"I and Eric will take the Vanguard and attack that greater one, Julie will support us with arrows," Damien rushed towards the large coiled snake in the clearing. "Maria you will protect Julie, Erza will keep the smaller ones from interfering."

The snake raised its head and revealed its shiny metallic fangs; it hissed loudly. Moonlight bounced off its smooth scales. Its yellow eyes gleamed with hostility and malice. Damien, albeit afraid, could not feel help but feel excited about this confrontation. Something about this constant bloodshed had changed something, temporarily, inside him. With a maniacal grin, he jumped.

The Snake, on the other tail, swatted Damien aside in mid-air. Damien fell on the ground and rolled sideways as he tasted blood in his mouth. He coughed. He felt the pain, but this only increased his bloodlust. Insanity was slowly consuming him.

"Damien, are you okay?" shouted Eric as he fended off an attack. A black viper attacked him but, Eric blew it off with a swing of his axe.

"Never been better," Damien got up and beamed like a lunatic. His left arm was dangling and the other gripped the sword tightly.

He ran towards the snake. The snake, convinced that this moron should be better dead for his own good, opened its wide jaws threatening to swallow Damien whole. As the snake's fangs neared, Damien drew his arm back and swung it forward with full force.

*Thud*

To everyone's surprise, the over a hundred kilograms of a monster's head was rebuked back, Damien stood there smiling. Unyielding. Imposing. Strong. These words popped up in everyone's head.

But, Damien was not quite done yet: he moved his arms to collect mana and jumped two metres high delivering another blow to the snake.

The snake pulled back its head and snarled at Damien who landed on its body. His mad grin had not disappeared. He lunged once more at the snake while the snake once again bared its fangs and attacked. Damien's eyes gleamed with soft blue light as he moved in the dark.

Eric was caught up with several of these snakes, one among them was particularly nasty. Julie was supporting Eric, her ammunition was diminishing.

"Gee," she wiped her brow, "Eric impale it!"

Eric swiftly brought down his axe and severed a snake into two.

"How am I supposed to impale something with a damn axe?!" he angrily said.

Erza was having a difficult time at her end. Two large snakes with formidable battle power held her back.

Maria was nevertheless calmly dealing with the situation at hand. She used quick slashes of her knife to kill a few snakes hence, the rest approached her more carefully. It could be said that she had an exceptional perception for she was able to dodge the repeated attacks of those big snakes. Her movements were precise. With formidable dexterity, she spun her daggers and attacked a snake injuring it fatally.

On the edge of this battleground, Damien was single-handedly dealing with the gigantic snake. Strikes after strikes. Occasional sparks flew out from the metal sword confronting the metallic fangs and sharp tail. The snake was seriously pissed off by now. Damien's attacks were made without any care or pattern behind them with, but with the sole purpose of killing the victim. This left the snake with a few wounds. But, what angered it was that he was using that fang-cum-daggers which he made from its kin to stab it repeatedly. By now the snake already had eight fangs punched into its body. Although it did not damage it much, it still hurt like hell.

Damien, realizing that the snake was irate, hastened his attacks with a mocking smile. He repeatedly slashed and the snake was forced to use its tail as well as its fangs to defend.

With a powerful blow, Damien fell on the ground. He hastily got up and defended against the powerful attack of the snake's tail. Damien's arms screamed in pain to keep up with the unjust demand of brute force.

The snake found an opening and tried to headbutt Damien. Damien saw this and flexed his muscles of his unarmed arm. With all his power he hit the snake's jaw with a powerful uppercut. The snake's head propelled upwards and Damien used this opportunity to use a mana attack to deflect its tail. With nothing to block his way, Damien stabbed the snake's underside. He could have pierced it further had not the snake rolled sideways. The snake realized that this one was not a simple lunatic, but a loony that threatened his life. In a beast's dictionary, these were very different terms. Thus, this marked the end of the first phase of the battle.

