Hill paid no attention to the Undead's movements. Setting up camp was a simple matter for them.
Instead, the other giant screen drew all his attention. The God-Monsters were still watching Mill Forest warily from a distance, with no intention of stopping them. That was the strangest thing of all.
Normal Elemental Giants had no concept of giving up. If they died, they could simply be reborn in the Elemental Realm. Even if their crystal cores shattered, they could sleep for tens of thousands of years and come back to life!
Taking life lightly and charging into trouble on a whim was how Elemental Giants usually behaved. Hill figured the ones who had died beneath the Great Wall earlier were probably normal. The ones before him had likely all been corrupted by Ekak.
Hill felt little about that. Struggles among elementals were brutal enough, and the notoriously vicious Ekak had always coveted the Fire Genasi and Air Genasi.
He had once dared attack a Fire Elemental Lord. Stealing a few subordinates from two elemental dukes was hardly beyond him.
Ekak already had plenty of Fire Genasi and Air Genasi under him. Weak as he was, he was still a duke whose power approached that of a god.
Rumors in the Elemental Realm had long claimed he was descended from both kinds of God-Monsters. Of course, anyone who dared say so was either dead by Ekak's hand or one of the lords who could always kill him.
How to describe Ekak's standing in the Elemental Realm? Combine everything irritating about Malar and Umberlee with strength even poorer than theirs, and the result was a Smoldering Duke who had died countless times.
The one thing Hill could not understand was that even if Ekak had not known Amaunator planned to return in