"The beans!" Lukas roared out at the Dragon Lord of the Flames. "Hand me the beans!"

Rysenth faltered, his mind spinning in confusion before realization struck.

Lukas was asking for the beans of Mount Ashendir. Those rare seeds of strength, cultivated in the volcanic ashes of Linemall's tallest mountains. As they spoke around the fire through the connection that Erandyl had established, Lukas learnt that those very same beans had already been fed to him after the two Lords of Linemall had found and dragged his broken body from beneath the rubble.

The beans dulled pain, numbing the body to the wounds that should have crippled it.

Now, as the Hydra shrieked, its mangled neck sprouting two fresh heads where one had been severed, there was no time to argue. Rysenth's hand flew to the drawstring pouch at his side and tossed it.

Lukas caught it without hesitation, his movements sharp and deliberate. There was no pause, no time even for a second thought. Lukas yanked the pouch open and, before Rysenth could speak, he downed it; every single one of the beans was gone in an instant, swallowed in a reckless defiance of caution.

"Lukas—!" The Dragon Lord of the Flames lunged forward, too late. His hand brushed Lukas's arm, but the damage was already done.

Lukas watched as Rysenth's eyes widened in horror.

No one, not even the most legendary berserkers of the draconic kind, dared to consume more than five Ashendir Beans at once. Three granted a dragon the strength to push through agony, to fight past shattered bone or torn muscle. But more than that and the body would begin to betray itself.

Pain was not merely suffering; it was the body's way of keeping one out of harm's way and a signal that kept mortals from destroying themselves.

Without it, men became something more—and something less.

Unstoppable in the moment yet blind to their mortality. But Lukas Drakos could no longer be considered a mere motal.

Lukas staggered, the rush of the beans coursing through his veins like molten fire. He could feel it already, the weight of his wounds vanishing, his body moving more freely than it had in hours. Every ache, every fracture and every tear that should have slowed him was drowned beneath an unnatural clarity. He turned, his gaze locking on Rysenth, his voice cold and commanding.

"Go."

Rysenth hesitated, his fiery pride resisting.

"Go!" Lukas said again, sharper this time. His stance left no room for argument.

Even the Dragon Lord of the Flames himself recognized the truth. In his state, Rysenth would be no help against the terrible beast, rather a detriment. Lukas had taken on the burden of sacrifice and they could not allow his act to go to waste. So Rysenth turned, jaw tight, and seized Erandyl by the arm. The Dragon Lord of the Earth flinched at his touch, her mind momentarily lost in the swirl of fear and sorrow. But Rysenth's grip, and the intensity in his eyes, snapped her back to the present.

Lukas was buying them time. Time for her.

The plan depended on Erandyl and her gift, the legacy of House Telaryon—her ability to carve paths beneath the earth itself without the use of their Divinities. Just as she had told Lukas before the Rite of Talons, emotions were luxuries they could not afford.

Duty came first. Grief, anger, fear—all of it would have to wait.

So Erandyl ran. Her stride quickened, purpose overtaking despair. Rysenth followed close behind, his portal following close behind as it cast harsh shadows against the cavern walls.

And behind them, Lukas turned at last to face the Hydra. The creature loomed, its wounds sealed, its new heads writhing like serpents drunk with rage. It was stronger, angrier and hungrier than ever before.

Lukas took in a sharp breath, the numbness spreading through him until even the tremors of fear could no longer reach his mind.

To Rysenth and Erandyl, the image burned into their minds was one of sacrifice. Lukas stood alone before the Hydra, his frame dwarfed by its writhing mass of necks and fangs, and it seemed to them that this was how he chose to make a final stand; a desperate attempt to buy mere moments with his life so that they might see to it that their plan came to fruition.

But Lukas' mind did not bow to that narrative. He had never fought merely to die. His intent was the same as it always had been, in this life and the last—Lukas was fighting to win.

It mattered little that the Divinity of the Seas was gone, stripped from him by the oath he had sworn before entering the Ancestral Lands of Linemall. What mattered was what remained, what he could reach for and what he could forge into a weapon fit for this battle he had found himself in. And so, where he could not summon the ocean's depths, he turned to another ancient force bound to him by sinew, blood and trust.

The Kraken.

Lukas felt him stir in the recesses of his being, that colossal creature of nightmare and tide. The sheer weight of magic the Cthulhu had spent to keep him alive when death had seemed certain was immense. Power that the Kraken could not so easily spare.

But what if Lukas gave him that power?

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And the Kraken answered. Even in his slumber, he gave it all to Lukas. Flesh called to flesh, blood to blood, Mana Pool to Mana Pool. Their bond made such a feat possible. But Lukas did not need the Kraken's control over the mind nor his manipulation of ink. He needed only one aspect of the Cthulhu's magic.

The Hydra surged forward, every head rearing back like serpents ready to strike. Its needle-like fangs gleamed with venom as they plunged toward Lukas all at once.

All Lukas needed was the Kraken's power of regeneration.

This time, he let the fangs come.

