Matthias took a deep breath as he took in the sight before him. He kept his hand on Peter's shoulder as he pumped healing magic into the druid.

  "You know what?" Matthias decided. "You're Peter, right?"

  "You know my name?" Peter asked, looking up at Matthias with wonder.

  "It took a bit, but you were the first druid of these lands," Matthias responded with a chuckle. "You also completely restrained this Demon King."

  "But why is it not dead?" Peter asked. "I am sure it is infested by the roots I pierced it with."

  "This Demon King specializes in near-infinite regeneration," Matthias explained. "The only reason you were able to restrain him is because the acidic ocean water dissolved all the bits that were ripped off or fell away."

  "So we absolutely can't let him onto land," Peter noted.

  Matthias nodded. With a bit of will, he pushed the roots to grow more, forcing the Demon King deeper into the acidic tide just in case. For its part, the Demon King still hissed and foamed at the mouth as it vibrated in fury.

  "Peter, I am going to offer you a challenge," Matthias decided. "If you can finish this thing off, I and Serenia the Dryad will promote you to Archdruid. Is that fair?"

  "You would give me the honor of being the first Archdruid of these lands?" Peter asked, his eyes as big as saucers. "I can do it. I received a spell some time ago that I think can do it. It is a slow and painful way to die."

  "I can make you a weapon if that would help," Matthias offered. "Still can't make anything legendary, but I think I can make something good enough."

  "No," Peter declined. "I can do this."

  With that, Peter used his magic to get one of the roots to lift him up into the air. He stepped from the root to the top of the Demon King's head. He strode forward with purpose to the stone spike that still pierced the creature.

  "It is too bad you are not edible," Peter sighed as he pulled out an ironwood dagger. "But with your levels of strength, you probably would have been stringy."

  Peter focused on the dagger for a moment, closing his eyes to let all other distractions fall away. He knelt next to the hole and lifted the dagger with both hands.

  "Hydra's Bite," he whispered as he drove the blade down.

  The wooden weapon turned completely black, veins of dull violet crawling along its length as if the dagger itself were alive. Purple smoke wafted off the blade for the brief moment it was exposed to open air, carrying with it a bitter, metallic scent that made Matthias’s nose wrinkle. Even the ocean seemed to recoil, the water around the wound churning as if disturbed by something fundamentally wrong.

  When the dagger was buried deep in the exposed flesh of the Demon King, there was no clang or resistance—only a wet, yielding slide, as though Peter had thrust the blade into rotting fruit rather than something that had threatened nations. Peter simply got up and walked away, allowing the root to return him to Matthias' side. The dagger melted into the wound. The Demon King began to violently spasm and convulse. Its massive claws gouged furrows into the seabed as its regeneration kicked into overdrive, flesh bubbling and reforming even as it sloughed away in blackened chunks. Each pulse of healing only seemed to feed the corruption spreading from the wound, turning renewal into agony.

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  Matthias studied the liquids bubbling out of the festering wound and could not help but whistle. Colors that should not have existed mixed together—oily blacks, sickly greens, flashes of iridescent purple—each reacting violently with the acidic seawater. Where the fluids touched the ocean, the water hissed and boiled, releasing thin plumes of steam that carried the sharp sting of poison.

  "Yeah, that is a nasty spell," Matthias admitted as he finally understood what the skill was attempting to emulate.

  "Oh?" Peter asked. "It is my skill, and I hardly know what it does. It simply says that for a great deal of mana and a sacrificial weapon, I can potentially kill any living creature."

  "Are you aware of the stories of the legendary hydra?" Matthias asked.

  "I am not," Peter confessed as he turned his full attention to Matthias.

  "The legendary hydra was said to have poison so potent that it could kill a god," Matthias informed Peter. "It was so toxic that it could kill simply by touching your skin."

  "Is that what my skill is doing?" Peter asked. "Creating a god-killing poison?" Peter seemed to pale at the implications.

  Matthias patted him on the back and chuckled. "No," he reassured the druid. "Your skill simply converted that dagger into every form of poison and toxin I know of. There are even a few compounds in there that I am not aware of."

  The Demon King made a pitiful trilling sound as the foam dripping from its mouth turned black. Its great shell cracked in places, fissures spiderwebbing outward as veins of corruption pulsed beneath the surface. Even its rage seemed to falter, replaced by a confused, animal panic as its body failed to understand why it could no longer recover.

  "You quite literally just hit the Demon King with every poison and toxin known to the system," Matthias said. "So, while it may take some time, this fight is over."

  The festering rot within the Demon King grew so severe that the stone spike began to slide out with a wet, slurping sound, and all the flesh near it was reduced to soup. The Demon King let out a garbled noise as black, vein-like growths began pulsing along its shell.

  "We don't need to watch this," Matthias said, though his eyes lingered for a moment longer. As a dungeon, he had seen death in countless forms, but this was different. This was not a clean end or a glorious one. It was entropy made manifest, the system itself turning against something that refused to stay dead. "This is only going to get worse."

  "So what should we do while we wait to see if it works?" Peter asked.

  Matthias lifted a bucket—one Peter recognized.

  "I think you dropped this earlier," Matthias noted with a grin. "How about we grill these up? Maybe with some butter, lemon, and a few spices? Oh, and on a bed of rice."

  "That sounds divine," Peter admitted.

  "Hmmm," Matthias mused. "Shrimp fried rice, or steamed vegetables on the side?"

  "I don't think I have had the pleasure of trying either of those," Peter confessed.

  "Well, as my first Archdruid, you simply must try them all," Matthias decided with a sagely nod.

  "Indeed," Peter agreed, also nodding sagely. "It would be improper of me not to know the bounties of the land I represent."

  The two walked off, contemplating the best way to enjoy Peter's catch of the day. Behind them, the ocean continued its grim work. The Demon King’s movements slowed from violent thrashing to weak twitches, each one sending ripples through the tangled roots binding it. The roots themselves began to darken, bark softening and splitting as the poisons worked their way outward.

  Hours passed. The tide rose and fell, indifferent to the dying god-beast trapped within it. By the time the sun dipped low on the horizon, the Demon King could no longer even manage a sound. Its regeneration sputtered and failed in fits and starts, new flesh forming only to immediately collapse into slurry. The stone spike finally slipped free entirely, sinking into the silt below as the last structures holding the creature together gave way.

  Far from the shore, seabirds circled—but none dared approach. Even the hardiest scavengers seemed to sense that this was not carrion meant for them. The water around the corpse grew darker and thicker, until the Demon King was less a creature and more a dissolving stain in the sea.

  When it was finally over, the bay did not celebrate. The sea smoothed itself as if nothing monumental had occurred, waves lapping gently against the shore. Where a Demon King had died, there was only empty water—and the quiet understanding that something profoundly wrong had been erased, not defeated.