Insomniac Player

➤[Hollow Giants Remaining: 11/12]

➤[Personal Eliminations: 0/1]

"You’re really not going away, are you."

No answer came, not that he expected one.

The penalty sat exactly where it had been. Fail, and one of two skills, gone for good.

Neither option was survivable, not with these things chanting his name across a burning city. The Giants knew Nightwalker somehow. His synchronization had already crept up to 10.2% on its own. Something was moving inside his class, something he had zero understanding of, and losing a piece of it now could cost him a lot more than one useful skill.

But killing another Giant meant Collective Evolution again, ten survivors getting stronger, more people dying for it.

He rubbed his forehead. "...Why can nothing ever just be simple."

◇◇◇

Giant One, Noah’s Giant, was the worst of the twelve. The first serious hit had come from Screwdriver, so it had built itself around answering pure physical force, and the thin, alien thing from the gate was long gone. What stood in the street now looked monstrous even next to the others.

Noah faced it with his uniform in shreds, blood running from a cut above his eye, one eye already swelling shut. Exhausted, and grinning like it was the best day of his life. "Come on!"

It threw a punch. He sidestepped.

BOOM!

The street caved where the fist landed. He caught its wrist on the way past, boots dragging trenches through the pavement. "Got you."

Three players hit the knee at once.

CRACK!

The leg buckled, and it roared. Noah twisted the arm harder. "NOW!"

A hammer came down on the ankle.

BANG!

Bone gave, and it dropped to one knee.

"STOP!" Every weapon froze mid-swing. The chest-mouth split open.

"MAAAAADHAAAAASH!"

Noah shot a glance toward Damien. "It’s still calling you!"

"I noticed!"

It tried standing on the ruined ankle, black threads already weaving under the skin, regenerating in real time. Damien’s jaw tightened. That was the real problem, cripple it once and it healed, cripple it again and it healed again, an endless loop with no clean end in sight.

"Break it again!"

The hammer fell.

BANG!

The ankle went a second time, and it collapsed. Noah pointed a finger at it. "Stay."

Damien stared. "...Did you seriously just tell a monster to stay?"

◇◇◇

Giant Two, fire-adapted, sat contained inside an avenue ringed by burning buildings, its skin cracked and black, flames crawling harmlessly across the surface while the fire team looked ready to collapse.

A woman dropped to one knee. "I’m empty!"

A man grabbed her shoulder. "Fall back!"

"No!"

"You’ve got nothing left!"

"I can regenerate..."

"You can regenerate from the rear!" He hauled her back by force.

Another mage stepped up, a weak flame flickering above his palm before dying out on its own. "...Shit."

Damien looked around. Too many players hitting empty at once, mana and stamina both. Courage wasn’t infinite either, and the Giant kept knitting itself whole no matter what they threw at it.

"Earth support!"

An earth mage turned. "Only fire’s supposed to touch this one!"

"Don’t attack it. Collapse the street." He pointed at the ground under its feet.

The mage caught on fast, both hands slamming the pavement.

RUMBLE!

The street sank under the Giant, legs vanishing into the ground, asphalt folding in around them.

It struggled. "Now bury the legs!" Stone poured in and compressed around the trapped limbs.

It roared, but nothing had actually damaged it directly. Damien allowed himself a grin. "Good."

The mage looked pleased with himself for exactly one second, right up until the Giant punched the ground.

BOOM!

The whole trap blew apart. His grin died with it. "...Less good."

➤[00:05:52]

Time kept bleeding away. He moved between fronts, and every stop looked the same, exhaustion, blood, ruined streets stretching in every direction.

Giant Four had both knees destroyed. Giant Five sat pinned under a collapsed parking structure. Giant Six had lost an arm and stood trapped inside an earth barrier. Giant Seven had been chained off between two buildings, well clear of any evacuation route. Giant Eight’s tendons had been cut so many times the wind team had lost count. Giant Nine sat buried waist-deep in rubble.

Ten and Eleven were still on their feet.

"Where’s Eleven?!"

Salma’s voice cut through the channel. "Heading toward the southern evacuation route."

His stomach dropped. "How many civilians?"

"Thousands."

