Savage Awakening 433. All Out (I)

By the end of it, craters razed the dunes flat. The desert was a smoking wreck.

Warning!

Health under 75%

Calculating…

+0.28 Credits

That’s what he was talking about.

This past week had been a little dull. The fights weren't putting up much of a challenge anymore. When he didn’t use all his strength—when it wasn’t needed—he just didn’t feel the same.

But this hit the spot.

He looked over the destruction with satisfaction.

With his million-year Forgotten Bone powering his body and his new Minor God essence, his Health was pumping right back up. The cuts down his arms were healing in real time.

The higher grade his body got, the more it took to regenerate.

His new Minor God essence boosted his regeneration several times.

He still felt like he was just getting warmed up.

It was a good thing, too—he had a feeling things were just getting started.

Sure enough…

Just seconds after the Emperor fell, Distortion Fields erupted out of the sands.

Hundreds of half-step True Gods rose from the sands—but at the back were the real heavy-hitters. Three Distortion Fields, stacking heavy one atop another…

And for the first time in ages, Zane felt what it was like to be slightly suppressed.

The half-steps were Terracotta soldiers. Their bodies were the equivalent of low-grade Primordial treasures, by the feel of it—their clay swords inscribed with dulled runes. Hollow men without much aura. Their swords weren’t even sharp.

But what they lacked in magic, they made up for in physique. Those were no mere clay bodies.

He could tell just by their presence in the Astral Plane—they would be harder to break than Heaven-grade steel.

Each soldier was a raw test of physique.

And behind them, heavier units—golems that crawled on all fours. Their bodies screamed with corrupted machinery.

Floating serenely behind them were the three True Gods—each a spindly undead creature, heads lost in the shadows of their cowls, tattered cloaks fluttering in still air.

Priest of the First Apocalypse (Monster Prince)

Essence Level 628

Priest of the First Apocalypse (Monster Prince)

Essence Level 630

Priest of the First Apocalypse (Monster Prince)

Essence Level 628

Their skin was like gray living stone, cracked slightly; their eyes milky-white. They clutched staffs carved of bone. And as they flew closer, they chanted hoarsely in an unknown, Monstrous tongue.

The Distortion Fields intensified.

They beat down on Zane like the rays of a black sun.

He didn’t just let that stand.

A heartbeat later, he unleashed his domain to the fullest—and a golden sun raged to life, searing at the black, challenging it for supremacy.

For a moment, the gold flexed; black and gold wrestled down the line, and reality scorched open where they met—

But Zane held his own.

The Priests hissed. They thrust out their staffs just as the clay soldiers closed in.

The curses struck instantly. There was no dodging. They fell on him like chains in the Astral Plane—he felt a lash of heavy fatigue. His eyelids felt heavy. His body felt horribly sore.

He clenched his teeth.

Then his bloody runes seared. A hot-blooded rage, flexing against that weight—

The curses shattered, one by one.

Then he took a step.

The sands shivered.

He took another.

And the sands jumped twice as high.

He charged the clay army head-on.

Each step he took thickened the gravity around him.

Until he was charging headlong, one man facing down an army.

The army charged too.

But in a battle of sheer physical might, you did not go toe-to-toe with a charging Titan Rhinoceros.

And blow by blow, he cracked them open as though they were made of common clay.

Then he turned on the Priests. And explosions blacked out the sky.

By the end of it…

There stood Zane, once more.

Blood streaking down his heaving chest—a few ribs broken. Some of those golems had gotten some good thumps in after getting a huge buff from the Priests; at the same time, they’d cursed him with weakness.

It was enough to damage him.

He was bruised all over too—he must’ve taken a couple hundred hard thumps back there, even as he wasted them. Swords slamming against his head, battering his back, his arms…

In the end, he had just over 60% Health left.

He felt none of the pain. His body was running too hot for that.

Calculating…

+0.32 Credits

He checked his total.

7.48 Credits

He wiped the blood off his lips.

Just one or two more waves.

“Is that all you’ve got?” he breathed.

As though on cue.

The sands began to tremble.

Then it was as though hills were rising out of the earth—but those were no hills.

War Mammoth (Essence Level 622)

Two tusks to either side, ringed with heavy enchanted gold. Runes matted their shaggy cloaks; the bodies underneath seethed with Monstrous energies.

Four tanks of True Gods. Each wielding three 100,000-year Monstrous Bones.

