It wasn’t a question of if Marindore could reach the titan’s core, merely how long it would take. How many people would die while he climbed up this shaft?

A white tentacled blob exploded against his face, covering it with thick strands of a sticky goo. In an unprecedented turn of events he couldn’t wipe the stuff off, his adamant hand instead sticking to his face. More and more explosions rocked his body, covering him with the extremely sticky substance.

He tried shifting his arm to remove the stuff, but found the sticky goo restricted the flow of his metal as any surface in contact with the substance proved unable to become unbonded to the impossible glue.

Well then.

So much for him having an easy time of things.

Marindore took decisive action, finding a gap in his prison through which to stab the titan’s artery wall with a needle. Piercing through, he spilled across the tiny puncture, expanding the hole to the width of his wrist to enable a faster flow. Any outer bits of himself stuck to the beast’s glue he left on the other side, stretching his metal body as thin as he could manage before cleaving the tainted metal from his body. It was a method drilled into him by his training instructors, though the fear had always been he would encounter some potent acid, not a magically restrictive glue. In total he lost perhaps a hand’s worth of metal.

The armor’s repair enchantment could replace the lost material in time, but the slow, mana-intensive process would take months for such an amount. It wasn’t like he could keep a stock of adamant on hand to subsume. There wasn’t another source of the priceless metal to be found in The Gray Depths. Just him thinking of stockpiling a few ingots of the metal for a rainy day had set off all kinds of oracular alarm bells, for merchants and thieves alike.

Speaking of, why hadn’t this invading swarm triggered any warnings? One could hardly argue the event was insignificant.

There would be no bounty posted to retrieve this lost bit of himself, that was for certain. He couldn’t trust random adventurers to not abscond with his priceless flesh. Assuming he could even find it later, perhaps he could auction off the metal encased in its sticky prison as is? Such funds would go a long way towards helping the city recover from this catastrophe. Something to consider, once the threat was ended and he actually reclaimed his lost metal.

On a positive note, the clingy substance seemed content to seal off the arterial wall, trapping the metal he could still sense within.

And so he burrowed upwards, careful to avoid the occasional tendriled globules either embedded into the creature’s flesh or patrolling through various fluids. Not all were white, but they all likely acted as some sort of defensive measures. After his first encounter he wanted nothing to do with them.

Yet, upon reaching the central chamber he knew such was not to be. A lining of defensive tendriled constructs coated the creature’s oversized heart, which in turn grew around its massive beast core. At least six patrolling globules as big as the towering grabbers he fought previously were his greatest concern, each tentacled ooze capable of entombing him in their sticky fluids with ease.

The heart pumped slowly, completing perhaps one or two beats per minute. Marindore watched it from a distance, having enjoyed the perks of his armor’s vision-enhancing enchantments for so long he barely remembered the mundane concept of needing light to see.

If he couldn’t attack the heart directly, he would have to try something indirect.

After studying the chamber he made his way to the right, towards the nearest major vein, moving with care to avoid drawing the notice of the guards. Taking an explosive yellow twist-top potion from his inventory, he rotated the cap, dispensing the hidden red powder within. He shook the concoction twice, just enough for the potion to turn a bright orange, then slammed his sharpened fingers into the vein wall as he started counting down from ten in his head.

With care he forced the fragile vial into the creature’s bloodstream. He slapped a combat bandage over the wound, lest another sticky explosive in the bloodstream catch him unaware.

Four.

Three.

Two.

One.

Zero.

…Zero.

Zero?

Just as he began to consider the potion a dud, an explosion ripped through the largest chamber of the heart, quickly followed by a deep roar which reverberated through his entire body.

Blood spilled from the chamber, forcing Marindore to climb or risk sticky entombment. Clinging to the wall, he watched four of the massive guardians throw themselves at the wound without hesitation. Their bodies expanded into a network of overlapping filaments which covered the wound. In moments the bleeding slowed to an oozing trickle. Other, smaller roaming guardians lept atop the wound until the bleeding stopped.

Well then.

Glad he always carried a wide variety of products useful for unexpected situations, he pulled out another vial, this one a vibrant cobalt blue, something confiscated from a mad alchemist who used people as ingredients. The harm already done, Marindore kept the potions in case a day might come where he could put the spent lives to good use. Twisting the top to mix in the red powder had the mixture rapidly glowing with purple arcane light. He ripped off the bandage and shoved the dangerous explosive into the wound.

By the time he thought to take cover it was too late.

The world turned a blazing purple-white as everything exploded.

Marindore sank into clear ocean water, landing on a cracked obsidian sea floor as the water above crashed and churned. Babblings of the crazed alchemist came back to him now, something about the mixture using any nearby mana to further fuel the explosion. Judging by the crater he stood in, it seemed the concoction considered beast cores a viable mana source—something obvious in hindsight, perhaps.

His senses pinged to a nearby piece of adamant.

Swimming through the turbulent currents, he found his lost metal embedded into the glazed crater of the sea floor. Stepping on the metal he sent it into his storage rather than subsuming it then and there. He could decide what to do with the priceless metal later.

Traveling east or west should lead him towards the next titanic flinger. A simple compass from his storage pointed him in the right direction.

Accepting now was not the time to conserve resources, he withdrew a charm bracelet which, among other things, increased buoyancy and swim speed. He triggered the two charms before storing the bracelet away and shifting into the form of a sleek needle-nosed shark.

