The giant horde showed no concern whatsoever for their slaughtered comrades — no, rather, they seized upon those deaths as yet another reason for fury, letting the blood rush to their heads.
No matter how many of their kind fell, they pressed their attacks without a hint of hesitation.
If ordinary fighters had been the ones facing them, defeating such a horde would have been exceedingly difficult.
But the ones dealing with the giants were the Crimson Lotus Wings led by Rei — or more precisely, that group plus Elena.
No matter how thoroughly the giants were consumed by rage and killing intent, they could not defeat opponents of overwhelmingly superior ability.
Of course, gripped by such powerful emotions as they were, even half-hearted strikes failed to make them abandon their assault.
Even so, against foes this far apart in sheer power, it had no bearing on the outcome.
No, rather...
"Aha, ahahahaha! Yes, yes! Try to endure it more!"
The fact that her enemies refused to give up even under attack only sent Vihera's excitement soaring.
Each of Vihera's strikes was devastatingly heavy — heavy enough to shatter a giant's body with ease, even without using Magic Impact Palm.
Yet the giant she struck staggered back to its feet despite its reeling body.
Even with broken bones tearing through flesh and bursting through skin, the pain never halted its movements.
To Vihera, they were essentially the perfect punching bag.
No — a punching bag didn't fight back, so perhaps sparring partner was the more accurate description.
To anyone watching the scene, the giants could only seem pitiful.
"Whoa!"
Watching the battle between Vihera and the giant, Rei noticed one whose knees had been shattered some distance away — a giant that had been lying on the ground — starting to rise.
Strictly speaking, it would be more accurate to say it propped up its upper body by planting both hands on the floor.
In any case, that giant began crawling toward Vihera with its hands.
It directed its path toward Vihera purely because she was the one who had shattered its knees.
Or perhaps Vihera simply happened to be the closest.
Regardless of the reason, having spotted it, Rei was not about to just let it do as it pleased.
Of course, Vihera would never fail to notice an enemy crawling toward her, but even so, there was always the chance of the unexpected.
"Stay down and sleep!"
The Twilight Spear, unleashed once more, pierced through the air toward the giant crawling straight ahead... and in the next instant, shattered its head.
Just like the first throw, this did nothing to diminish the spear's power, and it ended up completely embedded in the wall.
During the first throw, it had dealt fatal blows to multiple giants, which probably slowed it down at least somewhat.
But since it only killed one giant this time, its speed was hardly reduced at all — and thanks to its razor-sharp tip and Rei's brute strength, the Twilight Spear ended up buried in the wall with ease.
Naturally, extracting it would normally have been troublesome, but the Twilight Spear was an exception to such concerns.
The moment Rei willed it, the spear returned to his hand.
"Now then... are more still coming?"
The fifth basement floor of the Underground Facility, where the Black Crystal lay.
From the staircase leading down there, yet another giant appeared.
Watching as Marina loosed a Wind Blade — formed through Spirit Magic — into that giant, Rei harbored a question.
There should have been about fifty giants total on B5. And with our preemptive strike, half of them should have either died or suffered injuries severe enough to keep them from moving. But...
Glancing across B4, which had become the battlefield against the giant horde, Rei saw a massive number of giant corpses.
Many had been reduced to lumps of flesh, making it impossible to tell exactly how many giants' worth lay there.
Even so, it was clear they had already brought down nearly twenty.
In other words, under normal circumstances, the giants should have been close to annihilated by now.
Of course, since he had not counted them precisely, there was some margin of error.
Even so, the giants emerging from B5 showed no sign of stopping.
"Rei, something's wrong!"
She must have harbored the same suspicion. Elena shouted as she bisected a giant in a single stroke with Mirage in longsword form.
The sight of a giant over three meters tall split clean down the middle was shocking in more ways than one — but no one present gave it a second thought.
Everyone here knew exactly how powerful Elena was.
"Yeah, I think so too. I'd like to check on the situation below, but..."
His words stalled — not because another giant appeared from the staircase, but because Vihera was fighting to her heart's content right near the entrance.
If he barged into the place where Vihera was enjoying her fight, there was a real chance of being mistaken for an enemy and attacked.
...Of course, Vihera would not do so intentionally; it was simply that in the heat of the moment, such a thing could easily happen.
Or it was equally possible that Vihera, intoxicated by the momentum of battle-fueled excitement, might simply... well, that was a very real possibility.
Still, given the high likelihood that something was happening on B5, he could not afford to ignore it.
"Can't be helped. I'll go take a look below. Fortunately, you all can manage the giants without me, right?"
At Rei's words, Elena gave a small nod with Mirage in hand.
"There is no problem. Go check on the situation below. Though on the way, there is every chance the giants will come after you...!"
Mirage, still in whip form, lashed out to strike a giant that had drifted away from Vihera.
The giant, whose right Achilles tendon was severed with ease, dragged one leg as it walked — and that was likely what drew Vihera's attention.
Vihera, extending claws of magical energy from her Hand Gauntlets, closed the distance in one burst and leaped to slash the giant's neck.
Naturally, the giant would not be finished by something so minor, and even as blood sprayed forcefully from its neck, it tried to bring its fist crashing down on the airborne Vihera... but she twisted her body in midair like a cat — or perhaps a leopard — and kicked the giant's arm as it swept past her.
Even in that instant, she did not forget to slice through the arm with the blade of magical energy extending from the heel of her Foot Guards.
