There were mountain villages around Saligran. Emma found out about that little detail in probably one of the more horrible ways she could have, they wandered past one.

Ordinarily this wouldn't have been such an unpleasant affair, except that the entire place was destroyed. And not so recently either.

Buildings—which she saw had all been made of rocks and primitive mortar—were reduced to rubble. Bodies strewn about, the very stone upon which it was all built cracked and cratered. It looked like a fucking meteor shower had hit the place, and kept hitting it for quite some time.

But Eirik Skarpa didn't seem the least bit surprised.

"We got word of this about a week ago." He explained, when asked. "But we believe it happened at least a week sooner than even that. The corpses were already gone by the time we got here of course, eaten by the mountain creatures that live around here."

"What did it?" Vari pressed.

The old man's face tightened.

"By the other accounts we've heard from other villages, and their rare survivors, it was…a Demigod. Rare in these parts, the last one was seen a hundred years ago. But if anything could do this then it would be one of those."

Oh. Oh.

"What did this Demigod…Uh, look like?" Emma asked.

The old man turned to her, frowning.

"Well, as I heard it, he was apparently very tall, incredibly muscular and wielded a great axe bigger than most men's bodies. Pale of course, clearly of Sculd features. I've heard stories of him ranting about challengers, restoring strength and freedom from captivity—only stories, though, nothing I could verify…are you okay?"

Emma was not, in fact, fucking okay. It was one thing to find out that that giant asshole was still in the region, with his stupid abs and his fucking shitty biceps and his dumb, flowing hair that you could just imagine curling your fingers into while he held you down and fucked you. It was quite another entirely to find out that he was actively looking for fights in the region, too.

"Vari?" Emma whispered to the idiot as they walked. "What did you do with the painting?"

Vari swallowed. "It's back at our inn."

Emma resisted the urge to launch into a prolonged swearing spree which would probably tip the old man off that something was afoot.

She didn't have any plan at all for dealing with Groygar, and so she was making do with a vague hope. Several, really. That he was exaggerating when he said nine fucking tenths of his power were missing back on the island, that he would either be affected by the painting he'd gotten trapped in or so terrified of that that it gave some sort of tactical advantage. And, most importantly, that they wouldn't run into each other in the first place.

But Emma wasn't holding out any serious hope on any account, life just wasn't that cool. If there was a giant, horrible monster out there then she could more or less guarantee she'd run into it at some point.

The irony of complaining about that while marching her way to a fight with several such monsters was not lost on her, but she continued marching all the same.

On they continued, and on they got. Before long they came across another village, this one not destroyed. It wasn't exactly more friendly for it.

"I can show you all the way." Skarpa growled. "Just follow me." He was protesting Aexilica's suggestion of asking directions, because it seemed even an old man was ontologically opposed to doing that. Fortunately he was out-voted in regards to it.

"We won't take long." Aexilica snapped back, catching one of the villager's attentions quickly. "Hi, excuse me, we're on the hunt for a group of cyclopes, do you know where any might be dwelling in these mountains?"

The man was tall, for this world, and judging by the state of his musculature had made a lucrative career out of wrestling elephants. He had a big, bushy beard that danced with every syllable and similarly thick eyebrows which seemed to engage one another in a shoving match as he frowned.

They were shoving very hard, now, because his confusion brought just such an expression across his face.

"Cyclopes?" He asked. "Never heard of those beasts in these parts."

It was Aexilica's turn to frown now. "But—"

She was cut off by a sudden, jarring cry of agony.

Nobody was getting eaten or anything, which Emma found no small amount of relief in as she subtly dispersed the gathering masses of magic she'd started coiling through her fingers. It was just the old man, hunched over suddenly with his face turned away from her. His body shivered, almost convulsive as pained trembles ran through him.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

"Damn it!" He cried. "My back!"

"Are you alright?" Aexilica asked, raising her hands up as if to touch him but instead simply hovering around him. Emma and Vari didn't do even that much, just remaining still and stupidly staring from where they already stood.

"I…Yes, I'm fine." The man croaked. "Or rather…Just give me a few minutes, would you? This old back of mine, it's been playing up for years, sorry."

"You don't need to apologize!" Aexilica frowned. "It's fine, please take as long as you need."

As someone with shit to do and a very finite amount of time to do it, Emma didn't exactly speak up to agree. She didn't see any point in voicing her own view either. Just waited until the old man's panting had finally stopped, his trembling finally stabilised, and his back finally permitted him once more to straighten it.

"Ah, okay, okay I'm better now…" He grumbled, wincing between words with a mix of apology and irritation. "I really am sorry for delaying you all."

