Killian, flanked by the Wyrmutt and his House Leader, charged from the left, their blades humming with lethal intent. From the right, Cassandra blurred across the floor, her eyes locked on the staggering giant.
"Back off, Killian and your... ugly dog!"
Cassandra roared, a wild, blood streaked grin on his face.
"I already took one of her arms! This kill belongs to the Blackheart!"
"In your dreams, Cassandra!"
Killian shot back, his House Leader’s spear spinning in a deadly arc beside him.
"We don’t ’steal’ kills, we secure them! Don’t trip on your way there!"
The Fire Caster, armless and leaking golden ichor, let out a final, desperate wail of
"rcy—!"
She didn’t get it.
The three warriors reached her at the exact sa microsecond. In a single, synchronized explosion of violence, four blades swung as one. The combined force didn’t just cut—it erased. The Fire Caster’s body was torn asunder in a cross-section of steel and dragon-fury, her elental heart extinguished before her body even hit the marble.
The hall fell into a heavy, ringing silence, broken only by the ragged breathing of the exhausted victors.
Arteé stepped back, his expression one of bored aristocratic detachnt, but Percieval did not stop. He moved like a shadow through the rising steam, his black steel sword raised for the final execution of the Lightning Caster.
The giantess was a ruin. Her blood pooled beneath her, her skin a map of jagged lacerations from Percieval’s relentless blade. She looked broken, defeated, until the very mont the black steel descended.
To Percieval’s shock, she didn’t flinch. With a guttural snarl, she reached up and caught the blade with her bare hand. The steel bit deep into her palm, but she didn’t let go. Her eyes, once filled with terror, suddenly shifted—the pupils expanding until they were twin voids of swirling energy.
"You think... you’ve won? You think killing those two will end our goal? Those two were a day to their demise this was just their last day anyway..."
She looked past Percieval, her gaze sweeping over the exhausted, poisoned warriors in the hall—Hank, Forsha, Corneo, Arteé, Killian, Cassandra and the others. A terrifying grin split her bloody face.
"I will admit... you cold-blooded reptiles are far beyond what we imagined. This proves it—you are strong. Strong enough to defeat the demigods... the very beings even we, the Gigante, fear."
Her muscles scread but not from pain. Sothing else was happening. Sothing awakening.
"Before you end ... I cast aside my hope of ever returning to my holand. I will use what remains of my life to embrace what I truly am... ...perhaps, in doing so, I can feel... as if I’ve returned."
Her voice deepened, the air itself growing heavy.
"I will show you why we are called Gigante. I will show you the weight of the world. I will show you why we were forbidden to set foot upon the land... why the Creator cast us above!!!"
A sickening, explosive popping of bone and sinew shattered the brief mont of victory for the Drakaria Seven Houses. The Gigante is... growing. Her skeletal structure expanded with the force of a detonating mountain, her muscles knitting together into massive, boulder like cords of Ymir blooded power.
The air itself scread as her size displaced the very atmosphere of the hall.
Percieval had been mid swing, teeth bared, both hands clenched white around the hilt of his black steel sword. He drove the blade into her wrist with everything he had left—desperate to sever the hand that held him.
The steel rang. As if striking a mountain of diamond.
"You... won’t... DRAGONGUARD ART:—"
The words died in his throat. The "Lizards" who had just been celebrating their victory were now nothing more than ants beneath the rising shadow of a True Primordial blooded.
As the ceiling vanished and the world turned to falling marble, the warrior instincts of the Drakaria kicked into overdrive:
The House leader of the Crimsonscales she planted herself hard.
"BRACE YOURSELVES! Crimsonscales, shield the others!"
Seeing the mbers of House Goldensight paralyzed by the scale of the transformation, the Crimson Scale warriors didn’t hesitate—they lunged forward, wrapping their massive, arms around the smaller Goldensight mbers in a protective, desperate hug, using their own bodies as living bunkers.
Amidst the falling mountain of marble, the House Asulfang their animal instincts prove to be useful, allowing them to predict the trajectory of every collapsing rafter before it even moved. They moved with a predatory grace, snatching up the dazed mbers of House Blackheart, leaping over tremors that split the floor.
Even the Wyrmutt—usually vicious and territorial, clamped its jaws gently but firmly onto the collar of a fallen warrior, dragging the unconscious man toward the safety of a reinforced archway.
In the heart of the chaos, Killian didn’t wait for permission. He lunged through the swirling dust, looping an arm around Cassandra’s waist and hoisting her against his chest like a newborn, just as a three ton slab of the balcony pulverized the spot where she had been standing.
"Wha—WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING!? P-Put down, you WOLF!"
Cassandra shrieked, her face blazing red as she hamred her fists against his chest.
"I can carve my way out! Y-you’re disgracing !"
"Shut up and stop squirming!"
Killian roared back, his boots skidding on blood slicked stone as he dodged a falling chandelier.
"Rocks don’t bleed, you blood crazed maniac! You’re still—" he gritted his teeth, "—a girl. I’m not letting a lady die in front of !"
Cassandra’s face turned even redder, fury boiling over.
"A L-LADY!? That’s even worse! I’m a WARRIOR! Put down, or I’ll be the one who kills you—not those falling rocks!"
They continued to bicker with a fierce, panicked energy, their insults cutting through the roar of the Gigante’s groaning bones as they dove for cover.
Percieval, realizing his sword was useless against a force that was now rewriting the laws of biology, let go of the hilt. He turned his back on the rising Titan, his eyes scanning the chaos for his own.
With a guttural roar,
"TO !"
He gathered every mber of the Citrineclaw House into his massive, tree trunk arms. All of them pulling his kin into a singular, tight knot of muscle and bone to weather the coming storm.
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