After almost an entire hour of flying through the ashen, molten landscape that was the second layer of the Gigant, Li finally found something of noteworth. One of his Alpha Rocs notified him, giving him a distinct sense of threat. 

A whole hour of boredom had left Tia sleeping snugly, cuddled up on the back of an Alpha Roc, and Li raised his voice as gently as he could. 

“Tia,” said Li. “Time to wake up. We’ve got something.”

Tia heard Li’s voice and woke up slowly, rubbing her eyes with her small hands and yawning. “Papa? We fight now?” she said groggily. 

“Yes, and this is going to be your fight, Tia. Make sure to get a stretch in to work out the stiffness after you wake up,” said Li. 

“Okay!” Tia immediately sprang up into action, standing on the back of the Alpha roc and starting up some dynamic stretches. She crossed one arm over the other and craned her neck from one side to the other with a smile, the prospect of a fight getting her wide awake.

Her emerald green wings sprouted from her back, stretching outwards too. 

“What is it, papa? What I fight?” said Tia as she now leaped up and down expectantly. The roc under her narrowed its fiercely sharp eyes in mild annoyance but put up with Tia’s antics. 

“You’ll see, Tia,” said Li. The roc fleet he had summoned was in a V-formation, with the tip of the V far ahead of Li. 

Over a set of large mountains of black rock lined with rivers of molten liquid. Their tops were enshrouded in clouds of thick ash, and Li and the rocs crossed over it. The ash killed all visibility for a few seconds, and during this time, Tia shuddered. 

“Are you okay, Tia?” said Li.

“Don’t like this,” said Tia. “The white air. Reminds me of the cold place.”

“It’s called ash, Tia, and I understand,” said Li. He knew she was reminded of the thick fog from before, the one surrounding the tear in space that Lira guarded. And he knew how much she disliked the chill of eldritch energies. “Come here.” 

He extended a hand to her from above, his fiery Sanzuwu wings keeping him soaring up. She leaped up and took the hand, and Li scooped her up in his arms in a hug. 

“Love papa’s hugs!” said Tia as she waddled her legs while Li carried her. 

“Oh, incoming!” said Li, and he flapped his flaming wings down, sending him soaring higher in the air as a fireball rippled past beneath him. 

Then, dozens and dozens of fireballs soared around everywhere, and the Alpha rocs broke formation to engage in evasive maneuvers. Among summons Li could create, they possessed exceptionally sharp eyesight and even the coveted Truesight that saw through visual blocks and could even track targets using lower leveled invisibility. 

The rocs swerved and spun in the air, fireballs never even coming close to landing on them despite the fact they came from the thick of the fog. 

Li was the first to break through the fog of ash with Tia in tow. 

“That what I fight, papa!?” said Tia, slightly nervous for the first time. 

“Yes, yes it is,” said Li. 

They stared down at a giant, but not just any giant. An enormous one almost forty meters tall with a small crown of molten rock on his head, blazing with flames that towered dozens of meters in the air. Its blazing red eyes settled on Li and Tia in pure aggression, and it loosed a guttural roar that sounded like an earthquake given voice, rumbling through the air and the ground. 

The giant stood knee deep in a lake of lava and fire, and all around him, Flame Sprites, living spirits of flame, floated upwards, their mouths forming from their flickering bodies and shooting out fireballs. 

“Rocs, take those sprites out,” commanded Li, and the rocs under his command all loosed a battle cry, their screeching whistles cutting through the air in a symphony of battle readiness. 

Li analyzed the fire giant beneath. It was a variant of giant known as a Gigant, likely what the Gigant Dungeon was named after, and a Boss monster of this layer. However, quite likely not the only boss of this layer, just one of many. 

This, Li could tell from the amount of mana emanating from the gigant. Though certainly impressive, placing it at approximately level 70, it was not capable of sustaining this entire, vast layer by itself. 

Curious why it was here and not the rest of its fire giant brethren. Regardless, Li now had the perfect target to test out his new spell to cleanse eldritch rot, especially on a higher profile target like this one that was a Gigant and important to this layer of the dungeon.

But first, Li wanted to let Tia cut loose for a bit, because he could tell she was getting antsy. She had not had the chance to ever fight because the fire giants from before, when Li was on the first layer, had just committed suicide for their ritual teleportation spell. 

The fire gigant had no weapon, but instead raised his hands up into the air towards Li and Tia. Its hands started to glow a bright, blinding white laced with a fiery tinge of red. Then, beams of flame blasted outwards, beams that were half a dozen meters in circumference. 

Li maneuvered around the beams, easily dodging them. 

Li tried to get a read on whether eldritch corruption emanated from the fire gigant. There did not seem to be any, and yet, the fire gigant reacted only with pure aggression against Li. Odd, but perhaps this was a variant of corruption that escaped easy detection. 

Li’s plan of having Tia fight it for now would not change, for the fire gigant’s combat capability was still the same, and Li had a heightened awareness to help Tia and be by her side at literally any given moment, because he did not want to be separated from her to a great extent. 

“Papa, to fight big man, I need to go big too,” said Tia. 

“Cut loose, Tia. Show him what you’ve got,” said Li with a smile. “But take this with you. It will keep papa close to you when you need it. [Switch Vine Seed].”

Li manifested a bright green orb like seed in his hand and pressed it into Tia’s palm, and she palmed it with a nod. 

“When you need, press into that really hard, and papa will be with you really fast, okay?” said Li. 

“Okay!” said Tia. Her skin started to darken, black and green scales starting to emerge all around her body. Her heterochromatic eyes of green and black began to glow fiercely, and her body shuddered as her draconic form began to inch out. 

“Now,” said Tia, her voice distorting into a growl. “I fight!”