Savage Awakening 494. The Lost Ruins (V)

A/N: No chapter on Monday, see y'all Tues!

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They thudded into the ground, making craters. He saw them when the dust plumes cleared—dwarf skeletons decked in heavy armor, hefting shields that looked like blast doors, forming lines. Then it was like Zane was facing down an army of extremely stocky knights.

This time they gave his hammers a little more resistance.

But not enough to stop him.

He rammed in that hammer, felt that nice CRUNCH of connection, felt all those shields crumple at once…

Then his Red Giant crashed through and torched all that Primordial steel like crushed cardboard.

BOOM!

He felt their Steel Laws fighting him, resisting him—Density Laws that ruled at the cores of planets, that welded together the stars.

It might’ve halted his hammer before.

But he’d loaded that thing with nuclear might.

And it struck like a falling star. The raw explosive force was just too much.

All those knights went soaring, spinning, crunched in, flaming up as they went—it felt like smashing bowling pins.

One hammer was enough to clear out the path.

That was enough to show him where he was at, physically. And it made him feel as good as he’d ever felt.

He charged. He wanted to see just what it’d take to stop him.

“That’s the stuff!” roared the Sage. He blasted off a few monsters of his own, off to the side. But he seemed content to let his disciple take the brunt of it, which Zane appreciated.

With that, he went for it.

He charged straight down the avenue. Straight for the heart of the Dwarf Kingdom, mowing down line after line of dwarf knights as he went…

It wasn’t long before he felt what the Sage wanted him to aim for.

A glut of aura a dozen miles off, in a plaza ringed in squat towers, belching smoke. An immensity of gravity Laws welled around it.

He knew just by feeling it. That was what he was looking for. Just what his physique needed—what his Laws needed.

“That’s the Forge, right there,” said the Sage cheerfully. “That’s where we’re headed. It’s got some damned good steel, by the looks of it. Those dwarf grandmasters knew their stuff. Feel how thick that aura’s gotten?”

Zane nodded. “I feel it.”

“They could put the stars into their stuff.” The Sage rubbed his hands. “That’s sunsteel right there, that gold aura. Feel that cold, silvery stuff? That’s moonsteel for sure—that steel got tempered in origin moonlight for millions of years! Might be we’ll even find some infinisteel in there—steel that’s been compressed in the heart of a black hole…can’t get denser than that. Now that’ll put a dent in those physique levels, I tell you.”

He gave his disciple a hearty slap on the back.

By now Zane had worked up a pretty good appetite.

“‘Course,” said the Sage. “You’ll have to fight through hell first!”

The cavern began to rumble.

Souls started coming alive—at first in their dozens. Then hundreds. Bursting out of every squat hut lining the street, it felt like—bursting out of kingdom upon kingdom, high above…

It wasn’t just dwarf skeletons anymore.

There was heavier stuff. He caught sight of physiques like wrecking balls. No distortion fields—but with the amount of essence stuffing those frames, they didn’t need it.

“Golems,” said Zane, frowning. And a lot of them, it felt like.

All around him towers and castles started shaking. Started lighting up—like they’d been activated all at once, and auras exploded out of them; every floor of that gargantuan mass was surging with it.

Machines. Undead dwarves. All plummeting in some demented meteor shower.

The walls were coming down. Monsters piling out. Steel and skeleton making an army, coming to siege him.

Every one a peak True God.

There had to be hundreds of them. Maybe thousands, even—a kingdom’s worth of First Ones making a wall between him and his prize.

It was growing to be the most peak True Gods Zane had ever seen. More than he’d faced in the war, even…

“Well!” said the Sage. He crossed his arms, eyeing it all up. His grin only widened.

“It’s our lucky day, eh? Looks like it’s not just body levels you’ll be getting—that’s a trove of essence if I ever saw one!”

He squinted at the upper decks. “Hells—that is a lot, isn’t it? You’ll need some serious firepower to take ‘em all down.”

For his part—the more souls he felt, the more pumped Zane got.

It’d been too long since he got into a brawl like this.

