Savage Awakening 334. The Fifth Tier Breakthrough (VII) (Patreon)
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It was as though the world knew it had to strike now—that this was its last chance. Like it could feel what Zane was becoming.
He gritted his teeth.
Solar Flare surged and writhed above him, a floating sea—a new superpower on the verge of forming. Just one mistake, and it’d all be lost. He knew that meant certain death.
But if he threw himself at the Law, the coming storm would finish him off before he completed it. That was death too.
Zane stood there, running nearly empty on essence. Still only half-healed—his own dried blood still streaking down his muscles in huge curving arcs, a war-paint of his own body.
Staring down certain death either way…
He gritted his teeth.
No.
He could feel—some deep gut instinct—that there was another way. The only way. Run and hide, and it would destroy him.
He had to stand and fight.
The thought sparked a vicious joy in Zane’s chest.
That, he knew how to do.
The tornado whirled closer, picking up speed, roaring howling death at Zane…
And Zane roared right back.
Stared deep into that searing golden face, unflinching.
He raised his own Burgeoning Solar Flare proudly overhead.
His enemy had grown so wide now it’d taken up half the sky—a column of furious gold, swallowing every Solar Flare in sight…
Zane’s own flare seethed above him—coiling like a golden-white serpent, veiled in a shroud of white gold. It was all the essence, all the power he had left. Swirling faster and faster… even depleted, Zane mustered enough force to cow most any Minor God.
Only he was not fighting a god. He was fighting a world.
His power seemed like a candle flickering before an inferno then…
But Zane knew he had one thing this world did not.
Even as his Asura State shone crimson, swirling bloody patterns down his body, spiking his aura—his growing Heavenly Flare, already the brightest thing in sight, reached a new league of intensity.
That tornado of Solar Flare was showering vicious golden Laws on Zane’s power.
But they melted away before they could even get close—as soon as they hit that white-gold shroud. Hissing up like raindrops on scorching steel.
They’d come in contact with just a trace of the force at the heart of Zane’s power. Pure, untamed Destruction.
Its presence was far stronger than it’d ever been in his Stormfire. And though gold flooded the world… that scorching white light seemed to pierce all.
Zane set his jaw.
He moved with the confidence of a man who knew exactly who he was. Knew exactly what he could do.
Two natural disasters crashed in. And made contact.
The energies unleashed in that split-second would’ve melted planets on the spot.
BOOM!
A shockwave blasted out, ripping continent-sized chunks out of the realm—black void-cracks spread through the air, wavering at the seams, and the whole world shuddered, like the sky itself might fall—
For a moment, all was lost to the blinding light.
Zane howled. Staggered so deep he nearly went to a knee, and blood fountained out of his mouth, chest heaving massively.
Only the strength of his body and soul—his Asura State, blasting through him like a supernatural adrenaline rush—kept him conscious.
But that first great shock was only the beginning.
Then the gold bore down. Exerting pressures only celestial bodies could muster—a heat found only at the center of suns.
It crashed over Zane’s Flare, swallowing it up in an instant. They met in a stark line.
And down that line, a thousand explosions of nuclear intensity went off at once as two titanic powers exchanged blows.
Zane’s power trembled then. Flexed inward for a moment under all that violent eruption, as though about to give in—
He let out a strangled roar through bloody teeth. Every vein, every muscle in his body stood out, struggling to take the force of his effort. Every last part of him that could fight, fought with everything.
His powers responded. Destruction shone stronger—a tiny star blazing fierce in a sea of gold…
The collapse ground to a halt.
Not a deadlock. In deadlock there was stillness; there was no stillness here; on the front line apocalyptic amounts of energy were still detonating every second.
Zane felt horribly woozy—coughed another mouthful of blood. In just that last exchange, he’d lost enough blood to kill most men.
But he’d held the line.
The golden Laws of Solar Flare raged, and raged—but it was like they’d struck up against a force they simply could not break past…
Then something strange began to happen.
That great sea wavered—and then began to flex slowly backward.
The line was starting to break. A brighter color was streaking through. Lapping up that sun-gold whole, changing its color—taking it as fuel. Streaking up now, striking back—
It was exactly what Zane had been holding out for.
