Chapter 62: Endurance of a True Warrior

  Zuls laughed at the System. She couldn’t believe that it actually thought her team could win this fight. After the challenging roar of the behemoth they shared the mountain top with, all her bonded attacked. Determination was in the eyes of her bonded as they threw everything they had at the hydragon. Even with all that, it still wasn’t enough. She activated all her skills to boost her team’s speed, power, stamina, and defense. Once she coordinated a plan of attack, she even jumped in herself with her newfound skills.

  All eleven of them failed to penetrate the scales of the beast. The defensive capabilities alone were too much for them and then it attacked. One head shot a stream of the hottest flames she had ever felt, another shot deadly dark lightning, and the third used a breath of void magic. If any of the attacks connected, they would have died instantly. Speed was the only thing they had an advantage with and even that wasn’t by much.

  Snowfall and Sovereign ended up getting batted away by two of the heads when trying to connect melee attacks. After that the team fell back to the stairway in the mountain to regroup. Zuls realized this was going to be another test of endurance. She grew her body over the last three years and now it was time to grow her skills.

  ***

  Every day they woke up and battled the fearsome Hydragon. Every day they would make small bits of progress. Her bonded could level up and get stronger like she could. The System seemed to give her an extra trial for her bonded.

  The first few times they would retreat when two got injured or if it looked like one was in trouble of being lethally damaged. Forty fights later, they wouldn’t retreat until each one of them was so exhausted that they couldn’t continue. One mistake and it would all be over for any of them; however, they all knew that playing it safe wouldn’t get them the progress they needed to win this fight. Risk often resulted in a greater reward.

  Fight one-hundred and sixty-two was when they were finally able to pierce the hide. Her wyvern had been working on its mana-infused bite and was able to catch the Hydragon off guard with her illusion magic. The teeth barely sank into the neck, but this was a turning point and renewed their determination.

  Fight four hundred found them dodging the Hydragon perfectly and resulted in Snowfall using one of her massive claws to cut an entire head off at the neck. Zuls was excited until two heads grew in its place. These two heads of course took some time to grow and couldn’t use any attacks for a while. Unfortunately, they couldn’t capitalize on the advantage because the monster started flapping its wings creating a gust that almost blew them off the mountain. When they recovered the Hydragon was waiting and nearly killed Fort with a devastating bite.

  Fight six hundred and thirty-eight was different from the start. Her and her bonded had gained levels, strength, endurance, and near-perfect strategy by this point. When they walked up the stairs and stared down the four heads of the Hydragon, there was exhaustion in its eyes. Zuls almost felt bad for it. Still, they had to succeed in winning this fight.

  She used her skills to boost her party and then they all went on the offensive. Zuls took the left and cloaked herself but left an illusion of herself running in the center. Sovereign did the same except took the right flank. Snowfall went up the middle while casting her massive blizzard domain. She had worked on it so much that it now covered the whole plateau and significantly slowed the Hydragon down. Even the razor snow was able to do damage by going in the small spaces between the beast’s scales.

  Blink kept his distance but shot blight clouds into the face of each head which helped to obscure its vision. Fort put magical shells around each of them as a protection spell and then attempted to intercept any hits that the Hydragon would land. Ghost and Whimper were in charge of being distractions by taunting their foe and then turning ethereal or invisible to avoid being hit while taking the openings they got to deal some damage. Element would counter the fire with his water, blow away the poison smog that the new head would release with his wind magic, and then block the lightning and gusts with earth barricades. Claw was in charge of fast attacks on the feet of the Hydragon while Siz was to shoot fire from the right flank and Gliya shot beams of light down from above.

  They were a well-oiled machine after so long of fighting the same enemy. On this particular fight, the plan went together flawlessly.

  Blink aimed perfectly with the blight clouds which irritated the Hydragon. The clouds would sting at its eyes. This gave Gliya the cover she needed to fly up and shoot a light beam directly into one set effectively blinding it for a short time. She had chosen the furthest head to the right which gave Sovereign her chance to strike at the throat. Her teeth sank in deep, and she pulled hard to decapitate it. Now the timer was on. In sixty seconds, two more heads would grow. They needed to end this before that happened.

