The forest was silent. It shouldn't have been.

"It never felt like this. It's surreal," Dustille said.

"What is wrong?" Asked Gabriel.

"Right, you might not feel it, but… I don't sense what I should. There are so many things missing," she continued.

Is she talking about the sounds? Well, it does feel kinda… empty… actually, there's almost no sound at all.

Is it creepy, Liz? Is it? He asked in his mind, taking a claw pose and trying to scare her. She just sighed, shaking her head.

"I had never seen the forest so devoid of life before," Greencliff confessed.

"Do you want to hear the story of my curse?" Greencliff continued out of the blue.

"What? Yeah, why not," Gabriel said.

Charlene silently laughed, while Dustille said, "There it is again, 127th… this year?" she asked, turning toward Charlene. The girl looked up as if she recalled something, then she nodded, chuckling still.

Ouch, that's the type of character he was? Get ready, Liz. We've got the talkative type.

"It happened ninety years ago; I was still a youth then, roughly Sigmund and Dikez's age, couldn't have been more than thirty," he started.

Ninety? A youth? At thirty? What the hell, how do giants age?

"My daily job was helping my father with our family's bakery. We've had it for generations, the best bakery in the Expanse. You can ask anybody. My brother runs the business nowadays."

They kept an eye out for possible troubles in the forest as he recalled his story and one ear to him.

"It was the day of the Agonxstrezz assault on Kanceldom. I remember it clear as day. The dragons appeared at twilight. Their dreary figures filling the skies with their wingspan. Agonxstrezz flew in front; he was leading the assault. His violet scales beautiful and scary as death itself."

"We heard their cries from afar. You might not know, but that's how they announce themselves; they could hide their forms if they wished, or simply attacks because while transformed in their sentient forms, they look like giants after all, if a little more colored." Greencliff chuckled.

"Anyway. Agonxstrezz led the assault, as I've already said. And, I was still delivering my last loaves of bread at the time when the whole city stopped. I was a fool back then and didn't get why the other people stopped, and everyone started staring at the sky. I didn't even take their grim faces into consideration as I waited for the giantess I had to deliver to, did not give my rest back; oh, there were still no Pearl-harness back then, Kanceldom was not as rich, and we still had a monetary system. Anyway, I started getting all red with fury. I had no idea how to handle such a situation. But I wouldn't have to, as I felt his call." Greencliff started slowing down.

"I slowly turned toward that voice. White was his form, pale as a specter, and there, on top of the highest tower," he mused, raising a hand in the sky with a marveled look, "Agonxstrezz had perched, his talons easily digging through turtle shells as if it was butter. He didn't even need to turn into his sentient form to communicate, such was- is, his mastery over the tethers."

What?

"He announced their coming and gave us thirty minutes to muster our defenses. If he wanted to destroy Kanceldom back then, he would have, but you see, Dragons are creatures of pride. They wanted a real fight, and thanks to that, we managed to call back every Master Class born in Kanceldom, as it is the protocol."

"Let's not forget the Champion, even though back then it was still-"

"Dustille! Come on, I would have reached that part, he had yet to join…" Greencliff said, launching a scornful look at her vice.

"Alright, alright, sorry, go on, please?" Dustille said but turned to wink at Gabriel with a chuckle from Charlene.

"Thank you…" The prince-looking giant continued after clearing his throat. "Where were we… ah, yes. The Dragoncall brought back all our Masters, and Superior Classes, and Veterans… each heavyweight born and raised in Kanceldom, but we soon would find out that it wasn't enough. Agonxstrezz had brought more than thirty dragons with him, exactly thirty-two, but more than the number, it was the quality that mattered, and obviously Agonxstrezz's presence, alone he counted as ten, no! Fifteen dragons."

"The battle devastated Kanceldom. In less than one hour, it was unrecognizable. Casualties were low only because they gave us those thirty minutes of preparations, our healers and support classes organized barracks and places for healing, they set up barriers upon barriers; the Masters cast intricate shield sigils on every soul in Kanceldom, including animals. It was the last and primary line of defense for each individual, but really… it was all for nothing."

Greencliff paused, his eyes darting to the side, where Dustille's head had turned, but looking at him, she shook her head.

"Just an impression she said, continue with your story, I'm the scout," she said.

Gabriel was too taken by the story now to care about their exchange; his mind was imagining the scenes. The party-head continued.

