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Chapter 23 - Chapter 21 – The Boss That Needed Just One Bullet. Part 1/2

Hajime and yue entered the labyrinth floor cautiously the same way they have been doing every floor after the fight with that over-powered turtle

And according to all the maps hajime has been making this floor is supposed to be the 100th floor if he counteded from the floor he fell on to.

Hajime estimated that his fall took him to floor 101 directly from floor 60.

'So this is floor 200', thought hajime.

"Since I missed the boss fight at floor 100 let's take out all the interest on this floors Boss.

Hajime and yue spend the next few days mapping that terrain and maintaining their equipment.

After about a week the story in front of the Grand and ornate massive doors that block the road ahead.

Hajime initially wanted to push open the door with brute force but when he check the door with his resonance there was a indent in between both the doors connecting them like a seal.

He realised it was a scanner according to his resonance analysis.

He was the first one to go head to get scanned then yue followed.

The door after scanning the both of them magically, decided they were eligible enough to pass through this room.

The doors to Floor 200 finished grinding open with a final echoing boom that carried through the stone like a heartbeat. Dust drifted from the ceiling in soft spirals. On the other side waited a space unlike any they had passed before.

The arena hall stretched out very wide, supposed by vast stone circlular pillers—so polished it reflected the ceiling in faint, wavering shapes.

Towering pairs pillars rowed the chamber, each carved from a single slab of black-veined stone. Above them, layer after layer of interlocked magic circles formed a domed canopy, every line sleeping, waiting.

The air here felt heavier, thicker, like the chamber itself was alive.

As Hajime and Yue crossed the third pair of pillars, the space ahead of them twisted.

Mana from the entire coiled, making the air vibrate. A huge magic circle — sixty meters wide and dense enough with magic circles to hurt the eyes — flared to life, suspended in front of and in between the chamber on the side of the far inner gate. Runes crackled across the circles face like fuses burning.

Its complexity made the bridge behemoth's summoning circle look like childish scribbles.

Hajime's fingers tightened around Donner.

"Yeah," he muttered. "Definetly not a mid-boss."

Yue didn't change expression. The astral dress flickered across her body.

Her scepter was also materialised and now reached in her arms along side the mana logistics system working like an extension of her will.

"We won't lose," she said.

The magic circle answered with light.

Multicolour lines split apart, expanding outward in a storm of radiance.

A sound or rather sounds rose from the glow—hissing, rumbling, growling, Roaring, a layered chorus of predators announcing themselves. The shape that was slowly ascending from the summoning light made the scorpion guardian look like a warm-up exercise.

A massive hydra slammed into the arena floor.

The body was thick and serpentine, scales gleaming reflectively like wet obsidian.

Six long necks rose from its trunk, each crowned by a different head. And beneath them, half shielded by overlapping plates, argent light beating beneath the skin like an alien heart.

A sharp wave of killing intent poured out, compressing the air.

Red. Blue. Green. Black. Yellow. White.

The hydra opened its eyes. All twelve of them. Six colourful pair of eyes stared at them in synchronized malice.

Red one's eyes were orange in colour glaring at us with molten fury.

Blue one's eyes were saphire in colour they shimmered like compressed ice.

Green one's eyes were emrald in colour narrowed sharp and bladelike.

Yellow one's eyes were silver it stared dully, a fortress behind each blink.

White's eyes were a soft gold, it's looked almost gentle — a twisted contrast.

Black one's eyes were deep violet in colour like voids, pupils stretching like endless pits.

Beside him, Yue's grip on her septer tightened slightly.

Hajime's lips lifted.

"Let's take it apart."

"Mm," Yue answered softly.

The hydra roared.

Six beams of power burst forth in the same instant.

Red vomited a gout of flame, a column of fire large enough to swallow a building.

Blue spat spears of compressed yet jagged ice, the air slicing at its sharpness as it passed.

Green's neck swayed as it compressed a large amount of wind magic in its neck and then snapped forward, releasing a typhoon of invisible blades that carved trenches into the floor.

Black heads gaze shimmered; phantom copies of all six heads rippled into being, distorting the battlefield. Trying to middle their senses.

But unfortunately it didn't work against both hajime and yue, hajime was unaffected due to his skill 'Truth eyes' and yue just like hajime due to their response bond could select 5 skills from his repertoire use as her own.

Yue is currently using these skills of hajime:

1) All element Amplification

2) Parallel processing

3) Thought Acceleration

4) Quantum Calculation

5) Truth Eyes

The only down side of the skill sharing feature of the resonance bond was that it takes about 24 hours to set or reset a set of skills

Yellow's hardened scales flared diamond-bright, reinforcing the main body.

White glowed, threads of radiance linking from its jaws to every other neck, bolstering and repairing.

Hajime and Yue moved without hesitation.

"Barrier," Hajime said.

But Yue was already reaching for him.

Their hands touched. Holding eachother fingers intertwined.

United Will.

Tier 4 Resonance ignited between them. Mana surged outward, forming a dome of interwoven crimson and gold, with faint light rings where their hands were joined.

