“O great star Falaina, who shakes the very earth. I regret to ask this of you so soon after your awakening, but I need you to fight these men. You alone should suffice. I still have much to do at Krios.”
“Ὕμνος‡γενεάκόγχηÞπυσίσλοσλοσαἰπύς▀φάκε’φάκελύω╔σειρά∞λύωαἰ╟πύσὀρεύσἀκ•μήλύω.” Falaina answered his king by roaring incomprehensibly at the heavens. With eyes opened wide, Prodotis looked up at the giant.
“Did you not bring forward the same intelligence you had in your previous life? Ah. What a pity.” Prodotis then vanished.
The curtain had opened on this epic battle.
“Have at him, Aegisthus!”
“My name is Aegisthus! Hero of Terea and valorous warrior of the Halberd Brigade! In order to wrest back my daughter from Prodotis, I will defeat you, Falaina the hero, and push my way past!” In accordance with Halberd’s command, Dill announced himself loudly.
The brigade’s adjutant, Hathaway, supported Dill with his own rallying cry. “We have nothing to fear from these long-decayed heroes of old! We have among us the hero Aegisthus, the divine shield! Charge!” Still mounted, Dill and Hathaway broke away from the rest of the brigade, along with Halberd, who dismounted from his four-horse chariot and hefted his repaired lump of iron before advancing.
Sid had separated from Dill and was now mounted upon the lieutenant Whitehead’s steed. “We’ll keep Orestes in reserve. Let’s go. While Steel-Link and the others keep Falaina busy, we’ll retrieve Nue Kirisaki. Vanquishing the hero is not our top priority.”
“Yes, sir!” answered Sid.
In spite of the grievous injuries he’d sustained in the battle of the previous night, there was no obvious change in Whitehead’s voice. Clinging to his back, Sid thought about how trustworthy the lieutenant seemed. The horse veered around the hero Falaina and headed straight for Krios. Mace and Dwayne, another mail-cloak, followed Sid and Whitehead in support.
“—Whitehead!” resounded a strained voice. It was Dill who had spoken. Sid looked over his shoulder and saw the mountainous bulk of Falaina, who paid no heed to Dill and Hathaway’s attack, hefting something to throw right at him and the lieutenant as they rode away. What was it that the giant had clutched in his hands...? It was a foundation stone, torn from the earth beneath the ruins.
“πλησίοσθ΄φάκε→λύωλύω»φά☒κελύωπυσίς=λύω!” Without shifting his posture, the giant raised his right leg above his head and then brought it down, stomping forcefully upon the ground. Then he drew back his right arm and swung it forward, along with the rest of his body. The boulder clutched in his hand was sent soaring through the air, and what seemed to be a single stone was in fact a number of identical slabs bound together, which broke apart in midair and rained down upon Sid’s party with terrifying velocity. For Sid, this brought to mind the psychokinetic saturation bombing employed by the Reincarnator Meteor.
“Orestes! Hold on tight!” cried Whitehead as he grabbed a hold of Sid, who was still seated behind him, before leaping off of his horse in order to use the animal’s body as a shield from the boulders. With a fearsome noise, the boulder soared through the air and for a moment they heard the horse’s pitiful whinny.
“It’s all right now. Get up.” Whitehead, who had pinned Sid down on the ground to shield him, let the boy go. Sid opened his eyes wide. Dwayne, the mail-cloak who had accompanied them on their race to the ruined castle of Krios, was no longer there. He had been crushed along with his horse under one of the slabs thrown by Falaina, which jutted out of the ground diagonally. Mace was still alive, but his horse had also been crushed by a stone, its body strewn in pieces across the ground. The horse Sid and Whitehead had ridden had met with the same fate.
“Watch out! Stop Falaina!” someone yelled. Falaina, the giant, had already turned away from Sid’s party and set his sights on the four-horse chariot Halberd had been riding. Brave warriors in chain mail cloaks struck him with spears or slashed at him with swords from behind, but it was like hacking away at marble pillars. Although he was a being of living flesh, blades could scarcely pierce his skin—instead the weapons themselves were chipped from each blow. Even the light grazes they managed to inflict were immediately closed up by the steaming red blood that seeped out of them.
Falaina arrived in front of the chariot. The horses tried to flee in various directions despite being lashed to the same vehicle, but the giant beat them all into the dirt.
“Looks like we managed to slip away... Falaina, the white whale, was even better known for his shrewd tactics than his colossal stature, and it seems his strategic mind is somewhat intact. He’s severely limited our mobility.” Whitehead uncharacteristically let his emotions show plainly on his aged, dignified face.
Dill, Hathaway, and Rick together released their horses’ reins and dismounted, leaving their steeds to flee in the directions of their choosing. However, it was already too late. Three horses alone could not carry every member of the brigade.
“Gya hoo ha ha...not too shabby, hero of ancient Krios. Even displaced into the present day, the fighting prowess of the white whale Falaina never falters. That leaves no alternative but for my brigade to encircle you and bring you down.”
Falaina could not speak—he could only growl incoherent sounds. However, the sparkle in his eyes spoke to the fact that the giant still retained a keen sense of reason. Falaina crouched down once again. Whitehead’s party, who had doubled back, formed up and readied their weapons. Sid brought Orestes to the fore, cloaking himself in phosphors and transforming.
Falaina charged, kicking up dust as he came. This caused a small-scale sandstorm, cutting the mail-cloaks off from their comrades. Through the cacophony around them and their occluded field of vision, they heard someone scream. As the dust cleared, they saw one of their comrades had fallen, then another.
“My name is Orestes!” Launched forward by a blow from Whitehead’s shield, Sid slashed at Falaina from high in the air, his sword surrounded by phosphors! The hero, Falaina, saw through this with a swiftness that did not match his enormous stature. He tilted his head to one side, taking the sword strike on his exposed shoulder...but the sword did not seem to cleave through Falaina’s flesh, instead stopping with a shrill ringing noise. His skin was tough. But Sid let the phosphors gathered at the blade’s edge explode, pushing the blade that had only made a shallow cut deeper into the giant’s flesh!
“φρῦνοςłὑπ网ερβάλλωλύωὀτρῡ́νω>λεωφό⤵ροςβᾰθύςφάκε¿ἀντί” At this point, Falaina let out a cry of agony for the first time and shook Sid off his shoulders. Cushioning the impact with his phosphors as he hit the ground, Sid immediately rose to his feet. His attack had hit home—but the celebratory shout he gave turned to a sigh once he looked up at Falaina, whose bulk far outweighed the wound Sid had managed to inflict.