CHAPTER 623: CHAPTER 142: I, ROGERS DARREN, ACKNOWLEDGE YOU!

"Me too..."

Darren’s mouth twitched at Brogy’s solemn declaration.

"Ahem." He cleared his throat. "Since you both agree, let’s get to it."

"Huh? Not drinking first?" Brogy stared mournfully at the cask in Darren’s hand. Dorry’s gaze was just as glued.

"The best brews are for after a great battle," Darren said, recorking the cask and stepping in front of it. "That’s the real pleasure, isn’t it?"

Their eyes lit at once.

"Makes sense."

"Gabababa! You’re an amusing little runt. I like you!" Respect crept into their gazes despite themselves. For all his size, this man carried himself like a giant.

"Then let’s begin."

Dorry ripped his titanic sword free of the earth, looming like a tower over Darren. "Don’t fold too quickly."

Brogy lifted his battle-axe and brought his round shield to bear, eyes blazing, axe ringing against metal in an eager rhythm. "Which of us do you fight?" Their glowers said, Choose me or be crushed, but the effect was more comical than cruel.

"Both," Darren said, smiling.

They froze—then bristled.

"Are you serious?"

"Just because you’ve got a giant’s strength doesn’t make you our match!"

Two massive stares bore down on him like boulders.

"Very serious," Darren said, grin sharpening. "Come kill me—or..."

He closed his right hand on empty air.

Zzzzt.

Blue arcs crawled between his fingers, not quite light, not quite lightning. A warped field pressed outward; the iron crates massed behind him groaned, bent inward, and crumpled like tin. The sealed casks within burst one after another, a chorus of splintering staves and sluicing liquor.

"No!"

"What are you doing?!"

For Elbaf’s drink-obsessed warriors, it was sacrilege.

"My sake!" Brogy roared, beard and hair bristling, fury washing red up his face until he truly looked the Red Ogre. Muscles corded, he heaved his axe in a sweeping cut that chewed through forest and stone, bringing its edge down on Darren like a falling cliff.

"Someone’s angry," Darren muttered, pleased.

Giants were a breed apart. Their power, their years—and their directness. Muscle for brains, some said. For warriors born to charge, that wasn’t a flaw but a fuse; once lit, they burned hotter.

Come on, then.

Show me Elbaf’s strength.

Wind and grit hammered Darren’s cloak flat against his back. He sank his stance, drew breath, and lifted a bare hand to meet the falling blade.

No technique. No Armament.

Just strength against strength.

Bang!!

The instant metal met palm was like taking a Buster Call flagship full-speed to the chest. The lateral force hurled Darren skidding backward in a screaming wake of dust. Each murderous sweep from Brogy carved swaths out of the jungle’s heart, mowing centuries-old trunks to stubble.

Boom!!

The axe bit into a mountainside, shaking a twenty-meter peak to its bones. Boulders avalanched; a raw, ugly scar split rock from crown to root.

"Brogy, you idiot! Trying to kill him?!" Dorry barked, face dark.

"My sake is gone!" Brogy roared back—and then his eyes jumped down to his own hands.

The buried axe shivered. Something inside the stone pushed—hard. A force equal to his own fought the haft, prying it back inch by inch.

What—?

The pressure climbed. Grit rattled. Rock powdered.

From the sheared mountain wall, the embedded axe eased out—driven by a dust-caked hand clamped over its blade.

Both giants’ pupils pinpricked.

"Hey, big fellas..." the human grinned up at them through the grit. "Had your breakfast?"

"Damn you!" Dorry’s beard snapped like a banner. He locked both hands on his fifty-foot sword and let it fall, edge whistling in a chorus of explosive booms.

Diamond body or not, he’d hold nothing back. Time to show the cub Elbaf’s true might.

Rip—

The cut parted the mountain like tofu.

Darren’s smile went feral. He raised his free hand.

Boom!!

A shockwave bloomed. Trees and stone flew. The mountain—already riven by Brogy’s blow—gave up the ghost and came apart, collapsing into a smoking crater fifty meters wide, its fractured depths groaning as the earth kept splitting.

He stood in the heart of it all, axe braced in one hand, sword leveled in the other, an unmovable cliff in a storm of dust. His dark hair and cloak snapped wild in the wind; his laugh rolled huge.

"Hahaha! Worthy of Elbaf’s strongest!"

"I, Rogers Darren, acknowledge your strength!"

Strength: 0.11!

To be continued...