Savage Awakening 217. Stronghold Siege (II) (Patreon)

There was a statue of a Dwarf God up front. With a beard so long you could hardly see his face. Or body. One long knotty beard with gleaming rings and coins woven through it—they looked expensive, all precious metal. And they were scaled up to size too. Zane wondered why the things dwarves built were so big when they were so small. 

Anyway.

Right behind that statue lay the site of the treasure. A well. It was made of a polished, deep-black stone, the kind that sucked in light and refused to give it back. It looked like it came from outer space. There was a little temple-thing around it. A nice little roof made of the same stuff. Runes wrapped all over it. Still glowing, surprisingly, after all this time. He wasn’t sure what they were meant to be doing though.

It was a simple building. But it did give a kind of sacred feeling. Like it was some important shrine—Zane could see folk praying to it.

A haze of wavy air streamed up forward warping the world. A visceral heat. A viscous, heady aura rising from deep within… you could feel the essence in the air, brushing against you like a fine mist as you got close.

A chain dropped deep into that well. So thick it could have been used to anchor cruise ships. Made of the same black stuff. Zane guessed it was tied to the very bottom.

He strode up to it. Gave it an experimental tug.

It wasn’t moving.

He frowned, tugged harder. Still nothing.

This surprised him. He half-expected whatever lay down there to come shooting out after that. After breaking tons of stuff back on Earth with the slightest twitch, he knew how much force his tugs had. And his muscles had gotten a whole lot stronger since then too…

He cocked his head at the chain.

Alright. Fine. 

He fired up his muscles. Felt his whole back light up with essence, his biceps bulging—he gave it a hard yank. And when it still didn’t budge—to his surprise—he brought out the heavy duty stuff.

He burned his Bloodline.

That did it.

He strained hard for three full seconds, arching his whole big back into it, grunting and heaving, power building and building, before he felt the weight shift.

When it did, the whole plaza shifted with it—started to rumble and quake, like Zane was tugging along the entire tectonic plate. He looked around, a little alarmed, and stopped. Things went still again.

Nothing seemed to have broken. Just a little tremor, looked like. Reina inspected things and felt it was okay to keep going—though she, Avery, and Evan all scrambled back quite a bit.

Zane inspected the well again as they did. Thinking.

He could do with an energy boost before he got going again, he felt. A little snack. 

He went up to the statue of Hrothgar. Reached up. Tugged gently on that beard. Hrothgar toppled to the ground. Stone-shards splashed in a giant wave. Spiderweb fissures raced through the plaza. Smoke plumed all over. But the place was pretty broken already—he figured one more wouldn’t make much difference. 

Zane stepped through the mess, strode up, and started gingerly relieving the statue of those precious metals in the statue’s beard. There were a fair few F-grade Earth-treasures, he saw. Lots of nice Spirit Steel. He hoped the guy wouldn’t mind, though he swore it glared at him as he went about his business. 

One by one, he popped these metals into his mouth. And swallowed. 

Skill up! 

Behemoth Muscles IX -> X

Skill up! 

Behemoth Muscles X -> XI 

Nice.

Okay. Back to what he was doing.

He fired up his muscles again. Stomped his feet knee-deep into the granite ground. Set one hand over another on the chain. And started dragging.

It took some hard effort, some serious straining. A few seconds of building to really get going, just like before. But once his power broke through, the Chain kept rising. Faster and faster. He started hauling whole lengths of it out, dumping it casually on the plaza ground.

…There really was a lot of it. It went deeper than he expected. 

The more he dragged out the redder and brighter it got. Even he started huffing and puffing—it took a huge amount of power just to free this thing.

It was probably a reason why no one had taken it all this time, now Zane thought about it.

Now each grab-and-yank was sizzling against his fingertips. The steel was molten white. He felt it coming close, felt that aura rising fast toward him, rushing up in one huge tide—with one last roar he yanked the treasure over the lip.

He stood there heaving, sweating, staring.

