Giant Kobold

--- Dred ---

“We should get out of here and take this monster to our enemies. I wonder how the united army would fare while being attacked by this giant,” I said before throwing Elena into the air.

I turned into my Wyvern form and when I felt her land on my back, I bolted off towards the Dragon Empire. My scales were missing at many places and I didn’t have my front legs in my current form, but that was much expected after a battle against Padinyss.

The giant kobold swung its arm towards us and tried to catch us, but thanks to Elena watching out, I avoided its hand.

“Fly higher up,” she said.

When I raised to the height of clouds, a giant hole came in sight in place of the small island with millions of kobolds all around it.

“They don’t seem to be running out of people,” I remarked, seeing that the kobolds were still rushing out of the hole.

“What did they even eat?”

“Probably each other,” I replied. “But my question would be more about how the hell did this thing survive beneath the ground. Sure, the planet is large, but this is getting ridiculous.”

“I don’t know, it can probably change its size,” Elena said.

“Hmm? But then it should be a rather high-ranked monster. Inspect.”

Race: Giant Kobold

Rarity: Epic

Level: 599

Threat Level: 10

“Fancy… though the threat level should be lower once our arms regrow, we’ll need time,” I felt like coughing blood upon seeing it.

“We’ve just got rid of Padinyss now this thing turns up and might be stronger than him,” she shook her head.

“Elena, look at the bright side. The Abyss won’t kill us anymore and we can do as we want from now on!” I tried to cheer her up.

Seeing that the giant kobold was being left behind, I calmed down. Although its strength was probably way beyond ours, its speed was way beneath mine. Elena laid down on my back and hugged my neck, “We could enjoy our lives a bit more in that case. Once we finish with this place, let’s visit a nice place together and take it easy.”

“Shall we visit a beach and sunbathe?” I asked.

“Sounds good.”

“Alright, but let’s take care of this mess at first,” I sighed and then sped up. Elena started shooting giant balls of flame towards the kobold to catch its attention and make it follow us while I tried to contact Audrey and the others.

Unfortunately, I was still too far away from them and could do so only a good five minutes of flight later. Once I got in range, I told Elena and she used whisperings to make a connection.

“Audrey, can you hear me?” I asked.

“Yes, are you two alright?”

“I wouldn’t say that, but we’re going to stay. What’s more important, are you outside?”

“No, we’ve just finished cleaning up the palace and I’m standing in front of Khax. Jake and Cor are alright. Shin is in the form of an eagle, keeping close to Cor.”

“I’m happy to hear that,” I replied and then added, “Come out in that case. Hurry up.”

“A moment.”

A few seconds later, I heard her shout, “What the fuck is that thing?”

“We’re bringing the party. Command the dark scars and the undead to retreat. We’ll leave this biggie to the union. If they bothered to gather in one place for our sake, they might as well take care of this thing.”

“You’re so cruel, I like this idea!” she replied.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

“Please, do.”

“She seemed to be in a good mood. Do you think something good happened over there?” Elena said, her hand on her chin.

“Maybe it’s something about Inhe. You should remember her bloodlust when she heard of what she did.”

“Mhm, that’d make sense. Let me shoot a quickie,” Elena turned around and shot another fireball. Our best hope was that this monster was stupid when it came to magic and we could simply nuke it with one of Audrey’s super destructive spells, but only after it dealt with the united army.

“Get ready, the party is here,” I warned Audrey.

“I can see that… it’d be hard to miss. But it’s going to be a bit hard to withdraw since we’re surrounded.”

“Can’t you break out?”

“They keep cancelling my spells and although Jake can fight, he isn’t in a good shape and he can’t kill as many people as me in one go either. The dark scars are also struggling to keep up with the onslaught of spells and avoid weapons at the same time,” she replied.

As we got closer, I understood her problem. There were millions of people encircling them and although the undead were blocking most of them, there were still at least ten people on everyone.

“Elena, you think you could do something about it?” I asked, seeing that we were getting closer and closer.

She shot another fireball and then turned forwards, “Well, I could use hivemind to block the people nearby for a moment, but that wouldn’t be too much of a help, would it? And I can’t use it quick enough to let you advance on the run.”

“No! It’s perfect! We can fly out of here if you block these people, though we’ll have to watch our back.”

“Unless we time it perfectly, can you hold out a bit longer?” a mischievous smile formed on Elena’s face.

“I’m already feeling bad for these people,” I shook my head.

“What? They should have never followed their kings and then they’d live. Look at it, their kings aren’t even here. Once this is done, I’ll make sure to take care of all of them.”

“And what about Ekrok? Do you want to keep him?”