The hydra's barrage slammed into it—fire exploding, ice cracking, wind screeching, phantom strikes rippling.

The barrier flexed but held. Impact waves rolled across its surface like raindrops against a pond.

Inside the barrier, silence felt almost sacred.

Hajime's eyes sharpened.

They released hands. The barrier thinned, dissolved.

The hydra attacked immediately.

Red heads flame tightened into surgical beams.

Blue heads fired multiple ice lances, blades etc at once.

Green heads wind blades curved mid-flight, adjusting trajectories. Trying to find a weak spot.

Black head illusions multiplied again, overlaying the real heads. Thought ineffective it kept trying.

Yellow head pushed forward like a living bulwark. Trying to destroy everything in its path.

White head just stood there watching, wating.

Hajime grinned.

"Time to test some toys."

He launched himself with Air Dance, using the mana platform to twist sharply around a pillar. Yue mirrored him on the opposite side, flames brushing her Astral dress without burning.

Red head tracked Hajime, throat swelling.

He didn't dodge.

He threw a compact cylinder directly into Red heads waiting mouth.

Horror frost grenade.

The hydra's flame tried to erupted outward—only for the grenade to detonate inside its own throat. A violent bloom of sharp ice javelins burst from Red's mouth and throat, one particular lance grew straight up blowing one eye clean out.

Half a second later, Donner & Schlag fired. 12 continues railgun blast blew the red head off from the main hydra body.

The Shtar-cored bullet tried to tore through White head who was healing Red's skull, head detached, trailing embers. Yet his efforts were wasted as the yellow head blocked the bullets with his body.

While hajime was intertwined with the reason, white yellow head.

Yue took on the rest.

She used the skills like 'thought acceleration', 'parallel processing', 'quantum calculation', 'all element Amplification', 'image composition', 'spell melding', to become a army of mages all by herself.

Hundreds of spells were fired every minute, spells of every element, fusion spells, advance tier spells all she could think of in her now super computer brain.

The three hydra heads became a sorry sight to see as while the green and blue head were trying to fight back all the black head could do was act as a shield for the two of them.

It was sad really. While it was getting healed to full health by the white head one moment and in the next moment it's at the brink of death again.

Hajime and yue regrouped along with all the hydra head coming together to support each other against these two monsters.

This time the hydra heads didn't attack immediately instead they weighted for the whitehead to complete the hell all of them it took about a minute.

In the mean while the two monsters where casually discussing what to do with this hydra monster.

"What do you think yue? How should we deal with it?"

"It takes about a minute to heal and regenerate the destroyed or cut off head. So all we need to do is cut them all off within a minute." Yue responded

Hajime nodded and added that it's better to just cut off their head and collect them all so he could use predator later.

Yue agreed.

Hajime hit the ground running, with each shot fired from his guns his supersonic Step turning his sprint into a flicker.

He transmuted a clamp around the exposed base, trapping the main body the shell so it couldn't move around much.

He then used presence manipulation to hide himself and used camouflage to distract all the heads to attack in one single direction.

He used this opportunity to login on the white head that was left alone by its pears.

He over charged the gale claw skill and while still hidden behind the head, he attacked and severed the white head.

He quickly put it into his Inventory now the count down for the i minute started as the magic circle was starting to materialise above the white head now head less stump.

One down.

Hajime then focused on the red head while she activated skills like 'parallel processing' and 'thought acceleration'.

He observed the world in slow motion. He noticed that the red head was the closest to the now headless stump, and it was the quickest one reacting to the sudden loss and pain.

The moment it turned back hajime blasted it's head off with the azure blade spellhe copied from yue and shoved the intact red head into Inventory.

Across the arena, Yue danced with the Blue head.

Its first water spear struck where she had been a moment before, tearing the floor apart. She answered with a twirl of her septer, slender water whips coiled with electricity, catching Blue's next barrage and reflecting the charge back into its body.

Blue head stiffened, muscles locking as lightning crawled across its scales.

"Now," Yue whispered.

She raised her hand. A dense ice blade formed instantly, winds sharpening it into a razer sharp point.

It fired.

The blade slashed through Blue's neck, decapitating the neck.

Hajime appeared beside her in the next blink, catching the falling head with a slab of transmuted stone. Shtar bands sealed around it he stored it without slowing.

Thee down.

The remaining hydra hissed, breath rolling out like toxin. As if suddenly aware of their numbers being reduced in half.

Green head whirled into overdrive. Wind blades filled the arena in crossing webs, slicing everything they touched. Black's illusions multiplied again, tripling the heads, their phantom maws snapping.

But 'Truth Eyes' cut through the lies. Hajime and Yue ignored the illusions entirely.

Green head shifted to zone control, curving its blades toward predicted weak points.

Yue countered by raising drifting slabs of earth, spinning them with wind; the blades shattered on the rotating masses or ricocheted back at Green heads sides.

Black heads eyes flashed, a distortion rippling across the world—walls bending, floor tilting, heads warping position. Since it's couldn't control them it would control everything around them.

