Chapter 21 H.

The morning or at least morning for us went much the same as the previous. There was less talking as we packed the cave up, each of us focusing more on the fight up ahead of us. I knew it was not going to be much of a fight. I was going to slaughter the giants, that’s if they were at the camp.

I skirted us around the mountain; the clear dark sky held no hint of snow. The freezing wind was the only accompaniment as we traveled. I slowed on top of a hill that overlooked the valley between the small mountain and the central spine of the dungeon floor.

The wind whipped Titus’s cloak as he stood next to me, “no luck, looks like only a small encampment down there.”

“Where to next?”

“We can head toward the spine mountains and check the camp at the far tip of the mountain range. Or we can cut through the forest to the right and try another camp at the base of one of the great trees. The chief is just as likely to be at either location.”

“Which one makes it, so we don’t have to backtrack?”

“The great tree, then there is a temple we could hit on the way to the next camp.”

“Great tree camp it is then. First, I want to try something.”

I formed a simple fireball in my hand, stabilizing it. A fireball, when it hit a target, would crack the magical shell it was encased in and jettison the plasma within. I took a small amount of hydrogen, and magical stabilized it in the center of the fireball and lend more heavily on my 100 percent fire affinity to get the effect I wanted. When the shell of the fireball brook, a magical reaction would propel the hydrogen up along the fusion chain into deuterium and tritium. With the containment of the spell broken, the energy would then be released in a fusion explosion.

New spell learned:

Fusion bomb. Basie cost: error… 0.1 mana per kiloton.

To get a full megaton explosion, I would have to spend 100 mana. We were far enough away that I did not worry if the blast would hurt us. I decided to spend 50 mana, halving the yield of the bomb. The ball of bright orange and red fire swirled in front of my hand. It looked more like a glittering bath bomb than a shepherd of destruction.

I launched the ball with force mana letting sail high into the air with force magic, guiding it to the center of the small giant camp.

Nothing happened at first when the ball fell into the center of the camp. Then all at once, a flash of light lit the level like the noonday sun. A laud rumble blasted over us as a mushroom cloud formed where the camp had been. It was small, only about the size of the trees on the level as the wind, hot from the explosion, washed over us.

You have killed:

Protector Glaies giant. Times 2. 120,000 XP.

Glaies Giant. Times 3. 90,000 XP.

You have leveled. 38, 39.

The eyes of the group were on me, vacant expressions of fear plain to see. “Well, that worked,” I said with a half chuckle into the awkward air.

“By all the gods, what was that?” Lucius asked, a slight tremble in his voice.

“A taste of a weapon from my home world.”

“What Void plain of madness did you come from?” Rachel had taken a fighting stance, her face covered all except for her eyes. Horror filled them, cold blue weighing me.

“Let’s go; we have another camp to check out.”