For Takeru, who had traveled across different worlds and fought countless monsters, this was his first encounter with a gigantic serpent-like creature.
Hebikawa had called it his trump card, and it indeed exuded a power that set it apart from any monster Takeru had faced in the modern world.
"GROOOAAAAR!"
With a roar that shook the ground, the Hydra’s eight heads lunged at Takeru.
He dodged and blew one of the heads up.
But the Hydra didn’t stop—its other heads continued to lunge forward, trying to crush Takeru.
"Are they separate from each other?"
Takeru observed the Hydra calmly, noticing that it showed no sign of pain despite losing one of its heads.
It was Takeru’s habit to analyze his opponents during battle. His sharp gaze locked onto the Hydra. Monsters each had unique traits, and some abilities could end a fight in one hit; his strategy accounted for this.
He dodged another head and blew it off—two down.
"Six left…!"
Just then, a head lunged at him from an unexpected direction.
Where did that come from? He looked closer and saw that the head he’d first blown off had regenerated. The other destroyed heads were also restored, and all eight glared at him in rage.
"Did it regenerate!?"
"That’s right! Hydra is an immortal monster! No matter how strong you are, you don’t stand a chance!"
Takeru’s eyes sharpened at Hebikawa’s words.
If a creature of this level possessed regenerative powers, it would certainly serve as a trump card against S-class hunters.
"But I refuse to believe in something truly immortal."
Preparing to blow off all eight heads at once, Takeru gathered his magic, but sensing the threat, Hydra fired a powerful beam of destruction.
"—!"
He leapt back, evading the beams coming from each head.
Takeru’s body may have appeared like that of an ordinary young man, but he couldn’t risk getting hit by the unknown power of those beams.
A continuous storm of beams from all eight heads.
Dodging them, he blew off three heads simultaneously with a Flare Burst.
"Freeze."
At the same time, he froze the regenerating parts.
The Hydra’s necks, trying to regenerate, became encased in ice but soon shattered through it and began regenerating again.
—This level of magic isn’t enough.
Seeing that freezing was ineffective, Takeru continued to crush the heads, then blew away the base of the neck with a Flare Burst.
Half of the neck exploded, but Hydra immediately began regenerating. Then—
"One more shot."
When Takeru unleashed a Flare Burst to blow off the entire creature, the remaining heads converged as if to protect something and were all blown away together.
"Hey, I told you it’s useless!"
"—Found it."
This time, Hydra had clearly panicked and moved to protect a specific area from Takeru’s attack.
Unlike the visible eight heads, Takeru noticed its tail, hidden on the ground from the beginning.
He sprinted toward it.
Sensing danger, the Hydra’s regenerated heads hurriedly attacked, but—
"Too slow."
Takeru, at full speed, slipped through the Hydra’s necks with minimal movement, left them behind, ran along its body, and jumped toward its rear.
While adjusting his posture mid-air, he aimed his hand at the massive tail buried deep in the ground, channeling an immense amount of magic.
Watching this from afar, Hebikawa was stunned.
"Hey, Hydra has killed numerous S-class hunters before. You can’t possibly…"
The Hydra’s immortality was supposed to be a trump card against S-class hunters. Even if he saw Takeru as a monster, Hebikawa didn’t think it possible to defeat the immortal Hydra.
The Hydra’s heads lunged forward in panic.
But Takeru’s spell was unleashed faster.
Explosion.
With a thunderous roar, a massive crater appeared in the earth, blowing off the Hydra's tail completely.
The approaching heads halted, then collapsed to the ground, motionless.
Landing in front of the motionless Hydra, Takeru kept a wary eye on Hebikawa and his allies.
"Now it’s your turn."
"Damn it—!"
As Takeru turned and released multiple fireballs, Hebikawa summoned a giant serpent, which swallowed the fireballs.
The serpent’s body swelled rapidly and then exploded from within.