"I was doing my part, free bread for everybody. My father's bread was a blessing, you see? It slowly restores both Energy and Mana for four hours. And I was given the duty to bring it to the front. My father knew I would have gone even to the foremost frontlines, so he tried to stop me from leaving the third time I got back to do my rounds, but he failed to stop me, or maybe more precisely… he refrained from stopping me."

"I will never forget that last look he gave me, his eyes… so full of pride, so caring, but so full of worry. Then I saw something entirely opposite from his eyes," he turned toward Gabriel, for effect.

"Those of Agonxstrezz. Those were eyes made of fear, distaste for me and what I was doing, and disdain. And exactly as his thorax grew full, and he, releasing it, blew a wind colored by faint dark violet dust, I slowly collapsed on the ground. At that same time, the world was filled by a bright ray of light, his descent tearing apart one of the dragons in Agonxtrezz cohort. Ravilon, back then, still the giant folk champion back then had come in our aid."

Greencliff shut up.

"What… that's it? That's how it ends?" Gabriel asked.

"Why? You want to hear more? "The giant asked, smiling.

"Well… what happened to Kanceldom after that? Did they defeat the dragons?"

"Oh… and there I thought I was telling a tale about myself…" Greencliff answered, faking to wipe a tear from his eyes.

"Of course! Well, of course, you survived that, no? I mean, you wouldn't be here recounting your tale. So, what happened to the town…" Liz bit his ankle, "And to you, what happened to you?" Damn lizard! Oh… I can't stay mad at you. You just saved my life, you little shit.

"Well… obviously, the dragons were driven back, though we lost quite a few, but people say that the battle between Agonxstrezz and Ravilon was legendary. I just wished I was there to witness it….I mean, I would have been able to recount it really well…"

"Anyway… I woke up one month after that. I don't recall much about that time. My memories are fragmented, waking up and shutting down again and again. My dreams, I still remember some, if those really were dreams and not memories, are confused…"; evidently, he never really recalled this part of the story. He looked lost, staring into oblivion.

"I remember a shaman, with a skeletal mask, working on me. It had a Spirit scalpel, one of those for complex tattoos… and a tent. Outside of it, when I finally managed to get up on my own two legs, I found a swamp, a boundless swamp. Reptiles everywhere, and my father was among them, smiling at me. That was the last memory I have of him, then one day I woke up in Kanceldom, in my bed, and my father had disappeared forever. My mother never spoke to me about what happened to him, but I understood it one day." Greencliff fell silent. Then with a sigh, he finished, "He exchanged his life for mine at the swamps, the shaman ther-"

Greencliff thorax caved in and shattered in gore. Blood and entrails splattered all around them. Gabriel could witness the image in almost slow-mo. He saw Greencliff's eyes slowly getting hollow as he was thrust in the distance, with the speed of a jet; his body brought down a couple of trees with it as it flew away.

The giantesses turned white, and Gabriel stopped working; no idea what had just happened.

His gaze slowly turned to the right as he took the thing in front of him, understanding slowly, too slowly creeping in.

The Armored Tyrant had appeared.

***

Sigmund had shattered his sword against the little fellow. The monster was roughly twelve feet tall, a child in front of him, but its might was monstrous.

Damn… and this is just a small one, he thought, looking at the stump of his sword.

To his side was huffing and puffing Carla; her left shield and arm were broken.

They had killed one already. Its level had been only 42, but it had been a Guardian, the one in front of them now was of the same rarity though of slightly higher level, but to kill the previous one, he had to use his strongest Skill, which had shattered his sword.

The remaining Tyrant teleported, once again, behind Sigmund, who managed to intercept his fist at the last moment. His arms trembled at the same rhythm the handle of his sword did while receiving the blow.

Tyrants were beasts of might.

They were fully protected by a carapace of the same might and toughness of the turtles, but their fully-functional body made good use of it, and their movement Skill was enough to turn them into a walking nightmare.

Its color was of faint green, junctures depicted in black color. They looked like mighty knights if it wasn't for their pointed muzzles, the big, rough spikes on their backs, and their mighty tails. They were almost as thick as their torso at the base, equipped for brunt damage than for agile whipping. But what really was terrifying were their eyes. Nothing could be so black, and the eternal cut which their armor gave them, making them thin as the irises of a predator, could impart lessons of dread on the victims.

Olive was white as a sheet, her Mana entirely expended to keep up with the onslaught of the two Tyrants.

"Potions!" Sigmund shouted.

