Volume 2, Chapter 46 – The Flame Giant

A scorching heat that baked the earth until it cracked swept across the land. The air shimmered under the intense temperature, and lush forests turned into raging infernos. People screamed and roared, desperately trying to halt the advance of the flames.

The culprit behind this devastation was a monster.

A creature shrouded in flames, resembling a slime but with a massive eye.

Its body, over fifty meters in diameter, radiated heat like molten lava, rendering all melee attacks useless. Ranged spells were nothing more than feeble scratches to it. People had no choice but to watch as it trampled through farmlands and villages, their only option being to flee.

This was the greatest crisis the Hermion County had faced in nearly a century.

With a grim expression, Suta—the strongest warrior under Count Hermion’s command—gazed at the monstrous entity slowly rolling in the distance. Count Hermion had dubbed it the “Flame Giant.” Letting out a low sigh, Suta turned to his soldiers.

“Where is the monster now?”

“Sir, the Flame Giant is about two kilometers southwest of our position.”

“What about those adventurers? The Count paid them a fortune to eliminate the monster. According to the contract, the Flame Giant should have been destroyed a kilometer away!” Suta’s sharp questioning made his subordinate lower his head, silently conveying his lack of answers. Suta waved his hand dismissively. “Go investigate.”

“Yes, sir!”

Watching his subordinate depart, Suta turned his attention back to the Flame Giant.

The Flame Giant was not a humanoid monster but rather a massive, droplet-shaped entity resembling a slime, with a single enormous eye.

Now, it was slowly crawling along the valley toward the southwest, leaving behind a trail of charred destruction. Trees ignited, soil turned to ash, and like a massive ship cutting through water, it dragged a long, ever-widening path of flames through the forest behind it.

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No one knew where the Flame Giant had come from or what kind of creature it truly was. By the time it was discovered, it had already emerged from the volcano beneath the “Tower of Hermion”—an Alexia Tower located within the Hermion County. Suta clearly remembered the report from the farmer who had first witnessed it.

“Taller than the city walls, everything it touches bursts into flames. Even the fiercest monsters flee in terror, as if they’ve seen a dragon.”

At the time, Suta had scoffed at the report. Frost Giants? Those he had heard of—they dwelled not far north, in the vampire-ruled Pescia Territory. But Flame Giants were creatures of legend, things that shouldn’t exist in reality. And even if they did, they certainly wouldn’t appear beneath the Tower of Hermion.

The Tower of Hermion was an Alexia Tower standing atop an active volcano. After the first Count Hermion endured countless hardships to climb its peak and gained control of its immense power, the volcano beneath had fallen dormant. Moreover, successive generations of Counts had used the tower’s environmental manipulation abilities to blanket the mountain in ice, transforming it into a frozen wasteland. Even if a Flame Giant existed, it should have been impossible for one to emerge beneath the Tower of Hermion.

But their disregard for the report led to the destruction of two villages. Though the slow-moving monster had allowed the villagers to escape with their belongings, the farmlands were beyond immediate recovery.

By the time Suta and Count Hermion took the Flame Giant seriously, it was already less than ten kilometers from Hermion City. Standing atop the city walls, they could see the towering inferno, its smoke darkening the sky.

Count Hermion immediately ordered the army to exterminate the Flame Giant. Yet neither catapults nor the bombardment of spellcasters could halt its advance. Arrows fired by soldiers turned to ash mid-flight. The sense of powerlessness was like countless ants swarming a rampaging elephant—no, worse than ants. At least ants could bite before being crushed. But any soldier who got too close would instantly burst into flames.

Fortunately, the Flame Giant neither retaliated nor paid any attention to the attacks. Otherwise, Suta couldn’t imagine the scale of casualties. A single roll of its fifty-meter body through the ranks would have caused unimaginable devastation.

At that thought, Suta swallowed hard, recalling the sky-obscuring flames.

Back then, despite the soldiers’ desperate efforts, they couldn’t stop the Flame Giant’s advance. They could only watch as it slowly rolled down the mountainside toward the city. But just as it was about to plunge into Hermion City and reduce it to ashes, the Flame Giant suddenly lifted into the air, its massive body soaring on the wind.

