Suddenly, chilling noises like a grim reaper sucking souls out of countless victims resonated throughout the whole Thornwood Forest.

Eeeeeeeeeeeeee—eeeeeeeee—!

The sound was indescribable, making every living creature freeze in primal terror.

Birds dropped silently from branches. Thump.

Leaves withered in moments. Even insects seemed to vanish into the soil, the very forest recoiling from the cry. Shhhhhh… hush… silence…

Deep inside the earth, the damaged core was glowing like a miniature sun. The crack in the ground was illuminated with an eerie dark green hue that pulsed with malevolent energy. Thrum… thrum…

And on the surface, the trees were withering. But not just the trees—everything. Those on the land, whether human travelers or creatures like monsters and beasts, were swept up in the effect as the entire forest started to move with purpose.

Creating something.

Forming something beyond imagination.

Rrrrrmmmble… groooan…

At the same time, Leon, hovering in the sky, mumbled quietly, "It is coming."

He didn't know what it was exactly. But whatever it would be, it was something he absolutely couldn't tread lightly with. Couldn't dismiss. Couldn't underestimate even slightly.

An absolute destruction is awakening.

Because something that made him feel genuinely on edge—that sent warning signals through every instinct he possessed—could only be called absolute destruction. Nothing else fit.

He felt lucky he hadn't tried to investigate this thing when he was with Seraphine and Loriel. If he had brought them here, things would be much more disastrous right now. They would all be in mortal danger.

As if a part of the earth itself was being awakened, the ground transformed. Not peacefully, but in the most violent way imaginable.

CRRRAAAACK! RRRRMMMBLE!

The air filled with the acrid scent of burning sap and torn roots, a stench like bloodied wood and rot. The ground beneath him trembled—not shaking, but shuddering like it was gasping through its death throes. Groooaaan… crunch…

It was not an earthquake—that would be far too peaceful a description for what was happening. The land was being uprooted wholesale and taking form into a massive abomination.

Taking the form of a giant made entirely of earth and the consumed forest.

The Thornwood Forest stretched for several tens of kilometers in every direction. But now, the entire forest was gone—transformed into a single entity. A giant towering an impossible two kilometers tall, a colossus that defied belief.

Leon was hovering near what would be its left foot, the appendage alone larger than any building he'd ever seen.

I can't see properly from here. The size of this behemoth...

He quickly moved to a safe distance and a higher altitude to get a better view. Using the spatial footing he had created below him with his full strength, he propped himself to the sky.

Boom!

Swoosh…

At the same time, he was using his wind element to guide him between jumps. Whooosh—whoooosh! His tiny figure moved like a streak of light as he arrived a kilometer away in mere seconds, ascending to fifteen hundred meters in the air to properly see the behemoth in front of him.

His heart was beating like a war drum in his chest—thump-thump-thump-thump—so loud and so fast he could feel it in his throat.

This feels too much. This is just too much.

He took in the massive giant made from the entire Thornwood Forest, which was now simply gone. Consumed. Transformed. A creature so impossibly large that even its tiny finger was tens of times bigger than him.

He wasn't even sure if he would win this fight.

But he did know with absolute certainty that the thing was coming for him. Its attention was fixed entirely on the small figure hovering in the distant sky.

And Leon was not going to lie—deep inside, beneath all his combat experience and power, he felt a bit scared. Not paralyzed, not helpless, but genuinely frightened in a way he hadn't experienced since he had faced the throne monster inside the first dungeon after arriving in this world.

Because the thing in front of him looked like it could destroy an entire world if left unchecked.

The giant's formation continued, a grotesque spectacle of earth magic and stolen life force working in terrible harmony. The body was crude at first—a vague humanoid shape of compressed soil and stone. But as more of the forest's essence was absorbed, details began to emerge.

CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!

Massive tree trunks, each one centuries old, were ripped from the ground and woven into the giant's form like muscles. RRRRIP! CRRRK! They coiled and twisted around the earthen skeleton, creating a framework of impossible strength. The wood was no longer brown or green—it had turned black, corrupted by whatever force animated this monstrosity.

Roots erupted from the ground by the thousands, millions of writhing tendrils that attached themselves to the giant's legs and torso like veins and arteries. Ssshhhrrrk! Ssssslither! They pulsed with that sickly green luminescence, transporting stolen life force from every living thing in the forest into the central core buried deep within the titan's chest.

BOOOOM!

The giant's right arm formed, a limb composed of boulders held together by compressed earth and wrapped in dead wood. Each finger was as thick as an ancient tree trunk, ending in claws made of jagged stone. Crunch… grind…

BOOOOM!

The left arm followed, mirror to the first. The sound of its formation shook the ground for kilometers, sending tremors through the earth that could probably be felt all the way back in Conan City. RRRMMMMBLLE!

The head began to take shape last—a nightmare of twisted wood and stone fused together into something that vaguely resembled a face. Two hollow eye sockets formed, deep pits that suddenly ignited with that same eerie green glow from the core. Fwoooosh… They fixed on Leon with terrible intelligence, burning with malevolent hunger.

The mouth opened—a cavernous void lined with jagged stone teeth like a cave entrance to hell itself. That soul-chilling sound resonated again, louder this time, making the very air vibrate.

EEEEEEEEEEEE—!

And then, for the first time, it spoke. Words formed from the grinding of stone on stone, from the creaking of ancient wood, from the death screams of a thousand consumed lives.

Grrrkkk… grooooan… craaack…

"HUMAN..."

The voice was broken, fragmented, spoken in a language so ancient it bypassed Leon's ears entirely and translated directly into his mind.

"YOU... WILL... FEED... ME..."

Leon's grip tightened on his sword as he watched the colossus complete its formation. Lightning, ice, and wind began crackling along his blade, responding to his rising combat intent.

Zzzzzzap! Crackle! Hummm!

This is it. No running. No backing down.

The giant took its first step toward him.

BOOOOOOOOOOM!

The impact was catastrophic. The foot came down with the force of a meteor strike, cratering the earth for dozens of meters in every direction. KRRRRAAASH! Trees that had been even outside of the Thornwood Forest were flattened by the ripple of destruction. The shockwave traveled outward in visible ripples, WHOOOOOMPH!, knocking over smaller vegetation and sending animals fleeing in panic miles away.

A storm of wind rushed past Leon's face from the shockwave, carrying the foul, earthen stench of crushed roots and ancient decay. Even mid-air, the force threatened to unbalance him—like standing in the wake of a collapsing dam. Whoooosh—THUD!

Each step covered hundreds of meters in blinks. Slow in absolute terms, but devastating in scale. The creature didn't need to be fast when a single stride could close distances that would take a normal human minutes to run.

BOOOOOM!

Second step. The ground quaked again, fissures spreading like spiderwebs from the impact point. Crack-crack-crack!

Leon hovered in the air, his mystical eyes analyzing every detail of the monstrosity approaching him. Looking for weaknesses. Searching for vulnerable points. Planning his attack.

The core. That sphere is still in there somewhere, probably in the chest cavity. That's the real target.

But getting to it meant going through two kilometers of animated earth, corrupted wood, and stolen life force. Getting close meant entering the range of those massive arms that could swat him like an insect.

I can't hold back. Not even slightly.

The giant took another step, closer now. Close enough that Leon could see the details of its construction—the way the roots pulsed with each movement, the manner in which stolen mana circulated through the earthen body, the pattern of energy flowing from extremities back to the central core.

Its arms began to rise, preparing to strike. Groooan… CRRRAAACK!

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