214. Grand Entrance (III)

𝕂𝕀𝕃𝕃 ℤ𝔸ℕ𝔼 𝕎𝔸𝕃𝕂𝔼ℝ.

When Zane felt this it came as a relief, weirdly.

He had been a little tense this whole time. When he saw the creatures start rounding on him, the first thing he started thinking about how he would handle them all at once. If eight of them went for him, but two went for Reina and Avery and Evan… his heart sank. He wasn't sure he could wade through all that.

But now he knew they were just coming for him. Just him.

He had to rely on himself to fight his way out of this.

This was familiar. Almost nice. He could breathe easy.

All he had to do was win a fight. He knew how to do that.

They started circling him, trapping him, closing in one by one. Drawing in a net. Fists so big each finger could've been a hammerhead, strong enough to pulp earth-grade treasures in a blow. Each step sank them a good foot into the dense ground—raised CLANG-CLANG!s as they came for him. They groaned and wheezed like old rusted things.

They weren't interested in a fair fight. They were coming to mob him.

Zane narrowed his eyes.

And he called forth his muscles. His tendons. His body.

It was time to give it everything—finally.

It had been so long since he had really let loose. He let out a deep breath, felt it drawing up his whole body… for some reason he began to smile. Just a little.

Titans of cold steel and red eyes swarmed a titan of flesh and hot blood.

Their fists started to whir, hum, smolder gray-black… an immense sense of density leaked off them. Earth and Steel twined in some unholy creation. Their faces with metals compressed under unfathomable pressure for ages, molded in intense heat at the center of the Earth. Brought to the surface they were monstrous. Out-of-this-world alien metals. Coming to crush him.

Zane put up his own fists.

Behind, Evan let out a battle cry and started firing off shots. Avery tried helping too. But something about these creatures made them almost immune—they didn't live like humans did. Evan's slicing powers just pinged off the metal, scoring foot-long gashes—but that was all. It was a paper cut in the grand scheme. And Evan was peak core too… Evan let out a dismayed cry.

But it wasn't his fault, Zane saw. That kind of denseness would never respond to cuts.

The only power these creatures respected was the power of crushing. They wielded the crush as their greatest weapon. Only the crush could destroy them.

Too many of them—so this time, no hammer. No axe. He would use something tried-and-true, both crushing and fast. Something violent, explosive. That needed no setup.

He summoned his Chains, whirled them around his fists, wrapping them tight, and set it all on Stormfire. And now he had his own two dense hammers at his side. His, though, were on fire.

By now the Wardens had closed such a tight circle around him they'd fenced off the light. It was just seconds before impact… Zane smashed his fists together, loosed Primal Roar—and felt his body jump into a higher gear. At the same time, a new affectionate warmth poured over him—it was Reina, buffing him as best she could, throwing up regeneration.

He let out a bellow. "BRING IT!"

They rushed them all at once. Shockingly fast for such heavy things. Stomping, groaning, giant hammer-arms swinging for his head…

And Zane got to work.

He flared everything inside him. Stormfire. Muscle. Tendons. Reacting, exploding in one enormous blast of energy. He felt every fiber of his body light up—tendons coiling, Bloodline raging, muscles firing on all cylinders, powers ratcheting higher and higher—swallowing up rivers of essence, burning it all as fuel, humming with tightly suppressed power.

Stormfire erupted down his body. And ignited him in flesh and soul. And in that moment his whole body, exerting to its new full limits, all at once, hit a stratum of power he had never known.

He stomped down, and Stormfire erupted at his heels. When he kicked off, his super-tendons and muscles fired in one glorious harmony. He only had eyes for the big Warden in front of him—its fat cylinder of a chest. It was raising that log of an arm, preparing to smash him—

But he blasted off. And beat it to the punch.

He sank his own Chain-wrapped fist a full foot into its chest. So hard you could see the shockwave rippling through the metal. See the plate caving in around it, bolts flying off the edges. See Stormfire exploding through its insides, blue-white raging against heavy black.

The explosion—the light, the heat, the sound blasting out all at once—blew out his eardrums.

Then the Warden reeled back, crashed heavy to the ground, a massive smoking crater in its chest, Stormfire combusting over and over inside of it, making it shiver with each blast, making silvery sludge leak out its insides… one red eye flickered in that cone head. Not dead. But horribly wounded.

At the same time, though… Zane let out a grunt.