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  Lightning, gusts of wind, shadow smog, and void breath were being blindly launched at them. Luckily, Fort and Element kept them all safe. Siz got hit by a stray lightning bolt, but it only clipped his wing, and he was able to continue. His fire wasn’t that effective anyways due to the beast being fire resistant. It would still do some damage, and all damage mattered.

  The Hydragon got a glimpse of Whimper and went to bite, but Ghost was there to muzzle the beast which Whimper took as an opening and stabbed both eyes with his sharp talons. He then followed up with a disorientating sound attack but channeled it down into their foe through his feet into its eye socked. A roar of pain followed and in that instant of distraction, Snowfall jumped up and took the lightning head off with her ferocious claws. Two down two to go.

  Gliya continued to shoot light beams and ended up getting blasted out of the sky when one met a void beam. An explosion shook the air and the bright hawk fell into a soft pile of earth courtesy of Element. Ghost used his tentacles to tangle the two remaining heads together which gave Claw a moment to jump on the beast’s back and start to make deep cuts in one of the necks. She was a quarter of the way through when the Hydragon became enraged and spun quickly to shake everyone off. Its massive tail connected with Element, Fort, and Snowfall sending them flying back. Claw fell off and one of her legs was broken with a furious stomp. Ghost became ethereal to avoid being ripped apart by the gargantuan strength of their foe. Blink continued to shoot clouds of blight except switched to a more acidic cloud that ate through the scales on the Hydragon.

  It stared them down with a burning hatred and was about to release a massive void breath at the fallen when a dagger blade from an invisible Zuls cut clean through the partially severed neck. This seemed to shock the Hydragon and in panic it started to fly away with the powerful wings, but before it could, Sovereign claimed the final head by diving from above and ripping it off at the base of the neck.

  The body fell limp with a loud crash. Luckily, all the fallen were too far back to be squished. Zuls lay on her back trying to catch her breath. She could feel all her bonded were okay, they just needed to rest and heal minor injuries. Claw would need more time for her broken leg. With a thought she recalled all of them into the special dimensional bag on her hip. When she did, everything once again went white.

  Congratulations Zullany, you have completed your trial and the final challenge!

  Bonus experience has been awarded.

  Triumph of Oneself Achievement has been unlocked.

  Triumph of Oneself: You have completed a trial dungeon and triumphed over what was weighing down your soul. Through knowing yourself better and cleansing your soul, your resources have benefited. Stamina and Mana will now regenerate at double the rate.

  Inspire Endurance Achievement has been unlocked.

  Inspire Endurance: You have went above and beyond where endurance is involved. Inspire your allies by giving off an aura of endurance. All allies within your aura will be granted your stamina regeneration rate in addition to their own.

  New skill has been awarded

  Power Bond: Gain the abilities of all your active bonded. You can only borrow one ability from each bonded at any one time. Strength of the ability borrowed depends on the level of this skill.

  Zuls was hoping that she would get to keep the ability to share powers with her bonded. She loved being able to be more effective on the battlefield. It felt right to be in the thick of things with them laying down her life. This skill allowed her to do that. In addition, she had gained the achievement that everyone was getting for completing the trial dungeon except she had gotten an extra achievement which would greatly improve her allies in and outside of battle. If she was reading this right that would mean anyone that completes the dungeon will be getting four times their normal stamina regeneration rate while around her. That’s a huge boon.

  She was happy with her rewards and on top of that with that last fight lasting so long, her skills went up by at least ten each, putting her at level thirty! That’s huge for her. At this milestone she will get to choose two new skills to add to her class. She decided that she would get out of the dungeon first, which she thought would have already happened.

  For completing the bonus challenge, you have gained an additional reward.

  Egg of the Hydragon (Mythical): This mighty ancestor of both dragons and hydras alike was killed off thousands of years ago by class chosen. Their scales are extremely valuable and can be used to make high-tier armor. Feed it your mana overtime to hatch this beast of legend.

  Her eyes widened. This would give her the chance to bond a Hydragon! Of course, she would hatch it and have it as one of her bonded. It was one of the toughest opponents she had ever faced. She would be honored to bring this animal back into existence.

  A second later she was outside the door holding the massive egg. Her mind was overwhelmed with the feeling of pride. She had done it. Succeeding in something so brutal and difficult was something she never thought she could accomplish. This proved to her and everyone else that she was truly strong. Wiping the tears of joy away, she walked up the stairs, and the final thought she had while alone was that she was excited to see how much stronger she would get.