However, before I get very far I spot a pair of giants off to the west and change directions. They are bigger than the ones outside and they are not as primitive from the looks of them. One is nineteen feet tall and the other is around seventeen, both of them have weapons and armor.

  The bigger one has a spear and the smaller one has a sword, both are wearing pieces of armor. From the color of the weapons and armor, they look like bronze, but I am not going to underestimate them. They are walking towards me, so I move quickly to circle around behind the two of them.

  Despite my size, I am pretty light on my feet and the giants don’t hear me until I am charging. I manage to hit the bigger giant in the back before he is able to turn around. I dig my claws into his shoulders, grab his neck with my jaw, and twist with all of my strength.

  I hear a very loud and satisfying crack a few seconds before I feel a burning pain in my side. The smaller giant reacted faster than I expected and managed to cut me with his sword. I release the falling giant and jump back, just barely avoiding a second swing.

  The giant steps forward, preparing for a big swing, but I sweep his leg with my tail. I dodge out of the way as the giant face plants and then pounce onto his back before he can recover. Once I have him pinned, it is a simple matter to finish him off and that is the end of it.

  I really wish I could still get experience, I would bet that these guys would be worth a ton. Still, at least now I can conduct my experiments, but first I gather the weapons and remove the armor. After I stash them in my pouch, I move to the big giant and cut him open to expose his core.

  I crack the core, extract the essence, stuff it in a jar, and then attempt to absorb the core. However, nothing happens, absorb fails to trigger, meaning that the core is useless without the essence. To prove that theory, I move to the smaller giant, remove the essence from his core, and try to absorb it.

  Absorb Activated: Str +100, End +50, Int +10!

  The strength and endurance make sense, but the intelligence is a little surprising. Although, since they can work on their cores and forge equipment it shouldn’t be. They have kept Bull trapped for months, so they can’t be completely mindless, but it would be easier if they were.

  I store the body of the smaller giant and move over to the larger giant to cut his heart out. Once the heart is free, I store the rest of the corpse in my ring and start eating the heart. It is really delicious, but considering how closely they resemble humans it feels weird.

  Devour Triggered! Str +100, End +100!

  Those are some pretty good stats, it is too bad that Devour will only work once. Not that I would want to add giant to my normal list of foods that I eat, but maybe the kids would like them. Everburn surely would and as mana rich as they are they would probably be good for him.

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  However, that is something to think about later when I am not in such a dangerous area. I need to keep my mind on what I am doing and go find Lizzy and Leylisha. When I go to move, I feel a dull pain, so I crane my neck around to check my wound.

  It was a pretty nasty gash and it is healing, but slowly, so for the first time in a while I use a healing spell. The wound closes instantly, but then I realize that I have been an idiot again. I made myself amazing armor, but it didn’t do me any good because it was still shapeshifted into a saddle.

  Normally that kind of oversight doesn’t matter because so few things can actually hurt me. That isn’t the case in these mountains and if I don’t get my head in the game I could be in serious trouble. I quickly shapeshift it back into armor and then start heading north at a decent clip.

  I am not running as fast as I can because I need to keep alert for anything that might attack me. Luckily, I don’t run into anything and before long I am able to locate Lizzy and Leylisha. However, they are both wounded and Lizzy is lying on the ground like she doesn’t have the strength to stand.

  Leylisha isn’t as bad, it only takes a single heal to get her back to a good condition. Lizzy, on the other hand, takes a dozen heals before all of her wounds are gone. However, the fact that there are three giant corpses tells me that she put up a hell of a fight.

  After I am done healing them, I move to the corpses to extract their essences from their cores. Once that is done, I let Lizzy snack a little and store the rest to eat later. With a bit of food in her, Lizzy is soon back on her feet and moving around like normal.

  “I think we should head back for now.”

  Lizzy says “Okay.”

  “What, no argument?”

  Leylisha says “That’s my fault. Several of her wounds were from protecting me. I was holding her back the entire fight!”

  “It’s not your fault, we seriously underestimated just how much more dangerous it would be in here. The giants outside the mountains were much weaker and a lot more primitive.”

  Lizzy says “True, but it was a really fun fight!”

  Leylisha says “Even with me getting in your way? You got injured to protect me!”

  Lizzy says “That’s no big deal, it is my job to protect my rider. Besides, it made the fight harder and more fun!”

  “No one died, so let’s just let it go. We should get out of here before something else attacks us.”

  Lizzy says “Yeah, let’s go. I don’t have the energy for another fight like that right now.”

  I find it hard to believe that Lizzy doesn’t want another fight, but I go ahead and open the gate. At least I try to, but for whatever reason the spell fails and the gate doesn’t form. I instantly think of the damn barrier, but I have no idea how to force the gate to work, this has never happened to me before.

  Lizzy says “Why are you just standing there? Aren’t you going to open a gate?”

  “I can’t. I think the barrier around the mountains is blocking it.”

  Lizzy says “Then I guess we are walking. Unless you want to try flying?”

  “I didn’t see any aerial predators, did you?”

  Lizzy says “No, I didn’t.”

  “I guess that we can risk it then.”

  I shift my armor back into a saddle, wait for the two of them to mount and get settled, then take off. As soon as I am in the air, I turn east and gain altitude just as fast as I can to get outside the barrier. However, luck is not with me this time and a flock of creatures rises from a tree.