A giant of sand eighty feet tall appeared in less than twenty seconds. It was composed of yellow grit, covered by a cracked shell from head to toe. Sand poured out of the fissures and spread out all around like a fine mist.
It was so large that the humans who stood before it were like insects in comparison!
Who among the soldiers had ever seen something as terrifying and fantastical as this? Though it seemed like they were facing something out of a nightmare, the defenders instinctively fired at it, to no avail. Arrows and bullets tore chunks out of the creature, but the resulting holes were simply patched closed when the sand was swallowed back up. It didn’t matter how much firepower they leveled at the titan, it made no difference.
The sand colossus’s eyes glowed scarlet red. Ever so slowly, it raised its right hand and then brought it down with earth-shaking force. Spikes of sand shot up from the ground and impaled dozens of the defenders, killing them instantly.
It was horrifying to behold! It was like the power of a god! How could any normal person defeat such a creature?
The outpost soldiers threw down their weapons and fled in all directions. The colossus paid them no mind as it trundled towards the fort’s entrance. Each footfall made the ground shake, and when it arrived, the creature threw wide its arm and wrapped the fort in a crushing embrace. A terrifying scene emerged.
A strange power issued from within the sand titan permeated the stones of the fort. The sturdy granite dissolved into sand and fell away. Everywhere the monster touched, the stone disintegrated like it was being weathered by time and the elements, except the effect was instantaneous. Huge sections of wall crumbled apart and exploded into particles of sand once they hit the ground.
The humans looked on in shock and terror. The fort was Greenland Outpost’s oldest and staunchest structure. It had persisted for thousands of years, firm against the trials of time and weather. It had become a symbol of safety and the haven so many desperately dreamed of. Caught in the grip of this monster, through some power no man or woman could fathom, the fort eroded to nothing bit by bit as the onlookers were forced to watch. Bit by bit, their dream was being destroyed.
1. The author originally wrote molecules, but he’s wrong. The molecular structure of sand is mainly composed of silicon dioxide. While you can get two molecules of oxygen from air, you can’t magic silicon – its own element – out of nothing. I’m no chemist, but I imagine to do that, you have to change the atomic composition of another molecule and restructure it into silicon by stealing electrons and reorganizing them. So I changed it to atoms.
86 The Fearsome Colossus
The air of the outpost was as thick as mud, choked with sand. When the news that the sweepers were closing in on the fort got to Artemis, she called together the several hundred warriors within. They immediately made for the warehouse where everyone rushed to prepare for the fight.
Greenland Fort was an ancient building that had been reinforced over time. Its tall, sturdy walls gave its denizens a sense of safety as well as ample living space. As a result, it had become the symbol of Greenland Outpost.
However, not everyone lived in the fort. Housing inside the fort became a reward for the outpost’s elite, so in addition to being the safest place in the compound, it was also where the strongest individuals congregated.
“Quickly, quickly! Gather everything that can be used!”
Artemis opened the warehouse to anyone who could carry a weapon. The outpost’s best equipment was stored within, but in this moment of crisis, she didn’t mind offering up items she’d typically be loath to part with. Everything was available, so long as it could be used to protect them from the demon: bows, guns, rockets, anything.
Cloudhawk spotted a ballista and started to push it out of the warehouse.
This old style defensive artillery weapon was taken from the wilds, snapped up when an Antiquarian passed through. Seekers were the next class up from excavators – explorers who not only dug up useful tools from the past but also researched their functions and knew their secrets. Hydra had also gotten his panacea injections from the Seekers.
When Hydra bought the ballista, it was nonfunctional. It took the better part of a year to fix it, but it was ultimately too heavy to put to use. It was a defensive tool used to ward off invasions, and Hydra’s rule had been a stable one for the most part. Thus, it sat in storage, gathering dust.
At this moment, the sounds of combat surrounded them. Had the sweepers killed their way to the fort so quickly?
