One revolution and a circle of Stormfire sparked up. Two and they started to rise, twisting in the beginnings of a cyclone.
Then the Beetles made contact.
His Axe struck one and cleaved right through. Caught it around the neck and wrenched its head from its body. There was a brilliant flash, a blinding blast of red and yellow. The Axes kept going, cleaving a second, a third— and both erupted in giant crackling balls of lightning and fire, limbs spasming, grinding to sudden halts.
Each time he hit one of them, his Axe made a CLANG! And each time, their momentum stuttered a little. Cleaving through blocks of incredibly dense steel tended to do that. Zane forced his way through another revolution, and now they were swarming him in full—CLANG, CLANG, CLANG, went his Axes. Sparks flew. Heads flew like giant saucers. Pole-like limbs wheeled through the air.
He was wrecking them pretty well one by one. The problem was at this rate, he'd never get a true cyclone going. And he needed that to slay the swarm. If anything his Axes were losing momentum. No good. These things were just too thick and heavy. Even if he got to the 7th, 8th, and 9th revolutions, could his winds really suck them in? He was having trouble imagining lifting all these hulking things off the ground…
Then the Beetle King stepped in. And his Axes sank straight into it.
CLANG! CLANG!
The blast nearly took him off his feet. When he steadied himself, blinked the spots from his eyes, he saw his Axes sunken halfway through that bulging Titansteel shell. Deep enough to make the Beetle King spasm and rain acid spittle.
Not enough to kill it though.
Yeah. It was looking like he'd need a change of tactics. Sage Mind told him these things were weak in just one spot: the eyes. So that was where he'd aim.
The first Beetle reached him, and he lashed out with an Axe and put a Rising Storm Slash right through a big red eye. He was precise with it—only the eye. So when it made contact, when it exploded, all that essence roared straight through. And roasted it in a sudden blitz.
There was a scorched pit where its eye used to be. The Beetle keeled over, hissing as Stormfire ate on through, followed the weakness downward and found the flesh underneath. It raced down thick optic nerves, catching on muscle and bone. It started cooking the thing from the inside.
Zane leaped aside as it barreled past him; he slashed out the eyes of another. Then they were all on him, all trying to get a piece of him. There were eight or nine of them ganging up on him at once— it was just too crowded, too much to take in.
He breathed out deeply. And closed his eyes. Vision was too much noise right now— he reached out at the level of the soul. Sage Mind!
He poured all of his concentration on this one moment. He had to know all of them at once. He had to map all their shifting twisting feelings to the real world. It was hugely straining.
He shifted his head a foot to the left. A pincer whistled by that would've sliced off an ear. He spun, swung his Axe, and carved out a set of bug eyes. Then he ducked under, feeling the air whistling, buzzing above him. At the same time he lifted a leg; a pincer rippled through where his knee had been. He sliced the Beetle behind-and-to-the-left, felt a satisfying shock of pain, dropped into a somersault. He came back up just in time to see the Beetles on either side of him running into each other, pincers colliding like the horns of dueling stags.
And while they were tangled up, he Axed them both.
Now things were really looking post-apocalyptic. Dying beetles were scattered everywhere, lying there spasming, insides burning in their steel frames. It looked like a street of cars on fire. Ugly, demented cars, slowly melting. Silver pooled at their feet.
But a horde was still coming at him.
A pincer struck from the left. Then from the right, then under, then back left. He kept dodging, kept slashing. He was a little astounded by himself. He wasn't moving particularly well—some of these dodges were just him stumbling out of reach—but they worked, mostly. He was saved by the fact that even though his Dexterity was pretty low, these things were clumsy too. So it kind of evened out.
Until it didn't.
Just because you felt something coming didn't mean you could stop it. He felt a pincer coming left, and one coming right, and one coming front, and one coming back. All at once. And really, there were only so many directions. He tried going up, but that meant he was hanging in the air. Hard to move much then.
So he could only watch, pretty much, as the Beetle King's pincers yawned up and clamped deep into him.
And once that thing got a bite, it was all over.
The others latched onto him too. He felt pain stabbing up his legs. No less than four sets of pincers grabbed hold of his torso. Another tried sawing off his head. It wasn't even the pain, which was pretty bad. It was all the weight. The Beetles were just dogpiling on him; he had to bear the weight of a skyscraper.
The force was incredible. He'd never felt anything like it. It was a challenge.
