Savage Awakening 486. Exploding Golems (II)

He’d never been hit like this. Not even by the Slayer, which had given him his worst beating yet.

He heard something in his arms crack with the force and gritted his teeth.

Then the punch kept going. It blasted him through the chest, sending him tumbling head over heels; he thudded, slamming into boulders and dirt. At last, he landed in a crouch, wiped blood from his mouth, and heaved.

It had smashed him all the way out of its world.

He was bloodied—but he could still stand and clench his fists.

He wasn’t anywhere near having the fight beaten out of him.

The new strength of his body grew clearer and clearer. Even the way the cracks were mending, the bruised flesh healing.

He could take quite a few hits like that, he felt. And still have it in him to go on.

Even smarting, watching the Golem staggering closer, he felt heartened.

The man who’d gotten destroyed just a few years ago by the Slayer—who could barely even fight back—that wasn’t Zane in his mind.

Right now—after wrecking that Ice Golem-Lord, after taking that smash, and standing—

This. This was who he was. He grinned bloodily.

It was enough to pump him up—it just made him want to give that thing his all. No matter what this thing’s power level was.

Its Inner Universe was resetting. Preparing, just as he was, for round two.

When it charged this time, he blasted out of the way early—before he could get stuck in that forest. He watched it charge by before cranking all the way back and treating it to a smash of his own.

The moment his Red Giant Smash broke into that forest world, it was like watching a cannonball pass into the ocean. His blow only made it through because he’d loaded that thing with all he had. It fought uphill all the way until it smashed into the Golem’s broad back.

But it still connected.

It mowed down one of those grand trees on its way and blasted away a good chunk of rock.

The Golem made a rumbling sound, a growling like an earthquake. As it stomped over in a turn, setting to face him again, Zane set himself too.

It was getting pretty clear he’d need to go all out for this one. He’d have to push his body. Rage into Limit-Breaker and see which of them broke first. Now that he’d felt what half-step Empyrean meant… the Law gap—the essence gap—it felt too massive.

The only chance he had to bridge it would be with his body.

2 years passed!

Zane blinked.

48 years remain in the Lost Library.

“…”

He felt a bit silly all of a sudden. There was an imaginary Reina in his head giving him an unamused look.

…Maybe going life and death with a reusable training golem wasn’t the best use of his limited Law time.

He gave the Golem a frown.

“…Fine.”

He paused the simulation. Just for now.

“I’ll get back to you,” he informed the Green Golem. “We’re not done.”

After he got the hang of his Concept, then they’d see.

First, though—probably best he figured this thing out.

He dismissed the thing, feeling it was a bit of a shame.

He got out another Red Golem. The kind of thing he could experiment with—a good practice dummy.

His fists blazed with Red Giant.

This time he’d see if he could put some extra Fusion into his Smashes.

***

Weeks passed into months like this—then years…

Zane did poke his head out of the Library every once in a while, just to get some mail.

“Evan update 6!” cried Evan.

This one was pretty short. Evan seemed in a much better mood—beaming this time, not sniffling. This was more like the Evan he knew.

“Just last week we found this big pawprint going through the Seal King’s ice-float kingdom,” said Evan. “There were also some reports of big stores of food being stolen…”

He was buzzing.

“I really think Chomper’s still out there!”

He looked like he’d gotten his hopefulness back, which was quite good to see.

In other news, the System had started giving him some extra credits—a reward for making it another floor up the tower.

“I’m gonna save up,” said Evan. “I think I’m gonna try to get my Grand Circle too! I’m gonna find Chomper and get my Concepts, that’s the plan.”

He nodded happily.

There wouldn’t be much time to sit around and meditate, by the sounds of it. He had a feeling Evan had a long journey ahead of him. The tower was fifty floors, and he’d made it through just four—and they only got harder as they went.

He’d seen an option to quickly learn Concepts in the System Store. Though it was one of the highest-tier rewards, and the cost, for him, was over 40 Credits per Concept.

It sounded a lot less for Evan, though. Likely because his Laws didn’t have any Destruction.