“You all come here and push. Artemis, let’s take a look!”
Cloudhawk waved a group of soldiers over to take his place behind the ballista and then ran with Artemis towards the sounds of fighting. They first ran into a group of a dozen terrified fort residents fleeing in the opposite direction. Artemis easily snatched one as he passed and was pressing him for information when suddenly, the whole fort began to tremble as if it were caught in an earthquake.
All of a sudden, Cloudhawk was struck with an unprecedented feeling of surprise and dismay. “I can feel a power – a huge power coming this way. We can’t keep going forward!”
Artemis looked at him in confusion. “What are you talking about? What power?”
The building continued to shake, with the tremors growing more intense with each passing moment. Sand shuddered off the walls as tremendous cracks appeared. They expanded like a spider web across the sturdy stone, combining to form even larger fissures that stretched deeper into the fort’s hallways. Once the cracks reached the walls, huge chunks began to fall away. The way forward was reduced to rubble.
After the walls collapsed, a figure enormous beyond belief was revealed to them.
Cloudhawk stared in absolute shock as a monster eighty feet tall rose before his eyes.
Son of a bitch, what the fuck is that?! Is this the demon?
The colossal sand beast was enormous! Comparatively, it was like a grown man standing over an ant. Not only was it massive, but it was also incomparably strong. It obliterated anything in its path, be it flesh or fortress, like an eroding gale.
Greenland Fort was hardly an obstacle to it!
The wastelands were not lacking for massive creatures dozens of feet tall, but in contrast to this thing, humans had ways to deal with those other titans. The wastelands beasts were flesh and blood – living things that needed air and a beating heart. They could be injured. They could be killed.
But this thing before them? He didn’t even know what it was! The monster was far outside the scope of human understanding. Like the mythical demons of old, this thing was immortal and stronger than anything ever seen before.
“Use the Molotovs!”
Guns and melee weapons weren’t the only things stored in the fort. Molotov cocktails were also among its goodies. When Hydra took over the Greenland Outpost, he had a wealth of oil and other explosive materials, which he used to create throwable incendiary weapons. The outpost was a difficult place to assault, and the fort itself was a fortress. Molotovs were concocted to make taking it even harder.
But now wasn’t the time to dwell on these facts!
Several soldiers that had followed them lit the Molotovs and flung them at the monster. They sizzled through the air like comets, ultimately exploding into blinding balls of fire as they struck the sand colossus. Strong though the creature was, it was also slow, and as a result, six or seven bottles of burning liquid were smashed against it.
Its chest became a lake of fire, but that didn’t seem to concern the sand giant in the least. It had no flesh to worry about, so the fiery bottles were nothing to fear.
“It isn’t helping.” Cloudhawk shouted to the others, “Be careful. It’s going to attack!”
Boom--！
A group of soldiers who were too slow to get out of the way was struck by the colossus’s massive hand as it raked by. All of the water within them was absorbed in the blink of an eye, after which their desiccated bodies were flung backwards. When the
corpses struck the floors and walls, they shattered into chunks.
Those who’d managed to evade the attack gaped at the horror. No normal person could fight this thing!
No bullet, arrow, or blade could cause the colossus the slightest harm. Every attack from the monster, slow as it was, was catastrophic, leaving its victims dead or irrevocably harmed. Besides that, the power it released turned everything it touched into lifeless sand.
Artemis was thoroughly dumbstruck by the scene. “What in the name of the demon’s puckered asshole is this?!”
Fire was useless, as were guns and blades. How were they even supposed to fight this creature?
At that moment, the sand colossus noticed their presence. It slowly stepped back and lifted its enormous right arm, whereupon sand all over its body began to ripple like chorded muscle. Hundreds of millions of grains of sand gathered together to form a fist the size of a car, compressed so tight that it was as solid as stone.
“Run!”
The sand colossus’s truck-like fist plowed into the fort.
