“Let’s go,” Tom signaled for everyone to get moving.
Fifteen hundred cultivators, most riding on Frogohorses, got into formation behind the Dinos and their servants. The journey took no more than eight hours, which was so short by the standards of cultivators that it wasn’t worth mentioning.
When they reached some high hills that had another swamp spreading out at their base, Tom took out a small trinket shaped like a miniature horn from his spatial artifact. After breaking it, he told everyone to wait. At first, nothing happened, and some began to whisper that the bait hadn’t worked, but the ground soon began vibrating slightly. Then it shook.
What appeared over the hills shocked Hadjar.
“Damn it!” He swore, summoning the Black Blade into the physical world. “He really is a giant!”
Chapter 467
The green-skinned creature stepped over the hills, and his legs were at least 650 feet high, and 60 feet wide! The giant’s arms were so long that they touched the ground and dragged behind his huge heels. His large muscles looked like mountain ranges. His broad forearms could’ve easily encompassed the two central avenues of the capital of Lidus. His huge shoulders could’ve carried two small border fortresses on them. The creature itself was 2600 feet tall. He lowered his bald head and moved slowly toward the group of cultivators. Or rather, his gait only looked slow, because with every step he took, he crossed frightening distances.
“How do we take this monster down?” Hadjar shouted, not out of fear, but just to drown out the hum that rose above the swamps.
Birds flew around the monster, screaming. The earth shook so hard that some of the Frogohorses threw off their riders and ran away. The filthy water of the swamps splashed out, displaced by the giant’s feet.
“He’ll crush us all!” Someone in the squad yelled.
“Dinos! This is pure madness!”
“We have to run!”
“Stop!” Tom snarled and drew his blade. “Remember that you are all bound by the oath! Anyone who tries to escape will experience the horrors of an oathbreaker’s fate on their own skin!”
The warriors turned pale. Some had already witnessed the agony of those who chose to go back on their word once it had been sealed with their blood and energy. It was better to die with honor in an attempt to draw another breath of air than... experience that.
“Attack!” Tom spurred his scaly monster, which looked like a bear, and rushed forward. Anise followed after him.
“I’m such an idiot!”
“Damn it all!”
“I’ll meet my forefathers with honor!”
Hundreds of cultivators rushed after them. They’d come here to fight and win, not to retreat and die in the fire of a broken oath. Hadjar and Einen rode at the front of the charging forces.
“Bugs!” The giant roared from high above them.
The creature was so huge that even when he bent down, he still seemed to brush against the heavy sky. This was Hadjar’s second encounter with a monster that could talk, the first being Azrea’s mother. The giant really was intelligent. After noticing a horde of ants that could still sting him, he hadn’t rushed forward like Tom had. Instead, generating air waves so strong that they could tear a fortress wall down, the giant swung his leg and stomped down. A mighty earthquake swept through the surrounding area.
Huge waves rose from the swamps and greedily overwhelmed the cultivators who failed to dodge. Hadjar, seeing a 30ft high wave coming toward him, pushed off from the saddle and swung the Black Blade, slicing it in half. It carried away the warriors to his left and right, but didn’t touch Einen and Dora. After landing back on his galloping Frogohorse, he kept riding forward.
However, the earthquake and waves were only part of the problem. The giant’s stomp had also sent huge rocks flying into the sky. They rained down on the cultivators like a storm of boulders. Each of these stones crushed several cultivators at once when they struck. Hadjar hoped his friend wasn’t jealous.
“I’ll deal with them!” Einen shouted.
Just like his friend had done before, he leapt from his saddle and drew his spear-staff. Using his own ‘Boulder Storm’ Technique, he crushed two huge rocks. They turned into rubble and fell on the shoulders of the galloping cultivators. Hadjar and Dora weren’t the only ones who were grateful to the islander. The others who fell in behind them cheered their approval as well.
