A giant. A freaking giant had just eaten the alpha Vorrak as if it were nothing.

  We stood in awe, looking up as the monster chomped and slurped on the beast’s meat. The giant was at least ten feet tall, maybe eleven, clad in full plate armor, and had a human-like body that I suspected was muscular beneath its plates.

  The creature had only four fingers, one of them an opposable thumb, making it easier to eat the Vorrak. The monster gulped down the creature’s second half without even chewing. It held it by the feet and slurped it all inside, like sucking bone marrow.

  The sounds were nauseating enough, but when it looked down, any disgust was quickly replaced by wariness.

  Two big eyes stared at us, and a grin stretched across the creature’s face from one ear to the other. Its teeth were serrated like my dagger when I needed it to inflict pain. Its ears were enormous, and its round nose twitched as if it were smelling us to see how we’d taste.

  On its belt, the monster carried a club. Of course, it’s a club, I thought, remembering the fairy tales Barry used to tell me.

  The old man used to alternate between threatening me—telling me I needed to step up and be more of an adult—and telling stories when I was falling asleep.

  I never asked if he’d had kids once, before he had to live on the streets. One more regret on my pile. But the monster looked exactly like the giant he’d described in Jack and the Beanstalk—a wicked version, the kind he liked to exaggerate as a cautionary tale.

  I used to like that version of the giant. Meaner, clad in armor, ready to kill Jack on the spot.

  Now that I was seeing a creature very similar to it, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I actually hated it.

  The monster spoke, its voice guttural. The system didn’t translate it.

  A massive crash erupted from the other side of the mountain. I took a quick look in that direction and noticed a second giant welcoming Max’s group.

  The one before us seemed to enjoy our attention and grinned again, a chuckle forming in the depths of its throat.

  “How are we supposed to fight this?” Mila asked, taking position by my side.

  We were all too shocked to answer, and the giant seemed to enjoy it. It looked at us, its sickening smile growing to proportions that didn’t seem possible.

  Then it removed the club from its belt. The piece of wood had nails embedded all over its end. It would be hard not to get hit by it.

  I looked around, trying to find some myriad wisdom, but no elder was running toward me this time. I guess they didn’t have lessons on how to fight giant monsters.

  “Let’s scatter, make it harder for it to hit more than one person at a time. Warriors at the front, ranged fighters aim for the head. The ones in between, try to find cracks in its—”

  The club came down right toward me. I saw it coming. The monster knew I was giving orders.

  I had to use a Lightning Momentum, or I’d be crushed beneath its weapon. I grabbed Mila’s hand right before releasing the spell and ended up saving her life.

  I expected the monster to drag its weapon along the ground and try to kill everyone, but instead, it raised it to its shoulder and waited, staring at us.

  Was it stalling? Trying to read us?

  Just as the thought crossed my mind, it brought its club down again, this time aiming directly at a couple of myriads on the far left. One of them dodged back; the second was hit right in the chest and sent tumbling down the slope, only stopping amidst a few of the Vorrak’s bodies below.

  It was impossible to tell if the myriad had died, but it didn’t matter in the moment.

  “Attack!” I commanded, because the creature was taking advantage of our shock, trying to create an atmosphere of fear around us.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Yeah, the monster was the size of a house and strong enough to smash someone alive, but it was just one while we were almost twenty.

  Magic flared toward the creature, which covered its eyes with the armored plating of its left hand, swinging aimlessly with its club.

  It came in Mary’s direction, and she was ready with her shield. She was thrown back toward me, and I caught her, but I noticed the monster had also stumbled back. The shield had worked, creating inertia and driving it away. It was probably feeling a lot of throbbing pain in its arm now, which opened a window to attack.

  I wanted to conserve my magic and not throw lightning bolts at the creature, but I had no other choice. The monster was dodging or blocking all the fire and water magic thrown at it. With its body clad in steel, maybe I could do some real damage with my wand.

  So I did. I threw three lightning bolts, aiming for the center of its body, trying to send the electricity straight to its heart. The magic struck the monster with force, making it take a step back, closer and closer to the edge of the slope where the City Stone waited for someone to claim it.

