bacchusnovels Chapter 208: Grim Has Grown... Not Literally, Obviously (2)
Chapter 208: Grim Has Grown... Not Literally, Obviously (2)
[HP: 615,400]
Thirty‑five minutes in.
Head six — Grim cutting the joint point while Kira covered the upper angle with her last three maritime arrows.
The exposed living tissue received the scythe’s edge and the arrow points at the same time.
[Head 6 — eliminated]
[HP: 615,400 → 498,000]
The Hydra lost two heads.
The core responded — the five remaining heads submerged simultaneously, and the Hydra’s body turned beneath the boat.
The Trench’s energy field amplified with the movement of the creature’s body, the ocean’s spiritual plane saturating.
[F1 Corruption: 96.9% → 97.4%]
"Thirty!" said Seraph with more urgency.
Alex brought them down. It cost him three seconds this time.
"Alex." Seraph’s voice direct. "If it reaches ninety‑eight in the Trench—"
"I know."
---
The five heads emerged from the water simultaneously on the left flank — the Hydra changing tactics, all five oriented toward the same target.
The target was Alex.
Soul Sight was the most active spiritual signature on the boat. The Hydra had calculated.
Raven:
[Army of Bones — interception mode — 18 skeletons]
Eighteen marine skeletons between the five heads and Alex, to deflect them.
Each skeleton took a fraction of the impact and diverted the trajectory.
[8 marine skeletons — destroyed]
[10 marine skeletons — holding]
The five heads deflected twenty degrees.
Enough for Alex not to be the direct impact point.
Not enough for the boat not to be.
Head four struck the hull.
The boat gave way. Wood splintering on impact, water entering through three points on the lower deck. Max shouting something about the bilge pumps.
---
Akari at her limit.
[Akari — barriers — energy: 40% remaining]
Four heads blocked by Akari for the last ten minutes. The fifth — head two — had gone around the side where Akari could not cover without exposing Maya’s flank.
Maya had covered that flank alone — her maps turned into real‑time tactical analysis, Kira’s data on currents and head trajectories telling her where the next head would strike before it struck.
"Head two — right flank — three seconds!" shouted Maya.
Kira turned. One arrow. Head two’s right joint point.
[Head 2 — right joint point — damage: 18,400]
[HP: 498,000 → 479,600]
Not enough to separate the head.
Enough for Grim to reach it.
---
[Grim HP: 158,000 → 134,000]
The Trench cost Grim passive HP too — the energy field responding to the Harvester’s core the same way it responded to Alex’s Fragments.
Grim didn’t mention it.
The double‑bladed scythe on head two’s right joint point — already opened by Kira’s arrow, the living tissue exposed.
This cut was different.
Not just the edge. Grim oriented the crimson flames directly into the joint point — F1 in its most basic form, the original Harvester using the tool he had always had.
The crimson energy burned the living tissue from the inside.
[Head 2 — Harvest damage to living tissue: 112,000]
[HP: 479,600 → 367,600]
Head two fell into the ocean.
---
Forty minutes.
[HP: 367,600]
Four heads remaining.
[F1 Corruption: 97.4%]
[F4 Corruption: 67%]
Seraph beside him without saying the number — Alex already knew it.
"Finish it," said Seraph. "Now. Before the field rises another point."
Alex looked at Grim in the water.
At Raven with ten skeletons holding two heads.
At Kira reloading.
At Emily with Purifying Light at the limit of interference.
At Maya with her notebook closed — when Maya closed her notebook in combat, it meant the data no longer sufficed and it was only action.
*Four heads. 367,600 HP. F1 and F4 at thirty percent.*
*Thirty percent isn’t enough.*
Alex looked at Seraph.
"I need more."
"I know." Seraph. "How much more."
"Forty. Thirty seconds."
Seraph evaluated him.
"Corruption at ninety‑seven point four."
"Thirty seconds at forty. Then I bring it down."
"If you don’t bring it down in thirty seconds, I will."
"Understood."
---
[F1 — 40% — active]
[F4 — 40% — active]
Double the pain. Corruption rising faster.
[F1 Corruption: 97.4% → 97.9%]
F1’s scythe in his right hand — larger than at thirty percent, the crimson flames denser. F4’s scythe in his left — the violet light more intense, the open plane wider.
The four heads.
F1 strike at head five — the amplified spectral edge cutting through the entire scale.
[Head 5 — damage: 67,000]
F4 strike at head seven — the violet plane opening the living tissue from the inside out.
[Head 7 — damage: 71,000]
Twenty seconds.
[F1 Corruption: 97.9% → 98.3%]
"Twenty!" said Seraph.
Heads four and one — Raven releasing the skeletons toward them, Kira with two simultaneous arrows, Akari on the last barrier.
[Head 4 — combined damage: 89,000]
[Head 1 — combined damage: 94,000]
Thirty seconds.
"Bring it down!"
Alex brought them back to thirty.
[F1 Corruption: 98.3% → 97.8%]
---
[Hydra HP: 367,600 → 46,600]
A single head remaining.
Head seven — the only one that hadn’t received F4’s full strike, its living tissue still intact at the joint point.
Grim reached it from beneath the water.