Weaving between waves and rocks, they raced toward the giant’s right foot. He was already swinging his other leg in preparation for a second, much stronger kick, but it was too late. Most of the cultivators managed to jump on his little toe. It felt a bit absurd to call it that since Hadjar had never seen a toe as huge as this one! Once he landed on the nail, he didn’t immediately realize that it was actually a nail and not a mountain plateau. The creature’s skin was as hard as stone.
“To the neck!” Tom commanded.
He used a movement Technique that created two daggers beneath his feet. He moved on them as easily and quickly as if they were skates, but he was speeding through the air!
Anise activated her armor and it quickly covered her. Everyone was trying to get out of the most dangerous area as quickly as possible, but Hadjar was looking at Anise. She now wore a strong breastplate, and thick leather armor had covered her arms and legs. The ornament made from emerald and gold had disappeared from her hair, which, as if by magic, had been gathered into a bun. A moment later, Anise’s face was covered by a thick helmet.
“Wake up!” Einen nudged Hadjar in the shoulder.
Dora, also clad in her armor, was already far ahead of them.
“We have to catch up to them!” Hadjar nodded, and they ran upwards.
Running along the giant’s leg wasn’t difficult. What had looked like green skin from a distance was actually a substance similar to solidified resin. Covered in deep cracks that formed a complex pattern, it was so hard that there was no chance for a cultivator to break through it.
Stepping on these cracks, Hadjar and Einen ran up and called upon their Inheritances. The islander, now covered in rainbow scales, and Hadjar, wearing his cloak and shoulder pads made from black fog, soon caught up to the leading group consisting of the Dinos, Dora, and some other fully-fledged and inner circle disciples.
About a thousand Heaven Soldiers ran up the giant’s leg. He stomped on the ground again, unleashing all his rage on the several hundred cultivators who’d failed to reach his pinky toe. The unfortunate warriors didn’t stand a chance.
In just one move, the Primeval Giant had sent at least one hundred and fifty Heaven Soldiers to their forefathers. Those who followed the true path of cultivation praised the Heavens themselves right then. They were standing on a hill a mile away from the battle and even then, the waves and earthquake had still reached them.
“By the Great Turtle, I don’t want to find out what’s under his loincloth!”
Hadjar didn’t know whether Einen was joking or not, but as they jumped past the giant’s loincloth, most of them looked under it.
“By the Great Mother!”
“Beautiful Warriors!”
“Gods and demons!”
“By the Great Forest!”
There were shouts from all sides. Hadjar turned away in silence and his face paled a little. Even the southern tribes of Lascan, who were renowned for their prowess in bed, would get an inferiority complex after seeing that. The damned giant had something that looked more like a monstrous battering ram than a man’s rod under his loincloth.
“The gods are unjust,” the men sighed.
Many of them thought that the overcast sky had turned even darker, but they soon heard a roar of wind and, sensing danger, they realized that the huge monster’s hand was descending on them.
“Scatter!” Tom shouted.
Hadjar, using the sixth stance of the ‘Light Breeze’ Technique, watched the giant’s hand fall to the right of him. Dozens of cultivators who’d been slower than him didn’t even manage to cry ou
t. Moreover, when the palm was raised once again, there weren’t even any traces of them left on the giant's body. The force of the blow had been so immense that it had simply vaporized the unlucky Heaven Soldiers.
“Attack!” Dinos roared defiantly, and everyone charged toward the neck with redoubled zeal. It was the most vulnerable part of any creature, after all.
Somewhere out there, a few miles away, hundreds of cultivators had already started preparing the Phoenix Crypt Formation. Hadjar felt like he’d begun another game of tag with death, and, by the High Heavens, he liked it!
Chapter 468
Looking at all the broken silver tokens, Hadjar realized that something in his mind had changed and it was a bitter pill to swallow. He felt no pity for the dead boys and girls. They’d chosen their own path, no one had forced them. But what scared Hadjar even more was the fact that his main concern was how, according to the agreement, Dinos would get most of their Glory points. Of course, part of the points would be divided amongst all the other participants at the end, but it still worried him that he could even think about such a thing right now.
