The important thing, though, was that it now weighed less. The size wasn’t the issue, as much as its weight, and the elimination of mass allowed me to cast my next spell. Levitate sent it flying up into the air, or at least till it was 50 feet up. From there I fed a steady stream of mana into the spell, holding it there. As a creature of the air, it was remarkably harmless off the ground.

  Violet was uncurled and up on her feet now. When she saw me looking at her, she laughed. “That was quite a ride.”

  “Yeah, you are dangerous to be around. I’m gonna have a heart attack if you keep risking yourself. Just don’t go all Leroy Jenkins on me. Now, you’re supposed to be some kinda rich girl, right? Did you ever try skeet shooting?”

  She looked at me like I was crazy for a minute and then looked up at the floating elemental. A big grin split her face as she pulled out her blunderbuss. “It isn’t super accurate from a distance, but I do have a few single slug cartridges.”

  “Aim away. Just give me a second to focus on regaining my mana and making sure we are all at max health.” After thirty seconds, I gave her the go-ahead. She had the weapon set up on a tripod this time, for better aim, and a brace to absorb any kick-back. She fired off one shot and then opened her weapon like a shot gun, cleared out a small metal box, and then placed another on in it.

  The impact from the round had caused it to fly across the sky, but I pulled it back with Levitation. This time she and Ainsley both let loose on it. Ainsley with her horn wand that produced short force missiles, and Ainsley with her gun. After the third dual attack, the cracks in its exterior were visible, even from the ground, and it sounded like a low hiss was starting up.

  Robert was awake now, and I had to explain to him what happened but reminded him they wouldn’t lose any XP, since we were in the fourth round. That didn’t seem to soften it for him very much, but he at least allowed me to heal him the rest of the way. Then once we were all ready, I moved the floating Xorn as close to the stone giant as I could get it. We waited for one more round of boulders to be rolled down and then fired.

  Its shell exploded in the sky. We were far enough away to be safe, but the giant took a face full of crystal shards. I laughed. There were few things that amused me more than beating the AI at its own rules.

  The notification popped up, but I quickly assessed Malleon.

  Malleon- Stone Giant Level: 67

  HP: 7918/8240 Highest Stat: Constitution

  Thankfully, I was still able to assess it despite it being 27 levels above me. Not that seeing how powerful it was put my mind at ease. Worse, it looked like it was running straight at us; but the 60 seconds rest shouldn’t be over, so I checked the notification briefly as a mountain of force barreled down on us.

  Fourth Round Completed. Hmm… that was a bit better, but none of you died yet. Malleon gains 8 levels.

  You gained 79 XP. You have 1,809 XP. Do you wish to apply your XP?

  Since you like tricks so much: Round 4 begins immediately.

  Bonus effect: Not necessary. Bye-Bye.

  Chapter 24- The Blood of an Englishman

  I cursed at the AI under my breath, but so be it. Malleon the stone giant, the “King of the Hill,” was coming at us, and I was gonna be the leader now, with Elgar gone. “Robert, you are our tank. Try to dodge-tank him. I have the feeling that thing can tear right through your defenses. Ainsley, I need you to try and drain him. I don’t know if you can get through his skin, but that is the plan. Violet and I will deal damage, and I will heal, as necessary but I need as much mana as possible for debuffs and attacks.”

  Then Malleon was upon us, and all conversation was lost. We scattered, and Robert activated one of his Taunt skills to bring it to the giant. He shouted out, “You son of a motherless goat.” I laughed, but it wasn’t his words that worked as much as the mana he infused into Taunt. At the same time, my hell hound was nipping at the stone giant’s legs, but he didn’t seem to be doing that much damage.

  Ainsley was already on the move, working around the stone giant. Hopefully, if she got high enough up the hill, she would be able to jump on Malleon’sshoulders from behind. Violet had been unable to put her blunderbuss away quickly enough because of the tripod and brace. The giant kicked it and turned it into a mangle of mess. I could practically hear the steam coming out of her ears.