With a full-throated bellow, he shoved.
And Heavenly Flare grew greedier. Striking farther up, growing stronger with every tract of gold it conquered…
His Flare began to devour.
Before Zane’s narrowed eyes, the Laws in that hurricane of gold began to waver, began to wilt—as though bowing in the presence of something greater…
A higher power.
A fierce white bloomed at the core of that massive gold.
The gold storm shuddered—tried flexing in—rained down a hellish onslaught.
But it was no use.
A new sun was rising through the midst of it.
And at its center was one man.
This world had clubbed Zane over the head with that first blow. But he’d taken it—and it couldn’t break him.
And now the truth Zane had known, deep in his heart, was showing itself in brutal fashion.
This world might have more—but Zane simply believed that he was greater.
And that would make the ultimate difference.
If he could take this world’s worst, Heavenly Solar Flare would show its class. And in that crucible of gold, he forced his belief to become reality.
A new superpower rose higher and higher…
Seen from a great distance, it’d look like a shining white-gold dragon rising from the depths of the earth, swallowing a dragon of lesser colors.
In seconds it was done.
Heavenly Solar Flare soared through the skies. Carving voids wherever it passed; sending new cracks streaming through the realm, a realm that could scarcely stay intact in its wake. Thousands of miles of untamed power. Utterly dominant.
Rumbling like some great beast roaring in victory.
The colors of this dimension—its skies, its lands—had all gone to Heavenly Flare gold.
A notification shone in Zane’s eyes.
Skill evolved!
Heavenly Stormfire [Uncommon (H)] -> Heavenly Solar Flare [Mythic+ (H)]
He stood there, heaving mightily, and let out a shout. A sound that came straight from his heart. A sound of pure triumph.
But he didn’t let himself relax.
The danger wasn’t over.
Now he had to contend with a beast of his own making.
A beast that stretched half the length of the world.
That Flare rampaged through the skies, and Zane grunted, struggling to keep hold of it—it felt like his head was splitting down the middle.
And that great Heavenly Flare shuddered too—as though about to break loose.
It was the most essence Zane had ever controlled at once, by orders of magnitude—and it was the most explosive, violent essence he’d ever felt—
Zane groaned and staggered, struck by a shock of dizziness. Blood wouldn’t stop leaking from his mouth.
But this world was struggling to hold it even more.
Everything that Solar Flare touched—everything that dared exist within a hundred miles of it—was crumpling, blackening. Stone and sky, everything that felt the glare of Destruction was annihilated instantly.
That was the nature of the beast.
Nothing could stand up to it. Nothing even dared hold its phase of matter—chaining up the ladder of Destruction, going solid, liquid, gas, nothing, as the Flare plowed through. Even its mere aura blackened this world.
Vast voids were opening up in the realm, charring up in its wake the way paper chars in a furnace.
The pain splitting Zane’s soul down the middle was growing immense, like he was on the verge of tearing apart.
And he knew it was the final moment of critical danger. He had to make one last decisive act.
He braced himself—and turned that power loose.
The explosion knocked Zane off his feet. Knocked the land into shredded chunks, punched continent-sized voids in the sky—knocked the very world tilted on its axis—
And then Zane was falling. Saw colors crumpling over him, everything going to black, going to void, breaking apart, burning up—
Zane clawed into collapsing cliffs for purchase, but even they were folding in on themselves.
He fell fighting into nothingness.
Then all there was was void.
A heartbeat. Two.
And light rushed back in.
A tunnel in the distance, rushing toward him—or was Zane falling toward it? He braced—
Crashed through the light.
He came to a staggering halt. Blinked. Looked around, struggling to place things through bleary eyes—the world still wobbled before him. He couldn’t seem to hear anything.
A haze of dreamy colors. He was standing on an asteroid. He stumbled around, head pounding….
This was Astra.
He’d passed back through the Gate. A Gate that was now empty.
Its runes had been charred to crisps.
… It appeared he had just broken an entire world.
Hmm, thought Zane. And promptly blacked out.