Chapter 134: The Giant's Maw
Elian Throne stood at the edge of the giant camp, the scene before him imprinting itself with primal, terrifying clarity. It was not the size alone—though the scale was breath-stealing, with figures like moving hills—but the raw, brutal presence of them. A dozen giants lay sprawled in the frost-scorched clearing, their snores like distant rockslides. The air was thick with a stench of old blood, rotting meat, and unwashed hide, so potent it coated the back of Elian's throat.
Around the perimeter lay the remains of their feasts: enormous, gnawed bones, some still trailing ribbons of flesh, belonging to creatures Elian couldn't name. The ground was churned to mud and frozen gore.
Hagrid, for all his half-giant blood, looked small and vulnerable. His face was pale beneath his wild beard. "Elian," he whispered, his voice taut. "The chief's in the centre. We need to be… diplomatic. Let me do the talkin'. If anythin' goes wrong, you run. Don't try to be a hero. Just run back the way we came."
Elian said nothing. His senses, honed by the Supreme Mage System and his Kama-Taj training, were stretched taut. He could feel the sluggish, powerful magic in the earth, the dormant rage in each sleeping behemoth. This was not a place for diplomacy. This was a lair of titans.
"Follow me," Hagrid breathed, and began to pick his way with exaggerated care between the mountainous, slumbering forms. He moved with a reverence born of fear and a strange, desperate kinship. He stopped before two colossal male giants forming a living gateway to the inner camp. One of them, its skin like grey granite, had a foot larger than Hagrid's entire torso.
Hagrid picked up a fallen branch as thick as a man's leg. He glanced back at Elian, a look of pure anxiety on his face, then gently prodded the giant's massive heel.
The giant snorted, a sound like a blast furnace, and rolled onto its side, the ground trembling. Hagrid jumped back, then sighed in relief when it didn't wake.
"Sleepin' heavy," he muttered to Elian, forcing a weak grin. "Hard to rouse."
He tried again, with more force. The giant grumbled but remained asleep. Hagrid's patience, frayed by terror, snapped. He adjusted his grip on the branch and gave a sharp, targeted jab.
The effect was immediate.
The giant's eyes flew open—small, deep-set, and blazing with instant, stupid rage. It let out a roar that shattered the mountain silence, a physical wave of sound and foul breath that flattened the grass and made Hagrid's coat flap wildly.
"ROOOOARRGGH!"
The roar echoed through the valley, triggering a chain reaction. All around the clearing, other giants stirred, bellowing in confused response. The camp exploded into a cacophony of bestial noise.
The offended giant surged to its feet, a living cliff of muscle and scar tissue, towering over them. It glared down, its tiny eyes scanning for the source of its discomfort.
"Hey! Big fella! Down here!" Hagrid shouted, waving his arms frantically. "It's me! Rubeus Hagrid! I was here with Madame Maxime! Brought gifts for your chief! Remember?"
The giant's gaze lowered. It seemed to squint. A flicker of vague recognition might have passed over its brutish features, but then its eyes slid past Hagrid and locked onto Elian.
A different kind of interest lit its face—a simple, hungry curiosity. A long strand of saliva dripped from its gaping mouth, splattering on the ground between them. It completely ignored Hagrid now, one colossal hand descending, fingers like stone pillars, to snatch up the small, tasty-looking morsel.
"NO!" Hagrid bellowed, throwing himself in front of Elian. "You great lump! He's with me! Don't you—!"
The giant backhanded Hagrid aside without a second glance. Hagrid flew through the air with a yelp, landing in a heap several yards away.
The hand closed in, blocking out the grey sky.
Elian didn't move. He didn't run. He watched the approaching shadow with a calm that was absolute.
At the centre of the camp, the largest giant of all—Korg, the chieftain—rose to his full, terrifying height. He was a full ten meters tall, his body a tapestry of old wounds and tribal scars. His roar of inquiry drowned out the others, a command for silence and order.
The camp quieted, all eyes turning to their leader. The giant reaching for Elian paused, looking towards its chief for instruction.
Korg scanned the disturbance, his gaze landing on the tiny human figure standing unfazed before one of his warriors. He opened his mouth, perhaps to issue an order, to demand the human be brought before him, or simply to roar again.
He never got the chance.
Elian moved.
It was not a spell with a incantation. It was a thought given form. The golden Rings of Raggador on his hands blazed to life. He didn't raise a wand. He simply lifted his right hand, fingers splayed, towards the giant whose hand was still poised to grab him.
A disc of pure, compressed mystic energy, shimmering with golden geometric patterns, shot from his palm. It was silent. It was clean. It was faster than the eye could follow.
It passed through the giant's wrist as if through smoke.
For a heartbeat, nothing happened. The giant stared at its own hand, confused.
Then the hand, severed cleanly, thudded to the earth. A geyser of dark blood erupted from the stump.
The giant's roar of shock and agony was cut short.
Elian's left hand swept upward in a graceful, dismissive arc. A second, larger disc of energy, razor-edged and humming with power, materialized and shot skyward in a blur.
It connected with the giant's neck.
The roar died in the giant's throat. The massive head, its expression frozen in a mask of stupid surprise, tilted. Then it slid from its shoulders and plummeted downwards.
Elian didn't watch it fall. He was already turning, his cloak billowing around him, his eyes fixed on the giant chieftain at the heart of the camp.
The decapitated giant's body swayed for a moment, then collapsed forward like a felled oak, shaking the valley floor. Its head, a boulder of flesh and bone, hit the ground with a sickening, wet crunch and rolled once, twice, coming to a stop directly at the feet of the astonished Chief Korg.
A silence more profound than any roar fell over the Giant's Maw.
Every giant stood frozen, staring at the head of their fallen tribesman, then at the small, cloaked figure who stood amidst the spreading pool of blood, golden light wreathing his hands.
Hagrid, pushing himself up from the ground, wiped mud and blood from his face. His eyes were wide with horror, with disbelief, and with a dawning, terrible understanding. This was not diplomacy. This was a declaration of war. A coronation by carnage.
Elian Throne took a single step forward, his voice cutting through the frozen silence, calm and clear and carrying to every giant ear.
"I am here for your chief."
(End of Chapter)
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