My head was a dead, ringing void where the echo of my big, flashy ultimate was supposed to be.
Nothing.
My mana bar blinked, a flat red line of complete and utter failure.
The red-haired giant's eye was whole again, a perfect, unbroken orb of pure, bullshit power swirling with that sick green light.
It hadn't just healed; it was like the whole world had rolled back the damage, laughed at me, and flagged my account for trying.
A notification was still burned into my vision, the letters blood red and unforgiving.
The system wasn't telling me I might fail; it was mocking me for even trying.
I was a glass cannon with no glass and no cannon, just a useless idiot who'd wasted my one big shot on a boss that was completely immune.
I glanced over at Gandalf, whose tough soldier face had just completely collapsed, like a man watching the only home he'd ever known get torched.
Across the chaos, he and his father, the Royal Champion Dareth, shared a look that screamed we are so, so screwed.
I finally got it then; the cannons, the desperate orders, the grim faces.
They had a plan, a stupid, last-ditch plan, but it was all they had.
They actually thought their "Dragon's Breath" cannons could blind the Giants, that some weakness they'd read about in a dusty old book was still a valid exploit.
They were wrong.
All their information was from an old update, and they'd spent their whole lives prepping for this day with weapons that might as well have been toys.
The red-haired Giant, completely unimpressed, took a slow, deliberate step, filled with a lazy confidence that was way more terrifying than any roar.
It stopped, its single, colossal eye fixed on the pathetic, broken old man slumped in the golden chair.
King Eldros.
Then, a voice filled my head, not a sound, but a grinding pressure that felt like the very code of my existence was being rewritten by a foreign power.
King of the Fleeting.
The words were cold, ancient, and full of the kind of contempt that made my own pride feel like a toddler's temper tantrum.
My Lord Vex sends his regards.
My blood turned to ice.
Vex.
The name from the system log, the final boss.
Before I could even think, the air in front of the throne shimmered, and the sick green light from the Titan's eye poured out like liquid data, forming a shimmering screen.
A projection.
An image appeared, not of a Titan, but of some impossibly perfect elf radiating so much ancient power he made King Eldros look like a newbie.
He was lounging on a throne made of black, shifting stars, a pocket of living void, with the quiet, absolute authority of a man who didn't just own the world, but had written the code it ran on.
He looked… bored.
Profoundly, cosmically bored.
His eyes, the color of dying embers, swept across the ruined hall, seeing the cowering nobles and broken soldiers the way I look at level-one slimes.
This was Vex.
He spoke, and his voice was just… there, inside my head and everyone else's, like a thought we were all having at once.
"Eldros," the name was a sigh of utter weariness, "your line has hidden long enough; the cycle ends, and my Titans have missed the taste of elves."
His bored gaze continued its slow, lazy sweep of the room, passing over Gandalf and Lianna as if they were just part of the scenery.
It moved toward me.
And then… it stopped.
Vex's entire body went still, his mask of cosmic indifference vanishing, replaced by a flash of something sharp and real.
Surprise.
Then came a cold, calculating curiosity that made my skin crawl as he leaned forward, his eyes narrowing, not looking at my body but reading my code.
He was seeing something that wasn't supposed to be there.
"Hhh…" a soft hiss escaped his lips, a sound of pure, analytical surprise.
"An echo?" his voice was a low murmur, a thought spoken aloud.
"I thought I erased every last one of you… errors."
Server.
Error.
The words slammed into my brain, shattering everything I thought I was; I wasn't a hero, I was a bug.
My entire existence was a mistake, a piece of leftover code the admin forgot to delete during a system wipe.
Something hot and ugly twisted in my gut, and it wasn't fear—it was pure, undiluted, weapons-grade rage.
My Overwhelming Pride attribute, the very core of who I was, didn't just flare up; it went supernova.
To be dismissed, to be called a mistake, an error—my soul, my very identity, could not and would not stand for it.
My body moved before my brain could stop it, my voice a raw, shaking snarl that tore from my throat.
"Who the hell are you calling an error?!"
A hand clamped down on my arm like a vise.