Zane roared—not with pain or fear, but with the thrill of it. He was smiling, his blood was running furious hot. He flexed with all he had; he gave it everything. He knew he was strong. Even he didn't know just how strong.
He managed to make an inch of space. Shoving all that unfathomably huge mass back… and hit a wall. Not of the mind, but of the flesh.
Then, for the first time in as long as he could remember, his body failed him. His mind was straining with the effort, doing all it could; his body tried and tried. It was pretty surprising in real time. It'd been so long since he'd been overpowered… he wasn't sure it'd happened after the Change.
He lost ground inch by inch. Until he had no ground to give anymore.
And then they just started shredding him.
Fuck.
The vibrations were almost unbearable too. They made it very hard to think.
On the one hand, they were a surprisingly great demonstration of the Major Law of Echoing Clangor. They were literally beating the knowledge into him.
On the other hand, they were doing a very effective job of killing him.
Fine then. If they insisted on holding on to him, they also insisted on making themselves sitting ducks.
So when his Axes sliced down again they gored two or three at a time. Slashing out their eyes, pouring in his Stormfire. And soon their insides were turning to liquid.
But the bastards were still holding on. It was a race. He just had to burn them out before they—
𝕎𝕒𝕣𝕟𝕚𝕟𝕘!
ℍ𝕖𝕒𝕝𝕥𝕙 𝕦𝕟𝕕𝕖𝕣 𝟟𝟝%!
Oh boy.
He couldn't move anymore. It took every ounce of strength just to stop them from killing him. And his health was just dropping like a rock.
There was nothing he could do but keep pouring in essence. It was a pretty ridiculous race. They were like two snakes trying to swallow each other, locked in place, just struggling mightily—which would go down first?
It was looking like him… he was getting dangerously near 50%, and these things weren't letting up. Especially not that Beetle King. But Zane had an idea.
… But first, he had to get beat up a little more—
𝕎𝕒𝕣𝕟𝕚𝕟𝕘!
ℍ𝕖𝕒𝕝𝕥𝕙 𝕦𝕟𝕕𝕖𝕣 𝟝𝟘%!
𝕊𝕒𝕧𝕒𝕘𝕖 𝔹𝕠𝕕𝕪 𝔸𝕔𝕥𝕚𝕧𝕒𝕥𝕖𝕕!
𝕍𝕚𝕥𝕒𝕝𝕚𝕥𝕪 𝕀𝕟𝕔𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕤𝕖𝕕 𝟚𝟝%
𝕊𝕡𝕖𝕖𝕕 𝕀𝕟𝕔𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕤𝕖𝕕 𝟚𝟝%
𝕊𝕥𝕣𝕖𝕟𝕘𝕥𝕙 𝕀𝕟𝕔𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕤𝕖𝕕 𝟚𝟝%
There we go.
And Zane flexed, and screamed, and gave it all he had.
Still not enough to get them off him—not even close. It would have been especially hard now that his muscles were pretty shredded. But that wasn't what he aimed for. He just needed to make a little space.
A little space to slot a Chain through, wedging against his sides, blocking off those razor-sharp pincers. And now they were chewing on hard steel rather than soft arm flesh.
Make no mistake—he was still feeling the force of it pretty bad. But at least it was blunted now. And in this kind of race, every little bit mattered. Fiery renewal got to work on him, trying to salvage what it could of his crumpled-up body.
He'd seen one of those hydraulic press videos on YouTube once. No matter what you put under that thing—a car, a safe, a diamond, they all got crushed eventually. That was what came to mind right now. He was a pretty big guy. They really wanted to put him in a tiny space. And it was starting to hurt. Bad. At this point he couldn't even breathe. He could feel his ribs start to crack under the pressure, one by one.
But the Beetles were slowing too. A few of the pincers started loosening as massive heads melted straight off their bodies. They were dense as hell, but they were still starting to drop off. Everything was lit up with Stormfire. He wondered what the pile-up looked like on the outside. Just a giant funeral pyre with him in the middle.
The King was the main problem. It was stronger than the rest of them, and its crush was like 4 of theirs combined—and it wasn't letting up for anything.
𝕎𝕒𝕣𝕟𝕚𝕟𝕘!
