“Tsull-hassal-har,” Dahlia intoned ominously to the members of the expedition, along with Captain Lucas Trebelion, all gathered in the council room. “This is the creature’s true name, and it must never leave this room. Yet, over its long eons of existence, it has been called many other names: Arch-mimic, Chaos Spawn, Abyssal Trickster, and, most infamously, The All-consuming Deceiver.”
A long silence followed. The realization of how close we had come to being completely wiped out was not well received by our group, especially by Uther, that was the leader. To anyone not familiar with him it would look like he was just focused on the debriefing, but he had the same eyes as the night after our encounter with the starving villagers.
Still, our mission had been to uncover the nature of the Cataclysm, so in that sense, we had achieved success.
“We could classify the Deceiver as a mimic,” Dahlia continued with the same clear voice she would use in a lecture at the Academy. “It can assume the form of one or more inanimate objects in close proximity. The size can vary from that of a ring to that of a castle, supposing we can trust legends and secondhand accounts.
“The precision of the imitations is such that it even fools generic magical scans. Sometimes, with more complex disguises, minor inconsistencies arise—like the out-of-season berries that saved us yesterday.”
I shivered, my stomach churning at the mere memory of our narrow escape from the monster. That would have been such a terrible way to die.
“For some reason that was never fully explained, low intelligence creatures like animals, insects or birds avoid it instinctively, and because of that, it preys on sentient beings exclusively.”
“Cute,” I mumbled sulkily to myself. I was in a foul mood since the power of the Seal had failed to influence the Cataclysm. Well, it hadn’t exactly failed, but the result was far less than I had hoped for.
I got up and went around the long table silently refilling cups with the hot tea Blueberry had prepared. Working helped me calm my nerves, but there was also that being present in those kinds of debriefings without serving the participants felt somewhat wrong to me.
“This is all very curious,” said Lucas without any sign of amusement. “But I am more interested in how we can kill it.”
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
Dahlia flipped some notes before replying: “If we set aside all other factors, fighting it has been described as ‘battling a hydra that moves twice as fast, heals four times as quickly, and is ten times as vicious’.”
Hydras were some of the most powerful monsters the Armored Sorcerer used during the siege, a single one could annihilate an unprepared army company. While the prospect of fighting a boosted hydra was scary, it didn’t look that much worse than what we were already facing in the South, but that relief was short-lived as professor Locan added:
“The problem with the Deceiver isn’t just its combat capabilities—it is incredibly intelligent, though in a completely alien way. It absorbs fragments of the generic memory of every creature it consumes, granting it insight into society, culture, politics, and language, allowing it to refine its disguises and sow chaos more effectively.
“Legends speak of times when it used that knowledge to topple entire kingdoms. One infamous tale recount how it once disguised itself as the royal crown during a coronation ceremony, slaughtering everyone present, wiping out the entire royal bloodline, and plunging the Kingdom of Farellis into two decades of civil war.”
So, a boosted hydra that can appear anywhere, absorbs memory from its victims, and understands how society works and uses that to maximize the damage it can cause. That was a threat at a whole other level than a wandering hydra.
“Why would a creature like that care about the political stability of human kingdoms?” Uther asked. The way he rested his chin on his knuckles made him look just like his brother, Prince Allan.
“Who knows…” Locan shrugged. “Whenever it was summoned, its goals aligned with those of the summoner. But when it acted independently, its actions were almost like… pranks. They were subtle, complex, but also random—without any clear benefit to the Deceiver.”
“Great…” Lucas grumbled, then downed his cup of tea in the absence of anything stronger.
“Anyway,” Dahlia continued, “the standard procedure for fighting creatures that can regenerate is to sever their limbs and cauterize the wounds with fire, but that’s hardly practical in the chaos of real battle. During the Capital Siege, several hydras had to be dealt with from afar before the North Frontier Army arrived to relieve us, so I thought—why not just vaporize them?”
“So, I perfected a spell specifically designed for that kind of enemy. I call it Dahlia’s Fiery Bloom Mk3,” Dahlia declared, brimming with pride.
“Your naming conventions are terrible,” Locan commented, exasperated.
“This is rich coming from you. I bet you’d name it something uninspired, like Large Thermal Discharger,” she retorted, hands on her hips.
“Could we please get back to the topic of the otherworldly threat we’re facing?” Lucas interjected, rubbing his forehead, exhaustion seeping into every word.
“Anyway…” Dahlia continued. “This is a strategic-class spell—it consumes a ridiculous amount of mana and takes twenty minutes to cast, with a one-minute window at the end for target acquisition. So, if we can locate it and keep tabs on it for twenty-one minutes, we can kill it.”
So, in the end the plan was to blast it with a powerful spell. Sounded simple enough.
What could go wrong?
