The sott-jotun let out a warbling wail as it fell forward. It held one hand out to try and brace for its fall, but in the process its club-wielding hand flailed about, nearly knocking into one of the giants lumbering behind it. That was good, I told myself, because my plan had been to turn the clubs of these massive creatures against each other.
The remaining three were still focused on Nova, but the blonde woman had already leaped into the air, summoning her glorious white wings as she did so. She flew up quickly, taking advantage of the room's high ceiling, and fired beams of burning light from both of her weapons into the largest sott-jotun's face. Once again, the monster screamed loudly and clutched its face, angrily flailing its club about in the same fashion the previous jotun had.
The only difference was that this club connected with another giant's head.
The largest sott-jotun was half again the size of the rest, with an appropriately large club. Its blow did not kill its comrade, but it did knock the smaller giant off its feet and send it hurtling backwards, forcing the other monsters to either spread out or become casualties themselves.
Nova increased the confusion even further the next moment, by tucking her wings inward just enough to perform a spiraling, eye-catching ascent. Upon reaching her zenith, she spread her wings out and suddenly brightened them, bathing half the room in an intense light that ruined the giants' dark-adjusted vision. But the effect was not nearly as intense for me and Nestor, since we had just entered the place and the jotun’s own bodies blocked most of the light from reaching us.
I did, however, have to suppress a whistle of amazement, as Nova immediately capitalized off her own trick by folding her wings and diving, baton and flaming sword held out at her sides. She slashed the back of the largest giant's head as she flew over it, then pirouetted again and brought her bludgeon down on the open wound. The eighteen-foot monstrosity bellowed and lurched forward, still clutching its face and swinging its club blindly. Once again, it knocked one of its smaller brethren clean off its feet, all while missing Nova entirely.
Focus, I told myself as I ducked another wild swing from one of the smaller giants. I promised myself I could marvel at Nova as much as I dared later, leaped to my right, and fired a medium-sized spike of earth near the blinded giant's back. My attack missed, but it wasn't meant to land to begin with. It was meant to make the hulking brute think an enemy was moving behind it. When the sott-jotun swung its club about and struck another of its nearby brethren by accident, I re-activated my speed augments and charged it, slashing at where its hamstrings should be. Once again my gauntlet glowed, and my halfblade completely shredded the back of the monster's shin, crippling my second jotun in this fight so far.
I see you've figured it out, Grandmother Mara said in my mind. It seemed more practical to allow one of my daughter's children to have a rider able to use a variety of weapons. So instead of giving you a tool you might not be proficient in, I crafted you gear that would help you fight however you wanted, even unarmed. So far, it seems to have been an appropriate choice, she added smugly.
Given the fact that my very first battle on this ship had been with a broken floor tile, I was inclined to agree. But I could discuss the matter in depth later with her.
For now, I had finished crafting another earthen spike. Since this one actually was supposed to connect, I risked several moments to make it, shaping it with a physics spell, then, just before it launched, triggering my strength charm and hurling it forward, adding my own enhanced strength to the spike's forward momentum.
To my surprise, the silver gauntlet holding the earthen thorn glowed as well, and when I released, it struck the fallen monster's neck with enough force to send large clumps of bloody gray flesh spattering through the air. The jotun's angry bellows turned into wet gurgles, and I heard Grandmother Mara sniff in satisfaction from within my Soulscape.
Definitely the right choice, she pronounced loftily. Now duck to your left, dear. Quickly, now.
I obeyed the spiritual dragon on instinct, as another scrap metal club whistled through the air over me, a strike from another jotun that had not been crippled or fully blinded yet. But I was not fast enough, and the tip of the club struck my shoulder with enough force to send me skidding across the cold tiles.
I almost screamed on sheer reflex alone, because as soon as I felt the impact I was expecting my entire arm to tear free, or at least dislocate from my shoulder. But I used that same arm a moment later to arrest my momentum and return to my feet, with nothing to show for the giant's attack except for what felt to be a little bit of bruised skin.
Combined with my six stages of Advancement and mysteriously augmented body, my new armor was enough to completely turn away the twelve-foot-tall monster's glancing blow.
You're welcome, dear. Again. Now get back to making this look easy.
I did as my new dragon-grandmother directed, and charged back into the fight.
A quick glimpse showed that Nova was flying a circular pattern through the air and raining down fire and bright beams of light on the eighteen foot tall jotun and one other smaller one. They appeared to be activating their own simple charms in order to move faster and corner her, still bellowing about finding a female down here. But even as they did so, the smaller one suddenly let out an anguished cry and sank to its knees, clutching at its now-smoking crotch.
Take-that! a voice squeaked in my mind. Pervert!
Now that she was no longer flanked, Nova spun about and fired another beam of light into the larger giant's face, diving toward its wounded companion as she did so. The jotun was smart enough to raise an arm in time to protect part of its face, but not smart enough to realize Nova was provoking it to swing out with its club. Once again, the stupid creature swung carelessly, and once again, it struck one of its friends instead of its enemies, as Nova dove to avoid the wild strike. The timing of her dodge provided her the perfect opportunity to slice the now-falling smaller jotun through the neck with her burning sword, and now there was a second giant gurgling on the ground, still clutching its smoking crotch as it began to expire.
