It was really a shame, if you thought about it.

  Talking with some of the older scholars and hunters, including Lord Mick, it was pretty obvious that this Tremendous Monuga was the last and probably only one of its kind in Dereth. The ones that popped up in the so-called Valley of Death were Summons, likely ancestors who’d lived and died in the past over time, bound to the System now. Supposedly there was also one mutated by Aerbax in a laboratory in the northern Dires, too, but whether that was still being Summoned was unknown.

  So, this Monuga, who had once reigned over the islands of Aphus Lassel before being battered and chased off by the Tusker King, was likely the only free-willed member of its type on the whole island.

  Had to make for a lonely existence.

  For the vast majority of Monugas, getting bigger involved getting weaker. The squared-cubed rule of physics weighed down on them, and their incredible strength was progressively eaten up by their own weight, until they became too heavy to move and basically died under the stress and lethargy of their own size.

  It was a rare, rare Monuga who found the way to unlock the potential of Jotun Stature and allow primal elemental strength to surge through it, taking care of its weight problem and restoring to it the vigor and energy of its smaller size.

  It also made them the single most powerful natural inhabitants of Dereth, and why monugas had once dominated the islands, long before the coming of the olthoi and armies of Empyreans who’d been able to wear down the titanic creatures with enough spells and Debuffing magic.

  The fact Tremendous Monugas had equally large appetites and considered just about anything except other monugas to be food didn’t help matters at all. They were powerful enough to break the Shoreward, ominous enough to keep the Aquatics at bay (considering it had to swim out to Aphus Lassel and then back when chased off), and was strong enough to kill some extremely powerful nefanes and sleeches without much trouble.

  They were also big enough to grab a human in their hands and squeeze them to death, or just flatten them under feet the size of a car and grind them to dust.

  The Mick himself was a bit leery on how they’d managed to fight such things in the past. He even boasted that he’d killed one solo, although he had to break off the fighting to keep re-Debuffing it since it took so long to kill and had immense natural Fast Healing, given it had a cool million Health Qi to work through! Looking back, he’d muttered something about melee defense and better armor and kind of shook his head at the magic involved in the whole nonsensical idea of just standing there and tanking a fight with the thing.

  The thing was the size of a True Titan. You didn’t stand there and tank its hits, you’d be squashed flat! Every attack was basically an Area of Effect attack, not a melee attack roll! If you didn’t dodge it, you were hosed, and your Armor wasn’t going to bounce such hits at all. YOU would bounce, not the monuga’s fist or feet, unless your Armor was so powerful it could bounce a car moving a couple hundred miles an hour slamming into you.

  Yet, somehow they had done so.

  Pissing off the TM wasn’t that hard. Coming up on it with everything on Coldphasing, Armor-Cleaving, Charging in with a One Strike, critting with a Crushing Blow… yeah, that had been a pretty big hit, thousands of points of damage to leathery hide at least six inches thick, freezing and slicing through it, venting a whole bunch of Health Qi that by itself would have killed 99% of the monsters on Dereth.

  It was like poking it in the shin with a needle, getting its attention as the wound flashed and was gone with its Health Qi taking all of the damage, while leaving it aware of the little morsel that had come out of nowhere and dared to smite it.

  Therein had followed a classic cat-and-mouse routine, with the mouse evading the massive feet that slammed down and whose shock-waves would have blown her right off her feet if the Waveskating Step hadn’t kept her just off the ground. Massive hands grabbed for her that only Close Quarters Combat kept from ensnaring her multiple times, slicing through its palm and the tendons there and turning a grabbing attack into just a slapping motion that would send her flying… only for Cloudstepping Sandals to stop her arcing away and return her to the ground to dart into him and Flurry through a half-dozen blows before it could respond, Healing Edge taking care of the damage and keeping her in the fight.

  Blooding was taking care of much of its Health Regeneration, but all it needed to do was get lucky once, and she would be in great trouble. Quaver could Teleport her out of its grip, but it could rip apart the Blooding with an expense of Health Qi and resume massive Fast Healing with only a moment or two of thought, too.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  Soloing it would take hours, and Kris didn’t have nor want to take the time to do that herself.

  Thus, after ten minutes of dancing around it, inflicting maybe twenty thousand damage to the creature with some devastating One Strikes while moving in and out and dodging its huge limbs, she turned around and ran away.

  Its legs should have been hamburger, but they were completely unharmed and totally able to race after her in outrage as the hungry and vengeful TM gave chase.

