68 Starbugs

The giants walked forward a little bit, then my sword intent exploded out. It was on the edge of a huge breakthrough, so it was a little unstable. But the power was still there nonetheless, my sword was sharpened to the extreme.

I flew out at the three giants, who looked at my blurry body in surprise. They all tried to move away but when I was a few inches away from them, I swung my sword at Mach 1 sending out a violent storm at them.

The giants guarded with their arms and got various cuts on their body. Then the void archers readied their arrows and shot at the giants. The arrows embedding easily, due to the void powers. I channeled the Shadow of Providence, causing serpents to slither on my the death knights and shadow corps.

They entered the battle as much smaller than the 10-foot giants, they brought their malice filled weapons and smashed and cut at the giants. The death knights were especially capable able to cause huge damage with a single swing.

The surprise of the attack wore off, the giants swung away at all the nuisances. A few of the orcs were hit back, and the hobgoblins quickly retreated. I myself was able to block the strike with my sword, I was already stronger than an average giant. I pushed off one of the giants, the chief looked at me in dread.

My aura had become so much deeper since I had entered the formation last that the giant felt weak in comparison. The orcs were able to cause some more damage to the two giants before retreating. I sent all of them back entirely, I would handle the rest. Dazkieht, Pektog, and Graklak stood wistfully as they watched me. It was time to demonstrate that their leader was no joke.

"Surrender now and I can spare your lives." I declared in a cold tone as I sheathed my void sword.

"The human conspirator we have heard about I assume?" The chief said in a solemn tone

"Oh, how did you know about me?" I asked quizzically

"The forest is more united than you think..." He said with a smile.

I tried to remember if there was anything that gave me away. Then I remembered there was a little ladybug, I saw flying around when I first saw the giant. It didn't seem special at first, but then I remembered a textbook I read. It was a starbug, it had no eye sockets. It saw the world using its sense of smell and had a unique starry sky pattern on it's back.

"Of course you raise starbugs," I said in a surprised tone.

"You are very knowledgeable, then I think you know our answer." He said as he cracked his knuckles

"Very well," I responded in a cold tone, the starbugs made me even further interested in the giants. The method of raising them was unknown to the world, it was a secret of the beasts.

I channeled the sword intent into my palm and extended it out like a sword. Cutting at the giant's body, the challenge came from using my body and not my sword. I need to be challenged to perfect my sword code and let it evolve. This was my first self-created technique, the sword intent made my hand like a sword sharp and deadly.

"Sword Armor: Break."

My fingers punctured into the chief's body and, he dodged back with five deep holes on his body. He looked at me in further dread, scared he couldn't dodge a second ago. But his body had already stopped the bleeding in moments, and the wound even started to heal slowly. I was in awe of his sheer vitality, I couldn't even match that speed of regeneration.

Then his two giant warriors jumped in sync at me with the legs raised into round kicks. I raised my hands that crackled with intense lightning and grabbed the forces of their attacks.

"Lightning Step" The force of the kicks was sent back onto them, and with the addition of my sword armor's piercing. The chief pulled back his fist and moved at 55% the speed of sound in a slick straight motion at me.

He raised his fist back and threw all the force at me, I wanted to dodge but at the same time, I felt excited. I couldn't use Lightning Step as it was far too fast. I could at most redirect 15% of the force, I made my hand into a fist.

The sword armor making it hardened like divine metal. I wound up my fist before meeting his at my top speed, I couldn't win in strength but I could in speed. Our fists met with great fury, and we both went back.

I rubbed my bloody fist in agonizing pain and saw the big hole in his fist. I directed all my force into a pinpoint attack, I distributed his force by neutralizing some of it with Lightning Step. Leaving me with a bloody but not punctured fist, and him otherwise. The two giants capitalized on my moment of pain to punch as well.

I used one fist to deal with one, and I kicked the other away. My sword intent in my feet was like a sharp knife, cutting the giant's fist. I put more sword intent into my feet and jumped into the air. I descended on the chief's battered form, my kick coming down like an ax.

He dodged quickly, and my foot reached the ground. Instead of smashing it, it made a deep sword scar into the ground, it was about a half meter long. My fist was no longer usable but at least, the healing was going very well. The two giants grabbed rocks and threw them at me. They were fast, but I was faster I dodged them in a single instant.

"Better try better if you want to win." I teased, after all, they were fairly riled up by my dishonoring of their allies. The two giants became impulsive and jumped together without any form intent on ripping me apart.

I laughed as I jumped at them my feet ready to cut them apart, then I got hit by a rock. I looked over at the chief who was smiling in schadenfreude. The pain was momentary, what was important was the disruption to my motion. The two giants threw their fists at me, one hitting me and I narrowly dodged the other one.

The sword armor guarded me well, but it got disrupted in my body and went into chaos. It caused me some internal injuries, I cut at both giants. I aimed my feet at their necks cutting their heads off and landing on the ground in pain. I spit up some blood and stood on my knees as I looked at their chief.

"Since you are destined to die, conspirator, I will tell you my name. I am Krisor, Giant king " He said pridefully to me.

I felt my Lightning sword intent automatically rotate as it released intense lightning on my body. My eyes crackled with lightning, a massive kirin appeared in my vision. In my status bar, the lightning sword code started to progress as it transformed into the Kirin Sword Code!

I involuntarily grabbed my sword and raised it as a legendary kirin beast appeared behind me. The massive beast roared as a thunderstorm appeared. The remaining giants looked to the sky with intense fear screaming from their souls. The majesty of the Kirin could not be refused!

"GRAAR" The Kirin roared as it flew at Krisor with a thunderclap, a single instant of destruction! A massive lightning pool formed around Krisor obliterating everything in its path. The lightning pool slowly cooled as the debris settled.

There was still crackling of lightning and a strong smell of burnt wood. But that wasn't my concern, I had a pit in my stomach as if something wasn't right. I felt a dangerous intent all of a sudden and released all of my sword armor intent and my raised my sword.

A massive fist that had a swirling river of stars augmenting it. It seemed as if the universe itself was trying to crush me. I released my full lightning intent as the kirin returned and helped guard me.

My body flew back as the fist crushed the kirin, and broke through my sword armor sending me into a hole in the ground almost fully crushing me. Slowly through the astral river shrunk until it almost dissipated.

I jumped out of the hole the fist made and fell to one knee only holding myself up using my void sword. So many of my bones had almost been crushed and the pain made it hard to keep conscious. I looked at the origin of the fist, and there stood Krisor with swirling starlight on his body.

'He harnessed the starbugs?!?' I thought to myself with intense dread, even though it was only a wisp of true starlight. Just that was almost enough to nearly destroy me, I felt almost overcome with hopelessness.