Chapter 325: Conquering the Giant Tribe!
"You are asking to die!"
The roar of fury blasted into the night, rolling across the cliff like thunder.
Golgomath's eyes looked ready to spit flame. His chest heaved so violently it seemed to glow red, like a small furnace on the verge of bursting, as though Ethan had provoked something ancient in his blood.
"Honestly, that is so Ethan."
Luna's dreamy voice drifted up from behind Hagrid.
Hagrid jumped, nearly out of his skin, and twisted around to stare at the girl who had appeared in the storm like a ghost. On her pale face was an unmistakable look of longing as she murmured, "He can really get along with anyone. Such an inclusive person."
Hagrid just stared at her.
Get along with anyone.
She meant physically "get along", did she?
Merlin help him. What on earth had Ethan been putting into the heads of his younger schoolmates?
While Hagrid was still reeling, Golgomath spun round. He wrapped both arms around a boulder nearly ten metres tall.
Muscles bulged. Veins stood out like ropes.
With a guttural bellow, he wrenched.
The rock, impossibly heavy, rose inch by inch out of the ground. Its lower half tore up mud and grass, leaving behind a crater big enough to fit a grown man curled inside.
"Ooooh!"
The giants, worshippers of brute strength to the bone, erupted into howls at the sight of their leader's power. They bounced and stamped in excitement, shouting things like "Smash the little runt!" and "Kill him!" and various less printable praises of their chief.
Golgomath's sweat-soaked face split into a smug, delighted grin.
"Farewell, you fool of a wizard who doesn't know his place," he rumbled down at Ethan.
Then, with a sharp exhale and a full-body heave, he hurled the boulder straight at him.
"Ethan!" Hagrid shouted, panic slicing through his voice.
He lifted a foot to charge forward, but Luna stopped him.
Frowning, she scolded him as if he were the unreasonable one. "Are you trying to ruin Ethan's fun? It's the summer holidays. Let him cut loose a little."
Hagrid blinked at her.
Fun?
Wrestling with giants was fun now?
And since when did Ethan need encouragement to "cut loose"? If he cut loose any further, the wizarding world would be invaded by a giant squid and some enormous red skeleton thing.
In the time it took Hagrid to have that thought, the boulder hit.
Boom!
It slammed into the spot where Ethan had been standing. The impact made the earth shudder, and dust exploded outward like a breached dam, swallowing everything in a choking cloud.
"No, Ethan!"
Hagrid let out a heartbroken bellow and dropped to his knees with a thud. He folded forward, wailing, "No, the wizarding world is saved, no wait, the wizarding world is doomed!"
"Ethan, you are not the sort that pops out of a crack in a rock!"
Golgomath stared.
Before asking for the giants' cooperation, perhaps humans ought to have their heads examined.
They waited, tense, for what felt like ages.
Nothing moved beneath the boulder.
Golgomath finally exhaled.
Of course. Even a wizard could not possibly withstand something that heavy. The little bug had to be dead. Victory belonged to the giants.
He threw his arms wide and roared at his tribe, "Nothing can stop our march!"
"We will reclaim our ancestors' glory and crush those weak wizards with absolute strength!"
"The giant tribe is the strongest existence in the world!"
The words echoed, louder and louder, bouncing between the cliffs.
Torches flared and snapped in the wind.
And yet, no cheers answered him.
Only a few hollow caws from the forest, like carrion birds laughing at the speech.
Golgomath paused.
"...What, are you all deaf?" he snarled, humiliated. "Where is your pride as giants?"
What he saw, when he looked out, was a line of faces frozen in terror.
One giant lifted a trembling hand and pointed behind him. "C, Chief… behind you…"
Before the last word even finished falling, something closed over Golgomath's skull with a soft, final sound.
Clack.
An iron claw.
A rough, heavy breath washed over the back of his neck.
Golgomath's heart missed a beat.
He was supposed to be the apex predator of these mountains.
And yet, in that moment, he felt like a rabbit with a lion's shadow falling across it.
