Less than an hour later, at the northern mouth of the valley.
BOOOOM!!
Half of a massive insect corpse coated in black sludge flew backward like a cannonball and slammed into the canyon wall. Thick, foul-smelling fluids cascaded down the cracks in the rock.
[Tom Pie] clung to the shadows beneath a bone beam at the top of the cliff and peered down. The frantic pounding in his chest finally eased a little.
Good. This humanoid bulldozer hadn't bitten the dust yet.
In the center of the valley, the eight-meter-tall, gray-white giant stood like an iron tower.
The gaping maw split across its chest and abdomen clamped down on half a carapace. Green fluid spattered as its enormous, interlocking white teeth worked. Although several wounds deep enough to expose bone had been torn across its broad shoulders, its callused left hand still shot out with savage force, seized an oncoming black shape, and smashed it into the dead-shell ground with the crushing weight of a falling mountain!
BANG!!
Shattered armor flew everywhere like shrapnel.
The wounded monster screamed and rolled more than ten meters away. Before it could spring back up, the Warlord's heavily bone-armored foot descended like a massive pile driver, whipping up a vicious gust!
But that foot made it only halfway-
HUM!!
In midair, a pitch-black flesh cord as thick as a bucket and covered in hooked barbs instantly pulled taut like a steel cable, cinching tight around the Warlord's thick right elbow!
Its furious charge was jerked to a halt. The giant staggered sideways, its heavy feet gouging two white furrows through the ground. The freed monster immediately wheeled back. Together with another dark shape lurking in a hollow, it attacked from both sides, the pair driving toward the giant's exposed ribs like poisoned spears!
[Tom