Sword Nine Lives

And as I came into range, close enough to reach out and connect with him, I shouted out the name of my Noble Phantasm again.

Shooting the Hundred Heads
“NINE LIVES!”

I swung, and faster than fast, moving like lightning, striking between one blink and the next, my sword cut.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five.

Five strikes in rapid succession, parting glittering green scales with effortless ease.

But I didn’t stop at five, I kept going, kept swinging, kept cutting, and my sword sang as it slashed through the air. Faster, faster, and faster still.

Each blow sliced deeper and deeper into Leviathan’s body, sending sprays of black ichor and carving out chunks of crystalline flesh.

Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten.

Faster and faster and faster. My arm moved so swiftly that it looked as though I had grown half a dozen more. Each attack landed with such speed that they seemed to strike simultaneously.

Again, again, again, again, again. Blow after blow rained down.

Eleven. Twelve. Fifteen. Eighteen. Twenty-one.

The world had slowed to a crawl around me. The raindrops fell like molasses, inching towards the ground a millimeter at a time. Any that came within reach of me were split along the ultra-fine edge of my sword.

Twenty-five. Thirty. Thirty-five. Forty. Forty-five.

Leviathan himself seemed to be moving just as slowly. He hadn’t reacted, was still in the middle of reacting to the first few blows. It was as though he could not keep up with the sheer speed of my swings.

But it was getting harder. Not that I was slowing down, but that each cut was less effective, each slice carved away less flesh than the one previous.

Fifty. Fifty-five. Sixty. Seventy. Eighty.

The damage I was doing was decreasing. No, rather, the durability of the flesh I was cutting was increasing. The thinner surface layers had been carved away and destroyed, the middle, hardier layers obliterated, and I was reaching now the incredibly dense, incredibly durable inner flesh, that which formed the base skeletal structure and, at the deepest parts, the core.

Impossibly dense. Impossibly durable.

It was matter that surpassed the tolerances of the given material, going beyond mere density and strength. It was a material without flaw, without imperfections in the crystalline superstructure that would allow for points of fracture under the stress of my blade or my fists. It was an impossible material that surpassed earthly limits, despite giving no indication of anything like an Authority that would allow it such a property.

[It is not divine power derived from Authority or a blessing, nor an exotic material. Its mystical weight is too low.​]

Then, what made it so durable? If the matter was the same, but the density increased beyond what was possible for this world, how did it manage something like that?

Herakles’ incredible mind and intuition had already found the answer.

A dimensional folding phenomenon. Increasing the durability of the flesh in the same manner as certain kinds of sword techniques by folding multiple instances of a singular event or object over each other through extra-dimensional manipulation. It was not simply a matter of coming up against more matter as it was that the matter was folded over itself by refracting it through multiple higher dimensions.

[A frustrating defense mechanism.​]

I gritted my teeth and delivered the final blow.

One-hundred.

With a crack like thunder, it landed, and Leviathan was thrown backwards as the accumulated force slammed into him like a freight train. The concentrated boom of the sound barrier shattering a hundred consecutive times — or maybe only once, magnified a hundredfold — echoed, and for a short moment, pushed away the falling rain as it rippled outwards.

I was right earlier, then, I thought as my feet touched back upon the ground. Herakles could not defeat Leviathan in a single blow or a single use of his Noble Phantasm. It would be possible, eventually, to do enough damage and reach the core at the center. With enough time and effort, killing Leviathan was possible.