Explorer of Edregon

New monster discovered! 200 exp gained.

The glittering, stampeding monsters looked as though one of the Gods had grabbed a rhinoceros from Earth, and then got far too excited with a divine bucket of glue and sequins. The monsters were large and built like cars, and they appeared to be covered in what looked like crystalline armor of all things. And based on the fact that the group had just smashed their way effortlessly through quite a sizable crystal, they packed a serious punch as well.

Thanks to Alka's early warning the team wasn't caught completely off guard by the sudden stampede. That said, they weren't quite prepared for the monsters to smash through the crystal and suddenly be upon them.

"Stone Wall!" Vin shouted, dumping mana into his spell and summoning the thickest barrier he could directly between the leading monster and Shia. Thanks to his Sense Life spell he was the only one who was prepared for the monsters to erupt through the reflective crystal beside them, and his sudden wall sprung up just in time to save Shia's life.

The Druid's eyes widened as the stone barrier shot up out of the ground, shaking as it barely managed to withstand the force of the first monster as it slammed into it. Rather than follow their leader directly into the unexpected obstacle, the rest of the monsters flowed around to the side, running in a wide arc to maintain their speed as they curved around for another go at them.

"That's a lot of monsters!" Scule shouted, sheathing his daggers and pulling out his blowgun instead. Vin knew the Rogue had spent hours practicing with and without Alka to improve his aim, but he was still blown away when Scule managed to land three hits back to back on three separate monsters where the slim portions of crystalline armor didn't cover. Each of the monsters stumbled before crumpling to the ground as Scule's poison caused their legs to give out within seconds of getting hit.

There were enough monsters running in the pack that the downed ones were immediately trampled, and based on the grinding of crystal on crystal, Vin didn't think they were getting back up.

Though that was just a drop in the bucket.

"There's got to be at least thirty of them!" Vin shouted, hoping his friends could hear him over the rumbling of so many heavy monsters swinging back around for another charge. There was no guarantee his Stone Wall would manage to deter them a second time. "Shia, will your magic penetrate their armor?"

"I can do you one better," she said, taking a step toward the rampaging monsters and giving them all a horrifying smile. "Remember that new spell I said I'd put the finishing touches on the other day?"

Before any of them could respond, Shia brought Blossom close to her chest, wrapping her arms around the staff and closing her eyes. Taking a deep breath, she cast.

"Living Giant!"

Vin watched in awe as Shia's staff suddenly exploded in outward growth, and he completely forgot about the horde of monsters bearing down on them for a moment as hundreds of branches began growing out of the staff and wrapping themselves all around the elf, completely hiding her from view. The mass of branches quickly spun outward, forming arms and legs and lifting Shia up into the air. The spell finished by forming a head with a canopy of leaves covering its scalp, and the giant let out a earth-rumbling roar that seemed to shake the very crystals dotting the landscape around them.

In barely five seconds, Shia had transformed from a human sized elf, to a nearly twelve-foot-tall giant made up of branches and vines. Vin could only stare dumbly at her new form, his eyes flickering to the notification that popped up before him.

New spell witnessed! Tier 4 Nature Spell (Living Giant). 4,000 exp gained.

Before any of them could do so much as ask where the hell that had come from, Shia moved.

Though rather than move away from the horde, she began charging directly at the mass of stampeding monsters.

The ground shook as the giant mass of wood and vegetation rushed forward, aimed straight for the front of the pack. The lead crystalline beast roared and lowered its head, determined to meet this sudden challenger head on. Vin watched, frozen in horror as the stampeding monster smashed into Shia's new spell.

And was knocked away like a toddler had run into a brick wall.

The resounding boom of the two forces slamming into one another sent a small shockwave all the way back to them that shook the very crystals beneath their feet, and Vin let out a sigh of relief as Shia all but flung the following monsters to the side with a wave of her massive arm. These monsters were obviously tanky and looked remarkably tough, but Shia was now double their height and nearly twice as wide. Vin couldn't even begin to guess how much she weighed within her new spell, but seeing as she barely even flinched after taking that hit head on, it had to be quite a lot.

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"Hell yeah!" Alka laughed, raising her warpick and calling out to Shia as the Druid began smashing monsters left and right with her massive hands. "Now that's some nature magic!"

"Why is it every one of you people seems to grow more terrifying by the day?" Scule shuddered, slowly lowering his blowgun as he watched Shia single handedly take on the horde of monsters. Once their stampede had broken against her powerful body, the monsters had begun roaring and attempting to batter her down with their sharp horns. Though for every gouge that was carved into the wood covering Shia's form, a new vine or branch would quickly grow over the injury, preventing the monsters from making any progress toward reaching Shia within the spell.

And it wasn't as if Shia was just standing there waiting for the monsters to break through.

The living giant continued to lash out with giant fists, smashing its way through monster after monster, cracking crystal armor and knocking small groups away with backhands in between blows. Despite the fact that she looked like she had everything under control, after watching the display of magical might for a few seconds, Alka finally stopped cheering.

