Massive, even by her divine proportions. They filled his hands, overflowing, soft yet firm and absolutely, undeniably there.
The crowd absolutely, completely, lost their fucking minds. The roar that went up was not a sound; it was a physical event, a hurricane of pure, uncut insanity.
"ON HER SHOULDERS!"
"HE'S ON HER SHOULDERS!"
"DID YOU SEE THAT?! DID YOU SEE THAT MOVE?!"
"HE'S RIDING THE GLADIATOR!"
"THE MORTAL IS RIDING HER!"
The sound was apocalyptic—a physical wall of noise where laughter and cheers and disbelieving shouts merged into a single, deafening roar that made Pete's already cracked ribs ache.
The giantess shrieked, a sound of pure, violated fury, and thrashed like a landlocked leviathan.
She reached back, her massive hands groping, trying to grab hold of him and tear him from her perch. Her body bucked and twisted with alarming speed. She spun in drunken, enraged circles, her huge feet pounding the sand, creating an personal earthquake.
Pete held on for dea life, his fingers digging into whatever purchase they could find, his broken legs wrapped awkwardly around her thick neck. His shredded calf screamed with every movement, but he ignored it. Falling from this height meant a very messy end.
"SORRY!" he shouted over her wordless roaring, genuinely apologetic despite the circumstances. "NOTHING PERSONAL! JUST TRYING NOT TO DIE! THIS IS STRICTLY BUSINESS!"
He released one hand—narrowly avoiding being thrown as his balance shifted violently—and grabbed the sword he'd somehow, miraculously, managed to keep hold of during the slide-and-blink maneuver.
The blade was impossibly heavy, but sheer, mind-numbing terror gave him a fresh surge of adrenaline-fueled strength.
The giantess bucked harder, reaching up with both hands now, her fingers, the size of Pete's forearms, closing around his uninjured leg—
Pete brought the sword's pommel down on her head.
CRACK.
The impact was sickeningly solid, a wet, meaty thud that echoed even over the crowd. Her skull was thick—dense giant bone—but the steel pommel was forged by giants, and Pete put everything he had, every last ounce of strength and fear, into that downward blow.
Once.
CRACK.
Her grip on his leg loosened. She staggered, a drunken moment of confusion in her rage-filled eyes.
Twice.
CRACK.
Her knees buckled. Her eyes rolled back in her head, showing nothing but whites.
Three times.
CRACK.
The giantess's eyes went completely, utterly blank. Her hands fell away from his leg. Her massive body swayed for a moment like a great felled tree before it lost its battle with gravity.
And she fell.
She went down like a collapsing skyscraper, a monument cut from its foundations. Her body hit the sand with a sound like a localized thunderclap—a deep, resonant BOOM that vibrated up through the soles of Pete's feet and shook the very stone of the arena. A massive cloud of dust and grit erupted around her.
Pete jumped—or rather, attempted to dismounti—at the last second.
His exhausted, broken body managed more of a controlled, graceless fall, and he landed hard in the sand beside her immense form. His ruined leg gave out entirely, and he collapsed onto his side with a pained grunt.
Silence.
Absolute, gobsmacked, church-like silence.
Tens of thousands of giants frozen in a state of collective disbelief. Mouths hung open. Eyes were wide. A civilization of warriors, spectators, and nobility, completely unable to process the scene they had just witnessed.
A mortal. A tiny, bleeding, half-dead mortal. Had defeated a trained, full-grown gladiator. A twelve-foot-tall mountain of muscle and rage. He had done it with impossible moves, stranger powers, and a sheer, bloody-minded refusal to simply lie down and die.
Pete forced himself to sit up, every movement a fresh symphony of agony. His arms wouldn't work right, the joints feeling loose and liquid in their sockets. His leg was a ruin of blood and shredded flesh. His shoulder throbbed. His entire body was a single, massive, walking bruise.
He looked at the giantess, lying face-down in the sand. She was breathing, her chest rising and falling in a slow, steady rhythm. Blood pooled beneath her wounded calf, but she was alive.
Defeated, but alive.
And then—
"AHHHHHHHHHH!"
The crowd's silence broke, and the resulting flood of sound was beyond deafening. It was a physical wave of approval that made the stones of the arena vibrate, that made Pete's bones hum in their sockets.
They were on their feet, jumping and stomping, their combined weight enough to crack the very stone they stood on. They were throwing things—not just coins, but garlands of flowers, gaudy jewelry, strips of silk, even whole roasted fowl—showering the arena floor in a chaotic storm of offerings.
"BOY FROM BEYOND!"
"THE MORTAL DEFEATED THE GIANT!"
"GLORY! GLORY TO THE WARRIOR!"
"THE GODS FAVOR HIM! HE IS CHOSEN!"
Pete sat there, swaying, his hands braced on his knees, trying to reboot his brain. He'd won. He'd actually, actually won. Against impossible odds. Against a trained warrior twice his size.
With a weapon he could barely lift and powers he didn't understand and a body held together by adrenaline, spite, and duct tape.
The crowd's chant shifted, unified, rhythmic, and pounding in a way that promised a grim finale:
"KILL! KILL! KILL! KILL!!
They wanted him to finish it. To execute her. That's how this worked. The law of the arena. The victor grants the loser the final, honorable death. That was the show. That was the bloody cherry on top they'd all paid to see.
Pete looked at the sword lying in the sand beside him. Six feet of dark steel, now mottled with blood—his, hers, mixed together on the blade. Then he looked at the giantess, her face turned to the side in the sand, strangely peaceful in unconsciousness. She'd fought hard. She'd nearly killed him.
But she'd lost.