Heinr, grit his teeth as he blocked the breath with a barrier and rose his sword to clash with the Death Knight, getting knocked back to the ground by the force of their clash.
The undead's attacks were not done yet as the hydra released a breath of dark red flames that seared through the air and towards the fallen paladin.
But just when the Hydra thought it would finally get him, a short muscular figure carrying a large shield teleported in front of Heinr and slammed his large shield into the ground, generating another larger shield construct with magic power just in time for the breath to reach.
**BOOOOOMMM!!!
A loud explosion rang out, followed by the sound of something cracking as large irregular cracks could be seen spreading out of the larger shield construct of magic power.
It shattered a moment later, with the full force of the breath slamming onto the shield, however, the dwarf roused his magic power and activated a skill, before tilting the shield and reflecting the breath with his skill.
In the direction of the reflected breath was an unfortunate death knight who had its upper body blown to ashes by the reflected breath of dark flames.
The Death Knight's bone wyvern mount was then simultaneously attacked with various spells from a party of B-rank adventurer magicians, crashing to the ground and shattering into a pile of bones, which were then promptly incinerated before the Eighth Finger's domain could reanimate them.
"Sir Paladin! Handle the Hydra, we'd deal with the Death Knights!!"
"Don't worry about the others, I'd prevent the stray attacks from getting to them!!"
The Dwarven shield grandmaster's words addressed Heinr's major concern, with the High-Rank paladin nodding in response before turning his gaze towards the Level 400 Hydra that was already charging up another breath.
"You…shield user. I'm going to need you to use that deflecting skill again.
There's something drawn on its back and I'm going to try and force it to use that thing's power. When I do, I'm going to need you to reflect whatever it is back to it."
"Hmmm...It might be a bit much, but I'd try."
The dwarf replied as Heinr looked at the Hydra that silently gazed at the interaction between the two while charging its breath in silence.
He could even see signs that the head he had destroyed was beginning to regenerate, attributing it to the effect of the Domain of Death that had spread out under the hydra's feet.
Thanks to the coat of holy energy around him, the domain's debuffs did not affect him, but the same could not be said about the party of A and B rankers fighting against the Death Knights and their wyvern mounts.
'Normally, any undead hit by my divinity would be unable to be healed even with a necromancer's most powerful techniques, however, this domain is powerful enough to make the undead regenerate despite that…this necromancer is truly on another level.
I have to end this quickly.
Conserving power is not possible anymore.'
Heinr thought as he took a step forward, creating patches of holy magic that ate away at the darkness underneath his feet, walking forward before slowly breaking into a run and dashing towards the Hydra.
Seeing its opponent incoming, it cancelled charging its breath and rapidly fired the charged-up energy as magic bullets that gouged out large craters on the ground where they landed.
Unfortunately for it, its target paladin leapt around to dodge the magic bullets with ease, even throwing in a few spears of magical light that pierced through some of them and caused them to explode, creating smoke clouds that obscured the Hydra's vision.
"KRURARARARARARARA!!!!!"
The Hydra's poison head rang out as if it was singing beautifully, but the effects of the green magic bullets that it spat out were not beautiful at all.
**BOOM! BOOBOOMM!
Heinr dodged all of them with nimble movements, ignoring the ruined grounds that were depressed by dozens of metres with each bullet hitting, as well as the areas that had melted like concentrated acid had been poured on the floor.
The undead knights that threw themselves at him in a bid to slow him down were blown away with a burst of aura, with one of them colliding with a poison magic bullet and melting to a puddle of black liquid within seconds.
As if that was not enough, dark flames burned the ground everywhere, forcing Heinr to concentrate more energy on his feet to prevent them from being set ablaze with death energy-infused flames.
Heinr kicked off the ground and jumped into the air at the exact same moment that the Hydra launched a magic bullet, but having expected it, the paladin created a foothold with aura and leapt into the air right as it was about to collide with him.
'Doing this in battle is a lot harder than it looks, how the hell does that Evan kid do it so easily?'
With such an idle thought, Heinr dodged the large set of jaws dripping with poison that threatened to clamp down on him, closing in on the hydra with his sword raised.
His Grand Cross skill was already in a half-activated state, and the Hydra could sense the terrifying energy building up on the blade.
"GRAAAA!!!"
