Chapter 184: Fight with a Stoneman (Part 2)

Magna pulled his 2 artifacts, shaped like miniature daggers, from his pockets.

The daggers immediately began to grow in his hands. Their forms twisted and changed while they expanded.

Against a body made of stone as hard as metal, sharp or pointed weapons wouldn’t be very useful. Magna needed something that could transfer as much force as possible, so he began reshaping them into blunt weapons.

The blades continued to grow. Their tips widened, slowly taking on a rounded, oval shape.

Their mass increased along with their changing forms. Magna deliberately made them as heavy as possible. Before long, 2 large maces had formed in his hands.

He added several short, blunt spikes around the oval heads. They weren’t sharp enough to pierce the Stoneman’s stone body, but they would concentrate the force of each blow into smaller points and cause more damage on impact.

By the time he finished shaping his weapons, Magna was already a few meters behind the Stoneman.

Up close, the creature looked even more massive. Its bulky body stood a little over 3 meters tall, nearly twice Magna’s height.

Even more impressive was the durability of its body. Every part of it looked like solid rock. Magna quickly decided that its strangely shaped head had to be its weak point.

Once he was close enough, Magna spread his arms to the sides, one heavy mace in each hand.

Next, he suddenly burst forward.

His small body crossed the distance in an instant. He leaped into the air with both maces raised above him, aiming them directly at the Stoneman’s head.

The Stoneman’s senses were poor, but it seemed to feel the vibrations in the ground at the moment Magna jumped. It turned around and raised its stone spear, but by then, Magna was already above it.

Both maces came crashing down.

BOOM!

Magna swung with all his strength, bringing the 2 spiked maces down against opposite sides of the Stoneman’s massive head.

The impact produced a deep, brutal sound, like a giant hammer smashing into a cliff.

Cracks spread across the stone surface. Several chunks of rock broke away from its head, scattering across the ground.

’It’s really made of stone.’ Magna’s eyes widened slightly when he saw the result.

It wasn’t simply covered in stone or shaped to resemble one. Its entire body was actually made of stone.

It was also incredibly hard.

The force of the impact rebounded through Magna’s arms and pushed him backward. Both of his hands were left tingling and slightly numb.

He jumped back right away, putting several meters between himself and the Stoneman. He steadied his stance and prepared for another attack.

Yet the Stoneman barely seemed affected.

It staggered for only a moment before quickly regaining its balance. Its single, enormous eye, set in the center of its strange stone head, opened wide. It fixed an angry gaze on Magna.

The damage wasn’t enough to break its head. Only several cracks remained where the maces had struck.

Magna tightened his grip on his weapons, ready for his next attack, but the Stoneman opened its enormous mouth first.

Rows of sharp stone teeth filled the inside of its mouth.

"Thrak dar kor thrrr grrrahhh!" A collection of harsh, grinding sounds poured from its mouth, like countless stones scraping against one another.

It sounded like nothing more than the gibberish an angry monster would make, yet it made Magna pause. "You can speak?"

He was genuinely surprised, although it wasn’t completely unexpected.

They were intelligent enough to create stone weapons and build structures to live in. It made sense that a species capable of that would have developed its own language.

Still, the situation had suddenly become more complicated.

Magna frowned while he looked at the creature in front of him.

If this were a game, he wouldn’t have cared.

He would have kept attacking until the Stoneman died. There would be no reason to hesitate. It would simply be an enemy, and killing it would give him experience and loot.

But this wasn’t a game. This was a real world.

The creature standing in front of him wasn’t some monster waiting to be defeated for a reward. It was a living being capable of thinking, speaking, and apparently going about its own life.

Magna was the one who had attacked first.

He had approached it from behind, without warning. He had struck it while it was busy searching for food.

The Stoneman hadn’t attacked him. It hadn’t threatened him. It hadn’t even known he was there.

Magna was the one who had decided to kill it.

But for what?

That question suddenly bothered him.

When he had killed the humans at Winterborne Estate, he had a reason. They had been enemies, and leaving them alive would have put others in danger.

But this time, there was no such reason.

Was he really going to kill this creature simply because he wanted to see how strong he had become?

He had the power to kill it, but did having the power mean he had the right to?

Magna started to think about the ethics behind this question.

Hunters killed animals because they needed food, or because they wanted their hides and other useful materials. Even if killing was cruel, there was still a purpose behind it.

Robbers and bandits had reasons too. They might kill someone for money or their possessions. Their actions could be evil, but there was still a motive behind them.

But Magna had nothing.

He didn’t need the Stoneman’s body for food. There was nothing on it he wanted to take. The creature hadn’t threatened him or attacked anyone he cared about.

He had simply wanted to test himself.

The more he thought about it, the worse that reason sounded.

If he started killing every living creature simply because he was strong enough to do so, what would make him any different from a monster?

Magna’s thoughts became tangled while he stared at the Stoneman.

He had to accept that he was the one in the wrong.

"Man... This is frustrating..." He muttered in annoyance, shrank his 2 artifacts back into their miniature forms, and returned them to his pockets.

When he looked at the Stoneman again, it was pointing its stone spear directly at him.

Magna slowly raised both hands. "I’m sorry for attacking you like that. Let’s call it a misunderstanding and try to talk?"

He wore an innocent expression, even giving the Stoneman a friendly smile.

The Stoneman stared at him for a moment.

Seeing that Magna had put away his weapons, it threw its stone spear to the side as well.

Magna raised one eyebrow. ’Oh?’

For a brief moment, he wondered whether the creature really understood his words.

Right then, the Stoneman suddenly charged at him.

Its enormous body surged forward, each heavy step making the ground tremble beneath its feet.

It raised both fists high above its head and brought them down toward Magna.

Fortunately, it wasn’t particularly fast.

Magna easily jumped backward, letting the massive fists crash into the ground where he had been standing.

BOOM!

Dust and chunks of ashen soil exploded into the air. A large crater was left behind.

"Hey, hey. I know I’m the one at fault here, but if you keep..."

Magna tried to speak, still hoping they could settle things without fighting, but the Stoneman didn’t listen.

It was already charging at him again.

Magna jumped backward once more. Another pair of massive fists smashed down in front of him, kicking up another cloud of dust.

"Okay..." Magna’s expression began to change. "...you’re just giving me the reason I was missing a while ago."

The Stoneman charged through the cloud of dust. Its massive silhouette emerged from the haze while it raised both fists again.

This time, Magna didn’t move. He planted his feet firmly on the ground and pulled back his right fist.

The Stoneman’s heavy stone fists came crashing down toward his head.

At the last moment, Magna drove his fist forward as his punch slammed directly into the Stoneman’s bulging stomach.

BANG!