Chapter 104: Poseidon, King of the Sea, and the Covenant of the Sea With You
Roar.
Hydra crashed into the wall of divine weapons and screamed.
The charging head that had lunged for the Argo detonated on impact, flesh and bone bursting apart. Blood sprayed in sheets and was immediately swallowed by the rainlike sea.
The remaining eight heads reared back and howled at the sky.
The stench of calamity thickened.
Storm winds, crashing waves, and the shadows of titanic serpents tangled together into one.
"Mr. Rowe…"
Heracles looked toward the bow.
Rowe stood there, robes snapping in the wind, and gave only one command.
"Full speed ahead."
Full speed ahead.
Heracles received his answer.
He sucked in a deep breath, then tightened both hands around the helm with all his strength.
"Damn it, full speed ahead!" he roared, locking the rudder into place.
What is there to be afraid of.
Sometimes the simplest words were the ones that sank deepest into a man's heart.
At the bow, Rowe's sleeves streamed in the gale.
Behind him, the Gate of Babylon dimmed and began to close. The Noble Phantasms that had been fired vanished one after another, their trajectories ending in the sea before they were calmly reclaimed.
The rain still poured down like a broken sky.
No light shone above or below.
Hydra rose again.
With a wet, writhing sound, the head that had just been blown apart regenerated.
Then it split.
From the severed base, two new serpent heads bulged and tore their way out.
This was the true horror of the monster called Hydra.
Its regeneration was not just recovery but proliferation. The longer it fought, the more heads it gained. If its central head was not annihilated in a single decisive strike, the battle would drag on endlessly, until the "hero" was ground down and strangled.
And its core was buried deep.
Rowe immediately picked it out.
Among the writhing masses of flesh and fangs, there was one head that moved differently, whose eyes glittered with a faintly different light.
That was Hydra's true head.
Its weakness.
And also its ultimate weapon.
Those fangs carried venom that had slain a being of Chiron's level, a "god" among centaurs.
That was his target.
If he had wanted Hydra dead in the simplest way possible, he could have stood here and released the might of the Sword of Rupture from a distance.
With that world class power, he could have reduced the serpent from head to tail into nothingness. No matter how outrageous its regeneration, there would be nothing left to regenerate from.
But that was not what Rowe wanted.
So when Hydra's heads whipped toward him again, he shifted his footing and exerted a little strength.
The prow of the Argo dipped with a creak as he kicked off from it, leaping into the air like an arrow shot at the heavens, heading straight for Hydra's heart.
Roars overlapped.
The serpent's voice dropped from a shriek to a thunderous bellow, and a forest of heads swung down like titanic whips.
Rowe lifted his arm.
His fist clenched.
A crimson storm spiraled out from his knuckles, whirling like a vortex, the red light rippling as he punched forward.
The head before him was crushed outright, torn apart by the rotational force that came from primordial stars.
In that instant, another head swept in from behind with a tearing rush.
Its open maw was a yawning pit of abyssal darkness.
The clouds above churned.
A streak of light, bright and clean as the moon, shot through the air and punched a hole cleanly through the ambushing head.
Rowe paused for a heartbeat and traced the path of the arrow back.
He saw Atalanta.
She stood high on the swaying mast platform, bow drawn, cloak soaked through by wind and rain. Her hood had been ripped back. Beast ears flickered in her drenched hair, which clung in heavy strands to her cheeks. Even as the storm raged around her, her hands did not shake and her emerald eyes remained keen.
Hmph. This fight will not be yours alone.
Her gaze said everything.
As a hunter, at this moment, she saw Hydra only as prey.
…Although, for some reason, Rowe still felt she was shooting in his general direction.
Now was not the time to worry about that.
To avoid obliterating Hydra with excessive power at range and to close in on its true head so it could give him the "bite" he wanted…
With Atalanta's covering fire, it was perfect.
"Come on, then."
Rowe stepped forward again.
A crimson storm flared at his feet and turned into thrust, propelling him across the air.
The primordial vortex around his fists shattered the serpent heads that lunged from the front.
The ones that tried to strike from behind were shot apart by Atalanta's arrows.
