Chapter 39: Chapter 39 — The Festival of the Hunt Part X
The air around me whistled with deafening violence. Thanks to Hallen’s Slippers, my feet barely touched the loose slate, leaving a trail of celestial wind that warped the landscape behind me. Yet the titan’s rain of improvised projectiles didn’t stop. Rocks the size of carriages burst apart at my sides, showering me with shards of sharp stone that slashed through my clothes.
I have to know what the hell I’m up against, I thought, my heart hammering against my ribs.
As I dodged at supersonic speed, I desperately shoved my left hand into the reinforced pocket of my coat, searching for the briefing sheets Miss Pineda had handed out at the guild. My fingers brushed the rough paper. I was about to pull it out and read it in a blink when a shrill whistle sliced through the air straight toward my flank.
I had no time to react. A barrel-sized rock, hurled with the force of a military catapult, slammed full into my left side.
CRACK!
The blow unleashed a dry, splintering sound. I felt my gear’s magical protection absorb part of the impact, but the rest of the brute force transferred straight into my body. I was ejected sideways, tumbling wildly across the stony ground for dozens of yards. Jagged stones sandpapered my skin, ripping through fabric and carving bloody furrows into my thighs and back.
When I finally stopped, pain hit me like a wave of boiling water.
"Agh... damn it... you f-fucking monster!" I bellowed, spitting a mouthful of saliva mixed with dirt and the metallic taste of blood.
I looked at my side. My coat pocket was completely destroyed, reduced to scorched tatters by the friction. The guild sheets had turned into gray confetti floating in the air, mixed with the crushed remains of my lesser supplies. No intel. No manual. I was completely blind.
BOOM!
The ground shook again. The twenty-five-meter giant was already on top of me, raising its colossal bone club to erase me from existence. Its body’s shadow covered me completely, bringing with it a rancid stench of death and thick sweat.
No more running. To hell with discretion, I told myself, forcing my legs to stand despite the fire climbing up my ribs.
I inhaled deep, compelling my muscles to respond. I pushed the divine slippers’ speed to the limit. I became a bluish blur that began to orbit the titan’s monstrous legs. I summoned the Bow of the Heroine Tenazcrya into my right hand, drew the string with a fluid motion, and fired three consecutive silver arrows straight at the monster’s Achilles tendon.
The white-light projectiles streaked through the air with their mystical hiss. I expected to see the colossus’s flesh dissolve, just as it had with the younger giants.
CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
To my absolute horror, the arrows struck the grayish hide and ricocheted in a burst of golden sparks, vanishing into the sky like mere fireworks. This bastard’s skin wasn’t normal; it was covered in a thick layer of calcified crusts, as dense and hard as the tempered steel of a fortress. The legendary projectiles left nothing but superficial scorch marks. The giant didn’t even flinch; it only let out an annoyed grunt and swept the ground with its club, raising a wall of debris.
Its skin bounces off sacred arrows? Are you kidding me?! I cursed inwardly, stowing the bow into dimensional storage in a blink. Ranged weapons wouldn’t even tickle this alpha. I had to go hand-to-hand.
"Let’s see if your bones can take this, you piece of scum!" I roared.
I summoned the Divine Gauntlets, the same mystic-rank artifacts I had used to beat Dollmun into a pulp back at the palace. The golden metal materialized around my fists, emitting a hum of pure energy that made the air vibrate.
Taking advantage of the giant recovering its balance after its failed attack, I launched myself forward at Quicksilver speed. The colossus slammed a colossal punch into the ground with its free hand, but I wasn’t there anymore. I dodged the enormous fingers by millimeters, feeling the shockwave tear pieces from my clothes. I slid beneath its left ankle and, channeling all the power of my enhanced stats into my arms, unleashed a rapid barrage of strikes directly against the base of its shin.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Every impact of the divine gauntlets sounded like cannon fire. The accumulated kinetic energy pierced the hard calcified crust, cracking the monster’s skin and releasing a spray of thick, black blood that splattered across my face. The giant roared, a cry of genuine pain that echoed through the entire canyon. The agony made it stagger.
