My stomach lurched at the sight, staring at the mangled remains dissolving into mist. The Phantom giant’s voice echoed in my ears—mocking, heavy, final. I had seen men die before, but never like that. Not so helpless, not so utterly consumed.
My hands tightened on my sword hilt. A Grandmaster, someone I thought untouchable, had been crushed like an insect. If even they fell like this, what chance did the rest of us have?
I tore my gaze away. If I kept staring at that monster, I’d lose my mind. I forced myself to look across the battlefield, searching for something, anything that resembled hope.
On the far side, the fight with the dwarf Phantom raged. Eleven Grandmasters had committed themselves there too, trying to pin it down.
One Grandmaster lunged in with a skill, a spear of earth bursting upward to impale it. The dwarf simply swung its hammer, and the weapon carried not just force, but a distortion in air itself. The spear crumbled like sand.
The other Grandmasters followed instantly, desperate not to give it breathing room. Two of them spun Essence into chains of light, trying to bind its arms. A third unleashed a water blade aimed directly at its neck.
For a heartbeat, it looked like they had it.
But then the dwarf stomped. The ground cracked. Deathmist spread like a shockwave, and the chains broke before they ever touched its skin. The water blade scattered into harmless droplets. The dwarf twisted its body with unnatural power, its hammer already swinging in a wide arc.
CRASH!
One of the Grandmasters was caught mid-dodge. The hammer smashed into his side. His armor folded like paper, his Essence barrier shattered, and his body hurled through the air with a sickening crunch before he hit the ground.
The others tried to cover him, launching wave after wave of Essence techniques—flames, lightning, wind, all blending into a storm.
The dwarf raised its hammer high, and before my eyes the weapon swelled, its head growing until it loomed as large as a house. Then it brought it down with a force that made my chest tighten.
An unnatural roar echoed across the battlefield as the earth shattered. From the cracks, a wall of deathmist surged upward, thick and alive, swallowing the light around it. The shockwave rolled outward, and the Grandmasters’ combined attacks slammed into the wall.
For a moment, it held. The wall of mist rippled like a living thing, absorbing the power, bending beneath the pressure. But then it cracked apart with a violent shudder, torn open by the force of the attacks.
The dwarf’s armored body skidded across the torn ground, but it didn’t falter. Not even a dent showed on its armor.
The hammer, now enormous, dragged trenches into the soil as it slid, before it finally came to a stop. The weapon still rested easily in its hands, its small body almost hidden beneath the impossible bulk of the weapon.
A low rumble spread through the battlefield.
"Defense!" one of the Grandmasters roared, their voice sharp with urgency.
The dwarf moved, the ground burst apart. In the blink of an eye, it appeared high above the Grandmasters, hammer raised again.
The deathmist around it churned wildly, spiraling toward the hammer. From within its armored body, more mist erupted, flooding outward. Black lightning crackled across the weapon’s head, twisting and lashing like chains of pure corruption.
The air rumbled, the ground trembled, and even the clouds above scattered as the hammer was thrown down. It wasn’t just a strike, it was a calamity, a meteor crashing down on all of them.
The Grandmasters roared in unison. Barriers of light flared into existence, elemental walls surged upward, and blades of Essence screamed into the sky. Fire burned, ice shimmered, wind howled.
They poured everything into that moment, all their defense, all their offense, trying desperately to stop what was coming.
The hammer crashed down.
BOOM!!!
The sound split the battlefield apart. Shockwaves exploded outward, rattling the very air, and the ground beneath the clash disintegrated. The debris didn’t just scatter—it was shredded, reduced to dust, to nothing but atoms.
When the storm of force cleared, I saw the Grandmasters floating in the sky, their armor cracked and their breathing ragged. They were alive. Below them, the hammer had returned to its normal size and fell like a simple weapon, smashing into the ground with a dull thud.
But the dwarf was nowhere to be seen.
"Surprise."
Its hollow voice slithered into my ears, and every head, including mine, snapped toward the sound.
There it was. Floating in the air some distance away. In its hands, dangling like broken dolls, were two Grandmasters. Its fingers clamped tight around their throats. Their faces were pale, blood trailing from their mouths.
Before anyone could move, the dwarf’s armor hissed, and a surge of deathmist gushed out, writhing like snakes. It rushed into the bodies of the two Grandmasters.
Their screams tore through the sky.
"AHHHHHH!"
The sound pierced me, made my hands shake, but worse was watching them thrash helplessly in its grip. They clawed at its arms, their Essence blazing in panic, but it was useless. The mist devoured everything they pushed out.
"NO!" one of the other Grandmasters roared, and the whole group surged forward at once, weapons flaring, light filling the sky.
The dwarf’s head tilted ever so slightly. Its voice, calm and cold, drifted across the chaos.
"Fools."
The air cracked.
The giant appeared above the rushing Grandmasters without warning, its enormous body blotting out the sky like a falling mountain.
It raised one palm, and the deathmist around it howled in response. The mist gathered, twisting violently, until it shaped into something monstrous. A palm bigger than houses, bigger than towers, formed from pure deathmist. The air itself buckled under the weight of it.
Then it fell.
The deathmist palm ripped through the sky with terrifying speed, tearing the air open as it descended. The Grandmasters below screamed battle cries and tried to scatter, but the shadow swallowed them.
BOOM!!!
The ground split apart as the palm struck, craters opening like wounds. Dust and stone erupted, blinding me for a moment, and all I could hear was the sickening sound of bodies crashing into the earth.
When my vision cleared, I saw them, Grandmasters sprawled and broken, struggling to rise, their Essence flickering like dying embers.
And still, above all of that destruction, the dwarf remained in the air. The two Grandmasters in its hands shrieked one final time before their voices cut off.
Their bodies withered, their flesh and bone dissolving into nothing as the deathmist consumed them. Within seconds, they were gone. Nothing left but more of that swirling corruption, which seeped back into the dwarf’s armor as if feeding it.
It lifted its head slowly, staring down at the rest of us with those soulless glowing lines.
"You are not the only ones who can work together," it said.
A chill swept through me. My body wanted to move, to fight, but my mind screamed at me the truth. This wasn’t a battle, it was slaughter.