For all that effort it was a surprisingly small thing. Barely bigger than a fist. Well—a typical man’s fist. It would fit quite snugly in Zane’s palm. 

Heart of Steel [Earth (D)]

An alloy blessed by Hrothgar, Dwarven God of Plenty. It is the amalgam of over 10,000 S-rank mortal treasures—and over 20 Earth-rank treasures—placed under conditions of immense heat and essence, submerged in the core of the realm. 

It was more than black—blacker than black. No shine to it. But it did give off a strange radiation. The air shivered around it, as though scared to go near it—and it was scalding just to stand in its presence. Zane felt his skin start to glow red. Even just the essence blasting off of would make for a treasure by itself. 

Zane started salivating a little just looking at it. That came out of who knew how many metals thrown in over who knew how many years… But one particular strand of it caught his attention. He swore he felt a familiar resonance… 

Somewhere in those thousands of treasures, someone had dropped some Titan Rhino blood in there too. 

Suddenly he was a lot more interested. 

He went over to it. Studied it for a bit. Then picked it up. It wasn’t too hard—he kept his body firing full-force this whole time. Now the Heart just felt heavy to him. But quite holdable. 

It was burning his hands though. He heard the flesh sizzling. Which—for a Steel and Fire Law wielder… not good.

And his muscles were really burning up now. So hot they made their own little air-warbles—they started trembling a little, making a strained humming, swallowing up lakes of essence—soon he would start running out—

It was all a little alarming. He did the first thing that came to mind.

He popped the thing into his mouth and swallowed it.

For about one full second he was pretty pleased with his decision. It certainly freed up his hands being burnt. Problem solving. 

Then the thing dropped all the way down his throat and hit his belly with a CLANG!

And Zane keeled over.

And then he felt quite regretful.

First came all the Essence. Baked into it from all those rich magma flows deep underground for so, so many years… the sounds it made in his belly were the same tons of dynamite made going off deep a mountain. 

He groaned. 

He was pretty sure the heat of it ruptured at least one organ. 

It got fixed up a moment later though.

Level up! 

Essence Level 233 -> 234

Level up! 

Essence Level 234 -> 235

Level up! 

Essence Level 235 -> 236

Level up! 

Essence Level 236 -> 237

This tickled a part of his brain nicely. 

The other parts were still on fire though. 

By then he had fallen all the way over. He lay there reddening, breathing out streams of steaming mist. All the way face-planted. He could not seem to move very well. 

He heard Reina give a shout, start rushing over. He tried saying “I’m fine," but it was too muffled through the face-plant. It came out as another groan. So he just threw up a thumbs-up. She got the message.

After that he focused on surviving.

He felt pretty badly roasted. Scorching hot everywhere—a distinctly strange kind of hot since it was under the skin. Something more than feverish. He was vaguely aware that he was smoking a little. The stone seemed to be melting under him.

The Level-Ups were just the start of it. The next notifications bombarded him—

Bloodline evolved! 

5 drops -> 6

6 drops -> 7

He blinked. 

Hey, nice. 

Bloodline evolutions were some of his favorite. They always opened up new worlds of possibility for him—though he was in a little too much pain to fully enjoy it. This one was a little bittersweet—he was just one shy of what he needed to get the next layer, Bone refinement.

Still though. Two extra drops brought plenty of great upgrades.

Skill evolved! 

Indomitable Hide [Rare (E) XII -> Epic (E) VI]

Skill evolved!

Colossal Tendons [Rare (E) VII -> Epic (E) III]

Skill Evolved!

Behemoth Muscles [Rare (E) XII -> Epic (E) V]

And the more it upgraded him, the more bearable all that heat felt inside him. It helped his muscles and his tendons—made it feel like they were being tempered. Made the steel go in easy.

And there was so much steel to take in…

Skill up! 

Indomitable Hide VI -> VII 

Skill up! 

Indomitable Hide VII -> VIII 

Skill up! 

