Luke had been fast enough to heed the warning; he had physically shoved Cissel and Ricky away from the direct line of the two beams. However, they hadn’t escaped the aftershocks. The explosion had tossed all three of them into the air like ragdolls. They were scattered dozens of ters apart, lying motionless on the ground.
’No notification of their death... No notification of quest failure,’ John thought, his heart hamring hard. ’That ans they are still alive.’ He forced his surging worry down, anchoring himself in the hard facts provided by the system before turning a gaze of pure, freezing ice toward the giants.
"Attack! Finish them!" the leader of the giants roared, wasting no ti. Ten of the shielded warriors broke their encirclent of the unshielded five and charged forward to stomp out the humans. anwhile, the five unshielded giants’ arms began to pulse again, recharging for a second volley.
"Did you like our magic trick, human boy?" the leader smirked. He stood tall, his golden-tinted glaive planted heavily in the ground. He looked at John lightly, with smug satisfaction as he envisioned the small human being killed.
"If you’re using a magic trick, then let show you mine," John growled, moving to stand on the path between the incoming giants and his friends. His hand tightened around his sword hilt until his knuckles turned white. He activated his Sandbox ability for the first ti in this battle.
’Create an illusion... A fierce blue dragon, breathing black fire!’ At this life-or-death crossroads, John didn’t have the luxury of subtle creativity. He needed a distraction massive enough to stop their charge and give his friends a chance to breathe.
He simply mixed the visual mory of the pitch-black fog with the iridescent blue of the Serpentile fruit explosions. With a flick of his fingers, as if he were a grand magus calling upon an ancient primordial force, the ability activated.
"Retreat!"
"Get back!"
"What is that dragon doing here?!"
The mont the illusion of the gigantic blue dragon materialised, the giants’ discipline shattered. The ten warriors who had been charging forward skidded to a sudden halt, their massive boots carving deep furrows in the earth. Shouts of terror erupted from the rear.
John didn’t intend to let them off the hook. He had manifested the illusion just in front of his own position, making it appear as though he were the vessel for the dragon’s arrival.
As the trick succeeded beyond his wildest expectations—interrupting the five unshielded giants who were mid-recharge—John launched himself forward like a released spring.
*Crack!* *Crack!* *Crack!*
*Boom!* *Boom!* *Boom!*
He lunged at the ten vanguard giants, his hands moving in a blurred way. He cracked their shields using Object Lockdown, MP Absorption, and Code Destruction, then planted Logic Bombs through the gaps in their shields. By the ti they shook off the shock of the dragon, it was already too late.
John didn’t even stay to watch the carnage; he left the five detonating giants amidst others, and sprinted toward the true threat: the five unshielded specialists.
"Stop him!" the leader roared, pointing his golden glaive towards John as he saw his front line crumbling down by a magic trick. "Five more to intercept! And you five—arm up and fire! Fire now!"
He scread at the unshielded five giants, his voice cracking with a nervous tremor. Even if they had fought humans before, John was proving himself a nightmare, a fallen insect capable of slaughtering their entire squad.
As the five interceptors closed in and John accelerated, he flashed an evil smirk. "Ready for another magic trick?"
He snapped his fingers again, triggering a new use of the Sandbox ability. This ti, he didn’t summon a monster. He used it on himself. In a heartbeat, he vanished.
The effect was instantaneous. One mont, a sprinting human was closing the distance; the next, there was only the dirt and the distant roar of the fog thunders. The giants stood baffled, unable to spot where John was.
"Attack blindly!" the leader roared, desperate to regain control. "He is still there! It’s just a useless stealth ability! Swing your weapons! Paint the ground with his blood!"
Driven by the leader’s command, the five interceptors began to wildly thrash their weapons. anwhile, the original ten who had gone ahead to kill John were in ruins—eight were dead, and the remaining two were limping with grueso wounds, trying to join the fray from the flank.
But all their massive blades hit was thin air. It felt as if the human had evaporated. Standing in complete puzzlent, the giants began to strike every shadow and dirt around, terrified that John would leap from behind and plant more of his invisible death touches.
He was indeed sneaking, but his targets weren’t the ones swinging at the empty air.
The leader’s eyes were glued to the spot where John had disappeared at, waiting for the tell-tale shimr of a cloak or the sound of a stomp on the dirt. Suddenly, a cold, mocking voice erupted just inches from his ear.
"Looking for ?"
The leader and the three guards by his side spun instinctively. They swung their massive glaives, blades and hamrs with everything they had at the source of the voice.
*Bang!* *Bang!* *Bang!*
But John wasn’t there. In the confusion created by his Sandbox ability, the giants had turned their weapons on their own teammates—the five unshielded giants.
The heavy blades landed with sickening thuds, killing two of the giants instantly and sending the other three tumbling back, their recharging arms interrupted by the blunt-force trauma of their own kin’s strikes.
Then, the bombs exploded. Five in total, planted during the mont of invisibility, throwing the leader and the three protectors ten tres behind, killing the remaining three unshielded giants right on the spot.
"Tsk! I thought you’d be eager to et ," John said, suddenly reappearing a few ters to the side of the leader. He looked perfectly composed, as if he were rely taking a stroll. "Yet you moved your weapon first thing to kill ? I’m deeply hurt, man!"
"Fck off! Die, you little monster!" the leader roared. His composure was gone, replaced by a primal, uncontrollable rage. He waved his golden glaive blindly, his movents wide and sloppy.
He failed to see how John sidestepped every swing with a casual tilt of his body. More importantly, he didn’t even feel the many cracks of his own shield as John’s Code Destruction began to destroy the shield in localised bites.
He didn’t even feel the sharp stabs of pain as John began to take away parts of his flesh, leaving holes behind, thanks to the repeated use of the sa ability on his giant body.
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