Savage Awakening 568. The King (I)

The young masters watched from a safe distance as the three strongest powers in the Pure Yang Lands started walloping each other.

Because of the sheer blast radius of the landing, it was impossible to ambush the King Astrolith as it spawned. You just couldn’t get close enough without getting caught in the blast.

Then there was its signature attack.

The moment the King Astrolith made landfall, it unleashed its Timeshatter Roar. A roar that sounded like several continents' worth of glass were shattering all at once.

You could see a wave of shattering rippling through space, rife with Spacetime Concepts. Nothing it struck was damaged in any visible way, except for the fact that they simply froze. Whole clouds of embers frozen mid-air… a domain where the only thing that could move was the King Astrolith itself.

If you couldn’t find a way to block that move, you were finished, then and there. Countless Empyreans had been crushed by it, unable to lift even a finger.

It was a legendary attack for a reason.

But Jack stepped out with a determined look on his face and slashed right back. A slash none of the young masters there had ever seen before.

A slash that sent its own fissures through reality. But rather than the almost delicate shattering of the Timeshatter Roar, his were full-on void fissures, gouging massive chunks out of reality.

The two waves met. And you could see the Timeshatter forces streaking by that void-fissure wall, shattering against it.

“…Did Jack just block the Timeshatter?!” cried a Drawn Sword Sect young master, perhaps a little too excitedly. He was the youngest Chosen in Drawn Sword Sect history, and it was his first trip out in the Pure Yang. Which also meant it was his first time seeing the mysterious Jack up close.

There was an outcry. But then—

“He hasn’t. Not fully,” said the Rocs’ First Princess—a young lady with silver eyes and thickly braided hair, burning with yellow flames at their tips. “Just look at how he’s moving.”

Jack had braced himself; they saw him frown, like he’d been buffeted by a gust of strong wind. A few remnants of the roar had broken through after all.

He visibly shook it off. He flexed a hand, frowning at it, and subtle time Laws trailed his muscles. He blurred slightly as he moved, like reality itself was dragging on him. A mild slowness curse. Kain asked him something, but Jack just nodded back.

“He’s blocked most of it, at least,” said stocky young Master Iron Flame.

“I didn’t know blocking it was even possible…” said another, a snowy-haired youth with a lightning spear.

“That has to bode well for them, right?”

“It’s difficult to say as of yet,” said a dragon Martial Elder, frowning at the scene. His name was Wrexys, and he was the dragons’ anchor in the Pure Yang—a veteran of the Pure Yang Lands. “It is possible to block Timeshatter. The Iron Princess has done it before. Just extremely difficult. Timeshatter is an area-of-effect attack. It’s strongest at its center. It would’ve been significantly harder if they’d been struck up close. They’ve stationed themselves at the very edge of the central zone for a reason… It looks like they’ve come with a plan.”

“Jack was probably hoping he wouldn’t get struck at all there.”

“He sure looks confident, though…”

The young masters and mistresses were enraptured as the fighters squared off again.

“Here comes the counterattack!”

Kain’s fists had been charging Destruction that whole time. Jack had totally insulated the man from the roar’s effects.

Now, the strike was complete. Kain slashed.

A pillar of Destruction screamed out of nowhere, lancing the King Astrolith right in its cracks for eyes.

It was a blow strong enough to one-shot a peak T0.

It sent the King Astrolith reeling—stumbling back just a step.

At the same time, Jack charged the Monster.

In just two explosive steps he’d closed the distance. The King Astrolith groaned, wheeling toward him, trying to face the threat. Its craggy maw opened.

And an ocean of starfire screamed out. An astonishing amount of essence, the likes of which even most peak T1s would find life-threatening.

If it’d struck it undoubtedly would’ve floored the charging Jack. Maybe even wiped him down to critical.

But it didn’t land. It soared far over Jack’s head, striking where he’d been just moments before.

By then Jack had reached the base of the mountain.

He let out a war cry and stomped.

He charged straight up the King.

He landed on what would’ve been the King’s shin, slashed once, bringing up a cloud of dust, stomped again—charging up the Monster’s legs, massive boulder by massive boulder—

“Didn’t he get slowed back there? How’s he still moving like that?”

“He’s dragging all those chains and his axes up too…”

“It’s just his pure explosiveness. Even a little slowed, he’s just too much!”

In just three more steps Jack was halfway up the Monster. Racing all around it in jagged winding circles, chains trailing, slashing as he did—

The King groaned, turned, tried getting at him with a blast. But it wasn’t even close to catching him in time. It had to twist over itself to get a shot off, and by then he was already slamming up another boulder, then another, each step, each slash, leaving brutal evidence.

All the while, Kain kept slamming the King with pillars of light. Striking it over and over on the same spot on its craggy head, never letting it fully get its bearings…

Timeshatter’s effects were wearing off by then. Jack had fully shaken them off. With how explosive he’d gotten already, six steps in, he didn’t even need the extra boost. His assault had come on so fast that they were all only now realizing what he was trying to do, what he was on the verge of doing…

“He’s planning to unleash it all at the top,” gasped the Rocs’ First Princess.

“Surely he can’t make it all the way—?! He’s charging into a firestorm!”

But in that instant, as Jack stomped down, charged up his latest slash, crested the torso of the giant, a cold intensity in his eyes, they all saw the vision. In that instant, they could all imagine, quite vividly, him leaping, cranking back that Axe all the way, and delivering one of those legendary mile-long slashes they’d only seen from miles off, exactly where Kain had struck before… with how much momentum he was carrying, it felt nearly inevitable.

Then the King went still. Just as Jack streaked up that hill of a shoulder.

The cracks all down its body exploded with starlight.

Burning through the air, shivering the whole mountain… That wasn’t even the attack, just the warning. One the crowd greeted with gasps.

