The Gruesome Harvest and the Giant’s Demise

“Brother, give me a hand.”

‘Little Brain’ Little Hard and his brother slowly dragged the corpse of ‘Hunchbacked’ Bupa from the embrace of ‘Giant’ Bru, preparing to sever his head.

From the jumbled assortment of items outside the crypt, ‘Little Brain’ produced a small carving knife. He gripped the blade in his right hand, his left steadying the Thin Man’s neck.

“Wait a moment!”

His brother suddenly halted ‘Little Brain’, declaring, “His blood is still useful! The medicine he ingested might still be extractable!”

His brother retrieved a large wooden basin, its interior dark and murky, as if coated with layers of dried blood.

Taking the carving knife from ‘Little Brain’, he deftly slit the Thin Man’s carotid artery. Blood gushed forth, torrentially at first, filling half the basin. As the Thin Man’s body temperature dropped significantly, the flow began to slow, gradually trickling to a halt.

“Hold his head,” his brother instructed, observing the diminishing blood flow. He intended to press and squeeze the remaining blood from the Thin Man’s body.

‘Little Brain’ held the basin with one hand and pressed down on the Thin Man’s skull with the other. Inadvertently, his gaze met the Thin Man’s unseeing, wide-open eyes, sending a sudden jolt of alarm through him. He subtly reached out and closed the Thin Man’s eyelids.

“Hold steady,”

his brother instructed. He positioned his arms vertically above the Thin Man’s chest, hands clasped, and began to rhythmically rise and fall, using his body weight to perform chest compressions. To an unwitting observer, it would have appeared as if he were administering emergency aid to the man on the ground.

“Is the blood flow increasing?”

“It’s increasing… no, I was mistaken. It’s not.”

Sweat beaded on his brother’s forehead. Wiping it away, he then said, “Never mind. Help me lift him. We’ll cut his ankles to collect blood from his lower limbs.”

‘Little Brain’ repositioned the Thin Man, dragging him back into ‘Giant’ Bru’s embrace, propping his head in Bru’s arm. Pinching his nose, he pulled off the Thin Man’s foul-smelling leather boots, then, with a look of utter disgust, used the carving knife to slice open the Thin Man’s Achilles tendons.

Moments later, a steady trickle of reddish fluid emerged.

“There it is! There it is!”

“Catch it with the basin! Don’t waste a drop!”

After much fumbling and exertion, the two ‘Big Heads’ finally managed to collect most of the blood from the Thin Man’s body.

“Well… let’s begin severing Bupa’s head.”

‘Little Brain’ exchanged a glance with his brother, then tilted his head back to look at Bru. ‘Giant’ Bru, at that moment, was also curiously peering down at them, wondering what these two adorable little figures with their large heads and small bodies were truly up to.

‘Little Brain’ Little Hard gazed at the immense shadow cast over him, and a gulp of fearful saliva audibly slid down his throat.

‘Little Brain’ felt a surge of apprehension. He thrust the carving knife into his brother’s hand. “You do it,” he urged.

His brother shot ‘Little Brain’ a disdainful glance, sneering, “Coward!”

“Give it here!” His brother snatched the carving knife, then, grabbing the Thin Man’s feet, pulled him backward. The Thin Man’s entire body slid free from ‘Giant’ Bru’s embrace, landing sideways on the ground once more.

He swiftly and meticulously cut through the Thin Man’s neck—the skin, muscles, fascia, and blood vessels—then forcefully severed the connection of the cervical vertebrae. Afterward, he carelessly tossed aside the blood-stained knife.

Clasping the Thin Man’s skull in both hands, he planted his feet against the Thin Man’s shoulders and pulled with all his might!

“Crack!” The head separated from the body!

His brother then impaled the head onto the top of a wooden staff, thus creating a gruesome head-scepter.

“There! I truly don’t know what you’re so afraid of, you rotten little brother!” His brother’s face was etched with scorn. Yet, after mounting the head onto the staff, something still felt amiss. He held the head by its hair, examining it for a long while before finally realizing the incongruity.

“Ah, his eyes were closed! They’re shut; Bru might even think Bupa is just sleeping!” His brother gently pried open the eyelids of the severed head. Gazing at the lifeless eyes and dilated pupils, he nodded, increasingly satisfied.

Wiping the blood from his hands onto the small of his back, he prepared to show his brother his masterpiece. To his surprise, when he looked up, he found his brother had fled far into the distance, even stumbling and falling face-first in his hasty retreat.

His brother, perplexed by his sibling’s panicked flight, was about to call out to him when his own body was enveloped by an expanding shadow.

Stiffly, his brother turned his head. ‘Giant’ Bru was slowly rising, his colossal body unfolding, completely eclipsing the sunlight.

“ROAR—”

The earth-shattering roar made the ground tremble, and leaves rustled violently. Bru’s foul breath forcefully pulled his brother’s skin back, exposing his gums and eyeballs.

His brother dropped to his knees with a thud, desperately kowtowing to ‘Giant’ Bru, his mouth uttering incessant pleas for mercy.

Bru simply stepped over him, ignoring his pleas. The ‘Giant’ was not enraged because ‘Big Brain’ had severed the Thin Man’s head to fashion a staff.

Instead, ‘Giant’ Bru’s fury stemmed entirely from the two fair-haired individuals perched on a massive boulder nearby.

Though Bru was mentally deficient, he possessed the capacity to remember who treated him kindly and who treated him cruelly. These two fair-haired people had been very cruel indeed; they had wounded him, and the pain made him want to weep, yet each tear only intensified the agony.

“ROAR—!”

The giant roared skyward, a furious bellow that caused countless flying insects in the air to drop dead, falling in a dense, continuous shower, like a light drizzle.

‘Big Brain’ tentatively touched his face, then his neck, torso, arms, and legs. Trembling violently, he shuddered, his pants instantly soaked. His expression was a mix of tears and joy as he mumbled, “Not dead, not dead, not dead…”

He finally understood that Bru’s erratic behavior was not directed at him. ‘Big Brain’ followed Bru’s gaze, observing two brilliant golden glows and a streak of sharp white light emerge from the dim forest.

Before he could discern what the white streak truly was, he heard a sharp, feminine cry—

“Hit!”

The white light moved with the speed of lightning, arriving in an instant, crossing paths with Bru before embedding itself with a solid thud deep into a thick oak tree.

“CRASH!”

‘Giant’ Bru’s formidable body plummeted to the ground, kicking up countless fallen leaves and dust.

‘Big Brain’ gaped, utterly dumbfounded. To his shock, he saw an arrow lodged in one of Bru’s eyes, while the other eye socket was completely empty. Not only was it vacant, but the brow bone and bridge of the nose around it were shattered, exposing jagged white bone fragments—a truly horrifying sight!

‘Big Brain’s teeth chattered uncontrollably. ‘Giant’ Bru had actually been killed!

His legs gave way, and he collapsed, attempting to rise but finding his body utterly devoid of strength. He felt Death’s presence drawing impossibly near. How could a man as clever as he not grasp the truth at this moment?

It had to be the very group Mayor Kunar had tasked the Thin Man and the Giant with assassinating, now come for revenge!

Judging by the awe-inspiring grace of that spear throw, he was certain: the warrior who had hurled that javelin possessed the strength of a ‘Hercules’. Moreover, this ‘Hercules’ was absolutely not some malnourished wretch like the Thin Man, nor was he a monstrous, oversized aberration like the Giant.

This was the purest form of ‘Hercules’—a perfectly developed ‘Hercules’, utterly devoid of negative traits!

‘I’m finished,’ he thought. ‘I’m utterly doomed.’