The titan hung in the sky like a storm cloud of flesh and bone. Hundreds of meters tall, it wore the crudely stitched pelts of colossal beasts, its muscles rippling with a density that seemed to warp the air around it. Its face was a landscape of filth and malice, a visage so hideous it struck a chord of pure terror in the hearts of the lords.
Leo's Throne Perception screamed a warning. The aetheric pressure near the giant was a physical weight, thick as cooling magma. 'The system said they were suppressed, but that mass... it defies the rules,' Leo realized.
''Found youuu.'' The words were a tectonic shift, a roar that rattled their teeth and stole the oxygen from their lungs. Each yellowed tooth was a monolith of decay, and its breath was the smell of a thousand-year-old grave.
[The Colossal Giant (E+ Rank(Epic) - Suppressed)]
Hye-na's voice was a blade of ice cutting through the panic. ''Run.''
They didn't need to be told twice. The party became a blur of desperation, sprinting down the white stone bridge. Leo lagged behind, his eyes fixed on the hunter.
''Noel! Counter-illusion, now!'' Leo barked, trying to buy them a few precious seconds.
Noel's face went pale from the fear, but he clapped his hands together. A duplicate party manifested, fleeing in the opposite direction. The giant paused, its glowing eyes flickering between the two groups. It let out a low, guttural grunt and raised a fist the size of a manor house.
BOOM!
The blow did not target the illusion. It slammed into the bridge itself.
The impact was a localized earthquake. When the dust cleared, the bridge behind the duplicate party had vanished into the abyss. There was no retreat. Leo felt a cold shiver of realization. 'It is intelligent.'
The giant's gaze locked onto Leo, a horrific smirk stretching its lips. ''Fooddd,'' it rumbled, gliding through the air with predatory ease.
The chase stretched into a grueling endurance match. Hours bled together as the lords pushed their lungs to the bursting point. Hye-na pulled up alongside Leo, her breathing heavy but controlled. ''We are hitting a wall. We cannot outrun it on a straight path, and there are no exits. What is the play?''
Leo looked back at the giant. The creature wasn't tired; it was enjoying the hunt. It looked... joyful. 'For god's sake, why are you so excited?' he thought.
He clenched his fists, but a sudden realization made him gulp. He had found it odd from the start.
The giant had bypassed hundreds of other lords. It had traveled across quadrants for this specific bridge.
When it arrived, it had specifically said, ''Found you,'' which meant it had come for them. 'No... not for us. For me,' Leo thought, his face draining of color.
He made his decision in a heartbeat. ''Go. I am the one it wants. I will stall it while you find the Palace.''
Luna stumbled, her face pale. ''Are you insane? It will crush you like a grape!''
Ben and Noel looked ready to stay and fight, but Hye-na searched Leo's eyes. She saw the clinical calculation there, not the desperation of a martyr. She saw a predator recognizing another predator.
''Can you survive this?'' she asked.
''I will,'' Leo replied. ''Go!''
Leo skidded on the marble, sparks flying from his boots as he reversed direction. He didn't run away; he ran straight into the shadow of the titan.
''No!'' Luna shrieked, but Hye-na's arm was already around her waist, dragging her forward.
''Luna, move! If we stay, his gamble is for nothing!'' Hye-na shouted.
Ben and Noel followed, their fists clenched in silent fury at their own helplessness, watching as the silver-haired lord vanished into the mist to face a god of the sky alone.
The wind screamed across the void as Leo stood his ground, a lone silver-haired figure against the dark. The distant rhythm of his retreating party was lost to the wind, leaving him in the suffocating silence of his own breath and the thunderous footsteps of the titan.
The giant halted. Its feet, calloused and cracked like a sun-scorched riverbed, found purchase on the very air just yards from the bridge. It peered down, its crimson irises locking onto Leo with a hunger that carried a physical, crushing pressure.
A low, tectonic chuckle escaped the giant's throat, vibrating through the bridge's foundations. ''Tiny king,'' it rumbled, the words slow and heavy with malice. ''I have smelled you since the gate first groaned open. The blood of the ancient ones... so sweet. So exceedingly rare.''
'He is hunting me,' Leo realized, gripping his Venom Fang. 'He knows what I am.'
Leo did not grant the titan the first strike. Knowing a contest of strength meant instant death, he triggered [Void Flicker]. He became a blur, vanishing a heartbeat before a massive hand pulverized the marble where he had stood. As stone shrapnel whistled through the air, Leo reappeared on the bridge's edge, sprinting with the unnatural speed of his [Boots of Haste]. He leaped, sticking the landing on the giant's massive forearm.
The hide felt like jagged granite. Leo drove his dagger deep, but the blade only bit a few inches into the superhuman density of the muscle beneath. Toxic green ichor from the [Venom Fang] began to sizzle in the wound, but the titan merely laughed.
''It tickles,'' the colossus rumbled.
'I only need to buy them a few more minutes,' Leo thought. As the giant's other hand swept toward him like a falling mountain, he flickered away.
''Looking for me?'' Leo's voice carried a mocking smirk as he reappeared standing directly on the giant's cheek. The monster roared and thrashed to dislodge him, but Leo anchored himself, plunging his dagger into the gargantuan eye.
A primal shriek rent the sky. ''GARHHHH!'' The giant reeled, clutching its eye as greenish, caustic blood welled between its fingers. Leo used the momentum of the creature's recoil to leap back to the bridge.
He glanced at his blade, then at the horizon where his party had nearly vanished from sight. 'The venom is a mere irritant to a beast of this scale, but it has bought us distance,' he calculated.
The giant's counter-roar was a physical shockwave, a whirlwind of sound that launched Leo into the void. ''Shit!'' He flickered again, catching himself on a jagged slab of broken stone.
''I will kill you!'' the giant bellowed. Its flesh began to glow a bruised, angry red. Veins corded beneath its skin like thick cables, and a scorching steam began to hiss from its pores.
'He is entering a berserk state,' Leo noted grimly. The rising mist swallowed the bridge, turning the world into a claustrophobic haze of white heat. Leo tightened his grip on the dagger, his senses screaming.
Leo's ears rang from the giant's roar, but his focus remained sharp. The steam was getting thicker, making it hard to see anything beyond a few meters. He could feel the heat coming off the giant's body; the monster was literally boiling with rage.
'This is bad. If I cannot see, I cannot use my skill,' Leo thought. He closed his eyes for a second, relying on his [Throne Perception] to map the area. The giant was a massive, pulsing heat signature in the mist.
Suddenly, the giant swung his hand in a wide arc, meant to sweep everything off the bridge. Leo didn't run. He jumped into the air, using the gust of the giant's own movement to lift himself higher.
"Is that all you have got?" Leo taunted, even though his heart was racing.
The giant didn't answer with words. Instead, it opened its mouth and inhaled a massive amount of the steam. The air pressure shifted, pulling Leo toward the monster's gaping maw.
"Oh, you have got to be kidding me!" Leo yelled. He stabbed his dagger into the stone of the bridge, anchoring himself as the wind tried to suck him in. The stone groaned under the pressure, and cracks started to spread from where his dagger was buried.