  Yeah, it was covering forty feet with every pace, and every stride took no more time than a human runner. As it got up to speed, it was thundering across the landscape like a living avalanche. Anything in front of it would have been bounced right off their feet or wheels by the shock-waves of that much mass coming down that rapidly.

  It was understandably a bit shocked that she was able to keep ahead of it, bellowing and raging as it pounded after her.

  --------

  “Mithar and Valus bless me bright and happy soul,” the Mick muttered, a bit wide-eyed as he watched the duo coming in at speed.

  He’d run away from those things in the past? How in the Hells? They were moving way faster than any horse, and even knowing he could run fast, it wasn’t THAT fast! The slamming footsteps of the Tremendous Monuga were like drums pounding on the landscape, it looked just like a normal human running normally, except it was seven times taller and covering a whole lot more distance with every stride!

  The way the trees looked like shrubs as the big fellow tore past and through them without slowing was pretty impressive, too.

  Yet Princess Kristie was managing to stay just ahead of it, mostly with little course changes it couldn’t compensate for easily and had to corner with great gouging footsteps tearing up the soil or bouncing off the tallest trees with limb-cracking, trunk-shattering force to redirect itself.

  The five miles between the pit and the fight went away incredibly quickly, with the TM actually taking shortcuts at two points to try and cut her off as the trail wound around two hills, and Kristie pulling off some acrobatics up and sideways above the ground to avoid an avalanche of monuga coming down from above.

  The thing could jump a hundred paces with no difficulty at that speed…

  But its own knowledge of the terrain was about to get it killed, as it rounded a hill for a long straightaway, and dug in to pound after Kristie with nothing to slow it down, gradually closing the distance and-

  Its leading foot crashed down on the flimsiest of netlike grass covers, concealed by Hallucinatory Terrain. It was something strong enough for the Princess to zip right over without any trouble, but unable to normally hold a man’s weight, let alone the tons of mass of the Tremendous Monuga.

  Its cry of alarm was a bit belated as it pitched right over and drove down into the depths of the pit at speed, crashing off the far wall, flailing impotently as its hands clawed at the stone instinctively. It tried to slow its fall and failed as it crashed down to the bottom over thirty paces down with an impact that sent a plume of dust and grit flying into the air from the pit. The whole landscape jumped from the thunderous impact.

  Stopped its bellow for the moment, too.

  Everyone was on Disks just to avoid being hurled dozens of feet into the air by the shockwave. Without hesitation, a wind came up and blew the airborne debris away, incidentally shuffling them up to the sides of the pit. Bows and Crossbows were out, while the Mick gripped Bunita’s Kiss in both hands, Sharding up and ready, icy motes of Lost Light sparkling and ready to let loose.

  The Lady Magos, silken white hair barely stirring in the breeze, launched the Imperil VI down at the Monuga, and it flared to life around the brute with a flash of shattering gray fractals.

  The attacks from all comers were descending before the Festering and Frost Vulnerability followed, the first spell a spiraling ring of tearing bloody stars sinking into it and slowing its natural Fast Healing immensely, the other an imploding infusion of Cold energy amplifying its slight natural weakness to Cold and magnifying incoming cold damage to over double the normal effect.

  The Mick simply slashed down at the creature with endless figure eights. He didn’t pull out his Crossbow without needing to snipe something at range now, more to pop a chicken or rabbit for dinner than anything else. No, while using Sharding the brute below was still in range of Bunita’s Kiss, and it wasn’t going to be avoiding his cuts. He had more than enough power to get through its weakened hide and drive into its Damage Reduction… and if it got up, it only shortened the range and made it easier to hit!

  Princess Kristie was doing the same thing, Quaver out, ringing ominously and giving them all a beat and tempo to follow as death rained down from above.

  Ignoring the deadly rain of piercing cold coming down from above, the half-stunned Tremendous Monuga writhed about, got its feet under it, and pushed and clawed itself to its feet. Flames were dancing over it, lightning was plucking at its nerves, and ice was gathering heavily around the impact points, everything interrupting any concentration it was trying to muster and keeping it off-balance.

  About every thirty seconds, even the Lady Magos was unleashing true Shard volleys, condensing them down into doubled Shardrays and ravaging it for incredible damage that left ever more residual attacks upon the hapless thing below.

  It bellowed defiance, fists slamming into the walls around it, sending rocks spraying and the earth jumping, but that had no effect on the creatures above shooting it, none of whom were standing on the ground.

  It jumped, and though its feet cleared an impossible thirty feet above the ground and it reached angrily up for them and the lip of the pit, it still fell over twenty feet short of the lip. Point-blank explosions of ice drove into its face and shoulders, driving it down and back and slamming into the stone ground below.

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