Looking down from the mountain, Senrix saw nothing but an endless sea of clouds swallowing the jagged rocks below.
It had been a day since the fight against the nightmare creatures.
He had spent the ti resting after reaching the summit, having spent half an hour limping his way up the slope.
His left arm still throbbed with dull, persistent pain, but at least his right arm was responsive again.
More importantly, the fusion with the previous Senrix was finally complete.
The original Senrix had been the son of Smile of Heaven and Broken Sword.
He'd been locked in a constant tug-of-war with the nightmare creatures for days, nearly bleeding out before the current Senrix took over.
The current Senrix was a transmigrator, a soul from another world who replaced him after death was certain.
The spell registered it as a new person, and now the mories had fully rged.
What he learned wasn't flattering.
He wasn't particularly talented with a blade.
In fact, he fought far better bare-fisted than with any weapon.
The only reason he'd managed to defeat that entire group back then was because [Combat Genius] had gone into overdrive.
That sa overdrive had also forcibly awakened the remaining mories and personalities of the original Senrix.
That explained why he'd been unnervingly cold when killing the skinny man and the fat man, those weren't his instincts alone.
When [Combat Genius] deactivated at the peak of its output, he was hit with a flood of mories, one after another, until it felt like his skull might crack.
He nearly fainted from the sheer weight of it.
"Haaa, a breath of fresh air~" the joyous voice slipped out before he could stop it.
Senrix glanced down at himself, clad in obsidian crimson armor he'd claid from the awakened devil he'd slain alongside its horde.
The armor, better known as [Calamity Engine], was the masterpiece of a kingdom fad for its artisans and blacksmiths.
It had been forged before the army of abominations arrived, an army that, according to the mory, had been led by a titan of impossible height.
To Senrix, [Calamity Engine] felt like the pinnacle of futuristic armor.
Its gauntlets housed built-in boosters that made every punch faster and heavier than it had any right to be.
The back plating could unfurl into thrust-assisted wings, letting him close distance or escape in seconds.
The catch was brutal: it demanded blood with every activation.
If he didn't feed it, it would start draining his own.
Still, it ca with enchantnts of [Self-Evolution] and [Self-Repair].
For soone who lived on the edge of death daily, it was the best armor he could've asked for.
As Senrix tested the limits of his new mories, a roar tore through the air, shaking the entire peak.
"ROAAARRRR!!!!!!!!"
He sighed, already knowing what was coming.
That sound matched the giant he'd glimpsed in the inherited mories.
Without hesitation, Senrix sprinted toward the left side of the peak, where a massive boulder rested.
It looked ordinary at first glance, but it wasn't, it was a relic, a remnant of the kingdom that forged the armor.
The boulder was designed to follow the mountain's natural loop downward, carving a path along the slope.
Senrix threw his weight into it, pushing the boulder over the edge.
It began to roll, gaining speed as it barreled down the mountainside.
Then he followed right behind it, running full tilt to et the giant before it could react.
The boulder hit first.
It ca screaming down the looped slope of the mountain like a vengeful god's fist, carving a furrow of shattered stone and frost.
The Bonegrinder didn't see it coming, not until the air itself scread with the sound of its approach.
The creature was wrong in every way a thing could be wrong.
Twelve ters tall, hunched like a ruin of a man, its skin was a tapestry of fused corpses and cracked stone.
Ribs jutted from its back like broken gates, and its lower jaw hung loose, stitched to its skull with sinew that looked too fresh to be dead.
Where eyes should be, there were only hollow sockets that leaked black mist.
Its arms ended in chitinous cleavers, grown from its own bone, each one slick with old blood.
When the boulder struck its knee, the mountain shook.
*CRACK.*
The Bonegrinder stumbled forward with a bellow that turned the clouds to vapor.
"ROOOAAAAAARRR!"
The sound wasn't just sound, it was pressure, a concussive wave that split the remaining snow from the peak and sent avalanches tumbling down the far side.
Senrix was already moving.
He didn't et it head-on.
That would be stupid, and the original Senrix had died being stupid.
Instead, he let the boulder's montum carry him, using it as cover as he slid around the creature's flank.