In the midst of his desperate escape, Cloudhawk felt everything behind him shake with bone-jarring force, followed by a deafening crash that hurt his eardrums. Its fury was conveyed all through the stone walls, which instantly cracked and fell apart like shattered glass.
Artemis and Cloudhawk, covered in dust and debris, survived the attack. But they didn’t dare catch their breath.
The sand colossus threw a second fist their way and once again, it pummeled the fort like a wrecking ball. A dozen soldiers were smashed flat before they could escape.
The outpost’s leader saw that they couldn’t escape. Unwilling to give in, she heaved her massive hammer and swung it at the monster’s fist as it bore down on them. Steel and stone collided, the force of their impact causing the stone beneath Artemis’s feet to break apart. Every bone in her body popped as blood leaked from her nose and mouth – and yet, she’d managed to hold the blow back
Even Artemis’ impressive strength was only barely enough to keep them from being crushed.
Yet to their shock and terror, her mighty hammer began showing signs of erosion. Metal turned to sand and fell away, the only thing between them and the monster’s fist crumbling bit by bit. Just when Artemis began to feel it give, a nimble figure suddenly darted into view. She exploded onto the scene from within the fort, soaring through the air and slamming into the creature’s wrist.
The Bloodsoaked Queen wielded a long sword which she buried in the monster’s appendage. Her feet stuck to it like dual magnets as she whipped around and around its arm, leaving blazing sword light in her wake that seared against the beast’s sandy exterior like the threads of a screw.
Crack!
The sand colossus’s entire arm broke off and instantly dissolved into a torrent of sand that spread everywhere [1].
In reaction to the Queen severing its right arm, the sand colossus swiped at her with its left. However, to the eyes of the demon hunter, this creature was laughably slow. The Queen shuffled a few steps to the side, leapt up, and landed on its left arm as it came her way. Step by step, she sprang up the appendage as if her shoes were made of springs. She arrived in front of the colossus’s face before it could react.
“Aaaaaooorrggghhh!”
A spray of sandy arrows issued from the creature’s maw.
A curtain of light from her sword separated her from the arrows. They dissolved harmlessly back into sand before causing her any harm. Left with an opening, the Queen counterattacked by thrusting her longsword into the monster’s throat. All four feet of steel were buried in the sand with only the hilt left jutting out.
She held the grip with both hands and dragged her blade around its throat in a full circle. A cold light shimmered in its wake. As they watched, the sand colossus’s enormous head peeled off of its body, ultimately exploding into a cloud of sand when it crashed into the ground.
Artemis stared with shocked and hopeful eyes. “Is it dead?”
Cloudhawk’s eyes were pinned to the beast’s body. “It’s still moving!”
This creature was not created through conventional means, so conventional logic did not apply. Its body was a creation, so losing its head was akin to losing a finger. It was perhaps irritating but not fatal.
Just as Cloudhawk figured, the loss of its head had almost no effect. Once it crumbled into sand, the grains were immediately swallowed back into its body. The humans looked on as a head-shaped structure began to emerge anew from its neck.
But the damage had to have weakened it!
Cloudhawk shut his eyes and searched the sensations around him. He could feel waves of power faintly emanating from the center of the colossus’s body. Unless he was mistaken, that’s where its power came from.
“Get that ballista over here!”
1. hmph
87 Vanquished
The Bloodsoaked Queen didn’t let up her attack. She swept through like a deadly wind, never remaining in one place for more than a moment. Sharp blades of sand continuously shot at the demon hunter, and though her reactions had slowed, she was still able to dodge out of the path of danger and keep herself safe.
The Queen ran her left hand along the blade of her weapon. The Burning Angels sizzled as her hand moved, saturating the metal with energy and causing it to glow red hot. The air around it warped from the heat.
Blazing light hung in the air where the blade passed. It whipped around, following the movement of her body.
