179. The S-Rank Dungeon (XI)

The Reaper wanted to end Evan. Zane took its all-out finishing blow. A blast so pure and so bright it looked like a pillar of purest lightning punching out from the Reaper's maw—straight into Zane's chest. Loaded with the Concept of Shockwave.

It flashed past the skin and lay waste to the organs beneath. Wrestled down his spasming limbs and smashed straight into his beating heart.

For a second his heart stopped.

Zane went down jerking, grunting. He heard Reina's awful cry as he fell. He hit the ground face-first—and stayed there.

He had to force himself back to life. His heart strained first, working with everything it had, and it jerked awake —pumping fierce and strong and loud like a powerful engine kickstarting. It was the only part of him that could move. He groaned.

The rest of him was splayed out, a twitching ruin. Like he was a corpse undergoing rigor mortis, blinded by sheer lightning, by that trampling Shockwave concept, trampled underneath the sheer intensity of it—

Even as he spasmed there, sinking into that bright hot pain, he was very aware of Evan's smoking fallen body right behind him.

He felt a surge of fury.

It made thinking easier. It made everything easier.

He knew he had to get up. He had to. He raged at his body to move. It wasn't listening—so he forced the issue.

With the sheer blunt weight of his will, he imposed himself on himself. Wrenching his body out of the grip of that electric rush. Shoving it off, asserting his dominance. It took a tremendous effort—especially when it had gotten so deep into him.

His health was dipping dangerously close to 25%...

He felt a rush of intense warmth and worry. Reina was running closer, trying to heal him, to help. But she could only help stave off the damage.

Then—

𝕊𝕜𝕚𝕝𝕝 𝕦𝕡!

𝔼𝕞𝕡𝕖𝕣𝕠𝕣'𝕤 𝕊𝕠𝕦𝕝 𝕀 -> 𝕀𝕀

He managed it. Bit by bit—first snarling, grunting, clenching his teeth. Then his trembling open hands firming to white-knuckled fists. Wrestling back his locked-in legs, curling his locked-out arms, even as more and more of that raw electric power poured in… his body felt like a wild stallion bucking under him. He had to bring it to heel.

Jerking and twitching and heaving, he did; forced the brute weight, brute force of his will all over his body, crushed that power right out of him muscle by muscle. Half the muscles in his face were still spasming. But he got back to his feet.

The Electricity cut off, sputtered out.

The Reaper floated there, jaws wide open, choking on cold water.

That ugly fish had just thrown everything it had at him—harder and harder as he tried to get up—it couldn't hold him down.

And now it was burned out. Now it had nothing.

Now it was Zane's turn.

A slow horror was dawning on the beast as Zane's hammers rose, as his nostrils flared.

But just when he was about to exact his revenge Avery let out a cry. And his blood ran cold.

There was a sound like dozens of windows shattering all at once—Zane glanced left.

A web of translucent flickering shards, illusions, broke apart in the air. Collapsing under the weight of a sonic boom. You could see the ripples surging past, burying themselves in the ceiling, shaking loose the stalagmites…

She fell spitting blood.

The Blob King had broken free.

It swiveled to face him. And that wrecking-ball of a body started to tremble, surging with essence and Law and killing intent. It leered at him. Now he stood between two mini-Boss Monsters. Sandwiched.

On the other side, the Reaper was stirring too; new essence was flickering to its mouth—

Zane cursed.

He had to act fast. He had to choose. He went for it.

He stomped down a Stormfire Step. It rocketed him right in front of the Reaper. An instant later his Stormfire Punch whipped out and sank deep into that bony forest of a jaw—BOOM!

It sent the creature hurtling, shrieking, and Zane chased right after, hammers falling one after another, seething pure unbridled Stormfire—BOOM-BOOM!

The Reaper lay squished, nearly flattened, buried deep in a smoking ashen crater. Lit up with Stormfire, its eyes dulling—but life still flickered within it. It was trying to right itself, trying to angle back toward him.

Zane wasn't about to let it off.

Just when he was making to finish it, though, he felt the Blob King shivering behind him. He could feel its intent clear with Sage Mind.

It was about to unleash its most devastating attack. That full-body charge. Straight at Zane's exposed back.

He made a split-second gamble.

He launched for the fallen Reaper. His Stormfire Fist flew in a wide, vicious arc—and ended right in the middle of its skull.

There was an ear-splitting CRACK!, a shattering, an eruption; shattered teeth spewed out of its hole of a mouth, crunching like icicles. When the flash cleared an instant later, you couldn't even tell what that blackened burning wreck had once been.

At the same time, he felt it charge him right behind—he heard Reina scream. He turned, threw up his Chains, and braced as best he could.

In the end he decided to trust his body.

Then hundreds upon hundreds of tons of Monster, of Law, of Essence, of the Skill struck him at once. Right where he was weakest.

He almost blacked out then and there. He had to hold on with all he had just to keep his soul from crashing out his body.

Lots of things broke inside him all at once. So much it was hard to count; everything was agony. All his ribs shattered. And most, if not all, his organs. The bones in his chest all shattered. Fractures went down his arms, his face, his cheeks—it felt like he'd just been hit by a freight train.

And then he hit the wall back-first.

And all that momentum crushed straight into him. This time he didn't even have time to brace properly.

He groaned softly. His vision flickered black. He slumped to the ground.

𝕎𝕒𝕣𝕟𝕚𝕟𝕘!

ℍ𝕖𝕒𝕝𝕥𝕙 𝕦𝕟𝕕𝕖𝕣 𝟚𝟝%

Zane wasn't sure how it wasn't Critical.

He lay there listless like a puppet with its strings cut. All his size was useless. He couldn't seem to move. He couldn't feel his body. He frowned, and even that little motion was incredibly painful.