"Resort to mana attacks now!" shouted Damien. While the great snake hissed the same thing.

Soon the battlefield was bombarded with mana attacks. The non-slither-ish side was having trouble due to the overwhelming difference in numbers. But these snakes were on the defensive, waiting for their boss to finish and deal with the rest. This made it annoyingly hard to kill them. Out of the original fifty or so snakes had dropped down to thirty-one.

However, Damien felt more excited at this. He fired a mana attack which collided with the snake's to produce a blast which pushed to two combatants back. But, Damien wanted a more interesting fight.

To the snake's surprise, Damien turned on his heel and sprinted. But to its horror, he was not running away, but killing off its kin! Damien swiftly reaped the lives of the preoccupied snakes and put an end to the stalemate. The snakes, because of the sudden attacks, were either fatally wounded or incapacitated to the degree where Eric and co could finish them off with ease. The black snake chased after Damien who ran around the battlefield.

Soon it became a fight of five versus six. Only the strongest five of the smaller snakes survived. They were older than their peers and much more experienced when it came to battle. The rest had to fill this gap in experience with their life.

The giant black snake was angered to a terrifying degree. It hoarded up outrageous amounts of mana and fired them towards Damien. His lesser ones aided him in this practice.

Damien laughed as he dodged and ran. Eric and Erza tried to fend off the snake but Damien roared, "Back off he is mine."

Damien jumped and twirled in the air to land a devastating blow on the snake's body. A deep gash which bled dark blood was created. The snake hissed in pain and fired a powerful mana attack at Damien. He jumped to avoid it but, the snake's tail intercepted him.

Damien's snake hide armour was cut through. He suffered a cut under his arm. Damien staggered on his feet as blood oozed out of his wound.

"DAMIEN NO!" screamed Erza. The snake opened his mouth wide. But it was too late for Damien, he was swallowed whole by the snake.

"Mgmgmgm!" Damien's muffled yells were heard as his team watch in utter horror. The snake looked up at the sky as Damien was inverted and went down its throat. The struggle in its throat died down in a few seconds.

Erza screamed and ran to rescue him but, was blocked by a snake. Eric, in anger, fired mana attacks like a maniac. Julie was busy fighting snakes with a disgusting expression on her face. Maria was as Stoic as ever.

Having eaten the problem child, the snake turned its head towards the remaining people. With malice and blood oozing out of his body the snake slithered towards another prey.

Erza watched in horror as the Great snake neared. The snake she was keeping busy, snapped at her, and she fell back as her spear fell aside.

Eric screamed as he recklessly flung himself forward forcing his opponent to dodge. Through this opening, he ran to rescue Erza.

Erza looked at the snake's gleaming yellow eyes and broke out in cold sweat. Her bladder was already empty. She froze in absolute terror.

He was about to open its maw to eat Erza, but suddenly felt a wave of intense pain. Something pulsed inside it. The Snake rolled and hissed.

*Boom!*

The snake's body was burst open spewing bits of flesh and blood all around. The snake withered in pain and lashed around. Other combatants stopped to look at what was happening. Like a freak, in a very gross manner, Damien emerged covered in blood and snake saliva.

"ARRRRGGGGGHHH," Damien tore through the hide as he gasped for air. He held up his bloody sword which gleamed in the moonlight.

The snake rolled in pain as blood sprouted out from the hole in its belly. It eventually succumbed to its injury.

Everyone was frozen still by this development.

Damien swung down his sword and splattered the snake's blood on the ground signifying his victory.

"Damn it," his chest heaved up and down.

The snake had been stupid enough to swallow him- a herald. If it had been a normal prey then it would have suffocated in its stomach or gastric acids would have killed it. Damien was, however, a Herald and was wearing snake hide armour. This armour blocked much the initial sprays of acid while Damien absorbed mana using his free arm. When he was saturated, he set off three consecutive waves of mana. Each one was stronger than the previous one. The sudden pulses ravaged the internals and thus, concluding in Damien, with some acid burns, bursting out of its stomach like an alien.

