Savage Awakening 495. The Lost Ruins (VI)

That said—he was feeling pretty spent. Physically as well as essence-wise. The Sage passed him an iced drink, a bottle of ice blue streaked with lightning-whites. 

“It’s the good stuff,” the Sage explained.

Zane inspected it a bit, then shrugged, and downed it in a single gulp.

It was quite sweet. The moment it went down, a shock of bright cold essence went through his head—like a cold cider on a hot summer’s day. That essence shot right through him. His muscles started swelling with it again. 

It was really quite nice. He wondered what was in it. “What’s it called?” He figured he might ask Reina to get her hands on some. 

“Not really sure, to be honest,” said the Sage, scratching his head. “Found it in a wine cellar on this big ol’ resource planet. There was this one Empyrean Alchemist I had a run-in with—the Sky Snow Alchemist. Evil little bastard. All kinds of tricks up his sleeves—old guy had these elemental bombs. He threw one at me and trapped me in a glacier for 3 months! Ended up plundering his stuff once I’d fought him off... Say what you like about the man—he knew his juices.” 

Zane nodded.

“Damn…” The Sage clenched his fist, looking around at the wreckage. “Now you’ve got me all worked up too! Figure there’s got to be a few Empyreans around here, eh?” 

“I was hoping they’d put up more of a challenge,” said Zane honestly. 

The Sage chuckled. “Damned brat. Well—if it’s a challenge you want, I’ll bet a damned bone you’ll find it right there.”

The Sage pointed. 

Zane looked over through the smoke—and there, rising out of the wreckage, he saw proud towers belching smoke… it was one of the few buildings that’d survived his storm. It looked like it’d come out unblemished. 

“The Grandmaster’s Forge,” explained the Sage. “All the best steels you’d want—it’s got right there.” 

They stomped on closer. 

 The Forge was a behemoth of crude boxy steel, lit up angry red from the inside. It hunched over a plaza, riddled with smoke-stacks—stacks that still bellowed mightily, though there was no-one there to work them. 

Molten red streaks ran down the side of the building—flowing magma rife with fire Laws, leading into the guts of the place. 

They found it wide open.

 There—stacked heavy on the walls the walls—were just the steels the Sage had predicted. 

One, shining with the light of the sun. Another that looked like a shard of moon, taken right out of the sky. A third so dense, so rife with gravity it seemed to bend the whole shelf around it. 

That one particularly appealed to Zane. His stomach rumbled some. 

There were a few workstations off to the side, smaller ones. They each got a line of magma. But most of those lines was in the middle—where the bulk of the action went down.

There lay a single furnace so big it seemed to make the heart of the Forge. The heat coming off it was brutal—it seemed to cow the fabric of reality, bent it to its might for miles, making it shiver. All the streets and walls and shelves nearby had to be reinforced with Divine Profound steel, just to stand in its presence. They still looked on the verge of melting. 

When Zane looked to the Forge, he found no Monsters in the surroundings.

It wasn’t just that he’d wrecked most of them. He doubted any of the beasts he’d fought could stand in that heat. 

There was just one Monster in the Forge—and it sat exactly where the hearth was. The lone beast that didn't get dragged out by his storm. 

“Half step Empyrean,” breathed Zane. He wasn’t sure just how strong of a half-step it was—but there was no mistaking that fire- and steel- and earth-Law, all packed dense into a single Law aura… it had to be at the Grand Circle of Tier 7. Or close to it. 

It was just a faint aura. Most of it was lost in the flames—but he sensed there was still more lying dormant in there. Something sleeping in those world-melting fires. 

It intrigued him. 

“Right!” said the Sage brightly. He gave Zane a slap on the back. “You go get ‘em!” 

Zane made for the forge, feeling hopeful. 

He was always one for a good domination. He’d enjoyed his fair share, in his time. But it felt like ever since he beat that green golem, he’d never really gotten a good challenge—nothing that could take him to the brink, that could bring the best out of him. 

He felt sometimes like his body was a weapon that sharpened with every fight. It was time to knock off some rust. 

With all that high-quality treasure—all that energy searing into the furnace— 

He figured this had to be good. Something worthy of him. 

He stepped into the shadow of the Forge. And there he caught sight of the Monster. 

The flames around it flickered star-white. He saw its bones lying in the heart that furnace—for a second it felt like he was staring into the core of a very big star. All heat and incredibly high-grade molten steel…

The only things intact were the bones. 

Each twice the thickness of human bone. 