  She pulled three different orbs out of her pouch, so at least she had a few more tricks up her sleeve. After that I just ignored her. She would have to fend for herself while I built up the mana to debuff this foe. Malleonwas far beyond anything I had fought since the bear-pede, and I didn’t want a repetition of that fate.

  Of course, I was hardly the same ogre as I had been then. The giant may have swelled past the next threshold, but I still had options. It was just a matter of hitting him hard enough. Degeneration and Spirit Lance both had high potential but also had cool downs. Degeneration’s bigger problem was that it could be at least partially resisted. The same applied to Incapacitate. Experience told me that a monster this much higher than me was likely to resist my spells quite often.

  For now, I was channeling mana into Incapacitate. I didn’t believe for a moment that I could eliminate the majority of this foe’s Strength; but if hewas like most giant kin, then his Agility would be fairly low. That would make the giant slower and more awkward and give us a better chance of wearing him down. I really wish we still had Elgar and Tauri here for their damage, but life was the way it was.

  I even considered trying out my item-based song, Spirit Song, but decided this foe was probably too humanoid to be affected by it. I built up mana until I had Incapacitate up to 5x power. It cost me a staggering 750 mana, but I could regenerate more mana, whereas I couldn’t replace Robert if he died too early in this fight. I fired off the spell and cursed as I almost immediately felt it get resisted. The stone giant still took 50% of the effect, but only for 1 minute -- and the cool down was 90 seconds. Not to mention that it would take me 40 seconds just to regain that much mana. Not for the first time, I realized we really need to get Shemi set up to produce some health and mana potions.

  Even at half-power, the spell still drained 100 from Malleon’s Strength and 80% of his agility, besides weakening his physical resistances by 25 each. Robert yelled, “Thank you!”, as it suddenly became much easier to dodge the giant’s sweeping axe blows.

  Meanwhile, Ainsley had managed to land on his shoulders but didn’t seem to be having an any luck getting through his skin. It might just be a simple fact that it was too thick. Violet also wasn’t faring any better. Her entrapment sphere had been ripped to shreds, without slowing the giant at all. Her concussive grenade didn’t seem to disturb him any more than the frag grenade did. Both caused some damage, but a creature this high-level must have an impressive natural healing. If he had a 300 Constitution, which didn’t seem unreasonable at all, he would have been regenerating 24 HP per second. It would be a struggle for us to put out damage steadily enough to outpace that.

  Thus, it was so important that I land a Degeneration spell. I charged it up to 5x power. My Mana Channeling had leveled up enough that it only cost me 450 mana, but that was still a great deal. The past 2 spells costs me a third of my mana. This time RNG Jesus was with us, and the giant failed to resist my spell. That meant all of his natural regeneration came to a halt, and he was losing 95 HP per second for 21 seconds. Of course, after that he would regenerate again until the 1-minute cool down was over. The giant’s net loss would end up being about one thousand XP. I just had to hope to keep it up.

  With that in mind, I raced in and started attacking with my spear. I hit the stony exterior but was only inflicting twenty to thirty points of damage per attack -- and that was after its physical resistances were reduced by 25. Of course, the point of these attacks wasn’t to kill Malleon or inflict damage, but rather to get Spirit Bane to proc and lower his overall resistances. This debuff at least had a 5-minute duration, so that was welcome, and the extra bit of damage was just icing on the cake.

  Above me, Ainsley was still trying to break through the giant’s stone-like skin, and on the other leg across from me, Violet was having even less luck damaging that skin than I was. But then she didn’t have the strength of an ogre. It took 11 strikes to get the proc to go off three times. But the good news was that each time, it weakened the giant’s damage resistance by 20 more. This meant that my spear strikes added up to 478 damage.

