Taking on the giant

Step by step we moved forward and even though we were only a couple meters away from the giant anymore, it didn't budge. The giant only stared down on us with its fearsome eyes. An ordinary giant would have attacked us without a second thought but the floor bosses seemed to possess some unique characteristics. Those vary wildly but in general they act different in some way or other compared to regular monsters. These characteristics range from unique abilities to abnormal behaviour like this one had. Lisa told me about them but she also didn't know the exact details for this dungeon in particular.

Well if it weakens itself by giving us the initiative and first hit, it had to have some kind of strengthening in return. It could hardly call itself a floor boss by being weaker than regular variants, right?

I told the others my theory and we came to a halt right before the giant. All of us took a look around but we couldn't spot anything else that was abnormal about it. Even though we stood beside it, it didn't give a damn about our presence.

Iris disregarded my worries and we went into a fighting formation again. She would be the one to attack it first to draw its attention.

Emilia used her abilities to buff Iris, while Iris began sprinting at the giant. She held her claymore behind herself to give it more momentum and jumped right at it. Thanks to the buffs she managed to leap up to its eye level. She used the rest of her momentum to swing the claymore right at the giants face.

And it connected with the face. The giant stumbled backwards and bled badly from the wound right under its eye. Iris aimed to take out one of the eyes but it dodged the blade.

Now the giant was certainly angry. It swung its right fist at the falling down Iris but she parried it with her sword. Even though she avoided the strike of the fist, she was still falling down and crashed badly into the floor. Althaia ran up to heal her, while Julian distracted the giant. Since he fought with his bare fists, he wouldn't be of much use in this fight.

Or so I thought.

The giant now hit Julian but Julian countered with his own fist. To my surprise the two came to a stalemate despite their comical difference in size. I underestimated the raw strengths of us hybrids since I myself couldn't pull off such a feat.

But in the end the giant overpowered Julian and he slid back. Not too much of a problem since he had bought enough time for Iris to recover. She got back onto her feet and charged at the giant again.

Meanwhile I had used all the distraction to sneak behind the giant. Emilia had buffed me as well, although two people probably had to be her limit for now. I pulled out my katana from its sheath and leapt right to the giant's feet aiming for the knee joints.

My blade connected with the giant, leaving an ugly scar behind which should hinder its movements by a fair amount.

But even though the giant was wounded, it still moved like before. Its hidden ability probably had something to do with this, but I couldn't figure out what exactly it was. I could rule out healing since its wound stayed open. The ability remained a mystery for now.

After striking the giant I regrouped with the others. Iris still held out well against most attacks and Julian covered those she couldn't. Lander managed to land quite a bunch of hits as well but his weren't doing much damage. Having good equipment like my katana or Iris claymore allowed us to damage it by a lot. The two boys probably also needed some form of armed gloves to make their punches hit harder.

Althaia and Emilia meanwhile weren't doing much on the offensive side, but they were busy with healing and buffing anyway. Though Iris parried most hits, she still didn't get out of those unscathed.

Luckily the giant didn't have more intelligence like its weaker relatives and so I soon managed to land a similar hit on its other leg with the same strategy. Now it really slowed down. Its ability might only allow it to ignore pain but the wounds were there. Even if it didn't feel its leg was missing, its movement was slowed.

Next I aimed for its left hand. The right one had already been wounded badly by Iris continuous attacks, so the choice was obvious. I sneaked around the giant once again but this time I had to jump a lot higher, which in return gave the giant more time to react. And so it did. Instead of me landing a clear hit on its elbow joints, I was swatted away like a petty fly. My body crashed into the nearest wall and I couldn't stop myself from spewing up blood.

Emilia rushed over to me and immediately began to heal me. I soon felt better again and got back up to my feet. At least it hadn't crushed me to the floor with its fist, else not much of me would be left to heal. I picked up my sword and looked at the giant, wanting to attack it.

But the giant was dead now.

Who killed it?

Iris certainly hadn't; she stood there flabbergasted.

The one who killed it was Mr. Black.

He cut the thing clean in half and stood there proudly, wiping the giant's blood of his sword.

This was also the first time I ever saw him fight with an actual weapon. His sword looked quite similar to my katana but gave off an eerie feel.

"Sorry, I panicked a bit when I saw the giant hit Yoru. You kids handled the fight quite well, although a bit reckless. It would have taken you some time, but you would have beaten it after a little longer. Here, this crystals belongs to you. If you want, you can fight it again once it respawn. That shouldn't take too long, the celestial energy lingering around here is stronger than usual."

Mr. Black excused himself walking towards me to hand over the giant's crystal to me.

And as soon as I touched the crystal, Mr. Black vanished once again…