Every piece of Levi wanted to charge in and do some damage while the boss was climbing out of the ground, but with the ground crashing in around it as it actively climbed out, he’d only fall underneath and end up caught in the landslide, dead for no gains. He sent a few of the weaker undead cannibals to slash at the boss as it rose, but as predicted, they barely inflicted surface scratches before the earth churned and dragged them down. The boss didn’t even notice their damage. It climbed out one limb at a time. At last, it yanked its second leg out of the earth and stood, looming over Levi’s party and Vox’s alike.

  “Uh-oh,” Levi muttered to himself.

  Vox hung back, silently gazing at the boss. Kai stepped forward, unsheathing his gigantic sword. Levi’s eyes cut to the duo, and he raised his brows. Earlier, he’d guessed that Vox’s powers were better at control over direct fighting—binding skills and buffs that could mean all the difference in the fight, if he had someone else there to take advantage of them. Kai should be that person, but given Kai’s lack of devotion to Vox’s cause, and Vox’s lack of trust in Kai, the two weren’t operating as the ideal synergistic duo of frontliner and backline buffer.

  Levi glanced back at Colin and grinned. Unlike the two of us, who know exactly what our roles are.

  Colin shivered. “Why are you looking at me like that? I’m scared…”

  Levi sighed. “Nothing.” He turned back to face the monster.

  The enormous, pallid man-shaped beast roared. Fangs like a wolf’s bared to the sky. Its few strings of dark hair clung to its scalp at random, flying around its head. The four huge horns it bore on its head surged upward like a crown. It stomped the ground, sending a shockwave forth from its foot. Everyone flew into the air, Kai and Vox included. The second they left the ground, the monster charged directly at Levi.

  “Isa!”

  “Right.” Grabbing Colin in midair, she flew away, hoisting his precious healer out of danger like usual.

  A foot rushed toward Levi before he landed from the shockwave. He gestured. The Armalgam crawled around his body. He gripped one of its arms, extending Handy to the fullest extent he could. Handy grabbed onto the giant’s leg before it finished its kick and latched on. Levi and the Armalgam both moved with the kick, now a part of the man’s leg rather than struck by it. The giant swung his leg back, and they went with it, latched on like a tick. The Spinal Cord unwound from Levi’s waist and stuck into the giant’s leg as a second latch point.

  The giant stepped down again. He paused, turning left and right as he searched for Levi. Finding no one, he turned, latching onto Kai and Vox this time. The giant roared again and charged in, thumping the earth with every step.

  Levi bounced on its shin, barely hanging on. He threw himself toward the Armalgam, and it grabbed onto his body again. Between Handy and the Spinal Cord, he crawled his way upward toward the knee. There, he paused. A constantly moving wall of bone blocked his way upward. He gestured, and the Spinal Cord shot up, then bounced off. He grimaced. The Spinal Cord wouldn’t stick in the kneecap. The flesh was too thin. And the bending and shifting meant he couldn’t risk it with Handy alone. He had to think bigger. Look higher.

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  Higher… He looked directly up. Past the kneecap. Past the thigh. Into the place where the legs met.

  “Gods. I can’t believe I’m considering roping myself to this man’s taint,” Levi muttered. He shuddered, then shook his head. “The things I do for the world. I hope they appreciate all my hard work when I beat all the Champions and stand atop the world as the number one Champion. If not for that one time I jabbed a man in the taint with a grappling hook and grappled myself into his questionable bits, I wouldn’t be able to become as strong as I did! …Or something like that.” He paused. “No, wait. Maybe we just leave this part out of my self-aggrandizing autobiography.”

  Levi grabbed onto the giant cannibal’s leg, while the Armalgam did what it could to hang on. He yanked the Spinal Cord out and unwound it to its longest form, then sent it shooting upward.

  Behind him, Isa winced. Colin paled and pressed a hand to his mouth, on the verge of puking. He looked away. “I can’t watch.”

  The Spinal Cord dug home. Blood and some kind of pus spurted forth. Levi grimaced, leaning against the boss’s leg to dodge the worst of it. “Let’s get this over with.” Recalling the Spinal Cord, he spun upward.

  The smell was beyond intense. He held his breath, because the other option was to pass out. There wasn’t a single good thing about the smell, the texture, the moisture… Letting the Armalgam find a grip in the giant’s short hairs, Levi leaned back and shot the Spinal Cord up again, this time jabbing it into the giant’s back. He swung away, spinning up once more, and not a moment too soon. In the next instant, the giant slapped a hand to its undercroft. If he’d been there one second longer, it would have smashed him to bits. Or rather, into bits.

  Levi shuddered, perched safely on its back. Crushed into a giant’s underparts… he couldn’t imagine a worse way to go. And he’d experienced quite a few of them. I might even take the acid barrel over that one.

  The shadow of its other hand fell over him. Levi glanced up. It smacked down, intending to crush him like a mosquito. He released the Spinal Cord and let himself drop, then latched on again, ten feet or so lower. The hand slapped down a second after he clasped on. A shockwave rippled through pale flesh. The Armalgam lost its grip from the force, and he dropped again, but only as far as the Spinal Cord allowed. It wriggled deeper into the giant’s flesh, clinging on through the shockwave.

  Down below, Vox shouted something. Kai dueled the giant’s feet. The giant stomped, moving with surprising quickness against Kai’s swordplay. Its back swung as it fought, and it raised its hand to slap at Levi again. Between Levi and Kai, it couldn’t bring both legs and arms to bear. It was like a person trying to fight off a wasp and a swarm of fire ants at once. The second it took its attention away to focus on crushing one of them, the other one started biting again, demanding its attention. With its attention split, it couldn’t stomp and slap Kai to death or focus all its attention on crushing Levi. It flailed, while Kai closed in and Levi crawled up its back.

  His eyes latched onto the jugular. Not much further now. Just a little more, and he’d have it dead to rights! Giant though it was, it was still human…oid. And humanoids all had the same weaknesses. If he got to its neck, it was game over, no matter how tough it was.

  “Keep it up, Kai. We’re gonna finish this guy,” Levi muttered to himself, and pulled himself up again.