Chapter 100: The Proper Ways of Provocation

Xi Wei almost swore when he saw the barren giant.

At first, he had just thought that the villagers didn’t know what they were talking about, calling some earth elementals like the stone golems a barren giant. After all, besides the mountain giant, the barren giant was the most popular earth elemental among humans.

Even the smallest mountain giants were a couple hundred meters tall, so there was no chance of mistaking it, that’s why a lot of humans instinctively called larger stone golems barren giants by accident.

But barren giants usually lived in dry places like deserts where water was hard to come by. They never came close to the ocean since the extra moisture in the air could cause them discomfort.

So Xi Wei never expected their enemy to actually be a barren giant.

“Things aren’t looking good.”

Barren giants were true creatures of myth, a fully grown barren giant could easily come toe-to-toe with a regular dragon.

The barren giant that appeared before his players hadn’t fully matured yet, it was still in between the stages of adolescence and adulthood, if it were a Digimon, it would probably still be at the Rookie stage.

Even so, it had enough strength to best even a group of Extraordinary level players.

Not only that, the barren giant was also the sacred creature of the Lord of the Peaks, and the Lord of the Peaks was himself the sub-deity of the ‘Earthweaver’, one of the Seven Divine Fathers.

“No wonder I haven’t seen it.”

As the sacred creature of the Lord of the Peaks, the barren giant possessed some of the deities’ divine power as well, it was similar to the divine protective emanating out from the churches located at the hearts of large cities, the barren giant had a barrier hiding it from Xi Wei’s Divine Eye.

Xi Wei had originally planned on not interfering with the quest to train up his players, but with the appearance of the barren giant, he didn’t even have the option of helping them.

After all, the battle between the players and the barren giant was completely conducted on a personal basis, in the eyes of the Lord of the Peaks it was basically a dogfight, even if his dog died during the altercation, he wouldn’t do anything about it except blame his dog for being too weak—as a deity, who didn’t have tens of thousands of dogs at their beck and call (save for newer deities like Xi Wei)? These high and mighty deities weren’t going to stoop down to the same level as dogs.

But if Xi Wei interfered with the battle, it would be as if he killed the dog right in front of its owner, getting on the owner’s blacklist would be inevitable.

Xi Wei had the protection of the Justice Lion Aslan, so he wasn’t scared of the Lord of the Peaks, but the lord had a protector of their own, and a Divine Father no less. If those ReadNovelFulls had taught Xi Wei anything, after taking out the small ones, their much stronger people behind them would come back for revenge. Even with the lion’s help, they would end up as dead meat…

“Aye, this is not going to be pretty.” All Xi Wei could do was obediently watch his players from his kingdom. “Whatever, it’ll teach them a lesson, let them know that players aren’t invincible either.”

Even so, Xi Wei did still think about what would happen if his players won… Although the chances were slim, what if?

And so, he pulled the Rotten Bones out of his blender and broke off its pinky toe with a clean crack, shoving the skull back in once he was done.

Next he used the leftover divine properties he got while digesting the Aquatic Lord’s divinity to try and soften the rotten toe bone, wanting to make a piece of golden legendary equipment.

It was the first piece of legendary equipment he had made, he was sure his players would love it—that is, if they could get it.

☆

“Things aren’t looking good.” Edward came to the exact same conclusion as his deity did.

The thirty-meter-tall and several thousand ton heavy barren giant was terrifyingly powerful, it was at a far higher level than the bosses their players had faced before at Level 50, it was even in a completely new rank, ‘Overlord’, even the Rotten Bones Archbishop they previously fought was only ranked as a ‘Boss’.

Aside from the very few defensively-specialized players, all of their players would be instantly one-shot if the giant so much as grazed them, if not for the multiple cleric players that came with them on their journey barely being able to resurrect everyone as soon as they died, the players on their side would quickly start dwindling.

Even still, it was just a matter of time for when they would lose, they dropped experience with every death, if they ran out it would be game over, and not every player had enough in their reserve, plus if their clerics were killed en masse, their frontline would immediately break!

Besides that, the damage their players were outputting on the barren giant was almost negligible. Ten to twenty players had been continuously wailing on the monster for quite some time, and yet the stone giant’s health bar was still nine-tenths of the way full!

“We can’t beat this thing, we have to retreat!” Gou Dan realized that all his arrows were deflecting off their opponents’ rocky skin, shouting his concerns to Edward, “I can’t even break its defenses!”

Edward went silent as well.

Indeed, this barren giant was unlike anything they have ever faced before, their players’ abilities and revival skills couldn’t bring them to victory.

Edward furrowed his brows, no, although their abilities and revival skills couldn’t help them win alone, without the two, their players would all already be dead. Revives gave each player more time and more opportunities to damage their enemy, and their abilities helped them chip the giant’s health down little by little. Even if Gou Dan’s arrows couldn’t pierce the barren giant’s skin, it still took with it a minimum of 1 health point from the giant.

What they needed was an opening to attack.

Abilities were set in stone, but the players that used them were not, if they could use their abilities correctly, it could be possible that they would create unexpected effects.

“Its eyes could be its weak point… Joe, can you and the other warrior players get the giant’s attention for a bit?” Thus, Edward picked himself up and started commanding the other players. “Try to get it as far away as you can, we need time to prepare!”

“Got it! Hey, rock for brains!”

Joe and a group of warrior players tried to use Provoke on the barren giant, but they were all obviously ignored.

The barren giant was not mature yet, and it wasn’t as bright as it was strong, it wasn’t completely immune to Xi Wei’s laws of the game, but it wasn’t completely controlled by it either, a classic example of this was that crowd control abilities like Provoke had no effect on it—a player successfully used Air Launch on it, but they obviously weren’t able to launch the colossal beast.

At this rate, they wouldn’t even be able to gain aggro let alone lead the thing away.

It was then that Joe saw a stone golem starting to self-regenerate out of the corner of his eyes.

He had an idea, he quickly rushed over and jumped on top of the stone golem.

Elemental creatures were hard to kill, but it wasn’t so for these players—it didn’t matter if you were an elemental or whatever other monster, if you had a health bar, you were going to be killed.

Joe grasped his sword firmly with both hands and imbued his familiar spirit into the blade, he slashed down hard, and with a loud clunk, the stone golem stopped regenerating, a tight web of cracks started forming on its body before it crumbled into a pile of pebbles.

The barren giant stopped its advances towards the mages and clerics.

Joe gave it a very overdramatic apologetic look. “I’m so sorry, was that your aunt? Seems like I accidentally killed her.”

The barren giant slowly turned its head, the single eye on its craggly face staring straight at Joe.

The latter looked at it and used [Evil Blade—Mountain Strike], ignoring the ‘Hey don’t kill steal’ from the other players and sliced open another stone golem.

“Oh, was that your uncle? I’m terribly sorry, you all look so alike that I can’t tell you apart.”

It didn’t have a mouth or anything resembling that, but the barren giant let out a deafening roar, shaking the very earth as he charged towards Joe’s direction!