It beat its wings and hot summer gales rushed down the canyon. The winds spun into each other, faster and faster, catching fire, until a little burning tornado sped down the canyon floor—and lost itself, petering out a hundred different ways, smoking to nothing.
The Phoenix beat its wings again, and another tornado took shape. Then again, and again, and again, and each beat birthed a new disaster. The volcanoes swirled around each other; their gale-force winds tugged at each other, pulling each other in until they merged in violent flashes, one after another, growing bigger and bigger, a burning pyre of furious air. It towered up higher than any of the rocks, towered so high it spread halfway across the vast ceiling of the lair.
But Zane didn't sit idle. His attack was a lot alike. While the Phoenix spewed out as tornadoes he kept kept spinning his Axes, and his own Cyclone never stopped building. It grew scalding, incandescent with white flame, a broad wide piercingly bright saucer set against the Phoenix's shrieking deep-red tower.
The two spun toward each other, slowly at first, then faster and faster as they drew near. The Phoenix screeched at Zane, spewing fire. Zane grinned back.
White fire met red fire.
And the red won. There was a brutal blast of heat, of air, and his Cyclone staggered, spun back, almost spun out of control. The sheer force of the clash—the sheer violence of it—crashed through the Cyclone winds and dashed itself on Zane's body. He felt like a fly swatted away. This wasn't burning he was used to—something huge and instantaneous, expiring all at once. A blast that racked his body.
He choked. He spat blood.
These were the Phoenix's Laws. The Laws of Combustion. The fire Laws that governed the incredible powers that lay dormant in Mount Saint Helens.
𝕎𝕒𝕣𝕟𝕚𝕟𝕘: ℍ𝕖𝕒𝕝𝕥𝕙 𝕦𝕟𝕕𝕖𝕣 𝟝𝟘%!
𝕊𝕒𝕧𝕒𝕘𝕖 𝔹𝕠𝕕𝕪 𝕒𝕔𝕥𝕚𝕧𝕒𝕥𝕖𝕕
𝕊𝕥𝕣𝕖𝕟𝕘𝕥𝕙 𝕚𝕟𝕔𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕤𝕖𝕕 𝟚𝟝%
𝕊𝕡𝕖𝕖𝕕 𝕚𝕟𝕔𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕤𝕖𝕕 𝟚𝟝%
𝕍𝕚𝕥𝕒𝕝𝕚𝕥𝕪 𝕚𝕟𝕔𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕤𝕖𝕕 𝟚𝟝%
At the same time, though, the tornado caught fire.
The red met the white, and the white spread over, started torching the red, started cannibalizing the red. Fire caught fire.
Combustion was fiercest at the moment of impact. But after? Well, Zane had two fire Laws, and the Phoenix only had one.
Slowly the Cyclone fought its way back. Zane stopped listening to his ears. There was nothing to hear—or rather, there was too much to hear. It was white noise voice cranked to maximum volume, painful and meaningless.
The edges of the tornado were almost all-white now, and Zane started pressing, waiting forward, grinning, baring teeth. The Phoenix fought harder, beat harder, and more and more tornadoes shot forth.
There was nothing Zane could do but take them. He couldn't stop the explosions.
𝕎𝕒𝕣𝕟𝕚𝕟𝕘! ℍ𝕖𝕒𝕝𝕥𝕙 𝕦𝕟𝕕𝕖𝕣 𝟚𝟝%!
All his Skills so far were very offensive, nothing defensive, nothing that could help here. Maybe that was just how his mind was oriented—maybe the skills suited the person? Not all Warriors had his Titan's Fist—
Another blast rocked him head to toe and he stopped thinking about it. He threw himself, all of himself, into his Cyclone. Eagerly, joyfully, he set himself on fire.
A blast rocked him again. And again. And again—
He was starting to feel it, something profound. He was starting to grin. Yes, there it was—that little crack, that place where the universe took off its mask and showed its true face. He was coming to it!
𝕎𝕒𝕣𝕟𝕚𝕟𝕘! ℂ𝕣𝕚𝕥𝕚𝕔𝕒𝕝 𝕙𝕖𝕒𝕝𝕥𝕙!