A fear he could not name seeped straight into his bones.
What… what is happening?
He swallowed hard, throat bobbing, and forced himself to look back.
His gaze rose.
And rose.
His body locked in place.
A roar tore through the heavens, powerful enough to make every living thing in the mountains quake.
Black, bony wings unfurled, and in an instant, they blotted out the night sky.
Two blood-red eyes, like floating coals, burned in the darkness, cold and indifferent as they looked down on the world below.
It was the look you gave a bug at the side of the road.
The ruler of the world.
A dragon.
Golgomath began to shake. A meaningless rasp leaked from his throat. His face went the colour of ash.
The iron claw tightened on his head, biting deeper. Warm blood trickled down from his scalp.
All his earlier rage scattered like grit in a hard wind.
In its place came a trembling that reached all the way into his bones.
That night, the giants finally remembered.
Long ago, they had lived in fear of dragons.
They had no claws that could tear through steel, no breath that could melt stone.
They did not even have the restless, unyielding cleverness of humans.
The truth was simple. The giants had never been the masters of this world. Not then, not now.
"I did tell you."
Ethan's clear voice drifted down from above.
He floated in mid-air like a figure from a storybook, robes billowing. A tall top hat sat neatly on his head, and in his hand was a gold-tipped cane. A faint smile curved his mouth, elegant and regal, as though he were a king presiding over a court.
His diamond-blue eyes swept over the giants as he said calmly, "When I'm simply using magic, you should kneel and beg for mercy early."
Because if I start making art of it, it stops being a question of dying.
It becomes a question of how long it takes.
In the dead silence, a giant elder stepped forward, facing the wizard who could command an ancient dragon.
He dropped to his knees.
Thump.
"There's no chance," the elder murmured, and let out a long, tired sigh.
Then, one after another, the giants began to kneel.
First the elders, then the younger giants, their faces grey with defeat.
A few stubborn ones were simply clubbed unconscious and made to "kneel" the hard way.
Within minutes, the entire cliffside was a sea of bowed backs.
The sharp ridges of their spines stood out starkly, proof enough that there truly was little to eat in these harsh mountains.
Hagrid stared at it all, stunned.
Only now, far from Hogwarts, far from the castle where Ethan's presence had become almost normal through sheer exposure, could Hagrid truly see it.
Out here, in the wider world, Ethan was not merely powerful.
He was terrifying.
Still… thank Merlin, deep down, he was a good kid.
Hagrid found himself letting out a dazed, foolish chuckle.
Every giant had submitted to Ethan's absolute power.
Well.
Every giant except one.
"No, you can't kneel!" Golgomath, the deputy who had won by ambush, shouted, shaking with rage and despair as he glared at his tribe. Bloodshot threads crawled through his eyes. "You idiots!"
He spat as he spoke. He did not dare scream at Ethan, so he turned his fury on his own people instead.
"If we unite, they're only a bunch of fragile wizards! I'm doing this for you, I…"
He never finished.
A scream ripped out of him, sharp and miserable, accompanied by a crack that made the giants flinch.
Golgomath's eyes rolled back. His body went limp and dropped from the dragon's claw.
He hit the ground hard, blood spreading as he convulsed in agony.
Ethan looked down at him. There was pity in his voice, and something utterly cold beneath it.
"The foolish one is you."
"If you'd led them down the mountain, you'd have met a version of me who was truly your enemy."
And then it would not have been about gathering inspiration for paintings.
It would have been about painting the giants themselves.
All of them.
Ethan's gaze went distant for a moment, considering, and a hungry little smile touched his mouth.
"Hm. 'Hell in a Pot' is a rather good theme."
He licked his lips, then looked at the giants with their foreheads pressed to the ground, swearing fealty.
And, to their horror, he sighed in disappointment.
The giants trembled, eyes wet, hearts in their throats.
How is a human more frightening than a demon?
Is this what the wizarding world is like now?
It's not just dangerous. It's downright hellish.
They wanted to cry.
All they could do was shake.