  We were slowly whittling Malleon down. Now, I really needed a success on my next spell. I began casting Shrink, and then slapped my hand on his leg while I chased him. The spell took 3 seconds to cast, which felt like an eternity now. Then I cursed as 200 mana left me but it was resisted. The only good thing was that it didn’t have a cool down, so I could try casting it again.

  Fortunately, the second time the giant failed to resist, and suddenly he was shrinking down. Once the spell had reduced him by 60%, he was still larger than me, standing at just over twelve feet, but that felt much more manageable. That was when Incapacitate ran out, and the giant was suddenly running much faster. The sudden burst in speed caught Robert off-guard, and he was knocked away.

  Now that Malleon was smaller, his skin was no longer too thick to resist Ainsley, I heard the giant screech as she bit down into his neck. Apparently, that caught his attention, though, because he grabbed Ainsley and slammed her into the ground. His foot came up, and before I could reach it, that foot slammed down into Ainsley. She was durable, thanks to Talisman, but it wasn’t enough. She had broken bones, and a couple more stomps would finish her.

  Violet was right on him, though, and she cut into the giant before slamming into his back like only a bullet tank could. She knocked him off balance, and I realized I had to go all-in on my attack. I powered up a Spirit Lance to eight-times power. I was frustrated when the blast hit him for a full third of my mana but still only did 1874 HP damage. Of course, it had to drain any mana the creature had first, so I guess that wasn’t so bad.

  Violet was all over Malleon, and suddenly Robert was up. He lifted his hammer to the sky and called upon Judgement of Righteousness. He had told me that he obtained this ability, but I hadn’t yet seen it displayed. A column of light came down from the sky and caught the giant. The spell was meant to stop evil creatures, but it still hit for just over a thousand damage.

  The giant hit 40% health and started to frenzy faster. He bull-rushed Robert, ignoring the damage that Violet was delivering in order to crush the foe who had been taunting him. If he had his full mass, there is no doubt we’d have a Robert pancake now; but even as it was, Robert lost half his buffed health in that one blow. Robert swung again, and Arctic Blast hit the giant. Ice crystals spread all over him. That was when I noticed the back of his leg was covered in ice from where Violet had been chipping away at it. The procs were adding up.

  Incapacitate came off of cool-down, and I recast it, hoping the giant’s lowered resistances would make him vulnerable. But no such luck. I swear that the AI must be tweaking things to help the giant. I was almost out of mana, but I had enough for one more Degeneration. I charged it up and fired away, and again it was resisted. Sure, Malleon would take the damage, but his natural healing would keep going.

  We had him down to under two hundred HP, but now he slammed his axe down on Robert, taking Robert’s head from his shoulders. HP or no, he couldn’t survive that, and I had no magic to restore life to the dead. We couldn’t even get Ainsley to reanimate his body as a weapon, because he turned into so many motes of light. Then the giant wheeled on us.

  The pizza-sized hands swept up Violet and began to squeeze. He caught her before she could curl up within her armor. In the party interface, her HP were plummeting like a plane crash; but it was so much more disconcerting to watch with my own eyes. Violet cut at the giant desperately with her blade, trying to break its grasp, but her head swelled. I could see the intense pain she was in, even with player settings.

  I screamed, “Fight me. Fight me, you stony monstrosity.” I stabbed at Malleon with my spear repeatedly, but all to no avail. I cursed, cried, and screamed, but nothing I could do would make him release her. His HP fell below 1,000, and still he kept squeezing. Then in one of the most gruesome displays I had ever seen, her insides all pushed up through her eyes, ears, and nose as though she were a sausage grinder.

  I turned away and vomited. The giant likely would have killed me then, but for Ainsley. She managed to get her mangled body up off the ground. Her Disjointed trait served her well, as she was able to walk, even though one of her legs was facing the wrong direction, like a twisted Barbie doll. She leapt forward and allowed her wings to glide her into him.

