The Butou roared, some of them still screaming in hysteria. To them, the two humans spat out by the Kirise roots were no accident but a sign of glory.
Amid the giants' euphoric frenzy, two bodies were coughing violently, trying to expel clots of blood and soil from their lungs.
Two pairs of eyes slowly opened, frozen awareness thawing as they met the gaze of thousands of giant eyes.
Ito gathered what little strength remained, dragging himself closer to Zhen, clutching the torn wound on his leg from the previous trap. His breath was ragged, his chest pounding with rage, a whisper of hatred slipping from the mouth of the Eastern Hunter.
"Even the Kirise roots have spat me out… as if the Deep Lands themselves reject the heir of the Eastern Clan's highest sorcery…"
"Just wait. You'll all die by my hands soon enough…"
Zhen's eyelids fluttered open, roused by the soft but venomous voice.
His body was battered, yet his eyes remained calm. Blood dripped from his hair and chin, falling to the earth, mingling with the red pool already soaking them.
The whisper slowly hardened his resolve. He rolled his eyes slightly, scanning the scene around them.
"Magus Ito, it seems we've washed up here again," his voice deliberately low and steady, making some of the Butou in the front row hold their breath.
The Eastern Hunter immediately recognized the signal from the Northern Hunter.
Their eyes locked beneath the stare of thousands of giants closing in.
A blue glow rose from the crown of the Northern Hunter's head, forming constellations of shimmering stars.
Ito's pupils widened, his memory drifting into nostalgia at the sight of the "blue star cord" of the Eastern Clan suddenly manifesting amid his own chaos.
Perhaps I was destined to die…
Three horns crowned a Butou's head, planted there like stakes. He stepped toward one of the "sorcerers" who still looked lucid, eyes dark in a way they had never seen before.
He stretched out his thick arm and, with only two fingers pinching, lifted the black cloak into the air.
If he only sniffed, then this king would be lost in ignorance.
But if he watched to study, then things would become difficult for me.
Since his eyelids had opened, the Northern Hunter had swept his gaze across the Butou, his eyes searching for every shared trait and every difference among the thousands of giants.
His broad nose began to twitch, and the giants behind him started to mimic the king's sniffing.
A curved line of a smile ghosted his lips, easing the tension as the dull herd pressed forward to sniff around the Eastern Hunter.
"Are you a sorcerer cast ashore?"
A hot breath surged across every pore of the Northern Hunter, threatening to strip layer after layer of his skin as the three-horned Butou opened his mouth and asked.
His breath could sear an ordinary human, even reduce them to ash.
But for Zhen it only stung faintly, a small ache that revealed the enemy's strength and the protections he wore. Beneath his skin down to the marrow, something alive answered for him.
"Are both of you sorcerers?"
"Just you… or is your friend one too?"
"Can you turn into cockroaches?"
"Can you turn into me?"
"Sorcerers? Why are your bodies so thin and small, so short. How ugly. Are you real sorcerers?"
"Yet your friend looks pale and perfectly formed. Are you women?"
"Why do you cover your nose and mouth? Are you deformed? So you are a crippled sorcerer?"
"A sorcerer washed up in the Deep Lands must make us Butou into humans. If you cannot… shall I chew you up right away? Or break your bones first?"
The Butou cheered at the word human, their king puffing out his heaving chest as laughter swept through them.
This was, of course, the moment the Northern Hunter had been waiting for.
"WE CANNOT TURN YOU INTO HUMANS!"
Zhen's roar carved through the air, silencing the crowd for a heartbeat before it dissolved into confusion and clamor among the giants.
Irritated, the light pinch on his cloak became a crushing grip that strangled the Northern Hunter's breath. His body, once dangling at the giant's waist, was hauled higher until he faced the three-horned Butou directly.
Seizing the opening he had carefully set, Zhen leaned forward swiftly, pressing his lips close to that wide ear.
He whispered there for a long while, long enough to draw a stiff expression across the Eastern Hunter's face.
Perhaps he was laying out one of his insane schemes…
Soon after, Zhen was lowered back down.
The three-horned Butou wore a hidden smile as he set him upon the ground, leaving the two humans in silence.
When their king turned his back to leave, the other Butou followed in heavy steps. Not a single word dared spill from the mouths of those dull-witted subjects.
Now there was only Zhen, head bowed, and Ito beside him, staring with a thousand unspoken judgments in his mind.
"You must be insane, right?" Ito snorted, mocking the pitiful sight of the Northern Hunter.
Zhen raised his head briefly, shooting him a sharp look before turning away.
"You're wrong," he said.
"I can feel my blood flowing steady and calm. Be spirited, Eastern Hunter. You need to feel this too."
Ito could hardly believe the reckless plan his companion seemed to be weaving. What unsettled him more was that Zhen seemed utterly convinced it would succeed.
"If you whispered nonsense like that to me—even when I was three years old—I'd have known instantly that calling you insane was an obligation my brain could not refuse!"
"Akkhhh!"
Ito groaned in agony as, without warning, the wounds across his body began to knit themselves back together, the healing laced with a strange, piercing pain…
"Because they're Butou, not the Eastern Clan! And I think I forgot to tell you. You'll help me take them out tomorrow night. Relax, it'll probably only be a few of them."
Ito wanted to curse, but the words stuck in his throat.
"A few, you mean—thousands of Butou???"