Savage Awakening 515. Founder Fight (II)

The Thundercrest Founder was down. A few good punches had brought down the Thousand Seas Tribe Founder too. He’d had to take three ice meteo

The Thundercrest Founder was down. A few good punches had brought down the Thousand Seas Tribe Founder too. He’d had to take three ice meteors to the back to finish off the Founder of the Constellation Order, but he’d managed it.

He’d even managed an exchange with Thalgrim Titanborn. They’d traded hammer-blows. Zane’s jaw shattered, but it was Thalgrim who was blown off its feet. 

He was feeling pretty good about himself when the Founders walled up.

They went back-to-back-to-back, making a hexagon on that dais. Arcane symbols lit up at their feet.

The Corrupted Bones in their chests burned. Their eyes shone the colors of their elements. He had the gut feeling that now the fight was really on.

A crystalline force field burst into being. Six colors meshing to one, making an aurora. There was so much Creation stacked in that field it was tough to look at.

He smashed two hammers into it straight away.

He couldn’t even make a dent.

He frowned and started wondering how he’d get through it. Maybe he could stack up enough force for a charge? It looked pretty tough to crack head-on…

He idly considered the logistics of it, mapping a route. Maybe the same way he’d broken the Chunk. Just a good long charge—

The hair raised on the back of his neck. His eyes widened.

Instantly, he slammed a Red Giant step and just barely got out of the way of a beam straight from hell.

A shadow beam. A pillar of pure shade just erupting with Corruption and Destruction, seething with the stuff, lancing out of the ground, bursting through the ceiling. A geyser of deadly element.

It got close enough that a few motes lashed him. Just that was enough to cut 5% off his Health, to his surprise.

The shadow Founder lowered its finger, disappointed.

The other Founders had poured their Destruction, their Corruption, their essence in too. Five fueling one.

Then it was the Eternal Ice Founder’s turn. She stabbed out her staff.

Icicles crystallized overhead like giant, misshapen lances. The gleam going through them wasn’t sunlight. Just pure Destruction. Each was as big as an iceberg.

Then they slashed out at him one after another, thudding a devastating line.

But this time he was wise to it. He made sure to track their paths with his mind. A well-timed, explosive step got him out of harm’s way again.

Stacked up like this, every attack had the potential to wipe nearly half his Health.

He could tell just from the immense essence he felt in each strike, the danger-feeling coming from each near miss…

This wouldn’t work.

He could try breaking it head-on. It had worked in his charge against the Chunk, but back then he’d had a clear path and no attacks coming at him. He’d had time to set that up.

That wasn’t an option here.

And the attacks only grew thicker with Destruction…

***

Say what you would about this Draegmir, and the Barbarian Sage would. But the rat sure had a hell of a lot of essence; he had to give it that.

Law, Creation, Destruction, even. It was a chunker, alright.

It had summoned this fifty-mile-long sphere, an age’s worth of bones stacked together. Not normal bones either—each single bone was stuffed enough Creation to be worthy of a Sacred Bone.

“That’s one screwed-up attack," muttered the Sage.

The lich chucked it all at the Sage’s head.

The Sage hefted his spear.

He was feeling a little more warmed up now. Warm enough to try another old move—it had been ages since he’d dusted this one off. But he had a real soft spot for it.

A single stab. Loaded with as much damned Law, as much damned essence and Destruction as he could get on that tiny spear-point… the crux of it, though, was a Concept. He was dusting that off too.

“Annihilation stab,” growled the Sage, and his words carried Law weight. “Event horizon.”

Then he laid into the thing.

Seen from a distance, the Sage was a tiny dot against a bone-white star. By sight, and in the Astral Plane. Just a speck waiting to be crushed, a speck with bared teeth.

Then came the moment of impact.

The spear made contact.

And something infinite contracted at the tip of it. One great sphere of space-black.

And it crushed that sphere of bone like it was wadding up paper. Crushed it all in to a single point. Crushed all its energy, its momentum, its essence too…

The Sage shunted it all into the ground.

The Black Hole at the tip of his spear exploded.

The bones erupted in a thousand different directions, piling up in useless mountains. The Sage landed in a crouch, looked around. “That went well, eh?”

You… blocked it. The lich sounded surprised.

“Just remembered an old trick.”

Draegmir blinked. Then it turned its gaze to the wreckage of its last strike. Conveniently for the lich, all that debris made a new boneyard...

Every single bone began to tremble.

They were picked up as though by a tornado, swirled into new forms, stacking together, and in seconds, the Barbarian Sage was facing down a host of new Empyrean auras.

A salamander. A roc. A phoenix. A dragon—all made of Sacred Bone stuff, all gargantuan.

They charged together.

The Sage took them down with a single Flurry of the Mad God.

Stronger this time. It really was like riding a damned bike! He’d dusted off that Event Horizon Concept, and suddenly every strike had that extra burst of Destruction.

“I told you,” said the Sage. “I’m just warming up.”

His grin grew fiercer. “…I damn sure hope that’s not all you’ve got!”

****

Zane was on the run.

Meteors exploded behind him. First, these big fiery ones, and though few fires could touch him anymore, these were stuffed so heavily with Destruction that even he had to take them seriously.

Then ice meteors. They didn’t land, but their shards shredded his back anyway. He was taking quite a dislike to those. They splintered so violently that it was impossible not to take a real slicing if you were anywhere close.

