Battle Before The Festival

Exactly a thousand and a hundred years before, in the western part of the Forest of Nightmares, giants were still roaming in the land of Exgreia.

A demon fox was watching a fight between two beings while sitting in a pile of giant corpses.

"Hey dumbass, just kill him already; if the fight takes longer, he will die due to blood loss, or do you want me to finish him?" The demon fox said before he leaped from the mountain of dead bodies.

"Shut up, he's my prey," the silver-haired man swirling a jet-black battle scythe in mid-air said, smiling.

He rotated his weapon before evading the huge fist of his opponent. Then he leaped onto the giant's bloody arm and ran towards his head.

His opponent was covered in wounds from his scythe, and a lot of blood was dripping each time the giant made a move.

"Tss, you're starting to get boring; is this the limit of the mighty King of Giants? What happened to your unfathomable strength you're so proud of?" He asked, and the giant replied with a loud battle cry, doing his best to pluck the man running on his arm.

"Slow," he murmured, then jumped upwards to the head of the giant. The dice from his scythe rotated, and three dots glowed.

The next second, his hand, all the way up to his arm, was covered by a pair of jet-black gauntlets with three dots on the left and a dice embedded on its right, then he punched the Giant King on the forehead.

The giant screamed in pain until he fell backward and lied on the ground; the spot where the man struck his fist turned into a huge wound with blood spurting like a fountain.

"Your skull is really tough," the man said after he landed on the giant's face. "I'll give you another one."

Then he jumped upward again, aimed his fist at the same wound he did seconds ago, and plunged downwards. A rain made from blood with several flesh and brain particles showered the area as soon as his small fist burst the Giant King's skull.

"So long, Jack!" The man uttered these words while bathing himself in the sticky red liquid.

. . . . .

Zeno pulled the black dice out of his pocket, tossed it in mid-air, then it rotated and three dots glowed, and a pair of jet-black gauntlets covered his hands and arms.

Alex stood up after he slammed into one of the tavern tables. His body now had the properties of tungsten, yet he was sent tumbling by the man with just a tap of his fingers.

'Impossible,' he thought, then he pulled the flail with his right arm and readied himself upon seeing Zeno walking towards him.

The healer from his party cast an enhancement buff with a layer of protection on his body. He didn't ask, but he was glad upon feeling the effect of the spell.

'I need to last until he arrives,' he solidified his thoughts and waited for Zeno to approach him.

"Your Legacy is quite rare. But you see, starting from that day, only one being came out alive after receiving a punch from me, though he is now dead. Maybe your body can handle this," Zeno smirked, but Alex struck him with his flail without a second thought. 

The demon caught the ball with spikes on his palm and crushed it into pieces.

Alex's jaw dropped as soon as his weapon was crushed with a single hand in a matter of seconds. Then Zeno reached out and held the mercenary on his left shoulder.

Alex did his best to lift Zeno's hand; his build was larger than the man's, but he couldn't make it move. When Zeno pushed his hand downward, Alex was forced to kneel in front of him, making their eyes equal in level.

His friends started to dash towards them; they wanted to help, but they stopped as soon as Alex shouted.

"Don't come here; you are no match against him," he said.

They were all ruby-class, but Alex was considered one of the strongest among the ruby-class mercenaries, yet he was helpless before the silver-haired man.

Zeno pulled his right arm, then clenched his fist. And after a few seconds, he struck with the best he could do.

He punched the mercenary's chest. A huge explosion was heard upon contact between his gauntlet and Alex's tungsten body.

The walls and ceiling of the tavern were destroyed in that instance, and Alex was nowhere to be seen. Houses and buildings were pulverized to dust. His punch eradicated all existence hundreds of meters away from the place where he aimed his attack. 

'The Giant King's Legacy was still too much for the humans to handle, I guess,' Zeno concluded in his thoughts.

He turned around to come towards Alex's companions, who were frozen in their positions; their eyes widened as soon as they saw the damage of Zeno's punch. The healer couldn't remain standing still, and she soon fell on her knees.

Tears started to form in the corner of her eyes, and as soon as they flowed down her cheeks, she screamed, which caused panic among the mercenaries inside the tavern.

They ran away and fled from Zeno; they were scared to death after witnessing his punch.

In the first place, they wanted to stay a little bit longer to watch the outcome of the fight between those high-class beings, but fear consumed their mentality; they knew that they would be dead the moment they were caught in the silver-haired man's attack.