  We were still hours away from midnight, but I couldn’t see the almost translucent veil covering the top of the mountain. The City Stone was available.

  “What about your gravity mage? Maybe we can drop the monster down the slope,” I offered. Mila’s eyes widened as she remembered. She ran off to reach her friend while I kept watching the creature.

  The lightning bolts weren’t effective. It probably had something under its armor, protecting it from strikes like mine. Unless I hit it in the face, but that was nearly impossible with its giant hand covering it.

  I waved for Tress to follow me, knowing full well she’d been towering behind me the whole time. We moved to surround the creature. I was both trying to find an easy way around it and searching for a gap in its armor.

  The first, I didn’t find. There was no more path leading back to the top. Instead of a steady, hard way around, a giant wall blocked where the road should be. It was basically the same size as the giant, and no matter which direction I looked, I found no other way forward.

  As for the gaps in its armor, we spotted them quickly—right where I expected. On the knees, the elbows, and between the neck and chest plate, more pronounced on the back of its armor than in the front.

  There were also leather straps holding the armor together, connecting one plate to another in several places.

  I pointed toward the knee gap, and Tress aimed three arrows at once. The projectiles struck with shocking impact, making the creature’s knee buckle slightly, but the arrows didn’t pierce its flesh.

  There was no scream of pain, only a grunt of anger—then the same buckled leg turned and kicked in our direction, moving faster than it had any right to.

  This time, I didn’t need to use [Lightning Momentum]. Tress and I were quick enough to step back from the flying kick while the mages kept firing their spells at the creature’s face.

  Elk had a serpent crawling up the monster’s armor, and it would probably reach its target any moment now.

  As we retreated to our positions, watching more of our fellowship get tossed down the slope by the monster’s weapon, I saw Mila approaching.

  “She can’t drop it. The monster’s too heavy,” Mila said as an idea started forming in my mind.

  “Anyone here who can fly? Jump high? Throw people up?” I asked.

  “I have a tossing skill. It’s mostly stupid, but yeah, I can toss someone in a direction using my strength stat, which is buffed by my class.”

  I could see why that skill was stupid, but now wasn’t the time to argue.

  I pointed toward the monster’s leather straps, and she seemed to understand.

  “You want me to toss you?” Mila asked.

  I nodded.

  She intertwined her fingers to form a platform and offered me her hands.

  “Just make sure it doesn’t grab me,” I muttered.

  She nodded.

  A second later, I was flying through the air toward the creature. The toss was nothing like she’d described. She’d turned me into a pebble hurtling toward a wall of metal, but I was quick enough to grab onto the leather strap connecting its chest plates.

  I wasted no time, slicing through the strap with my blade in one swift motion, then cutting the second one just below it.

  The monster was too distracted by the spells hitting it—and now the fire serpent wrapping around its neck—to notice me clinging to its armor, making my way toward the other side of its chest plate.

  One minute later, the monster’s entire chest was exposed. It was wearing chainmail with another fabric beneath it, probably what had protected it from the lightning strikes, but it was still far more vulnerable. If I kept this up, soon the monster would be light enough to be dropped—or we’d actually be able to defeat it.

  I fell to the ground right after the chest plate, my high constitution ensuring I didn’t break any bones as I rolled across the dirt.

  I darted my eyes toward Max’s position. They were struggling against their giant, heavily outmatched. They’d adopted a similar strategy, but their smaller numbers made the fight unbalanced, and apparently, they didn’t have the meteorite to use anymore.

  A grin started to form on my lips—until I looked toward the wall behind their giant and noticed two small figures near the top.

  They were climbing, and as the moonlight shone against them, I realized it was Max and the man who was always by his side.

  “Keep doing what you’re doing,” I told Mila. She looked puzzled.“Keep it busy. I need to go.”

  When I found Tress’ eyes, I saw that she knew exactly what I meant.

  I offered her my hand, and she grabbed it firmly. It was time to fly toward the City Stone.