THEOS

“That’s a lot of giants.” Lukeus said.

“Bit of an understatement,” Luke said. His heart beat in anticipation as he took measure of the giant army. There was, simply speaking, a near uncountable number of them. An entire sea full of them and in the air above it, a lone figure. “So that’s him then?”

“It is.” Lukeus said casually, his voice at odds with the look of awe on his face.

Heracles was more than a mile away and floating in the sky– a hallmark of the Warrior-tier. With every swing of his spiked metal club, gusts of wind cut through the air. With every roar that escaped his lips he felled dozens of the monsters. To say that the Son of Zeus fought well, was an understatement.

A long metal cable clamped onto his ankle kept him anchored to a giant hunk of metal, both of them glinting brightly in the morning light. His restraints kept him trapped, but granted him enough leeway to dodge the endless barrage of obsidian and rock that was being thrown at him. Not that he was. Every rock they threw, he batted back into the army with double the force. Cratering the ground, and flattening the giants.

His chest heaved, and he suddenly shot towards the ground. Shoving aside the creatures with nothing but his shoulders, he stretched his metal chain taught, and looped around the metal slab that kept him anchored. The body of every giant in his path split clean in half.

Damn.

“Do you think you can fire an arrow with the ring attached to it, all the way to him?” Luke asked. “I don’t think I’d survive if I tried to walk over there. Actually never mind I can probably go high enough so that–”

Lukeus pulled back an arrow, and let it fly into the crowd of giants.

Luke watched in pain as it fell short, and landed in the middle of the army.

“Don’t tell me you–”

“Relax. I was just seeing if I could make the shot.” He flashed his finger. The metal band was still on it.

“Phew.” Luke sagged in a mixture of relief, and a small bit of sadness.

It would have been a pain in the ass to get the ring from the middle of an army, but the points wouldn’t have been bad. Not at all.

“I can make the shot though.” Lukeus offered.

“While I believe you, I don’t think we should risk it. I’ll climb high into the air, and drop it on his head.”

“I think we should fire it. See that.” Lukeus pointed behind Heracles, to a vague outline of a giant, lazily sitting on the corpses of its mortal tier counterparts with all six of its hands holding the back of its head. One that was stories tall.

“A Warrior-tier.” Luke said, frowning in worry when he saw it. Things just got a lot more complicated.

Fun.

“Mmm. If you think that thing won’t be able to hit you, then go for it. You should know though, that not every Warrior-tier giant is the same. The one Nel fought outside the town, was a regenerator type. If this ones the same, you’ll probably be fine. If it’s a thrower type… It won’t really matter how high you climb. It will hit you. It could also be a flier type. If it’s one of those, forget dodging, it'll get up there and rip you limb from limb.”

Yeah. I’m not going to be able to outrun a warrior in the sky.

“What do you suggest then?”

Lukeus didn’t respond. Pulling an arrow free from his quiver, he nocked it, and pointed it towards Heracles, before lowering it to the ground.

“Do you have paper?”

“Uh. Yeah,” Luke reached into his robes and withdrew the map he had drawn. “Here.”

“Pencil?”

“No.” Luke lied. Knowing full well that he had a bunch of them in his inventory. If it weren’t for the fact that they had all seen what was in their respective pockets earlier, he may have risked it, but as it stood, he wouldn’t try. Lukeus may overlook it, but that was one of the few things that he couldn’t plausibly deny. Especially not with Rex just a few feet behind him, and watching him like a hawk.

“Tch.” Lukeus frowned, before pulling his arrow loose from the bow, and dropping it onto the ground. He lifted his sword from its sheath, and made a small cut on his index finger. With surprising dexterity, he tore a small bit of the paper off and wrote over Luke's sketch with blood:

It’s Lukeus. I got your ring. How do I get it to you?

Nodding in satisfaction, he set the arrow on his bow, and let it fly.

It made it halfway there, before it was knocked out of the sky by a stray boulder.

“Any other ideas? And why isn’t the big one doing anything?”

“I’m thinking.” He sighed. “As for the Warrior-tier, could be any reason. They’re smarter than the normal ones. Most likely, it tried fighting him, lost and is licking its wounds. Probably waiting for Heracles to get tired. If it is licking its wounds, it’s not a regenerator.”

Welp.

“Do you have a way to call Nel here?”

“I could…” He frowned. “But let’s not go there just yet. I don’t want to distract her.” He massaged his forehead, and sat down on the cliff. Dangling his feet over the edge. “Alright. This is what we’ll do. I’ll distract the big one, you get the ring to Heracles.”

“That… That seems like a terrible plan.”

He scoffed. “Most of those giants are pathetically weak, and I bet you can cut a path through without too much trouble. Rex told me what you can do, and I’ve felt how much mana you have. It should be more than enough to power whatever Technique you use for long enough for you to make it. As for me, I’ll need to break through to the Warrior-tier, but it should be fine.”

“You’re going to break through to the Warrior-tier? Do we have time for that?” Luke asked incredulously.

