243. Final Wave (I)

𝔽𝕚𝕣𝕤𝕥 𝕎𝕒𝕧𝕖 ℂ𝕝𝕖𝕒𝕣𝕖𝕕!

Zane wasn't breathing very heavy at all. He did a quick scan of his body. Looked good. A little pumped, maybe. But not much damage. A little bruised. A few scrapes, but that was bound to happen. So many demons had gotten licks at him—shattered their fangs against his skin, raking claws over his chest, his back… A few broke through. He hardly even felt them.

He was bleeding in a few places. There were blackened moles where the Corruption wormed in. But it had trouble getting much out of him.

His Vitality overwhelmed the bulk of it. Burned the poison right off.

All in all, they had gotten a little more than 10% Health off of him.

He looked over the corpses burning over the vast field—a sea of purple flame. Smoking up. Changing color. Going to essence. Great streams of it bent toward him, swamping him all at once…

𝕃𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕝 𝕦𝕡!

So much of it it blinded him. It wouldn't stop pouring in. He supposed that was what happened when you fused so many Monsters together.

𝕃𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕝 𝕦𝕡!

𝕃𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕝 𝕦𝕡!

𝕃𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕝 𝕦𝕡!

𝕃𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕝 𝕦𝕡!

𝔼𝕤𝕤𝕖𝕟𝕔𝕖 𝕃𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕝 𝟚𝟞𝟠 -> 𝟚𝟟𝟛

Zane nodded. Pleased at the destruction he had wrought.

"Heck yeah!" cried Avery. Evan cheered too.

His friends didn't have to do very much there. Reina was relieved. It was as she thought—the Monsters of this realm couldn't handle him. She told him to keep doing what he was doing. He nodded.

His essence was maybe only a quarter depleted, too. So was his Bloodline. He had plenty to give.

Reina didn't understand what the Monsters were doing either. They should have known they couldn't match him. This was almost feeding him Levels. Either these things had just not clocked Zane's power, or…

A thought seemed to occur to her. She frowned.

Maybe that was the idea, she murmured. She bit her lip, looked to the mini-map. To the Citadel.

The density of the redness inside had hardly gone down.

"Just how many Monsters are in that thing?" she said, blinking. "…Just how many waves are left?"

𝕊𝕖𝕔𝕠𝕟𝕕 𝕎𝕒𝕧𝕖

𝔹𝕖𝕘𝕚𝕟

The Citadel's shadowy. entrance was bubbling again. New Demons already emerging from the gloom…

Zane had barely gotten a minute's rest.

His essence still hadn't recovered. Neither had his Bloodline.

That was the crux of it, breathed Reina. And suddenly she started worrying again.

New Wolves prowled out of the dark. A good head bigger than the last.

𝔾𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕥 𝔹𝕝𝕚𝕘𝕙𝕥 𝕎𝕠𝕝𝕗 (𝕄𝕠𝕟𝕤𝕥𝕖𝕣 𝕂𝕟𝕚𝕘𝕙𝕥)

𝔼𝕤𝕤𝕖𝕟𝕔𝕖 𝕃𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕝 𝟛𝟚𝟠

Three of them this time, one after another. And they were a good ten Levels stronger than the last few—growling through bared scythe-like teeth, Corruption essence seething inside them. And a host of Level 299 Wolf-beasts prowling after them, some with two heads or three. All flush with essence.

"They're trying to tire you," Reina told him. "They know they can't beat you head-on—so they'll throw as much as they can at you until you run out!"

Zane frowned.

Watched as three more Netherworld Giants emerged too. One after another, amid a burgeoning horde. They just kept coming, swamping the battlefield—the Stormfire had hardly stopped burning over the corpses of their allies…

There were new Nascent Monsters too.

𝕃𝕚𝕔𝕙 ℙ𝕪𝕣𝕠𝕞𝕒𝕟𝕔𝕖𝕣 (𝕄𝕠𝕟𝕤𝕥𝕖𝕣 𝕂𝕟𝕚𝕘𝕙𝕥)

𝔼𝕤𝕤𝕖𝕟𝕔𝕖 𝕃𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕝 𝟛𝟚𝟘

Ten feet tall, draped in tattered red robes, with sallow sunken faces pappered in waxy skin. Deep-red flames where their eyes should be. Each carried a staff, a Soul Weapon, that looked like a giant torch—its end dripped gobs of lava, hissing and steaming and pooling, making cooling trails behind them…

They had brought Fire Laws to compete with Zane's own. Zane recognized those from the Azure Flame Faction. That was Core Magma.

