Perhaps twelve seconds had passed since Althos stepped up and beside Tristan. The half-devil was filled with emotion as she looked out at the scene before her, her eyes focused completely on the physical body of the undying titan. Althos could feel it leaking out of her heart. He thought about how best to calm her down.

Would it be for the best if I just reach out and snuff out the life of the undying titan? It's not like its a threat to me... I could easily just make it physical using my alteration magic, and then snuff it out that way... No, I don't think that'd work. Well... not for calming down Tristan anyway.

His mind was racing as he considered what the best route forward was. He was still emotionally immature and found the emotions mortal felt... tiring to try and deal with.

He was tempted to reach out and touch her mind to try and calm her down that way.

He ultimately decided that wasn't the best idea. This was a private moment for her. It was on her to get what she needed to get out of it. He just needed to create the openings needed for her to exact her revenge.

I've... waited so long for this.

Tristan watched as the titan continued to rise out of the pit. Many meters away from her, the gigantic thing was mobile. It was slow, but it was still almost unimaginably big. The half-devil felt her heart beating out of her chest. She felt... fear.

To be... meters away from his killer. In the same chamber even.

She watched as the massive monster, larger than any other living creature she had ever seen, kept slowly pushing itself out of the pit. It wasn't until the thing's head was perhaps 9 meters out of the pit, that its chin rose just over the peak of the hole it was in. She felt... bloodlust.

Someone who seems to have... fed upon him.

She felt a veritable cocktail of emotions raging through her. Fighting for dominance. It paralyzed her. She felt her will to move forward slipping away, as fear of her own weakness, relative to her enemy, gripped her heart.

At that moment, Tristan felt a hand fall on her should. Althos. She noted that his hand felt warm. It felt... strong. He lightly squeezed her shoulder, presumably to reassure her that she wasn't alone. And then he spoke.

"Narcolept... You seem to think you can do whatever you want. Why do you think that?"

His voice oozed confidence. Tristan couldn't see him, as her gaze was firmly glued right in front of her, but there was a look in his eyes that hinted that he was about to enjoy the violence that was moments from exploding throughout the chamber. And then the deity lifted his other hand.

He pointed it at the weird titan. And he smiled. A cruel, predatory smile.

The party stood inside of a gigantic arena-like chamber. The chamber extended long enough that even with a cursory glance the party could tell that the room was at least two hundred and fifty meters from one end to another. When they had first entered the chamber they all glanced at the ceiling and guessed it was at least thirty-five meters tall.

The pit that sat in the center of the chamber was about fifty meters long and roughly twenty-five meters wide. The creature that was clambering out of it was at this point was almost comically tall, but the party didn't intend to sit idly by while it got comfortable and battle-ready. After all, they were the bad guys.

Althos, gradually becoming an opportunist, considered how to make this battle the emotional spectacle it needed to be for it to become the impetus for Tristan to become his worshiper.

Should I take the lead here...? No. I don't think that'd work.

This was the sort of precise emotional manipulation the young god wasn't used too but he knew this moment had potential. He could sense the emotions radiating out of Tristan. He could feel the nerves she felt.

What if we pave the way for her to get revenge herself? Yes... yes! That's a much better idea. Show her that not only am I incredibly powerful, that we are incredibly powerful, but that by my side she is powerful too.

The young deity grinned as he came up with a basic objective to work towards. He was smart enough to recognize that that wasn't a plan, at least not by itself.

I guess that means we should start by disabling the physical form first huh? So long as it remains an obstacle we could get hit from behind. Alright... Let's do this!

The deity, after thinking things through for a few moments felt that he had had a breakthrough. He felt ready to go, and allowed himself to leave his own mind and assess the situation unfolding in front of him.

Althos took stock of the situation. His eyes glided over the scene, looking for anything he could exploit. He took a few seconds to scope out the field of battle, and then calmly looked right at the titan. Althos spoke once again, confidently taking charge of the situation.

"Gallow, get that hand."

Many meters away from them, the titan was active. The chamber was filled with the noises of its activity, as it slowly came surging out of that hole in the ground.

The titan was lifting itself out of the pit it inhabited. It had a single, absolutely gigantic, hand gripped tight to the edge of the pit and was physically pulling itself up. Sadly for it, the hand was in front of them, boldly unarmored. From behind Althos, his roguish minion smirked and leaped forward, daggers in both of his hands and bloodlust visible in his eyes.