[Calamity Engine] humd against his skin, the gauntlets warming as the blood siphon activated.
'One hit. One hit is all I need to make it angry enough to be stupid.'
The Bonegrinder recovered faster than sothing that size had any right to.
It swung a cleaver-arm down, a strike ant to bisect a siege tower.
Senrix ducked under it, feeling the wind shear tear at his hair, He didn't counter, He ran.
Straight between its legs.
The trickster's grin spread under his helt as he slapped the back of the creature's knee with his gauntlet.
The booster flared to life, not to punch, but to detonate.
*BOOM.*
A focused burst of compressed air and blood-essence erupted against the joint.
The Bonegrinder's leg buckled.
It dropped to one knee with a sound like a collapsing cathedral.
"First rule of fighting giants," Senrix muttered, already vaulting onto its thigh before it could fall.
"They can't hit what they can't see. And they hate being made to look slow."
The creature roared, slamming its free hand down to crush him.
Senrix jumped.
Not up, forward.
He used the descending fist as a platform, launching himself onto the Bonegrinder's shoulder.
[Calamity Engine]'s wing-booster flared, stabilizing him mid-air.
For half a second, he was eye-level with the hollow sockets of its face.
He drove his fist into the mist leaking from its eye socket.
The effect was imdiate.
The black mist shrieked, a sound that bypassed his ears and clawed at his skull.
The Bonegrinder reeled back, clawing at its own face, trying to dig the sensation out.
'It feels pain. Good. It feels humiliation better.'
Senrix didn't give it ti to recover.
He dropped down its chest, slashing with the edge of his gauntlet.
micro-blades extended from the armor's knuckles, vibrating at a frequency that made stone weep.
He carved a shallow line across the fused corpses on its chest.
Nothing deep.
Nothing lethal.
Just enough to make it furious.
The Bonegrinder threw itself backward, slamming its back against the mountainside to dislodge him.
Stone exploded on impact.
Senrix was thrown free, tumbling end over end.
He landed on his feet, skidding to a stop at the edge of the peak.
"Too predictable," he called out, voice echoing through the helt's modulator.
"You're strong, but you fight like you've never been hit by sothing smaller than you. Ever heard of leverage?"
The Bonegrinder didn't answer with words. It answered with a charge.
The ground trembled as it lumbered forward, both cleaver-arms raised to crush him flat.
This was it, the kind of attack that ended fights instantly.
Senrix didn't dodge left.
He didn't dodge right.
He dropped to his knees and slid.
Under the swing.
Under the shadow of the creature itself. [Calamity Engine]'s leg boosters fired, extending his slide into a perfect arc that took him behind the Bonegrinder's ankles.
As he passed, he slapped both ankles with his gauntlets.
*BOOM. BOOM.*
Two detonations in sequence.
The Bonegrinder's legs went out from under it.
For a mont, ti slowed.
Sixty tons of fused corpse and malice began to fall backward, off the edge of the peak.
Senrix rolled to his feet, breathing hard.
"Sleep tight."
The Bonegrinder wasn't done.
Mid-fall, it twisted.
Its spine cracked with an audible snap as it contorted, one cleaver-arm stabbing down at Senrix like a spear.
'Oh, you learn fast.'
Senrix's wing-booster ignited. He shot upward, barely clearing the strike. The cleaver bit into the mountain where he'd stood, sinking three ters into solid rock.
He didn't go high. High was where giants swatted you.
He went around.
Using the montum of his ascent, he circled behind the Bonegrinder's head, landing on the back of its neck.
The fused corpses there were older, drier, less responsive. He could feel the weak points through [Calamity Engine]'s sensory feedback.
He pressed his palm flat against the base of its skull.
"Let's see how you like a taste of your own dicine."
[Calamity Engine] roared.
The blood siphon reversed.
Instead of taking blood, it injected pressure.
Compressed air, stored from the earlier detonations, flooded into the Bonegrinder's spinal column through the gauntlet's conduits.
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A/N: can you guys give an idea about the appraisal? If my schedule is right, two days from now or maybe tomorrow I will make 4 or 2 chapters, depending on my mood
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