The thing standing over Simeon’s broken body was an ogre. The word clicked into place in David’s mind with a sense of ludicrous finality. It had to be twenty feet tall, a mountain of pallid, leathery flesh crisscrossed with thick veins and old scars. Its face was a brutal slab, dominated by a heavy brow ridge under which two small, fierce blue eyes burned like trapped gas flames. It held a warclub that was more a felled tree sheathed in studded metal than a weapon, like a stripped-down telephone pole studded with railroad spikes. The sheer mass of the thing was absurd.

  The large grey ogre stepped through the smoke with a calm, heavy stride, and his steady blue glowing gaze locked onto the humans as if measuring their worth. “Strange little sparks,” it said, “Little wanderers,” it continued, voice rolling through the clearing like shifting stone. “Your kind rarely reaches this place.”

  It moved closer, and David felt the ground tremble from its steps as it stopped just ahead of Simeon and the girl’s bodies, claiming the space.

  Then it sat on the ground in front of the two humans it had killed, its massive weapon resting across its shoulders. It chewed on something they couldn’t see as it watched them, curious, and David had absolutely no desire to guess what.

  No one dared to move, not even a little bit. They just stood and stared at the ogre, like deer frozen in the glare of headlights, utterly paralyzed.

  The sight of Robert and the blond girl’s body, broken and still, was abruptly eclipsed by the thing that stood over them. It was big. Like geographical big. Twenty feet of gristle and rage, with arms like tree trunks and eyes burning with a fierce, intelligent blue that suggested it was not just strong, but hungry.

  Well, David thought, his mind clicking into a bizarre calm, his mental clarity skill finally deciding to make a resurgence, allowing him to think strategically. We’re dead.

  His eyes darted from the colossal ogre to the gathered survivors, their brief moment of hope shattered. The cat, Milo, had vanished, presumably with its “mommy.” Smart creature.

  Its gaze moved between them, paused on Mara and two others, then finally settled on David, slightly longer than it had looked at the others—

  No, much longer.

  David considered reaching for the crystalline dagger on his waist—it felt woefully inadequate, like bringing a toothpick to a demolition derby.

  How the hell are we supposed to fight that? The dagger in his hand felt like a suggestion, and a poorly-worded one at that. A direct confrontation seemed like a form of mass suicide. The only viable strategy involved a significant amount of running, preferably in the opposite direction, and a great deal of luck.

  And it had decided to stare at him, as if offering some sort of challenge.

  David knew, instinctively, that if he drew its attention with prey behavior, he would die. So he stood still, meeting its gaze, and did his best impression of a man who was not, in fact, staring at a giant murderous ogre.

  A deep growl pushed from the ogre’s chest, shaped directly at David, urging him toward some reaction worth destroying. It leaned closer, selecting him the way a butcher sets aside the next cut.

  “Speak,” the ogre said, lifting the warclub just enough to suggest what would come next, “I want the sound before the tearing.”

  Yeah, no, fuck that, David thought.

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  The ogre made a low, wet, clucking sound deep in its throat, a tut of profound disappointment. Its burning blue gaze slid from David and settled on the man standing beside him.

  The man bolted from the group.

  “Ah, so the first has chosen themselves already,” the ogre said.

  It teleported.

  A shockwave tore through the clearing, bending the air like a sheet of molten metal. The ground shivered, and the crowd staggered backward, faces frozen mid-scream.

  The ogre vanished, then reappeared in a fresh spot without warning—in front of him. David felt his stomach jolt upward as if his body threw alarms before his mind caught up. His thoughts slammed through him.

  David shoved demonic energy into his eyes. Fuck. It slammed into his skull and he saw more. The creatures muscles glowed with power. He saw the movement of a limb. Fuck. Its shoulder shifted. He noted the pause. Fuck. Survival hung on what he could read. All of David’s Skills fired at full blast.

  The world slowed, the war hammer came down and crushed the man who tried running, and David saw exactly what came next before it happened.

  His mind became crisp and clear. He saw where it would swing, who it would grab, and positioned himself so he was not among the selected.

  His heat energy was spent, a temporary battery he’d drained. He stopped filling his eyes and skull with demonic energy, instead he triggered demonic energy circulation throughout his entire body, feeling the raw, unfiltered power flood his veins like a swarm of angry hornets, while carefully holding his mana in reserve. He never wanted to be empty again. Using both felt like trying to pat his head and rub his stomach during an earthquake, but finesse could wait for a less murdery afternoon.

  Screams tore the clearing apart. Feet scrambled over debris, dragging into jagged edges, roots, and fallen boards. People fell, scraping and colliding, but the panic only fed itself, rolling through the clearing in waves, no one thinking, only running. A few at the edges ran into the forest. Everyone else ran for the downed plane as the Ogre snatched four passengers up into its grasp.

  David positioned himself out of its reach. He weaved between the passengers, thinking through the next step. How do I even kill something like that? Could it even be done? Should he ditch the group and come back later; level up, rack up some skill points, and then finish the job? Maybe—even if everyone would be dead by then. He shoved that plan into the back of his head. Not out of some asinine heroic instinct. That was a final resort. A logical outcome. Having numbers mattered. Survival depended on it. Current moment just proved that.

  But it wouldn’t mean a thing if you were dead.

  The ogre swung a reaching palm and missed him by a hair, but three passengers weren’t so lucky. It snatched them up in its grasp and held them.

  By then, everyone had run to the plane in a panic, each struggling to get there first. David was already at the tree-line.

  Then ogre studied them for a long moment, its intelligent eyes scanning over the cowering survivors with an air of clinical assessment. It lowered a massive, three-fingered hand and scooped up a single unconscious person into its palm, lifting them to its face for a closer inspection. After a moment of this scrutiny, it let out a low, guttural rumble.

  "Disappointing," it boomed, its voice causing vibrations deep in their chests. "Like newborns."

  Then it gestured with its chin towards the forest around them.

  "Grow, little shapes. I will be back."

  Without another word, the ogre disappeared in a sudden huff of displaced air, the familiar scent of ozone marking its teleportation. It was simply gone, leaving them alone with the wreckage and the dead.

  A few more seconds of stunned silence hung in the air.

  Then.

  Screams. Panic. Crying. Everyone scrambled back inside the relative shelter of the broken plane, pushing and shoving in their blind terror. David watched from his vantage point, no safer than they were.

  His hand trembled uncontrollably. Each breath he took was ragged and uneven, as if he were gasping for air in a vacuum. His heart pounded in his chest, a frantic drumbeat of terror. His mind spun with thoughts of what could happen next.

  Would he survive?

  Was this the end?

  Every noise, every movement, sent his nerves into overdrive. His senses were on high alert, and he kept demonic energy and mana flowing through his body, a futile preparation for an enemy that could vanish in an instant. The same feeling of helplessness and vulnerability washed over him like a wave.

  He had to leave. Abandon everything. He needed to level. Level up like a man unhinged. But he could no longer think. He tried to calm himself, reach for his skill, to steady his shaking hand and regulate his breathing, but it felt impossible.

  Fuck.

  Fuck!

  FUCK!