"Alright, break's over. We have no idea how long she's able to keep that new spell up, so back to work everyone!"

As Alka ran toward the fight with her sword at the ready, Vin realized she was absolutely right. Blossom supposedly had its own mana reserve to supplement Shia's, but there was no telling how much mana such a powerful spell was eating up every second. If Shia ran out while fighting in the middle of a group of monsters, things would get ugly, fast.

"You cool if we stay out here and provide ranged support?" Vin asked, raising a hand and firing off a regular Stone Shot to test the waters. Unsurprisingly, his granite projectile bounced harmlessly off the crystal armor of the monsters trying to gouge their way through Shia's spell.

"Are you serious? No, I think I'd much rather you run headfirst into certain death. That sounds way more reasonable," Scule drawled, raising his blowgun to his lips and firing another dart. "Crazy people…" he muttered before getting to work whittling down the monsters.

In the end, it took them almost a solid ten minutes to finish up the horde of monsters, which was practically an eternity when it came to fighting. By the time the last of the monsters fell, its head blown apart by a well placed and heavily empowered Stone Shot, Vin was ready for a nap.

"Dear lord, that was a lot," he panted, wiping his brow before conjuring a stone bench with a wave of his hand and collapsing onto it. Looking up at the twelve-foot-tall monstrosity standing before him, which was even more terrifying now that he was sitting down, he raised an eyebrow. "…how long can you even keep that thing active, anyway?"

Rather than answer, he watched curiously as the branches and vines making up the giant began to slowly decay before his very eyes. The giant shrunk down and its limbs retracted, and in only a handful of seconds, Shia stood before them once more, looking distinctly flushed and leaning heavily on her staff.

"Around fifteen minutes at a maximum, unless there is a lot of ambient nature mana I can tap into," she said, stepping forward and collapsing onto the bench next to him. "Wow, I'd practiced the spell once before to get a feel for it, but it's quite a bit different being in the thick of things. That was… intense."

"Forget intense, that was insane!" Alka laughed, finally finished double checking to ensure all the monsters were truly dead before walking over to join them. "Come on, how were you able to just sit on a spell like that without telling us? What even was that, a tier three?"

"Tier four," Vin said, shaking his head in disbelief. "How the hell did you manage to learn a new tier four spell in what, a week? Two?"

"What do you think my master and I had been working on during these last few dungeon visits?" Shia laughed, holding out a hand and nodding her thanks when Vin placed his waterskin into it. "We have a surprising amount of downtime, and I've been able to use Split Focus to keep a portion of my attention working on the spell a lot even while doing other things. It also doesn't hurt that Blossom was created with this exact spell in mind, making it actually a bit easier than most tier four spells to learn."

"So why didn't you bust that bad boy out earlier? Like when we were fighting for our lives surrounded by the Red Dawn?" Scule demanded, looking more than a little annoyed. "I seriously thought those guys were going to gut us!"

"The spell's biggest weakness is the first few seconds," Shia said, shaking her head. "While I'm focusing on constructing the Living Giant, I'm pretty vulnerable. A single well-placed arrow or stab of a sword before the spell can finish forming, and I'm dead. I also can't talk while inside the spell, which is another big drawback."

"So slow cast time, you can't talk, and it only lasts fifteen minutes before you run out of mana," Vin said, holding up his left hand. "Though in exchange, you become a seemingly indestructible, rampaging giant capable of throwing around heavyset monsters like they're play toys," he added, raising his other hand and pretending to weigh the two against each other. "…I think it's obvious that the spell is still a huge winner!"

"Oh for sure, it's amazing finally having a trump card I can play," Shia grinned, handing him back his water skin. "Though for clarification, if I stay in it the whole fifteen minutes, the spell will burn through all of my mana, and all of Blossom's. I'll be pretty much worthless when it finally collapses all around me, and I won't be able to call on Blossom either. Blossom also takes longer to regenerate mana than I do, so I'm not sure how frequently I'll even be able to cast the spell. It's going to need some testing."

"Good to know," Alka said. "Even so, I'm pretty excited to no longer be the party's only front-line fighter. In fact, if you focus mainly on defense, that would allow me to really go all out whenever we get attacked. Normally, I'm too worried about these idiots getting killed by something and have to hold back a bit."

"Hey!" Scule and Vin said simultaneously, along with an annoyed squeak from Vin's pocket as Reginald poked his head out and glared at Alka.

"We can go over our tactics once again after we get back to camp," Shia offered, cracking her neck and forcing herself back to her feet. "For now, we probably shouldn't get complacent. If roaming hordes of monsters as big as that one are common in this fragment, we need to avoid running into any more surprise attacks while we track down the blue fur clan. Until my mana recovers, I don't think I have another Living Giant in me."

"Let's hope this clan is still alive and kicking," Vin said, getting up as well and giving Reginald a quick pet on the head.

"With monsters like this, I'm pretty curious just how they've managed to survive all this time."