'This Giant is tougher than I planned for.'
Darfin gritted his teeth as he soared nearly three hundred feet above the obsidian battlefield, his body cradled by roaring wind currents of his own making. The sky around him buzzed with the scent of ozone and smoke, while down below, the war raged on like a storm with no eye.
Though Darfin was the best candidate to face the Giant, being the only one who could fly easily, that didn't mean he was a good matchup.
The creature towered like a mountain made flesh—easily over three hundred feet tall. From this height, Darfin locked eyes with it, and a shiver passed through his spine. Its massive pupils, wide as temple gates, narrowed with eerie focus, staring straight into him. He felt like an insect being studied before the stomp.
Suddenly, the Giant's arm lunged forward. The limb alone was the size of a castle wing—slow, yes, but unstoppable. The air cracked with displacement as it moved.
Darfin twisted in midair. With a burst of wind beneath his feet, he dove to the side, spiraling like a leaf caught in a cyclone. He darted around the incoming arm, weaving past skin that looked like cracked marble, before launching himself skyward in a hard climb above the Giant's head.
He pointed his hand downward. Flames gathered into his palm, swirling in a tight, furious core until they formed a dense, whirling column of fire. It wasn't wide, but it was deadly, compressed to the point it hummed with destructive potential.
Darfin flung the cylinder straight down.
It screamed through the air like a comet, but just before it landed, the Giant's skin rippled, turning to shining silver in the blink of an eye. The fire struck with a hiss and vanished. There was no explosion, no burn, just steam and ash.
Darfin's lips curled into a dry smirk.
'I hate fighting these things.'
He'd tried everything in his arsenal—earth, water, wind, fire—all of it. And yet the Giant had brushed them off like raindrops, unmoved, unscathed.
Then the beast roared—a guttural, thunderous cry that cracked the air itself. The gust it generated nearly knocked Darfin out of the sky, throwing his balance into chaos as the world shook. His ears rang, and even the wind he controlled faltered momentarily.
It's getting pissed. Good.
Each time Darfin failed to injure it, he had climbed higher and higher into the sky, keeping distance and gathering information. One hit from that thing would flatten him. But distance bought time—time to observe, time to find a weakness.
Still, that distance wouldn't solve anything forever.
'I won't find a damn thing up here.'
His lip curled in a confident twitch. Without hesitation, he dove.
The wind howled past him as he plummeted, faster and faster, golden-blond hair whipping wildly behind him. His sword gleamed in his left hand, catching sparks of sunlight, while his right hand stayed open, primed for spellcasting.
The Giant saw him coming.
Both massive hands rose in a slow, terrible motion, aiming to crush him between them like clapping a fly.
Darfin didn't blink. Mid-descent, he launched earthen bullets from his palm. Each projectile, though the size of a grown elf, looked laughably small compared to the Giant. But Darfin wasn't aiming for mass.
He was aiming for the eyes.
The Giant's expression shifted. Surprise flickered across its stone-carved features.
BOOM.
The pellets slammed into the Giant's eyes with a wet thud, making it reel backward with a monstrous snarl. It squeezed its lids shut, blind for the moment.
Darfin seized the opening. He rolled beneath the Giant clapping hands with only inches to spare. The sheer force of the impact above him sent shockwaves through the air, throwing him downward, but he summoned more wind below to catch himself and redirect.
In a blur of motion, he swept around to the back of the beast.
The Giant still hadn't opened its eyes.
Its long, matted black hair trailed down its muscular back, thick as rope and reeking of sweat and battlefield filth. In the Giant culture, Darfin knew that hair was only cut after a loss in battle. The fact that it was this long?
'Not a good sign.'
But Darfin's grin widened.
"Let's see how you like this, you big oaf," he muttered.
When his voice reached the Giant's ears, its skin began to shimmer again—silver sweeping across its surface like living armor.
But the hair didn't change.
Darfin dove down and grabbed a thick tangle of it. The coarse strands burned against his skin as he steadied himself, one hand gripping the mane, the other igniting with flame.
With a roar of fire, the hair caught.
The stench was immediate—acrid and vile, the smell of burning hair mixed with something more primal, more ancient. Smoke poured upward in curling plumes. The Giant screamed, not in pain alone but in fury—a deep, bellowing cry that reverberated across the battlefield and shook the clouds themselves.
Flames spread through the Giant's hair like wildfire in a dry forest.
Now, even from miles away, warriors could look up and see it—blazing like a signal in the sky.
But in the next moment, Darfin immediately regretted setting the Giant's hair ablaze.
The beast thrashed in a blind, frenzied rage, bellowing so loud it seemed to split the clouds. Massive arms flailed in every direction, each swing creating shockwaves that distorted the air like rippling glass.
Darfin narrowly dodged a sweeping hand—too close. The displaced air from the swing slammed into him like a wall, wrenching his body sideways. It took every ounce of his mana control to remain airborne.
The winds around him bucked violently, no longer flowing smoothly but jittering like a storm-tossed sail. His body jerked up and down in the sky, the turbulence so fierce it felt like he was riding a crashing skyship.
'Damn this idiotic brute.'
Darfin's scowl deepened. His concentration slipped, just for a second, and the currents wavered under him.
Below, the Giant let out a thunderous growl, the fire still crawling through its hair like serpents of flame. Finally, with a furious roar, it reached up with one silvered hand and ripped the burning hair clean from its scalp.
The sound was visceral—a horrible tearing noise, like bark stripped from an ancient tree. Darfin wasn't sure if the Giant screamed from pain or sheer rage. Either way, it was delightful.
For a brief moment, the beast stopped flailing. With the fire snuffed out, the sky cleared, and Darfin's grip on the wind returned. The air was once again his ally, responding to his will like a loyal steed.
The Giant didn't seem to notice.
'Truly a brainless thing.' Darfin chuckled inwardly, catching his breath as the battlefield steadied beneath him.
But then the Giant turned.
Slowly.
And what it revealed made Darfin's amusement fade.
Clutched in its silver palm was the burning clump of hair, still on fire, now held like a torch against the sky. Sparks drifted in all directions, embers glowing like crimson stars.
And then, its face.
A look of unfiltered, primal rage twisted the creature's features. Its eyes, once wild and vacant, now burned with savage intent. Brows furrowed deep like cracks in a mountain face. Its lips curled into a snarl, revealing hideously yellow teeth, rotted and cracked, more sickly than sulfur.
Darfin's smirk died.
He hovered in the air, narrowing his gaze. The air around him stilled for a beat.
"…Bring it on, you sorry excuse for a Giant," he called out. His voice echoed across the field like a challenge hurled from the heavens. "Do you miss your hair?"
He needed it angry. Angrier than ever.
An enraged opponent was predictable. Reckless. Easier to manipulate.
The Giant did not speak—it couldn't. But its body spoke volumes.
With a guttural snort, it dropped to one knee, shaking the battlefield with a thunderous quake. Dust exploded upward around its legs, and all nearby combatants stumbled as the ground cracked beneath the weight.
Then it reached down.
Its massive silvered hands plunged into the scorched black earth and emerged moments later with two giant handfuls of obsidian—sharp, jagged boulders that sparkled under the firelight.
Darfin's eyes widened.
In one smooth, terrifying motion, the Giant rose—and hurled them skyward.
Chunks of volcanic rock the size of homes came roaring toward him like meteors. The sky itself seemed to darken under their shadow.
'Shit.'