The flame head roared wildly and it circulated its energies, causing the grey lines on its back to glow up with a red light and reveal an intricate array of magic circles that had been drawn on its back.
At the same time, the scales that covered its body suddenly stood up and shot towards Heinr, resulting in a rain of thousands of scale fragments that were engulfed in flames midway assaulting him.
"Thought so."
Since his charging momentum was too strong, it was nigh impossible for him to dodge, but Heinr never intended on doing so from the start.
"Shield Counter!!"
The voice of the dwarven shield master rang out as he appeared in front of Heinr, using a defensive skill that allowed him to teleport right in front of or in between an ally and an enemy in a 'ready to defend' position and activated a counter skill.
Immediately after, the sharp scale fragments slammed into the large shield construct he generated with his magic power, striking it with a loud noise and causing it to crack.
The shield shattered in the next moment and the Hydra increased the intensity of its scale rain, not knowing that shattering the shield construct, was the prerequisite to the dwarf's skill activation.
Unfortunately for it, the hydra discovered that in the worst way as the scale fragments that pierced through the shield suddenly reversed trajectories and shot towards its own body.
"GRU?!"
Its cry of confusion could be heard right before the flaming scale fragments slammed into its body, pierced its death energy coat and shredded its now unprotected flesh.
While it cried out in pain from having part of its attack reflected towards it, Heinr who used the dwarf's back as a foothold to propel himself even further, landed on the Hydra's back and rose his sword up.
"KRRRRRKKKAAKAKAKA!"
The Hydra seemed to have realised that a foreign object that was not a scale had landed on its body as it twisted its body around while roaring as if trying to shake Heinr off.
Its forked tail swiped across its back, trying to swat him off while its flame head turned around and opened its mouth to launch a breath attack on him.
Heiner saw the dark red flames gathering in its mouth, emitting horrifying heat and realised that the creature had resolved itself to take damage just to get him off.
However, the paladin was faster, swinging down his divinity-infused blade and dropping a large cross-shaped construct of energy on the Hydra's back.
""KYAAAAAAAAKKKKAAAAKKKK!!!!!""
Both heads screamed out as the Hydra's large body trashed around in pain, something that was only possible as the energy Heiner used was one that was just that dangerous to undead beings.
Its 'immunity' to pain was bypassed and trashed around, its large body causing the ground to tremble with the force of earthquakes repeatedly.
The energy gathering in its mouths dissipated and its tail that shot up with murderous intent also fell back down.
Without hesitation, Heinr pulled back his sword and infused it with divinity again, spinning around and delivering two diagonal slashes towards its flaming head, severing it from its neck in one clean set of movements.
Heinr's free hand stretched out as the paladin generated dozens of two-ringed magic circles that surrounded the Hydra on all sides, with an orb of condensed light emerging from within each magic circle.
"Heaven-Splitting Flash!"
More than a dozen beams of light were simultaneously launched from the orbs, crashing down on the Hydra's body and tearing through its flesh.
He then snapped his fingers and the orbs themselves shot towards the Hydra as if affected by some sort of gravitational pull, only to explode upon making contact with the undead creature's body, eliciting another pained scream from it.
"Time to end this."
Heinr spoke as he coated his sword with divinity once more, shaping the divinity into a longer and wider blade to extend its reach.
He then pulled back this larger blade with his two hands and thrust it in the direction of the Hydra's remaining head, creating a focused blast that shredded apart its flesh before going on to blast a hole right through the Hydra's neck, leaving its last head dangling around weakly.
With a sigh, the man sent a light orb towards the half-severed neck and snapped his fingers, causing it to explode and blast off the head completely.
eaglesnovɐ1,сoМ With all three heads destroyed, the undead Hydra's movements ceased and its large body dropped to the ground, causing a small earthquake and releasing shockwaves that knocked nearby undead off their feet due to its sheer size.
[Get out of the way, Heinr.]
He did not even get a moment to rest when the voice of Grand Mage Czac rang out in his ear, with the paladin momentarily questioning just how the communication device in his ear did not fall out when he was jumping around.
Nevertheless, he did not dare to linger any longer as he jumped off the Hydra's body and picked up the dwarf who was laying on the floor a few feet away, using light magic to purify him of the domain's debuffs while dashing away from the Hydra as fast as he could.
A large shadow suddenly spread out across the entire area, with Heinr looking up and understanding exactly why Czac told him to get out of there.