Another curious choice. By helping the villagers, you are reducing your power significantly, the Vessel said, its voice full of confusion and curiosity. The massive, clawed hand of the Shadow Titan came slamming down towards me, palm open wide, revealing where the mouth was located. A round jagged mouth, opening and closing with frenzied hunger was attached to its hand, opening wide as it came down to slam atop me.
Thankfully, I was at an advantage here, for the warmth of the sunlight mixed with my second wind boosted my stamina considerably, the effects of the hypothermia wearing off. I deftly dodged out of the way, leaping up into a nearby tree with ease. With a quick change to my Lurbia charm, switching back to my damage reduction ability, I took a deep breath. It was time to go toe-to-toe with a Titan. And, frankly, I might have the advantage here.
I fired four shots into the outstretched arm which seemed to have hit the ground a bit too hard, for it had gotten stuck in the dirt. Bright splattering of red blood burst out of the arm where each shot struck. The beast let out an angered moan as it tried to get its arm free of the earth it had buried itself in.
As it struggled, perhaps unfamiliar with how to work a corporeal form, I scanned the beast up and down, searching for the Titan’s core. As I focused, the entire world seemed to become black and white, save for a single red orb hidden in the right leg of the Shadow Titan. As soon as I spotted the red, pulsing ball, the color returned to the world. I had found the weak point of the beast and to its credit, the spot was certainly somewhere I never would have guessed.
The only question was whether I wanted to use my True Arrow to break open the point, or if I wanted to soften the leg up first, then shoot. My arrows were dealing some damage to the beast, but as I fired shot after shot into arm, torso and leg, I could see that for the most part, I wasn’t dealing a high amount of damage.
As I strung for more shots, watching as the Titan finally freed its arm from the ground, there came an ear-piercing shriek from behind. My danger senses had been warning of something, but I had so many things running through my head at once that I failed to properly process it.
Four claws struck me from behind, slashing up and down in a wild fury as a Griffin flew past me, its fly-by attack hitting me quite hard. Thankfully, my armor was able to keep the claws from piercing my flesh, but the force of the strike knocked me out of the tree.
“Ahhhh!” I cried in surprise, flipping in midair to catch myself. But that did little good, because the slam attack of the Titan came down on me hard while I was in the air. I felt the full weight of the Titan come down. Thankfully, my unbreakable ability kicked in, making the slam attack appropriate to my size. I couldn’t help but laugh as my health dropped down by 1%, the damage reduction working in full swing.
The fist had embedded me into the ground and was trying to open itself up, so the mouth could consume me. I wasn’t about to let that happen, and I wriggled upwards, squeezing myself around, contorting hard to clamber atop the limb.
What I found above the ground was rather unnerving, even for me. A Fitzon, a Kinru and two Griffins were present, the land beasts directly in front of me, the Griffins flying in circles, waiting to attack. It looked like the Shadow Titan still had control over them…or perhaps my delicious scent had attracted them. Either way, this fight was about to get really, really ugly.
Chapter 44
The swarm of monsters before me seemed less disciplined and controlled than before. They snarled and hissed, at me and at each other. The two Griffins did not seem to get along well at all, swooping at one another in false charges, attempting to bait the other into fleeing the area. It was clear that they were not here because of any special control of the Shadow Titan. They were here for dinner only.
The Kinru was the first to charge, leaping at me with incredible speeds. This particular breed was larger, pale white with a long black diamond on its head. It snarled and hissed, murder in its eyes as it barreled towards me.
Instinct took over and I focused on the creature with all my might, activating my Queen of the Kinru ability. Our eyes met and a brief psychic battle took place as my mind asserted dominance over the monster. What had started as a charge, ended in submission as it ran up to me and knelt down.
“Perfect!” I said, leaping on the Kinru’s back, bow in hand. Looks like I just got a fast moving mount to get me around the battlefield! The temptation arose for me to begin focusing on picking off the monsters, shooting the Griffins down and killing the Fitzon, but I got the feeling that the longer the Shadow Titan was in its new form, the more adept it would become.