"...Daria!"

"Heard it!" A green streak tore across the sky, wind spiraling tight around her as she closed the distance. She reached the Giant first, its foot already coming down toward a stalled convoy.

Her staff came up, and the pavement erupted into a wall of stone.

BOOOOOOM!

The foot smashed through it anyway, but the delay bought enough.

"GO!" she screamed, and the civilians ran.

Players locked into a line between the convoy and the monster. A tank raised his shield and took the hit, got swatted aside, and another stepped in behind him, then another. Nobody pulled back.

Damien arrived seconds later. "Don’t kill it!"

A swordswoman rounded on him like he’d lost his mind. "It’s about to reach civilians!"

"I know!"

"Then let us finish it!"

"You finish it, the other ten get stronger!"

"And if we don’t, people die right here!"

He had no answer for that, because she wasn’t wrong, and that was the part that actually hurt. Every second the Giants stayed alive kept the city one mistake away from disaster. His plan protected everyone from what the last Giant might become. It didn’t protect the people standing right in front of a foot the size of a car.

The players held anyway, exhausted, barely holding, but they got it subdued a second time.

Beyond the Giants, he’d already killed more small monsters than he could count, hunting them down between checkpoints because standing still felt worse than moving. His hands wouldn’t stop shaking, and blood had started running from his nose, mask soaked dark at the edge where it caught the drip.

Salma appeared beside him a moment later, looking worse than he felt, coat torn, one sleeve soaked through with blood. She lit another cigarette.

He stared at her. "Seriously?"

"What?"

"Now?"

"If I’m dying today, I’m not doing it irritated." She took a drag. "Ten Giants are contained."

"Ten?"

"One got loose."

"Which one?"

Before she could answer—

THOOOOOM!

Something landed at the far end of the street. He turned slowly. A Hollow Giant, grey and half wrecked, one arm hanging dead, chest torn wide, its right leg barely holding weight. A handful of players trailed it, closing in but not fast enough.

Already pushed to the edge of death. And its blank head turned straight toward him.

"MADHASH!"

He let out a breath and raised the dagger. It charged. Salma stepped up beside him, ready to move.

He caught her shoulder. She glanced back.

"Not going to fight this one."

She held his eyes. "If you kill it, Collective Evolution triggers."

He reminded her about the quest instead of answering directly.

She sighed, dry. "Right. The one who wrote the rules is the one who can’t follow them."

The Giant kept coming. He raised the dagger again.

Then....

BOOM!

Noah landed beside him. "Need a hand?"

"How much did you hear?"

"Enough." Noah rolled his neck once. "You need the kill."

"I need the last hit specifically."

He grinned through the blood on his face. "Then I’ll soften it up first."

It roared, and Noah charged straight into it.

BOOOOOOM!

The street shook under the collision. His fist found the already-ruined knee.

CRACK!

It stumbled, an arm swinging blind. Noah ducked under it.

Damien ran in low, dagger cutting through the already-damaged tendon behind its knee. It dropped onto one knee.

He jumped back clear. Noah pressed in again, every strike landing exactly on old damage. Then a massive hand closed around his torso mid-swing.

"NOAH!"

He grinned through it. "Got you."

Damien blinked, not sure what he’d just watched. The Giant’s blank head tilted, and Noah grabbed one of its fingers and wrenched it sideways.

CRACK!

The grip broke. He dropped free. "NOW!"

Damien ran. It turned, chest already splitting open. "Night..."

Noah’s fist caught its jaw first.

BANG!

"Less talking."

It staggered, health bleeding out fast now, low enough that he could feel it without checking a window. This was the moment. His grip tightened around the dagger.

➤[Skill Activated: Shadow Dash]

Darkness tore open under his feet, and the world slowed to nothing. Smoke hung motionless in the air. Concrete fragments hovered mid-fall. Noah’s torn coat barely rippled. The Giant had only just started turning.

Too slow. He was already gone, a black streak cutting across the frozen street, reappearing right behind its exposed neck.

The dagger was already moving in one clean line.

SHNK!

He landed, and a half-second later the Giant’s massive head slid free of its shoulders.

THOOM!

The body dropped where it stood.