The Hydra's outer heads closed their mouths as the stream of poison smog stopped.
The next moment, a strong gust of wind formed near the lake's edge at the center of the poison mist left behind by the Hydra's breath attack.
The wind caused the smog to swirl into a vortex as it pulled in the surrounding poison and expelled it from the area. The vortex then collapsed into itself as it spun rapidly and pushed the poison mist away from the battlefield!
This was the work of Morrighan's magic; however, even she was unable to clear all of the Hydra's poison that covered more than one hundred meters of land. Fortunately, she was able to expel the poison away from the party on the ground and create a safe zone similar to the eye of a typhoon. Inside the typhoon's eye was an area of peace, but one step outside was where nothing but destruction awaited.
"Annoying..! This thing is so damn annoying..! To think I'd have to waste that skill on the second stage… Is the third stage even possible to beat?" Colorful Nimbus silently complained under his breath.
When Colorful Nimbus witnessed everyone's health falling by a large chunk simultaneously, he used three skills—Instant Marking, Forceful Symbol Break, and Careful Overflow.
Instant Marking allowed Colorful Nimbus to mark any number of allies within thirty meters of his position with the same white magic symbol he applied to Niflheim.
The way Colorful Nimbus' heals worked was that when he placed a mark on multiple allies, the heals he cast would be split equally among all those affected. In other words, if the total healing amount was 10,000 and there were two people with a white magic symbol, each of them would recover 5,000 HP. Likewise, if there were ten players, then each would recover 1,000 HP.
As for Forceful Symbol Break, it was one of Colorful Nimbus' lifesaving skills that let him shatter up to twenty-five magic symbols without having to touch his opponent. In addition, it was one of his most powerful healing abilities since it could restore even the healthiest of tanks to full HP in an instant.
But, its cooldown time was nothing to scoff at, which is why Colorful Nimbus did not want to use it until they reached the third stage. However, with the way things were currently going, Colorful Nimbus was beginning to think that perhaps he may have gotten ahead of himself.
Though neither of the two skills was what made Colorful Nimbus one of the best healers in RML, instead, it was his unique passive, Careful Overflow.
Careful Overflow was an assistance-type skill that made it so that any excess healing on a target was automatically given to another marked ally missing any of their HP.
In the end, Colorful Nimbus successfully restored the party's HP back to full. But, he would still have to deal with the 2.5% damage everyone was taking to their HP every second. If he failed to keep a close eye on it, the situation could spiral out of control. However, for now, it was still manageable.
"Looks like that guy didn't take as much damage as everyone else. He must have a poison resistance skill that's pretty high-rank." Colorful Nimbus thought to himself.
As the party's main healer, Colorful Nimbus kept a watchful eye on everyone's HP. And, besides Morrighan, who was in the sky at the time, every last member had been affected by the Hydra's poison.
From what he observed, not including Morrighan, the others received 40% of their maximum HP as damage with a 2.5% HP DOT that lasted indefinitely—except for one other person.
'First the blood mist now the Hydra's breath… I'm running into quite a few interesting poisons lately.'
Despite his Heavenly Golden Body's strong poison resistance, Izroth did not come out completely unscathed from the Hydra's breath attack. In total, he lost 20% of his maximum HP—half the amount as his other party members.
However, thanks to Morrighan's timely wind magic, the Hydra's poison did not have enough time to fully set in, and so, Izroth did not suffer from its DOT effect. Of course, there was one other vital factor to take into account.
'If not for this buff, there's no guarantee the poison wouldn't have penetrated my Heavenly Golden Body. More importantly, everyone may not have survived.'
While the one-time crowd control immunity had been used up, Gram's buff Steadfast still reduced the effects of all curses and poisons by 50%.
This meant that without Steadfast, the Hydra's original breath attack was supposed to deal 80% of their maximum HP as damage along with 5% of their HP every second!
'As expected of something called a World Class beast. Even in a sealed state, it remains a formidable opponent.'
After facing Gan Ceann in the first stage, Izroth did not expect much from the second stage. But, the difficulty between the first stage and second stage was like that of night and day. Now, he had become even more interested in what awaited them on the third stage!
After its breath attack, the middle head began its melee assault once again as Niflheim maintained aggro.
Meanwhile, Morrighan stayed in the skies, dealing with the Hydra's left heads.
The Phantom Queen had already destroyed two heads, but four more spawned in their place, doubling the amount of head she had to initially deal with.
Morrighan learned from the first incident and was careful where she severed the Hydra's heads to make sure they fell in the lake. This immediately took care of the issue of its putrid blood. But, twelve skeletal warriors would still emerge from the ground every time a head was chopped off, and there seemed to be no way of preventing it. She even tried directly destroying the teeth while the head was falling; however, they were practically indestructible.
In the end, the Phantom Queen decided to leave it to her party members below to deal with, which Niflheim, Sacred Blade, and Gram handled flawlessly.
Every time a new group of skeletons appeared, Niflheim would draw them towards him with a taunt-type skill, Gram would bind them together, and Sacred Blade would take care of the rest!
…
Over the next several minutes, Izroth's party started to find its pace as things progressed smoothly.
Every two minutes, the Hydra would launch a poisonous breath attack from its outer heads, and just before that happened, everyone would group up around Niflheim, except Morrighan.
Morrighan would stay in the sky and cast a tunneling wind spell around the party that prevented the poison from reaching those below and ultimately clearing the area.
Morrighan dealt with the Hydra's left heads and poison. Niflheim kept the middle head occupied and attracted aggro where necessary. Sacred Blade and Gram cleared the skeletal warriors. And, Colorful Nimbus maintained a watchful eye on everyone's HP to ensure that they were out of danger.
Of course, the biggest change was that the Hydra's initial five heads had increased to thirty-two!
Fortunately, it seemed that every time the Hydra regenerated a new set of heads, their overall power dropped significantly. Nevertheless, more heads started to take the initiative and launch sudden attacks at the party below.
"If we keep this up, maybe we will eventually prevail. But, there's no guarantee that's the case." Niflheim thought to himself.
At the moment, there seemed to be no end in sight to the Hydra's heads regeneration despite its power weakening, which is why they decided to try a different approach.
"He's been down there for nearly ten minutes… Is he really alright in there?" Niflheim internalized as he glanced over at the lake.
…
«Resisted»
'It's a good thing I have this skill. Otherwise, I would have been swept away right after entering this lake.'
Right now, Izroth was in the lake face to face with the Hydra's giant main body!
Although the number of heads above multiplied many times over, there were still only five necks that extended up out of the water.
However, there was not a single enemy in sight under the lake, which meant that the Hydra was likely the only entity on the second stage.
But, just because no other monsters were swimming around in the lake did not mean it was safe.
Powerful underwater currents flowed around the Hydra, making it practically impossible for anything to approach its body—even simply moving near it was a struggle. This was one of the reasons the party could not simply jump into the lake and target the Hydra's main body.
Luckily, Izroth possessed the skill Breath of the Great Sea that he received after clearing the Great Sea Palace raid on the Hardcore difficulty.
Breath of the Great Sea granted Izroth resistance to Flow, which enabled him to resist being swept away by the powerful currents and approach the Hydra's main body underwater.
However, there was another problem. A strange barrier was protecting the Hydra's main body that Izroth was having trouble penetrating. Even his Space Defying Tread and First Baneful Sword: Destruction Point could not force its way inside!
But, Izroth was confident. As long as he discovered a way through the barrier, he could finish off the Hydra once and for all!