Sensing my desires, my Kinru steed took off towards the massive right leg of the Titan, leaping left and right, dodging as the Griffins came swooping down, raking their feet to attack me. The Kinru was fast and agile, moving at speeds that would honestly make shooting mobile targets quite hard. Fortunately, the long, black legs weren’t particularly fast.
I could see the red outline of the back hind leg of the Titan, perfectly in the center. The legs shifted, trying to stomp at me as we ran underneath the Titan, but unable to catch the Kinru’s immense speed.
“Hold steady!” I shouted, raising Josiah’s Storm, four arrows strung together. I decided to soften up the leg first, saving the True Arrow for last. Shot after shot crashed into the wide rubbery leg, causing more rumblings as the great Titan shifted its weight to free up the leg I was shooting at.
“Go!” I ordered, getting my steed to rush forward, narrowly avoiding the slam attack from the great leg as it crashed into the earth. This caused such a shockwave in the earth that my Kinru was thrown loose from the earth, flipping upside down.
I acted quickly, jumping off the Kinru and firing my grappling hook into one of the front legs, saving myself from the fall. My Kinru servant hit the ground with a sickening crunch, but much to my surprise, it leapt right back up and began to hiss and shriek at nothing in particular. I sent a mental command for the creature to return to me, then released my grip on the ropes, falling 30 feet towards the ground.
In midair, I managed to snap off a few more shots, striking the leg more and more. My shots were dealing damage and I could see the flesh on the leg beginning to open up, blood pouring like a waterfall.
As I fell, one of the Griffins swooped to intercept me, flying beneath the massive trunk of the Shadow Titan, shrieking as it charged. I dropped my bow and caught the razor sharp talons coming my way with ease—my enhanced strength and dexterity made grabbing and holding it rather easy. The Griffin was not prepared for this maneuver and let out a shriek once more, pecking its beak at my face as I wrestled with it, forcing it to spin in midair.
I felt a sharp jab in my forehead, followed by an obscene amount of blood pouring down into my left eye, but I ignored the attack, focusing on simply continuing to struggle with the creature in midair, trying to get it to roll over. Its front claws were sharp, but the limbs controlling them were surprisingly flimsy. If I bent them hard enough, the creature was forced to submit, rolling over in the air. Its wings, now upside down, did little to keep us floating.
As we struck the ground, my Kinru was already ready to engage. It charged into the Griffin’s throat and with its two large claws, tore the bird beast to pieces in a matter of seconds.
I staggered to my feet and tried to take another shot at the Shadow Titan, but the leg was already coming down on us. Dodge! Josiah’s Storm warned, filling me with a burst of extra dexterity, giving me the reaction time and speed to kick off, dashing out of the way. I tried to order my Kinru to run as well, but the stupid creature had started eating its prey in the middle of the fight, completely forgetting about anything else. It died instantly upon impact as the Shadow Titan crushed both the Kinru and the Griffin into a pulp.
“Aww, come on,” I groaned, shooting more shots at the back of the Titan’s leg, looking for any spots that did more damage. The beast was roaring and groaning now, wildly swiping at the other Griffin, perhaps thinking that I was
now controlling all of the monsters in the area. This Griffin, however, had the intelligence or self-preservation to get the hell out of here, shrieking defiantly as it swooped off into the woods.
Only the Fitzon remained, but it had become too enamored with the squashed remains of the two dead monsters to pay any attention to me. Another slam attack came my way, this time from the right hand of the Titan, palm open to try and swallow me up. Instead of just dodging, I figured I’d try something new, taking aim at the open mouth and firing a shot directly into it.
As the arrow whistled through the air, striking the interior of the Titan, it let out a hideous shriek and staggered backwards a few steps, taking down a few more trees and sending even more shockwaves through the ground. I guess my Fell the Mighty Oak ability must have finally kicked in, for the beast was unable to catch itself, despite the stability of having four legs, and it barreled over onto its back.
