Within the hour, we wove up through canyons, ravines, and mountain saddles until we pushed more than 10 miles into the western mountains. I slowed in a high mountain meadow, carpeted with sparse grasses, bushes, and copses of trees small enough to have existed on Earth, with majestic peaks rising all around.

A cold wind ruffled my clothes and brought scents of forests and lakes from higher up. Three separate paths to climb higher opened before us, two steep canyons and an open slope leading up to a saddle between two of the peaks.

"Which way?"Nigel asked.

"Give me a second." I activated Navigation's upgraded Ping option, selecting monsters.

My full-sized map popped open, entirely filling my vision. A ripple rolled through it and red dots began appearing in an expanding wave. We'd passed a few monsters on the way up, but I hadn't stopped. I didn't want to waste precious time on a couple random monsters, but hold out for something more worthwhile.

Ping found it. Just on the other side of the nearby saddle between tall mountains, the map showed a winding path made out of a long string of red dots that extended for miles. That was more like it!

"Hang on. Things are about to get fun."

I gunned Switchblade, shooting up the long slope. Nigel leaned forward, his little voice rising above the wind. "Faster!"

When we reached the top, I slowed to survey the scene, much to Nigel's disgust. On the far side of the saddle, a far gentler slope dropped just a little ways before widening into a beautiful high meadow, carpeted with lush grass and a few trees, with a stream bubbling down the far side. To the west, the meadow meandered upward through a wide canyon between vertical cliffs that reared at least 10,000 feet straight up.

More interesting, the valley as far as I could see was bisected by stone walls every quarter mile or so. Each wall rose at least 50 feet, made out of massive boulders, and each one was split by a single enormous gate framed by giant timbers.

Inside of each walled sector of the valley stood stone cottages or individual towers, most encircled by more stone walls. The distance and massive size of the nearby mountains made it tricky to judge sizes of the buildings, but they looked enormous, far too big for humans.

I zoomed my vision on the closest one, a rough stone cottage with smoke drifting out of the chimney. Something hung from a pole near the front door, like a fresh kill awaiting butchering. When I zoomed in on it, my blood ran cold.

A human. I couldn't tell if they had been male or female, but they'd been a person. They still wore their boots, while some ripped armor lay discarded nearby. They looked tiny compared to the house, which finally helped me understand the scale. The house had to stand at least 40 feet tall, with a 30-foot door.

That door opened and a giant monster lumbered out. Roughly humanoid, it reminded me of the Rockslide Ogre, only this one had huge bull horns on its hideous face. It carried a vicious, serrated blade 20 feet long.

"Boulderfist Giant. Uncommon. Level 42. This mighty hunter identifies prey from a distance through his connection to earth. Always hungry for man flesh, he runs down his prey by sliding across stone and earth, hurling conjured boulders like cannonballs, or dropping pits open beneath their feet."

Nigel growled, low in his tiny chest. "I smell blood."

"You'll smell a lot more in a minute. Let's go."

Since the Boulderfist Giant could sense prey through ground, I accelerated my hover bike to attack. Hopefully it wouldn't sense our passage 6 feet in the air. We rocketed down the slope, gaining an insane amount of speed as I zeroed in on the giant, who was distracted with preparing to butcher the poor human corpse.

My targeting interface activated, but I didn't fire until we closed to within just a couple hundred yards. Since we were shooting down the slope from above, we came down parallel to the giant's protective walls that cut across the valley. When we reached the flat valley, we shot toward the giant at over 300 miles per hour. It finally sensed danger and turned toward us.

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That close, the huge monster seemed to fill the entire valley. It was even taller than the Rockslide Ogre and far more powerful. As soon as it started to turn, I fired. Switchblade's Shattercore Ballista leaped across the space and detonated against the giant's enormous chest in a glorious explosion.

When the cloud of devastation cleared, it revealed a really pissed off giant with a black scorch mark on its chest. The giant roared, the sound like an avalanche as it lumbered forward, pointing its huge serrated blade at us.

"Try to stay off the ground. It can sense movement and can open pits under our feet."