Damien had been knocked sense into by this incident and now could understand his berserk bloodlust. He had let his emotions eat up his reason. He had honestly never been drowned in the desire to kill.

He took a few deep breaths to calm down, internally swearing that he will never go wild again like this. Damien pacified down, the sleep deprivation and thirst had really got him but, now he was alright.

"Let's wind this up quick," said Damien with a tired expression, his muscles were sore.

***

The sky was bright blue with the sun illuminating the Earth below. Cool autumn winds were blowing.

On a yellow bricked road, a group of five teens was walking in broken equipment. To be accurate, they tugged themselves forward while covering their injured body with different materials: for their clothes were long since shredded by their rough night. Their equipment was chipped and covered in different kinds of fluids ranging from the blood of the great night wandering serpent to the poison of the green tri-horned snake. All of them smelled strongly of gore.

"The brick road... we're finally here", Damien's group had finally reached the point from where only a few steps meant enrolment while none meant doom.

They had reached the edge of the forest and found the yellow bricked road. They followed it for something like five hundred metres before arriving here. It was about 9:30 AM according to Maria's estimation.

"Just a few steps and we are enrolled, let's do this", Damien tried to encourage his compatriots but to no avail. They were far too exhausted to do anything at this conjecture.

"Just... Hang on man, I am tired," groaned Eric.

"Come on. Look how magnificent the entire academy looks from here," as Damien finally caught hold of the group's attention which he directed towards the landscape right in front of them.

There it stood with majesty unparalleled under the sky. The majestic black gate had the symbol H etched in gold on it. This was the northern gate of Hydra Academy. They were open.

Great brown walls stood on its either sides. Not a speck of dust was visible on them. They shimmered as if they had been recently polished

From the distance, one could catch most majestic features of the city behind; the bell tower almost as if touching the sky stood the tallest. It is said that its hourly chimes are heard throughout the city of Hydra.

After a lot of dragging, lifting and pushing, the group reached the open gates. They hardly had the time to look around when a voice spoke in their heads, "Congratulations! You are the 171st group to enter the academy. Please drink the potions kept at the table, there are also a few sets of clothes. You can take a shower in the restroom over there. After you have freshened up I will escort you to the assembly grounds for the opening speech of the principal."

Damien looked around to find a long wooden table with blue flasks and two piles of clothes kept on it. In the near distance was a small yet wide brick building on which, in golden letters, was promptly written - 'Restrooms'

What Damien was standing on was a grey paved road which leads towards the school campus.

Damien had heard everything the manly voice had said, but the rest had lost him at potion and shower part. They were all gobbling down on the potions like wolves. Afterwards even Damien went to have some.

A man appeared before them. However, they were not startled since they were too exhausted to let out gasps of surprise.

The man had black hair with blue streaks on them. He had brown hazelnut like eyes which were radiating vigour. His cheerful smile went hand in hand with his fair skin making him look much friendly. Much of his body was hidden by the black cloak which dropped down till his knees. The ends of his black trousers were visible.

"Let me introduce myself. My name is Mark. I am a third-year student at Hydra and your guide for the day," Damien finally looked carefully at the man he was wearing a black cloak which covered him entirely. On the cloak was a badge bearing the symbol of nine hydras radiating out of a point. There were three golden horizontal lines under that badge indicating his position as a third-year student.

'Obsessed with black,' thought Damien. 'I guess its natural since the principal grew up in the empire.'

After a few minutes two more teams arrived, they were greeted in the same way by Mark. And ten minutes later when the clocks struck ten, an ear-splitting roar boomed across the entire island.

"ENTRANCE EXAM IS NOW OVER! THOSE WHO HAVE FAILED TO ARRIVE AT THE SCHOOL GATES IN TIME WILL BE SHORTLY EXPELLED!"