This shockwave was strong enough to break apart the earth while I ran forward, leaping and dodging as the ground opened wide enough to swallow just about anything in it. Metal chunks of debris came flying towards me, ancient steel freed by the earth-shattering blow to the ground. I dodged left, right and left, practically sailing through the air, avoiding each piece of metal inch by inch. A small beam struck me in the side of my head, but my damage reduction mixed with my anti-weakness charm made the hit more or less negligible.
Heart racing as I strained to reach the fallen Titan, I readied my True Arrow. This was it, time to take it down for good. The great beast was on its back, legs in the air, unmoving, stunned from my attack. Apparently, a shot to the arm-throat was enough to take the thing down for the count. With the additional minute long stun from The Harder They Fall, I had time to line up the shot on the hind right leg, standing right next to it for additional damage.
The True Arrow flashed brightly as I fired the shot, piercing through the leg of the Titan, pushing all the way through the skin and into the core itself, striking perfectly. Without hesitation, I fired once more, taking full use of my opportunist abilities. Two shots was all it took, for I could see a brilliant red light emerge from all of the holes I had put into the beast. The Shadow Titan shuddered, shrieked and then burst into a black mist that dissipated almost instantly upon making contact with the sun.
All that remained was the small husk of the shattered core and a large, gleaming chunk of blue stone that shimmered in the light. I dropped to my knees as the words appeared. Titan Slain! 15,000 Bloodpoints gained. It was finally over.
Chapter 45
The chapter in the Shadewood was almost complete, but there was still one major order of business left to take care of. Trig had managed to successfully lead the people to the mountains, the task more than easy enough now that light was everywhere. Safe and sound in Brimley’s company, the villagers agreed to stay put while Trig returned, half a day later to find me at the Shadow Titan’s lair.
“There’s two of them?” Trig asked as he approached us, pointing at the two Masara standing next to each other. They were identical now, with the Overseer having shifted the other vessel to look exactly like itself.
“Yeah. Sort of,” I said, waving to him as I sat beside the collection of monster corpses I had collected. The Kinru had been smashed beyond repair, but I was able to harvest the Griffin for another aspect point, so that was a big plus. “Basically, Titans seem to be able to grow Masara somehow. And with the memory shard inside of it, the Masara the Shadow Titan grew was much smarter and somewhat symbiotic with the creature. The Shadow Masara could more or less think and give out orders, giving the Shadow Titan the appearance of intelligence. Hence why it brought the Titan’s core back here, to repair it from the damage done.”
Trig rubbed his chin. “Interesting…so why can Titans create Masara?”
That is the number one question, isn’t it? The Vessel asked. We both looked at it in surprise.
“You can understand us?”
Your language is rudimentary and easy to parse. You speak long enough for me to adapt to it, the Vessel replied. Are we ready to leave this place now?
I shrugged. “Almost. Trig? How you feeling?”
“I’m up for anything,” he said. “I mean, maybe I can’t take a Titan down by myself, but I’m still useful in other ways.”
“The Shadow Titan was like a newborn in that form,” I said. “Hardly able to control itself, had difficulties in precise actions. It didn’t have a lot of time to adapt to its new body.”
“You’ve killed 3 Titans now, two of them by yourself,” Trig said. “I don’t think modesty is the way to go. So what do you have in mind?”
“The Nursery,” I replied, pointing to the woods. “We need to verify that it’s been destroyed for good. Elsewise, this forest will just end up full of monsters again.”
Trig nodded. “And we better check underground too. I’d wager that whatever we saw on the surface was probably extending below the earth too. Let’s go.” He made a motion to me ever so slightly, indicating that now would be better than later. Why the urgency, I wonder?