"Actually, I'd worry about that boulder first," Nigel replied with remarkable calm as the giant raised its other hand and a boulder the size of a minivan appeared in it. The giant flung the boulder at us like a major league pitcher unleashing his best fastball.

Banking Switchblade uphill, we closed on the farmhouse, moving way too fast to swerve the other way again. So I grabbed Nigel and threw him into the air, then jumped off Switchblade and banished the bike. As I flew like a missile toward the stone farmhouse, I activated Tether Slide, with my single tether point set at the giant's head.

The giant batted at the ethereal chain as it leaped out to touch his head. I was moving so fast that Tether Slide couldn't sling me directly at the ogre, but I made an arcing turn, dragged in an ever-tightening circle as it reeled me in toward the back of the giant's head.

I twisted in mid-air so I'd strike feet-first and applied a potion of lightning immunity to my Thunderstride Greaves. That was the first time I tried the elemental damage aspect to the greaves. Hopefully the earth-bound giant wouldn't be immune to lightning.

I kicked with all my strength as I landed against the giant's head, my greaves unleashing a mighty lightning blast right into its skull. The blast knocked the giant stumbling, blood and bits of bone spraying from its head. The impact sent me back-somersaulting away and I caught the pole that the dead human was hanging from to avoid landing on the ground.

Before the giant could recover its footing, full-grown Nigel landed on its back, razor claws digging into its stony hide while he plunged his twin sabre-tooth fangs into the side of the giant's neck.

The giant collapsed to the ground, blood fountaining out of the nasty wound. Nigel had ripped open one entire side of its neck, but it didn't die immediately. The giant reached a grasping hand up toward the Mammoth Lion, but Nigel bounded off, soaring all the way to the roof of the cottage.

I used Tether Slide to shoot across to the giant again and landed on the back of its neck with another lightning-powered smashing kick. It rocked the monster and sprayed gore across the farmyard.

This time I stayed on the giant, spinning and slashing back and forth across its back with Scalebiter. Even as the insanely resilient giant started groaning and trying to roll, my blade began ripping deeper and deeper gouges in its tough hide. The giant roared in anger, but I spun and slashed my blade across its neck.

That made 10 slashes in half as many seconds, and Scalebiter had accumulated an awe-inspiring amount of penetration and extra damage. The blade sheared through the giant's neck and sent its head tumbling.

"Congratulations, Lucas! You have defeated Boulderfist Giant, Level 42."

I triggered Loot and Soul Feed, then jumped off as the huge corpse disintegrated into black smoke.

Nigel landed on my shoulder, changing back to kitten size as he did so. He licked one paw and asked, "Why did he taste like dirt?"

I patted his head. "Good job, buddy. Here, this will taste better."

I tossed him another elephant steak. At this rate, I was going to run out in a week. Maybe I shouldn't have sold so many.

Loot got me some mana crystals, along with 2 scrolls of Earth Armor and 2 scrolls of Ground Walker. Not bad. The farmhouse proved a bust. Nothing useful at all. Just some giant-sized furniture I didn't bother looting.

Eva then asked, "Would you like to loot Ralph Dunning, team Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?"

Ralph. So the dead body was a man, after all. With a sigh, I accepted the prompt, and Ralph's body mummified, returning him to look far more human than he had a moment before. Most of Ralph's gear must have been lost or destroyed by the giant because I only got a few mana crystals. I did get 10 lava grenades, though.

More importantly, I was able to give him a decent burial. I didn't have tools to dig a grave, so I lay his body on the bed inside, then triggered a potion of Firestorm, transforming the stone cottage into a raging funeral pyre.

Nigel sniffed at the dense smoke as I marched from the cottage. "What now?"

I gestured at the high stone wall blocking the next section of the valley. "We've got some time to hunt."

The more I thought about it, the more I loved the idea. Alpha was temporarily down, licking his wounds, Noctarus was cooperating, and people were gaining tons of experience. I had a window of time where the town didn't need me as much. I planned to use every second of it. If the first monster we'd found at the base of the valley was level 42, others higher up were probably stronger and would offer even more experience.

"Let's make sure no other monster gets the chance to kill more people."

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