There was no hint of mercy in that voice. Everyone who was struck in the forest found themselves standing at the very docks from where they had started. Cries of hopelessness and dejected looks were common to all over there. The third-year escorts which had been assigned to the ships appeared in front of the defeated.

They explained the process of expulsion and how they would be transferred to St. Carter's school. They were, after all, talented individuals with potential. The Hydra academy and St Carter's had formed a pact where Hydra dumped its students into St. Carter's for a second chance.

Of course, Damien had no way of knowing this. He could only sigh and pray for the ones who did not make it. He felt a bit at loss thinking how many had not made it, but his train of thought was disturbed by his senior Mark.

"All right I see that everyone is ready. Very well then, Ladies and gentlemen, I, Mark Tennyson, a third-year student of the prestigious Hydra school welcome to CITY OF HYDRA: ALEIDAR!"

***

Aleidar was, for an analogy, the biggest university campus-cum-city one could imagine. Built atop an island by the empire's most powerful and influential people, Aleidar did not lose to the royal capital in its size and glory. The tall complexes, superstores, restaurants, clubs, swimming pools, grass plains and 'sports' grounds, parks, gyms, a small forest, stone mansions and castles built on small mountains, century-old laboratories, a giant library, this city had literally everything one could imagine of. That was not even considering the giant school in the eastern part of the city. And yes, all of this was in the city of Aleidar, that is excluding the rest of the island.

"We're finally here, this is the community centre of the city and it contains all the general information one might require traversing. Let me tell you, the city follows a different currency it is called talons. 1 talon is equivalent to 2 draconic coins of the empire. A talon is only worth inside the city and all students must register to the currency exchange department to get their native money exchanged," explained Mark to the curious batch of teens which followed behind him.

"Though I think you all should do that later, lest we get late," he said with a thoughtful expression.

The group of newcomers stood out in the moderately populated streets. They were met with the gazers of some eager onlookers.

But, Damien could hardly mind that. He looked at the magnificent community centre it was designed with absolute craftsmanship. Four huge marble pillars held up its entrance with a huge opening door in the middle above it on the triangular ceiling were etched the words, 'Civitas Autem Scientiam ' which meant community for knowledge.

Mark was very informative and didn't leave any stone unturned in order to quell the group's curiosity. As Damien looked around he found other groups with their guides in the vicinity, they too were being explained rules and regulations as students.

Mark continued, "All of you can take maps of the city from the reception, and then we shall depart on our quarter-hour tour. Or wait I should have them over here."

Mark took out a small pouch and after a moment, fished out a number of big maps. On yellow parchment was a detailed map of the island. He handed out one to each student. They entered the centre for sightseeing. Then Mark guided them to skim through the city explaining the basic rules and regulations.

"The next building we approach will be the last for today as we have spent a lot of time registering you guys as citizens of the city. But with this, all formalities are done and tomorrow we shall begin the actual sightseeing"

As Damien and group continued to follow Mark they reached what could only be described as the creation of God.

It was not exactly a building or wait, it was. It was something like an enormous open-air auditorium expect it was not curved downwards but was flat. There was a fancy, wooden, violet and black stage. In the background was a white screen draped in pink curtains and flowers. Albeit the stage was not stupidly big like everything else. But, if one happened to raise their heads a few more degrees they would notice a senselessly big black-golden pagoda that reached a height of 500ish metres. It looked so bizarre that Damien thought it had been made to cover for the small-sized stage.

Damien regained his focus and looked around to see that the area was now crowded by 'newly enrolled' students.

"This is Deus est Domi the only place of religion you will find on this island. It is, however, not the religion you have in mind. This is the seat of all power in Aleidar City. This is where the principal and the administration carry out their duty. The principal is about to give a speech in some time to all new enrolments. So this is farewell dear friends," said Mark as he left the group at the gates.

Damien stared at the stage, "Who can wield such power..."