“Watch it!” One of the cultivators shouted as he jostled Hadjar.
Hadjar shook his head and ran on. Apart from the fact that the giant’s other hand had already attempted to squash the rest of them, it almost felt like they were simply climbing a way too steep mountain slope. By the time the second attack had come, the disciples had had time to prepare, and there wasn’t a single token left beneath the giant’s palm once it moved away.
After getting past its forearm, the cultivators finally climbed up to the giant’s shoulder. It was like standing on a mountain peak. A strong, cold wind played with Hadjar’s hair and foggy cloak. Standing on the giant’s collarbone, he looked down.
The monster was still furious. He kicked the ground, spilling the swamps onto the patches of dry land that had once been there. Now, however, they’d been replaced by terrible cracks in the ground as wide as the length of a sword, and so deep that muddy water poured into them like disgusting waterfalls.
“To the neck!” Tom shouted.
Like a general, he held his blade out in front of him and pointed it at the long scar that covered the right side of the monster’s neck. Apparently, Dinos wasn’t the first person who’d tried to kill the monster. However, his predecessors had evidently not had much success in their endeavor.
Hadjar was preparing to use the sixth stance of the ‘Light Breeze’ Technique when he suddenly realized that someone was holding him firmly by the leg. Squinting at it, Hadjar saw a green, muscular hand wrapped around his leg. It was coming right out of the giant’s stone skin. It was identical to the monster’s real hands, but was the size of an adult man’s hand.
With a quick swing of his sword, Hadjar severed the creature’s wrist and freed his leg. Before he could take even a few steps, he heard the other cultivators’ cries.
An unexpected obstacle had appeared, blocking their way to the scar on the giant’s neck. Hundreds of six-and-a-half-feet-tall copies of the giant had risen up from the cracks in his flesh. Each of these creatures possessed a power comparable to the middle stage of human Heaven Soldiers.
“Is that his only Technique?” Hadjar shouted to be heard over the noise of the earth shaking and the green golems yelling as they charged.
“The scroll only mentioned this one!” Tom replied.
He made only one swing with his sword. While simple, it contained a lot of power, all of it based only on the mysteries of the Sword Spirit. Dinos’ simple attack, enhanced by his Imperial level artifact sword decorated with runes, conjured a black crescent in the air. This crescent, growing larger as it went, swept through the air with unthinkable speed. All the golems it encountered along the way were either split in half, or received a terrible wound to their chest as they were sent flying.
Anise attacked next. Her blade made a zigzag pattern in the air. Nothing happened at first, then she suddenly moved to the nearest golem. She disappeared from one place and reappeared in another with a faint, buzzing pop. She launched a single, quick, diagonal slash, and the creature was scattered into dozens of small pieces. Anise, accompanied by the same sound every time, disappeared and reappeared in a lot of different places. As if continuing her previous swing, she turned her blade and cut upwards. In less than two seconds, Anise made about a dozen such attacks. They all looked so natural and easy, as if she wasn’t on a field of battle, but simply practicing a lethal, beautiful dance.
“Onward! Follow them!” Hadjar could’ve sworn that Dora’s voice was full of laughter and excitement.
The elf, clad in full armor, spun her hammer over her head and hit the ‘ground’ with it. She couldn’t penetrate the Primordial Giant’s skin, but she didn’t need to. Dozens of cracks appeared along its skin after she struck. Every time one of the golems stepped over one of the cracks, it evaporated into a column of green light.
“Let’s end them all!” With a roar, Einen stabbed his spear-staff down into the skin of the giant.
The shadows around him thickened and took on the shape of an ape. Its legs had only been faintly visible before, but now even its knees could be seen. Einen’s ape was soon covered in the armor of rainbow scales. Each swing of Einen’s spear-staff was accompanied by the ape launching a sharp and powerful strike. Although the islander, unlike the Dinos siblings and Dora, couldn’t bring down the golems with a single blow, he only needed four lightning-quick strikes to turn the giant’s miniature copies into stone dust.