“It’d be too much of a bother. Once he found out the truth about A.. Ata? What was her name again? Whatever. He’d definitely realise the truth and then I’d have to kill him. I plan to give his corpse to Cor, it should upgrade him quite a bit,” she winked at me. Turning my head back to the city, I found a good spot. There were neither undead nor allies, only enemies!

I spat a large fireball towards the people on the ground and landed right in the middle of the burning chaos. Our shadows spread out carrying our own bacteria or parasites, you could say, and got into our opponents’ bodies. There were elves, beastmen, humans, and all kinds of mixed races, but neither of them was able to resist our devouring ability.

Unlike Padinyss, it took but a few seconds for them to rot and die, even though we weren’t even focusing on the same person. Yet Padinyss held out for so long and even freed us of a few of our limbs. If not for being two on one, we would have lost our lives for sure.

“Well, you can’t expect them to have the same kind of magical resistance as Padinyss,” Elena thought. “Hell, their levels are lower than ours.”

“You two are just unfair, that’s all. Even though we’re at the same level,” Audrey pouted, seeing one person die after the other.

“Hey, now, we might be able to break out if this goes on. Let’s team up!”

“Elena, I don’t think we have the time for that. Look up and say it again,” Audrey replied.

I followed her directions as well and found the giant kobold glaring at the ‘ants’ we were. The united army stopped attacking as well and looked up at the giant creature in fear and marvel.

“Everyone, use your shadow forms and let’s leave,” I commanded everyone while I also withdrew Ekrok’s memories and stored his corpse in my storage ring. He was like a puppet in his current form. We disappeared without a trace and left the capital city behind in no time.

I stopped only for a moment to look back only to see the giant kobold pummeling the capital city with its fist. All kinds of colourful spells flew towards it, but they didn’t seem to bother the giant in particular. There were a few magicians who used the Drip Element which did damage the giant, but thanks to its huge body, the explosions only left ‘scratches’ on its skin.

“Master, please hurry up, we must leave with haste,” Urnoth stayed behind to urge us.

“Haha, why are you worried about us? This thing can’t catch us, but I wanted to see what it was capable of. We’ll have to kill it soon, after all. If we didn’t then all we’ve done would be for naught, don’t you think?” I asked as I changed into my demon form. It was better to run like this since my arms were missing…

“Of course, now please hurry up,” he urged us again. Rolling her eyes, Elena ran past us and left us behind. After taking one last look at the giant, I also ran off, knowing that the real shitstorm was only just beginning. But if we could devour Padinyss’s body, then we could take care of our opponents much easier.

The undead probably retreated underground like the way they came, so we didn’t have to worry about them either, though they’ve surely lost quite a lot of their own. But considering the number of undead, it was of little importance on the grand scale of things.

---

We travelled for two days and a half until we reached the first kingdom we cleaned up, Thivalon. The mana density raised significantly compared to when we first appeared here now that Padinyss wasn’t drawing all the mana to his country. Two days were enough for the planet to restabilize without the rings of calamities.

Although it was a bit sad that I couldn’t control mana on a global level the way I did before, it was for the best. Now everyone had equal chances on the planet, not considering their background and own talent, of course. We’ve visited this from time to time in this last year and most people knew us. Whether they didn’t want to or didn’t dare to sell us out was still a question to me, but I didn’t care much about it.

They knew that we wouldn’t touch them and now that Padinyss was dead, they have even fewer reasons to turn against us.

“Look, it’s the devourers.”

“Yeah, but what happened to them? They seem to be in a bad shape.”

“Yeah, they’re covered in blood, should we help them?”

“But how could you help them? Can you regrow limbs?”

Similar whispers reached my ears as we moved towards our destination, the Sand Fox Inn. It was a cosy little place, so we preferred staying in that Inn. Elena opened the door for me and let me in.

“Ah, the Lord is here!” the innkeeper girl shouted in surprise and then covered her mouth. “Miss Elena as well?” she gasped upon noticing her.

“We killed that stupid dragon, but we need to rest a bit since we have other matters to attend to. Do you have a few free rooms where we could lie down?” Elena asked.

“Amazing! Miss managed to take down a legendary creature?!”

“What’s with her? And why are we ‘lord’ and ‘master’? Last time we had no such titles,” Elena asked me through whisperings.

“How should I know? But this girl is new in the Inn as well. Maybe she’s your fan.”

“She could be yours as well. She called you ‘lord’,” Elena smiled at me.

“What? Jealous? Even though you’re her ‘master’?”

Clearing her throat, she ignored me, “Whatever, so could you take care of it?”

“Of course, I’d throw out the others if Master wanted it!”

“No need to do something like that, also, you seem to be new at this Inn?” Elena raised her brows.

“Yes, I’ve decided to work here after hearing that you stayed here when you visited the country. I’ve always wanted to meet you!” the girl grabbed Elena’s hand and looked into her eyes.