Olive could not answer, but she was ready, excavating them from her bag with vigor, too much vigor, as her finger got cut by something inside of it, something whit sharp edges.

"What are you doing!?" Sigmund shouted at her. But Olive did not answer. She stared fixedly at the insides of her bag.

What is taking her so long? Did she freeze?

Exchanging a wordless look with Carla, he told her to switch places with him.

Activating her own Signature Skill, she linked the Tyrant to her shield so that every time the target would attack aim to hit, her shield would absorb the impact, drawing the Tyrant toward it. It was a great crowd control Skill, but she would have to receive the full brunt of the attack. A Skill directly affecting a monster's will, which wasn't tied to the Taunt Perk, was rare, but it had its cost. She could not try to move away or slide the attack on the shield's surface; she would have to receive it full on.

Sigmund ran to a confused Olive, "Hey! We need you focused on. You can't give up now… what is that?"

Olive had a rock looking like a piece of salt in her hands. Her blood slid on it, dropping down in the bag, without tainting the piece of salt in the slightest.

It looked so pure and perfect that nothing he had ever seen before could compare to it.

Petrified, the human girl turned her head toward him, her mouth opening, but nothing came out.

Sigmund knew then that she would not be of any help in the fight, so he took the potions and ran back toward Carla.

He waited for the Tyrant to teleport away, then, knowing the Skill had a cooldown, he cannonballed toward it, hitting it straight in the chest with his foot. The Tyrant took the full brunt of it, his carapace cracking.

Sigmund limped toward Carla, giving her a Life potion. Another one he drank it himself, it roughly set his foot; he would probably need to have it broken once more by a proper healer once they would get home.

If we manage to get home...

He then drank the Energy potion and took out his second greatsword from the small dimensional satchel he had managed to buy. The smaller they were, the more they cost.

But he did not throw the broken sword away. He knew he could still throw it at the monster in case of an emergency.

"Watch out!" Carla shouted as something appeared behind him, with a pop.

The Tyrant- No… this is an adult one.

The adult Tyrant, standing at eighteen feet, still not as tall as him, but much, much more powerful. His doubts, or more exactly, his hopes about it still being of Guardian rarity, were shattered by his Analysis.

It was indeed an Elite.

Armored Tyrant (Elite)

Race

Armorid

Level 57

Class

Doom Knight

Level 51

Element

Dark

Dark - 3

Pools

Life

Energy

Mana

?/4508

?

?/1045

Attributes

Affinity

?

Bound

Alacrity

?

Bound

Power

179

Bound

Recovery

?

Bound

Resilience

257

Bound

Stamina

?

Bound

And they had indeed no way of facing such a monster, especially with a party composed of only three individuals.

Fuck.

"Run!"

The two girls started in a run, Carla picking up Olive while she did; Olive gripped tight to the bag and its important content.

Sigmund decided to run the opposite way, hoping to draw the Tyrant's attention. However, it was only hope, because if it just so wished, the monster could simply teleport to reach them. It could kill all three of them in the span of moments.

The monster looked at its smaller kind, on the floor, dead and with half a greatsword sticking from the abdomen. It did not react. It barely looked to care. What it did care about was to trespass the forest, and so it did.

Carla and Olivia had already departed the scene. They did not see the monster ignoring them; Sigmund did.

Standing in trepidation, his sword strangling the handle, he watched the monster ignore him and teleport away. Theirs was a short-range teleport, and he witnessed it appear forward, going in the lake's direction.

His stance lowered, It is really going to war… we all need to leave, or we'll just perish in the aftermath.

Sigmund had barely time to move away when the smaller Tyrant manifested behind him, its fist grazing his shoulder.

Sigmund's blood, too hot for the evening air, turned into smoke, the wound quickly burning his wound close, as his Skill required.

The young giant had brought his signature Skill to Berserker, its Class adapting to it, then his Berserker Skill had fused with his Affinity Skill when he turned Tier 3, effectively making him a Fervent Berserker.

His body burned with the fervency of fire, his blood hot, the steam centered around his Affinity increased his already Power and Alacrity based build.

Now that he thought about it, the monster had attacked them only because they got in their way. If they hadn't probably, they would have probably continued going toward the lake. But, now they had attacked, the monsters wanted to finish their battle.

Staring at the smaller Tyrant, Sigmund, for the first time since he had Tiered up, felt inadequate.