We departed from the Vessel, leaving it alone to tend to the ‘unpodded’ Masara. Apparently, there was some kind of binding process that allowed the Vessel to take control of these mindless husks, putting them to work. A sort of takeover that would eliminate all previous impulses in these workers and replace them only with the Vessel’s orders. We would have a full retinue of warriors to escort us back home, the Overseer had assured me.
Once we were a mile away or so, searching through the extremely unfamiliar forest for the nest, Trig brought up a surprising question. “I think we should hold onto the memory shard for a little bit,” he said. “Are you with me on this?”
I frowned. “What are you talking about? The Overseer needs it. There’s some kind of rebinding process that needs to be done, but once it’s complete, it’ll have all of its memories back. Who knows what it learned while in this forest?”
“Yeah, but…well…” Trig sighed and stopped walking, turning to look at me. “We can’t assume that these things are our friends.”
“What do you mean? They seem friendly enough.”
“Because they wanted something. Notice how they have all the cards, so to speak? They have the knowledge of what’s going on, understanding of these Titans far more than we do, and instead of freely sharing, they want to ‘evaluate’ us. To make sure we’re up to their standards or whatever. You don’t find that weird?”
“It is weird,” I agreed. “But they have their reasons.”
“Yeah, and what if when we hand over the memory core and the Overseer, they say ‘seeya later’? What are we gonna do then?” he pressed. “Look, I’m not trying to start trouble here, goodness knows we have more trouble than we could ever want. But we just went through hell and we’re guaranteed what out of the deal? A good faith exchange of ideas?”
“You don’t trust them?”
“It’s not about trust. It’s about getting what we want out of the deal. We have a bargaining chip. That memory core is important, right? Important enough for them to give us something, anything, as a sign of cooperation.”
“You want to extort them?”
Trig laughed. “I just want a fair trade. That’s all. They give us some of their secrets, bona fide stuff that will help Hunter’s Hope and the rest of humanity, and they get their Overseer’s memory back. They wouldn’t dare balk at the offer. Unless…they were planning to pull one over on us.”
It was my turn to laugh now. “Trig, you can’t be serious? You want to take the only potential allies we have here, the only creatures we have ever met that seem to know what’s going on, and insult them by holding their leader’s memories hostage?”
“I want to show them that we’re not chumps. Charity gets you nowhere with thieves, Avery. Trust me, I’ve cheated enough people in life to know that the honest folks understand give and take. It’s the dishonest ones who get offended at dea
l making.”
What was I to say here? Trig had some points to consider. The Masara were certainly not in a hurry to help us out. And they had no trouble asking for favors with the promise of future goods. But at the same time, what if their secrets were too big to just hand over to total strangers? What if we needed to earn their trust before we could get the vital information? Waving the memory core in front of them and demanding payment would annihilate any goodwill we had with them. Not to mention, they might try and take it back by force.
“Your concerns are understandable—” I started to say, only for Trig to scoff and shake his head.
“Really? You’re not going to trust me on this? After all we’ve done together?”
“It’s not that I don’t trust you, Trig…it’s just…we have two different outlooks. You seem to assume the worst in folks and I…well, I don’t,” I replied, putting my hands up to protest his frustration. “In the battlefield, I trust you with my life.”
“But when it comes to making decisions about the future of our people, you’d rather not listen,” Trig said. He was irritated, but to his credit, he tried to suck it up. “Look, you’re the boss. I trust you. But…I reserve the full rights to say I told you so here. And hey, I hope I’m wrong, okay? I’d rather assume the world is made of rainbows and sunshine. But before a year ago, I had never even seen sunshine. So…you can’t get mad at me for assuming the worst.”
“I’ll think about what you said,” I replied, knowing full well that I wasn’t going to consider extorting the Masara. Damn, that was how my mother talked to me, wasn’t it? Always saying that she’ll consider my words, only to flat out ignore them.
We travelled the rest of the way in silence. We saw no monsters, save for the occasional Kinru but they had the good sense to bolt as soon as they were spotted. Eventually, we found the nest, or should I say, the burned, scarred remains of the nest.
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