The titan itself was little more than a gigantic creature. Though its face was pointed straight upward, Althos had gotten a chance to look at it earlier and recalled what few features its face had.

It had a weird, half-formed face. It had eyes, massive ones that take up nearly half of its face, and eyebrows but no ears, it had thick black hair but no mouth, no nose, and deformed ears that had ear pinnas but lacked a visible ear canal.

Its hand was totally smooth with no visible imperfections, no bumps, and as far as Althos could tell a minimal amount of bone or muscle. Althos wondered how the thing could muster the strength to pull up its almost certainly impossibly heavy mass out of the pit it was in. He also, momentarily wondered just how tall the thing was.

Then he snapped out of his daze and resumed issuing his commands.

"Silander, do you think you can fly?"

Behind him, the young great-frog tried to lift herself off of the ground. It took her a few moments, but after willing herself off of the ground for the fifth time Althos heard her wings begin to beat, and sensed her take-off behind him, feeling a tiny breeze from the beating of her wings. He chuckled and immediately after she began to fly, so did Raverangos.

Nice! Good job Raverangos!

The deity had an unexpected reaction to Raverangos, the least intelligent of his followers or familiars aside from the orbs, being proactive and lifting itself off the ground without being told. The deity quickly reined himself back in and spoke his commands to the two familiars.

"Alright, you two. Go after that thing's face. Give it... well give it all you've got! Keep it as preoccupied as you can."

He felt uncomfortable commanding them to endanger themselves so directly, but he also knew that so long as he kept the spectral form busy and Gallow went after the thing's exposed hand, odds are the others would do what they did best. He had to count on that. But the deity was also concerned about the spiritual form of the creature.

How will the spiritual form move? If it has magic then it's possible it'll go in for a big attack right?

Althos wracked his brain as he considered how to best handle the creature's spiritual form. The deity had yet to clash with a magic-user directly, but a simple scan of his memories, coupled with the memories of his worshippers, showed him that magic-users tended to go for big attacks in fights like this.

Will it launch an attack it thinks is a sure-kill? Or will it throw a massive attack at all of us to make it harder for me to block against?

There was a tiny part of the god that looked forward to watching how the spiritual form of the creature planned to fight, but a bigger part of him was concerned about how to participate in the fight without taking up experience from his allies. Those thoughts and the emotions they provoked slightly annoyed the deity.

After thinking about the situation for a few seconds, the deity realized that the creature seemed to be focused and fixated on Tristan. He realized that gave him a chance because odds are the thing would go after her first. He suddenly knew what to do.

[Salifinos... Prepare an attack on this thing's spiritual form. When the thing gets too heated, or when it feels that we're ignoring it, it'll come at Tristan with a focused attack. When it does, I'll block the attack using flames. Use one of those handy new abilities you got and make sure the titan feels the burn.]

Althos grinned, twisting slightly so that the imp behind him could see his smirk. The imp locked eyes with its master, and then suddenly knew why Althos tasked it with this task. It grinned right back and proceeded to wink back at its master.

[You got it, boss. I'll make sure the titan eats it.]

Althos turned back so that he was once again facing the titan's hulking physical form. He felt a bit more confident, now that there was a plan of attack.

At this point, the spectral form of the undying titan began to rise again. And then the entity, falsely believing that it wasn't being watched, since no one was looking at it directly, flew behind the party.

It tucked itself into a tidy little corner of the arena-like chamber and began to will its magical, eldritch, energy to gather in its hands. Within seconds the energy responded to its call and traveled from where its ethereal heart would have been, if it had one, to its ethereal hands.

The spectral thing rose its hands and watched as they began to glow with eldritch energy. The creature worked to control and focus the energy swirling in and around its hands into tiny pinpricks, hyper-focusing them. It took a few seconds, but the creature grinned in cruel satisfaction when it felt the energy was properly prepared. It spoke, saying words it hoped would haunt Tristan in her final moments.

"Do you think you can just ignore me?"

And then it pointed a single finger at Tristan and let loose the energy it had speedily prepared. A single, thin line of purple energy shot forth from the thing's fingertip, streaking towards Tristan. But it never reached her.

