Heracles and Ares were naturally putting on a show. After all, although Heracles was powerful in battle, he was still a sinner, and Ares was using the identity of "Iolaus." Neither of them had the authority to decide the life or death of a monster of Hydra's caliber.
So, Heracles and Ares' Iolaus avatar ignored Hydra's pleas for mercy and, without a word, dug a large pit beside her, then threw her main head into it.
Seeing Heracles continue to silently pick up a huge rock, preparing to place it on her head, Hydra immediately shrieked,
"Don't seal me! I'll agree to whatever you want!"
"Really?"
The moment Hydra's voice fell, she suddenly heard a sound that made her grit her teeth in hatred, a sound that had kept her awake at night for years.
A trace of dullness flashed in Hydra's snake eyes, and then she saw Ares suddenly appear at the edge of the pit, looking down at her.
He came to Heracles' side and said something to him. Heracles, with a hint of respect, handed the giant rock in his hand to Ares, then turned and left with his attendant, Iolaus. After Ares took the giant rock, he continued to look at Hydra's main head, raising an eyebrow:
"Hydra, do you mean what you say?"
An angry expression flashed in Hydra's eyes. The moment she saw Ares, Hydra, who had just been so afraid of death, suddenly became defiant. She shouted, "You stinky man, I'd rather die than beg for your mercy! If you've got the guts, kill me!"
"Heh heh." Ares held the giant rock with one hand, tossing it up and down like a basketball, then said, "If I'm not mistaken, you're waiting for Athena to come and save you, right?"
Hydra closed her mouth, glaring fiercely at Ares, not uttering a sound.
Seeing her like this, Ares nodded with certainty:
"Sure enough, Athena came to find you. Did she also tell you that it doesn't matter if you die, she'll resurrect you later? ...Hydra, you're such an idiot, you've been used by her!"
"I've been... used?"
Hydra murmured.
"Think about it carefully. When we were in front of Typhon's cave, who moved first? Was it me? No, it was Athena who moved first. From the very beginning when she was caught by your father, she wanted to steal the divine thunder in the cave, but I got there first."
Ares pointed to his temple, circling his finger as he spoke:
"Yes, I admit I'm not a good guy, but do you think Athena is a good guy? If you associate with her, you'll just be used by her as an experience baby to repeatedly gain experience points, sent out by her to help her heroes gain achievements. Even if she truly succeeds in becoming the next God King of Olympus, a Typhon bloodline like yours will never be welcomed by her into the new pantheon to become one of her gods."
As Ares spoke, perhaps due to excessive bleeding, a series of slideshow-like flashback hallucinations began to appear in Hydra's mind. She saw herself leaving this river and deep pool in the future, actually entering the sea to cause trouble, and on the sea, she constantly attacked passing merchant ships and passenger ships, devouring humans. Finally, one day, she encountered a bald man on a ship.
This bald man had pale skin and deep red tattoos on his body, looking like a ghost walking among humans. Hydra saw herself as weak and powerless as a chick before him, her several heads pinned to the fishing boat by his pair of short blades with chains. Her proud immortality and poisonous gas were useless before this ghost.
He was like the embodiment of violence, the personification of strength, just like Heracles who had beaten her to this state, no... perhaps even more terrifying than Heracles.
Hydra was so scared that her scalp tingled. If her body had the function of sweating, then she would definitely be drenched in cold sweat by now.
Just as Hydra was recovering from these hallucinations, she suddenly felt a huge shadow obscuring her. She tried to look up with her eyes and saw that Ares had already placed the huge rock flat on her head, seemingly ready to seal her completely.
"Alright." Ares looked at her with a face full of disappointment, saying with a hint of regret, "Anyway, I was just casually advising you. If you don't listen, then so be it. After all, your life is your own, it's none of my business."
With that, he released the giant rock in his hand, and the rock gradually fell towards Hydra.
Hydra was so scared that her heart almost stopped. No, her current state didn't even have a heart, but Hydra was still so frightened that she forced out the greatest potential from her demonic body. Her dynamic vision was pushed to its limit, infinitely increasing the falling speed of the rock, and then she shouted at a rapid pace:
"—I surrender!!"
Bang.
It turned out that Ares was indeed deliberately scaring this silly Hydra. The moment she cried out, Ares swiftly reached out and caught the giant rock again.
Ares bent down, tilting his head to look at Hydra in the pit, and asked,
"Do you truly mean that?"
"Really, really." Hydra cried pitifully, "I don't want to die at the hands of that bald man."
Ares secretly laughed to himself upon hearing this. The deeds of Kratos were indeed effective. This Spartan Ghost naturally had a fear effect on all creatures in the Greek World. In fact, the fragments that flashed in Hydra's mind just now were naturally illusions created by Ares based on the CGs of the "God of War" series games in his memory, projected by him with magic into the now extremely weak Hydra's mind. However, to Hydra, this hallucination seemed real. In the hallucination, she saw herself being torn apart like cloth by that Spartan Ghost, and she was naturally deeply terrified.
Seeing Hydra soften and surrender, Ares threw the giant rock aside. This monster, Hydra, could indeed barely be considered a high-end combat force in the Greek World. More importantly, she had been a homebody all these years and had not actually killed any innocent humans or Nymphs. Most of the humans who died in this swamp probably came looking for trouble themselves and were then killed by Hydra's derivatives, of which she herself was unaware.
Thus, Ares directly forced this Hydra to swear an oath to the River Styx of the Underworld in the pit. The River of Suffering in the Underworld had a very terrifying nature; it could cause mortals who touched its waters to directly fall into the Underworld, and legend also said it could make gods who crossed it lose their divinity.
The gods in the Greek World all liked to swear oaths in the name of this river. Over time, this river truly developed some binding power over oaths.
And although Hydra was a monster, her bloodline was actually quite noble. Typhon was the last Titan giant personally nurtured by Gaia. If it weren't for the change of dynasties, Hydra would truly have been a princess in the Titan God Court and would not have transformed into such a demonic body. Therefore, she possessed both demonic and partial divine nature within her, and the constraints of the River Styx were naturally effective on her.
And after the obedient Hydra honestly swore the oath, Ares no longer troubled her. Not only did he help her retrieve her main head from the large pit and reattach it to her body, but he even applied some healing medicine he had obtained from Apollo to help her heal her wounds.
Of course, Heracles' great achievement could not be neglected. Therefore, as soon as Hydra basically regained her mobility, Ares immediately ordered her to catch up with Heracles and go to the Kingdom of Mycenae to serve as a witness to his great achievement.