The teeth sank deep, tearing through muscle, ripping skin from bone. Blood poured, spraying the ground in sheets of crimson. Lukas grimaced—not from pain, for the Ashendir Beans had stolen that away—but from the sheer grotesqueness of it, the sight of his body being torn apart beneath the monster's hunger. But before the wounds could fester, before the creature could gorge itself, the Kraken's gift surged through him. Regeneration, vast and relentless, fueled not by the Cthulhu's own reserves but by Lukas' own mana. Muscle reformed, stitching back in defiance of natural law. Bones, splintered to shards, reassembled as though reforged in some unseen forge.

And Lukas did not stand idle like prey.

With a roar that shook the cavern, primal and filled with berserker fury, Lukas retaliated. His hands, once human, twisted and lengthened, claws bursting forth like weapons of a primordial beast. He seized one of the Hydra's writhing necks, talons piercing scales and sinew alike, and ripped at it. The head tore free in a gush of black ichor. But the Hydra was no ordinary foe.

Where one head fell, two more rose, wriggling forth from the stump as the Divinity of the Earth surged into being. The cavern itself seemed to convulse, stone turning to pulsing flesh, the Hydra feeding upon the ground as though the world itself was its body. Two new heads screeched as they sprouted, dripping venom from fangs barely formed.

Still Lukas did not falter.

For every head that struck him, his body healed. For every bite that drew blood, regeneration spat defiance back at the Hydra's endless hunger. And for every maw that snapped, Lukas answered with claws, with violence and with the unrelenting rage of a Dragon Lord who refused to die.

It was an absolutely brutal sight to witness.

Lukas hurled himself headfirst into the Hydra's mass of writhing necks and snapping maws, a storm of claws and fury. The monster only grew stronger, larger and more grotesque by the second, each severed head birthing two more in its place.

Yet Lukas never slowed.

He ripped, slashed, tore—his violence so frenzied it became almost impossible to tell who the monster really was in this fight. Blood poured in rivers, splattering across the cavern walls and soaking the earth beneath their feet. The ground itself became like a the floor of a slaughterhouse, slick and glistening with crimson. Every breath came thick with the metallic tang of blood, every movement stained with gore.

For most, this sight would have been a nightmare from which there was no waking.

For Lukas, it was survival.

Without the Ashenbeans burning through his body, numbing every nerve, Lukas would have crumpled under the agony of his wounds long ago. Fangs sank deep, claws raked across his torso, chunks of flesh were ripped free from his body. More than once, the Hydra sought to bind him, coiling its long serpentine necks around him like living chains. But Lukas' mastery of the Draconic Flow became his saving grace—his body shifting from human to draconic form in fluid bursts, slipping free before the coils could crush the life out of him.

Still, it was not enough to halt the beast's advance.

The Hydra feasted upon him endlessly, its many jaws tearing strips of skin, gnawing through muscle, cracking bone. And every time, before his body could fail, the Kraken's gift answered him; fueled by the magical energy within his own Pool of Mana. Torn flesh knit back together. Shredded muscle stitched itself whole. Broken bones fused again, only to be broken once more.

It was endless.

The cycle of destruction and renewal became his reality. Though Lukas felt no pain, the horror of it weighed upon him far more heavily than agony ever could. To watch his own body shredded into ruin, to see himself ripped apart before his very eyes, only to rise again and again—it was a nightmare that gnawed at the edges of his sanity. His mind alone kept him anchored, forcing him forward against the Hydra's endless tide.

But the beast only multiplied. Heads sprouted endlessly, wriggling, snapping, dripping venom from fangs that had barely formed. The Hydra's mass grew vast, now a writhing mountain of scaled flesh and hatred, its sheer size pressing forward like a landslide of destruction. Lukas slashed, clawed and ripped at the Hydra but still it advanced. Step by step, it drove him back, its many heads pressing in from all sides.

It would not be long before the Hydra broke past him, before it reached Erandyl and Rysenth.

"Just one more second." Lukas whispered to himself, breath ragged, chest heaving. His heart thundered against his ribs, his vision swam with exhaustion, his body—despite the regeneration—weakening under the constant strain. He forced his legs to hold, his arms to strike.

One more second.

He just needed to hold it back for one more second.

And then, amidst the chaos, he heard it.

"Lukas!"

A voice rang out, clear as crystal, and those words were more beautiful beyond anything he had ever heard across all his lives. Aside from Styx, of course.

It was the voice of Erandyl Telaryon.

"It is done!"

For the first time since the battle began, Lukas grinned.

The Hydra faltered, its writhing heads faltering at the sudden shift in the air. Magic surged from Lukas like a tidal wave, raw and unrestrained, his Pool of Mana igniting with an intensity the beast had not felt thus far. The cavern trembled as water erupted all around, waves crashing into existence as if called from the void itself.

Their plan had worked.

All this time, as Lukas had thrown himself into the Hydra's onslaught, Erandyl had led them beyond the Ancestral Lands, beyond the boundaries where their oaths had shackled his greatest strength.

And that strength was the Divinity of the Seas.

With the full might of House Drakos flooding through his veins, there was not a chance he would lose.

Not here. Not now. And especially not against the Hydra.

Water spiraled around him, roaring like a storm unleashed.

Lukas turned to the creature once more, eyes blazing, his voice steady and filled with finality.

"It's my turn now."

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