One second the ray of supercharged eldritch energy was surging through the air and the next, it wasn't. Instead, a wall of flames engulfed the space between the half-devil and the spiritual form of the undying titan. The flames scattered the eldritch energy, and the spiritual form of the malignant foe the party faced hissed in annoyance. The flames audibly roared, clashing with the sounds of the titan lifting itself up, and Althos grinned.

Althos didn't even have to turn to face his opponent. Instead, the hand that had been on Tristan's shoulder was now gently following the spiritual form of the titan. The air around the hands emitted a soft red glow as if to make it perfectly clear Althos was responsible for the flames. The young god spoke, his voice loud enough to be heard over the sounds of the roaring flames he had just willed into being.

"Who said I was ignoring you?"

Narcolept's spiritual form began to growl, and it began to lift another finger, this time on its other hand. The thing was too focused on its targets, first Tristan but now also Althos, to realize that the imp it had spotted earlier was nowhere to be seen.

Salifinos, Althos' imp familiar, had begun to move in the seconds after the wall of flames burst into being between Althos and the undying titan's malignant spiritual mass. The imp quietly flew to a place where it was right behind the walls of flame and could aim a magical blast of its own through the complex of fiery pillars.

The imp quickly and quietly got into position and recalled the details of one of its new abilities.

[Skill name: White-Hot Bolt

Skill description: You emit a bolt of white-hot flames that cut through the air and immolate anything it touches. You can aim it and can control its speed. It continues until it hits a solid mass, passing through other fires and instantly melting water or ice.

White-hot flames are the hottest flames of all and can cut through most forms of heat or fire resistance. This bolt of flames can superheat even other fires, raising their intensity and color just by passing through them.

Cost: 1,000 magical energy per bolt

Cooldown: Can only be used once every 45 seconds.

Note: Like most other skills, this is an upgradeable one. Each upgrade increases this skill's speed, reduces its cooldown and cost, and increases the power of the skill.]

The imp readied the skill in its mind, peered through the flames to ensure its aim was where it needed to be, and grinned. Then the imp activated its skill.

A sizzling, sparking, tiny ball of milk-white fire appeared in the imp's tiny hands. The creature looked at the spectral form of the undying titan, who was beyond the flames and undoubtedly preparing another attack and then hurled the ball of fire at the creature.

In the seconds between the imp throwing the ball and the ball leaving its hands the imp willed it to be as fast as possible and hoped that it'd be enough to smash into the face of the spooky titan.

The ball exploded out of the goblin's hands, and into the maze of flames that stood between the titan and its prey. The flames that protected Tristan and Althos flickered for a second, as they dramatically jumped in temperature.

The spectral form of the titan had been gazing beyond the wall-like column of flames and at Tristan and Althos when the flames suddenly transformed. They seemed to blink out for a second, before instantly reforming as much hotter, white flames.

The titan's spectral form turned to look right at them, only to narrowly react in time to throw itself out of the way of the ball of white fire that suddenly emerged from out of the flames, camouflaged by the very flames it had transformed as it sailed through the barrier Althos had created.

The ball of white fire sailed right through where the titan had been and crashed into the corner the titan had been lurking in. The flames of the ball latched onto the wall, searing it and causing it to begin to melt. This illuminated the corner, casting an otherworldly white glow across the entire area, including the titan's see-through form.

In response to its corner being brightly illuminated by a ball of white hot flames, the titan's floating spiritual essence flew off in a new direction while scanning the now white-hot barrier of flames that protected Tristan from it, to detect the source of that attack.

Salifinos's eyes never left the titan's ethereal mass. Once the imp noticed that the titan was peering through the wall of flames, the imp began to wave. When the ghostly thing noticed the imp, the familiar began to speak.

"You're facing more than just Tristan and Althos! If you ignore any of us, we're gonna make you feel some real pain."

The titan's ethereal mass issued an animalistic roar at that taunt. It was now at the edge of its patience.

Moments earlier, Gallow had surged towards the titan's physical hand. The hand was gripping onto the edge of the pit, and from a distance Gallow saw it as nothing more than a large target. Above him the orc heard the fluttering of two sets of wings, and hoped that that was the sound of his allies racing across the arena-like area and towards the titan's face.