Front and rear, the blows meshed together into a rhythm.
Under that combined assault, Rowe cut through the forest of heads and coils, pushing deeper into Hydra's territory as its roars rose in pitch and intensity.
The distance between them shrank.
And shrank.
Until.
With a dull hum, Rowe's fist smashed aside the last obstacle.
Right in front of him loomed the head whose eyes were different from all the rest.
"Come on."
He kicked off the air and closed the last step.
Hydra roared.
The core head's maw opened wide.
Its fangs jutted forward, and the venom it had been storing all this time burst out in a dark, corroding spray.
Here it is.
Rowe's heart lifted.
He abandoned all defense and allowed the venom to splash across him.
At the same time, his clenched fist relaxed into an open palm.
The crimson storm that had gathered around his body suddenly erupted outward.
Light shot up first and pierced the sky.
A burning gale followed, blossoming into a flower of wind and flame on the sea's surface.
Hydra's enormous body was vaporized.
Seawater around it flashed into surging steam under the heat, dark clouds were ripped apart, and the pressure of the shockwave drove the ocean level up nearly a hundred meters, raising titanic water columns that seemed to connect the sea and the sky.
Heracles planted his feet and, through sheer brute strength, forced the Argo to endure the shaking sea.
Atalanta braced herself on the lookout platform, staring toward the shrouded distance.
Is Rowe… alright?
Of course, Rowe was not alright.
Taking Hydra's venom head on, he had still managed to deliver the finishing blow, but the prickling sensation that flooded his body afterward cut off his strength in an instant.
He crashed down into the sea.
He floated, then began to sink, his power draining little by little.
Beneath the Aegean lay unending darkness.
Within that darkness, however, a faint blue light slowly turned.
The venom that could affect someone of Chiron's level, a high divinity existence, was effective against Rowe as well.
Even with a primordial body and a being-level comparable to a regional chief god, there were limits.
More importantly, he was not a god.
He was human.
Tiamat had reshaped his body, not created him anew.
Compared to the gods, humans possessed more freedom. Even with a life force so resilient it bordered on immortality, he did not have the kind of eternal existence that was anchored to concepts of nature.
And this time, he had intentionally dropped all defenses and accepted Hydra's poison in full.
Hope I can die cleanly this time.
He looked up at the Greek sky through layers of water.
Through the thick sea, he seemed to glimpse clouds scattering and stars peeking through.
"Are you not afraid of death?"
A clear, unhurried voice sounded in his ears.
A god of the sea, I take it.
Rowe thought for a moment and kept quiet.
Talking too much to gods was how things got complicated.
"No answer. So you truly are not afraid?
Sage from Uruk, the one from a thousand years ago."
"I have heard many legends about you."
"Now, I finally have the honor of meeting you."
Light bloomed in the water, a gentle azure that turned the darkness into a luminous realm.
From within that radiance, a figure slowly walked out.
He wore armor that flowed like the sea, and his long hair rippled like water. His beauty hovered somewhere between masculine and feminine, impossible to pin down.
"I am Poseidon, the one who rules the seas."
"I once received a saint from Uruk. From him, I obtained the purity of the primordial."
"And now, I see in you primordial wisdom and courage."
"You have swept away the abyssal monster that polluted my domain and allowed my sea to regain its peace."
"I acknowledge your existence."
"In the name of Poseidon, King of the Sea…"
"From this moment on, this eternal sea shall become the pure source of your life."
"It will ensure that you never again die from defilement."
"This is not a blessing."
"It is the promise this Aegean Sea makes with you."
"From now on, this covenant… even if ten thousand years pass, shall never change."
The azure brilliance flowed around Rowe once, then began to fade, the figure within it growing dimmer.
At the very end, that figure paused and lowered his head in a slight bow toward Rowe, a gesture of courtesy.
Then he raised his hand.
And lifted his middle finger.
"Pfft!"
Rowe's eyes shot open and he suddenly spewed out a mouthful of blackened venom.
He hacked twice and drew in a breath.
"Cough. I still did not die again…"
"And did I just get looked down on?"
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