“Eh? Sure. But why did you want to meet us?” I asked confused while Elena looked at the girl with some suspicion.

“Hehe, that’s because” - she stopped for a moment and everything turned grey. The world lost its colours which meant only one thing.

“The Abyss? What do you want from us?” Elena sighed.

“We’ve taken care of both the seal and Padinyss, so you should leave us be,” I added.

The girl turned into a whirling black hole, filled with nothing but stars and galaxies. It soon took up the form of a human born of shadows. “Are you not happy to see me?”

“I couldn’t say so, Father~” Elena replied.

“What?” both I and the Abyss looked at her in confusion.

“What, you ask. We, legendary creatures, crawl out of eggs. But those eggs must come from somewhere and I’ll accuse this thing as my father!” she pointed at the Abyss.

It slapped its own forehead and sighed, “Well, it’s true that I create your kind, but I’m no father of yours. I’d have to get A” - he stopped talking for a moment - “anyway, I’d have to get my wife pregnant for that.”

“Oh? You have someone like that? Why don’t you show your true form then, father? Could it be you’re afraid to?” Elena smiled at the Abyss.

Waving its hand, the Abyss said, “Provoking isn’t going to work. I’m always around, but you’ll never be able to sense and find me unless I want you, like now.”

“I know that much,” she muttered. “Thanks for giving us a time limit,” she added.

“What? I just threatened your lives, that’s all,” the Abyss shrugged as if it was none of its concern.

“Yeah? Even though if not for you, I’d have let Padinyss leave and then he’d have destroyed the planet along with us. I didn’t understand why did he want to release our friends, but after thinking about it, I realised he had an option like that. Your time limit to kill each other prevented both sides from escaping, though we were in a bit of a hurry thanks to it,” Elena explained herself.

“Hmm- I never thought about it like that,” I remarked.

“I’ve realised this on the way here as well. The Abyss actually helped us.”

“You do realise that I can hear your thoughts crystal clear, right?” it made an amused face as its eyes darted back and forth between the two of us.

“And? Why are you here now, father?” I replied, playing along with Elena.

“...Who said I was a man?”

“You’ve said you had a wife not long ago?” I raised my brows.

“...”

“Whatever, I’ll just ignore it. I like you two, but I’m still not your father, you don’t have parents, after all,” it sighed. It made a thoughtful face as it muttered, “Maybe I should stop using eggs and make these creatures out of simple humanoids? Hehe, that could be fun.”

“Wait! Don’t do that…” Elena raised her remaining hand.

“Why? Then the next of your kind could have a father as well,” it pointed at us.

“No need, it’d just bring misfortune to their heads,” she replied.

“Fine then. So let’s get to the point. You’d need about two months to heal your wounds and even if you kept devouring creatures, you’d need about a week for your limbs to regrow. I’m pretty sure that by that time, the giant kobold would do more bad than wanted. Don’t expect this from me again, but I’m doing this only because there was a reward in for Padinyss as well. He fell, but I won’t give you the same rewards. I’ll just heal you two,” the Abyss explained.

I felt my arms itching and when I looked down, I found both of my them at their places. I looked up to thank the Abyss, but it was nowhere to be seen. The grey world slowly disappeared and time started to move again.

“This… how?” Audrey raised up Jake’s hand. Since they were holding hands on the way here, she noticed it instantly, but they were frozen in time as well while we had our little chat.

She looked at us and seeing our arms back, she made a confused and happy face at the same time. It seemed like not even she knew what she was feeling. Elena laughed at her constant change of expressions as she replied, “Call it a present from the Abyss.”

“The what?”

“You’ll find out more about it later,” Elena waved her hand and smiled, visibly in a better mood.

“Well, originally we came here to rest and use healing magic, but now we don’t need that, so we should go somewhere else and take out Padinyss’s corpse,” I said as I grabbed Elena’s hand and pulled her away from the counter.

“But- But I wanted to lie down a bit!”

“I know, that’s why I’m dragging you,” I replied.

“You bully. You machine! Can’t you rest sometimes?” she pouted.

“We can rest once we’re done with the kobolds. Wasn’t it you who wanted to protect the kingdoms? I accepted your decision and even helped you, so we should finish what we started.”

“I know… Well, let’s go to the beach and devour these wonderful corpses. They’re still in the six-hour time frame, so we should be able to level up a few times once done,” she got in the mood imagining her advances and dragged me towards the beach.

“And here I had to pull on your hand before,” I shook my head. It’s not like we were going to rest on the beach. Yeah, we were just eating.

“I can hear your thoughts…”

“Damn it, Elena.”

“All that preaching for nothing, huh,” she stuck out her tongue and ran off towards the beach while our blood servants just followed us blindly and confused. Poor kids.