Chapter 23: The Three-Headed Serpent Picadrak

The next morning, Liu Zong, who had spent half the night reading, finally woke up with difficulty to find the hunters already prepared for battle. They seemed quite exhilarated. As Liu Zong approached, intending to speak, the shaman stopped him. “Don’t say a word today—no tempting fate.”

Liu Zong paused, then patted his head, realizing his own carelessness. Not only in this instance, but even on the main game map, if you reached the final stage of a chain quest, you absolutely could not say anything reckless—such as, “Once I finish this, I’ll go home and rest,” or, “After this, I’ll confess to so-and-so.” That was practically ensuring the quest’s failure.

So, at times like this, players would choose to keep quiet and say nothing more until the task was done and they had safely exited.

Liu Zong obediently sealed his lips, and the hunters offered no further words. After gathering their gear, they gestured for him to follow and began climbing the metal staircase upward.

This staircase, descending from the ceiling, was the passage to the summoning site of the three-headed hydra, Picadrak, and also the location of Liu Zong’s crucial quest, “Cain’s Memory.”

Anyone who had taken part in the Bleak Coast instance knew about this hidden boss, but summoning it was far from simple. First, you needed a vast amount of blood and flesh as sacrificial offerings. Then, immediately after killing the Modulated High Priest, you had to use their ocular membrane to open the device and lower the metal staircase.

Finally, you had to identify the correct summoning altar. Without knowledge of the right altar, even reaching the platform with abundant offerings would be for naught.

Most players, upon reaching this stage, would try their luck climbing up and experimenting, since there would be, at most, five and, at least, three summoning altars on the platform—leaving a sliver of hope in everyone’s hearts: what if, just what if, they guessed right?

But for Liu Zong, there was no need to gamble. The quest “Cain’s Memory” was tied to the three-headed hydra, Picadrak, and the summoning scene he had witnessed in the memory was naturally the correct method. As long as the passage was open and the offerings sufficient, they could summon Picadrak without fail.

This was precisely why the hunters had agreed, without hesitation, to help Liu Zong defeat the final hidden boss.

The staircase upward was not long; after about ten minutes of climbing, the group emerged from the cavern to a platform at the edge of the coast. The platform sat midway on a cliff, more than ten meters above the sea. It wasn’t large—just over a hundred square meters—and near the edge stood five braziers of varying sizes.

Peering down from the edge, they could see the target for today—a colossal sea beast’s corpse, nearly a hundred meters long.

Yet, due to the cliff’s assimilation, the sea’s erosion, and the accumulation of bones, the original form of the beast was unrecognizable, though the faint aura of power still lingering around its body testified to its once-formidable presence. Amid the mound of bones on its back, Liu Zong clearly saw a beast’s trail—likely the path Picadrak, the three-headed hydra, used.

By this time, the hunters had made all their preparations. The druid approached Liu Zong and said, “Your turn. Ready the sacrifice.”

The hunters then piled heaps of fishmen’s flesh and blood on the ground, waiting for Liu Zong to begin.

He did not act immediately, but carefully replayed the steps of the “Cain’s Memory” quest several times in his mind. Only then did he approach the second brazier on his left, lighting the remaining lamp oil within.

Next, he lit the first brazier on the right, then the central one, then the first on the left, and finally the second on the right. Following this sequence, he ignited all the braziers, then tossed the fishmen’s flesh into the rightmost brazier—the first one on the right.

With each piece cast in, a strange roar echoed from the sea—half-screech, half-howl, somewhere between a goat’s scream and a wolf’s cry.

As more flesh was offered, they began to hear the heavy thud of footsteps approaching, and in the distant sea, a three-headed hydra emerged.

This beast stretched some thirty meters in length, its three heads and necks rising more than twelve meters high. Unlike ordinary hydras, only the central head retained its serpentine form; the other two had transformed, one resembling a goat and the other a wolf.

[Three-headed Hydra Picadrak]
[Race: Elemental Creature]
[Level: Lv1 (10-star) BOSS Template]
[Attributes: Strength 10, Agility 9, Constitution 9, Spirit 8]

[Description: A three-headed creature, a subspecies of the hydra. Having long consumed the flesh and blood of modulated beings, its attributes and the fighting style of each head have gradually changed.]

As Picadrak appeared offshore, Liu Zong ceased offering flesh to the brazier and instead divided the remaining offerings into three piles at the platform’s edge.

Once everything was in place, Liu Zong retreated to the platform’s entrance—judging it the safest spot. The hunters readied themselves: they set ice and explosive traps by the three piles of flesh, while the rogue found a perfect spot to leap from, poised to strike at any moment.

The shaman and druid stood beside Liu Zong—though, to avoid tempting fate, they refrained from offering him any words of encouragement this time.

Soon, the three-headed hydra Picadrak strode forward over the sea beast’s corpse to the platform’s edge, its massive heads looming over the three piles of flesh. Sensing the elemental fluctuations beneath the offerings, the creature remained unfazed—accustomed by now to free meals hiding strange surprises, so long as they did not hinder its growth.

The three heads, each the size of a car, exchanged glances, then lunged toward their respective piles of flesh.

Though its heads had mutated, Picadrak’s core attributes remained unchanged; all three mouths still possessed the forked tongues of a serpent, and when it feasted, those tongues whipped out and rolled the flesh inside.

But this time, the results differed. Beneath the flesh, the hunters had placed various traps: the left and right heads triggered freezing traps, immobilizing them for around three seconds, while the central head swallowed an explosive trap and was promptly blown back.

At that instant, as the central head recoiled, the rogue sprang forward, landing atop the serpent’s head. Without hesitation, he plunged his dagger into one eye, while the hunter’s arrow flew straight for the other.

This was the strategy for defeating Picadrak. Though it possessed three heads and