In all, there were Nine Monster Knights this time. And a horde a good deal bigger than the last, so big they struggled fitting in the vast desolate yard. Each of their hateful red eyes trained on Zane. Slobbering, growling, spluttering, hissing…

They were going to throw a whole realm's worth of Monsters at him.

They thought this would be enough to bring him down.

… Hm.

He thought about it, brow creased.

He knew, at the bottom of things, none of them could compete with him. None of them had his Concept. None had his essence. His body. His heart.

But now he knew what they were trying to do—he would have to be considered about how he went about this. If these waves just kept ratcheting up…

He narrowed his eyes.

"Stay with me," he told Reina.

Reina nodded fiercely. "Always."

He told Evan to start picking off the strongest Monster Knights—at least badly wounding them. He asked Avery to deflect some of their worst attacks.

"Gotcha!" said Avery.

So they wanted to bleed him dry.

He would see about that.

He simply had to make sure he was a lot more than they could handle.

***

Zane had more than just his essence and his Bloodline. He had his body. He had his spirit.

They would need to bleed out all four. Only then could they take him down.

He knew he would have to use all of his powers to destroy them. It was just a matter of choosing what to use. And when.

This time he met the Monster horde head on. This time he brought out his Chains. Wrapped his fists. Lit them on Stormfire. Simple. Clean.

He burned his blood.

Enough to fire things up. To light his Chains with a ferocious intensity. Most of the fuel for his Asura state came from Zane's soul. The feeling lighting up his heart.

As he faced down that wall of darkness, breathing heavy, his fighting spirit raged fierce as ever.

This was what he was made for.

He waded into the dark masses. Bellowing. Fists blazing.

Zane took a battering.

In the next few minutes, fangs tipped with some of the most extreme poisons a Nascent Soul creature could generate, sharp as Sky-grade weapons, drilled into his muscles. And injected Corruption deep into him. Fists big as wrecking balls smashed into his head, whacked his chin, his chest, struck him all over with enough force to blow the peaks off mountains. An army of demons, pouring all their most violent efforts into bringing him down…

Zane took it all head-on.

And gave it right back.

Fists flashing, bringing intensities found only in the hearts of stars down to the midst of battle. Vaporizing beasts whole, puncturing the heart of the army, crushing line after line in a furious charge. When they hit him with the force to topple a mountain, he struck back with the force to shatter a continent. All that raw fleshly power backed with the pure explosive power of raw Stormfire…

He smashed right through the chest of a Great Blight Wolf. Fists sinking deep, exploding the heart in one forceful grab—blood blasted out its slack jaws. Then Stormfire shot out its mouth, its nostrils, as its body exploded from the inside.

He took fangs to the back of his neck. Took wrecking-ball knuckles to the side of his head, stumbled, growled, whirled around, leaped, struck right back, sent a giant the size of a skyscraper barreling to the ground….

Then the Pyromancers were upon him. Trying to bury him. Dredging up the densest, heaviest magma they could muster, dropping lakes of it straight over his head—Zane smashed one away in a fury. Then another. A third crashed against his back, hundreds of tons of molten metal catching him unawares, CLANG!-ing against the back of his head, making him stumble—he gave a surprised grunt.

Then a third massive glob sank him under the surface.

For a moment there was only a lake of molten metal, churning, trying to contain him… Reina let out a cry.

Then the whole thing began to tremble. The lava started splotching purple. Brightening and brightening, heating up until it all neared white—like they were staring straight into center of some purple supernova, brighter than the sun—

It erupted. Lava roasting up, burning to Stormfire, splattering everywhere. And there was Zane, standing in the midst of a new crater. Heaving deep breaths. A little scorched.

But mostly angry.

He launched straight for a Lich. A blur of sheer force. Wrapped one hand around its skull. Closed the other around its neck. And in one jagged motion he ripped its head straight off. The body erupted instantly; he whirled, stomped down, slammed a fist into the other Lich so fast you could see for a flicker of a moment its gaping expression. Then the Stormfire consumed it so fast it lost all shape, a vague outline frozen amid the intensity… when the light faded not even its ashes were left.

Zane did not slow. Did not stop. That was the thing with him. If anything, his rampage only built in its ferocity—it seemed like every slash, every stab, every smash he took only gave him new strength.

If you wanted to stop him, you would have to kill him.

And none of the Monsters there proved up to the task.

