Hydra continued crawling rapidly through the city, repeatedly slamming into the tall stone buildings of Yufei City. More stone structures crumbled under its force, sending massive boulders tumbling through the air — crashing down onto Hydra's body and onto the Suzaku Guard Captain alike.
With a heavy thud, a boulder nearly a meter in diameter slammed squarely into the Suzaku Guard Captain's head. Despite the protection of his sturdy metal helmet, the impact was devastating. In an instant, all strength drained from his body, and he slid straight off Hydra's back, crashing hard onto the ground below.
One of the great serpent heads lunged at the Suzaku Guard Captain as he lay there, coiling its massive body around him. The serpent began to tighten its grip, its overwhelming strength crushing down on him from every direction. The Suzaku Guard Captain let out a groan of agony. Pinned beneath the serpent's crushing force, he couldn't move a muscle — his joints and bones screamed in searing pain, his entire skeleton on the verge of snapping.
"That guy's in trouble — what should we do?" Kallen spotted the Suzaku Guard Captain caught in Hydra's grasp and quickly called Rulu through her comm device.
Rulu glanced over at the Suzaku Guard Captain, then said, "I'm going to keep looking for whoever is controlling Hydra from behind the scenes. As for everything else, Kallen — that's your call. Whether you save him or not is up to you."
"Why do you always dump your problems on me…" Kallen muttered in complaint. She felt genuinely torn. Her instincts told her to treat anyone from the Sanctuary as an enemy, and every part of her resisted the idea of rescuing the Suzaku Guard Captain. And yet, letting him die didn't sit right with her either. In the end, she made her decision and sped toward Hydra.
Sensing Kallen's approach, one of the massive heads immediately lunged at her with snapping jaws. Kallen moved swiftly across the ground, nimbly dodging the strike. She locked her gaze onto the serpent coiled around the Suzaku Guard Captain and fired four grappling hooks straight at its head — each one hitting its mark and wrapping tight around it.
Kallen launched herself into a powerful leap and landed on the serpent's body. Using the tension of the hooks to anchor herself, she steadied her footing and began racing along the serpent's length toward Hydra's main heads.
The serpent noticed her advancing toward its head and immediately opened its enormous maw, belching a torrent of flame directly at her. Kallen didn't flinch or dodge — relying on her armor's protection, she pushed straight through the fire and kept moving toward Hydra's head. With a mighty leap, she launched herself off the serpent's body and dove directly into the throat of the flame-spewing head. She drove the silver short blade on her forearm deep into the serpent's gullet, burying it so far that it nearly pierced clean through the entire head.
The blow inflicted catastrophic damage on the serpent's head. The serpent thrashed wildly, flinging Kallen out of its mouth. She spun through the air, adjusted her body, and landed feet-first on the ground. Then she immediately sprinted away from Hydra, shouting as she ran, "Hey — you, Suzaku Guard Captain — now's your chance! Get out of there!"
The serpent coiled around the Suzaku Guard Captain convulsed from the devastating strike to its head, its grip involuntarily loosening. The Suzaku Guard Captain pressed both hands against the serpent's body and forced his way out from the coils. He dropped off the serpent, hit the ground, and bolted away from Hydra as fast as he could.
Hydra saw him trying to flee and immediately gave chase, surging across the ground at tremendous speed. The Suzaku Guard Captain had taken injuries and was moving far slower than before. It didn't take long for Hydra to close the gap. One of the serpent heads rammed into him like a battering ram, sending him flying ten to twenty meters before he crashed hard onto the ground, unable to move.
Then, from somewhere in the distance, a piercing shriek of a flute rang out.
Hydra — mid-assault on the Suzaku Guard Captain — abruptly stopped dead. Every one of its bodies froze motionless in place, all eight heads swaying slowly in the air, its attack abandoned.
Seeing Hydra momentarily halt, Kallen rushed to the Suzaku Guard Captain's side, wrapped her arm around his, and pulled him up off the ground, guiding him away from Hydra. After resting for a moment, the Suzaku Guard Captain felt his strength begin to return. He looked at Kallen and said, "Thank you. You've saved me again."
Kallen replied in a tone that was less than warm, "Don't mention it. You're my ally right now. Whatever else I might think, I'm not going to just stand by and watch you die."
The Suzaku Guard Captain gave a quiet "mm" and turned his gaze to Hydra in the distance. "What happened to that thing? Why has it stopped moving?"
"I'm not entirely sure," Kallen said.
Then Rulu's voice came through the comm: "I've found the person controlling Hydra. Come to my position — I'm about seventy meters to your left, inside a yellow building."
The Suzaku Guard Captain and Kallen immediately moved toward the location Rulu had described. They found the yellow building and stepped inside. Rulu was standing in the middle of the room. On the floor sat a middle-aged man in a gray robe.
The man appeared to have taken an injury to his leg — blood was flowing steadily from his right thigh. Three icicles, each roughly half a meter long, hung suspended in the air before him, their tips pressed against his throat. It looked as though they could drive into him at any moment and end his life.
"Is this the guy who was controlling that monster from behind the scenes?" Kallen removed her helmet and stepped closer to the man in gray, studying him carefully at close range.
"Yes," Rulu said. "This one's a third-level Magic Psionic power user. I only just managed to subdue him."
The Suzaku Guard Captain also approached the man in gray and pulled off his own helmet. He fixed the figure on the floor with a furious glare and demanded, "Why did you use that monster to attack us? What were you trying to accomplish? Start talking!"
A flicker of fear crossed the gray-robed man's eyes — but then his expression hardened, and he sneered up at the Suzaku Guard Captain. "You'd better let me go right now. If you don't, it's your own heads on the line."
"You bastard — you've got nerve, saying that!" The man's words pushed the Suzaku Guard Captain over the edge. He bent down, grabbed the man by the chest with his left hand, hauled him up off the floor, and cracked his right palm across the man's face with full force, sending him sprawling back onto the ground.
The blow was devastating. Several of the gray-robed man's teeth were knocked clean out. He lay on the floor, clutching his face, howling in pain.
The Suzaku Guard Captain's expression turned cold. Standing over the man, he said, "I don't care what your reasons were for bringing that monster here. You're going to get rid of it right now, or I will kill you on the spot."
But the gray-robed man refused to be moved, even under the threat. He wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth and let out a cold laugh. "Do you dare? If I die, no one can control that thing anymore. Then every last one of you is finished. Go ahead and kill me — if you've got the guts. Heh heh heh…"