As Gallow dashed closer and closer to the titan's hand, which was more than twice as tall as he was, he reassessed his initial outlook on the hand. The orc gulped as the hand continued increasing in size as he got closer and closer to it, but the orc also quietly issued another prayer.

I still don't know how to do this, but Althos if you can hear me I am praying to request your assistance. This hand is... massive. Bigger than me. Bigger than your demon-pet. Big. Capital B-I-G, BIG. I don't know if I have the physical strength needed to cut through this thing on my own. So if you could somehow bless me to be stronger, that'd be great.

Every step brought him closer and closer to the titanic hand. And soon enough the beige-colored flesh of one of the titan's massive fingers was all he could see. The orc threw himself forward, thrusting the daggers in his hands out ahead of himself, aiming to impale them on the titan's finger.

Elsewhere on the battlefield, Tristan began to shake. Beside her, Althos both heard and grinned at Gallow's pragmatic prayer, and at Tristan.

This thing murdered my father. Probably literally ate him too. And I'm scared? All I can do is stand here and be paralyzed by fear?

Tristan had watched as all around her, her allies and Althos' other servants swung into action. Only the soul orbs were beside her and Althos now.

She watched as her distant comrades obeyed their master, and sprung into action. She heard Salifinos taught the spiritual form of the undying titan and she saw how Silander, Raverangos, and Gallow all dashed towards the titan's physical body.

Not just a demon and an orc but even a great-frog and an IMP are braver than I am. An imp who even boldly faces down an enemy, alone... And what am I doing? Just being... afraid.

Tristan spent a moment being angry. Not with her foe, not with her allies, but with herself. Then the girl felt something new. Something else. A grim determination.

What am I doing? Am I going to let my father, a noble devil-moth, be avenged by someone else? No. No!

At that moment, she imagined something. An image filled her mind. An image of her using a spell to bring down the creature who even at that moment was plotting to feast on them. She turned and targeted the ethereal form of the spiritual mass that was clashing with her imp-companion.

It should be me. I should be the one who out on the frontlines. So why aren't I? I will help them win. I will defeat this enemy! I am not alone, and I am strong. I can overcome the enemies around me.

At that moment, Tristan dashed towards where Salifinos was. Behind her, Althos smiled. This wasn't a smirk, it was a soft and gentle smile.

The deity felt something new within him. Something directed towards the girl. He struggled to put it into words, but he thought about it.

It was warm and strong. A feeling that made him want to smile. He thought about it, while also considering where to go next. He froze while he did this. Eventually, M.A. responded to him.

[You're feeling pride. You're proud of her. You let her recover from the fear that gripped her heart, on her own. And she did it. So now you're proud of her. Which you should be. You should also go to help her.]

That shook Althos out of his quiet soul-searching while he tried to figure out what he was feeling. The deity quietly gasped and ran off after the young priestess.

Silander and Raverangos flew up towards the titan's face. As Silander flew, small mist-like scales scattered behind her. As Raverangos flew, its beating wings emitted a dark and faint mist behind them. Both of the creatures' gaze were at times locked on each other and at other times locked on their enemy, as they flew higher and higher.

At this point, the Titan's body extended close to 15 meters out and above the pit. And it was still pushing itself out of the hole. More than just it's head was visible now too. A relatively thin neck had appeared, and even the tops of its shoulders were beginning to just jut out over the pit.

Occasionally Silander stopped to try and use a combination of two of her new powers, the ability to control the properties of the mucus that covered her body in a slime-like layer of natural armor and the ability to exhale a breath of frigid air. She used these powers in concert to try and paralyze the titan, or to slow it down through freezing parts of its body. It wasn't working so far.

Damn it! Damn it! If any more of the thing's body appears it may be tempted to try and lift up its other hand. If it does, not only are Raverangos and I in danger, but Gallow will be too!

This was the first time she was lost in emotion. While she was frustrated, she stopped ascending. Ravernagos kept flying upward, ignoring the angry frog.

If I can't help out here, against a passive enemy... what is the point of this new power? I want to do something useful... I want to help take down this foe!

Silander was shouting at herself in her mind. She felt frustrated and unuseful. She hated that. And so she took it on the creature in front of her.

