Savage Awakening 296. The Ten-Man Challenge (IV) (Patreon)

The chains exploded with Stormfire. Plumes that burst halfway up the stadium—for a moment Throck was lost in the light of Destruction.

Then they descended on the ape-man, and feasted.

He howled—tried struggling against the onslaught, tried bringing his strength to bear—but for all his muscles, he couldn’t move an inch. 

 Zane held on tight. He felt the writhing force meet his own muscles and dissipate—vanishing without a trace. 

The hold only got tighter, the flames brighter, closing around the melting, steaming flesh until all you could see was thick lengths of steel bound over and over, tangled endlessly, a cocoon of vicious light—you couldn’t even see Throck anymore, just the writhing…

Zane really did think that fellow would be stronger.

He was nearly a hundred Levels higher, after all. But Reina had a theory about Zane’s strength. She thought strength compounded. If you had a higher grade Core, and a higher grade Nascent Soul, and a higher Grade Ascension, and a higher grade Bloodline, and higher Leveled Skills—it really added up.

If Zane’s body was a machine, the fuel and the make were of the finest caliber. If you couldn’t match him for quality it took a lot to compete. 

This Throck gave Zane a good workout. That was something. He made Zane burn some Bloodline too. But that was all.

Throck’s skin was conditioned for heat, for flame; Zane could tell. Heavenly Stormfire was not running straight through him like it had the others—but it still had little trouble. In just a breath, Throck’s struggles were dimming—in two, he was in his death throes… 

Zane held firm. Determined to finish him off. 

Then he felt a force looming right behind him—descending in a screaming, furious rush—a vast plume of essence barging through his domain. 

He frowned and turned even as Throck went up in smoke—but his Chains were still thrown out, tangled into one another. He was a little stuck.

He could only brace as the Third Prince—frothing at the mouth, descending into howling fury—speared out of the sky from behind. 

And dive-bombed him.

A rush of ultra-concentrated magma—the Magma of the Supervolcano—slammed into Zane square-on.

He felt like he’d been hit by a freight train. It was a force—a weight—far mightier than even what the God Golem had mustered. 

Kakorax rammed into Zane in a clawing, smashing rush, streaming rivers of magma—and the two of them went tumbling, smashing at each other as Zane tried to get himself free—tried to wrench his Chains loose—

Kakorax already had his weapon ready to strike. 

He was a full-blooded True Dragon—a Primordial Godbeast, the highest tier of Godbeast; and like all beasts, he had no Spirit Weapon. His body was one enormous weapon. The body of a true dragon was a killing machine. 

No less strong than that of the Titan Rhinoceros. But in a different way. 

Kakorax’s claws gleamed with Bloodline power. His fangs gleamed it too.

Every last one of his scales shimmered with the power of that legendary Bloodline. His Tier 5 Laws—his Minor God power-base—only shot it to greater heights. 

His claws descended, each a peak Sky-grade treasure, tipped at the ends with a dragon’s flame—and they tore deep into Zane’s raw flesh. 

He felt bright lines of pain gore deep into his chest, and snarled; they kept tussling, rolling over and over, and Kakorax got in one slash, two—

Fountains of blood poured out of Zane. And the wounds wouldn’t heal. They were scorched by a dark fire, a fire that was edged with the barest flickering red—

But for the Third Prince, this was only first blood.

This was only a setup.

As they came crashing to a halt, Kakorax kept his claws sunk deep into Zane’s chest. And looked down on Zane, mouth curving in a vicious snarl.

There was a triumphant gleam in his eyes. 

“Got you!” he cackled. 

He unhinged his jaw. 

One of the most feared fires in the Universe roared out. True dragon’s flame.

*** 

“He has him!”

Up in the stands, The dragons' spirits all soared. Elder Coral was on her feet screeching, “finish him, finish him!”

A few folk in the neighboring stands had to murmur at that; it seemed plain undignified. They’d just seen a Minor God resort to sucker-punching Zane just to get him down—and now he was relying on that to get the finishing blow.

But none of the dragons cared much. For a moment there they were terrified—the brightest star of their generation would go down to that brutally strong human. 

As they saw Kakorax’s jaw unhinge, a few even began to cheer—

Zane’s eyes narrowed—they saw him rip an arm free of that clawed grasp, letting the muscle tear as he did so, struggling furiously to get free—and felt a moment of doubt. 

Kakorax’s claws could shred anything. But even pinned down, Zane couldn’t be contained. He was already breaking free—yanking at his Chains, trying to call them back—

But it was too late.

True dragon breath was upon him. A blackness had gathered at Kakorax’s throat, a crimson-edged darkness that melted the world. 

And even Zane’s domain, ferocious—could not suppress it. As it washed out it charred the very fabric of reality, leaving smoking voids in the air—a dark light washed over Zane. 

He blinked in surprise.

Then he took it straight to the face.

