Emma stared at me in silence.

“Of course,” I facepalmed, “You don’t understand a word of what I just said.”

Slowly, she turned away and readied her flail, but kept eye contact for a while. Clearly, she knew I have just said something, but having mentioned the game, her brain shut off.

Eerie. Almost like something shut off her brain the moment I mentioned Ancient Blades.

Suddenly, the earth trembled as the gigantic Baltimore broke into a charge.

“Enough talking, time for smashing!” he yelled while raising the trunk above his head.

I bent my legs and got ready to jump out of the way. Despite his devastating attacks, Baltimore seemed easy to dodge. He was slow, having to muster enough power to wield an entire tree in his hands.

When he got close enough, when his hands finally moved and I could see the start of his attack, I broke forth, narrowly escaping his attempt to squash us like bugs.

The mountain trembled by his attack. I was thrown off my feet and fell into the snow. From the corner of my eye, I saw Emma on the ground too. However, she was bleeding.

She was hit by the attack. The damage numbers still floated before her.

[ - 4 HP, (-2 Mitigated!) ]

[ Emma Goldshoe (Lv. 3) ]
[ 5/15 HP ]

Impossible. How could she not dodge that attack? After all, she was a much more potent warrior than I!

Even worse, Baltimore’s attack was not even aimed at her! How did she get hit?!

Before I could have gotten an answer to any of my questions, snow began to fall from the sky. Baltimore’s attack shook the mountain and caused all the snow from above to fall.

The sky above disappeared as a wave of snow loomed over us. Heavily it fell and coated us in an instant. I and Emma disappeared under the snow.

Baltimore remained standing. The snow was barely tall enough to touch his knee. Or rather, he was too tall.

“Hmph,” he scratched his head while looking for us. He threw the tree over his shoulder, firmly grasped its base, then slowly walked forward. “Come out, little piggies! I want to play whack-a-mole!”

Strolling through the snow, he kicked left and right, searching for us.

Nothing. Neither Emma nor I were to be found.

Growing frustrated, he stomped the earth. “Fine! Then I’ll just shake the mountain and bury you under an avalanche!”

Unbeknownst to him, the head of a pickaxe appeared from the snow behind him. Quietly, it draw closer to his right foot, and when it finally got close enough...

“Gaah!” Baltimore cried out in pain as the pickaxe pierced his heel.

[ - 4 HP, Critical Strike! ]

Success! I lay dormant below the snow, holding my breath for the right time to attack his foot.

“You won’t be so tall once you can’t stand!” I yelled, but only in my mind because I was too scared to say anything.

Immediately after the stab, Baltimore tried to kick me off. However, I held tightly onto the pickaxe, twisting it deeper and deeper. The giant screamed from the pain, and low damage numbers continued to appear before him.

He let go of the tree and it rolled off the mountain, into the abyss. With his now free hands, he reached back and grabbed me by my upper half like a baby doll, then removed the pickaxe with his other hand. He cried out in pain as he tore it out from his wound, before throwing it into the abyss.

“No!” I tried to save the pickaxe, but I stood no chance.

Rest in peace, pickaxe. You will be remembered.

Baltimore was furious. He threw me onto the ground with such force that I bounced back up. Quickly it was followed up by a stomp. My torso completely disappeared under his foot, and as the weight of a small car fell upon my chest, I heard something crack.

Such was the pain that I could not move, only breathe. But even that was hard, having been pressed under the elephant’s foot.

Baltimore pressed down harder, squeezing me tighter under his foot. He had a hard time standing, but his vengeance and sadism assisted him through the pain. Even if that meant the gaping wounds on his back would only get bigger and worse as the stood.

“Stupid pig!” he yelled with tears in his eyes. “This hurts, this hurts so much!”

I could not say a thing, but grunt as he pressed harder and harder.

The snow close to us moved. Emma revealed herself from under, and slowly stood up. Her head hung forward and her wet hair got in the way of her eyes.

She seemed like a spirit, floating above the snow with pure white skin. Her aura was intense.

She was barely holding the flail while walking towards Baltimore. Neither did she raise her head to see her target.

Something overcame her. Whatever it was, it was intense.

“Why are you crying?” Emma asked calmly.

Baltimore snarled. “Screw you! I’m gonna’ kill you and your friend!”

“Are you in pain?”

“Didn’t you hear me?” Baltimore repeated. “I’m going to murder you after I’m done with him! Now sit down and wait in line!”

“How does it feel? Bleeding?” Emma continued.

“Screw you! Shut up already!”

Emma looked up. Her smile was incredible. Motherly in nature, yet so disturbing in a way.

“There is something seriously wrong with me, Axel. I don’t know what it is or how it came to be, but it’s like a separate organ. My guts need food. My heart needs water. And there is something inside of me that yearns for blood. For a moment, I thought it had failed me. But thanks to your drawing his blood, I feel it again.”

Baltimore stared at her with wide eyes. I did the same.

Fear. There was something deeply wrong about her that left people stunned. Unable to speak. Unable to move.

Baltimore got off me. He took a step back, but with his heels cut open, he fell onto his back.

He was crying. But not because of the pain.

He was scared of the pain he was about to experience.

“No,” he cried out as Emma drew closer, “Get away from me!”

Emma spun around her flail. She giggled. Then that giggle turned into a laugh. Her blue eyes turned red. She was not herself anymore. She was something else.

I could barely see anything from where I lay. All I could hear was the flail dancing in the air, Emma laughing maniacally, and Baltimore’s crying turned screaming.

Waves of healing ran through my body. With every hit, with every broken bone of the giant, one of my bones healed.

I was back to full health in less than a minute, but my energy ran low. I could still feel the shock of the now-gone pain. And with my body back to normal, I still coughed up blood.

When I pushed myself off the ground, I could see Emma atop of Baltimore. He was already long gone, yet Emma continued to rapidly assault his corpse. Not that he did not deserve to be made unrecognizable.

There was something else bothering me. Maybe it was the aftereffect of the pain or maybe something else. But I felt a strange emptiness inside of me. If it was up to me, at that moment, I would have laid back in the snow and not moved. Not at all.

I wanted to lay there for a few more minutes, then a few more hours, days, months, and years, until eventually, I die.

I did not want to get up. I did not want to see the torn-apart corpses. I did not want to see my partner covered in blood. I did not want to see my brother’s corpse.

I just wanted to lie down and not think about anything. Sleep, maybe. Die painlessly, if I could get so lucky.

But fate had something else entirely different prepared for me. As if this day was not already long enough, it spat in my face again, this time doing something much dirtier than before.

While I lay there in the snow, contemplating whether to die or not, something flew through the air. I did not think much of it at first, only realizing what it was when it was already too late.

A shadow broke through the air. It was like an arrow, though much greater in thickness and size.

As it hit Emma, it broke through her armour and stabbed into her stomach, piercing her, and coming out on her backside.

Time had seemingly frozen. My eyes widened. All I could hear was Emma gasp as the numbers appeared before her.

[ -7 HP ]

[ Emma Goldshoe (Lv. 3) ]
[ -2/15 HP ]