And that is the real challenge in fighting an advanced mana user, Grandmother Mara instructed me as I charged the sott-jotun that had just attacked me. Not their powerful magics, or their vast reserves of it, but rather their wits and intellect. A practitioner at her level will be able to incorporate finely honed tactics on the fly, and subconsciously make calculated predictions that a qi or essence user must work much harder to develop. Remember that, should you find yourself battling one. Now back to your own fight.
I would have objected to her running commentary in this battle for my life if my opponent hadn't proven to be even more distracted by Nova than I was. But as the monster finally turned its terrified eyes off of the bright avenging angel flying about the room, I fired a series of small, burning bolts across its body. It was a quickly crafted attack that did little damage except it struck the diseased portions of the creature's skin, cooking several of the creature's boils and growths. The creature screamed in irritation and swung its club, but I had already halted my charge and flipped over the side of the barricade the jotun had nearly knocked me into earlier. As the heavy partition shuddered under the blow, I reactivated my speed enhancements and rushed forward, keeping low so that I remained out of the giant's sight. With all the light and fire being hurled about, and since I had just cooked one of the boils directly over its eye, it was difficult for it to keep track of where I was going. Which was exactly what I needed.
If I wanted to overcome the advantage of my enemy's superior reach, I needed to either hang back and spend a large portion of my Source energy firing ranged attacks, or surprise it with speed and subterfuge. I chose the second option, vaulting back over the barricade as soon as I closed the distance between myself and my latest opponent.
This one proved to not be a complete idiot, however. It had taken a single step back from the barricade and stood with its free hand open, realizing that I would c
ome to it. As I leaped back over to attack it, now too close for it to use its club, it swept down with a massive hand, activating its own charms and catching me by surprise.
I struck out at the massive hand lifting me up by the front of my shirt, but the hide on the creature's over-muscled arms was much thicker than the hide on the thing's legs. My cut was superficial, and the monster merely smiled wider with its toothy, over-sized maw.
"Food," the creature said as its lower jaw began to distend.
I had no idea if it could actually devour me, and I wasn't interested in knowing for certain. Instead, as the monster lifted me toward its mouth, I raised my free hand, winced in anticipation of the oncoming pain, and summoned one of my new weapons.
Grandmother had been extremely generous with her centuries of collected treasure. She had not given me a weapon that could bind to me exclusively, like with Nova and her new flaming sword, but she did allow me to take a number of different implements from her armory. She was surprised to see just how well my halfblade compared with them, but she also reminded me that different weapons worked best for different jobs.
So in this case, I ignored the searing pain in my wrists from quickly summoning a large weapon, and drew my new spear from my Soulscape.
It was a weapon with a dark-brown shaft and a silver blade that curved upward near the end, enough for me to stab or slash with it.
I did not shoot it completely from my body, as that act had destroyed the summoned weapons the last time I performed said act. Instead, it came into my hands gripped at the bottom half, with most of the weapon in front of me.
A quick thrust brought that part of the weapon into the jotun's mouth. I aimed the weapon upward, toward the monster's brain. The weapon caught on something inside the creature's skull, but I pushed it forward and twisted it as hard as I could. It did not bring about the immediate kill I was hoping for, but the creature still dropped both me and the club in its other hand as it backed away, gurgling and reaching for the polearm. I landed on my feet and watched the sott-jotun struggle to remove the bladed stick lodged in its skull. I rushed to finish it off, but as it finally yanked my weapon free it went limp and fell to the ground. I guessed that the stupid thing sliced its brain stem while ripping the weapon out.
I dodged to the side to avoid its fall, fired off a mana bolt into its head just to be safe, and recovered my spear. I spared a quick glance toward the rest of the battle. The two jotun with torn throats were finally beginning to die, their eyes glazing as small clouds of Source energy rolled off their bodies. I felt more power enter me from the body behind me, but there wasn't time for me to process it yet. The first giant I had injured before was slowly making its way back into the fight, limping forward by bracing on the sturdy barriers jutting from the floor. It had lost its club, but I had just learned how these things actually became more dangerous without them.
"Food," the monster growled, baring its teeth and limping toward me. "Then, female!"
"If you had been less blinded earlier, you would have shared your brothers' fear of said female," I replied as I sheathed my blade to grip my spear in both hands, "so I will have to settle for making you afraid of me instead." I took a moment to watch my enemy for any useful details. It was odd that they were so easy to injure—especially in their legs—yet so difficult to put down for good. I literally had to either remove large pieces of their necks or directly damage their brains.
And the longer this went on, the more likely another party would enter the fray. We needed to secure this room now, and in a way that didn't leave our Source energy entirely spent.
So as the creature continued to lumber forward, I conjured a metal spike out of qi, heated it with a thermodynamics spell, gripped it with my leather-protected hands, and activated a strength charm to help me propel it forward into the jotun's descending hand. I caught the monster on the palm just as it was about to use said arm to pull itself forward, and the creature shouted in pain and surprise. Despite their size and strength, they seemed to have low tolerances for pain, and so the monster abandoned its effort to crawl forward in favor of trying to dig the burning needle out of its palm.