That was just the hardest punch he'd ever thrown—but it was also the hardest material he'd ever tried to smash. The sheer denseness of it… the force coming back into his hand was monstrous too. His Chains had stopped much of it. But his fists still felt the backlash.

His bones weren't like the rest of his body. Strong. But not Titan Strong…

No time to think on it. The others were upon him. Four of them, closing in on all sides, throwing all at once—and instantly Zane knew he was not taking them all at once. He had to choose and deal with the consequences. So he roared his defiance, and just let loose.

Once you set Zane into motion, there was no stopping him. Once his muscles got going, started kicking into higher and higher gear, you had to put him out to stop him. Every second he was rising—every second his heart had to beat harder to keep up, his blood pumping faster, raging hotter—and he was urging his body on as strong as he could. He felt his muscles bulging with more and more power—so much it was almost painful, so much it tore at his skin—

He turned and channeled it in a haymaker of a Stormfire Punch.

This time his fist blasted through the steel—and sank a full two feet deep into the torso-block, so deep he went up past the elbow. The golem's back exploded, sending molten steel splattering; so deep he felt his fist grazing the very heart of it, its energy core, making it go haywire even as Stormfire exploded over and over inside of it, making a wreckage of its body—

This time both the Warden's eyes went out. It died on the spot. Before it even hit the ground, its steely innards sloshing thick out of it. And Zane felt an intense flicker of satisfaction.

The problem was—agony flared in his fist a moment later. It had broken—not just a part, all of it. But there was no time left. He wrenched his fist out of the Warden's body, whirling as fast as he could, and decked the Monster behind him right up the chin, smashing in that ugly smile, smashing in its head, blasting so much force through its body it went spinning—hundreds of tons of dense metal whirling through the air, flipping head-over-heels—

His other fist shattered too. But he was pleased; he felt an intense flicker of satisfaction.

That was all he had time to get in.

Then two very painful things happened in quick succession.

An ultra-dense steel battering ram rammed into his spine at full speed. Right from behind. And he heard a huge, awful CRACK!

Then—just as he turned in a fury, feeling his legs giving out beneath him—the second Warden's haymaker, loaded with all the momentum, and power, and weight in the world, smashed straight into his chin.

There was a sickening CRUNCH-CRUNCH—the sounds of Zane's face—buried beneath a massive CLANG! And his head snapped all the way back, jaw shattering in his skull. Reams of teeth went flying. Blood erupted out of his mouth.

And then he was weightless, hurdling through the air, all hundreds of pounds of him—for a split-second all went black. It took a furious effort not to go out just then. It was a matter of pure stubbornness, clenching broken fists, gritting teeth he didn't even have left.

It took a hell of an effort. But he made it.

Somehow he landed on one knee. He didn't even realize it at first—for that first three seconds he was still furiously clawing himself back from the edge.

He was greeted by two notifications.

𝕎𝕒𝕣𝕟𝕚𝕟𝕘!

ℍ𝕖𝕒𝕝𝕥𝕙 𝕦𝕟𝕕𝕖𝕣 𝟟𝟝%

𝕎𝕒𝕣𝕟𝕚𝕟𝕘!

ℍ𝕖𝕒𝕝𝕥𝕙 𝕦𝕟𝕕𝕖𝕣 𝟝𝟘%

𝕊𝕒𝕧𝕒𝕘𝕖 𝔹𝕠𝕕𝕪 𝔸𝕔𝕥𝕚𝕧𝕒𝕥𝕖𝕕!

ℍ𝕖𝕒𝕝𝕥𝕙 𝕚𝕟𝕔𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕤𝕖𝕕 𝟚𝟝%

𝕊𝕥𝕣𝕖𝕟𝕘𝕥𝕙 𝕚𝕟𝕔𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕤𝕖𝕕 𝟚𝟝%

𝕊𝕡𝕖𝕖𝕕 𝕚𝕟𝕔𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕤𝕖𝕕 𝟚𝟝%

It all came through woozy eyes. He spat out another mouthful of bloody teeth. He felt quite light-headed.

…So he was right. He did feel it when they hit him.

He tried adjusting his jaw but it wouldn't listen to him. Too broken. He tried getting his bearings, frowning, trying to make sense of the smear of dark colors that was his vision. Everything felt rather distant, hazy. He couldn't quite get his balance.