Seeing that my strategy was working, a surge of adrenaline and sheer smugness clouded my judgment. That’s it! You’re just a big, stupid piece of meat! I thought, grinning with savage delight.
I moved toward its other leg like blue lightning, striking repeatedly at the side of its right knee. The metal of my gauntlets flashed with every blow, pounding the titan’s joint until, with a deep crunch, the colossus could no longer support its own weight and fell heavily to its knees, raising an immense cloud of dust and making the bedrock crack.
Its brutish face, full of yellowed fangs and bloodshot eyes, came exactly level with mine.
"This is as far as you go, you bastard!" I shouted, giving myself a massive upward boost.
I landed on its enormous shoulder and began to unleash a brutal combination of punches straight to its jaw and nose. WHAM! CRACK! I shattered several teeth the size of tombstones; black blood spattered my gauntlets as the giant shook its head, stunned. I was winning. I was beating the largest monster I’d ever seen in my life into a pulp. I felt invincible, a god among mortals thanks to the system.
---
And that was my damn mistake. I got cocky.
In the middle of my punching frenzy, I didn’t notice the giant’s left hand, free of its club, moving back with a speed unnatural for its size. Before I could react or boost away with the slippers, thick, calloused fingers, hard as oak trunks, closed around my torso with the force of a hydraulic press.
"Wha—What...?!" The air escaped my lungs in an agonized wheeze.
The giant squeezed.
CRRRAAACK!
An indescribable pain, sharp and devastating, erupted from my right arm. My humerus splintered under the crushing pressure, snapping in two inside my own flesh. The sound of my tissues tearing apart around the bone shards reverberated inside my head. My eyes nearly burst from their sockets, and a discharge of white electricity burned through my nerve endings. I tried to scream, but the pressure on my chest was such that only a strangled whimper crawled out of my throat.
Shit, shit! System! System, give me a potion, give me a shield, summon—!
I couldn’t finish the thought. The giant, its face disfigured by rage and the loss of its children, slammed me with all its might against the stone floor of the canyon.
BOOM!
The impact unleashed a new and far worse pain. I felt three of my left ribs snap instantly, puncturing my lung. A rush of warm blood flooded my mouth, choking me. My vision tinted flickering red.
But the monster didn’t stop. It lifted me again and smashed me down. And again. And again.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Every smash against the rock shattered another piece of my body. I felt my internal organs convulse and begin to bleed; my stomach tore, and a cold paralysis started spreading from my spine. For the first time since I’d arrived in this goddamned world, I was being beaten to death. The pain was so absolute, so fucking overwhelming, that my mind collapsed.
I desperately tried to focus, to connect with the gacha in my skull, to call the system for a damn lifeline. Sys... tem..., I stammered mentally, but the physical trauma was too severe. Every time I tried to formulate a mental command, a stab of agony in my lungs or the crunch of my broken bones shattered my concentration, scattering my thoughts like smoke in the wind. The physical pain completely blocked the spiritual connection to the soul. The system didn’t respond because my brain couldn’t hold a single logical thought amid so much torture.
The giant released me, letting me drop like a broken rag doll into the bottom of a small crater coated in my own blood. I was in a state of pure near-death, my body destroyed and barely able to keep my eyes open.
Yet the monster hadn’t finished exacting its vengeance.
It leaned over me, its eyes fixed on my dying figure, raised its colossal right fist, and dropped it like a meteor directly onto my chest.
WHAM!
The flesh of my chest caved into the earth; the blow buried me several inches into mud and stone. I felt everything, experiencing every millimeter of my flesh being pulverized against the subsoil.
WHAM! Another blow. My left clavicle vanished, reduced to bone dust.
WHAM!
Over and over and over. The giant’s fist rose and fell with monstrous regularity, driving me deeper and deeper into a pit of pain, blood, and pure despair as the darkness began to close definitively over the corners of my consciousness.
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