By that time, the man they were asking for directions had already moved on to continue whatever work it was he did around his village, and nobody really felt like summoning over another. They just kept on walking instead, figuring that it probably wasn't even worth the directions if these people had somehow failed to notice a pack of cyclopes living near them.

Unfortunately, the journey did not get easier from there. The opposite. The path started slanting upwards more, until Emma and her group were walking their way up a twenty, maybe thirty, degree incline. The ground was littered with jagged stone, a constant threat whenever any of them felt close to falling, and the wind got shockingly strong. It was blowing in their faces, of course. Because this mountain really didn't want to be climbed.

The old man was the biggest concern, growing slower and slower until eventually Emma just whipped up a sledge for him to sit in. He was predictably reluctant to trust her "strange magic" at first, but exhaustion wore him down and soon enough they were speeding up nicely with the dead weight moved to a more mobile form.

"We're getting close now!" He said eventually, with all the cheeriness of a man who was watching others drag him up a mountain. Emma, a woman who was merely watching others drag someone else up a mountain, could not relate in the slightest. Aexilica and Vari looked annoyed for some reason, though she couldn't put her finger on why.

"You've been saying that for a while." Emma reminded the old man, and he just grinned.

"Ah, yes, but we're actually getting close now! Another mile at most."

Emma blinked, because that was close. At their pace—a solid jog sustained essentially without end through a little magical assistance—one mile would take them ten minutes or less. Barely more than five minutes later, she received confirmation.

"That's it!" The old man yelped, gesturing eagerly ahead of them at a large peak protruding from the surrounding rocks. For the life of her, Emma couldn't imagine how they were supposed to reach the fucking thing. It had to be a solid fifty metres and as close to vertical as any natural structure she'd ever seen.

"How the hell did cyclopes get up there?" She frowned. "What did they climb?"

The old man looked suddenly rather testy.

"Maybe." He snapped. "They're strong you know."

Emma recalled, quite vividly, the sight of a large tree trunk flying around like a baseball bat.

"Yeah, I know."

"I could climb that." Aexilica noted.

"So could I." Vari grinned, rattling the ringmail about his torso—now more holes than metal—as if to remind them all of how much weight he'd be doing the climb with.

"Well I fucking can't." Emma reminded them all. "Or…Hm." Could she? A Force effect directed upwards could take away the bulk of her weight, actually it would be even more effective for scaling a wall than it was for sprinting since she wouldn't need to worry about unbalancing herself.

For that matter she could just levitate herself up and skip the climb entirely, though that would use more of her magical reserves and it seemed wise to conserveconcern them.

"I can't climb that." The old man pointed out, earning him a barrage of confused stares.

"You're not coming with us up there." Emma pointed out. "It's full of cyclopes, you'll die."

The man grinned confidently. "I have you three to protect me."

Emma stared at him, considered a future in which she succeeded in this task only to be fucked out of yet another payment because asshole got himself killed for no reason in the process. She took a step forwards.

"If you try to follow us up there, I'm going to break both of your legs and leave them tied behind your back with magic while we save your daughter." She informed him. The old man, wisely, reconsidered the merits of his courage.

They got the rest of their walk over with quickly, energised by proximity to the jutting rock and more than a little bit eager to just get into the damned fight sooner rather than later and be done with all the build-up. As they'd claimed, both Aexilica and Vari were able to climb the rocks easily enough.

As she'd estimated, Emma did likewise. She cut her weight down to about a tenth and started scrambling upwards, finding a grin spreading on her face as almost all the physical effort disappeared from the deed. She probably couldn't have even walked as fast as she climbed now, and it took less than a minute to reach the top of their mark.

To her surprise, there actually was something waiting for them at the top. Besides just more rock of course. A gaping cave mouth, about four metres high and just a shade wider. It was as close to circular as nature tended to allow, though more than a little jagged around the edges.

"That ceiling is high enough for a cyclops to pass under." Emma noted, exercising her very impressive Untethered willpower to not shit herself as she said it. Chuckling from her jacket brought attention to Larry.

"Up for round two?" He grinned.

"Yes, actually, dickhead." Emma was at least a good deal more powerful since round one, and had help. She just needed to see if her reinforcements were better than the cyclopes'.

Mustering their courage, they all started for the cave mouth. Slowly, cautiously, with weapons drawn and magic readied. Every step was another fraying nerve, every second another twist of tension.

It was dark inside the cave, too dark to see much of anything. Emma controlled her breathing right up until she saw the sudden light flare up from deep within it.

A lot of light, a fucking giant wall of light produced by a fucking giant wall of fire. The flames rushed along the stone and dissipated just shy of Emma, and as they cleared her line of sight was opened up to expose the giant, snarling, flying dragon scrambling right for them like death itself.

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