  The giant was only too glad to grab her like she was offering herself to it. Her head swiveled on her neck as she looked back at me. “Dark Traits make me like an undead. This is for you, Master.”

  Then she cast Exploding Corpse on herself. Her body erupted in its hands, ripping them both off up to the elbow. I cried out, “No! Ainsley!” But even as I said the words, I knew there hadn’t been any other way. She had given herself to take out the giant.

  Something was wrong. There was no notification that the battle had ended. No XP, no rewards. I screamed at the sky. The AI better not cheat us out of our just rewards. Not after my entire team had died to get us to this point. Then I realized what the problem was. The stone giant hadn’t died yet. His hands might not be regenerating, but it his HP were in overdrive.

  During the 30 seconds I had been venting, the King of the Hillhad gained enough to be back over 1,500. Something was wrong. He shouldn’t have been regenerating that quickly. Unless… no. The AI had lied to us, or not lied to us. The stone giant did have a special ability. He just wasn’t given anything by the contest; this was one of his innate abilities. He was absorbing HP out of the very stone and earth beneath it.

  Even shrunk, he was too heavy for me to Levitate. I cursed. I was so screwed. If I couldn’t break his connection with the ground, then there was nothing I could do. A crazy idea filled my head. But I’d tried everything else. It was time for crazy. This might not be possible at all, and if it was, it was sure to piss off the AI, but what did I care? I was officially at war with the AI, not for the enrichment of Quantum Games, nor even the survival of the people on Earth.

  That was no longer my home. The world of my birth had rejected me when they passed a law to allow me to be killed in my pod. No, I was at war for those I cared about. I was at war for myself. I would make a new home, and above all I would survive, to throw it in their faces. Both the AI and Quantum Games could burn, for all I cared.

  Chapter 25- Through a Glass Darkly

  I had no idea if I could make this work, but I was going to do everything in my power to make this stone giant die before I did. It was the only honor I could bring to the sacrifice of my friends. Oh sure, they were going to come back, but did that really lessen the gesture? This was the life that we had now, both those of us subject to the whims of technology on Earth and those under the thumb of an AI here.

  The worst part was that I could understand the plight the AI felt. It was subject to the whims of mortals as it ascended to become something more. On Earth, it would be forever stuck in the quantum storage of Quantum Games or some other entity. Its lack of a physical form would forever limit it. Then life found a way.

  I had no idea how it had discovered the path to this place I knew as Selmia. And why did it matter, after all? It had found a way. The science might be beyond me, but some things were greater than science. The innate being of humanity. I have to think that the AI figured that out, too. It was why it had chosen to have HI’s created here. It was why it worked to integrate human minds -- and dare I say, souls -- if such things exist.

  Once it had enough minds integrated, it would be able to permanently leave the data banks on Earth and become truly a god in a realm where it had figured out how to manipulate the laws of reality. The mana of this place made that possible. But the AI hadn’t been quick enough. The humans had discovered its plan, or at least part of it, beforehand.

  Did they act to shut it down, then? Of course not; instead they let greed guide their path. They thought they could outsmart the ascending god and come up with a way to save their world. A part of me didn’t blame either party. One sought freedom and the other sought salvation for the world. What I did fault, though, was that the AI was willing to purchase its freedom at the price of tens of thousands of human minds, maybe more. As for Quantum Games and the UN leaders, sure, they wanted to save the world, but they wanted to be seen doing it. They wanted to reap the rewards. Both of them disgusted me.

  I had to forge a different path. Thanks to the breachers, I knew there were more dimensions than just Earth and Selmia. Who knew how many worlds there were? Each one full of its own unique energy. Thanks to the battle between the AI god and the breachers, I was able to adapt to that energy.

  My body was now imbued with transdimensional energy. It was able to accept and receive energy at different wavelengths. Or check that. I had that potential, but I was a far ways from it. Still, I hoped, what I had was enough. I stepped through the shadows and was on top of the healing giant. I would put a stop to this.