One of the Hydra's massive heads lunged at the Suzaku Guard Captain, who threw himself to the side and barely managed to dodge the strike.

  Immediately after, another of the Hydra's heads came swooping down at him. The Suzaku Guard Captain dodged again — with a rush of air, the enormous head grazed past him, catching his shoulder in a gncing blow. Light as the contact was, the impact was brutal. He was sent flying four or five meters and crashed to the ground in a sorry heap.

  Before he could get back up, a third head came plunging toward him. The Suzaku Guard Captain saw it coming but felt he couldn't avoid it in time. He could only raise his shield over his body and hope it would hold.

  With a sharp crack, the Hydra cmped its jaws down on the shield covering him. Its enormous fangs punched straight through the metal and drove into the Suzaku Guard Captain's lower back.

  The Suzaku Guard Captain let out a cry of agony. Gritting through the pain, he drew his longsword from his hip and drove it repeatedly into the inside of the Hydra's mouth, until blood poured freely from within the great serpent's jaws.

  Feeling the pain in its mouth, the Hydra flung its head violently. With a sharp whoosh, the Suzaku Guard Captain was hurled free, his body sailing forty or fifty meters before smming into the ground. The force of the impact drained every st bit of strength from him. He y crumpled on the ground, unable to move.

  The Hydra crawled toward the helpless Suzaku Guard Captain, one of its heads fixing on him, poised to snap him up and swallow him whole.

  At that moment, two orange-red fireballs the size of basketballs came streaking toward the head about to strike — they smmed directly into the Hydra's mouth, and its jaws instantly burst into fme.

  The head that had been hit thrashed wildly, shaking off the fire. The Hydra's other heads swiveled around, turning toward the ground nearby. Standing there were two young people — a man and a woman. It was Kallen and Rulu.

  "Hey, Rulu — are we really doing this?" Kallen said, hesitation written across her face. "That guy is from the Sanctuary. Do we really have to save him?"

  "Yes," Rulu said. "If we don't hold this monster down, Nana and Shari will be in danger too. Our interests are the same here — it doesn't matter whether he's from the Sanctuary or not."

  "Alright, I get it." Kallen nodded, then looked toward the enormous serpent in the distance, unease creeping onto her face. "But it's so massive. Can we actually handle it?"

  "As long as we do it my way, we should be able to hold on for a while. We just need to keep this thing pinned down long enough for Nana and the others to get away."

  Meanwhile, the Suzaku Guard Captain, still lying on the ground, realized he was no longer being attacked. He forced himself up, struggling to his feet, and looked toward the Hydra.

  He saw two figures standing near it — a young man wearing bck-framed gsses with somewhat dark skin, and a short-haired red-haired woman holding a spear at his side.

  Suddenly, one of the Hydra's massive heads lunged at the pair. They immediately split apart, dodging in opposite directions, and ran away from the Hydra.

  Seeing them flee, the Hydra moved to give chase, surging swiftly across the ground — but it had barely gone any distance before its entire body seized up and locked in pce.

  The man and woman had each run in a different direction. With nine heads each trying to pursue a different target, the Hydra's bodies had pulled toward opposite sides — and since all nine were connected, they worked against each other, the coils tangling and binding, leaving the creature unable to move freely.

  "I see," the Suzaku Guard Captain realized, understanding their pn at once. After a moment's rest, strength had returned to his body, and the wound the serpent had torn in his back was already gradually closing and healing.

  Immobilized by its own tangled bodies, the Hydra was stuck in pce for a time. After a while, however, its nine heads seemed to reach some kind of agreement. It abandoned its pursuit of Kallen, and all nine heads turned and began crawling toward Rulu.

  Rulu immediately rode the wind and fled away from the Hydra. With a whoosh, one of the heads bsted fire at him — Rulu summoned a freezing whirlwind to wrap around his entire body, and under the protection of the icy gale, the Hydra's fmes were deflected without causing him any real harm.

  But the Hydra had more than one head. The other heads now also unleashed torrents of fire at Rulu, the fmes surging toward him like waves of an ocean and swallowing his body whole. The fire was too intense — the icy whirlwind Rulu had summoned couldn't hold it all back, and fmes began to lick across his body.

  "This is bad — Rulu can't handle this monster alone. I have to get over there." Worried that Rulu would be hurt, Kallen seized her spear and charged toward the Hydra. Then a young male voice came from beside her: "Wait — I'm coming with you." Kallen turned to find the Suzaku Guard Captain at her side, longsword and round shield in hand.

  Kallen didn't reply. She sprinted at the serpent with her spear, closed the distance rapidly, and began driving the weapon into the Hydra's body again and again. The Suzaku Guard Captain charged in as well, sshing his sword across the serpent's fnk, working to draw its attention.

  The combined assault worked. The Hydra stopped targeting Rulu, swinging its heads toward the Suzaku Guard Captain and Kallen instead and unching an attack on them. The moment it turned on them, they both immediately turned and fled.

  From then on, Rulu, Kallen, and the Suzaku Guard Captain fought the Hydra together. Whenever they saw the Hydra focusing its assault on one of the others, they would attack it with spears, swords, or fireballs to pull its attention away. And whenever they found themselves the primary target, they would quickly put distance between themselves and the beast.

  Working in concert, the three managed to keep the Hydra tied down. Though each of them was burned by fire or spshed by venom at various points and took some damage along the way, none of the injuries were severe enough to be immediately fatal.