Indomitable Hide VIII -> IX 

Skill up! 

Colossal Tendons III -> IV

Skill up! 

Colossal Tendons IV -> V

Skill up! 

Colossal Tendons V -> VI 

Skill up! 

Behemoth Muscles V -> VI

Skill up! 

Behemoth Muscles VI -> VII

Skill up! 

Behemoth Muscles VII -> VIII

It felt like it took hours. When at last it settled he still lay there steaming, cheek pressed against the newly mushy ground. 

He blinked. Built himself up to an arm. Got back up. 

He felt good. Really good. 

Tingly in all the places that had just upgraded. Every muscle, tendon, inch of skin in his body felt remade, reforged. Primed. 

If he had this body a few hours ago, he felt he could’ve yanked out that bead in one fell swoop. 

He did also notice how soaked he was. In mud, in his own sweat… he had been sweating that whole time—he was parched.

After all the heat had died down Avery ran back in, summoned some water, and hosed him off. Then she fed him a bucket of water. He needed more—he was all sweated out. So he just opened his mouth and had Avery water-cannon down his throat until he felt fine again.

Then he was washed up. Healed up. Cleaned.

Every bit ready.

At this grade his skin was as pure as it could be already—no blemishes. His muscles were already veined and dense. They didn’t look too different. The changes came inside. It was like making a new model of him, he felt—the shape was similar. But the engine got swapped out for something far stronger.

Reina did her usual check up on him. She could tell his body had changed too almost instantly—her eyes widened as she felt him. He told her he was ready for anything they could throw at him. She believed him.

She felt heartened—so did Avery and Evan. Mostly it came from the showing. Putting the deep sense of confidence he felt inside outside. It made them feel comfortable. They had to feel like he could never be broken. 

He would work hard to make sure close calls like back there—seeing him beaten up that badly, taken to the brink… he would fight hard as he could to make sure that wouldn’t happen again. 

He stared down the darkness. Clenched his fists. 

They were all counting on him to be strong. 

Next time, he swore he would leave no doubt. 

They kept going. 

*** 

Just more Shadow Stalkers at first. Almost twenty of them running straight at him, though none of them managed much.

It did seem like this first chunk of the realm was just an appetizer.

Soon though the buildings started fading out. They started moving into what would be the outskirts of a normal city. There rivers and grasslands might run. But here it was sulfur-yellow fumes spewing from vents in the ground, and enormous slow-moving rivers of Fire-Law dense lava winding lazily through the ground, dripping from spots in the distant walls… a mosaic of red-white breaking up the dark. Like a starscape set on its side.

They were coming up to a whole new section.

They heard it before they saw it. The roars. The deep growls which could only come from huge animals. The devilish shrieks. The low, cavernous grunting…the sounds of some hellish menagerie. the thumping. Like the beats of a war-drum. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.

They saw it up ahead through a bank of thick yellow fog. A fortress leaking lava. Black as brimstone. It was set atop a high craggy hill. All around that hill, seas of lava stretched far into the distance, bubbling and frothing…

The compass wanted them to go right through that fortress.

The mini-map was swamped with red dots. If you squinted you could see them in the distance,  patrolling the parapets—horned fanged winged demons with leathery skin and glistening eyes. Boiling over with dark auras flickering red lightning. 

Magma Imp (Monster) 

Essence Level 259 

And what looked to be giant mastiffs prowling the walls, lava leaking like drool from their lips, sniffing and growling.. 

Lava Hound (Monster) 

Essence Level 258

And there had to be other Monsters deeper inside too. Ones they couldn’t even see. 

Reina’s brow furrowed as she took it all in. Avery and Evan stared too. 

You have entered: Section 2-2  

Gurin’s Stronghold  

Then—

Monster House activated!  

Zane stilled.   

Monster Houses contain hordes of strong Monsters. Your task is to slay every Monster in the House.  

Clearance Reward: 4 C-Rank Earth Treasures, tailored to you by the System.  

Accept?