Nightmare Realm Summoner

Wind whipped through Alex’s hair as he trailed like the tail of meteor behind his anchor. He couldn’t keep the grin from his lips as he carved the air apart. His trajectory took him well over the head of the huge giant of gray wood. The monster barely even reacted to his approach — very possibly because his path wasn’t going to take him even remotely close to the monster.

Alex drew on the Singularity Core.

It turned over

The chain, already taut against his wrist, creaked as the anchor was suddenly pulled downward by the command of the Core. Alex spun the anchor in a vertical orbit. And, just as he passed over the massive giant’s head, he sent it hurtling straight downward.

Alex grabbed onto the chain with both hands an instant before there was a sharp, violent tug on his shoulder. There was a sharp tug on his right arm that really should have pulled it right off his shoulder. Instead, Alex’s trajectory changed in an instant.

The anchor hurtled down into the giant’s skull. It connected with a thunderous crunch, and Alex slammed home beside it just a moment later. Fragments of gray roots obliterated beneath his feet and spun through the air all around him.

His momentum sank him nearly a foot into the monster’s wooden flesh. The anchor, on the other hand, vanished deep into its skull, only jerking to a halt when the chain snapped taut once more. Alex would have stumbled if he wasn’t firmly lodged into the monster’s body.

Wood crumbled around Alex as he tore himself free. Then a thunderous tremor raced up the giant’s body. His teeth cracked against each other. He saw the shockwave coming before it hit — a ripple rolling through the roots like a tidal wave — but there was no time to dodge.

The ground drove up into Alex. It bucked him up, ripping his feet clean out of where they’d gotten lodged within the giant’s body, and shot him straight into the air. But Alex only managed to fly upward for a foot before the chain of his anchor jerked him to a halt.

He flew around and slammed into the side of the monster’s body. Roots drove into his side, cutting through his shirt and driving into his side like spikes. One or two of them managed to pierce into his body. The wounds weren’t deep. He drove his fist down into the wood and pushed himself up, rising back to his feet.

Alex spun, readying himself for another attack or for one of the giant’s hands to come reaching for him. But no such thing came. His eyes widened slightly in surprise. The monster had gotten slightly closer to Mirrorwane. A grim realization washed over him.

The giant hadn’t even felt his attack. It wasn’t fighting back. It had simply taken a step toward Mirrorwane, and the impact of its step had been what threw him. There must have been some form of magical enhancement that made the force stronger than it should have been — or the monster was just much, much heavier than it seemed.

Alex didn’t know. He didn’t particularly care.

You think you can just ignore me when I’m right on top of you?

It was offensive in multiple ways. Not only did the giant believe that Alex wasn’t a big enough threat to bother dealing with… but it was completely ruining the amount of magical energy he’d get for winning the fight. He was going to get scammed out of a good challenge.

“I don’t think so,” Alex growled. He dismissed his anchor and summoned Glint. With the sound of shattering glass, the Glasmir carved his way into being at his side. There was no need to say anything else. Glint dove forward in a flash of silver, carving into the hole that Alex’s anchor had made and digging straight toward the core of the giant. He cut through the roots like there was nothing there, rending it apart and tossing dust and debris up behind him like a wood chipper.

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It didn’t take long for Glint to carve away the outer layer of roots making up the huge monster’s body. He ripped the last few away, then dropped into a hollow cavern somewhere within the monster’s skull. The amount of damage should have been enough to at the very least distract the creature. Nobody could have possibly enjoyed having a hole bored into their head.

But as far as Alex could tell, the giant hadn’t even realized that it was getting attacked. It just raised its foot once more to take another step toward the town. Alex stumbled. He gritted his teeth, catching himself a moment before he fell onto the sharp, protruding roots all around him. There were definitely better things to hitch a ride on. He risked a glance back over his shoulder toward Mirrorwane.

Princess raced across the ground toward them, loping like a furious gorilla as she charged the giant. Claire wasn’t far behind. She flew in the air, her whip at the ready and pitch black wings spread wide, but keeping her distance as she waited for an opening. That was appreciated. If she started blowing up segments of the giant with her Partial Soul Manifestation while he was still within it, Alex suspected he wasn’t going to have a particularly good time.

Alex gave her a small nod.

Then he dropped into the growing hole behind Glint.

He landed with a grunt a second later, roots crunching beneath his heels as he straightened, his magic already at the ready.

Then his eyes widened.

“The fuck?” Alex asked.

He stood a few paces behind Glint in a cavernous opening somewhere within the giant’s head. The roots making up the floor beneath his feet were smooth and flat, almost polished, and before the two of them was what could only be described as a control panel.

Wood had formed to take the shape of a large chair, with dozens of vine-like growths swaying in the air. An operator whose back was turned to them had grasped many of the roots in their hands as if they were the reigns of a horse — and with every movement they made, the giant took another lumbering step toward Mirrorwane.

No fucking shot. The whole thing is a giant mech? A root mech? That’s badass.

It was also, unfortunately, still an enemy.

Alex sent a quick thought to Glint. There probably hadn’t even been a real need for it. It was pretty obvious what they had to do. Somehow, it didn’t seem like their intrusion had been noticed. The pilot was completely focused on controlling the wooden giant.

Tough luck.

Glint stepped forward silently.

His silver cloak lashed out in a blur. There was a whirr and a thunk. Alex braced himself, readying his magic in preparation for when the pilot inevitably revealed that they had somehow been aware of his presence the entire time and had just been waiting for his guard to drop.

Alex watched as the controller’s chair split apart along a diagonal line. The hands holding the roots went slack. One of them fell to the ground with a thunk. Then the rest of the chair and operator’s upper body followed suit. The giant — which had been mid-step — ground to a halt.

That’s it? Seriously?

Magical energy trickled into him. Alex’s eye twitched slightly. There hadn’t been much at all. The fight had been way too easy. But for there to be this little power… it seemed the giant’s operator had been painfully weak from the very beginning. Even the average Mirrorlands Riftwarped monster would have given him a better reward than this.

“Huh,” Alex said. He took a step forward, looking down at the fallen operator. It was a woman, clad in bark armor and with a helmet covering the upper half of her face, leaving nothing but her lips exposed. They were parted in slight shock.

She definitely hadn’t been expecting them. Red blood pooled on the ground around her and poured from the bottom half of her body, which still sat on the throne. The vines that she’d been manipulating swayed in the air in wait. It almost seemed like they were reaching for the fallen operator.

“Pathetic,” Ein’Zahl said.

“There are probably nicer ways to word it,” Alex said, crouching beside the fallen woman with a frown. That really had been pathetic. The fact he’d gotten energy from the kill meant they’d definitely killed her. This wasn’t some sort of trick. And the giant wasn’t moving anymore. It seemed they’d definitely stopped it. Alex shook his head. “Insults should be saved for enemies we actually don’t like. This was just… sad.”

“Her armor and body were equally soft,” Ein’Zahl said. “A blow like that should not have gone through so cleanly. Even for me, that was too easy. I was hoping for a better fight.”

“Yeah,” Alex muttered. “Especially from the Mirrorlands.”

And then he paused.

He looked down at the growing pool of blood around the dead operator’s body.

“Wait,” Alex said, a wave of goosebumps racing across his neck and back. “Why the fuck is something from the Mirrorlands bleeding?”