Tier 4 Resonance anchored their minds with each other both being aware of their relative position.

Hajime exhaled faint laughter.

"Cute."

He fired.

The bullet ignored the illusions and drilled into the true Black heads lower neck. A muffled explosion blasted through half it's neck.

Yue's wind blade severed the neck cleanly.

Four down.

Hajime pocketed the head, then hurled a horror frost grenade at Green. The blast drenched the neck in icy vapor, ice cold sensation crawling into its nerves. The normally fluid movements stuttered.

Yue lashed a lightning wire across the frozen joint.

Neck severed.

Five down.

Yellow howled, its scales turning translucent and diamond-bright. It shoved its massive bulk forward to protect the White heads stump for the last 10 second left for it to regenerate.

"Tanks time," Hajime muttered.

He tossed a frost grenade and the storm granade at Yellow's head turning it into a blizzard.

He then used a large amount of Mana nearly a thousand units on the density control skill to reduce its density.

Weight decreased. Temperature crashed. Yellow faltered, its armored plates creaking under expanding frost and shifting density.

Yue gathered wind, earth, and just a needle of Azure to make a drill that spins at high speed.

"Pierce," she breathed.

Her spinning stone lance hit the neck with a tearing roar. Hajime's bullets struck from the opposite side. The combined force shattered the reinforced scales.

Crack. Snap.

Six.

Hajime stored the glittering head and immediately turned Donner toward White's stump but it's didn't respond.

Yue cauterized the stump with a quick Azure sweep just as a precaution.

Hajime sealed and stored the all the dragon heads in his Inventory.

The arena finally stilled.

The six necks writhed weakly, regrowth crawling painfully slow without White's healing. Twisted, incomplete lumps formed where heads once existed.

Only the argent shell at the center remained steady, pristine.

Mana churned inside it.

Yue frowned.

"Something's coming."

The scales split.

The seventh head rose.

Sleek. Metallic. Beautiful and terrible. Silver scales reflected the arena lights like liquid mirrors. Intricate patterns danced across each plate. Its eyes burned with pale, dispassionate light.

When it opened its jaws, no fire came.

No wind.

No water.

Just raw annihilation.

"Now the fun part," Hajime said.

The Silver head didn't roar.

It moved—and the world split open.

A ribbon of prismatic radiance burst from its jaws, sweeping across the arena. Stone turned to nothing. Not dust. Not fragments.

Nothing.

"Barrier," Yue snapped.

They clasped hands again. United Will surged—but instead of tanking the beam, they shaped the dome, curving it like a slope. The aurora skidded off, redirected upward into the ceiling's reinforced wards. Saving the mana that otherwise would have been spent to tank that blow.

The beam cut off.

A heartbeat later, Silver spat dozens of luminous bullets—tiny spheres of disintegration wrapped in homing paths.

Hajime said to yue let go. Nexus Overdrive.

Yue nodded.

" "Nexus Overdrive." "

Tier 4 Resonance screamed to life.

Power flooded them. The world sharpened, colors brightening, motion slowing.

Hajime vanished.

Riftwalk + Air Dance + Supersonic Step—stacked, refined, perfected.

He weaved between the bullets with surgical precision, each step guided by Infinite Resonance's predictions. It looked less like dodging and more like bending the battlefield around himself.

Yue layered her own defenses:

A thin veil high density wind magic to confuse homing disintegration shots.

Wind shears to nudge bullets off course to drag projectiles into each other.

Radiance filled the arena in a lethal web—but Hajime and Yue moved through it like dancers in a storm.

Hajime closed in on Silver head, dropping all sorts of elemental grenades under it.

He then went above it's head using presence manipulation and delivered a strong kick to its head with steel legs and with his attack stat being above 4000 it's head caved in slamming into the ground where the elemental granades exploded.

Thought by the time 10 second passed it was back to its full health.

Yue clipped Silver heads neck with light Azure slashes, observing how the scales reacted. They resisted well. Too well.

"Pure Azure spells hurts it," she noted, "but not fast enough."

"Then we overkill," Hajime said.

The Silver head snapped toward him. Its jaw glowed—aurora charge pattern building.

Hajime felt the shift.

"Here we go."

The aurora beam tore through the arena—

—and he Riftwalked through the smallest gap, reappearing on the ceiling plate he had sabotaged earlier.

For a moment, Silver head held still while channeling it's beam.

Yue whispered through the link: "Now?"

"Later."

Hajime crouched, lined up Donner, mana battery humming, Shtar barrel pulsing with the glowing effect of lightening field coursing threw.

Infinite Resonance mapped the Silver heads core hidden beneath it's brain behind the eyes. Yue sent a pulse through their bond, sending mana from her logistics system for fine-tuning the shot.

One bullet.

"Let's see if that's enough," Hajime murmured.

He fired—

END OF PART 1/2

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Author: "Could I have some stones?"

Reader: "You see, we only deal in Echoes — stones don't have good resonance."

Author: gets absorbed into static.

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