The sound of lion's dripping blood reverberated through the tension.
Bobbling throats echoed as both the giants and magical beasts struggling to keep quiet, their efforts failing.
Their hands gripped their weapons tightly, feet shifting and stomping as they moved from side to side. Everyone was driven by one desire — hunger.
Beast and giant roughly equal in size — gazes locked onto one another.
Muscle tensed. Breaths held. They waited for someone. Anyone to start the feast once again.
A bird of prey rose shot like an arrow — its ten-meter wingspan unfurled in full.
The hunt began, motion rippled throughout, Cain was no exception.
Seven harpoons ripped through the air, a gamble thrown — massive warriors betting on the bigger kill.
With an acrobatic twist, the bird weaved side to side, slipping past the serrated tips with effortless precision.
The caws pierced everyone's ear, sharp and grating — like cruel, mocking laughter.
'This bird is too strong. This might be a variable.'
Cain observed through his telescope as the bird climbed higher, each flap bringing it closer and clearer against the sky.
With a pause it looked down. One flap — then a storm.
Spikes erupted like a swarm of stingers, embedding deep into giant hides.
Aggravated bellows rang through their ranks, the magical beasts weren't spared either.
The larger, tougher ones held their ground while the weaker perished in an instant.
The dead served the living right away. Quickest ones sank their teeth in, tearing off chunks of meat. Those who came later were left licking marrow and blood.
As Cain watched, his hands weren't idle at all.
He worked quickly, molding odd, fist-sized orbs one after another. Each sphere sloshed faintly when lifted — liquid trapped inside their sealed uneven shells.
'Runt-class giants, despite being the weakest and the youngest they could really tank down hits.'
He wanted a bigger stage. He wanted to blow this up even more.
With that, he needed to pull the strings meticulously and play his part to perfection.
"I better set a timer."
[Timer Start]
[Timer - 00:41:59]
Deodorize. Light Manipulation. Silence. Heat Cloak.
Energy Jamming — obscuring his own energy fluctuation signatures.
Motion Mimicry— mimics potential and kinetic energy movements of smaller or larger creatures.
Cain kept casting six spells, each continuous and simultaneous, designed to mask his presence.
'I hope this much stealth is fine for now.'
He breathed deep, packed his creation into a woven sack carefully, and hoisted it over his back.
As he inched closer to the battlefield, the scene of slaughter came into view, accompanied by the smell of guts and strange liquids spilled all over the ground.
Covering his nose against the stench, he downed two gel rations while scanning the area for potential targets.
'How many livid faces are those. Hmmm... Five at the back, that's enough for now.'
Five vases flew — toward the giants showing the highest agitation.
The orbs, intentionally fragile, fragmented upon impact across their faces.
Stinging mix of wild chili, animal dung, and blood burst out — irritating the eyes and disgusting the mouth.
Rage filled shrill filled the air, exactly what Cain had expected.
"Xutang nangyan poyah!"
(These animals dare insult us!)
Bellowing, the wounded giants tore out of formation, charging towards the animals with same scent.
"Gaw yayabangan ekam gigga!"
(You cannot step on our pride as giants!)
Confused and tense, the beasts caught their own scent on the giants.
Familiar yet it felt wrong — the animals calm demeanor disintegrated, replaced by instinct and aggression.
To them, the stench told the story — blood and excrement together meant only one thing. The giants had touched one of theirs.
The moment the giants locked onto them, the magical beasts reacted as one.
Snarls. Stomps. A rough line formed — imperfect, but ready.
They magical beasts weren't prey. So what if they didn't have martial arts? They wouldn't just keel over without a fight.
With a roar of the leading giant and the howl of the alpha wolf, the two sides collided.
Squelches of torn flesh splattered in every direction, and the crunch of breaking bones echoed from all sides.
Every sound was a sign—another blow landed, another body dropped, as the chaos closed in from all around.
Cain hurled vase after vase in every direction, creating more enmity for each sides.
The remaining giants gathered their wounded and salvaged what spoils they could still carry.
Elsewhere, beasts dragged off the mangled dead — giant flesh rich with meat, perfect for the long sleep ahead.
Everyone on the battlefield felt something.
They froze mid-motion, instincts flaring.
All eyes shifted to the one that hadn't moved — the Golemite.
In the middle of it all, it stood still.
The light suffusing it's eyes vanished, as if it had finished a huge data analysis.
Inside its mind, the feed was clear — raw, precise, unforgiving.
Eleven sensing crystals mirrored every twitch, every technique, every savage burst in perfect detail.
A crystal suddenly shifted.
Cain didn't move, his intuition warned if that if he does, Arthur would be seeing him in a body bag.
Magic, in his eyes, was a tool — never something to stake his life on.
Titans could read even the slightest motion. He couldn't put himself on a what if.
'I better respect this adversary or else —'
A lurch, the golemite wanted something — it wanted to test out what it saw, either martial arts or animal savagery no one knows for sure.
With the second step the ground rumbled, everyone's eyes locked to its movements.
With the third stride, its figure formed an afterimage, then disappeared.
'A giant's movement technique?'
It stood behind the biggest runt, arms raised through the air.
A punch. Its form perfect and fast — yet.
The giant dodged it too easily.
Barely half its size, the eight-meter giant swung its club with a surgical stroke.
Crack!
Pain slammed through the golemite like hammer, making its frame shudder and almost stagger.
For now, pain remained its sole pathway to comprehension.
Through the pain, the golemite noticed — the giants arms could shift direction, unlike its own.
What were once jagged stalactites now pulsed and morphed—reshaping into thick, sinewed limbs.
One by one, each of the nineteen arms gained the form of sculpted muscle, as if forged by the hands of a master artisan mid-motion.
Yet the result was far from graceful.
They jutted out from its bloated, rod-like body — an obscene collage of mismatched limbs, twitching and flexing like a butchered statue brought to life.
Cain monitored every angle intently, hidden behind a boulder he'd reinforced in advance.
'Just as planned, the golemite is getting stronger but… Those arms seemed to be lacking, no?'
Cain analyzed each elemental channels — their flow, density and output values behavior.
He jotted down notes in a hurry, then checked the time — unease creeping in as he realized how absorbed he'd become in studying amidst carnage.
[00:33:41]
As the three way battle continued, the giants maneuvered around the golemite.
One team distracts it with feigns while the other teams strike down it's sensing crystals.
Seeing the golemite in a predicament, Cain started planning on which side will survive all this and what he'd get in the end.
As the crystals get damaged and destroyed — each fracture syncing with the churn of his mind.
That doesn't mean the golemite was a pushover — in return, its frame thickened and strengthened.
What was once smooth marble began to grow joints.
Fibers formed strand by strand.
Cain strained his eyes and almost stepped into the battlefield.
'Muscles. Tendons. It's stalled evolution ramped up once again. So that's why these things are always eradicated.'
It's once metallic sheen now squirming like worms — not just the arm anymore, it was creating a body that will suit it's needs.
Cain's eyes stayed dull, detached, cold. Bodies started piling up in the golemite's learning process.
Six hundred years of war.
'They stole billions of acres. Fertile. Once ours.'
Cain felt nothing — neither pity nor remorse.
Not for titans. Not for giants.
'Forget the history. It's all noise. Don't carry guilt and don't die a martyr like the rest.'
As he thought about the words of the old man, he burst forth to a new cover.
Never removing his sight in the battlefield, he noticed the giants were calming down.
'It seems that they lost almost half of their forces.'
Their formation tightened, disorder fading into tactical intent.
Even their once-savage faces had turned grim.
'One. Two. Five, still five sensing crystals.'
But the golemite, it was…