Kanos stopped breathing. The stench of sulfur and rotten blood from the Obsidian Goliath's mouth hit his face. The footsteps of the multi-ton monster made the ground shake. It was getting closer. Its glowing red eyes locked straight onto the pool of blood on Kanos's palm.
"Pull it out. Pull it out," Kanos rambled in a panic.
His left hand gripped the hilt of the hunting knife still piercing his right palm. He yanked it hard. Pain exploded. His flesh tore wider. Kanos screamed his lungs out, but the knife finally came free from the rocky ground. His hand was free, but it was completely ruined. Blood poured out endlessly. His right fingers went limp, completely paralyzed.
The Goliath raised its front leg, plated in heavy obsidian stone. A giant shadow blanketed Kanos's body. This was the end of everything. The shittiest clients, the craziest world, and now dying flattened at the bottom of a cave. Kanos shut his eyes tight.
"DON'T TOUCH HIM!"
CRASH! An ear-splitting collision shattered the air.
Kanos opened his eyes. Belida tackled the monster from the side. The Level 48 knight pushed entirely past his mana seal limits. A faint, desperate glow of his passive Heavy Shield skill flickered violently around his body just as his wounded shoulder collided with the Goliath's waist.
The rock monster stumbled sideways. Its footing wobbled. But the creature recovered quickly. With an angry roar that cracked the ground, the monster swiped its giant arm.
The stone punch landed dead-center on Belida's chest. Crack. Belida's desperate shield shattered instantly, and the raw impact threw him dozens of meters. He crashed into a stone pillar and rolled across the dirt multiple times. His black sword slipped from his grasp, thrown God knows where.
"Belida!" Kanos yelled.
The gray-haired knight tried to get up. His mouth coughed up fresh blood. The armor on his arm was pure scrap metal now. He couldn't stand straight. He could only kneel, supporting his weight with one hand while clutching his caved-in chest.
The giant monster changed targets. It shifted away from Kanos and lumbered slowly toward the helpless Belida.
Kanos forced his body up. He had to draw. He had to make something. His left hand frantically patted the dirt, searching for a chunk of charcoal. Got it. He tried to pull a line on the cave floor. But his left hand was stiff. His brain knew the shape of the weapon, sure, but his non-dominant hand had zero muscle memory to draw precise lines. The strokes were crooked. Messy. Disconnected.
Blue dust appeared for a second, then scattered in the wind. Failed. The frame was flawed.
"Dammit! Work, you piece of shit!" Kanos cursed his own hand, tears mixing with his cold sweat.
He tried to draw again. Failed again. The doodles just turned into normal charcoal dust.
Amidst that despair, the cave floor suddenly trembled much harder than before. From the ceiling near the entrance, an insane explosion echoed. BOOM! Giant boulders rained down. Garrick actually set up gunpowder bombs to destroy the exit gap and seal the access forever.
The explosion brought a domino effect. The cave structure, already fragile from the Goliath's movements, started to collapse. The floor beneath Kanos's feet cracked badly. A massive fissure tore open, splitting the room in two. A dark abyss with no visible bottom yawned right beneath Kanos's feet.
Kanos lost his footing. His body slid down. His left hand reflexively gripped the edge of the cracked stone floor with all his might. His legs dangled over absolute darkness.
"Kanos!" Belida pushed himself up using one leg.
The knight limped and stumbled past the falling rocks, heading straight for the edge of the chasm where Kanos hung. But the Obsidian Goliath was faster. The monster leaped, blocking Belida's path. Its giant jaws opened wide, instantly biting into Belida's shoulder and half of his torso.
Blood sprayed into the air. Kanos's eyes went wide. His breath felt like it stopped.
Belida didn't scream. Instead, the giant man jammed his remaining free hand against the monster's jaws so it wouldn't immediately chew through his neck. His dark blue, heavily scarred eyes stared straight at Kanos on the edge of the abyss.
In those final seconds, Belida didn't ask for help. He didn't curse their circumstances either. The knight just gave a faint smile. It was the exact same crazy smile he had when he called Kanos a bastard on the first night they met.
"Live... Illustrator," Belida grunted.
His voice was drowned out by the sound of the monster chewing and the rumbling of the collapsing cave. The Goliath whipped its head violently, slamming Belida's body into the ground.
The shockwave shattered the rock Kanos's left hand was holding onto. Kanos lost his grip. His body plummeted downward, swallowed by the cold darkness of the abyss. The last thing Kanos saw before the light shrank away was the giant monster tearing Belida's body apart, and the silhouette of the piled rocks sealing the exit. The place where Garrick had left them both to die.