His body seemed to be screaming at him not to move. He felt this incredible sense of discomfort, of danger, almost. Like if he did a lot of things would break.

It was a choice between staying down, or breaking.

Zane refused to stay down.

𝕎𝕒𝕣𝕟𝕚𝕟𝕘!

ℂ𝕣𝕚𝕥𝕚𝕔𝕒𝕝 ℍ𝕖𝕒𝕝𝕥𝕙

𝕊𝕒𝕧𝕒𝕘𝕖 𝔹𝕠𝕕𝕪 𝕒𝕔𝕥𝕚𝕧𝕒𝕥𝕖𝕕

𝕍𝕚𝕥𝕒𝕝𝕚𝕥𝕪 𝕚𝕟𝕔𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕤𝕖𝕕 𝟝𝟘%

𝕊𝕥𝕣𝕖𝕟𝕘𝕥𝕙 𝕚𝕟𝕔𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕤𝕖𝕕 𝟝𝟘%

𝕊𝕡𝕖𝕖𝕕 𝕚𝕟𝕔𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕤𝕖𝕕 𝟝𝟘%

Instantly he felt his leg give painfully beneath him, breaking down the middle, but he froced himself upright. He was almost in too much pain to think. This was because pretty much every part of him that could feel pain was feeling the maximum amount of it right then—which was a lot to handle, even for him.

He made his broken body swivel to face his enemy, grunting, choking out gobs of blood. But standing. Savage Body helped—that kick of energy, of strength, was the only thing keeping him up right now.

The Blob King lay there like a stone.

Zane realized why. It had to recharge. It was staring at him just as he was staring at it. It was stunned he'd even survived. It felt that should've been enough to kill him twice over.

But it was too drained to move. And Zane was so ruined he could barely stay upright. It made for an awkward standoff.

It soon grew clear which of them would win.

The Blob King didn't need much to finish Zane. It could destroy him much faster than he could heal, even with Stormfire Renewal burning at every joint—it was just too much to fix. Zane had loaded so much damage on his body this fight he should've died thrice over probably. Most if it was still there. You could only ask so much before things broke down.

Even now the beast was marshaling whatever powers it could scrounge up. One sonic blast and Zane was done.

His Axes flew to his hands at last. Just holding them was breaking him down inside.

He just had to cripple it so badly his friends could finish it off or at least escape. He just had to last until then. He could do that. He gritted his bloodied teeth, clenched his shattered fists…

Then a wall of intense warmth crashed into him.

So strong it almost bowled him over. A shockingly strong mix of affection and worry.

It was Reina rushing in from the side, brows furrowed, cheeks all flushed, shouting something his ruptured eardrums couldn't quite make out.

Almost instantly his body started feeling stable again—like he'd been put in some cast of essence. He felt his bones fusing together, welding like steel, working alongside his Stormfire at the cracks, quickly becoming whole…

She couldn't be here. She was putting herself between him and the Monster. This was dangerous. He had to kill it. He couldn't—

He dropped. For half a second.

She caught him in an embrace, held him there, keeping his swaying body upright—he couldn't even tell her to get out of the Blob King's way. His mouth made weird slurring sounds when he tried. The Blob King's mouth, meanwhile, was wide open—more and more of that rippling power was gathering, had built to a frothing fury; it was nearly coming to a crescendo. He had to get her behind him—

"Clear Beam Slash!" cried Evan.

A ray of dazzling sunlight flashed through the waters. Carved straight into the Blob King's wide-open eyes. The Beast roared, bucked up; the sonic blast went streaking into the walls. There was Evan standing bravely in front of him—trembling a little, still quite scared, but as determined as the boy had ever felt. He was flush with the Power of Friendship, overflowing with it. It was all directed toward Zane.

Evan was healed. Reina must've done it—Zane had just bought them that time.

Huh.

The Blob King was spinning back, angling for another shot—then it frowned, eyes clouding over; a huge swath of water warbled in front of it, like a portal to another dimension. It started seeing something else. And there was Avery, looking a little pale—but also ready.

"We've got your back big fella," she said, giving him a thumbs-upon. "You just focus on healing up!"

And the two of them ganged up on the spent, weary Boss.

The Blob King was swiveling, trying to find her through all the illusions even as she sweated and strained to confuse it. Just as it started readying another blast—

"Raaaaah!" cried Evan. Dazzling flashes stabbed through its eyes. The Blob King howled, went reeling again. Blinded, hurt, confused, seeing double, tripling, and Evan started flashing barbs of essence down its throat, lancing deep bleeding cuts through its skin—he was hurting it now. He was doing more damage to it than Zane could without his Axe. He was burning up with essence, a little sun of it.

The Blob King fell back. Its bellows became feeble protests as the two of them ganged up on it. And Reina was pouring all her powers on him, holding him, flush with concentration…

Soon Zane had all he needed.

He still felt pretty rickety, but—

"I'm ready," he rasped.

"Are you sure?" she bit her lip. She didn't want to let him go. Admittedly he was still pretty shattered. But he had enough.

"Let me finish the job," he told her.

She did. He limped toward the fight.

Evan and Avery saw him on his warpath. They cleared out of the way as he came for it. This time the Blob King saw him coming. It was bleeding all over, one eye sliced all the way open, desperate to chuck anything and everything—it opened its mouth to blast—

Zane fed two giant Axes down its throat. Axes seething so much Stormfire you couldn't even make out their shape. Just two avatars of Stormfire light.

They sliced through the dense wedge of a tongue, the thick slab of a throat, melted through the blubber beneath. They didn't stop until they carved into its massive heart.

And exploded it.