As it did so, I raced forward with another explosion of speed and sliced my spear at the healthy arm's elbow.
Gripping my weapon with both gauntlets granted an even greater surge of power, tearing through even the bone of the jotun's arm and making short work of the thing's resistance, despite the fact that it had an abnormally powerful body and three stages of essence Advancement. My own improvements must be even greater than I realized, both in Advancement, the quality of my new gear, and whatever changes my new grandmother had worked to further enhance my body.
More importantly, I now had a clear path to my enemy's head, and my speed enhancements had not worn out. I ducked under its remaining wounded hand and stabbed at the creature's skull.
To my surprise, the weapon left little more than a gash, even with the explosive power of my gauntlets. The monsters' skulls were even more durable than their arms. Thinking as quickly as possible, I jumped over the monster's return swing and sliced deep into its neck.
The effect was not nearly as impressive as Nova's near-decapitation earlier, but there was still enough gory evidence to confirm that my blow was lethal. The monster stopped flailing what was left of its 'good' arm and began to gurgle, reaching uselessly for its throat with its now-cooking hand, then went still a few moments later, having lost too much blood from my other strikes.
I turned my attention away from the corpse and its new Source cloud to focus on the only remaining fight in the room, only to see the largest giant sway on its feet, clutching one arm and with its body covered with over a dozen smoking cuts. Nova hovered close by over the monster's head, her body shimmering with some sort of light and speed spells, as she flitted quickly to stay at the creature's peripheral vision.
"What's the matter?" she demanded angrily. "Having too much trouble with the 'female' you were demanding? Do you regret trying to mess with a grown woman?"
The giant howled painfully loud and raised its hand to swat at her, fist burning with some essence-laden strike that Nova dodged anyway. Then a bright-yellow blur leaped past the creature's waist, turning the jotun's howl into a high-pitched scream of pain.
As the monster bent over in pain, the winged, wrathful valkyrie darted downward and slashed at the monster's neck with her glorious sword, still blurring with enhanced speed. Before the blood finished spraying through the sky, she jammed her war baton into the gash and fired a powerful blast.
There was a cracking sound from the once-fearsome brute's neck, and then it toppled to the floor. A massive cloud of Source energy washed out from it, streaming into Nova's wings and the small yellow blur that squeaked at her from the floor.
The golden armored woman drifted slowly to the floor, panting heavily from both rage and fatigue.
"I am tired," she half-panted, half-spat, "of everything down here turning into a creepy freak as soon as they see me." Then she looked up and saw me. "With the exception of you, Jasper," she added uncomfortably. "And Nestor, too. You guys are different. I'm glad you are both with me."
"Are you alright?" I asked, trying to help her by changing the subject. "And is any of that yours?" I added as I pointed to all the bloodstains on her otherwise-beautiful outfit.
"No," she said as she shook her head. "I mean, yes. I mean… yes, I am alright, and no, this is not my blood. Sorry," she sighed, "I'm a wreck right now… I'll pull it together in a moment."
"You were incredible," I said honestly. "Even most of my enemies couldn't help but notice. Their terrified awe helped me kill them faster."
"Really?" Nova said as she looked up. "I didn't notice. It took all of my concentration to not be disgusted by them and fight clearly…" She shook her head again, the motion causing the halo of light from her armor and wings to dance around her. She began to dim the illumination and dismissed her Soulscape wings . "They… they reminded me of ho
w some creeps acted toward me back home. The ones I had to help bring in at my old job."
"Then I am even more glad they are all dead," I said, snarling briefly, "and Nova, I can only guess what you're feeling right now, but I have literally seen you slay dragons. I have seen you vanquish every evil being you've stood against. And I will continue to stand against the rest of them with you. Because while tyrants quickly learn to fear you, the rest of us regard you with gratitude and respect. You are powerful and good, just as you are right now. Thank you for that."
The weary valkyrie quivered at my words, but the tension washed off of her as she did so.
"Thank you, Jasper," Nova told me. "I'm okay now. We should get back to securing the room… which is really huge," she said, looking around. "And that’s funny, because it didn't seem big enough earlier."
"Well, you were doing aerial combat with a group of giants," I pointed out, though somehow that detail had escaped me as well, until now. "But it seems their very presence could have been avoided if this room was just too small for them to enter."
Not necessarily, dear, Grandmother Mara spoke up. Size is an easy thing to adjust in the later stages of Advancement. And she might have very well had giant-kin or large Sourcebeasts as members of her old crew, or needed to take in a large Sourcebeast that was wounded.
Was that last bit a common occurrence? I asked, having never considered any of the scenarios the dragon-woman had just mentioned.
It was common enough for several royal members of several races of Sourcebeasts to swear a life-debt to the vessel-saints, one that they never acknowledged. Your ancestors and I often pointed out the irony of how the holy ships were quick to take in wounded into their decks, but adamant in never taking on anyone willing to serve and protect them, save for the bare minimum of crew. The old spirit grew quiet for a moment. We should have been more insistent, she finally said, and not for the first time.
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