Chapter 362: Red vs Blue
"Choose? Choose what? Who we kill? But we don’t know anything about these guys, how are we meant to make a rational and informed decision?!" Figg barked, before yelping in fear and leaping to the side just in time to avoid a massive chunk of debris that crushed the ground where he had been standing.
As if hearing his words, the system responded again.
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[You must choose a side, or a choice will be made for you.]
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"Saige... What are we going with?" Belladonna shouted over her shoulder, as her eyes tracked the pair of giants that were fighting amongst each other. Each swing of their blades could topple skyscrapers, yet was easily stopped by the thick wall of the colossal chamber.
Saige was doing the same, his eyes scanning them with a meticulous and calculating mind, before he finally gave his answer.
"Blue. We side with Blue and fight Red."
"Blue? Why Blue? Shouldn’t we kill him?" Lilith couldn’t help but ask, as she manifested her armour and shield and batted away another chunk of the wall that flew towards them.
"It’s simple," Saige explained, "Blue was supposed to be the original boss I bet. It makes sense with the change and the set up. But we brought the axe, which brought back Red. If we side with Red, we are basically doing the intended boss fight but on easy mode.
If we side with Blue, we are doing something completely new. Besides, if we want that axe now that it’s complete, and we really do after all the shit we went through, then we need to take it out of his cold, dead hands. Because there is no way in Hell, literally, that he would give it up to us if he was alive."
"Good enough for me!" Belladonna grinned, as she dropped to all fours like a feral animal. She stirred up her mana, churning it through her berserker runes and activating her rush mode. Lightning crackled across her body as she activated a Lightning Infusion, only to be surprised when her armour did the same.
The slime that was her armour copied her infusion, filling its own body with the same lightning infused mana, which fed back into Belladonna’s system through their symbiosis.
Her lightning infusion nearly doubled in its potential, causing her eyes to glow and lightning to arc from her body and strike the ground.
With an additional little burst of mana to her legs, Belladonna vanished into a blur, throwing up chunks of the flooring from her launch and leaving the rest of the party in her dust.
Saige couldn’t help but sigh, wiping some of the dust from his face before he shook his head.
"I hate it when she does that. Figg, we could use some transportation."
The Druid nodded, his body transforming into a bundle of roots that started to weave themselves together into a suitable beast to carry them all. It was far too big of a room to run across normally.
Belladonna, lost in her own world, rocketed across the massive floor and headed straight towards the fighting giants. All of their movements seemed slow from her perspective, but that was simply because their huge bodies were crossing such a large space, that it just seemed slow.
To them, she was like a fly. An insect buzzing about their feet at insane speeds that they couldn’t hope to keep up with. Although perhaps a wasp would be better than a fly, because she definitely had a sting.
Weaving between their feet, and even darting under one of their falling footsteps for what felt like an entire minute, Belladonna bounced off of air platforms to get some air before launching herself at the back of the Red Giant’s knee.
With an extra boost of her rocket feet, she slammed her fist into the back of its knee. Her armour wobbled, absorbing some of the blow and dispersing it evenly, allowing her to go without breaking her hand and allowing her to deliver one of her most devastating punches yet.
A punch that was just enough to make the giant’s knee buckle forwards and send it down to one knee. The impact of its knee hitting the ground was like an earthquake, rumbling the earth and shattering the stone.
But more than that, it gave the Blue Demon a moment of advantage.
It swung its massive greatsword towards the demons lowered head, but Red leaned his head out of the way just in time so that the sword only cleaved through one of the tips of his horns.
The horn tip, which was as big as a house, crashed to the ground as Red roared in anguish and rage. He slammed the butt of his axe into Blue’s stomach, causing the Ice Giant to hunch over in pain before Red swung his axe up as he rose to his feet.
Blue leaned out of the way, not letting his horns suffer the same fate as well as keeping his face from being cleaved in two, before the two started to clash weapons again. All the while, a little gnat was crawling up Red’s back.
Traversing the field of fur, which had grown with the Red skinned Giant, was like dragging herself through a pure white forest. But that actually made it much easier to climb.
Bouncing between hair strands, each one the size of a tree trunk, Belladonna rapidly ascended up the crimson Titan until she reached the nape of its neck.
Manifesting her [Shade Claw] Belladonna started to hack into the wall of crimson meat in front of her. It was impossible to miss, anywhere she slashed she would hit something, as she rapidly tunnelled into his skin like a truly unnatural mole.
Having something burrowing into your skin, even if it was tiny by comparison, definitely did not feel good. Red tried to ignore it as much as he could, focusing on the main threat in front of him, but when she found a nerve ending and dedicated herself to slashing that into ribbons, he finally let out another hellish roar.
Slamming his fist into his enemy, Red backed away and gave himself some room as he started to claw desperately at his neck with his free hand. His fingernails scraping against the skin, as he was only just able to feel the tiny hole that Belladonna had burrowed into him.
But his fingers were far too big to get her out, as she was smaller than an ingrown hair, and even more annoying.
His annoyance only got worse when the rest of the party finally arrived aboard their valiant steed, who quickly turned back to his human form.
Hundreds of vines burst from seeds that Figg quickly spread, before they bound themselves together and combined their strength. The individual vines acted like strands of a rope as they wove together and lashed around the arm and leg of the Red Giant.
He roared, straining against the power of the natural ropes, as bolts of lightning kept crashing into his face.
They struck him like static shocks, irritating more than damaging, but they didn’t stop coming. Vestra kept her wand held high with the same mindset as Belladonna. At his size, it was impossible to miss.
Bolt after bolt of lightning leapt from her wand, and although they lost their power the further they flew, she made up for it with numbers. A number she increased exponentially with a little illusion.
The pricking and shocking feeling each lightning bolt gave him, she amplified it and multiplied it, spreading it all over his entire body until every inch of his skin felt like it was on fire. Diving buck naked into a nest of bullet ants, whilst your body was smeared in honey and jam, would have felt better than this.
Constant pain assaulted him, causing him the wriggle and scratch constantly, or at least try as the vines kept his free arm in place.
The Blue Giant frowned as he looked over the strange scenario. His most hated and feared opponent, the conquerer of kingdoms and he who could cleave entire realms in two, was dancing and wriggling in his bindings like he had to desperately go to the bathroom.
Most of all, it seems that whilst Red’s senses were being overwhelmed and relentlessly barraged by Vestra, that he had forgotten the source of his original pain.
A source that had left his neck, and that Blue could see as a small black dot crawling up Red’s cheek.
Both of the Giant’s paled in horror as Belladonna poked her head up into Red’s field of view. Her head appeared in his sight like a small, stray eyelash. Yet even still, he could tell what it was and it seemed both of them could tell what the twisted, sadistic smile on her face meant.
Before he could close his eye, Belladonna burst forwards. Her body crackling with lightning, as she dove straight into the gooey, pitch black abyss that was the giant Demon’s eye and started to half-dig, half-swim her way to the source.
It was said that on that day, everyone outside of the dungeon heard the screams of the great Demon King.