𝕊𝕒𝕧𝕒𝕘𝕖 𝕓𝕠𝕕𝕪 𝕒𝕔𝕥𝕚𝕧𝕒𝕥𝕖𝕕
𝕊𝕥𝕣𝕖𝕟𝕘𝕥𝕙 𝕚𝕟𝕔𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕤𝕖𝕕 𝟝𝟘%
𝕊𝕡𝕖𝕖𝕕 𝕚𝕟𝕔𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕤𝕖𝕕 𝟝𝟘%
𝕍𝕚𝕥𝕒𝕝𝕚𝕥𝕪 𝕚𝕟𝕔𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕤𝕖𝕕 𝟝𝟘%
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Avery leap to her feet.
"Stay out of it!" he shouted. And he grinned bloodily. "I have it!"
She must've read his lips—she stilled.
And he did have it. He could feel it. He was so close—no!
The tornado was trembling. The crack in the Universe was vanishing. Just a little more, just a few more explosions, and he could tear it open. He could see the Truth of it, the capital-T Truth, he could feel it, literally, burning within—
But the Phoenix couldn't take much more. It was burning out. His Cyclone was only growing, and now its tornado spun erratically, loosening, the head tilting end to end. Its fires flickered like a candle in a harsh wind.
Then, all at once, the tornado went out.
And the Cyclone broke through and struck the Phoenix full force. It screeched.
All his essence, built up revolution on revolution on revolution, poured into that one boss's body. All at once.
It exploded. Combustion.
Ash.
It was over. Like that.
He blinked. Then he frowned, frustrated. The crack vanished in the air. He grasped after it, caught nothing. The Phoenix dissolved; its essence flowed into him. It wasn't enough for a Level. Just barely not enough.
He knew exactly how close he was, too—he could see almost all of Combustion's inner workings now, the way it acted in the universe. All you needed to do was capture it, peer through that crack—and find it in himself. Act it out himself, turn knowledge to action, make it his own, and he would have it.
Few things got him as excited as fighting. He'd discovered learning these Laws was a close second. A distant third, Leveling. After that… he wasn't sure. He tried cocaine once and it was alright, he supposed. It had nothing on fighting though.
Now all his excitement had nowhere to go.
Why did that Phoenix have to die so easily? He was so close to a level, so close to a Law...
"Zane!" cried Avery. "Look!"
A small glowing marble lay where the Phoenix had been, the color of molten rock. Its hues swirled slowly under its shiny surface.
Right. It was a Phoenix—it had that respawn skill, didn't it?
The core caught fire. It started burning brighter and brighter, growing bigger—
"You have to destroy the core!" called Avery, "Before it rises again!"
He thought about it. He smiled.
Then he started walking back to her.
"What are you doing? Go whack it, you big lump!"
"Hand me the Bag of Holding," he said. "I'll need some essence stones."
"What?"
"Can you cloak me while I heal? Should be half an hour, maybe. Then I'm good."
"Zane, what the hell are you—"
"You play video games?"
"A little?"
"Have you heard about this thing called farming?"
"… Oh my God." She buried her face in her palms.
Time for round two.
***
Cyclone raged against tornado and forced it back. The Phoenix could only watch as its greatest weapon was slowly shredded apart. And Zane looked into the center of it, into the heart of it. Little explosions rocked him over and over. He sought out the Truth.
He found it. He—
𝕎𝕒𝕣𝕟𝕚𝕟𝕘! ℍ𝕖𝕒𝕝𝕥𝕙 𝕦𝕟𝕕𝕖𝕣 𝟚𝟝%!
Just a few seconds later, the Phoenix gave its final dying screech and blew out.
Its essence came pouring into him.
𝕃𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕝 𝕌𝕡!
𝔼𝕤𝕤𝕖𝕟𝕔𝕖 𝕃𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕝 𝟝𝟡 -> 𝟞𝟘
Hey, nice.
He had it now. He understood Combustion. But he was still missing a piece. He saw the shape of it in the world, but he still had to combust himself. Somehow.
He thought about it as the Phoenix slowly respawned.
He went at it again, this time he tried to put more umph into his Cyclone. He got closer, he felt, but when the Phoenix sputtered out he was still on the edge of something great. Not there. He tried again.
He got his Cyclone to a blinding peak this time. He shredded the Phoenix before it even got him under 50% health. Still, though... somehow, just a little bit off.
𝕊𝕜𝕚𝕝𝕝 𝕌𝕡!
𝕀𝕟𝕗𝕖𝕣𝕟𝕠 ℂ𝕪𝕔𝕝𝕠𝕟𝕖 𝕀𝕀 -> 𝕀𝕀𝕀
Neat consolation prize, at least.
