Savage Awakening 446. The Second Challenge (VII)

All that Creation—the backbone holding up their bodies, running through every muscle fiber—was instantly obliterated.

And with it, the bulk of their protection.

The Brutes went soaring. Their muscles torched one by one.

And Zane stomped into one final revolution. His axes cocked all the way back.

In that moment, every last ounce of essence in his body was concentrated into one attack.

He let it all loose with a furious bellow.

It was like watching the sun crash into the sea—and on its way, running through two big chunks of muscle.

And blasting right through. Making craters in the air as it went. Feathers exploded every which way. The last thing they saw was chunks of oversized limbs burning up.

Zane landed in a crouch and surveyed the scene.

He nodded in satisfaction.

There was nothing but destruction in his wake.

His work was done. And with that—

Level up!

Level up!

Level up!

Essence Level 535 -> 538

Skill up!

Red Giant Storm III -> IV

***

“That was… intense,” said Reina. She still looked a bit flushed. She worked on him as they made their way up to the volcano.

After his level-ups, his body was fully healed. But his soul and his essence still felt beat up.

Holding Limit Break that long, at that intensity, took a lot out of him—he was still blinking spots out of his eyes.

He grinned. “I thought that went well.”

She nodded. Reina was starting to get into it. She’d been a lot more tense at first; now she was grinning too. Something about his performance seemed to have given her confidence.

She looked to the volcano.

Just then…

A shiver in the Astral Plane. Like a giant turning over in its sleep...

Then a terrible presence crashed over the lip of the volcano… a low, muffled sound, reverberating endlessly…

They felt it wake.

It stayed there, waiting.

She hesitated.

“We’ve got this,” he assured her.

She nodded, but she still looked a tad worried. “Whatever’s in there… Zane, it’s nothing like those Brutes.”

“Neither am I.” He wasn’t worried. He’d be careful. But not worried. “Those Brutes couldn’t take me down. Neither will this. And I have you, don’t I?”

“Mhm.” She nodded, suddenly determined. She looked at him and seemed heartened.

As they kept hiking, he noticed her looking toward the ocean.

“Do you see something?”

She blinked. “I’m just surprised… the mountain range is still intact, for the most part. So are the seas… With the power you were throwing out, it would’ve evaporated on most planets. This place really is high-grade, isn’t it?”

He nodded. “The whole place is blazing in the Astral Plane.” Stuffed full of essence.

She made a ‘mm’ sound. Soon she was lost in thought.

He knew that look—like she was filing that little observation away for later. He left her to do her thing.

**

With that, they headed for the Final Boss.

***

“…And there’s Team Sunshower, doing their thing!”

The scene changed to show Evan, Avery, and Chomper running right through a horde of ogres. Avery was screaming, hanging onto the reins for dear life while firing illusions randomly into the crowd that somehow kept hitting their targets. Evan was running as fast as he could, trying to keep up, doing about the same. Chomper just barreled happily through.

“Looks like they’ve got it covered!” said Tyler. “Somehow?”

“Now, onto the one you’ve all been waiting for,” said Becca. “There go Reina and Zane!”

The scene changed to show the two of them forging up the rugged slope.

A slope so riddled with fissures and molten streams it was more lava than stone.

“What the…” Tyler blinked. “Are those lava sharks?”

“The System calls them Mantle Sharks,” said Becca. She seemed equally as bewildered.

As they spoke, one such creature burst out of the rivers.

A creature the size of a school bus. It seemed forged of the planet’s crust itself—all lava and molten rock. Its gills were like vents in a forge. It let loose a torrent of magma before diving back into the depths.

“Good grief!”

Zane’s chains were out. He’d taken to yanking the sharks out onto dry land, then smashing them one by one. Reina backed him up, healing him whenever he took too many giant lava-shark bites or magma blasts.

“He seems to be holding up pretty well,” said Becca. “Just scrapes and light burns so far—then again, with a body like Zane’s, it’ll take some serious fire to hurt him.”

“They’re working their way up at a pretty steady clip!”

The two of them cleared lake after lake.