Had Count Hermion not been present, Suta might have dropped to his knees in worship.

It felt like divine salvation.

But that thought lasted less than three minutes before vanishing entirely.

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Because the airborne Flame Giant hovered above the city, raining down embers like carpet-bombing by high-tier spellcasters. The magical flames ignited anything flammable, reducing buildings to ash in moments. Count Hermion had no choice but to activate the Tower of Hermion’s power, summoning a blizzard to blanket the rooftops in snow and save the city from annihilation.

Yet this crimson specter, drifting above Hermion City, left its people in perpetual terror. Even now, the mere mention of the “Winter Cataclysm” made the citizens tremble uncontrollably. This demon, an unstoppable force of nature, instilled fear in all who beheld it.

What was the Flame Giant?

To this day, the earldom’s spellcasters debated fiercely. Some claimed it was a superweapon secretly bred by Count Hermion. Others insisted it was a devil sealed underground by the Church millennia ago. There were even those who believed it was divine retribution—a cleansing fire sent by the gods to purge the impure. Scholars from neighboring territories came to study it, and one, so obsessed with its power, threw himself into the flames, becoming one with the earth.

Suta still remembered the madman’s last words:

“This is the Creator’s gift to mankind—a being more radiant than any other, a sacred child before whom even dragons tremble. To become part of its magnificence is the highest blessing the gods could bestow.”

Though everyone knew it was the ravings of a lunatic, those words planted seeds of reverence and terror in the hearts of the people.

“Haaah—”

Exhaling deeply, Suta rested his hand on the hilt of his sword, steadying his trembling fingers.

Thirty minutes later.

“Report—!”

“Speak.”

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“The Flame Giant has advanced to within five kilometers of our position! It’s about to reach Lake Antonio!”

“What about the adventurers?”

The hesitation in his subordinate’s voice made the soldiers around them tense. An eerie silence settled over the hillside.

“Sir… they… they were completely routed…”

“What?! Those adventurers were supposed to be experts in monster extermination! How could they fail so miserably?!”

“That… that thing isn’t something humans can defeat… Hurry… report to Count Hermion… beg the Emperor for aid… or mankind will face annihilation.”

A charred, barely recognizable adventurer—supported by his companions—limped toward Suta. If not for the jade pendant at his waist, Suta wouldn’t have recognized him. This was Clementine, the renowned “Monster Slayer of Hermion,” a 24-year-old prodigy who had reached Level 17 and was hailed as the “Star of Hermion.”

Suta’s face paled as he rushed forward.

“Clementine?! What happened to you?!”

Clementine managed a weak smile.

“I… took a risk… Fire attacks don’t work. My flames… just fed it.”

“Tch. Rest and recover. I have to stop it before it reaches Lake Antonio. If that monster gets past the lake, Antonio City—the heart of the earldom—will be next. If it enters there… everything is truly over.”

Clementine’s expression froze before he shook his head weakly.

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“Don’t waste your efforts. Humans cannot defy divine punishment.”

“Even so—”

“Sir Suta! Sir Suta! Disaster—!”

A soldier’s panicked scream cut Suta off. Frowning, Suta turned to the man, only to find him gaping in horror, his finger shaking as he pointed into the distance.

Following the gesture, Suta’s blood ran cold.

A massive plume of white steam erupted into the sky. Even from five kilometers away, the condensation was unmistakable.

With the Flame Giant involved, there was only one explanation—and it filled Suta with dread.

Lake Antonio was boiling.

The cause? The Flame Giant, now wading into its waters.

If Lake Antonio—the largest lake in the earldom—were to evaporate, even the Tower of Hermion’s climate-altering powers wouldn’t be enough to restore the land within years. The once-prosperous territory would face ruin.

“No… NO! We CAN’T let that monster drain the lake! Move! Even if we have to throw ourselves into its path! We MUST destroy the Flame Giant!”

His desperate roar echoed through the valley.

No one could have guessed that the Flame Giant had once been nothing more than a tiny eye-worm—a creature that had, by chance, passed by a volcano, absorbed endless fire energy, and evolved into something monstrous.