Chương 173: Chapter 172 [The Fall]

The gate had been left open. If the giant made it as far as the wall, it wasn't going to bother finding the entrance, and an open gate meant a fast way out for anyone caught on the ground if things went wrong. Leo hit the gap at a dead sprint and burst through onto the open field beyond. The world around him moved in slow motion—the way it had the day he'd trained with Luka, the way it had during the horde. He still found it weird and disorienting, but he was getting used to it. He pushed on.

He could see the club, still rising, close enough now that he could make out the bits of bark still clinging to the wood, most of it stripped away in ragged strokes. He could see Shai, her eyes fixed on the tree trunk coming down, her mouth already open on the start of a shout that hadn't reached anyone yet. Torren was rushing toward her, his weight shifted onto one foot, already too late to matter.

Leo's own legs burned with every stride, the ground blurring beneath him in a way that made his stomach lurch even at this speed, but he didn't slow down. He couldn't. He crossed a distance that should have taken him a full ten seconds in a fraction of one. The giant's massive leg came up in front of him fast, already a ruin of older cuts, blood dried black in some places and weeping fresh in others. He raised his sword and put everything he had into the strike.

The Sarren went through the Achilles clean, deeper than he'd expected it to. The tendon parted with a resistance that gave way all at once rather than gradually, and blood welled up dark and slow from the wound, thick enough that it hadn't started to properly spray yet. He didn't stop there. Two more strikes followed, fast, one after the other, widening the wound and tearing through whatever muscle and sinew remained until there was no possible way that leg was holding weight through what came next.

The feel of it traveled up through his hands with every cut—the slow tear of sinew and muscle giving way beneath the blade—and his stomach turned in a way it hadn't during the horde. He'd killed plenty back at Monkhaven, but everything there had happened too fast to really see. This wasn't fast. He saw all of it. He kept cutting anyway. His hands were already shaking with the effort, the drain gnawing harder at him with every passing second, worse than anything he'd felt from Amp before, worse even than the horde.

His vision blurred at the edges, the whole world tilting slightly even with everything around him still crawling by comparison. There wasn't time to feel any of that properly. He sheathed the Sarren and ran. Ronan and Torren were still barely into their first full stride when Leo reached Shai's side. The sight of Luka on the ground—pale, still, and with blood slowly trickling from his nose—hit him harder than he expected. He pushed past it and got an arm under Luka, hauling him up over one shoulder.

The added weight nearly buckled his already-failing legs, and then he was moving again, back toward the gate, each step a fight against the drain clawing at the edges of his awareness. He dropped Luka just inside the gate and let the spell go. The world snapped back to speed all at once, and the drain hit him like a physical blow. Dizzy and sick, his knees threatened to give entirely. He forced himself upright anyway, gasping, the taste of copper thick in his mouth.

"I've got Luka!" he shouted, the words tearing out of him ragged.

"It's going down! Move, now!" The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. Out on the field, the words reached the others a half-second before the giant's roar did—a sound of pure agony as the ruined leg finally gave beneath it, the tendon severed too deep to hold any longer.

People scattered on his word alone, not waiting to see if he was right, and the giant swayed, tipped, and came down sideways with a violence that shook the ground under everyone's feet, missing the wall by a margin that felt far too narrow for comfort. Kai, Ronan, and Nessa were already moving before the dust had settled. Nessa reached it first, moving faster than anything that size had any right to react to.

She ducked beneath a flailing hand still grasping blindly for purchase and drove her blade deep into the soft flesh of its throat. Kai and Ronan reached the head a heartbeat later, and between them, working in perfect unison, they put both its eyes out at once. The giant's scream turned into something worse. Something broken. Its huge hands came up, pawing uselessly at its own ruined face, fingers slick with its own blood, finding nothing to fight anymore. It didn't take long after that.

The throat wound widened with every labored, dying breath, blood pouring into the churned grass in a spreading black stain. The giant's thrashing slowed by degrees, its kicks growing weaker and weaker, until at last it stopped moving altogether.

Parmo hadn't realized he'd been holding his breath until it was over.

"Holy shit," he said, staring out at the still shape on the field.

"Holy shit, he actually did it." Rika's wings had gone rigid beside him, and the breath she let out came out shaky, half disbelief, half relief.

"That was insane. I didn't even notice him leave. He must have acted the second Luka went down." Further along the wall, Sam and Phil were already moving, half-climbing, half-jumping down toward the gate where Leo had dropped Luka, neither of them waiting for the stairs.

Shai reached Leo a moment later, breathless, staring at him like she was trying to work out if what she'd just watched had actually happened.

"Gods, Leo." She stopped, shaking her head.

"That was incredible. You managed to hurt it more than the rest of us. That spell is amazing."

"It is. Drains me way too fast, though. I need to hurry up and get my mastery up," Leo managed, still fighting the dizziness. Torren and Ronan arrived a beat after her, both of them looking at Leo with the same shared disbelief. Yara's voice cut through it a moment later, dry despite everything.

"Good thing magic isn't allowed in the tournament," she said, looking between Leo and the massive shape lying still on the field.

"Wouldn't be much of a contest otherwise."

Luka came to with the sound of voices somewhere above him, and the first thing he registered clearly—before his own name or where he was—was the healer leaning over him. Jesus. Those have got to be the biggest tits I've ever seen.

"How are you feeling?" the healer asked. She was a cow beast-kin with kind eyes and an expression that suggested she'd asked this question a great many times before. Luka blinked up at her, and it took him a second too long to answer. She caught the direction of his gaze and one eyebrow rose, amused rather than offended.

"Well, if you've got the presence of mind to notice those, I'd say you're probably fine." Heat crept up his neck.

"Sorry. Yeah. I'm okay, I think." He pushed himself upright slowly.

"Just passed out from the hit. Probably drained too much mana in one go casting both at once. Feel a bit sick, but that's likely the mana too." She nodded, satisfied enough, and stepped back to let him sit up properly. He got to his feet a little unsteadily and found the others already gathered close, relief plain on every face.

"Well done, man," Leo said, his arm still around Shai's shoulders.

"You really saved her back there." Shai stepped forward before Luka could answer, her voice quieter than usual.

"Thank you. I wasn't going to be able to dodge that in time. You saved my life."

"No worries." Luka grinned.

"It's what I'm here for." Leo's arm tightened around Shai for just a second, a small squeeze she leaned into without looking away from Luka. Yara approached a moment later, having just finished her own inspection of the giant's body, her expression unreadable as ever.

"Yara," Sam said.

"Mind if I ask a favor?"

"After what you've all done for us today?" Yara's mouth twitched, almost a smile.

"Of course. Ask away."

"The core." Sam nodded toward the giant.

"Diane thinks she's found a way to use them to help recreate some of our old tech. Something that size has to have a core big enough to power a ton of stuff we're missing. It could be huge for the more demanding stuff we're trying to build. If it works, it means we've got a lot more to actually share with the border villages going forward." Yara considered it while she glanced at the body.

"Of course. Just keep us updated on how it goes."