Soon, the rest of the cultivators joined the battle as well. Most of the ordinary disciples had to make anywhere from eight to twelve attacks to end a golem. The fully-fledged disciples managed to do it in three to seven strikes. The inner circle disciples needed only one or two. The Dinos siblings and Dora weren’t the only ones who could crush the golems in a single attack.
Finally, Hadjar joined the battle. With the sixth stance making him faster, he struck the chest of the nearest creature. The sensation was kind of like when, as a child, he’d been stupid enough to hit a rock with his training sword, trying to cut it like the legendary warriors from fairy tales. He cut it deeply, and then slashed again at the same exact place. The cut deepened, and his third attack turned the golem to dust.
The terrible slaughter began. The cultivators fought against hordes of golems, trying to reach the giant’s neck. No matter how many golems fell, no matter how much stone dust covered their bodies and clothing, new monsters kept rising from the giant’s flesh.
The pressure bearing down on them grew stronger. The huge monster froze. He was no longer stomping the ground or trying to slap the annoying bugs with his hands. Instead, the giant poured all his power into his aura. With a merciless intensity, it pressed down on the simple Heaven Soldiers. The weaker ones succumbed to its power. They slowed down, which gave the golems an opportunity to attack them.
Despite only being at the King Stage, each of the golems’ attacks carried a part of their maker’s aura. They only needed two hits to send the fully-fledged disciples to their forefathers, drenched in blood and screaming in agony.
Hadjar, who looked like he’d turned into a cloud of black fog, dodged the golems’ attacks. Their fists passed only an inch from his body, and he counterattacked with great ferocity.
A plume of the ‘Strong Wind’ trailed behind his sword. Each swing of the Black Blade spawned a roaring blue-black dragon with a sword-body. Even using this Technique, Hadjar still needed two attacks to finish the golems, and he was still no match for Anise’s speed. She was still flashing across the field of battle. Using a single speed Technique, she dealt with the golems as easily as if they were mortal.
“Anise!” Tom shouted, not moving from where he stood.
Each swing of his sword created new dark crescents. He turned a dozen golems into dust with every attack. But where a dozen fell, three times as many rose out of the giant’s body. The path to the neck was now blocked by thousands of monsters, not j
ust the few hundred that had risen at the beginning of the fight.
“Yes, my Lord,” the girl nodded.
She froze abruptly and sheathed her sword. Hadjar, who was fighting only a couple of yards away, suddenly sensed a power that was so monstrous in its lethality that he instinctively took a step back.
Chapter 469
A storm of gray energy raged around Anise. Hadjar had never seen anything like it before. It was so thick that it hid her legs from view, but it didn’t rise above her waist. Instead, it spiraled into her hands and surged out of them and into her sword. The main advantage of an Imperial artifact was its ability to very effectively interact with its host’s energy. Thanks to this symbiosis, the cultivators’ Techniques become twice as strong and twice as fast. That was why each heir of the seven families had an Imperial artifact.
Anise’s green eyes flashed with a steadfast light and, swinging her sword, she shouted:
“Bloody Charge!”
She’d been standing close to Hadjar a moment ago, but then she appeared a hundred yards to the north, sheathing her sword. Hadjar blinked, and a jagged beam flashed into existence behind Anise. It almost looked like a horizontal lightning bolt, except for the fact it had a predatory, fanged mouth at its tip, which was embedded in the feet and shoulders of the swordswoman.
The golems that had been in her way crumbled to dust. How many was that? Forty? Fifty? With just one Technique, with just one strike, she’d destroyed fifty creatures that were comparable to Heaven Soldiers at the middle stage!
This was the difference between those who’d been born on the outskirts of the Empire and were prepared to shed their own and other people’s blood for the sake of cheap resources, and those who’d been lucky enough to receive the rarest gifts of nature and the most expensive alchemical elixirs and pills since childhood.
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