At the same time—charging down the slopes—were hundreds of the ugliest beasts he’d seen in ages.

Leucrotta (Monster Prince)

Essence Level 599

Slobbering hairless hounds with tumors protruding all over their bodies. Their heads at least two sizes bigger than their bodies, their dagger teeth jutting at all angles, slicked with drool. Each stood at half-step True God.

Zane shook out his arms. He wasn’t all the way healed. But his body had recovered enough to take this.

As they drew near, he made sure to feel the malevolence coming at him. The killing intent, the hunger…

His heart just beat even faster.

He threw himself into the chaos.

Warning!

Health under 25%

Zane dropped to a knee, heaving.

Nearly a thousand Gods had tried to take his life in the past hour.

None had succeeded.

But still—“Alright,” he said, shaking out his head. “That was pretty good.”

He was starting to feel the weight of it now.

His essence reserves were starting to run low.

He checked his credits.

7.93 Credits

…He was so close he could feel it.

Then he blinked.

It hadn’t been tallied up yet. Did it tick up in real time?

He stood, looked around, and realized there were a few Leucrotta left, hobbling toward him.

He thought about waiting them out so he could heal up, just in case there was still a wave left. He felt a little too battered for his liking.

About 10 seconds later, though—

Stalling will commence the next wave immediately.

“…Fine.”

A final smash, and they went still.

When he checked again—

7.94 Credits.

He clenched a fist.

He was so close he could feel it.

That Stone was nearly his.

And with it, Tier 6 Law.

He wasn’t even really sure what it looked like for him. Though…

He had a pretty good guess.

180 seconds until the Final Wave.

It wasn’t over after all. Though he was surprised he had time to recover, at least a little.

…He had a feeling this thing would be something else.

He just focused on healing. Sat down cross-legged, closed his eyes, and let his body get to work.

Bones mended. Torn muscles stitched back up.

15 seconds until the Final Wave

He was up to 75% Health.

His essence didn’t regenerate quite as fast, but he had enough to do some serious damage—half his tank or so.

It would have to be enough.

Before long, the sands started shaking again.

And this time, the reverberation started in the Astral Plane.

And the ground began to split.

For a second, he thought the whole dimension might break apart—a fissure carved through the heart of the world.

Then something emerged from the depths. Something vast and ancient.

A pyramid. Shining, bronze, a steely eye gazing solemnly out. It flickered—stared down at Zane with hatred.

A golden door down its face cracked open.

A single figure shambled out.

Jotunkamun, the Curse Pharaoh (Monster Prince)

Essence Level 634

It hobbled on air, a gilded staff in its mummified hand—a spindly, thin being wrapped entirely in unspooling bandages. Its eyes were hollow and empty, its mouth just a maw.

Its bandages were slowly flaking off, exposing flesh teeming with maggots. Those bandages were smeared black. They trailed lines of hissing black down the surface of reality.

That Law…

Zane frowned.

It had a different kind of gravity in the Astral Plane.

Tier 7. It had to be.

That jump in tier was like comparing a planet to a star.

Noughtfire’s Laws were Tier 7.

Though this Law was nothing like Noughtfire’s—Noughtfire’s was rife with Destruction; it stood at the peak, where this Law had only the base.

But still—the weight of it was more than enough to suppress him.

The moment he thought he knew, he'd have to take it very seriously. It was infecting reality like nothing he’d seen; the sands, which were already tarred, were decomposing like living things. Wounds were opening up in the air, giving way to void holes, tears in reality—like that Distortion Field was spreading plague to reality itself.

It didn’t just smother what life it found—it destroyed it.

He didn’t have to feel it to know there would be no shrugging that off. Not with his Laws as they were now.

But that Priest wasn’t all.

Behind him, two other True God auras rose, like black-headed storks; their great wings flapped, and stormy Laws flowed off. Tornadoes burst into being.

Cursed Ibis (Monster Prince)

Essence Level 622

…The thing had brought birds.

And behind them—spilling all over the dunes—

Sacred Gold Scarab (Monster Grand Knight)

Essence Level 599

Each the size of a fist, crawling like ants; there were too many to count. A cloud of Pseudo-fields wiped out the skies in the Astral Plane…

By themselves, they would’ve made a formidable wave.

Now they all came at him together.

He knew instinctively—just looking at that mass—he had no margin for error.

He took out his chains, and axes thudded into the sands.

He’d have to make this count.