He tested his Cyclone now, did a couple of spins as he waited for the Phoenix to respawn. It only took him two spins to get where it took five last time. And at its peak, it was a lot more devastating. It threatened to bring the chamber down. This thing… each Skill-Up made it a hell of a lot stronger.
He killed the Phoenix again. This time it was almost trivial. And again. And he got another Level out of it, but he still hovered on the edge of the Law. He was starting to go a little mad.
Somehow his Cyclone didn't feel right. It was a slow thing, building into a juggernaut. Yes. He was going about this all wrong. Combustions didn't build. Combustions struck in a single instant. Boom.
He was using the wrong tool. Maybe... Inferno Lash? He blinked at his Axes. These were just Axe form, right? Could he still... He willed the Axe heads away. The Chains reverted. They were as they had been before the class switch, just thicker, longer, and far heavier.
Okay. Let's try again.
This time, when the Phoenix spat her tornado at him, he blasted it with a Lash. Fire exploded on fire; they blasted each other out. Yes—he felt it! He came in closer, Lashing one after another after another. When the Phoenix was struggling to keep up, at a touch, instantly, all at once—
His Lash whipped through the fires. For a second, all he could see were worlds of intense reds and whites. A single glorious flash.
𝕃𝕒𝕨 ℂ𝕠𝕞𝕡𝕣𝕖𝕙𝕖𝕟𝕕𝕖𝕕!
𝕄𝕚𝕟𝕠𝕣 𝕃𝕒𝕨 𝕠𝕗 ℂ𝕠𝕞𝕓𝕦𝕤𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟 (𝔼𝕝𝕖𝕞𝕖𝕟𝕥𝕒𝕝 𝕃𝕒𝕨𝕤 𝕠𝕗 𝔽𝕚𝕣𝕖)
He was so excited he almost let out a cheer. Which he'd done maybe once or twice in his life. It shocked him. He felt something burn hot against the lining of his pant pocket, reached in, and yanked out a crystal.
ℍ𝕖𝕒𝕣𝕥 𝕠𝕗 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕍𝕠𝕝𝕔𝕒𝕟𝕠
The crystal he'd gotten from the Drake's hoard, the one with the fires in the middle burning with Eruption. Avery had said just having it on him would help him grasp Fire Laws. Suddenly things made sense—he had a feeling this had sped it up a lot. Before, with Ignition and Undying Flame, he'd had those things within. They simply lay dormant.
It was different with Combustion. He had to start from scratch. This treasure had given him a head start.
In sum, he farmed the Phoenix for twelve hours and three levels before its core went dark and gave out.
***
"You're in a good mood," said Avery.
Zane grunted. He supposed he was.
"I mean, your face looks about the same as usual," she continued, grinning, "but I can just tell."
They were backtracking, heading for the fork at the start of the second floor. They were off to explore the other side—the Brimstone Golem's region.
After that fight he'd come across a pleasant realization. There wasn't such a thing as too easy. He didn't need to hold himself back from leveling or getting stronger. He had to be on the edge of something, but that something didn't need to be death all the time. If he wanted to make a challenge, he could just handicap himself. Fight with base Chains instead of Axes, for instance. Even if this Brimstone Golem couldn't stand with him, he could use it like a training tool. He could make things fun.
On this side of the fork, there was much less lava, much more coal, and its namesake brimstone. The lava snaked through the ground in thousands of little cracks but seldom shot up over the surface.
The Monsters here were not interesting to Zane. These things called Shardlings, spiky fiends like jagged rocks glued together, but he swept them away with ease. Same thing with coal golems—a little bigger, like boulders glued, and little volcanoes shot out the tops of their heads, spilling lava. They looked cool but were just too weak. They weren't worth his time. Where was this boss? He was itching to try it out.
On the way, they found a treasure area. He didn't even bother checking it before he walked in—he just saw a bunch of red dots, swept his Chain down the room, and they all winked out.
"This is weird," said Avery. "It's the most relaxed I've ever been in a D-rank dungeon."
She frowned at him. "Man… I wish I had a Master Ball, so I could catch you and stuff you in my pocket. Then I could just bring you around whenever I go dungeon diving. Life would be so much easier."
Sometimes Avery said things that went in one ear, scrambled his brain, and fell out the other ear without leaving any meaning behind. "Uh," he said.
"Zane, use Smash!"
"…"
They were getting close to the treasure area. He felt the heat of it beating on his face. The air grew dense. It felt hard to breathe…