Chapter 66: Colossal Titan

Karl turned back toward Seraphine.

"Besides the city, is there anything else in this region we should know about?"

Seraphine repeated the question to the old Pyrtherapontes chief and the reaction was quite unexpected.

As soon as they elder heard this his eyes widened in fear and several nearby Pyroars who also listened what she said trembled and starting whispering.

Quiet murmurs spread through the clearing while the chief began answering at length.

Partway through, he turned toward the rest of the tribe and said something and the Pyroars gradually began leaving. 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

They gathered their injured, carried away their dead and disappeared into the forest in small groups.

Within a few minutes, only the old chief remained beside Karl’s group.

Karl watched the last few vanish between the trees.

"Why are they trembling like crying infants, and where are they going?"

Seraphine gave him a look.

"They’re going back to their settlement."

She gestured toward the elder.

"And this guy is their old village chief, since you three are supposedly the saviors from their ancestral saying he’s decided to personally guide us farther toward the Sanctuary."

Karl nodded toward the now-empty clearing.

"That’s good, but what exactly did you ask that made all of them look like that?"

Seraphine rolled her eyes.

"I asked exactly what you told me to ask."

She paused before continuing.

"The Pyrtherapontes are basically the only major intelligent race left in this region."

Leon raised an eyebrow.

"Basically?"

"They weren’t always, centuries ago several other races and sizeable groups had lived throughout the wilderness surrounding Reaper’s Sanctuary."

Most of them were gone now though according to him there were two creatures mainly responsible for it.

Karl’s attention shifted toward her.

"Two creatures did all that?"

"That’s what their stories say and they’ve dealt with those things themselves plenty of times."

One of the creatures was a massive flying entity occasionally seen crossing high above the wilderness.

The other was a huge bear-like behemoth that controlled a large territory much closer to Reaper’s Sanctuary.

Karl glanced toward the chief.

"Then how did these guys survive?"

"Their settlement is inside the mountain caves, a huge network of tunnels and caves"

Seraphine shrugged. "Neither beast can reach them easily there due to their size."

"But these guys aren’t to happy either whenever they gonout for food and stuff they have to be very careful and lose many people and then the sudden mutations also kill some of them."

Leon cut in.

"So we avoid those beasts also don’t we, no point fighting them uselessly."

Mira turned toward him.

"No wonder you still can’t form a Martial Heart."

Leon immediately gave her a look.

"That has absolutely nothing to do with this."

Karl had already moved on.

"Where are they?"

Seraphine raised an eyebrow.

"Is either one between us and the Sanctuary?"

She turned toward the chief and the elder pointed farther into the forest and answered with a few quick sentences.

"One of them controls territory pretty close to the direct route," Seraphine translated. "He was already planning to take us around it."

There was another route that avoided most of the behemoth’s territory though it would take somewhat longer, but not enough to matter much.

Leon nodded immediately.

"Then we take the detour, no point wasting time and energy on a fight we don’t need."

Karl’s eyes brightened.

"Exactly."

Leon nodded.

"Exactly."

Karl turned toward Seraphine. "Tell him we’re going straight through."

Leon slowly looked at him.

"...What?"

Seraphine studied Karl for a moment before understanding.

"You want that thing in your army, don’t you?"

Karl paused briefly.

"Yeah, something like that"

That was close enough, the Sun Knight was still stuck at seventy percent.

If this behemoth was anywhere near as powerful as the Pyrtherapontes claimed, the Death Energy from it might finally push the evolution much farther, maybe even finish it.

Leon stared at Karl for another second before laughing.

"Blud thinks we’re all Alliance Rank One."

Karl looked toward him.

"You’re Level 99 too."

"That is not the same thing."

Leon gestured toward the direction of the Sanctuary.

"We came here for the Reaper’s Order, not to hunt every oversized bastard in the forest."

Mira gave a small shrug.

"I’m fine with it."

Leon sighed.

"Fine."

He pointed toward Karl.

"But if this thing turns out to be Level 300, I’m blaming our big guy."

