Might as Well

They watched collectively as the gigantic monster started to tear itself free from the mountain it lay under for who knows how long. Dust was filling the air, and the spider monsters were still flooding from the tunnel.

He made sure to keep killing them while the rest of the players tried to organize themselves into something resembling order.

Meanwhile, the giant legs of the titan were still over them, just beginning to rise in the air, the claws at the end glistening maliciously despite the fine powder filling the air and preventing sunlight from properly reaching it.

Sam sent forth another storm of wind blades, annihilating the rushing monsters, his eyes never leaving the giant legs while his mana sense was focused on what he assumed was the core of the monster.

Quite frankly, he had no idea what he was doing, besides the usual ‘see big-ass monster then kill the big-ass monster’. The other Sam knew about their existence and saw maybe a handful of fights recorded by people who could give shaky-cam stalkers a good name. Sadly, the reality of the situation was that hunting and fighting titans was the game of the rich and powerful. They were an excellent source of experience points, crafting materials and, if you were lucky, then loot.

No guild or group would be willing to give that up for a nobody (or the general public). In most cases, if some random player through some miracle found one of the titans, they would be killed, spawn camped to make sure they got the message and the nearest guild would fight the monster while also killing the nearby players to prevent even the smallest chance of kill-steal or anything worse.

That is why he was confused. The titan was awake before he arrived…

Something was afoot.

And he was not talking about the giant legs of the titan. He glanced around quickly, looking for somebody acting suspiciously, but he only saw people falling to the ground as they tried to create some distance between them and the humongous monster. Some of them even started firing on the two legs that were currently trying to pulverize the surroundings as well as break down the mountain around the rest of the body.

Not that they achieved more than a few pockmarks on the impossibly hard surface of the monster’s leg.

“Earth mages!” he gave the order, using the wind mana to make sure his voice carried. “Sink the legs!”

For the next few moments, the chaos continued to swirl around Sam as he made sure to snipe a few mid-sized spiders that tried to use the cover of the swirling dust clouds to ambush a few stragglers.

Then he heard a yell in response.

“The left, or right?”

He felt one of his eyes twitch, but instead of calling the player an idiot, he just ‘calmly’ yelled back. “The right!” The curse words were unsaid, but Sam was pretty sure the guy sensed his ‘dissatisfaction’.

Thankfully, they were competent enough to follow his order and as the gigantic leg descended like a rod from god in slow motion; it failed to find purchase on the ground as said ground simply vanished from under it, replaced by an expertly constructed deep hole.

Sam watched in satisfaction as the end of the gigantic leg vanished into the hole and felt a pulse of mana from the monster he interpreted as surprise.

“Now hold it there!” he gave his next order as he glanced back at the earth mages. They looked back apprehensively.

“H-how long?”

“As long as you can!” he replied, using his sword to skewer a spider that tried to jump on him from the top of said leg. “NOW!”

Instantly, the group of mages jumped to work. They began to chant and as Sam looked back at the hole, where the leg was already rising, the earth surged and enveloped the leg, halting its progress.

“Good! Keep doing that!”

He grinned as he watched the monster try to wrench its leg up while the chant intensified behind him. Hurting it was impossible with a small amount of people, but delaying it? Perfectly viable strategy.

Looking around, he spotted a group of players haphazardly sending attacks, both physical and magical, at the monstrous leg, and called them over.

“You!”

The person in the lead looked at him in surprise and instead of saying anything, just pointed at himself in surprise.

“Yeah, you. Take your group and protect the mages!” Sam ordered, motioning toward the chanting earth mages. He suspected their skill levels would get some experience with what they were doing.

Thankfully, the guy just nodded tapped the guy next to him, and nodded toward the mages. While they formed up around the mages, Sam kept the monsters off them, but as soon as they were ready, he sent a nod at the guy and rushed forward.

The titan seemed to be fixated on him, better to get away from important people.

BAAAAMMMM

He looked up just in time to see another part of the mountain explode into the air, this time revealing not one, but two new titanic legs, raining detritus on their heads. Seeing a few giant rocks heading their way, the players turned their attention and soon those rocks turned from party killers into light dusting with a chance of a sneeze.

Sam, hearing a quiet notification sound from the system, glanced at his messages and then grinned.

“Five more minutes, people, and the cavalry is here!” he yelled as loud as possible while using wind magic to make sure everyone got the message.

Immediately, the tired and despondent faces were replaced by eagerly grinning people, and Sam even spotted a few people in the distance who hung their heads upon hearing his yell, then quietly turned around and began rushing toward the fight.

Five minutes was not a long time, but in the middle of a battle as an ocean’s worth of spiders made of stone and rock surged around them while four gigantic spider legs did their best to squash them as if they were the proverbial spiders.

Well, two of them.

Some players on the other side of the battlefield also managed to gather some people and used a combination of nature magic, roots surging from underground, and some earth magic to immobilize another leg.