They all knew that skill, whether by reputation or by seeing it with their own eyes. Another of the King’s trump cards… it was just that none of them had expected it to be forced to use it this early.

Jack must’ve recognized the Skill too, since he narrowed his eyes.

There was barely enough time for the Young Masters to cry out.

In that split second, Jack acted decisively. Stomped straight down. Instead of charging up, all his energies went straight into rocketing away.

By the time the King’s attack landed, just an instant later, he’d put several thousand feet between them.

It still caught Jack mid-air.

It was as though the King had self-destructed.

It exploded like a bomb, and the valley was swamped with some higher kind of starfire. A solid sphere of it, like a star spawned with the King at its core, blazing with Destruction… When it vanished, it left a giant sphere-shaped hole carved through the landscape.

And it left Jack flattened against the ground, smashed at the bottom of a blackened crater.

***

Zane groaned and picked himself back up.

He felt like he’d been smashed by a giant hammer. A hammer made of pure explosive power. He was sore all over.

Still, he felt that’d gone pretty solidly, all things considered.

He blinked away the Warning! Health under 75% notification.

As it happened, he’d only landed a few hundred feet from Kain, which was nice.

Kain raised a brow. “You alright?”

“Yeah,” said Zane, cracking his neck. “It just clipped me. I bailed early there, so I got out of the way of the worst of it. I managed to bring up my chains in time, too. I think it works like his Timeshatter; the blast hits stronger the closer you are.”

“You’ll fight on, then.”

“I feel pretty solid,” Zane confirmed. He looked down. He looked pretty blasted, he had to admit, but most of that was just chunks of charred flesh. He’d been hit with a lot worse and still kept trucking along. Kain had seen him take harder hits, actually. But the man was nothing if not thorough; he probably just wanted to make sure Zane could physically handle what was coming next.

That Annihilation Star Skill… it’d been a bit of a gamble whether Zane could draw it out of the King. He was pleased that he had. The moment he crested that shoulder, he’d been carrying enough force to one-shot a half-step T1.

“Let’s move onto stage two,” said Kain.

Zane nodded.

He considered the King carefully. It was smoking, sporting a nasty crater on its head from where Kain had struck it over and over, and a few more gashes down its physique. But it was still mostly whole.

That Annihilation Star had dropped its essence down to near-zero. Zane had only eaten a small fraction of it directly, and it’d still hurt like hell. Now the King clearly needed to recharge.

Zane had surprised himself a bit with how high he’d managed to get up it, actually. How close he’d been to landing a stacked sixth Slash, right to the King’s dome… Most of it was due to his new Starfire Concept’s explosiveness boosting; he felt like he’d shot straight up that thing, even with that curse trying to slow him down.

It would’ve been nice if he really could land that slash in time… he wasn’t too disappointed, though.

As far as he and Kain were concerned, they’d gotten most of what they’d wanted out of that exchange.

Timeshatter and Annihilation Star were that thing’s strongest weapons, and they both had long cooldown times. They’d watched King fights for years. This was all pretty well-documented. Those two Skills were both out for the count now.

The King did have one final signature Skill, one that induced quite a great deal of despair in its enemies over the years. One it leaned on now.

The King stomped its pillar-like legs straight into the ground, like it was plugging them into a socket. Plugging them straight into the core of the Pure Yang lands. The same cheat Skill the Shard Bosses had.

The fissures all around it grew brilliant. In just a few seconds that same starlight would start rushing up its own cracks, filling up its reserves with frightening speed… in less than half a minute, its immense reserves would be full once again.

Zane gripped his chains tightly. “Ready?”

A breath’s worth of pause—just to finish charging up. Zane noticed the tension in Kain’s neck. Even after all these years, Kain was quite stiff and rigid in fights, even against basic Astroliths. Zane couldn’t really imagine the Noughtfire he knew tense in pretty much any situation. It just spoke to how early on he was meeting the guy, he supposed… After he left, he imagined Kain would have a long way to go before he truly became Sage Noughtfire.

Zane still quite liked fighting alongside him. Kain had proven himself quite reliable over the years. He was strong enough that he never really needed protection; his force-field Destruction skill took care of that. And he was quite reliable, despite his stiffness. And though he only had his one basic attack—Kain still wasn’t interested in learning anything else—it was still a free giant Destruction cannon every ten or twenty seconds. Couldn’t really turn that down.

At last Kain gave the signal.

“Hit it!” roared Zane.

Kain slashed. Loosing an absolutely massive pillar of charged-up starlight.

The King reacted like it’d been punched in the face; it staggered again, groaning, one of its limbs briefly losing connection with the ground.

That shouldn’t have been enough to bring it down, if not for one thing.

When Zane had charged up the King, landing a stacked slash hadn’t been the point. That’d just been a bonus. Drawing out Annihilation Star wasn’t really the point either, though it was an expected part of their plan.

The main point was to wind around the King—winding his chains around its massive limbs, again and again, until he tangled it up in an impossible mess.

Kind of like he did with Chainstorm Cage. Except this way he kept his Axes free.

The plan, in its entirety, was pretty straightforward. First, exhaust the King’s best Skills. Then get the thing off its feet, so it could never recharge or make its infamous stomp attacks… they basically wanted to try to reduce a peak Tier 1 powerhouse to a trussed-up pig.

And only then go for the kill, when they’d have all the time in the world to prepare the final blows…

It was a pretty daring thing to attempt against a Peak T1. But they were both confident in their executions.

The only real failure point was this exact moment.

The moment Zane had to bring down a Peak T1 mountain with his bare hands.

A teetering, chained-up mountain, granted. But still, without a doubt, the heaviest thing he’d ever had to pull…

He set his feet, set his jaw. Gripped his chains, and went for it.