Almost a minute had passed when the tavern became an empty place. Only Zeno and Alex's group remained inside, but the limbs of the two fighters and the archer didn't stop shaking. They couldn't even raise their weapons in a proper way while the healer was still crying behind them.

Zeno stepped closer to the mercenaries, but a large bald man appeared beside him and punched him in the face.

He caught the man's fist to block the attack, then he applied pressure to crash the hand of the bald man.

'His grip is incredible,' the bald man thought.

He summoned all of his strength to free himself from Zeno's clutches, but the hand holding him, didn't even budge.

A few seconds passed, and his hand turned into mincemeat. Then Zeno let him go, and he stepped backwards. He gritted his teeth, but he didn't let his group see him writhing in pain.

"Captain Tigrid!" His squad shouted upon seeing the state of his hand. Then the healer tried his best to stop crying and cast a healing spell on him. It returned to its original form after several seconds, and then Tigrid closed and opened it in a repeated manner, checking if there was no hidden injury inside.

"That strength of yours, how did you obtain that power?" He asked Zeno but got no response.

The silver-haired demon smiled and dashed at him. Then he reached for the gothic axe behind his back and channeled his energy into it. It gave the weapon a white radiance, and he struck the man before him.

Zeno was still smiling when he punched the incoming axe. Their weapons clashed, then Tigrid kicked the man with his right leg, but Zeno was faster than him. He pulled his fist, then bent backward the lowest he could and pushed the ground below him, making him tumble upward. 

The soles of his feet hit his opponent's chin, which lifted him several inches in the air. Then Zeno kicked Tigrid's right side by spinning his body and leg while his hands were standing on the ground. 

Tigrid propelled himself into one of the walls of the tavern. The bricks collapsed, and he was buried in the debris, but an explosion sent the pieces of rock flying away. He stood up; his armor now had a huge dent on its side. He sprinted to the silver-haired man with his giant axe; white energy was covering his whole body.

Zeno got back on his feet after he landed his attack on Tigrid; his gauntlets were now nowhere to be seen and were replaced by a jet-black battle scythe. He swirled it with his right hand, behind his back, then held it with the left and ran towards the huge red metal armor coming at him.

'This is what you called a fight,' he smirked.

The blade of the scythe parried the edge of the axe. Zeno held the shaft of his weapon with both of his hands and then slashed Tigrid upward. A snappy sound echoed in the place as soon as his weapon cut through the metal armor. 

"Maybe you'll be faster once you remove that armor, though, you won't survive longer," Zeno said, then he aimed a punch at Tigrid's chest.

The scythe disappeared all of a sudden, and a gauntlet covered his fist while traversing towards the huge man.

Tigrid protected his body by placing his arms in front of his chest; he covered it with a thick layer of his energy.

"That's a bad move," Zeno murmured before his punch hit Tigrid's arm.

A bang was heard, and Tigrid was pushed hundreds of meters away by Zeno's attack. His feet scraped the pavement, but he survived the monstrous punch that obliterated Alex moments ago, though his arm was flattened beyond recognition and a large dent was formed in front of his chest.

"Oh, you actually survived that!" Zeno seethed, astonished by his opponent's tenacity.

'What kind of monster am I facing right now?' Tigrid thought, 'Even demons and beastmen cannot perform a punch of this caliber.'

He gently moved his arms to his sides, but he couldn't feel them. Then blood dripped from his armor. He knew that his arm was not simply broken; it had exploded inside his gauntlets.

His squad ran to him as soon as they saw his state, especially the healer. She was running while chanting a healing spell, though it was not working. A simple heal was not enough to restore limbs in that state.

"Leave this place; you'll die if you stay here," Tigrid said to his team as soon as they approached him.

"But how about you? Your arms," the archer lamented, which caused Tigrid to look at him.

"I won't die here, dumbass! I still have a card to play," he exclaimed, then he walked forward.

"Move! Don't get mad at me if you got hurt once I unleash my Legacy," he said, then his armor shattered and fell into pieces, a pair of black featherly wings started to sprout from his back, his ears grew longer like those of an elf, his flattened hands and arms grew larger, and his skin turned red and resembled that of an orc's body.

Afterward, a long tail with green scales wagged behind him. And another set of eyes appeared on his forehead, then all of them became black with white pupils. All of his previous injuries were healed the moment his body changed.

"Ahhhhh, I don't really like to be seen by others while in this form," Tigrid said while checking his new arms. Then he looked at Zeno and smirked.

"Shall we try again?" He said.

. . . . .