The flying frog lashed out at the titan's unbelievably large body by hitting it constantly with physical attacks it just ignored. The oblivious thing just kept climbing and climbing. Silander wouldn't stop launching ineffectual physical attacks, like punching or kicking, until she threw a punch that collided with the featureless skin of the titan in such a way that it sent a wave of pain through her own hand. When it did, she stopped and looked at her hand.

That was when she was reminded of the horn on her hands. It was then that she wondered if perhaps there was something she could do. She began to hatch a violent plan, one that was inspired partially Ranthor's vivid retelling of his fanciful shooting during the clash against the bears.

Above her, Raverangos had its own bright idea. And the demon was about to get creative with its new horns.

It took a few moments but eventually, after pushing its wings as hard as it could, the demon was flying above the titan. The thing's massive face was inching closer and closer to the demon, but the thing barely seemed alive at all. Its eyes were glazed over and inactive, and it didn't register the demon at all. Which was a mistake.

The demon stared hard at the eyes of the giant, and then it grinned. The demon focused and willed its body to produce as many spine-like horns across its flesh as the demon could handle. After a few seconds of intense focus, the demon's body, already riddled with spine-like horns grew even more horns. And then the thing looked straight down, aiming itself carefully.

The demon smiled, its teeth showing, as it took masterful aim. The demon waited a few seconds, so as to ensure its prey wouldn't twist or turn. And then the creature allowed itself to fall.

The demon fell through the air, feeling little to no wind to knock it off course because it was inside of a dungeon, and picked up speed thanks to gravity. Several moments passed as the demon plummeted towards its fleshy destination. As it fell towards its intended target, the demon thought to itself.

I gain a whole lot of intelligence. A basic understanding of physics even. And what's the first thing I do with that new intelligence? Turn myself into a massive weapon and plunge towards a creature with an eye that's bigger than I am... I kind of love Althos for having such a wacky life that I can fight bears one day, and do this the next!

Demons love violence and pain. And this particular demon was about to inflict a lot of pain.

A few more seconds pass, and thanks to the fact that gravity was tugging on the demon, and the titan was climbing up towards the demon, the demon violently collides with the titan.

The demon's weaponized mass, covered in horns, making contact with the softest part of the titan's body, its eye, allowed Ravernangos to cut through the creature's soft skin, and sink into the eye socket of the titan. The horns rip apart the eye, the further Raverangos sunk into it.

Raverangos was meters deep inside of the head of the titan, and still going, due to the speed the demon reached, coupled with its body becoming a massive weapon designed to rip and cut apart anything that got in its way.

The titan finally stops pushing itself out of the pit, and freezes altogether. The mind-rending pain of its eye being ripped apart actually took second to reach its brain. The titan needed a moment to process the sheer agony of the sensation of its eye being brutally smashed into, and then ripped apart by an invasive demon who cut its way into the titan's head.

Eventually, Raverangos stopped moving, and slowly realized that its body wasn't hurtling towards the ground anymore. And then the demon suddenly heard the loudest sound it ever heard. An agonizing wail that decimated the demon's ability to hear, and thundered throughout the entire dungeon, assaulting anyone in it due to its sheer volume and pain.

No one saw Raverangos throw itself into the eye of the titan, but shortly after it happened they all felt the effects of it.

Tristan, who had been closing in on the area where the fight between the spiritual form of the titan and the sneaky imp was going down, lost her sense of hearing altogether as a consequence of the agonizingly loud wail of the brutalized titan.

Althos fell to his knees and tried to cover his ears to block out the intensity of the sound when coupled with his intense hearing. It didn't help, the sound just seemed to ignore his futile attempts to block it.

Salifinos hissed and roared in pain as a result of the noise, but didn't recklessly attack because of it. The devil was proud of its new abilities and intended for the first victim of them to be the spiritual form of the titan.

Gallow and Silander were right next to the wailing titan and suffering physical pain because of the sound. But Silander, who was higher up than Gallow, was treated to a lovely sight: the sight of the titan's physical form beginning to tip backward.

Gallow noticed the titan letting go of the edge of the pit. And the orc grinned, even as he processed the pain of the unimaginably loud wail.

The titan was in so much pain that it had let go of the pit, and in a few moments would probably begin to either sink into the pit or sail backward and collapse, leaving just its head and neck exposed out of the pit. A second passed, and Althos scanned the battlefield as he recovered from the pain the wail of the titan inflicted on him. The deity noticed both what Gallow noticed and what Silander noticed and grinned.