He sped east to his next target, approaching another flinger’s zone of destruction.

While he didn’t want to risk wasting a single sacrificed life, he also didn’t want to waste so much time destroying each of his foes while those on the wall struggled.

Rather than going inside each titan, it would be better if he could simply feed them their own destruction. He took out three of the fist-sized grabber cores and placed them in a cask. Carefully approaching the giant’s maw until he felt its pull on the surrounding waters, he dug into the sea floor for stability, then withdrew another red vial, plus a towel and some twine.

He just barely twisted the cap, opening it perhaps a tenth, then quickly wrapped the vial in the towel, folding in the three cores and wrapping the bundle in twine before sealing the bundle in the cask, his improvised explosive delivery system. With a good shove he sent the package towards the beast’s maw, hoping the rapid tumbling would finish preparing the mixture.

Rather than stand his ground he shifted forms and sped away further east, unwilling to risk being needlessly close to another massive explosion.

He grinned to himself as the waters roiled once more. He fought the backwards current, speeding towards his next destination.

On the wall, cheering followed the sudden silence after the first flinger suddenly exploded, destroying a wide swath of the marshland coast in the process. The Guard Commander had done something, they all knew.

Many speculated as to whether the indestructible man could truly survive such a blast, but all fears were put to rest when the second monstrosity exploded. This time the creature was ripped apart by the explosion, its top half broken into flaming chunks which fell across the marshland, some fireballs even reaching the city.

None complained as firefighting teams scrambled to douse the flames, knowing the outcome was far better than if the behemoths were allowed to remain alive.

The third and fourth flingers exploded same as the first, while the fifth was shaken by an explosion which burst from its side. The monster screamed and wailed, retreating back to the depths of the sea. The waters in the area churned, then stilled, and while perhaps the creature would yet live, all considered its retreat another win.

In an hour or so every flinger on the eastern half of the city had been vanquished, with two retreating in total while the other ten died in massive conflagrations.

On his way back to the center where his next target continued to fling all in its path, the nude form of the Guard Commander could be seen fighting the smaller grabbers once more. No one joked now, their spirits lifted to see one of the city’s powerful elite acting to save them all. Soon enough he should be able to end the biggest threats to the city entirely on his own.

They were saved.

With the rats helping on the wall an equilibrium had been reached, squads cycling out for breaks and getting rest. Civilian teams were organized to help where they could, most focused on finding and leading groups sheltering in their homes to safer locations.

Captain Sandre watched over it all, sending out orders where appropriate, mostly leaving such tasks to his capable sergeants. Ever since the first flinger exploded he’d become tentatively optimistic, the end of the battle seeming near.

And so, when the mangled shouts of an old, sun-baked sailor wearing the badge of the Cartographers’ Guild caught his attention, he took notice. The man was screaming and shouting in one of the city squares, trying and failing to drag his team deeper into the city, towards the northern gate it seemed. They were one of the groups tasked with finding civilians in need of aid, if Sandre wasn’t mistaken.

Curious, he adjusted the winds, helping the argument reach his ears.

“...don’ trippin’ care! Stay an’ die if ya like, but tha bigun is commin’ ‘ere, and ‘taint no fightin’ it! The ‘ole city is gone! ‘Taint nothin’ we can do, boss!”

That sounded ominous. Sandre studied the sealine, but aside from the flingers he didn’t see any activity, just a rising swell as—

The entire sea rose. Not a rising tide or wave, but something truly massive from the depths. Such creatures were known to exist, but they rarely, if ever, left their domains.

A hideous form as wide as the coast emerged, a single slitted eye as large as the entire city studying all under its purview.

Sandre tried to calm himself. They weren’t even insects to this thing. It had no reason to—

Reason? What did reason have to do with anything? This thing was here. It would take whatever it wanted.

A tentacle as wide as the eye rose from the depths, towering high as all watching within the city quailed. The barnacle-covered arm slammed into the swampland, more or less targeting the area where Marindore fought.

After the tentacle withdrew Sandre watched his commander shake himself off and stand up, plucking something from the nearby grabber’s corpse. It’s core? The brave, indestructible man studied the new monstrosity for a time, then continued on towards the next flinger on his path.

Amusingly, the repeated ground-shaking attacks from the newest threat seemed to only aid the commander, compacting the marshy ground of the swampland into a field resembling a hard-packed road, just one covered in brackish water. The colossal beast seemed content to remain in the deeper waters and strike from afar. It had identified the commander as a threat, yet its solution to all threats proved ineffective.

When the creature utterly smashed one of the flingers in an attempt to squash the commander, Sandre felt his hope rise once more. For whatever reason the dumb thing didn’t want to come ashore and was willing to target its own…spawn? Minions? Allies, whatever they were.

Commander Marindore seemed to take this in stride, doing the most logical thing and leading it across the coast to smash flinger after flinger.

Once the last flinger was squashed Sandre began to suspect the thing would turn more aggressive. Instead, the massive beast roared, calling forth a new wave of flingers from the depths. In a line across the coast they continued their excavations.

The commander’s shoulders slumped. All that work had been for naught. Quickly he perked back up and attempted to get the colossal beast’s attention once more, but instead the creature slid down to the depths.

Sandre’s eyes weren’t the best, but long ago he mastered the trick of bending air into a lens to see further. Thus, he had no trouble reading his commander’s lips as the man muttered to himself. “Now what?”

Now what indeed.