ℍ𝕖𝕒𝕝𝕥𝕙 𝕦𝕟𝕕𝕖𝕣 𝟚𝟝%
Zane started vomiting blood. Involuntarily. But the pincers around his legs were loosening. The ones clamping his head clattered off. And then it was just him and the King left. They were crushed so close they were face to face. He could only stare at the burning holes in its skull. It was a little disconcerting—at least with eyes, you could kind of tell how close they were to being finished.
Zane was getting near Critical by the time those huge jaws finally slackened. And he slumped bonelessly to the ground. He couldn't seem to move very much. He kept hacking up little gobs of flesh he assumed were minor organs. He kept smiling all the while.
He looked up and saw the Beetle King's head droop listlessly. Stormfire pits smoldered where its eyes would've been. The insides of its head—all blazing.
He'd outlasted them. He'd won.
That was good. He liked that fight.
Zane was surrounded by a lot of white light. Beetle bodies burned through at last. There's a pleasant tingling feeling as they gushed into him one by one. There must have been dozens of them. A few of them had already given essence. Now the rest were pouring in. He remembered that Elixir he'd just taken. Four' minor grades' of extra talent, huh?
𝕃𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕝 𝕦𝕡!
𝔼𝕤𝕤𝕖𝕟𝕔𝕖 𝕃𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕝 𝟡𝟛 -> 𝟡𝟜
Yep. He could definitely feel the difference. He wasn't sure how much better it was percentage-wise. Maybe a quarter better than usual? As he saw a Beetle dissolve and felt its essence come in, it felt pretty significant.
He was fully healed now, but a few phantom pains still lingered. That happened sometimes. The body was made whole, but the mind still echoed some of the old sensations. Well—time to—
Wait.
The Beetle King. It was only now starting to dissolve. Then a wall of essence just struck him.
𝕃𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕝 𝕦𝕡!
𝔼𝕤𝕤𝕖𝕟𝕔𝕖 𝕃𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕝 𝟡𝟜 -> 𝟡𝟝
… what.
He stood there, dumbfounded.
He couldn't remember the last time he got two Levels at once. It felt like not since he was in the 50s or something.
It was a pity that tingling feeling was leaving him now. Seemed the Elixir was pretty much done.
"That was awesome!" Evan came running over, looking all excited. Zane wasn't really one for compliments. But for some reason coming from Evan, it felt good.
"Thanks."
"That was sooooo smart," Evan gushed. "Getting them all to bite on you so you could line them up like that!"
"…."
This was the first time Zane could remember when someone thought he was smarter than he actually was. They usually took one look at him and assumed he was a dummy.
Zane didn't even bother correcting him. It felt nice. He nodded like yes, he'd indeed planned on getting trash compacted all along.
Then he sat down.
"One moment."
"What's up?"
"I need to solidify this new Major Law."
"The one you got from the Beetles?"
"Mhm."
"Oh. Okay."
Evan got out his Bag of Holding, rummaged through it, pulled out what looked to be a pretty well-worn copy of some comic book called Hunter x Hunter, and sat down by a tree root.
Zane closed his eyes.
About 10 minutes later, he opened them.
𝕃𝕒𝕨 𝕔𝕠𝕞𝕡𝕣𝕖𝕙𝕖𝕟𝕕𝕖𝕕!
𝕄𝕒𝕛𝕠𝕣 𝕃𝕒𝕨 𝕠𝕗 𝔼𝕔𝕙𝕠𝕚𝕟𝕘 ℂ𝕝𝕒𝕟𝕘𝕠𝕣
Now. How could he use this?
He tried fitting them into some attacking Skill like the Beetles had done. But Rising Storm Slash was a bad fit. So was Cyclone. He sensed he wasn't ready to fuse different Elements like that—Stormfire being the exception.
So he threw it into Man of Steel. He knew exactly how he'd use it. It'd make absorbing impacts much easier. Whenever something hit him the vibrations would get muffled, stifled—dispersed on the surface. They'd find no weakness in him.
𝕊𝕜𝕚𝕝𝕝 𝕦𝕡!
𝕄𝕒𝕟 𝕠𝕗 𝕊𝕥𝕖𝕖𝕝 𝕀 -> 𝕀𝕀
Now Beetle pincers would have a hard time getting past skin, even. And getting whacked by blunt forces like hammers would do a whole lot less.
He stood, smiling a little.
"Let's go."
Evan looked up. "Oh okay! Are you still gonna do your Law?"
"I did. I finished it."
Evan blinked. "Heh?"