It turned out to be a good thing he got battered there, he realized. He only took two hard shots—and it had blasted him to the edge. Now they were turning, circling back into him—turning—it gave him a few precious breaths to recover. If another one of those things had gotten its hands on him just then—clobbered him over the head…

Zane had a thick skull. But he was not sure it was that thick.

He took deep, billowing breaths. Savage Body helped—like a strong shot of adrenaline. It kept him on his feet.

Then he became aware of something washing over the pain, something warm. He could feel teeth again through the blood in his mouth—could feel hot, almost ticklish feelings where his jaw got broken. Stitching together at shocking speed. His back, too, flared hot—his bones, his skin—it all came from a connection. Intense warm feelings, concern, gushing into him—Reina let out a cry.

At the same time, his Stormfire Renewal started exploding all over him. His mouth, his insides, his bones—

𝕊𝕜𝕚𝕝𝕝 𝕦𝕡!

𝕊𝕥𝕠𝕣𝕞𝕗𝕚𝕣𝕖 ℝ𝕖𝕟𝕖𝕨𝕒𝕝 𝕀𝕀 -> 𝕀𝕀𝕀

And his Titanic recovery flared up too.

His Health started shooting back up. So fast it astonished him. Almost 10% a second. Zane's new super-Core powering his healing—but it worked very well with Reina's incredible healing power upgrades. Which was making all the difference. It took an enormous amount of power to mend something as high-quality as his body now. But he knew Reina was putting in the work whenever she could. Preparing for just this kind of moment.

By the time the whirring death circle closed in on him again—by the time it was time to fight—his head had cleared.

Through it all, Zane felt a little warmth in his chest at the thought of Reina, watching him, probably biting her lip with worry, working hard somewhere back there—he also felt a new spurt of intensity. It was a sharp reminder why he could not allow himself to go down.

He took another deep breath. Head bowed.

Then he lifted it. And faced his enemy again. Eyes bright.

In the meantime… in the background, masked for a second by all that pain, biding its time… his body had never shut off. His muscles, his Bloodline, had still been running white-hot.

Zane had never let himself go out.

Even as he was broken, he could feel himself starting to overheat, weirdly—some parts of him, the bones, still felt ginger; others blazed. When he panted, he breathed out huge clouds of steaming essence—the way a freight train lets out huge gobs of smoke as it approaches maximum speed…

His whole body was starting to shiver. There was just too much raw power inside of him—even as eight Wardens circled him again. Intent on the kill.

But after those exchanges—after feeling the healing—there was a new hardness to his eyes. He saw the shape of the battle now. He saw how he would force the win. They should never have let him get going like this. His muscles were so pumped now he could feel his skin stretching tight just to contain himself.

They should have put him down when they had the chance.

He snorted a cloud of steam. Let out a roar.

And exploded at them.

This time he didn't care what happened to his body. He only cared about destruction.

He threw one punch—and folded a Level 250 goliath of a Monster like tinfoil. But he didn't linger. Already he had the rest in his mind, feeling their crude minds closing in, feeling the paths of their strikes as he whirled around, and fed another Warden his knuckles. So deep his fist went out the other side of it.

A third punch blasted out the core of another—and by now he knew both his fists were badly broken. But only then did the pain catch up to him, flaring white-hot in his hands. But not hotter than the rest of his body; he was running so hot everywhere he could hardly even feel it. The pain was a little thing, easily brushed off.

A fourth punch through broken hands and he felt his forearms shattering. Couldn't even hear the cracks; his heart was pounding too loud in his head. He also saw the fat smiling head of a Warden blast off like a flying saucer, punched so hard that ugly smile got turned to a gaping frown…

Pairs of eyes went dim, one after another. In rapid succession.

𝕎𝕒𝕣𝕟𝕚𝕟𝕘!

ℍ𝕖𝕒𝕝𝕥𝕙 𝕦𝕟𝕕𝕖𝕣 𝟟𝟝%

His Health was shooting down fast. They hadn't even hit him yet. This was just what he did to himself. Bones rupturing. Organs rupturing. But he had so much power, so much he could hardly stand it, and he was expressing it in a beautiful, violent rapture—he would take them all down. They could not contain him, did not have a hope of stopping him. He did not even know how many he had broken; he just knew the job wasn't done.

He was winding back for a fifth blow when they caught him.

One. Two. Three. Four times. All at once. Once to the back. Once to the belly. Twice to the skull.

CLANG-CLANG-CLANG-CLANG!

And Zane went down.