Monotony

It was rather monotonous, riding the leg of some abominable, unseen titan to the base of a gargantuan mountain.

One would think it would be entertaining, but it mainly consisted of not moving for a long period of time, then having to cling to the leg they were on while it moved.

Still, it was much, much quicker than they would have been if they were on foot.

By now, a few hours had passed, and they had covered an immense amount of distance.

Kai could still make out the ruined walls of FrostVale, but even at his current altitude he could not spot any gargantuan corpses in its walls, which was a bit of a shame.

He would have liked to see a large tentacled corpse there, it would have lessened the pain on his heart a little.

Kai looked down at his fingers, or more specifically, the blue bandages hiding them. He had already drank his HP potions for the day, and they did partially heal his injured fingers, but they mainly fixed his fingernails, not so much the bleeding.

So Cecilia had applied some strange bandages to them. There was a lot of strange things like this stored in her ring, but Kai liked remaining curious about what was in there, it was like a little goodie bag.

Speaking of Cecilia, the ex-Queen had long fallen asleep, somehow.

Her fingers were still intertwined with his, as if she were scared that if she let go she would fall off the leg of the titan, or even that he would fall off.

She had fallen asleep while leaning back against the obsidian material of the leg, but her head somehow ended up on his shoulder.

Kai didn't mind though, it wasn't a big deal after all.

Plus, he wasn't going to complain if she...

Uh.

Nevermind.

Sighing, Kai looked back out at all the open land before him.

It really was pretty flat and barren, like nothing had existed there at the first place.

At times, Kai would think that he had caught a glimpse of something, but it would disappear the next moment, like something was trying to obscure it.

Or even make sure that he didn't look at it.

Then, Kai glanced over to see what the rest of the team were doing.

Petunia, Remy and Esurient were all playing together, Umbra still being hid in Kai's shadow as she would have been too large for the ledge they were sitting on.

It really was a strange group of them, especially a child, rat and sentient sword.

Is this what life was going to be like when they properly returned back to civilisation? Such mismatched groups of beings?

Kai wasn't sure, but he was curious to find out.

And it's not like he didn't have a source to find out, it's just that he hadn't been contacted by said source in a long time.

It had been seven, nearly eight months since Kai's last meeting with The Ever-changing. He wasn't sure what sort of mission they had gone on that would last this long, but he had no other choice than to wait for them to contact him.

Kai sighed softly, leaning his head back against the obsidian material as he prepared himself.

He had been keeping track of the titan's steps after all, so he knew what was coming.

"Petunia, get ready."

Nodding softly, Petunia pressed herself as far as possible against the material behind her as Esurient pressed against her front, keeping her pinned.

Meanwhile, Kai wrapped an arm around the slumbering Cecilia and clung onto the leg with his other hand just as the leg they were sitting on began to ascend.

Kai sucked in a shallow breath, keeping a tight grip onto the obsidian.

Somehow, Cecilia did not wake up. She must have been having an incredible dream or something, because she hadn't woken up for the last leg movement either.

Both Kai and Petunia remained vigilant, keeping a tight grip and making no sudden movements, neither of them wanted to fall off after all.

When they were lifted into the air, Kai was able to get a better view of everything around them.

That view mainly being snow, snow and more snow.

But even though all he could make out was snow, Kai was near certain that he had caught a glimpse of a large section of the land that was made of ice, only as soon as he saw it, it vanished.

Kai mentally cursed.

The last time something had been obscured from him like this, he ended up under a tentacled witches mind hex and forced to endure... whatever Hex Kai had gone through, he still had no idea what had happened to him in his lost memories.

So it was only natural that he was a little worried about the fact he was seeing things again. It could be nothing, but it could also be something horrible.

After a few minutes, the leg they were on reached its peak altitude and began to descend.

It was another few minutes before Kai, Petunia and Esurient were able to relax, the leg having connected with the ground once more.

Kai sighed softly, letting go of Cecilia and once more holding onto her hand.

His fingers stung a little, courtesy of how hard he was gripping onto the obsidian leg of the titan, but it wasn't anything that annoying.

After that, Kai went back to gazing out at the distance.

It was rather beautiful, if he were to ignore the fact that things were being obscured from his sight.

It would have been even more beautiful if there was something like the Northern Lights rather than the dreary clouds above them, but beggars can't be choosers.

Also, one thing that Kai had noticed was that no snow landed on the ledge, at all.

Which really didn't make sense considering that the body of the titan was hidden above the clouds, so what was stopping the snow from landing on them?

Kai sighed, listening to the sound of the titan's legs going up, them coming down and hitting against the ground below. It would always be a dull thud, accompanied by a thunderous crash, then a moment of silence before the titan would lift its next leg.

At least, that's how it was for the next three rotations.

A subtle feeling of unease ran through Kai's being. Well, maybe not his being.

His soul.

Kai frowned softly, looking around, but he couldn't notice anything that was off.

The titan had just restarted its walking order, its front right leg was in its descent phase, just about to hit the ground.

Kai looked down to where the leg was about to land, and then frowned even more.

Did that bit of ground... look a little different?

The next moment, Kai mentally cursed as he was knocked off balance and nearly fell off the ledge.

Esurient managed to react quickly, pinning Petunia to the leg, and Kai had managed to react quick enough so that Cecilia didn't go flying over the edge and plummet to her death.

The ex-Queen woke in a panic, wide eyed and worried, but Kai had no time to console her.

He was too focused on what had just happened.

The leg they were on was slanted, and Kai just saw the reason why.

The ground under the titan's first leg had collapse, the leg having fallen below the surface of the earth.

Kai sighed in relief.

It wasn't a big deal, it was just a little mishap. There was no need for him to have been so nervous there was no prob-

His eyes widened as he watched something emerge from the newly hole.

It was a small creature, like a goblin, only instead of being a horrible green like they normally were, this one was a light blue, like it was made out of ice.

It had a long nose, sharp crystallised claws and a club made of ice in its hands. Even its eyes looked like they were made out of ice.

The small creature glared at the leg of the titan before whacking it with its club.

The club shattered instantly.

The creature, enraged that the titan had broken its club, kicked the obsidian like material, only for its own foot to shatter into shards of ice.

Kai snickered to himself, watching the comedy show.

Only somehow, to his horror, the little ice creature heard him. Turning its head to look at Kai through its glassy eyes, Kai saw it open its mouth, only he couldn't hear noise it made.

Then, Kai could only watch in horror as another ice goblin climbed out of the hole.

And another.

And another.

Not even a minute later, hundreds, maybe even a thousand goblins staring at him, like they wanted to kill him.

If they couldn't harm the leg of the titan, why not harm the pest that had laughed at them?

All of them stormed towards the leg they were on, and Kai slowly began to hear the noises they were making.

It was a strange sort of cry, like an ice machine. It didn't sound like any sort of language he would be able to understand anyway.

Kai felt a little nervous when they reached the base of the leg he was on, only that nervousness was short lived.

The ice goblins started whacking their clubs against the leg of the titan, the obsidian like material shattering all of the weapons on impact.

Another snicker escaped from Kai's mouth, these creatures were pretty dumb.

Only the next moment, his eyes widened in horror.

A single ice goblin began climbing the leg.

And that was all it took for the rest of them to follow its lead.