Chapter 604 - 444: Great Elder Gu Visits Black Stone Territory
Chapter 604: Chapter 444: Great Elder Gu Visits Black Stone Territory
He lifted his head, met the Great Elder’s gaze, and slowly broke into a smile.
"It would be my honor, Great Elder."
"Black Stone Territory welcomes you."
Great Elder Gu watched Raylo’s reaction, a flicker of approval flashing in his cloudy eyes.
Charisma. Courage. Decisiveness.
"Very good."
The Great Elder nodded.
He slowly rose from his throne.
Raylo’s breath caught for a moment.
Before, while seated, the Great Elder had felt ancient and profound, like a mountain range that had lain dormant for a millennium.
But when he stood up, that mountain range... came to life.
His twenty-meter-tall body was slightly stooped, bent by the weight of countless years.
His skin, like dry tree bark, was covered in deep wrinkles. Every line seemed to be a mark carved by time itself.
"Great Elder, my territory... is in the middle of a war,"
Raylo stressed.
"There might be danger. You..."
He was cut off by a soft chuckle before he could finish.
The laugh was old and hoarse.
"It matters not."
Gu’s voice was soft, yet it seemed to possess a strange Magic Power, instantly soothing the suffocating pressure in the great hall.
"No matter the world, there are few things left that can make me feel threatened."
He turned and walked out of the stone tower.
Raylo and Kado hurried to follow.
As they left the magnificent high tower, every Hill Giant they passed, whether a patrolling guard or a civilian, stopped what they were doing the moment they saw Gu.
They placed their massive fists on their chests and bowed their heads deeply, their movements pious and fervent.
He was their guardian deity, the bedrock that had ensured the survival of the Hill Giant Race to this day.
Raylo followed in silence. He could sense that this Great Elder’s status in the Giant City-State had long surpassed that of a mere "king."
He was a living faith.
Soon, they returned to the stone house where Raylo and Kado were staying.
Gordo and Ug were standing guard at the door like two sentinel statues.
When they saw the colossal figure following behind Raylo and Kado, the expressions on their faces instantly froze.
"Gr-Great Elder!"
Gordo’s and Ug’s pupils trembled violently.
Stepping into the stone house, Raylo placed his hand on the Space Stone Wall and slowly pried open the spatial fissure.
"Please."
Raylo made an inviting gesture toward Gu.
Gu glanced at the Space Gate, which only reached his ankles, then looked back at Raylo with what could only be described as a playful expression.
He said nothing more, merely extending a finger as thick as a stone pillar and lightly tapping the Space Gate.
HUM!
The Space Gate seemed to have been injected with infinite energy, expanding in an instant.
Two meters, five meters, ten meters...
It only stopped when it had grown into a giant Teleportation Gate a full thirty meters high.
Raylo took a deep breath and spoke again.
"Great Elder, please."
This time, Gu nodded in satisfaction and stepped into the Space Gate.
Kado, Gordo, and Ug followed close behind.
When Raylo was the last to step through the Space Gate, the giant Teleportation Gate behind him dissipated silently, and he found himself standing on the soil of Black Stone Territory.
The sun was pleasant—this was likely the last of the warm sunshine Black Stone Territory would see before winter set in.
Not far away, the construction site for Black Stone City was bustling with activity. The rhythmic chants and hammering of artisans and laborers rose and fell in a constant chorus.
Everything was brimming with life and vitality.
"So this... is your territory?"
Gu’s voice rumbled from high above his head, tinged with a hint of surprise.
"Are all the living beings here... so small?"
He looked down at the humans on the ground, none of whom were even two meters tall, as if observing a colony of busy ants. His eyes were filled with curiosity.
In the Giant Dragon Realm, there were no intelligent creatures this miniature.
With a thought, Raylo deactivated the Transformation Magic bestowed by Moonlight.
The "Carlo" Giant form he had assumed began to shrink rapidly.
Muscles, bones, height...
Everything changed at a speed visible to the naked eye.
In the space of just a few breaths, he transformed from a ten-meter-tall Giant back into a strapping, 1.8-meter-tall human youth.
The curiosity in Gu’s eyes grew even more intense.
"An interesting transformation ability,"
he remarked.