"Quinn, don't!" Yael hissed in my ear, her voice tight with a terror I had never heard from her before.
"You're poking a god!"
Yeah, no kidding, Sherlock.
But it was too late.
Vex didn't even bother to answer me, just gave a small, lazy, dismissive smirk, the kind of look you give a pop-up ad right before you close it.
The insult was so absolute it left me choking on my own useless rage.
His attention shifted from me to the girl gripping my arm.
To Yael.
To my Anchor.
A slow, cruel smile spread across his perfect face, his boredom replaced with a chilling, scientific interest.
"This kingdom… its people are flawed," he said, his voice laced with a newfound curiosity as his gaze flicked back to me.
"Their defiance is tiresome, but this error... it has potential."
"Let's see what fuels it."
He paused, then gave his final order, his gaze locked with mine through the projection.
"Take the girl."
The command rang out like a death sentence.
Yael's eyes widened in horror.
"Quinn…" she breathed.
The red-haired Giant bowed its head a fraction and moved with that same impossible speed, its massive hand closing around her, lifting her from my side as easily as picking a flower.
"WAIT—STOP!" I yelled, my voice cracking.
Vex never turned, his gaze fixed on me.
"You thought you could shield her from consequence?" his voice echoed in my mind.
"Then watch, error; watch what your defiance costs."
The giant shifted its grip, pinning Yael to the stone floor with a single, massive hand, a terrified, beautiful bird caught in a stone press.
Then, deliberately, unbearably slow, it raised one colossal foot.
I lunged forward, a scream of pure denial tearing from my lungs, but was stopped dead when the Giant hooked its little finger in my tunic, holding me in place like a bug on a pin.
I was pinned, a helpless spectator to the horror my pride had unleashed.
My eyes widened in terror.
The first crunch shattered the air as her right shin bent the wrong way, a flash of shocking white bone tearing through skin and silk.
Her cry was not a scream, but a raw, animal sound of agony that ripped from her throat and tore right through my soul.
The giant ground its heel with a slow, deliberate motion, then, as if following some sadistic rhythm, it moved to the other leg.
Another snap, sharper this time, followed by another scream that was choked off into a whimper as she fought for breath under the crushing weight.
My own breath tore in ragged gasps as a pool of crimson spread out from beneath her on the pale marble, a grotesque, blossoming flower of my failure.
I pulled against the giant's finger, my muscles straining, my throat raw from a scream that had no sound, but it was like pulling against a mountain.
Vex's projection leaned in, his voice a sibilant whisper that coiled directly into my brain, a private message just for me.
"Remember this sound, error," he said.
"It is the hymn of your weakness."
His lips curled into a thoughtful frown.
"Let's see how you react to this; you might be useful, after all."
The projection flickered and died, leaving me trapped, forced to watch as Yael lay broken and bleeding on the floor.
The Titan finally released me, its experiment finished, and I scrambled to her side, but she was already unconscious, her face pale, her breathing shallow.
The personal horror was complete, and now, the grander apocalypse resumed.
Outside, the sounds of destruction intensified as the giants began to purge the entire area.
One of them reached the river where the last elves were trying to escape and stomped once, turning the dock, the boats, and dozens of screaming people into a cloud of red mist and splinters.
The red-haired Titan in the hall, its task of breaking me finished, turned its cold, green gaze back to the throne.
One moment it was across the hall; the next, it loomed over the King.
It reached out and grabbed not the King's body, but his head, lifting him into the air like a broken puppet.
Then, in a single, brutal motion, the Titan used its other hand to grip the King's robes.
And it pulled.
There was a wet, tearing, final sound, the sound of a character model being ripped in half.
The Titan held the two pieces for a moment—the screaming head in one hand, the headless, twitching body in the other.
Then, with a casual flick, it tossed them both over its shoulder to a second, dumber-looking Titan waiting outside.
It opened its mouth, a cavern of darkness, and caught both pieces in a single, gulping motion.
CRUNCH...
CRUNCH...
CRUNCH...
Gone.
The King was gone, the capital was gone, and Yael was broken at my feet.
All of it, a hymn to my weakness.