The Giant's hand came down like a falling continent. I had a heartbeat—maybe less—before I was nothing but paste on a floating slab.
Circulating my qi I coiled my legs and used the "Serpent Mirage step!" The impact hit the boulder I'd just vacated. The slab didn't just crack—it atomized into a cloud of stone dust and spinning shards, the shockwave slamming me sideways into another orbiting chunk. Before I could reorient, a cloud of howling black flame skulls tore past my right flank and detonated straight into the Giant's palm. The colossus staggered. I didn't even need to turn to know who had just entered the battlefield.
Vaylan Duskspire stood balanced on a drifting stone shard a hundred paces away, his cloak snapping in the warped gravity, family mace in hand.
In his right hand was the shrunken head mace that vomited up black flaming skulls that howled and wailed as they chased down a target, and in his left has was a long shadow claw gauntlet like weapon.
"You don't get to die here, Sovereign-Slayer," he called, his voice carrying like a bell through the valley's chaos.
"I still owe you a loss of my own making."
The Giant screamed, a storm of mountain-sized fists blotting out the sky. Each strike dragged cyclones in its wake, the air itself turning molten from sheer force.
"Try not to get crushed," Vaylan's voice echoed—calm, mocking—from somewhere above the chaos.
"Not planning to!" I roared back, qi igniting in my arms.
I drew deep, dragging every spark of my core into my fists until they burned like stars. My skin cracked with light.
"Meteor Fists!"
I dropped from my floating stone like a falling thunderbolt.
Each punch met an arm, and each impact exploded into a miniature sunrise—stone fists vaporizing under my blows. The Giant reeled, bellowing, as the air around us rippled with superheated pressure.
But there were still dozens more arms, weaving through the debris, reaching for me like a living forest of muscle and ruin.
Vaylan raised his Shrunken Head Mace. The grotesque head at its crown wailed—then vomited a storm of black flaming skulls. They tore free, dozens at first, then hundreds, each leaving trails of shadowfire.
"Mourn, and burn!" Vaylan intoned.
The skulls shrieked through the void, weaving between the Giant's arms to detonate along its torso and shoulders. Black fire erupted in cascading bursts—each explosion like a collapsing star, devouring light itself.
The monster's flesh bubbled and peeled away, its scream turning into a guttural quake that shook the entire floating valley.
"Keep your pace, Sovereign-Slayer!" Vaylan called, pivoting on his shard of rock. With a sweeping arc of his mace, he sent another storm of skulls spiraling outward. His left hand traced runes midair, the Shadowclaw Gauntlet amplifying the detonations—each skull burst leaving behind dark sigils that drained the Giant's vitality.
I drove in again.
"Second Form—Falling Constellation!"
I vanished in a blur of flaming trails, reappearing above the creature's crown, my fists wrapped in meteor fire. The blows came down in relentless rhythm—thousands of strikes in heartbeats. Each impact dug deeper, driving through layers of stone and bone until cracks of radiant light webbed across the colossus's skull.
Vaylan's shadows surged upward to meet me—skulls detonating in harmony with my strikes.
Black flame and golden qi collided, weaving together like two divine tempests entwined in destruction.
The Hundred-Arm Giant staggered. Its upper body crumbled, its thousand eyes flickering out one by one.
When the final blast hit, the beast's core shattered like glass—its remains scattering into a golden dust storm that drifted into the void.
Silence followed. Only the hiss of fading embers and the echo of our breathing.
I landed hard on a drifting boulder, smoke curling from my fists.
Vaylan floated down opposite me, shadows folding neatly around him, cloak pristine despite the carnage.
He tilted his head, faint smile visible beneath his hood.
"You burn bright, Ash of Iron Fang," he said. "But brightness fades."
I cracked my knuckles, grinning. "Then I'll just have to keep lighting new fires."
The Giant's roar faded into silence. Its vast carcass began to dissolve, veins of molten gold racing through its body before bursting outward in a radiant shockwave. The explosion wasn't destructive—it was beautiful, a blooming star tearing itself apart.
From the center of the corpse, a pillar of light erupted, gold threaded with hints of violet. It lanced into the heavens, splitting the clouds and shaking the entire Little World.
Vaylan straightened, cloak whipping around him. "An Inheritance Beacon," he murmured. "The Will of the Continent has taken notice."
I could feel it too—something vast and ancient stirring within that light. The air around us thickened, vibrating with spiritual resonance. Then, from the heart of the beacon, a swarm of glowing jade-gold tokens broke free. They moved like a living constellation, orbiting the light in perfect spirals before descending in twin streams—one toward me, one toward him.
"Fifty each," Vaylan said, his tone almost reverent. "A worthy prize."
The tokens struck my aura like a rain of meteors, merging with the glowing cloud already circling above my shoulder. My previous thirty-six orbs pulsed, greeted the newcomers, and together they fused into a single roaring storm of light—eighty-six tokens strong. The air crackled, the golden radiance swirling around me like miniature suns.
Across the void, Vaylan's own share circled him in perfect order, forming a corona of shadow fire-rimmed tokens—beautiful, ominous, deliberate.
The beacon dimmed, its duty fulfilled, leaving only trails of residual qi curling through the air.
For a long breath, the two of us stood amid the drifting dust and fading echoes of the Giant's death.
"Seems the heavens favor us both," Vaylan said softly.
I smirked. "Then they'd better brace for disappointment."
The wind shifted, carrying the faint hum of distant combat from deeper within the Little World. Above us, other Beacons flickered like newborn stars, marking where new prodigies fought, killed, and were judged worthy.
The hunt wasn't over. It had only just begun.