They’d belonged to a dwarf once—quite a strong one, by the feel of it. Those bones had become treasures unto themselves, tempered in that immense heat… he felt the residue of a soul on them. Some dwarf grandmaster, by what the Sage had said—someone who’d been thrown into his own Forge, and perished there.

Someone who’d been taking in all that flame, tempered in it, for millions of years.

Then it all began to stir. 

Zane’s fists clenched. 

The bones started welding together. The skull’s eye-holes went delirious with green light. The skeleton groaned.

Then it crawled out of the forge. Groping its way out, snatching up big chunks of molten Divine Profound steel as it did, steel that hardened into a great suit of armor, all around it… as it stepped out, it dug its fists into the molten rock, and pulled out two giant wrenches. 

When it drew itself to full height, stepping out of the fire, it was eight feet tall—and nearly as thick. 

The more Zane saw, the more intrigued he got—especially by those Laws. 

It almost felt like his own. He was sure it wasn’t the line of Stormfire. But it drew of fire, and earth, and steel too—there was an explosive edge to it, an incredible density that reminded him of the Red Giant. And that armor had to be Divine Profound grade… 

Forgemaster (Monster King) 

Essence Level 699

This would do nicely, he felt. He was sure it had to be stronger than the Green Golem.  He cracked his neck, readying himself to get to work. 

But it turned out the Monster wasn’t done. 

It let out a groan, and raised its wrenches. 

The forge began to tremble. 

Creation seared the air—and that which was dormant came alive. 

Cogs on the shelves were yanked through the air as though by some heavy magnetic field. Big lumps of sunsteel and infinisteel tumbled off the wall, smashing together, clinging to the cogs—CLANG-CLANG-CLANG!

At first Zane was baffled. Then he saw what was going on. 

Two massive creatures were being smashed into being before his very eyes.

In a blink they were complete.  

One, as big and golden as the sun. The other—dark, and ridden with density Laws. 

Each bearing the aura of a half-step Empyrean.

Zane blinked. 

Fair enough—he didn’t see that one coming. 

He was just considering how best to approach this thing when a slot opened up in the belly of the sun golem. He was greeted by the mouth of a cannon. 

He frowned at this cannon. 

Then it blasted him. 

 ***

BOOM!
The Barbarian Stage winced as he saw his disciple take one straight to the face. 

That actually staggered Zane a few steps. Then the other golem rolled like a wrecking ball. 

Zane had barely gotten his bearings when—CLANG!

His disciple went tumbling, roaring, trying to wrestle a star’s worth of steel off of him. 

Then the dwarf advanced on him. The sun-golem rolled forward too, priming its cannons, its flails—it looked like a boss and its goons, coming to finish off the wounded hero. 

“On your feet, lad!” roared the Sage. 

Now, those golems didn’t have false worlds. No souls. That was a good thing—in some ways they didn't hit as hard as a flesh-and-bone fighter. 

That said—

Zane had still just been thwacked straight to the dome by a truly absurd amount of infinisteel. 

Still, the Sage had heart. He believed in his disciple, alright. If there was one thing about that lad it was that he could take a good hit.

Sure enough, Zane was already stumbling back up. He looked fine after shaking his head a bit—just miffed. He stared down the golems, taking the measure of them. Then their boss. 

That dwarf was the most dangerous of the crew. That was easy enough to feel. It was the one with that false Universe—a universe that looked like an inside look into the mantle of some huge planet, a world of shifting dark-silvers and other molten colors too, like it’d taken out the world of the furnace, and shoved it into reality. Those Laws gave its minions a hell of a lot of extra firepower. 

Those wrenches were trouble too. The Sage could sense some kind of soul-connection between them—some way for the Forgemaster to control them. 

He was curious how Zane would take it on.

It didn’t take long for the lad to clock just what he was up against. He narrowed his eyes—and charged straight for the dwarf. 

“Good move,” muttered the Sage. It was what he would’ve done, at any rate—take down the big one first. The one calling the shots, putting up those Law-buffs. It’d make taking out the others much easier. 

But then the Golems closed ranks, blocking off their master. And the dwarf groaned again, hefting its wrenches. Wrenches that blazed silver. 

The Golems began to shift form. 

Those flails flattening. Cannons retracting. Limbs closing in, folding into heavy shields that bulged out in giant walls—and in a blink it was like staring down the walls of some blast bunker. 

They’d gone into some kind of ultra defense-mode. 

Normally, knowing his disciple with a bull-rush like that, the Sage would be pretty confident Zane could get through. 

But these Empyreans had changed to forms made to take impact.

They caught his momentum clean—and halted it.