The Immortal (Rise of the Warlords 2)

Outside the palace, a trumpet sounded, and he went still. The second test? Now?

Impossible. Not enough time had passed between labors. Not without a loophole.

Halo cursed. When no other blasts sounded, he shouted, “Halo Phaninon.” Another battle to the death.

The foundation shook. No, not just the foundation. The entire room quaked. Something was coming, and it was close.

He braced—a monster rammed through the bathroom door, pieces of wood flying in every direction.

“Ophelia!” he shouted, cataloging a wealth of details in a split second. A hydra. From an all-female species, like harpies and Amazons. A smallish she-dragon merged with a massive serpent, making her the size of a shire horse. Twelve heads, each with a mouth full of metal teeth. One body, with two arms and two legs tipped by razored claws. Firstone bands circled her wrists.

She smelled of some kind of venom and—Roaring, Halo attacked. The harpy’s scent coated this creature.

Rage surged anew, flooding him with unparalleled strength. Erebus had gotten to her. And Halo had let it happen. His little beauty, dead again. Killed by this hydra after he’d promised to protect her.

The first sparks of anhilla threatened to torch his control.

Heads attacked him from different angles, dagger-teeth snapping in every direction. Up, left, right, down, and every space in between. He flashed—no. The firstone. No flashing and no summoning new weapons.

Very well. Halo fought his way to the wall, where artillery hung. Not swiftly enough. Teeth sank into each of his calves, the metal laced with saliva. Venomous? Though the Astra were immune to most poisons, this one registered as not right. Almost as...sexual desire? A mating drug, then?

Disgusted, he swiped a sword from its hook. Ducked and dodged, moving from spot to spot as the she-beast chased him. He avoided cutting off her heads but stabbed her any chance he got. The eyes. The belly. The throat. Her limbs.

She was a fast healer. Her scales proved tough but not impenetrable. Small horns ran the length of each neck. Well-defined musculature protected vital organs. A single tail split into twelve barbed whips.

Her biggest tell: those barbs twitched a split second before a head struck at him.

Like now. Barb twitch. He ducked, swooping in to remove a horn.

An agonized howl burst his eardrums. As warm blood leaked from his ears, he launched into action before she had time to heal, plunging the blade through the meaty center of the severed horn. Another howl rent the air.

Protect. The urge surfaced, stronger with this hydra than the lioness. Again, he resisted, knowing the sensation stemmed from Ophelia’s scent.

Had she died screaming?

Another spark of anhilla. He struck with more force. The hydra snapped at him there, there, there, and also there, there, and there and flung him across the bedroom. Furniture exploded upon impact. Sections of the wall came tumbling down, dust coating the air.

Halo returned to her and sank his sword into her gut. Thicker, blacker blood gushed from the wound. The pool foamed as it ate through the wood floor. Even his blade began to disintegrate.

A plan formed as he exchanged the weapon for another. He barreled through the hole in the wall, leading his opponent into the hallway. While he enjoyed close quarters combat as much as the next Astra, he preferred wide-open spaces and distance from Ophelia’s...from her body.

The hydra gave chase. Down a flight of stairs. In a sitting room, where a multitude of swords hung. Ignoring the harpies frozen in time, she kept her sights on Halo.

Ophelia’s scent only intensified, and new suspicions arose. What if the lioness and hydra were somehow linked to the harpymph? That would mean Erebus had, what? Stabbed her with the Bloodmor and used her blood to resurrect the monsters? Summon them, as Halo had first supposed? Build them from scratch? Open a portal for them? A blood sacrifice wasn’t uncommon among those of their ilk, the power of it renowned.

He slowed his strikes. The she-beast huffed and puffed, spraying spittle from her many mouths, but she too slowed.

Interesting. They circled each other, around and around. Twelve sets of eyes tracked his every movement with ferocious intent. How he wished he possessed Silver’s ability to read minds.

“You want a piece of me? Come and get it.”

Tail twitch. He dodged and brawled his way behind her, grabbed a log from the hearth—for some reason, the flames had not frozen. A gift from Chaos?

Halo pressed the blazing log against his sword. The flames licked the metal as he ducked and dodged the next series of strikes. At the first opportunity, he thrust the white-hot metal straight into a horn, hilt-deep, severing one of her spinal cords. The attached head immediately sagged to the floor, useless.

He left the weapon in place. She only fought harder with her remaining heads. Fangs tore through his abdomen, shredding organs. Other fangs sank into his calf, more lust-inducing venom invading his system. Muscles seized. Sweat beaded his brow. His heart galloped, and his vision blurred. He’d never felt worse. Or better. He took down a second head. And a third. A fourth.