With how much Destruction Zane had stuffed in, he knew his Red Giant—even without any Concepts yet—could outdo any other Tier 6 Law.

It made sense it’d cost a lot more to progress. He’d accepted that, coming in—he didn’t mind.

Grinding out this first Concept was going quite well, he felt.

He was just glad Evan was himself again. He remembered how much trouble Evan had had feeling confident in himself when he’d first met him. But over the years, Evan had worked hard to get a can-do attitude going. Zane was quite proud of him. Losing Chomper could easily have shaken him for a while—he still did seem a little unsure. But he was still doing his best.

Zane also got a brief Avery update.

“Okay, so,” said Avery. “Remember when I said I was gonna do something a few months ago?”

Zane did remember that.

She put her hands together. “I will admit,” she said. “I am running a little behind schedule on that. There have been unforeseen delays.”

“…”

“Hey, listen,” she said defensively. “I do have a plan this time! See, here’s the thing. I want to kick that big snake’s butt as much as anyone! But it’s like 90 years away. Usually, I start preparing for stuff the night before, y’know? …Probably not a good idea with this one, though…”

Zane could agree with that.

“I’m gonna need to make it happen,” said Avery, squinting. “Unfortunately, 2 years straight of lying on a beach has destroyed any willpower I had. Also, I think it would’ve been really hard to stay focused for 90 years straight. So here’s the fix.”

She got out a graph. It had an X-axis that said ‘awesomeness,’ and a Y-axis that said ‘time.’

“I will admit, I’m starting pretty low right now,” she said. She pointed to the first data point—right in the bottom-left-hand corner.

“But here’s the thing! I’m gonna build good habits,” she said. “I just need to outsmart myself, y’know? Get my stuff together, one step at a time—and if I just keep doing a little bit each week, it’s gonna snowball. I just need to get 1% better every week!”

She made a line going up and up.

“If I can just do that, imagine where I’m gonna be in 98 years! I will be very powerful.”

She seemed quite pleased with this plan.

“I’m gonna start next week by eliminating diet sodas. We’re gonna go from there, one step at a time.”

***

More years went by like this—before he knew it, another decade went by. Most of it was spent comprehending and testing himself against the Golem-Lords. So it went surprisingly fast.

After the System and all his level-ups, he barely aged anymore. His perception of time changed quite a bit. It didn’t feel nearly that long.

He did get quite familiar with the infrastructure of Dara and the plumbing systems in that time. Lots of tubes filled with Dark Gold going every which way. There were some ‘stills’ included in the book—just snapshots of streets and generators, done in three dimensions. Stuff he could walk through and feel like he was really there.

All the while, he kept getting closer and closer to that breaking point…

***

One day he headed out of his studies and got an invitation—it was from Reina. He left right away.

He arrived at the World Tree to find it in celebration. Their Mistress had just finished up her Ritual—and it was rumored she’d even woken up some of the World Tree’s latent powers, its ancient Creation-stores, in the process.

Time might feel a lot less significant nowadays, but he’d still missed her quite a bit.

The invitation had been sent a few months ago since he was still in the Library. She was giving a speech to the high council when he arrived.

He waited in the lobby for her to finish. He was a bit big for the sleek elvish seats—it felt a little awkward. After half an hour, she headed out, down a spiral of silver stairs, looking all regal. Then she saw him.

“Zane!”

She sprinted over, all dignity forgotten, and kissed him. She was glowing—something about her seemed subtly brighter… she just had a certain aura to her. 

“Hey.” He felt a familiar warmth as she rested her head on his chest. “I heard the ritual went well.”

“Mhm. There’s so much to go over…” She looked around. “Not here.” 

She led him down the main street—up a familiar staircase up the side of the World Tree, all the way to their canopy palace.

She still had a few Elven prince suitors. Though at this point, they’d seen their queen and Zane go up that staircase quite a few times—they seemed to have gotten the message.

He’d overheard two slim, handsome elf princes with nicely oiled hair talking it over as he was waiting in the lobby. Their queen—for reasons none of them seemed to get—was very pleased with this strange barbarian man. It seemed to make them quite despondent.