Rock Giant

Sparta flew less than twenty meters above the ground.

He moved quickly, and the airflow swept up the yellow sand below, forming a rolling wave of sand behind him.

He glanced to either side from time to time, but there was nothing except rocky mountains and yellow sand.

Sparta decided not to continue exploring. He changed direction and flew back the way he had come.

Before long, he returned to their starting point.

He spotted Jayce standing atop a rocky hill and flew over.

Sparta lowered his altitude and landed steadily in front of Jayce, kicking up a small cloud of dust.

"Did you find anything?"

Jayce brushed the sand from his shoulders and looked at Sparta.

Sparta shook his head.

"Nothing. Just sand and rocks. It'll probably be the same farther ahead."

This was a desert world, with even the air filled with an arid scent.

Jayce nodded, seemingly unsurprised by the result. "It's not like we found nothing. At the very least, we've confirmed how safe this planet is."

This was exactly the absolutely safe place he wanted.

Soon, the others returned as well, landing one after another on the rocky hilltops.

"What about you? Did you find anything?"

They reported the same thing. Other than endless desert and rocky mountains, there were no signs of life or civilization.

Clayton spread his hands and began to complain.

"I don't understand. If we're going to be deserters, why not find a place with water and life?"

Jayce glanced at him, his voice calm.

"You want to find a good place. Do you think no one else would have the same idea?"

"Those Anti-Vitrum Alliance people will definitely search such places. A dead planet like this is precisely the blind spot they'll overlook."

After saying that, he pointed at Clayton and added coldly.

"And one more thing. We are not deserters."

"If I hear those words again, I'll tear out your tongue."

He was doing this to ensure the team's survival.

Of course, he didn't want to fight those Anti-Viltrum Alliance bastards to the death in the cosmos either.

He had things he wanted to do and people he wanted to see. Naturally, he didn't want to waste his life on a meaningless war.

"So how long are we staying here?"

Sparta suddenly spoke, his voice unusually clear in this dry place.

"Until I give the order."

Sparta looked troubled and continued.

"There's nothing here. What are we supposed to eat and drink? Are we just going to starve?"

Jayce swept his gaze over the group and thought for a moment.

"We can secretly visit nearby planets. There'll be strange-looking animals there. You'll definitely like them."

Sparta said nothing, but Clayton kicked at a pebble by his foot, ready to vent his dissatisfaction.

"Ah—!"

The pebble did not fly away as he had imagined. Clayton instead let out a cry of pain.

Sparta looked at the pebble, then at Clayton's foot.

"Are you kidding me?"

With their physiques, let alone a pebble, they could kick apart an entire mountain.

But given Clayton's current state, he had to be pretending, right?

Only Clayton himself knew that the pebble was unbelievably hard.

Before he could explain, the rocky mountain beneath their feet suddenly began to shake violently.

"What?!"

Sparta staggered from the tremor, then flew into the sky and looked down at the rocky mountain below.

He stared wide-eyed at the colossal creature gradually awakening beneath him.

The rocky mountain they had just been standing on was slowly stretching its body. Its enormous stone arms slammed into the ground, sending sand and dust into the air as yellow sand rolled forth like ocean waves.

Even Jayce, with all his experience, widened his eyes.

This was a giant life-form never recorded by the Empire!

Where the rocky mountain had stood now rose a three-hundred-meter Rock Giant. It had limbs like a human, its body composed of countless jagged black rocks of unknown origin.

Its face had no mouth, ears, or nose. It only had six red-glowing crystal eyes embedded symmetrically in the stone.

A shadow that blotted out the sky swallowed everyone, including Sparta, in darkness.

"It's actually alive!!"

Sparta looked up at the dark silhouette. An invisible pressure washed over him, making his voice tremble slightly.

The sound of the Rock Giant awakening shattered the silence of the entire desert.

Several distant mountains began to tremble in succession. Loose stones tumbled down as giants of varying heights rose one after another.

That seemed to trigger a chain reaction. Every Rock Giant within sight gradually awakened.

The tallest among them was undoubtedly the one before them, standing a full three hundred meters tall.

Even the shortest were around fifty meters high.

The Rock Giant's six scarlet crystal eyes locked onto the tiny ant-like figures in the air. It slowly raised its enormous palm and swept it toward them with a howl that carried a sonic boom.

"Scatter!"

Jayce's roar exploded in everyone's ears.

Sparta dove at high speed to avoid the palm, while the others scattered as well.

The instant the giant's palm struck the ground, it was as if an earthquake had descended upon the entire desert, shaking heaven and earth.

The shockwave, laden with sand and dust, flung Sparta away. He rolled through the air two and a half times before steadying himself.

"Thud! Thud! Thud!"

Sparta looked toward the deep sounds and saw the Rock Giants charging toward them with heavy strides.

Every step made the ground quake, scattering sand and dust in all directions.

The same pained, twisted expression Agni wore appeared on his face.

This was not a barren planet at all. They had fallen into a trap.

But there was no time to worry about that now, because the Rock Giants were right in front of them.

"Ever since you stepped into Recruit Company, my luck seems to have gotten worse."

Jayce floated beside Sparta, speaking with a strange expression.

They had somehow joined a galaxy-scale war that had not occurred even once in hundreds of thousands of years, then somehow encountered the Anti-Viltrum Alliance and gotten beaten half to death.

Now they had thought they had found a barren planet, only to discover it was the territory of a group of Rock Giants.

"Ahaha, sir, that isn't important. What matters is dealing with the trouble in front of us."

Sparta gave a dry laugh, trying to draw Jayce's attention back to the Rock Giants.

Luck was such an intangible thing.

"That's right. You're right."

"Let's deal with the immediate problem first."

Jayce abandoned that train of thought and turned his gaze back to the three-hundred-meter Rock Giant.

His figure vanished from where he stood. In the next instant, he appeared before the giant's face, his small fist striking its massive jaw.

After the punch, the giant did not shift even half a step, nor did its head sway in the slightest.

Although its body gave the impression of being bulky and slow, it was actually anything but.

It swiftly raised its arm and slapped toward Jayce.