Varinius’ POV

 

Over the years since my birth, I have been slowly reviewing my memories from my last life, as they were mostly fuzzy when I was born and slowly came back to me. Rather than them being something I had experienced or lived through, it was more like watching a movie. I had a sense of separation from the memories.

 

I was glad about that because while the knowledge and experiences of my past life were useful, the baggage and emotional trauma was something I didn’t want to bring into this life. Knowing about all the terrible things that can and will happen to you if you aren’t prepared or strong enough to overcome, motivated me to do better in this life.

 

I will be no man’s slave. I will protect the ones I love. That was the resolve with which I would build my life.

 

Onto my new family. I was surprised to find out I have no father. Not because he ran off or anything, but because I literally don’t have a father. I overheard my mother speaking to another woman when I was still in the cradle. She was saying along the lines of, “See? I told you I was a virgin!”

 

Apparently, you can tell is someone is a virgin or not from their aura signature. What a weird world. As such, my mother was very surprised to find out she was pregnant, but she didn’t seem to mind for some reason. Weird. Better for me at least. I wasn’t even an accident but she treats me well regardless

 

They also tested my ‘bloodline’ and were excited to find it was 100% pure. I didn’t know what that meant at the time, but my mother was the only pure-blooded Divine Giant in the… town? Settlement? Something like that. It’s basically a bunch of log houses in a forest way up in the snowy mountains.

 

Anyway. As the only pure-blooded Divine Giant in the… tribe—I’m just gonna call it the tribe—the rest, mainly the guys, were annoyed that she refused to fuck them to increase the strength of the tribe by increasing the purity of their children’s bloodlines. A couple of them tried to force the issue apparently, but mom killed them all. After that, no one dared challenge her.

 

When I was born, there was suddenly another 100% pure bloodline, but male, so I could be used as a stud to impregnate the women of the tribe. Hearing my mother’s friends planning this while she was out at an emergency meeting brought back memories of my last life as a sex slave, and I… reacted. Violently.

 

Even as a 6-month-old baby, the purity of my bloodline plus my cheats made me rather abnormal in the strength department. In fact, despite only being 6 months old, the anger at these people planning on using me like an object, caused my aura to awaken—an unprecedented feat—and burst out, destroying the house, and flinging the now-unconscious women in all directions.

 

I don’t regret it. They deserved it, but from that point on, I was treated differently. A bit like one might treat a bomb, but too valuable to get rid of. My mother also started training me to control my burgeoning aura. At first, it continually raged around my body, destroying anything in my vicinity, but as soon as my mother arrived, my blood resonated and I felt myself relax, my aura settling almost immediately. Neat.

 

Ever since, my mother was always there to rein me in when I got out of control. It was comforting, having someone who was always there and unconditionally loving. For the first year or so of my training, we focussed fully on gaining perfect control over my aura and learning about the world. It says a lot that even with my [Fast Learner] cheat, it took a month to get rudimentary control, 6 months for decent control, and a year for perfect control. Turns out, my aura pool was massive. Larger than most people ever have already, and constantly growing.

 

Usually, aura is usually awakened when the user goes through a traumatic event. Some unlock it naturally but it’s rare. Your aura pool is the maximum capacity of aura your body can hold at one time. It can be increased through continual use, physical and aural training, natural growth, supplements, etc.

 

They all assumed that I awakened aura naturally, except my mother who had been exposed to my aura extensively. She noticed that my aura has an underlying feel of bloodlust, hatred, and misery. I guess my baggage from my last life isn’t that easy to get rid of.

 

She didn’t say anything though, which I thought was strange, but she is a strange person. On another note, she never left me alone with her friends again.

 

Something that I couldn’t help but notice, even in my juvenile state, was my mother’s beauty. I wasn’t a mom-con in my last life but something about my mother just… attracts me. Her name, as I later found out, is Glaphira Rufinia, and she looks about 20 years old. She has long deep crimson hair and eyes of the same colour. These features contrast against her snowy white skin, causing her skin to almost glow.

 

Her body is fit, with lean muscle but her curves are exceptional despite this. It must be something to do with either this world, or the giant bloodline, but all the women in the tribe have slim waists with large breasts and wide hips. Surprisingly, it doesn’t look unnatural, it just makes her more attractive.

 

She is tall, and with her slim build and supreme curves, she is head-and-shoulders above the rest of the women in the tribe in terms of beauty as well as literal height. She is the largest person in the tribe by far and the average tribe-member is as tall as the trees in the forest, though everyone has normal, human-like proportions.