He took in the cavern all around him—the size of it—and nodded.

Should be big enough.

“I’ve got just the thing.”

It’d been a few decades since he’d had to pull this one out. And he’d never tried it with his new Concept—his new explosiveness.

He couldn’t think of a better time than right now.

His hammers faded away.

And out came two massive molten axes.

He set himself.

Then it felt like the whole cavern was collapsing in on him. An avalanche of stone and writhing steel, coils the size of Roman columns bursting out of the walls, these big bulbous frames of wrought iron—wrecking balls with limbs, machines with all kinds of attachments. Shiny, whirring, spiked balls smoldering with Law, cannons, even chainsaws—all kinds of mechanical monstrosities crashed for his head.

Then Zane took a deep breath and pulled with all he had.

He stomped hard into his first revolution.

This time felt different.

It wasn't just his new, stronger heart—pounding harder after the Buff of the Vigor God—blasting to over 150% Asura State in an instant.

His axes shot out like cannonballs.

That was his new explosiveness showing its worth already. That was nuclear stuff.

Then he felt the difference, up close and personal, when that first wall of steel struck hard.

The moment his axes made contact, he felt them carve right through—and an instant later, wreck that monster in a mushroom-cloud blast.

One axe broke ten wrecking-ball bodies without slowing. The blasts strung together. Lighting up the cavern, dozens of blasts at once—making little Red Giants mid-air…

They all raged into his rising storm. And only fueled it.

He felt good, pulling into his second revolution. All that explosiveness took a toll; it took a lot of physical strength to hold it all together. But where he was right now, he could hold that, and then some.

Zane bit down, set his feet, and worked that storm into being.

He slashed, slashed again—and a dozen explosions burst out around him.

By his third revolution, peak True Gods were going down by the dozen, he was pleased to see.

His storm was building faster too. By the fourth revolution, it had widened to the size of a moon. The more Law, the more firepower he put into this thing, the more space it needed—as he rounded into the fifth revolution, he was finally starting to feel the strain of it on his physique. Finally having to grit his teeth and see his veins standing out against his biceps.

His storm was the size of a dwarf planet.

By now hundreds of shields, hundreds of helms, hundreds of limbs, and chainsaws and axes were being rent apart, torched all around him—his world was a chain of pure explosion.

True God after True God tried hurling ice meteors. Tried throwing in planets’ worth of rock, tried smashing his storm with molten hammers, and lightning hammers...

The stronger Zane got, though, the more he understood just how much each new power-up bolstered him.

It was no challenge for him to take it all on and give it right back.

Six revolutions in and he was slashing whole kingdoms off the face of the mountains—whole hordes of skeleton mages were being smashed out of existence at once...

That Red Giant—powered by his Third Form Asura’s physique—made peak True Gods look like helpless mortals, caught in the throes of a hurricane, he was pleased to see.

Seven revolutions.

That was what it took, in the end, to wipe out that whole horde—he let the storm rage out, sweating, breathing heavy now—but feeling quite satisfied.

He looked around once the smoke had cleared and inspected the damage.

Around him—making a massive crater—he found he’d carved out a planet’s worth of space. Saw where his axes had brought whole kingdoms down.

More than a thousand True Gods had charged him—not one left standing.

Zane grinned.

Pretty good for a warm-up.

All that essence he claimed for his own. So much coursed into him he staggered—

Level up!

Level up!

Level up!

Level up!

Essence Level 573 -> 577

Skill up!

Red Giant Storm IV -> V

He could get used to this. There really was a lot of riches down here—and they hadn’t even gotten to the good stuff yet.

He heard a sniff—looked back. There was the Barbarian Sage. The old fellow looked a little emotional, surveying all that wreckage.

He blinked. “What’s up?”

The Sage buried him in a hug.

“Damned brat! When the hells did you go and grow up?” The Sage was beaming. “I remember you doing your first planet bench presses—hardly even felt that long ago… Now look at you. Wrecking ancient civilizations! Bah… don’t you mind me, lad. You just keep going!”

Zane had to grin too.

“Alright.”

Together, they made for the forge.