Chương 172: Chapter 171 [The shield breaks]

The next few catapult shots caught the giant square in the chest, and it staggered half a step, grunting in what might have been irritation, before it kept walking like nothing had happened at all.

"That's it?" Phil said, watching the boulder crack apart against its hide.

"That's the best we've got?" Nobody answered him. The next volley was already loading. More followed, catapults and ballistae working in a steady, grinding rhythm. Boulders cracked off its shoulders and chest, and bolts found its arms and thighs and stuck there, dozens of them by the time it had closed half the distance to the wall, peppering its skin like something had gone at it with acupuncture needles and never stopped. It didn't seem to notice most of them.

A few made it flinch, its head jerking sideways and its footing stuttering for half a step before it found its rhythm again. None of it slowed the giant down for long.

"It's not even limping," one of the Stonehall archers muttered, close enough for Leo to hear.

"How much more do we need to throw at it?"

"Keep firing," Yara's voice carried down the wall, level despite everything.

"It's taking damage. Even if its rage lets it ignore the pain, its body will give in eventually."

"Now," someone called from below.

"Hit it properly." Leo didn't need telling twice. He reached for Lightning Blast and let it go, watching the bolt of purple-white energy streak out and catch the giant full across one shoulder. Beside him, Phil's fireball landed a half-second later, catching lower along its ribs. That got a reaction.

The giant roared—a sound that Leo felt in his chest more than heard properly—and its head snapped toward the section of wall they were standing on, red eyes fixing on them with something that looked disturbingly like recognition.

"Think we made it angry," Phil said.

"Nah. You think?" Leo rolled his eyes before readying another blast. More arrows found it a moment later, Rika and Parmo working in tandem further along the wall, explosive shafts catching along its flank and detonating in bursts that left black, scorched patches and real, visible cuts behind. It roared again, louder, and staggered, one hand coming up to swipe uselessly at the smoke curling off its own hide.

"There," someone called.

"That's actually hurting it." It wasn't wrong, not exactly. The wounds were real, black and raw against the mottled grey of its skin. But the giant kept coming anyway, and within a few strides the flinching had already stopped, the wounds mattering less with every step it took.

"Fuck," Leo said, watching it happen.

"Why is nothing actually hurting it?"

"It's a tanky fucker, that's why," Phil said, already loading another fireball.

"We need something else."

"Let me try," Sam called, already moving toward the edge of the wall, hands raised. The fog rolled out fast, thick and black, swallowing the giant's head and shoulders entirely. It swiped at it immediately, a massive hand cutting through where its eyes should have been, but the fog didn't scatter the way real fog would. It closed back in behind the hand every time, clinging, and for a few seconds the giant staggered properly, its balance shifting. One huge foot came down wrong and skidded in the churned earth.

A ragged cheer went up somewhere along the wall. This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Then it pushed through anyway, blind and furious, one arm swinging wide to feel for anything in its path as it kept coming.

"It's still moving," the same archer from before said, quieter now.

"It's blind and it's still coming."

"Phantasm," Sam muttered, and Leo felt the air shift somehow, though he couldn't have said how he knew. The giant stopped. It turned, slow and confused, its head swinging back toward the treeline behind it, and let out a challenge—something between a roar and a bellow, aimed at whatever it thought was standing there. For a few seconds it actually retreated, stomping back the way it had come, and Leo let himself hope.

Then it stopped again, and even from here Leo could see the moment it realized there was nothing there. The roar that followed was worse than the last one.

"Fuck, it's out of range!" Sam shouted. It turned back toward the village.

"Ground team's moving," came Yara's voice from down the line.

"They're behind it. Careful where you aim, but be ready for a distraction if they need it." Leo couldn't see it happen, not from this angle, but he saw the effect a moment later as the giant's whole body flinched when blades bit into the back of its legs, deep enough to draw real blood this time. It roared, staggering, and one huge foot came down hard, stomping blindly at whatever had hit it. Nothing was there when it landed.

Whoever had struck was already gone, and a second later another cut opened along its opposite calf, then a third higher up—quick, precise, and gone before it could react.

"They're doing it," someone said.

"Look, they're actually cutting it up." They were, and it still wasn't enough. Leo watched Ronan dart in low, his blade opening a line along the back of one leg, and the giant barely reacted at all beyond a grunt and a half-step stagger. Nessa's quick strikes dealt less damage, but she helped all the same. She'd be most useful when the thing came crashing down and she could get to its head, but for the time being, none of their cuts were deep enough. Then it stopped trying to walk forward.

Something in it seemed to register the fighters darting around its legs as the real threat now, and it reached for the club still gripped in one hand, swinging it low and wide, sweeping the ground around its own feet in a slow, deliberate arc.

"Move!" Kai's voice shouted, the urgency obvious. Leo watched them scatter. Ronan and Nessa dived clear with room to spare, while Torren rolled out from under the swing with a speed that shouldn't have been possible for someone his size. The club came round again, faster this time, and the guards nearest it threw themselves flat. One man barely rolled clear in time, the wind of the swing alone enough to knock him sideways.

Then it came round a third time, and Leo's stomach dropped as he tracked where it was heading. Shai had moved to dodge the last swing, but the speed it was coming back at and the sheer size of the tree trunk was going to make getting out of the way nigh impossible. She was a sitting duck.

"No!" The word tore out of him before he'd even processed what he was seeing. Luka arrived just in time. The dome went up a half-second before the club connected, a flash of blue-white light swallowing Shai and Torren both. The impact that followed shook the whole field—a crack like thunder as wood met magic and neither one gave way cleanly.

The dome held, just barely, spiderweb fractures racing across its surface in the half-second before it finally shattered, and Luka went down where he stood, crumpling without a sound. The giant looked down at him. It grinned.

"Get him clear!" Shai was already moving, hauling at Luka's arm, and Torren and Ronan were sprinting toward them, but Leo could see the distance. He could see the giant's other hand already rising, and knew with sick certainty that none of them were going to make it in time. He didn't make a conscious decision to use Amp or think about what could happen. He just knew he needed to be there now. He needed to protect them. One second he was on the wall.

The next, his mana was already draining, Lightning Amp taking a vicious hold. Leo dropped straight from the fifteen-meter wall and hit the ground running before he'd even fully processed what he'd just chosen to do.