While Hebikawa managed to withstand the shockwave, Takeru used the opportunity to close the distance between them.
"—!"
But Takeru quickly halted his advance and jumped to the side.
Almost simultaneously, a massive blade of magical energy sliced through the ground where he had just stood.
"Getting cocky just because you killed Hydra, huh? Don’t underestimate me."
The magic blade had been unleashed by Hebikawa.
In his hand was a sinister staff wrapped with serpents, exuding an aura of power as he radiated magic.
"Sure, you’re a monster. But in a fight, it’s not the strong who win."
Suddenly, magic circles appeared around Takeru, and from them emerged giant serpents.
"The winner is the one who’s truly strong!"
With Hebikawa’s words, the serpents spewed toxic breath.
As Takeru dodged to put distance between them, another magic circle appeared at his landing point, with another serpent emerging to release more poison.
Takeru focused on evading, countering with fireballs. However, each summoned serpent vanished after its attack, only to reappear from summoning circles in all directions, pressing Takeru from every angle.
Then, Takeru spotted a new summoning circle right in front of him.
As he tried to cast a spell to counter the emerging creature—
Hebikawa grinned slyly.
What emerged from the circle wasn’t the usual serpent, but a different monster altogether.
—A Basilisk!
"You looked."
"—!"
Takeru’s eyes met the Basilisk’s, causing his body to freeze for a brief moment.
“This one’s a special model, way beyond what I used on your parents!”
With a swing of Hebikawa’s staff, a horde of giant serpents appeared, surrounding the immobilized Takeru.
“Die!”
The serpents unleashed a massive wave of poison toward Takeru. But he was already casting a spell on himself.
“Recovery.”
With that single word, Takeru freed himself from the petrification, darting through the poison to close in on Hebikawa.
“—What?!”
Startled, Hebikawa swung his staff to summon more serpents, sending them at Takeru, who dodged skillfully, igniting the serpents as he advanced and struck Hebikawa in the stomach.
“Gah—!”
As Hebikawa stumbled, Takeru moved in to deliver another blow, but from above, Echidna, wielding a silver spear, launched a surprise attack. Takeru evaded her initial strike, then quickly kicked her away as she followed with a series of spear thrusts.
“Tsk!”
Echidna regained her stance, landing near Hebikawa. As she did, Takeru launched another fireball at them. Hebikawa barely managed to stand, summoning a serpent to shield against the flames, but Takeru was already closing the distance between them again.
“Wha—?!”
“Blow away.”
At point-blank range, Takeru unleashed a flare burst, engulfing the two in a cloud of smoke and leaving Hebikawa sprawled on the ground, severely weakened.
From the smoke, a silver spear suddenly flew at Takeru. He leaped backward, creating space, and saw Echidna emerging, her lower body now that of a serpent, with bat-like wings sprouting from her back.
Her gaze was sharper, and her entire presence had transformed into something clearly inhuman.
“So, you’re a demon after all.”
—He knows about demons?! Then he must be the one from the prophecy…!
Echidna’s eyes widened in shock at Takeru’s words.
In the modern world, demons were unknown. Yet, if Takeru knew of their existence, he was certainly the foretold figure from the other world, the one spoken of in prophecy.
A fierce gleam shone in Echidna’s eyes.
“Heh… Finally, I’ve found you! With you, I—”
“No need to hold back, then.”
“Huh…?”
Takeru cut off Echidna’s words with a chilling aura of killing intent.
To him, demons were enemies who had taken countless lives, reawakening the feelings he held from his time as a savior.
“Ah… Ahh…”
In an instant, Echidna’s resolve wavered, and fear twisted her face. Her body began trembling uncontrollably.
Then, supporting her by the shoulders, Hebikawa stepped up beside her.
“Jin?”
His expression was distant, his clothes torn and tattered. His glasses were missing, so he squinted as he looked at Takeru with bare eyes.