Which just made the titan even angrier…

Thankfully, only Sam could feel that anger, thus the people didn’t get scared of what was to come…

Sam was a whirling dervish who rushed around the battlefield, jumping from fight to fight, trying to make sure that people in his guild didn’t die, the spider stayed in one place as the monsters getting lost in the wilderness would lead to all sorts of nastiness, and if they were unlucky, somebody may find them and track back to the titan, and just moving around keeping an eye on the mana under the mountain.

So far, the titan was content sitting snugly under countless tons of rock and stone, but Sam could feel the anger building and building until something had to give.

And that something was the mountain.

It happened almost in an instant.

One of the free legs came down, crushing several of its own minions and sending half a dozen players flying as they dodged the attack by jumping into the air and the air blast generated by the landing of the humongous appendage flung them away.

Sam made sure they landed safely and turned back to the leg, intent on trying another set of attacks. As so far, most of his wind spells were useless against it. Oh, it was scratched up as hell, but nothing that would hinder the not-so-slumbering titan.

Then a loud, sharp blast of sound swept over them with a little hint of melody. Sam’s head whirled to the side, only to behold several players from their guild – the symbol on Adam’s chest gleaming from polishing as the sunlight was dramatically reflected – and before they could cheer, the poor mountain simply exploded.

The sound was unbelievable. It echoed around as the sound crashed into the faraway mountains and got reflected back at them, while dust blotted out the sun, casting them into shadow as deadly wind generated by the blast carried the dust in the air through the quarry, sandblasting them with it. Rocks and stones, trees, and one very surprised goat flew at them, the surroundings and basically everywhere they could see flattened by the blast.

A few people managed to let out screams of surprise or pain, Sam wasn’t sure before their party indicators showed them dead, but most of the people who survived the explosions managed to gather themselves and were already rushing toward the tide of people who were actually rushing toward the quarry with Adam in his giant armor leading them.

Sam, however, stayed exactly where he was, looking up and up and up, craning his neck to take in the titan in all its glory.

Ten monstrous legs towered in the air, holding up the gray and black body of the titan, which looked like a spider was crossed with a beetle that had its horns sheared off and replaced with pulsating red energy.

Its eight baleful eyes were just as red as the two horns on its head, but instead of pulsing, they were glaring right at Sam, promising pain and death that lasted for a long time.

Not caring to anger it further – not that it would be possible – Sam cast his sense forward, diving into the chaotic swirling mass of mana around the monster, trying to divine anything about it. Maybe a weak point, a shatter point, identity, or its favorite ice cream flavor. Anything…

Meanwhile, around him, the guild arrived and began to work. Under Adam’s leadership, the ground began to shake and move and transform as several groups of mages tried to trap the legs and all kinds of magics began to rain down on the monster, aimed at the traditional weak points of such monsters.

Sam felt his mana probe penetrate through the dense cloud of chaotic mana until it reached the body of the colossal monster, then it slowed down, but thanks to his expertise, he still managed to penetrate through the first few layers. Knowing he wouldn’t be able to get much deeper as the monster’s own mana was eroding his probe, he spent what little time he had on analyzing the material and looking for weak points.

Then the massive monster shook itself, once again dislodging a small hill’s worth of detritus and launching a small house-sized rock at the attacking players. A few of them were crushed instantly, but Sam vowed that their sacrifice would be honored.

However, only the fastest rocks managed to land as the mages were too well-trained.

Sadly, that was just the beginning.

Sam saw the eyes – still focused on him – narrow by a small margin and the red energy in the place of its horns began to shine brighter and brighter until it became almost impossible to look at.

KRACKATHOOM!!!

Hundreds of lightning bolts began to rain down on him, illuminating the darkened area with creepy red light. And as lightning traveled through the air, the sheer energy and heat it contained melted the dust in the air and created glass that was instantly shattered, creating a very sharp storm.

And all of that was aimed at him.

“If it continues this way I might think it has something against me,” Sam mused out loud as he conjured a small globe of shadow and wind mixed together insulating himself and defending against the rain of glass shards.

Then another notification.

“Yes?”

“Adam here. You good?”

“Peachy… I just love red lightning this time of the year…”

“Plan?” came the curt question as Sam heard the sounds of exertion in the background.

“We don’t have much time before people decide to investigate, so throw everything and the kitchen sink at it…”

“What about you?”

“I will play the bait as it seems to have a hard-on for me…” He replied while reaching out with his hands and bracing himself as another deluge of red lightning rained down on him as the shield gobbled up his mana.

“Any guesses on type?” Adam asked.

“Let’s start with ice and fire. It’s made of stone…”

A beat of silence. “I will tell Dan. Good luck.” The line went silent and Sam found himself alone in a dark globe of wind, shadows, and mana, while a titanic monster did its best to erase him from existence.

Sensing the fluctuations of mana he spotted a brief window and explosively dismissed his shield. Before the titan could react, using every speed-increasing skill he had, Sam rushed toward the nearest leg; his sword flashing and sinking into the stone flesh as he began to climb.