[Gallow! I'll grant you a strength buff, charge at and knock the titan backward! Don't let it sink all the way into the pit!]

Althos sent a similar message to Silander. And then he executed his strategy. Wordlessly the deity healed every member of his party to offset the damage they took from the power of the titan's vocal cords, and then on Gallow and Silander, he cast spells to increase their weight and their strength.

Go on... Gallow... Silander... KNOCK THIS TITAN DOWN!

Althos excitedly reacted to the idea of his worshipers slamming into the titan with enough force to push the thing over, and his exact thoughts almost radiated into the minds of his worshipers. But he contained himself and sent them a less loud message.

[Gallow... Silander... knock down that titan!]

Althos' voice penetrated the brains of both of his followers, and they felt his will seep into them. They felt his excitement, and it merged with their own. The two creatures closest to the titan leaped or flew backward to give them enough space to get a running or flying start. And then the two creatures sprinted or soared at the titan, power surging through their veins and their weight increasing with each step they took or nanometer they drew closer to the titan.

Gallow and Silander rammed into the titan at the exact same time, performing two vicious mid-air tackles to the creature. They each weighed several tons and with massive power surging through their tiny bodies at the time of impact and immediately began to push the creature.

I can do this! I'll take this titan down, here and now! Let's defeat this thing!

Come on! I belong here, with Althos, with everyone! I'll push this titan down and then... together... we'll defeat it!

Both of the creatures were on similar mental wavelengths, and they pushed with all of their might.

Althos watched as the combined efforts of his first worshiper and the orc whose life he once saved, began to tip the titan over, causing its head to no longer be over the safety of the pit but the cold, hard floor of the arena. Where it'd be exposed if it was unconscious.

He grinned as his two worshipers pushed themselves to the limit, even with the layers of spells he placed on them, and as the titan began to slowly, but surely fall backward.

The creature's long body began to move back, towards the other end of the pit. And then, as if to make the process easier, the thing began to fall on its own. And as a consequence, so did someone else.

Gallow, feeling the pull of gravity began to fall, the darkness of the pit swallowing up his feet rather rapidly. But before any more of his body could vanish, Silander dove towards him and grabbed him by his shoulders. Apparently still feeling the effects of the strength buffs, the great-frog tossed the orcish rogue to an area beyond the pit, where he landed a few dozen meters away from the defeated and unconscious form of the titan.

The titan crashed onto the ground on the other side of the pit, causing a tremor-like vibration to reverberate throughout the arena. The spectral mass Althos' other followers were fighting against was so distracted it barely registered the collapse of its other form.

Around the titan's fallen form, tons of dust was lifted off of the ground and coated both it and Gallow who was close by, in a fine layer of dust.

As one, Tristan, Althos, and Gallow realized they had bested the physical form of the titan. And then before they looked away, Raverangos leaped out of the eye of the titan, emerging from within the thing's head and sailing several meters into the air. It beat its wings to give its leap extra height and landed on the thing's relatively tiny forehead.

The horn-covered demon was coaked in a sickening mixture of thick titan's blood and clear interocular fluid. In a gesture of dramatic self-importance, it rose a thick hand raised to the sky as if to indicate that it was the winner of some private battle it had just fought in. Althos grinned at the drama of the gesture and wondered where the dramatic flair needed to plot out and make such a move came from.

Behind the orc, god, demon, and great-frog, another battle was raging. The spiritual form of the titan was seething with rage, but was expertly and cautiously dodging magical attacks and assorted spells coming from the priestess and the imp.

"This fight isn't over yet..." The spiritual form said, gritting its ethereal teeth, and wracking its brain to try and come up with a strategy it could use to overcome the enemies that stood before it. Both of its foes were making use of brand new powers while demonstrating eerie ease and comfort with their abilities and each other.

The devilish priestess smiled at the ethereal, translucent being she was clashing against. She responded to what the thing said, taunting it.

"It's not... yet. But it will be. Soon."

As soon as she said that, her companion hurled another bright, white ball of flames at the spiritual mass that embodied the will and intelligence of the titan. The ball's target sprinted through the air, out of the way and narrowly dodged the flames.