And they were getting closer too, blow by blow. He wasn’t sure how smart these skeleton Founders were, but they were definitely learning his patterns. He was having to really fight to dodge. His Health kept taking hits.

They’d even caught him clean one time. One miles-long slab of deep-earth stone took him right to the chest, bowling him over. It shattered quite a lot of him, wiping out a clean 40% of his Health before he staggered back up, wiped blood from his mouth, and kept fighting.

If he couldn’t break through that force field… at some point, they might land a few clean hits in a row.

And that just might break him.

Those Founders were ganging up on him six-on-one. He knew his body. But even he had a breaking point, as much as he hated to admit it.

If he was forced to try to outlast them he'd go into it bullheaded--that was a given. He would believe, with all his heart, that he could do it, even if the truth of it might be bleak.

But he’d only try that as a last resort.

There had to be a better way.

Raw force was the one that felt most obvious. He thought about going for a Red Giant Storm instead, but he shook his head and quickly threw the thought away. It had the same issue as his Steps.

He wouldn’t be able to get it off the ground fast enough.

Then he took a long hard look at that shield, feeling it all the way with Great Sage Mind. Trying to find a weakness.

There were none. It would take everything he had to even trouble it. It was just too strong from the outside.

The only way weaknesses he could see lay within it, which made sense. That was where all its power sources were, and it only had to be strong from one side.

He took a thorn oozing golden poison to the knee and grunted.

He wasn’t sure why, but that pain knocked something loose in his mind.

Just a thought. Quite an obvious one, now that he'd had it...

He ducked a scythe of shadow and squinted at that shield.

…Maybe?

He was chewing on the Sage’s words again.

Gravity did have a bunch of uses. And it wasn’t like any of his other attacks. It didn’t need to pass through anything—he could just drop it wherever.

He looked at the force-field again.

…He was pretty sure, at least. It felt like he ought to be able to.

Might as well give it a try.

He tried making a fist right at the center of the field. Dropping a gravity core in the opening between all six Founders.

He clenched that fist of the mind.

For a second, he wasn’t sure if it’d work.

In that same moment, he took a giant icicle lance. Gravity had distracted him for a split-second. It had him bleeding from a thousand cuts, from shoulders to waist.

But he came out of it grinning.

For just a moment, he saw the Founders stumble.

Saw that great big shield of their crack…

And he knew the game was on.

***

The Barbarian Sage was surprised how good a time he was having.

There were lots of old muscles he was flexing, some he’d forgotten he had! It felt like going through an old attic and seeing all these neat deadly weapons gathering dust. Made him wonder why he hadn’t tried visiting sooner.

He was getting quite some pleasure sticking them into that ratty little goblin.

A seriousness had settled over that Draegmir. It raised its claws. Enough...

This time, the Sage could feel just how deep it was drawing of the well. So much essence reality was struggling to hold it, was cracking around it, even as its attacks charged up.

Nine goddamned Giant Bone Blasts.

They surrounded him, blotting out the light of the moon, blotting out nearly all the sky. That had to be millions—billions of bones?

“There's a challenge,” laughed the Sage. “Alright... Hit me!”

Draegmir slashed.

The Sage took out two Blasts with well-timed thrusts.

But the rest of those Blasts crowded in… that should’ve been it.

Seven dwarf planet-sized attacks falling on the Barbarian Sage at once. There was only a sliver of light between the horizon and that colossus of bone.

Between the Sage and freedom lay several continents’ worth of distance. An impossible span, even with his physique.

But then the he settled into a deep crouch, like a big cat.

A path appeared in his mind.

Like the path of an asteroid whipping around a black hole. Wielding that unfathomable gravity as a slingshot, rocketing into deep space…

Laws thickened the air. The Sage grinned.

Then he was gone.

Tracing a single, massive arc through space. Whipping right out from under those Bone Blasts, making such a violent turn he tore a mile-long gash in reality in his wake, leaving skid marks in reality.

Those Bone Blasts struck nothing.

The Sage ground to a halt. He leaned on his spear.

“Y’know,” he said. “I would’ve thought I’d forgotten how to fight after all that time… Nah.”

He kept on grinning. “It’s in the damned soul, turns out! Just can’t let it go. No wonder they said I’d gone mad all those years... A fight’s a great time to make a realization, I tell you.”

You’re… stronger. Draegmir seemed not to understand.

“That I am,” said the Sage cheerfully. “Back in my day I was pretty well-known, you know. Beat every titan this Galaxy had to offer. Damn near ran out of men! I chased ol’ Thundercrest back to his hidey-hole in the Heights ’cause he wouldn’t fight me... That little worm who trapped you here? It had to stab me in the back to get me down! And even then it couldn’t hold me… so what damned chance do you have?”

He had a predator’s grin as he brandished his spear. “You’d better hope you kill me fast. If you let me remember just who I used to be…”

He chuckled.

“This won’t end pretty for you.”

Draegmir didn’t seem very moved. 

Stronger… is not enough. It whispered. Strong… for mankind… is... a speck of dust. The might of the Old Ones… lies beyond your knowing... beyond the very realm… 

It pointed a trembling finger at that broken moon, and a pillar of blistering moonlight came down. Scalding the bones, swelling them with seas of Destruction.

“We’re going all out, are we?"

The Sage cracked his neck.

“Right then. Let’s do this thing.”