[Grim HP: 134,000 → 123,250]
The double‑bladed scythe. The crimson flames. The direct Harvest into the living tissue of the last joint point.
[Head 7 — Harvest damage: 46,600]
[HP: 0]
[Abyss Hydra — eliminated]
---
The Hydra’s body sank silently.
Tons of mass simply yielding toward the bottom of the Trench, the bioluminescent scales extinguishing head by head as the creature descended.
The Trench’s energy field stabilized without the Hydra’s body amplifying it.
[F1 Corruption: 97.8% → stabilizing]
[F4 Corruption: 67% → stabilizing]
Forty‑two minutes.
---
Grim returned to the boat.
Walking on the ocean’s spiritual plane, his crimson flames low, the double‑bladed scythe dissolved back into latent state.
He climbed onto the railing and from there onto Alex’s shoulder with the cadence of someone who had completed a job and returned to the place where he always was.
Alex looked at him.
The crimson flames looked back.
**"Good."** His flames. **"That was good."**
Alex looked at the ocean where the Hydra had disappeared.
Then he looked at the numbers.
[Grim HP: 123,250]
"Grim."
**"What."**
"Your HP."
**"What about it."**
"A week ago you had 28,000."
Grim didn’t answer immediately.
His flames looked at the three points of light on Alex’s chest.
**"Yes."**
"When did it go up?"
**"When you got F5."** A pause. **"Every Fragment you add to the bond gives me more of what I am. The original had all seven. I am the core. With more Fragments near the core—"**
"You grow."
**"I grow."**
Alex processed that.
Four Fragments missing.
*With all seven,* Alex thought, *Grim wouldn’t be this.*
*He would be the complete Grim Reaper.*
*And what will happen to me when he is complete?*
**"Don’t think about that yet,"** said Grim. His flames. **"One Fragment at a time."**
"Are you reading my mind again?"
**"I don’t need to read anything. Your face says it all."**
"Ha ha Grim ha ha."
**"That wasn’t a joke."**
Alex sighed.
---
Emily arrived with Purifying Light active.
[Alex HP — active recovery]
[F1 Corruption: 97.8% → 97.5%]
Alex let her work without saying anything.
Kira in the crow’s nest looking at the ocean where the Hydra had fallen.
"First SS‑rank creature in the arc," she said quietly, more to herself than to anyone.
"How did the maritime arrows work for you?" asked Maya from below.
"Good. Better than I expected." Kira climbed down from the crow’s nest.
"The Hydra’s joint points are the standard pattern for multi‑headed creatures. If the next one has heads, I already know where to aim."
"Do you think there will be more SS‑rank ones before we reach the Eastern Island?"
Kira looked at her.
"Yes."
Maya made a note.
Raven dismissed the surviving marine skeletons — out of the twenty‑four, she had lost eight in the fight. Sixteen returned to latent state.
The eight lost were C‑rank creature bones, the weakest in the formation, the ones she had placed on the flanks to absorb damage.
*I’ll build more at the next stop,* Raven thought. *This time B‑rank and above only.*
---
Seraph looking at Alex.
"Corruption."
"Ninety‑seven point five."
"Did it rise since the last time you actively brought it down?"
"No. It stabilized when the Hydra fell."
Seraph processed that.
"The Trench’s field amplified corruption while the territorial creature was active. Without it, the field dropped." A pause.
"Which means territorial creatures in energy zones are the greatest risk of accelerated corruption you’ll encounter."
"Don’t avoid them," said Alex. "Eliminate them first."
"If you can. If you can’t—" Seraph. "Run. Without pride. One‑hundred‑percent corruption in the Trench would have been different from one‑hundred‑percent corruption on land."
"How different?"
"I don’t know." Seraph. "And we don’t want to find out."
---
The boat left the Trench thirty minutes later.
The energy field ceased the exact moment they crossed the invisible line back into the normal ocean.
[F1 Corruption: 97.5% → 97%]
[F4 Corruption: 67% → 66%]
[F5 Corruption: 26.5% → 25%]
Half a point of automatic drop as soon as they exited.
Max assessing the hull damage — three impact points on the lower deck, the bilge pumps active, repairs possible with the boat’s materials but would take the day.
"Can we keep sailing?" asked Maya.
"Yes." Max. "Slower until we repair."
"How much time do we lose?"
"Half a day."
Maya made a note on her map.
---
Alex on deck with Grim.
The sun setting toward the horizon. The Three Currents Trench already ten kilometers behind.
**"Master."**
"What."
**"Do you understand how many Fragments are missing?"**
"Yes. Four."
**"With four more—"** His flames. **"I will be different from this."**
"Different how?"
Grim didn’t answer immediately.
His crimson flames on the ocean.
**"I don’t know yet."** A pause. **"But I remember it. In parts. What I was or did before being divided into seven."**
"And?"
**"It was enough."** His flames. **"The work was enough. Without purpose. Without question. Only the work."**
Alex looked at him.
**"Now there is question."** Grim. **"That is also different."**
"What question?"
The crimson flames looked directly at him.
**"Whether at the end of all this you will still be you."**
The ocean was silent.
"And what do you think?" said Alex.
**"I think the question matters more than the answer."** His flames. **"Those who don’t ask it are the ones who lose."**