Chapter 24 - Victory

The creature approached Zenith, clearly not amused with all his dodging and movement. It used its tail to smack a nearby rock towards him, which Zenith of course dodged. He didn't know how smart the creature was but didn't want to underestimate it. He also needed to get it in the right position, and to him, there was no better method than to provoke it.

"Why are you so slow? Are you that fat that you can't even haul your ass over here?" Zenith spoke out, wanting to test if maybe words did the trick. The creature looked at Zenith; it clearly couldn't understand what he was saying, but from his tone and words directed at it, it was smart enough to know it was being mocked.

The creature's body shook, tensing its body. It suddenly leapt towards Zenith, his eyes agape as he dodged backwards, but he barely got out of the way. The creature in front of him attempted to reach out, but Zenith used the gauntlet at maximum strength and punched its hand. The creature roared in pain as its hand was hit away, blood oozing from its broken finger.

Before Zenith could cheer at the gauntlet's strength and the creature's wound, he saw the finger seemingly begin to heal slowly and readjust itself. He then noticed the wound he had done on the same hand was almost healed too.

"You're kidding me? Regeneration is fast too? Urgh..." Clenching his teeth, he used this as a chance. "Mighty Earth, Seize & Imprison!" he spoke. The creature, which had been stunned for a moment, focused again, wanting to escape, but the rune ability was too quick and strong in the meantime. Zenith didn't want to waste this opportunity. He repeated, "Mighty Earth, Seize & Imprison!!"

Using it twice, the creature was suddenly shackled greatly but still managing to cause the earth pillars to shake a bit. Zenith rushed over, jumping up onto the pillars agilely, rushing to the creature's head, and then using his blade, he stabbed at its head that protruded out, several times wanting to cut it off. His blade could cut deep but not deep enough, and with every stab, the creature was going berserk. Zenith, knowing he didn't have long, suddenly stabbed into the creature's left eye, blinding it, right as it freed itself. With Zenith atop it, it began to run around wildly.

"Shit!.." Gritting his teeth, with no choice but to use the gauntlet to grip a large spike from its back, he suddenly changed his sword to a laser dagger and used its better piercing power to stab into its armored back, hoping to weaken it.

The creature roared several times before dashing towards a nearby magma crater and jumping upwards to get inside it. Zenith quickly kicked off its body and landed on the ground. "Huff... huff..." His mind felt a little dizzy. "Did I overuse my resonance?" He remembered Fable telling him that overuse of resonance would make one feel like they are drunk, and enough of it was dangerous to make one fall unconscious. Zenith's reserves weren't too large, and he forgot about the cost.

The creature having dived into the magma, the chamber became eerily silent. Zenith calmly knelt down, taking a breath. He reached into his supply pouch and pulled out a special protein bar, quickly shoving it into his mouth before getting a special vial-like spray. He used it all up on the wound on his abdomen as he chewed ravenously. Any second was a second of rest, and the creature seemed to know this too, as the chamber shook a little before a looming shadow burst out of the magma crater behind Zenith.

Zenith had expected such a scenario as it could easily handle the heat; he just wasn't sure how fast it was at swimming through the magma. But it seemed it was more agile inside it than outside. He used all the strength in his legs to kick away, rolling to the side. Though he still had his plan, his movements in a certain direction were evident, but the creature clearly wasn't smart enough to realize this.

Zenith then saw the creature leap over again towards him, its eyes clearly enraged. It was shrieking in pain too as he could see steam from where he had wounded it, obviously weaker to the heat of the magma and forced out a bit early.

Zenith used the angle of the nearby crater he rolled to as a leverage point to jump further away and dodge. He then began to run off in a certain direction until he reached a dead end.

The creature heaved itself over, clearly joyful as it approached its prey, wanting to kill him as gruesomely as possible. Its maw split open, and it began to gather energy into a ball in front of it. "Please work..." he mumbled before aiming his hand. "Mighty Earth, Seize & Imprison." The creature flickered for a moment, not canceling its attack, but it felt nothing happen. Thinking the creature had failed, it was gleeful but then heard a faint cracking sound.

Its eyes rolled up to see the ceiling above. The rune ability Zenith had used had crashed into the stalactite, causing it to rip off the ceiling and fall downwards towards it. The creature was stunned. Yet it was too late; its ability left it stationary after charging it up. The stalactite smashed into the creature's back, stabbing deep inside of it and pinning it to the floor. If that wasn't enough, the ability it used became unstable and burst outwards, the creature's head exploding as it soon lay limp, not moving at all.

Zenith leaned against the wall, panting heavily. A look of delight on his face, he slowly approached the creature bit by bit with cautious optimism. He then inwardly cheered. "I did it. Awesome." He sat down, leaning his back against it before he sent a message to Fable's com. "Got a good haul, resting a little then returning." Not waiting for the response, he shoved another special protein bar into his mouth and used some more rations before falling into a state of unconsciousness due to his overuse of resonance.

Yet fate had other plans for him. The sound of thumping and rumbling could be heard. Out from one of the tunnels, a large massive resonant creature made its way out. It was identical to the one Fable was facing but somewhat larger, with a massive horn on its forehead that caused the air to vibrate. The creature approached closer and closer before its eyes widened somewhat at the sight before it.

It looked at the corpse of the smaller resonant creature, then at Zenith resting against it. Its body shook before its mouth parted, and a tyrannical roar sounded out that made the nearby area and closer caverns quake. A resonance aura seemed to emit from its body, no doubt powerful. The creature stomped over in madness, a crazed look on its face. It reached over towards Zenith, wanting to crush him in one move. It was clear that the smaller creature was its child of sorts.

For Zenith, this was an unfortunate scenario. He couldn't wake up even if he wanted to; his end was near. The creature's hand got closer and closer, like looming death coming for him. It suddenly clasped, yet it didn't feel the squishing sound it expected. In fact, it didn't feel anything from its claw.

It took its focus and sadness from the corpse of its dead child and refocused onto its claw, only to find that Zenith was fine, and... its claw was missing. It looked only to see a stump with steam emitting and resonance fluid dripping. It felt a shooting pain as it roared again in deep pain. It was stunned. It quickly began to gather a ball of energy from its mouth, this one condensing quicker and heavier, the ground around quivering a bit. It then fired it off. Rather than the steamy breath-like attack, the resonance in this one was more focused, like a true beam of dark static shooting towards Zenith and its child.

The scene it had expected and more so hoped for didn't happen. Instead, Zenith's unconscious body raised his right hand, the hand turning a semi-transparent white with a spiral at the palm. The energy that was fired inside was drawn in with ease and vanished into nothing.

The creature looked terrified. It knew that this was not a normal situation. It was much smarter than its child and quickly attempted to turn tail. It began to run but found it couldn't rush away no matter how much force it tried to kick off.

It looked up as it saw its own looming shadow over it. A white hand engulfed the creature until it couldn't be seen, not even a sound could be heard. The hand then shrunk until it was the size of a pebble and turned into a stream of light that entered the transparent white hand that Zenith's body had out, entering into the swirl before Zenith's hand lowered and the transparent hand returned to normal.

Not a trace of the event having occurred, as if it might have been just some fever dream.