“The monsters are wiped out. My trump card, Hydra, is dead. At this point, the plan’s just a joke.”
Despite his words, Hebikawa wore an almost ghostly expression as he turned to Echidna.
“So, what now?”
“Huh?”
“My plan’s a bust. Do whatever you want with yours.”
With Hebikawa’s support, Echidna regained a bit of her composure, enough to steady her voice.
“...Then I’ll accelerate ‘my’ plan. I was going to wait until after we’d destroyed the entire Hunter Association, but…”
“Oh, so you were planning to wreck my plan all along?”
“Yes. That’s right… By the way, Jin, I have a request.”
“Let’s hear it.”
The two of them conspired with a hint of amusement, as if plotting something sinister.
“Could you buy me a little time, just for my sake?”
“You want me to stall him for you…” Hebikawa gave a sly grin, glancing at Takeru, who looked every bit like the final boss.
“You always ask the impossible, don’t you?!”
With that, Hebikawa summoned a swarm of small snakes around Takeru. It wasn’t meant to harm him directly—just to annoy and distract him, knowing he’d sweep them away easily. Hebikawa then launched mana blades toward Takeru, but they were dispelled, and he took another blow.
“Gah… aaargh!”
Beaten and battered, with his staff fallen from his grasp, Hebikawa clung to Takeru out of sheer stubbornness, pride and shame long gone.
—This guy…!
Even Takeru looked at him with a hardened gaze, noticing the tenacity in his opponent’s eyes.
While Hebikawa grappled with Takeru, Echidna approached the lifeless Hydra.
“The dimensional wall between two separate worlds… The small gap acts like a gate, but only weaker creatures can pass through over time…”
Speaking softly, Echidna touched the Hydra, her words seemingly directed toward herself. In response, dark entities that had been absorbed by the Hydra gathered atop its body.
“With a large-scale ritual or the energy to shatter even the dimensional wall itself, the worlds could be linked as one.”
Thick, viscous mud oozed over the Hydra’s body, transforming it from within, swelling and distorting it further and further.
The mud throbbed with a deep, disturbing sound as it writhed, while Echidna sank herself into the mud, embracing it as if it were something precious.
“Now, let’s be reborn together.”
Her voice, tender as if addressing a beloved child, trailed off as her body was swallowed by the mud. The surge of overwhelming magical power shook the ground.
Realizing that the situation had changed, Takeru attempted to cast magic at the mud, but Hebikawa, now in shreds, clung to him again.
“Tsk—!”
“When a snake bites, it doesn’t let go easy!”
Takeru shook Hebikawa off and turned to the mud, only to see Echidna fully absorbed within it, eyes bloodshot and screaming.
—Now, be born! The monster that can kill even gods—Typhon!
With maddened eyes, Echidna unleashed a horrifying surge of mana as the mud covering herself and the Hydra rose toward the sky.
A ghastly howl filled the air.
The tail that had been blown off the Hydra—the original body—was now entirely covered in black sludge, morphing into a new form.
The creature’s torso grew upward, sprouting dark wings, resembling a devilish form. Its lower half sprouted even more heads, twisting and writhing with malevolent energy.
This monstrous figure was now magnitudes larger than the Hydra, the very embodiment of world destruction. The creature that had once brought even Zeus to his knees in Greek mythology—the strongest monster, Typhon—let out a resounding roar toward the heavens.
At Typhon’s emergence, dark clouds spread over Japan, and numerous gates appeared.
Out came goblins and other weak monsters, scattering in terror. Serpentine monsters followed them, hungrily devouring the weaker creatures as if they were prey, ignoring the presence of any hunters.
This scene unfolded across Japan.
“So this is Echidna’s trump card… What an insane creation she’s cooked up.”
Lying defeated, Hebikawa gazed up at the enormous monster, his face reflecting disbelief.
The sky darkened with thunderous clouds, and volcanoes erupted violently. The world around them seemed to unravel, as if signaling the end of the world.