Landing on the floor without a sound, Vihera charged at the giant that showed no sign of dying even with its neck laid open.
"Alright, now's my chance."
Vihera had moved away from the staircase, pursuing the giant from where she had just been fighting.
Now he could head to B5 without provoking her.
Making that judgment, Rei broke into a sprint without a moment's hesitation.
The judgment to seize a fleeting opening was an absolutely essential ability for a first-rate adventurer — and Rei was particularly outstanding in that regard.
He would instinctively sense an opportunity and act on it without letting it slip away.
This time was no different.
Dashing toward the staircase, Rei wove his way through the gaps between the still-standing giants.
Naturally, the giants tried to respond when someone came running right beneath their feet, but...
"Do you think I'll let you?"
Marina's arrows pierced one giant after another.
The giant, riddled with shafts, turned its gaze toward Marina — who had attacked it — rather than Rei, who had slipped past its feet.
Given that the giants were already in a state of berserk fury, it was only natural that they directed their aggressive impulses toward whoever irritated them more.
Similarly, Rei slipped beneath the feet of several more giants, and Marina loosed arrows at those as well.
By the time the attention of all the arrow-struck giants had shifted to Marina, Rei had reached the vicinity of the staircase leading to B5.
But... as ill-timed as it was, yet another giant emerged from the staircase.
"Tch!"
With almost no distance left between him and the stairs, slashing directly was faster than throwing the spear.
Making that snap decision, Rei kept the Twilight Spear in his left hand and drew the Death Scythe from his Misty Ring in his right.
Falling into his usual Twin Spear Style, Rei closed the distance with the giant that had just thrust its upper body through and swung the Death Scythe, charged with magical energy, in a single arc.
He had not used any particular skill, but the Death Scythe Rei swung possessed more than enough power to cleave clean through the giant's upper body.
No — beyond that, the severed upper body rolled across the floor of B4 while the lower half tumbled straight down the staircase.
As a result, the other giants that had been climbing the stairs behind the one Rei cut apart were struck by their comrade's half-body and tumbled back down to B5.
Taking many of their comrades down with them.
Rei, having drawn close to the staircase, descended the now giant-free stairs.
However, his objective was not to move to B5, but to observe the situation there.
He did not descend all the way — but in the next moment, he revealed his astonishment at what he saw.
The number of giant corpses scattered across B5 was clearly far fewer than expected.
They should have killed at least twenty or more with their preemptive strike, yet the number of corpses now lying on the floor was fewer than ten.
And even those fewer-than-ten had somehow moved close to the Black Crystal.
For a moment, Rei wondered if the surviving giants had carried the bodies. But the scene before his eyes immediately disproved that.
The lower half of the giant Rei had severed just seconds earlier was moving as if being drawn toward the Black Crystal.
For a brief instant, Rei considered the possibility that it had simply slid near the Black Crystal from the momentum of tumbling down the staircase, but the way the giant's lower body moved was clearly unnatural.
As if being pulled by invisible thread... that was how it moved.
What—?
Fortunately, thanks to the effect of the giant's lower half tumbling down earlier, no giants were present on the staircase.
Thanks to that, Rei was able to carefully observe the corpses gathered — or rather, drawn together — around the Black Crystal without worrying about his surroundings.
Suddenly, the Black Crystal produced a black powder... no, something that could be called black snow.
The black snow fell upon the giant corpses... and in the next moment, a neck sprouted from the body of a giant whose head had been obliterated.
Yes — "sprouted" was precisely the right word.
Bone extended from the neck to form a skull, followed by brain, eyeballs, teeth, and flesh, and finally skin and body hair.
Before he knew it, the corpse that should have been headless had taken on such a pristine appearance that it could no longer be mistaken for a dead body.
And as the black snow continued to fall... eventually, the giant's fingers twitched.
The giant that should have been a corpse began moving once more.
At first, Rei wondered if it was an Undead, something like a Zombie, but from what he could see, the giant did not appear to be Undead at all.
The giant had been revived as a giant — of that, he was certain.
Reviving the dead? That's a remarkably rare Magic Item. If people learned of this effect, it wouldn't be strange for them to gather from all over the world, nor would it be strange for someone to try to claim it. ...Well, I can't imagine it's something that straightforward.
From Rei's perspective, the Black Crystal did not look at all like something capable of reviving the dead.
Though, given that a giant was literally being revived before his eyes, that belief was not necessarily convincing.
If the Black Crystal's effect is what creates the giants, then... it probably has some restriction, like only being able to revive giants specifically.
But... thinking that, Rei turned his gaze up the staircase toward B4.
On that floor, a large number of giant corpses currently lay, but none showed any sign of reviving.
In other words, it's only with that black snow that giants can be revived. ...In that case, the top priority right now is to bring all the giants up to B4 and dispose of them there.
If there were no corpses on B5, reviving them would be impossible.
If that was the case, what he needed to do was simple.
Whatever kind of existence the Black Crystal was — whether he intended to destroy it or claim it — the giants were in the way regardless.
So he just needed to lure all the giants up to B4 and annihilate them there.
The question is whether the Black Crystal has some means of self-defense... but I can't determine that from here. Whatever I do with it, the first step is pulling the giants away from the Black Crystal's vicinity.
Making that judgment, Rei confirmed that the giants that had tumbled down earlier were now trying to climb the staircase once more. He gave the Black Crystal one final glance, then made his way back to B4.