor within a certain radius. It also grants increased resistance to damage from those who possess Divine Factors, and increased damage against them, all things that seem pretty useful when dealing with Heracles when the opportunity comes."

Extending his right hand towards the Hydra, Arthur asked again.

"So, child of Typhon and Echidna who is called ’Hydra’, what is your response to my offer?"

The moment Arthur spoke the names of the Hydra’s parents, its eyes narrowed, every single one locking onto him, even though it meant that they weren’t looking at Aleixa anymore, the one whose presence made the Hydra’s instincts scream in alarm.

"You dare utter those nam—?!"

"Please, let’s not get started on that," Arthur said, cutting the Hydra off while waving his hand dismissively.

"Your mother doesn’t really mind me uttering hers or her husband’s name, so I don’t see why that should be a problem."

The Hydra’s eyes glowed faintly at Arthur’s words that implied that he had spoken with Echidna, and seeing the look in its eyes, Arthur continued speaking.

"I visited your mother a few days ago, before I began my journey here. She seems to like her new home and taking care of your many other siblings. Told me to bring you around if I could."

Arthur lowered his hand, sliding it back into his pocket as he asked for the third time.

"So? Are you accepting my offer?"

The Hydra didn’t immediately respond to Arthur, only staring at him silently. Then, it turned its head towards the giant boulders that kept its body pinned to the ground.

No matter how hard it tried to push those boulders away, it couldn’t succeed, as the gravity of those boulders increased the more strength it tried to use to push them away.

"You said you were going to release me from this imprisonment," the Hydra said. Some of its heads turned towards Arthur as it continued speaking. "Do it, then I will consider your offer."

Arthur raised an eyebrow at those words, then shrugged lightly.

"Fine," he said. "You’ve got yourself a deal."

Alexia’s eyes widened at his agreement, and she immediately let out a confused sound.

"Huh? Wait, Arthur, what are you—"

"Don’t worry about it, Alexia," Arthur interrupted. "I know exactly what it is I’m doing."

Looking at the giant boulders pressing the Hydra’s body into the ground, he activated his Anti-Divine Gravity Authority and analysed them silently.

A moment later, a wave of Anti-Divinity erupted from his body, flowing across the ground and into the giant boulders as the laws of gravity bent to Arthur’s will, causing the boulders to become lighter.

Then, Arthur exhaled lightly, breathing out destruction law energy that rapidly condensed in front of his mouth to form a small tennis-ball-sized orb.

Arthur raised his hand and grabbed it, then tossed it up in the air, caught it and threw it towards the now-lightened boulders.

The Hydra had an incredulous gaze in some of its eyes, wondering exactly what Arthur hoped to accomplish with such a small orb of law energy.

But when its middle head looked directly at that orb, its eyes all widened as it sensed the potent power condensed within it.

’There’s something else besides mere destruction inside that thing!’

That was the thought that crossed the Hydra’s mind right before Arthur began to speak.

"Everything began from nothing, and everything eventually returns to nothing. I just so happen to have the power to accelerate this natural process."

The orb of destructive energy made contact with the mountain of boulders, and simultaneously, Arthur muttered a single command.

|Begone.|

A bright flash of silver light suddenly erupted across the mountain of boulders from the point where Arthur’s law energy orb had made contact.

There was no loud explosion or thunderous rumbling like the Hydra expected, but when the light died down, there was now a gigantic hole within the mountain of boulders that had imprisoned the Hydra for millennia.

Everything directly above the Hydra had simply been deleted, leaving behind an enormous empty space where a huge section of the mountain of boulders had previously existed.

The boulders positioned far above in the sky, having suddenly lost the support that had held them in place, began falling downwards like meteors.

Arthur then clenched his fist, wrapping the chains binding the Hydra with anti-divinity. This negated the divinity contained within them before crushing the chains with immense gravitational force.

The binds wrapped around the Hydra’s body, and its necks broke apart, finally releasing the creature from its imprisonment.

The rocks that were left upon its back were too weak to press it down anymore, so the Hydra immediately raised its body and shook them off.

Simultaneously, the rocks that fell from above came crashing down onto the ground, each impact sending the liquefied poison filling the swamp floor splashing everywhere.