He would have to go all out to take the beast down as he had done in the previous battle. The difference being that there were two people supporting him, one of whom was Carla and her magnetic Skill. He would have never been able to hit him if it hadn't been for her.

What was he to do now? There was no escaping teleport.

So he ran.

Heading toward the eastern side of the jungle, he ran. He knew there would be the chance of encountering other Tyrants heading for the lake, but his only option was to encounter the other teams in which they had split; only with their support, he would be able to survive.

***

"Dodge left!" Dustille shouted.

Gabriel threw himself to the side, once again.

It had been the second time he had to sue an Energy potion to refill his Pool entirely. The monster had been drawn to him since their eyes had got in contact. But the only thing he could do was evade.

Liz had been entirely squashed on by a tail attack, her body slowly regenerating in Gabriel's hands, as he fled right and left to evade the teleporting juggernaut.

Dustille was able to read the creature's intentions thanks to some Perk or some Skill unknown to him.

Thank the heavens, the monster was slow, relying only on its teleport to move about, which was heavily Mana draining, as Dustille had said. The sheer size but mostly the creature's abnormous weight sucked up a ton of Mana to move it around in those physic defying ways.

Gabriel had no idea what he was doing anymore. He only followed the directives.

Gabe fed Life to Liz. At the same time, he activated his Burst Attack to dash away and used Built to Fly to keep the burst of speed up, enough so that he could evade any follow-up strike.

He had been forced by sheer panic to increase his mastery over his new Skill. Skittering above the floor and cutting the Skill when he needed to dash once again.

After Liz had been squashed on the ground and he had evaded the attack by sheer luck, his ability to use his new power had to skyrocket, or he would have to relinquish life.

Gabriel's mind was blank, he had been dodging for roughly seven minutes, but it had felt like an eternity. Every thought running through his mind had to be shut down. He got on by inputs, those from Dustille, and those from his instinct, which screamed at him to run away, but weirdly and, most importantly, to heal Lizzy back to life. The emptiness her absence brought forth bolstered his ability to single out any other things but his survival instinct.

He knew he wasn't doing his running around for anything, though.

The one doing the heavy job was Charlene; every minute, she absorbed power from the Ambient Mana, using her own Signature Skill. A burst of Light element Energy which she released from her wand, and like an enormous, concentrated laser washed over the monster, with no visible effect whatsoever. However, in Dustille's powerful discerning ability, the attacks were showing their results.

Each hit of the Skill shoved away seven hundred Life points from the Tyrants, which again recovered roughly one hundred in the course of the minute it took for her to recharge.

Dustille, her ponytail waving about, hoped that in four more attacks of the same power, they would be able to effectively bring it down; but there was doubt in her voice.

Charlene had been entirely ignored until then. The monster obsessively rampaged over Gabriel, allowing Charlene to hit him with her massive attacks one after another.

If he did not register it, he could see, Gabriel could see the desperation in their eyes, in their faces.

Dustille was entirely useless. If not for shouting directions, her arrow could not put any serious damage to the monster's armor, if at all.

Gabriel knew though, he knew inside of him, in his heart, in his spirit he knew. That was a battle they would not be able to win.

In his subconscious, an image played, very realistically, he could see the monster stopping his assault before they could deal with the finishing move on it. It would stop his mad assault on Gabriel and turn toward the giantesses, turning their once smiling faces into a smudge on the forest's floor. It was bound to happen.

He shot once again slightly above the floor, raising his knees enough so that nothing would stop his dash. That was when finally something, which had magically never happened until then, did.

A branch, a stupidly small root, hit him on the feet, or more correctly, he hit it with his dash. And all went to shit. The root blocking his, until then, perfect dashes destabilized his equilibrium, toppling him over.

Gabriel fell with his face to the floor, flaying himself, but more importantly, losing the battle with impending doom.

Ignoring the pain, he turned around, knowing that destiny was about to meet him in one final, brutal encounter.

The massive monster, pale, sick armor was above him, shadows fumes hanging about its infinitely dark joints segments, eyes, mouth, and spiked ears. It smiled, then his paw-foot shoot up in the air, and it came down to stomp on him.

The ray of light hit it square in the face, destabilizing the stomp, but not enough to stop it.

Its enormous foot came down on Gabriel's right arm, the lizard almost entirely healed up by then, and his arm exploded in gore.

The ground trembled and segmented. Gabriel was shocked out of his body. He shut down.

Then something entirely else took over.