Zane stumbled out of it at last. Singed all over. One eye swollen with poison, with Corruption. Patches of it burning down his body.

He left only death behind him.

𝕊𝕖𝕔𝕠𝕟𝕕 𝕎𝕒𝕧𝕖 ℂ𝕝𝕖𝕒𝕣𝕖𝕕!

𝕃𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕝 𝕦𝕡!

𝕃𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕝 𝕦𝕡!

𝕃𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕝 𝕦𝕡!

𝕃𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕝 𝕦𝕡!

𝕃𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕝 𝕦𝕡!

𝔼𝕤𝕤𝕖𝕟𝕔𝕖 𝕃𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕝 𝟚𝟟𝟛 -> 𝟚𝟟𝟡

Even with Reina doing her best to heal him there, he'd dipped dangerously near 50%... but that was the plan.

He leaned on his body to get the job done. Sparing a good deal of essence and Bloodline. He had to give of his flesh to do it. It was a trade-off he was willing to make.

And this time he did see a noticeable decrease in how many red dots there were on the mini map. He was down to about half of his essence, half his Bloodline… Reina did a little calculating, brow furrowed. At this rate, she figured there might be two more waves—maybe three? And she had a sinking feeling they would each come heavier than the last…

Zane would need to outlast them all.

He took in the scope of the task. Still breathing heavy.

"You ready, big fella?" said Avery. Looking a little nervous.

"I will not fail," Zane promised her.

He turned back to face the Citadel. Jaw set.

He meant it.

***

𝕋𝕙𝕚𝕣𝕕 𝕎𝕒𝕧𝕖

𝔹𝕖𝕘𝕚𝕟

Five Great Blight Wolves. Three Lich Pyromancers. Two Giant Spiders. Three Void-Bringers—swirling human-shaped voids, indistinct figures whose very presence warped reality, tore rifts in space… just another kind of Monster Knight.

Reina was right. They really just kept getting harder and harder.

Reina healed him where she could. Evan got some good snipes in on the Voidbringers, and Avery deflected some magma-gobs. But in the end… it came down, again, to how much Zane could take.

These Voidbringers cut weirdly. Those crackling void-blades they made could get past much of the defenses of his skin, stabbed straight into his muscles, tear them up… though he found when he put his hands on them, he could crush them just like all the rest.

Zane took everything they had.

He just kept fighting.

***

ɪɴɴᴇʀ ʀᴇᴀᴄʜᴇꜱ

ᴀᴢᴜʀᴇ ꜰʟᴀᴍᴇ ꜰᴀᴄᴛɪᴏɴ

"How is he doing that?" said Burnwater. "Sustaining that kind of intensity—for that long?!"

"I suspect," said Noughtfire slowly. "It's to do with his Signature Title."

They watched as Zane—bleeding from dozens of wounds, half-blackened with Corruption, stumbling and staggering—wrestled down a Great Blight Wolf, and crushed it with his bare hands.

"It pairs well with his personality. It allows him to use his will to fuel his Asura State. As long as that never runs out, he can keep fighting. Then there's his Levels—each wave he gets a little physically stronger. Even as his essence and Blood and Law run thin…"

The old Sage paused.

The wave ended. There was Zane—on one knee. Smoking. Coughing blood, breathing deep, heaving in breath after breath. Hands broken. Muscles shredded down his chest, back, arms… Swaying a little. Reina stayed at his side, frantically working on him—then the Levels came in, healing his body up…

He didn't get back up. Not immediately.

"Still. All that damage, all that fighting, takes a toll. He's tried to conserve his strength. But it's clear he's running low."

"He is one man, in the end," said Burnwater, shaking his head. "Fighting a realm."

Noughtfire made a noise of agreement. He gave a little smile. He almost looked proud. "Gilgorath must be beside itself. He should have gone down two waves ago. And yet…"

Zane stood. Still swaying a little. But he was up.

"Is that the end of it?" said Burnwater, relieved. "The man's about to collapse!"

Noughtfire stayed silent.

His little smile faded. He narrowed his eyes.

He, like Zane, was looking to the Citadel's entrance…

"It's not over."

An aura exploded out of it. One single aura.

It was like nothing that had come so far. It was the only one that matched the ferocity of Zane's Stormfire… and it was vast enough to drown out any of the waves that came before.

Burnwater paled.

"That's Mid-Fusion," he croaked. "Heavens—Gilgorath brought in a Grand Knight!"