Chapter Twenty Six: Giants

BADUMP. BADUMP.
I’ve been waiting…
Thinking of minimizing the number of casualties, I shifted as far away as I could — to the mountains where I once trained. I passed my castle on the way and saw the red barrier over it still holding; it looked intact, so I skipped it and braked on the summit where I had honed my Zinertia.
This is the first time I felt them before they arrived. I’m strong… stronger than I’ve ever been.
Right before my eyes the sky warped and a terrifying killing intent rolled over the world.
Their attacks had targeted ordinary humans since the first time they arrived — that’s why they’d been striking city after city. But now they’d measured my strength. I was no longer anonymous; I’d become a threat.
“Come… come!!” I yelled, trying to provoke whatever god hid beyond the distortion and to steel myself to defend humanity.
To my surprise, no one emerged from the torn sky — yet.
The ground shuddered, and out of nowhere gigantic humanoid trees burst from the snow-coated earth.
Their hands thrust through the ground with such force the impact felt like an explosion. Like zombies clawing out of graves, three titans rose and stood—sixty meters tall.
That was when I noticed another presence.
The god who had gathered these puppets wasn’t alone in this fight. LV had already picked up on one of them and was racing to confront it.
Now then… where is he?
It was already past noon when I’d left the house after my confrontation with Hinata; then I’d gone to the city and wandered for a while. This was my first real battle at night.
‘Night’ and ‘day’ mean little to me now — I can see as plainly as in the afternoon.
SHOOO.
Too slow.
I was lost in thought, trying to guess where the god would reveal himself, when a massive palm descended from above and smashed into the mountain where I stood, crushing twenty percent of it.
I barely needed to expend energy to dodge.
Just as I was thinking the last strike was slow, another attack came — much faster — so I leapt into the sky to evade it, only to be met by another gigantic hand aimed like an uppercut. I twisted aside, but already it was too late…
The sky filled with branches in punching and whipping postures. Limbs sprouted from the bodies of the humanoid trees below, snaking hundreds of meters into the air.
With bone-crushing force, they struck. I was slammed down into the ground.
I’d underestimated them. Now I lay buried in snow and stone, blood leaking from the cuts across my body.
When I pushed myself to my feet and looked up, the three tree-monsters circled me, fists cocked and aimed with speeds three times what they’d shown before.
BAAAAAAAM!!
Their blows landed and the shockwaves uprooted every single tree in the vicinity.
That was close. If they had true godlike speed, I’d have taken that blow head-on. Instead I re-summoned myself a hundred meters into the sky and glared down at them.
At sixty meters tall they couldn’t reach me up here — unless they stretched their arms beyond reason.
Where is my opponent hiding… has he taken tree form?
The trees moved like thinking things, shifting positions and attacking with uncanny coordination.
I can’t waste time fighting wooden puppets — wherever the god is, I must find him.
Before I could finish the thought, gigantic hands erupted from below and flung me far, far higher into the sky.
What speed! Impossible… how could such massive constructs move like that? Their punches were now a hundred times faster than their initial attacks and their movements had become eerily flexible. What kind of god controlled them?
Their massive bodies sent shock waves like an earthquake each time they moved. 
I’d had enough.
GZZIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNG.
I released Zinertia. Dropping with momentum, I launched a concentrated wave at one of them and cleanly severed its head. But then…
As I closed on the ground I felt an attack coming from the right. I dodged and turned to see what it was — only to find myself trapped in the palm of one of the unreduced trees.
Compared to their colossal hands I became an insect. No — a fly waiting to be squashed.
What strength.
Their grip alone could tear my flesh away.
As I braced for crushing pressure, the other two humanoid trees launched solid punches from both sides, precise and blindingly fast.
In mortal danger, I used Zinertia to disintegrate the hand that held me and fled to the sky once more.
BAAAAM.
Their fists collided and arms shattered from the force.
The tree that had held me lost both hands. Another lost its left fist. And… wait—one of them had regenerated the head I’d destroyed earlier, while now its right fist lay ruined by the collision.
Brutality.
What would have happened if I’d stayed inside that palm?
I had to escape, but the sky had become their territory.
Stranger still, I could sense the exchange between LV and a fire god nearby, but I could not detect the god controlling these constructs.
“COME OUT… AND STOP HIDING LIKE A COWARD!!!” I roared, trying to bait him into revealing himself.
No reply.
Outnumbered and outsized, I decided to coat my body with Zinertia when…
BAAAM. BAAM. BAAM.
The trees assumed boxing stances, twisted their trunks to gather force, and then unleashed punches from every direction. I rocketed into the sky again.
Coated in Zinertia, the blows no longer hurt — but the force alone made the ground quake.
Their strikes had not been aimed at my exact position; instead they predicted and sealed off escape routes. It was like they were calculating every path I might take.
If I don’t find whoever is directing these puppets, I’m finished.
I focused and unleashed a massive Zinertia blast from high above, the air flaring crimson. When the light cleared, two of their heads and an arm lay destroyed.
I landed on the mountain I’d shattered earlier and watched them begin to regenerate. Then, suddenly, the mountain itself reformed — it took the shape of a monstrous frog and leapt into the sky, its mouth opening where I had been standing. I was swallowed whole.
It happened in an instant. I thought the trees were fast, but this… this was different. I hadn’t realized the god could control stone as well as wood.
Inside the frog’s belly I was trapped, but the three tree-giants coordinated a follow-up: they pummeled the mountain-frog until it disintegrated, and I was spat out into the air.
“AAARRRRGGGHHH!!!!” I screamed. This time I hadn’t been coating my body with Zinertia; their strikes hit true and fast. I had no time to react — it all happened in a heartbeat.
As the blows continued, two of them aimed in to collide their fists like before. When their arms shattered, my battered body fell like a stone and slammed into the ground.
Pain flooded me. Paralysis threatened. I lay there staring at the sky, gathering what energy I could. I hadn’t spent much energy in the fight so far — the pain would fade in seconds — but what then? If I didn’t find the god, the trees would simply keep regenerating.
Then the rubble from the destroyed frog gathered and resembled a frog again, and more humanoid trees and rocks re-formed around us.
My fight with Wa’e’rrut had felt similar. Zinertia is devastating, but in a long battle it’s a disadvantage: I don’t have the endurance to use it continuously.
Its destructive power is unrivaled — and so is its appetite for energy.