"It’s not an Illusion Technique, but a true alteration of physical form."
He looked at the now-human Raylo, then glanced down at his own colossal, mountain-like body, seemingly lost in thought.
The next moment, before the astonished eyes of Raylo, Kado, Gordo, and Ug, Great Elder Gu’s massive, twenty-meter-tall body began to glow with a faint halo.
His body didn’t shrink like Raylo’s. Instead, it was as if he were a sand painting, slowly dissolving and reforming within the light.
One breath.
Two breaths.
Three breaths.
The light faded.
Where the Giant had stood, there was now only a slightly stout, kind-faced human elder with graying hair, dressed in simple gray linen clothes.
With his hands behind his back, he chuckled as he looked at the dumbfounded Raylo.
"This makes visiting much more convenient, don’t you think?"
The air fell deathly silent.
The expressions on the faces of the three Hill Giants—Kado, Gordo, and Ug—were more horrified than if they had just witnessed the arrival of the Nine-headed Demon Serpent Hydra.
Their brains had completely shut down.
Their king, their race’s guardian deity, their living faith, that ancient and indomitable being...
...had turned into a... Little Guy?
A human old man who looked like a gust of wind could blow him over?
Raylo, too, only slowly recovered after his initial shock.
He could sense the terrifying Power contained within the body of this kindly-looking old man before him.
It wasn’t a simple Transformation Technique or Illusion Technique, but the ultimate mastery over his own life form and the very essence of his energy.
He had perfectly contained his massive body and Power within this tiny human shell, without the slightest leak.
This was even more awe-inspiring than revealing his twenty-meter-tall Giant form.
"Great Elder... you..."
For a moment, Raylo was at a loss for what to call him.
"When in Rome."
The old man waved his hand, his cloudy eyes surveying the surroundings with great interest, clucking his tongue in amazement.
"Interesting, truly interesting. So this is what it feels like to see the world from this height."
He started walking, full of curiosity about everything, like an old man from the countryside visiting a city for the first time.
He looked at the construction site in the distance where massive stones were being hoisted with pulleys, then at a squad of patrolling soldiers clad in fine Plate Armor. A kind smile never left his face.
Kado and the other two finally snapped out of their petrified state. They followed behind, flustered, wanting to protect him but not daring to get too close. They looked both comical and pitiable.
"Kado, you, Gordo, and Ug will accompany... Elder Gu, and show him around the territory."
Raylo quickly made the arrangements, deliberately using a new form of address.
"Yes, my lord!"
Kado replied hastily.
Raylo, on the other hand, turned and walked toward the camp tents. He needed to summon Ed and the other core members to inform them of the "distinguished guest’s" arrival and make appropriate arrangements for his reception.
「Over the next few days」
A peculiar sight appeared in Black Stone Territory.
A seemingly ordinary, gray-robed old human man strolled leisurely around the territory with his hands behind his back.
Trailing behind him were always three Hill Giants, each over ten meters tall, who followed his every step as if facing a great enemy.
This visually striking scene made everyone who saw it gossip, speculating about the old man’s identity.
In just a few days, the Great Elder had toured most of the industries in Black Stone Territory.
He saw Black Stone City being planned out, the bustling construction of residential areas, and the lush green crops in the farmlands.
He saw children running and laughing carefree in the streets, and he saw the hope and drive brimming on the faces of the territory’s people.
This place lacked the ancient, profound feeling of the Giant City-State, but it possessed a burgeoning, upwardly-mobile Life Force that he found novel.
「One day」
He walked into the Valen Family’s forging workshop.
This was one of the most crucial areas in all of Black Stone Territory.
The air here echoed with deafening hammer strikes and roiled with the searing heat that erupted from the Melting Furnace.
A burly blacksmith, bare to the waist, was swinging a massive hammer, bringing it down hard on a large, red-hot metal ingot.
With every strike, countless sparks flew.
Under his hammer, the metal ingot was visibly shaped, gradually taking the form of a round Heart-Protecting Mirror.
However, this Heart-Protecting Mirror was as large as a millstone, clearly custom-made for the physique of a Hill Giant.
Two Apprentices stood beside the blacksmith, helping with the Forging. A Heart-Protecting Mirror this large was impossible for one blacksmith to forge alone.