 

Another strange thing I’ve noticed is that no one in the tribe looks old. At first, I thought either people died young—we do live in the mountains after all—or the oldies were staying somewhere else, but it turns out anyone with even a percentage of the Divine Giant bloodline will live for several hundred years and stay in their prime until the moment of their death. I figured this out when we went to a death-day party.

 

The death-day party is a tradition in which the entire tribe gathers in a massive hall, and for the last three days of a tribe-member’s life, the entire tribe holds a massive party, drinking, dancing, and fighting together until, at the closing of the party, they are sent off with one final toast, and drop dead.

 

I wondered how this was possible at first, but my mother explained that we can feel our end approaching, and within a year of our death, we know the exact moment we will die of old age. At that moment I realised something. I don’t know how old my mother is.

 

Before I panicked too much, she also explained that true Divine Giants like us never die of natural causes and are incredibly difficult to kill. Despite this, the Divine Giants were hunted to near extinction by humans because by eating the heart of a divine giant, a human can live for at least a millennium, and drinking a single cup of their blood will extend a human’s lifespan by at least a decade, depending on the age and power of the giant in question.

 

The longevity effect, however, is only the tip of the iceberg. They gain various abilities, and their existing physical and aural abilities receive a massive boost. The enhances abilities and longevity are also passed down through their genes to a lesser extent and most royal families have an ancestor who ate one of our kin.

 

This frankly disgusts me. I know humans are often ambitious, greedy, and power-hungry, but to eat another sapient being, one who looks just like you, only larger, is… wrong. Apparently, they tried doing it with the dragons first, but unlike in the legends I remember, in this world, dragons live in groups and the humans who tried were slaughtered. The dragons, who were living peacefully at that point thanks to an ancient agreement, flew off to who knows where. They had no interest in dealing with those who wanted to kill and eat them for their power and had millions of bodies to throw at them again and again. Understandable.

 

It was at that point the giants were hunted instead. Unfortunately, they couldn’t fly and under the weight of armies of millions, one died. This was only the beginning, as the humans, newly powered up from eating our kin could now kill us more easily. This repeated over-and-over until the few remaining giants fled into the mountains, forests, and some even took to the depths, where no humans had tread before.

 

The giant-slayers were welcomed back as heroes and took over countries. They even started religions where they were the gods. They then lived their remaining lifespan in comfort, only seeking out the remnants of the giant race when they felt their death grow near, almost ten thousand years later.

 

We were in the wind at that point, and they had little luck. It’s been another ten thousand years since the last of the giant-slayers perished but their progeny lives on. I’m not planning on swearing revenge on humans for what their ancestors did but once again, I’m reminded of the true nature of humanity. They cannot be trusted.

 

Thankfully, the giant-slayer religion died out pretty fast after their deaths, after all, what kind of god dies? They were then replaced by the light and dark religions. These were based around the two ‘gods’ I met.

 

I refuse to worship them. I mean, the darkness dude seems cool enough, preaching inclusion and all that but still. They may be powerful beings but that is no reason to worship them.

 

As for the light asshole, he seems like some kind of power-tripping young master like the ones who used to visit the camp occasionally to buy slaves. If someone tells me to worship him, I’ll be forced to remove their dumbass genes from the genetic pool.

 

Thankfully, while we monitor what happens in human society, we don’t follow their example. Hell, most people think giants and dragons are just legends at this point. Fun fact, there are small cults who worship the giants and dragons, offering sacrifices and all those fun cultist activities. They are regularly wiped out, but they sure are persistent.

 

I did ask how it was possible to monitor the humans when we are so much larger than them and it turns out, those with the giant bloodline can change their size. My mother demonstrated by growing to a mindboggling 5 times her normal size, and then shrinking to smaller than me, a baby.

 

Turns out, her smallest form was as large as a large human, or about 2 metres tall. As a 1-and-a-half year old baby, I’m about 6 metres tall when standing. Everything around here must be supersized. I thought the average giant was 10-15 metres tall but they’re actually about 60 to 80 metres with some outliers being more than 100 metres tall (base form). Turns out, mom in her supergiant mode is over half a kilometre tall! That’s ridiculous. Though she only held it for about 20 seconds before returning to normal and being totally wiped out afterward.

 

It made me wonder how humans, no matter how numerous brought down giants before they ate one of us. We are literally 30 to 40 times their size on average. In strength alone, without training, we outclass them more than 100 times over.

 

When I asked my mom, she made sure to warn me against being arrogant. Humans can use aura, just like we can, and have mysterious abilities they call psychic abilities. Their abilities vary greatly and are their greatest and most unpredictable strength.