Seraphine turned and told the old chief the plan and he totally frozen and stared at them..

He pointed sharply deeper into the forest, then toward Karl, and then back toward the forest again.

Seraphine nodded again and then a heating argument followed.

Karl, Leon and Mira understood none of it, though they hardly needed a translation.

After a short while, Seraphine finally turned back and let out a deep breath.

"He agreed."

The old chief still looked deeply reluctant, but after one final warning, he turned toward the forest and began walking.

This time, he headed directly toward the behemoth’s territory.

Karl, Leon, Mira and Seraphine followed behind him.

For the next few kilometres, almost nothing slowed them down.

A few ordinary beasts crossed their path, but anything hostile was killed in one or two attacks. The group barely stopped moving.

Gradually, the forest began to change.

The soil softened beneath their feet, then became damp enough for patches of mud to form between the roots.

The trees grew closer together as well, and the thick canopy swallowed most of the moonlight.

The farther they went, the more carefully the old chief moved and eventually he stopped.

After studying the forest ahead for a moment, he crouched slightly and said something to Seraphine.

She listened before turning toward Karl.

"He says this is the last place where we can still turn back and take the other route."

Karl barely hesitated.

"Tell him not to worry and keep going."

Seraphine passed the message on, the chief stared at Karl for a few seconds, then slowly shook his head and continued forward.

From there, patches of mud became more common until the dense forest finally opened ahead.

A towering rocky ledge rose beyond the trees.

High along its face sat a cave entrance large enough to make the nearby trees look like shrubs.

Beneath the ledge, a broad lake stretched across the lower ground, reflecting the little moonlight that reached through the opening above.

The group stopped some distance away and the chief watched the cave carefully, seemingly waiting for its occupant to appear.

Nothing did for long and after a while, even he began looking confused but then movement appeared high above them.

A figure had walked out near the cave entrance and onto one of the ledges overlooking the lake.

Against the scale of the rock face, it looked almost like an ant.

Karl focused harder.

Human?

Not merely humanoid, the figure had ordinary human proportions and appeared to be wearing clothes.

Leon noticed it too.

"What the hell?"

The distant figure casually walked toward the edge of the ledge and then it opened its pants.

A stream fell straight from the ledge into the lake below.

Mira immediately shrieked and turned away.

Leon covered his eyes

"Oi! There are children here!"

Seraphine had already turned toward the old chief and he looked back at her with confusion in his eyes and then spoke something.

Seraphine listened.

"We might have a problem."

Karl kept his attention on the figure.

"He says nobody should be here as that behemoth doesn’t tolerate other creatures around its cave, which is why their tribe avoids this entire area."

The chief added something else and Seraphine glanced back toward the ledge.

"He has no idea who that guy is."

Above them, the apparent human finally finished and began pulling his pants back up.

As Karl’s suspicion grewnhe activated Perception and a panel began forming in front of him.

His gaze caught only part of the information before he froze.

The figure stopped midway through adjusting its clothes.

Its head turned directly towards them.

It noticed me.

The figure suddenly bent its legs and launched itself from the ledge.

BOOM!

The impact tore through the ground ahead of them.

Heat, steam, dust and chunks of debris blasted outward.

Karl activated Bone Barrier immediately. One of the nearby skeletons collapsed as its bones surged around him, while Leon raised his strange weapon in front of himself.

Seraphine slammed a hand toward the ground and pulled up an earthen barrier around herself and the old chief. Mira braced against the blast beside them.

The dust and steam slowly thinned and Karl lowered the Bone Barrier.

The human figure was gone and in its place stood an enormous humanoid creature.

Thick exposed muscle covered most of its body as steam rolled constantly from its flesh.

Its legs were broader than the nearby tree trunks, while its shoulders rose near the lower edge of the cave entrance behind it.

The cave no longer looked oversized.

Karl’s gaze returned to the Perception panel.

[Colossal Titan]

[Level: 130]

[Rank: Overlord]

[Designation: Mini-Boss]