Before long, they were nearing the lip of the volcano.

Zane leaped and smashed out a hammer blow.

That hammer came down on a twenty-foot-long Mantle Hammerhead.

And in that battle of hammers, Zane won decisively.

Sent it crashing down to land. And there he landed a second smash—and this time the Monster shattered like a boulder, breaking into a thousand chunky pieces.

These Monsters—even the mini-bosses—couldn’t offer him much resistance anymore.

But he didn’t get ahead of himself. He looked up at that lip, frowning…

That would be the true test.

From down here, they still couldn’t tell what lay waiting in there—Reina had some guesses, but she wasn’t sure. The plan was to get to the top and scope it out. Then they'd see.

“I just don’t want to get in a situation where we’ve got to fight it on its terms,” she said. She looked at the wide rivers of lava scooping down the slope. “If it’s anything like these Mantle Sharks…”

“Agreed.” That lava looked like it’d be quite punishing to swim through. And up this high, even he was starting to feel the heat of it…

He checked the timer.

1 hour and 48 minutes to go.

“Let’s step things up.”

She nodded, determined. “I'm right behind you.”

Twenty minutes later, they were cresting at the top of the slope.

By now, they’d gotten close enough he was face to face with that boss aura. An aura of towering intensity.

He felt in that aura a mind like the volcano itself. Something massive, and ancient, and furious… just waiting to blow.

He took another step—a stone’s throw from the edge now.

Then he went still.

Something was wrong.

He felt it a split second before it struck. Just a weird gut feeling in the Astral Plane—

The rocks began to jump at his feet.

He whirled around even as the volcano began to tremble, as trees folded inward down the slopes and cracks shivered the mountain, spewing great molten geysers—

Something was rising out of that mouth.

Something so vast it was giving this entire realm whiplash.

“Zane!” Reina cried.

He stomped—caught her in his embrace. Just as the whole thing blew.

He couldn’t see it as he fell, but he could feel it. A revelation in the Astral Plane.

It wasn’t just the volcano behind him erupting…

It felt like the core of this world was erupting.

And with it—the island itself.

That whole thing crushed inward, imploding under the sheer force.

And a single vast soul rose to the surface.

Tsunamis of magma raged out of the heart of the volcano, slammed Zane over the back—a heat so intense it seared the flesh off his back.

For heat to be able to do that to him—

Then he was hurtling down the slope. Bursting through wall after wall of magma even as they erupted, hitting all that molten steel on the way down—and with Reina pressed up to him, all he could do was grit his teeth and take it.

He felt like a man falling from a great height through the branches of some huge tree—hitting every branch on the way down. A chunk of health vanishing with each blow.

Then, at last, he hit rock bottom.

BOOM!

A great roaring filled his ears; his senses were swamped with that heat…

The pressure of planets beat down on him.

He knew he was thrust deep under magma.

He gritted his teeth, stomped twice—hard. Felt Destruction light under his feet.

Moments later, he burst out into open air.

He landed, shaking off lava on a patch of floating land—a patch that almost capsized as he stepped…

He set Reina down—she was a bit wobbly, gasping, but she seemed fine.

Magma sloughed off him. The skin on his back—on his arms—was charred black.

He blinked at it in surprise.

Warning!

Health under 75%

In the heat of the moment, he hadn’t realized the beating he’d taken, but—

Reina’s eyes widened.

He turned just in time to see it rising out of the ruins. So huge it took up half the sky. A shadow that blotted out the sun—as they stared, it seemed a continent rising out of the core of the planet.

It crashed into the ocean of magma and vanished—bringing up magma waves rising hundreds of feet tall, waves that almost capsized them, that hissed into the seas beyond, making new land…

Core Megalodon

Essence Level 650

Its presence in the Astral Plane was suffocating.

It had everything.

Tier 7 Law. A corrupted bone with by far the most Creation he’d ever felt. A vast soul—and an essence reserve to boot, an essence reserve fitting a creature of such extreme mass…

But the thing that struck him most—the thing that made Reina gasp—was the title following that name.

Monster King.