Her blade plunged into the sand colossus’s shoulder, and she whipped around in a spiral. In no more time than it took to gasp, the beast’s thick arm was severed from its body and crashed onto the ground. The heat fused the sand around the stump, leaving behind a scalding red wound.
This attack had finally done some damage. The sand colossus couldn’t regenerate its limb as quickly from a melted gash, giving the humans a little bit of breathing room.
By now, the Queen’s sword had cooled, and the damage to it became apparent. The metal was now coarse and blackened, having been burned by the Burning Angels. Her relic could infuse a blade with more lethal properties but clearly came at a cost.
She couldn’t keep up the fight!
She leapt through the air like a sparrow in elegant free fall. Falling a hundred feet or so wouldn’t kill her, but if she hit the ground without any sort of support, she could be gravely injured.
She continued to somersault through the air.
Moments before the hard ground came up to meet her, the Queen planted her sword into the wall of the fort to break her fall. It absorbed her momentum, and she landed safely within the fort. Meanwhile, the hundreds of soldiers who had arrived to help defend gaped at her dramatic and agile display.
The demon hunters certainly earned their reputations! Even without a weapon, she was a whole other class above Hydra. The Queen really was a one-of-a-kind warrior!
Grains of sand continued to gather as the colossus’s arm began to repair itself. The Bloodsoaked Queen watched with knitted brows.
Fighting this giant thing was draining her psychic energy. She’d approached the monster only intending to use a moderate amount of her abilities so that she could face her real enemy with the bulk of her strength. But so far, it seemed her efforts had been in vain.
Her chest rose and fell with gentle gasps – combat at this level was exhausting. If she kept exerting herself like this, she wouldn’t have enough energy to spare for the demon. Her powers were running out.
Behind her, a dozen soldiers were pushing the fort’s ballista into place. Under Artemis’s direction, it was placed behind a gap in the fort’s walls.
Cloudhawk was among the soldiers. He called out to the Queen when he spotted her, “The monster’s being powered by a relic. Your attacks aren’t doing anything. We have to find its weak point!”
Meanwhile, Artemis loaded the ballista with a seven-foot-long spear made entirely out of iron. “Wind it up!” She ordered.
A
soldier answered her in a desperate voice, “Boss, the winch is broken!”
The ballista’s spring was reinforced wasteland wyrm tendon so no ordinary man could stretch it by himself. The winch was designed to do the work for them, but whether from disuse or mishandling, they discovered this integral piece wasn’t functional.
“This fuckin’ piece of junk. Move!” Artemis shoved the two people in front of her to the side and gripped the tendon with her own two hands. The wyrm tendons, being coarse materials, tore the skin on her hands, but with the veins on her forehead bulging, she kept struggling. Inch by inch, she pulled the string into place.
The Queen failed to see how the ballista could do anything. “How is this shoddy thing going to help?”
Cloudhawk aimed the cross-shaped ballista, staring down the shaft of the black bolt at the sand colossus. “I can feel the relic. It’s hidden in the monster’s chest – that’s how we kill it. Help me!”
The consolidated granules that made up the colossus’s body made for an effective defense. If he wanted to strike true, he needed the Queen’s help.
She thought for a moment and then shouted back, “Alright!”
By now, the sand colossus’s arm and head had reformed. Silently, it lifted its giant fist, gathering even more of its strength in preparation for a fatal blow. Nearby soldiers quailed at the knowledge that this beast was planning to tear down the fort with its bare hands!
Just as the colossus was winding back for the blow, a column of fire belched from a fissure in the fort’s walls. The flames danced through the air like it had a life of its own until eventually, it coalesced into the form of a ten-foot-long phoenix.
The sand colossus had some measure of intelligence, or at least, was being controlled by someone who did. When the phoenix appeared, it held back its assault.
The phoenix screeched a loud and resounding cry of challenge at it! Its mighty and grandiose appearance awed and frightened every onlooker.
The Wastelander Page 62