And then the big man was lost in an apocalyptic eruption—an eruption that would have split planets in two—an eruption on the scale, and the power, of the Supervolcano—backed with the might of the True Dragon. And a Great Circle Cultivation base… 

Even the most ardent Zane fans in the stadium felt their hearts sink. 

*** 

“YES!” cried Elder Coral. The dragons, and the dragon-kins, threw up their wings and cheered.

*** 

Burnwater went very pale.

He knew just what it meant to be hit by true Dragon's breath—and that was no ordinary True Dragon’s breath either. Once the Third Prince got his claws on his prey, he finished them. 

“Hells,” he croaked.

Noughtfire stared silently into the flames.

*** 

Steelheart Conclave

The Barbarian Sage smashed his fist into a coffee table—a coffee table that was more duct tape than wood, on account of how much it got smashed. 

It broke again. 

“It’s only dragonfire!” roared the Barbarian Sage. “Come on, lad! The Titan Rhino never backs down to some—some lizard spittle!”

The True Dragon was a Primordial Godbeast—but so was the Titan Rhino. If Zane had just come to the Barbarian Sage first, he would’ve stuffed him so full of Bloodline and rare metals and Godbeast flesh that none of these lizards could touch him! 

For now, though, the Barbarian Sage could only watch in fury and hope.

*** 

The flames were all-consuming. Crashing over half the stadium—and they all saw Zane’s domain flicker then, as though on the verge of petering out. The powers of Destruction were great. But it was as Noughtfire had said. The best way to fight Destruction was simply to overpower it…

A heartbeat. Two.

And just when it looked like the domain might collapse at last—

The flames began to brighten. 

Glow strangely white at their center—and Kakorax frowned. Stamped down, forced the flow of magma fiercer—

Something strange was happening right down the middle.

It was roiling. Growing disturbed—parting, crashing out to either side—the way a river parts when something forces its way upstream…

Willow gasped in the lower stands. Her brother’s jaw dropped. 

A burning figure, a figure wreathed in white outline, showed in the stream.

A fist broke loose. 

A fist blazing with Stormfire.

Wasted away. All the skin had burned up; the muscles were exposed, quickly blackening—but a fierce Bloodline still raged through it. Giving it strength as they forced their way through.

A thick Chain was clenched firm in its grasp.

Kakorax’s eyes popped at that. He spewed harder, reddening, throat bulging with the effort—

There was a moment of shock as the fist crashed forth. And a Chain lashed around Kakorax’s throat.

Cutting off the dragon’s breath in one vice grip.

There stood Zane. Heaving in deep breaths, barely recognizable—covered in slag.  Burning up all over-half with Stormfire, half with dripping gobs of hissing magma. Most of the skin on his front side had melted off; rivers of blackened blood gushed out of him. His torso like an anatomy chart—in places the bone showed clear. 

But his eyes were bright and cold. It was like he didn’t feel the pain at all. 

A choked silence gripped the stadium. 

And then Zane began to squeeze.

Kakorax gagged. Flapped mightily but one chain lashed down a wing; in a flash the other snagged up an arm.

And it all began to burn.

“Got you,” rasped Zane. He bared his teeth in a wild smile. 

Kakorax bucked harder, eyes bulging, even as another chain wrapped his throat once, twice—he scrabbled against the metal, but Zane’s ruined hands held firm.

He watched the dragon struggle against the weight of them—even as more steel looped over and over; a length of it wrapped Kakorax’s neck and he staggered under the raw weight of it, as though clubbed behind the head… 

But this was not even Zane’s chains at their constricting best. 

This was another form entirely. A heavier weight still lay at their ends… 

Zane yanked with all he had left. 

“No—” choked Kakorax. “NOOOO!”

But the dragon prince could only watch the white light coming with wide eyes. He tried heaving up his arms to block—

Zane’s hammers descended.

BOOM!

True Dragon’s scales—even bound, and worked by Zane’s domain—were still a formidable defense. The strongest shield Zane had come up against yet. 

But Zane’s hammer had just gotten a new sub-Evolution. 

Heaven’s Hammer [Passive] [Uncommon (H)]

The Hammers are infused with the essence of destruction, which makes null and void material boundaries. They strike all it touches with crippling force, bypassing defenses of flesh and soul alike. 

One blazing meteor slammed down on Kakorax’s arms—and there was a flash of absolute-white light. An ear-splitting cracking. Kakorax screeched as Destruction shattered his scales. 

The force, and the fire, crashed through. 

And lay waste to what they found inside.

The explosion rocked the world. Kakorax coughed blood, howled—

Then the second hammer landed with an even greater force. 

BOOM!

When at last the brightness faded, there was a long, weighty silence.

Zane stood there heaving. Regarded the kneeling pile of slag before him. Looked around the battlefield, as though surveying what he had wrought. He nodded his satisfaction. 

There had been eleven standing when the fight began.

Now there was one. 

Winner: Zane Walker.