The giant Leviathan crab was moving forward with a slow but implacable stride and would reach the wall in minutes. Thankfully, its back cannons seemed to have a long reloading time.

I set my tether point on the front of its enormous carapace and Tether Slide yanked me into the air toward the building-sized monster. It didn't really have a head, just two black eyes the size of tractor tires on the front of its shell.

Most of my weapons weren't great at punching through thick metal, but my recent acquisition should be perfect for the job. I drew the weird Torqueblade chainsaw-sword and slammed it into the front of the monster's armored head, driving it down with all the momentum of my arrival.

The blade hit with a loud clang, then the edge transformed into blurring, metal-teeth as the sword became a unique kind of saw. Sparks flew around me in cascading green waves as I plunged the buzz-saw sword to the hilt, then dragged it up the thickly-armored carapace. In seconds, I carved a roughly circular hole in the top of the shell, big enough for me to fit through.

The metal plug fell away and I whistled. That armor had been over 18 inches thick! That would have been a pain to break through with my other weapons. Inside was a cavernous space, filled with gears and pistons and heavy steel girders, everything lit with the harsh, crimson glow from a dozen blast furnaces powering the monster.

It was loud too, with skull-rattling echoes that seemed to build in never-ending crescendos within the copper-sheathed metal body. The clanging of metal, grinding of gears, and hissing of steam shooting through miles of pipes. It was so loud, I triggered one of my Ear Muff potions.

Then I dropped inside, the sounds reduced to a manageable clamor. Still, I hesitated. Even with Scalebiter and Torqueblade, cutting through enough of the monster's infrastructure to stop it would take way too long.

Too bad I gave away all my Instant Rust potions. Not sure if they would dissolve an entire giant Leviathan, but might have made my job easier. Time to improvise.

I grinned with a crazy idea. Maybe it was a hint from my weird ability The Show Must Go On, or insight from that ability's new Flair feature, but I suddenly knew how to deal with the monster.

Using Tether Slide, I quickly slipped through the complex maze of steel and copper and brass and steam and furnaces. I found the 5 cannons, clanking loudly as new shells were being loaded. I wedged acid grenades in the gears of each one to melt them enough to block the firing mechanisms.

Then I found the giant storage cages full of the cannon balls. Inspecting them confirmed some of them were explosive rounds. I shoved an exploding lava grenade in each cage, attached with universal remote triggers, then attached my last grenade to the biggest steam pipe in the center of the monster.

I got a message from Ruby while I was wrapping up.

Ruby: "Lucas, whatever you're doing with that Leviathan, do it faster! It's almost at the wall."

Lucas: "Run. Get everyone off the wall right now. Take cover on the right side of the gate, behind the wall. You have 10 seconds."

She didn't waste time asking questions. I started counting the seconds as I used Tether Slide to shoot through the huge vaulted space in the center of the monster's shell, then down toward the floor of the carapace, close to one of the huge blast furnaces. I struck hard, leading with my Titanbreaker hammer that doubled my strength.

As I slammed the mighty weapon into the metal armor of the Leviathan's underside, I unleashed Hammer Strike, triggering every last charge that had built up from the fight outside.

There were over 1800 charges, each one as powerful as one of my punches. The blow rocked my hammer so hard, I feared it might simply shatter. The entire Leviathan carapace rang like the world's biggest gong, and if I hadn't already activated the Ear Muff protection, the concussive wave contained inside that huge body would have ruptured my ears for sure.

A 10-foot section of the monster's shell blasted open, thick metal peeling back and away. I tossed my hammer back into my inventory and caught the side of the hole before I could fall through. Then I activated a scroll of Ice Blast, aimed right at the nearby blast furnace and mentally triggered every last one of my grenades.

As soon as the spell activated and a thick beam of ice punched into the furnace, I dropped free. As I fell, I triggered Energy Ward, pouring in as much mana as it would take. I did the same to my Embersteel battle shard, reinforcing its defenses. For good measure, I also activated my Core-stone of the Arcane Flux, the energy shield I'd gotten from my vault. It appeared as a half dome over my falling body.

Just in time.

The resulting explosion far exceeded my hopes. That blizzard of ice I'd hurled into the blast furnace made it detonate, unleashing a shockwave that shattered the reinforced walls of the furnace, spraying molten metal and superheated shards of ice in every direction. I caught a glimpse of the devastation as I fell away.

The force was strongest out the open front of the furnace and it boiled over the hole in the shell, then blasted down after me. The impact rattled my Core-stone shield and hurled me toward the ground like a rocket.

More detonations rippled through the monster's hollow body as my grenades triggered the explosive cannonballs. Finally, the steam main burst in a catastrophic eruption that blasted every single leg right off the shell and sent the giant claws careening forward so hard they shattered the remnants of the insect army that had been attacking the left-side wall.

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Thankfully the blast was mostly contained within the heavily-armored shell of the monster, despite streams of fire blasting out every cannon port and shooting hundreds of feet into the air. A few of the pointy sections at the top of the carapace exploded away and tongues of fire blasted hundreds of feet into the air through every one.

I struck the ground hard enough to shatter cobblestones, but my armor and high Constitution proved sufficient to survive. Didn't even trigger one of my Death Catcher Waffle mini magical airbags, although my entire torso creaked from the pressure my Crash Test Dummy jacket radiated all around it to help absorb the shock.

The jacket chose to speak again. "Astronauts use rockets to return to Earth for a reason. You're not Master Chief."

