Chapter 263 Taunt The Giants

Chapter 263 Taunt The Giants

The next morning's scouting report revealed that the Frost Giants had caught on to the problem much faster than Karl had been expecting them to. They were not known for being particularly bright, but this morning there were no fewer than twenty teams in the area, and it appeared that they were doing a methodical search for the missing teams.

From Hawk's report, they had spread out along a ridgeline very early in the morning, and they were moving south through the valley and past the cave now.

If the team moved out in twenty minutes, they would be attacking the Giants from behind, and they could kill multiple groups quickly before retreating.

That seemed like a good plan to Karl. If they picked one of the stronger groups to eliminate as a group, Rae could use her Golems to take out a weak group nearby, starting with their Ascended leader, which would leave the Awakened Giant trainees helpless.

[I can play too.] Hawk suggested.

[True, but you're our scout. I don't want them associating you with the missing Giants. Can you do it cleanly enough?] Karl asked.

[No problem. I will wait for them to get close enough to you that I can throw the bodies in my space. We're going to need to do something about all the excess Frost Giants, before they start getting in the way.] Hawk reminded him.

[Oh, don't worry about that. I have just the plan to get rid of them, which will ensure the Giants are in chaos when the main line decides to advance.]

Karl led the group out of the cave toward the closest powerful group, which was flanked by two weaker groups.

The patrol line went on like that all the way across the valley they were working in. One group with a commander leading it, and then two groups of Ascended and Awakened. That should realistically give the Commander and his smaller group time to react to any attacks on the weaker groups, but with Karl's divide and conquer strategy, it was about to become a feeding program for the beasts.

Remi was already overjoyed by the amount of Commander Rank food that she could gorge herself with as she waited for her body to grow up to fighting size, where she could crush and swallow her prey whole.

That was an odd bit of logic for a venomous snake, but that was how she preferred to eat, even after biting them. Biting was actually a last resort for the Spirit Snake, as she insisted that it made the food taste funny, but if she was threatened and her magic wasn't doing enough, she had no problem getting physical.

But for the most part, she didn't come out of her hiding space, and just poked her head out to cast Blizzard after fights.

[Remi, how long can your blizzard spell last?] Karl asked.

[About five minutes if I need it to, then I will cast it again.] She replied.

[In that case, cast it at the start of the fight, and just let it continue as we move away. Keep it centred on the group, and it will hide both the fight and our footprints, so the other groups can't find us as easily.]

Remi came out of her hiding spot to climb into Karl's armour, leaving only her head exposed. That was warm enough that she could comfortably fight, and secure enough she wouldn't fall down and into the snow.

Now they had an extra [Chain Lightning] at Ascended Rank to go with the Commander Rank version on Karl's arrows. With the [Blizzard] damage being so negligible to creatures with cold damage resistance, the Giants had barely begun to understand that they were in serious trouble before they were paralyzed and cut down.

Two more batches of bodies entered the space, and Karl sent Hawk scouting down the line, getting a location for any other groups that might have been alerted to the battles.

[They're all still moving forward. Should I bring some this way, or do we ambush them the same way again?] Rae asked as Hawk reported the location of the groups.

[Same pattern. Wait for us to get in position.] Karl instructed.

[But you're so slow. Why don't you just chase after me, and I will take out all the weak ones to throw in your space, then we can come back to the group for the Commanders?] Rae suggested.

[Because we can't leave the rest of the group unprotected. There's a reason for this group size and composition.] Karl reminded her.

[If I could just access the space from more than a hundred metres, this would be way easier.] Rae complained, eager to keep hunting.

[Work with what you've got. We will clean up all along the line today if we can, and then retreat somewhere warm.] Karl instructed.

That was all the motivation that Rae and Hawk needed to go off mission and start hunting the weaker groups on their own.

Before Karl had even reached the first Commander, they had cleared the weaker groups and had started on the next pair, racing through the snow-covered trees to avoid detection and then brutally ambushing their hapless prey.

Remi was stuck on cleanup duty, spreading her [Blizzard] as wide as possible, while collecting the bodies, which Karl was doing his best to run past as the group chased the rampaging pair of beasts.

"Why are they in such a hurry?" Ophelia asked as they reached their fifth group of the day, who were standing back to back, already paranoid and on alert after all the shouting from the other groups under attack on both sides of them.

"I may have promised them that once the line was clear, we could go somewhere warm for the night." Karl laughed.

"Well, that sounds good to me, but the casters will not be able to keep this pace up forever. Even if they're riding on Thor most of the time, that much magic will wear them out mentally."

Karl nodded. "We're almost done. I will call the two hooligans back once we clear this group, and then we can hide the battles in the snow and look for a good spot to spend the night."