“Mhm.” He closed his eyes. “I’m not likely to be a match for the giant either way, but if I ascend, then I should be able to hold its attention for a few minutes. Long enough to keep it off your back. Once you get inside Heracles’s range, he’ll keep you safe. His ring should also have enough goodies for us to get out of here too. That guy has enough money to buy Sylcra, and probably enough talismans to raze it to the ground.”

“Not that I doubt you, but isn’t there a single warrior we can call.”

“Only one that I can think of that will make it here on time is Nel, and she’s busy. Gramps can’t send anyone unless he teleports them, and it won’t be easy sending someone here. If we weren’t in the middle of a Tide, he’d probably come himself, but there isn’t anyone else who can power the teleportation platforms in his place. The only thing he’d move for is a Hero-tier giant. As much as he loves us, I don’t want to put him in a position where he has to choose between us and the rest of the island.”

“Alright, how long do you need to break through?”

“I just did.” He said.

What?

Dusting off his pants, he turned to Rex. “Me and Luke are going to head out for a bit.” He chucked his bow, and shrugged off his quiver. “We shouldn’t need it, but I want you to stay here and give us cover. If you fire an arrow into me, I will stick that same arrow up your ass.”

“I only did that once, and why am I staying?” He asked indignitaly.

“Because you're the weakest one here, and I don’t have anyone else to watch Nutbutter.” Lukeus answered. Sliding the ring off his finger, he handed it to Luke. “If you drop that, you’re going to be the one to get it.”

“I will not.”

“Good.” He slid his sword out of his sheath, and tossed it on the ground. “Step on it.”

“Huh?”

“I can only carry you on stuff that has my mana infused in it, and the only thing I have that’s infused with my mana is that. Step on. I want to get this over with.”

“Oh.” Luke nodded, and did as Lukeus asked.

A second later, the pair was shooting through the air.

“You broke through! When!” Rex yelled after them. His jaw hanging open in surprise.

“Don’t worry about it.” Lukeus yelled back, climbing higher and higher into the sky. “I’ll drop you off high, and go down first. I’ll try to get the things attention, and once I do, I’ll try and get it as far from Heracles as I can. That’ll be your chance to get him the ring.” He explained.

Luke nodded numbly as he stared down at the army. There truly were a lot of them.

“I guess he didn’t kill the Prime.”

“No. no he didn’t. He probably didn’t even know that the Prime was a thing.” He muttered. “If I had to guess though, the Prime is the Warrior-tier one. It’s not always the case, but when a Warrior-tier pops out, it's usually also the first one that comes.”

“We should also be prepared for something to happen when I give him the ring. If Arke really left him tied up like this, then she probably has some way to find out if he gets free.”

“You think the key to his manacle is in his storage ring?”

“You don’t?” Luke frowned.

“No. I don’t know what’s in there, but I doubt the key is. It’s fair to assume that Arke didn’t know the Tide was going to start early, because we didn’t know it would. She put it in a cave with a demon, miles away too. There’s no way for Heracles to know it would be there, unless he has some way to track it, but I doubt it. I’m assuming she meant to keep him here, and away from the rest of the island while she searches for the thief. The time limit we got is probably when Heracles would have fallen to the giants.”

“Or it could be when Arke is going to come and check on him.”

“If Arke checked on him, everything would be fine, and no one would have sent us. No, she probably put him here and forgot about it entirely. As far as I know, she hasn’t even been on Sylcra for weeks. Gramps said she found a clue on some other island.”

“A clue?” Luke frowned.

That’s a little worrying. Whatever it is though, it can’t be a good one, considering I’m still alive. She’s also been chasing red herrings this entire time. The method people use to possess bodies, isn’t the same one that the Seed used on me.

It’s highly unlikely that Nefkha talked. Could it be one of the people from the inheritance that said something?

No.

I was definitely suspicious, but I wasn’t a serious consideration. It was more that I just grew faster than they did. But even then Yjarn and Arya, or even Spiros. None of them were slower than me. Hell, Arya was faster the entire time, and Yjarn learned it literally hours after I did. That’s not even mentioning Len. That guy figured it out when everyone thought he was dead.

If there was a whole bunch of people suddenly appearing on a bunch of islands on the archipelago… that would do it. There was a teleportation point on Carim, but not everyone would have stayed on it.

Luke isn’t a rare name, and I look different. My sword has also changed a bit, and gold swords aren’t particularly rare either.

More than that, I have Cyzicus’s vow that he won’t tell anyone about me being from Carim.

Whatever. I just need to get Heracles the ring, and I’m home free.

“This is where we part ways.” Lukeus suddenly said. Pulling Luke out of his thoughts. They were miles straight above the Son of Zeus.

Luke took a deep breath, and channeled mana to his boots. Stepping off of the warrior's sword, he said “Good luck.”

“You too. Try not to get hit”

“I won’t.”

Lukeus grinned, and shot toward the ground. Pulling a small bunch of protective talismans free from his robe, he shot straight towards the Warrior-tier giant.

It didn’t take long for it to notice the Emperor’s Grandson.

The pair clashed in the air, and like he promised, Lukeus tackled the giant away from the Heracles.

Gritting his teeth in determination, Luke pulled his mana from the boots, and hurtled towards the ground. It was time for him to keep to his end of the plan.