That one was better than most of its stupid comments on the creative ways I usually tried killing myself. All I wanted to do was lay on the broken stones for a moment and bask in my victory while my fast regeneration, bolstered by my Tesla Coil bracelet, restored my health.

Unfortunately, with no legs, the Leviathan's ginormous body, still spouting impressive amounts of flame, started falling straight down toward me.

I didn't feel like running, so I used Tether Slide to whisk me just above the ground to the broken remains of the town gates. Behind me, the Leviathan's carapace landed with a resounding crash of imploding metal as the softened girders gave way inside. Rivers of flame exploded outward, ravaging the barren ruins several blocks to either side.

"Congratulations, Lucas! You have defeated Brass Leviathan. Level 75 mini boss. Bonus experience gained for defeating a higher-level enemy. Experience doubled for defeating the boss with extra flair."

"Congratulations, Lucas! You have gained a level. Stat points allocated, plus 6 free points."

That was more like it. I triggered Loot and Soul Feed, but lacked time to exult in the river of health pouring into me. The explosion had drawn the attention of one of the huge flying Deathwake Behemoths. It was circling around toward where my team was returning to the wall on the right side of the gate to help the other defenders.

"One mini boss down. On with the show."

Setting my tether point on the back of the flying killer whale's head, I triggered Tether Slide again. The glowing chain of my spell alerted the monster, as it often did. The giant beast swiveled to face me as I shot up toward it, and it seemed to fill the water-soaked air, a giant looming menace with a maw big enough to swallow me whole.

Before I even reached it, the Deathwake Behemoth opened its huge mouth to showcase rows of teeth as big as cleavers, then unleashed its Abyssal Requiem again.

Perfect. With a thought, I swapped out my gloves, replacing them with my brand new Recycling Supervisor gloves. Thankfully, the instant swap worked this time and I caught the beam of black magic.

Well, I tried to catch it. The gloves were made to manipulate, mold, and control mana, but the active spell had a lot of energy, so it kind of flowed through my gloves and deflected away to smash down on some poor soul's Base Camp. The tent flashed and disappeared.

"Sorry," I muttered as I twisted my hands, forming my palms into a cup shape to better deflect the incoming beam.

It traced a path of destruction across the outer wall at an empty spot with no defenders, then out across the ruined city before arcing up into the air. As I got the hang of manipulating the magical beam, I walked it across a group of Skyreaver sharks harassing defenders on the opposite wall.

That was the first time I realized the wall was being attacked from behind too. Wow, a multi-pronged, coordinated attack. I would have been impressed if the threat wasn't so immediate.

The beam of black destruction worked even better against the flying sharks than it had our people. The sharks convulsed under the power of the beam, their tough hide blackening and sloughing away in rotten chunks before they fell, writhing from the sky to splat like giant bags of rotten blood against the stones.

I got several kill notifications, and one other one.

"Congratulations, Lucas! Mimic has captured Abyssal Requiem, necrosis and mana disruption spell. Time remaining to re-cast the spell: 15 seconds."

Nice. The Deathwake Behemoth cut off the spell and seemed ticked that I'd used its own spell against its followers. It powered forward, maw gaping wider, blotting out the sky above me.

Which gave me the perfect target. I threw my bone drill.

The long, golden drill bit punched up through the huge whale's gaping maw and struck the roof of its mouth. With that blurring, buzzing sound that meant a monster was about to get the ultimate brain freeze, it punched up into the skull and clear through the other side, exploding out near the blow hole with a spray of blood and gore.

That distracted the monster long enough for me to reach it and run up the side of its snout as my spell dragged me up to my tether point on the top of its head. There, I crouched, perhaps the first-ever flying whale rider. I resisted the urge to summon a rope and raise my other hand like a cowboy in a rodeo.

Focus. I turned to face half a dozen of the deadly Stormpiercer swordfish elites harrying a smaller group of fighters on the north side of town. I triggered the whale's own Abyssal Requiem spell, walking the beam of necrotic death across the distant Stormpiercers. It devastated them as badly as it had the Skyreaver sharks.

Beneath my feet, the huge whale twisted, trying to throw me off. A drill through the brain would kill most things, but either a level-72 mini-boss was made of tougher stuff, or the drill hadn't cut through the parts of the brain it needed to keep living.

I drew Echo, poured in a ton of convergence mana, and plunged it down through that convenient hole in the whale's head to give it a second brain injury. The mana exploded out in a destructive wave, echoed again at 60% by the sword's ability, then all that damage doubled again from Double Tap.

The whale stiffened under the blow long enough for me to replace Echo with my Titanbreaker warhammer and slam the mighty hammer into the same spot on the back of its skull. The hammer already struck with double my already-impressive strength, but just to be sure, I triggered the hammer's Titan's Wrath ability that made me swell by 25% my normal size and added another 200% pure kinetic energy.

My hammer shattered the top of the whale's head, dropping me thigh-deep in bloody gray matter. Super gross. The hit also triggered knockback, which seemed to break the whale's ability to fly. The giant monster just fell out of the sky, plunging toward the ground in a death dive.

Tough monster. That was fun. I tossed my hammer back into my inventory as I pivoted in the giant whale's bloody head, brains squelching underfoot as I scanned the rainy battlefield.

There! The other Deathwake Behemoth was heading toward the eastern wall where I'd killed those Stormpiercer swordfish, trailed by a dozen Skyreaver sharks. Looked like they planned to launch an all-out attack to support the struggling clockwork insects on that side.

I cast Knock Knock to distract the giant flying whale. Too bad I couldn't choose which knock knock joke it told. Time to introduce myself.

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