"The giant is here?" Hearing Ikki's message, Shizuku couldn't help but be stunned. Could there really be a so-called giant? But before she could even reply, as a Water Mage, she sensed something unusual outside the hut.
Something seemed to be blocking the rain. Recalling her brother Ikki's earlier notification, Shizuku didn't even have time to retrieve the student handbook that was still in her hand and hadn't ended the call, before she quickly picked up Stella and jumped outside. And as the two leapt out of the house, the sound of the house shattering came from one side.
Shizuku, lying on the ground, and a somewhat bewildered Stella looked up, only to see a stone giant, five or six meters tall, slowly retracting its fist that had smashed the house. Then it turned around and met the gaze of Shizuku and Stella on the ground in the rain.
"A stone giant? As expected, it's a Blazer's technique."
Looking at the giant in front of her, Shizuku, slowly standing up, couldn't help but retort, looking at the enemy before her. The giant in front of them was not the legendary giant they had imagined, but a humanoid creature composed of rocks and soil structures. This monster was undoubtedly the result of a Blazer's technique.
"Shizuku, is this the giant we're looking for?"
"Ah, it should be." Responding perfunctorily to Stella's persistent questioning, Shizuku felt extremely irritated at this moment. Because just now, to save Stella, she had dropped the student handbook she was talking on in the hut. By now, it must have been shattered into fragments.
To be honest, Shizuku didn't regret the destruction of the student handbook itself; what irritated her was that she and her brother Ikki were still on the phone at the time.
And now, the student handbook was broken, and Ikki had
lost contact with her. Shizuku could already imagine how excited and worried her brother must be right now!
Clutching her Noble Phantasm, Yoiyami no Shigure, tightly, Shizuku glared at the giant in front of her and said angrily, "I'll definitely make you pay for making my brother worry!"
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"Shizuku! Shizuku! Hey, Shizuku!" Hearing the static on the other end of the student handbook and the subsequent sound of the student handbook being disconnected, Ikki shouted anxiously.
"Shirou, Shizuku and them were attacked!" Hearing Ikki's voice from behind him, Shirou, who was running ahead, felt a jolt in his heart and said, "Calm down, Ikki!"
"I heard your conversation just now. It seems the attack was sudden, and to save a sick Stella, Shizuku abandoned her student handbook. Otherwise, you would have heard her groans of pain. The absence of it means her student handbook was discarded and then destroyed by the giant's attack." Hearing Shirou's explanation, the worry and agitation on Ikki's face slowly faded. After all, he was an intelligent person himself; he was merely flustered by concern at the moment.
"What should we do now? Shizuku and Stella must have been attacked. Now that Stella is sick, I don't know how much fighting power she has left."
"If it's just Shizuku alone, I wonder if she's the opponent's match!" Hearing Ikki's worried voice, Shirou said seriously, "So I'm going ahead!"
"Going ahead?" Hearing Shirou's announcement, Ikki looked at him with some confusion. How could he go ahead? But without waiting for him to think further, with a whoosh, Shirou's figure quickly turned into a black shadow and disappeared from his sight. Feeling the air currents stirred by his frantic sprint, Ikki murmured in amazement. "Is this your true strength, Shirou?!"
Recalling the infinite power brimming within Shirou's body when he started, Ikki felt deeply moved. As an expert in physical training, he couldn't fathom how to train his body to that extent. That was no longer a realm attainable through mere training.
This guy is really good at hiding his true strength!
Looking in the direction Shirou sprinted off to, Ikki couldn't help but sigh.
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Feeling the air currents beside his ears, Shirou, constantly traversing through branches, sprinted at full speed for the first time in a long while. When was the last time he ran like this? Shirou, continuously moving forward, couldn't help but get distracted by this thought.
Ah, he remembered! It was when they were returning from the fifty-ninth floor, to avoid the Great Red Dragon's flame breath. Everyone was running at full speed then. Remembering it now, it felt like a very long time ago.
It's been a long time! Continuously sighing in his heart, Shirou kept searching from high points with his Clairvoyance for traces of Shizuku and the giant's battle in the distance. Then, from a vantage point, he finally spotted Shizuku and Stella. They were near the ruins of a house, where Shizuku was continuously condensing water bullets to attack the stone giant. But under the stone giant's hard defense, Shizuku's attacks had little effect.
And behind her, Stella clearly wanted to help, but was repeatedly stopped by Shizuku. Shizuku must have been worried that fighting while sick would worsen Stella's condition.
"Correct choice, Shizuku!" Standing on a treetop, gazing at the stone giant ten li away, Shirou projected his Noble Bow Oborozuki, nocked an arrow, and aimed it at the distant stone giant. "Solid defense, huh? Then try this!"
As Shirou lightly flicked his finger, the black arrow
instantly sliced through the sky and flew towards the stone giant.
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"Damn it, this is a bit troublesome. My attack power doesn't seem to be very effective!" Looking at the stone giant, which had rocks falling off it from her attacks but sustained no significant damage overall, Shizuku felt helpless. Among the nature interference systems, her water system was the weakest in terms of destructive power. If facing a Blazer, her lethality would be more than enough, but against a monster made of rocks, her destructive power was somewhat insufficient.
"Tsk, this is really troublesome!"
"Don't stop me, Shizuku! You need my destructive power now!"
"Patients shouldn't talk!" Glancing at Stella crossly, Shizuku said seriously, "You're still sick now. If you fight, it'll easily worsen your condition. Our current situation isn't desperate enough to need a sick person to fight!"
Unlike the DanMachi world, while the top combatants in the Rakudai world are powerful, their power is essentially magical power, not physical power.
Therefore, illnesses that are dangerous to ordinary people are just as dangerous to Blazers. It's just that their physiques don't easily get sick. But the DanMachi world, due to the sublimation of the body, has much stronger immunity. Many illnesses dangerous to ordinary people are useless against adventurers. After all, their power is a holistic power. This is the difference between simply strong combat power and all-around strength.
Like in the Dragon Ball world, no matter how strong one's combat power is, as long as one doesn't become a god, their lifespan is no different from ordinary people. Even Super Saiyans, powerful enough to shatter planets, can die from heart disease. This is the flaw of worlds that solely focus on increasing combat power.
"So what should we do now?" Although she had confidently claimed that it wasn't a desperate situation yet, the current situation was still difficult to handle!
She just wondered when her brother and the others would arrive.
And as Shizuku analyzed the situation, a meteor suddenly fell from the sky and landed on the stone giant.
The next moment, an explosion erupted!