Then it felt like he'd been shoved. Shoved so hard his whole world spun. He was violently flung away; he started falling, hurtling out of control. Nausea washed over him; not in his gut or in his head—not anywhere he was used to feeling it. Not anywhere physical. It went deeper than that, wrenching at his mind, at his soul.
The world became a slur of swirling colors.
Then slowly, everything righted itself again.
He blinked, trying to get the blurriness out of his eyes.
The first thing he noticed was how he felt. Or rather—what he didn't feel. His body had been one big cloud of pain.
Suddenly it was all gone. Along with every other sensation. No hot or cold; no smells, no prickling up and down his skin. Nothing; dead silence. You never really noticed how many background feelings there were—even something as simple as the feeling of your weight on the soles of your feet—until they were all taken away. Huh.
He felt all light and float-y.
He kept blinking. Then stilled. No matter how much he blinked, the blurriness stayed as it was. There was nothing in his eyes. Instead, it was like he was nearsighted; everything came in fuzzy.
Frowning, he looked around. Lots of black all over the place. There was a sky far above—it looked to be night. The moon looked like a bright smudge on a camera lens. He looked down. He seemed to be standing in some kind of smoking crater.
A very familiar smoking crater.
… Wasn't this the real world?
But no, not quite. It was smaller than he remembered.
Then he caught sight of something. And stilled.
Wait. Was that chunk of colors supposed to be him?
It was. Very blurry—and painted all over in gaping red wounds—but he knew what he looked like. His body was just standing there, slumped a little like it was about to keel over. With that posture, it should've been falling. But it wasn't. Like it was frozen in time.
The other weird thing. It was like a figurine, all scaled down. It only went up to Zane's shins.
Then he noticed his shins were glowing with a soft golden light, like warm afternoon sunlight.
Funky.
So this was the astral plane, huh. Where he was meant to duel to the death. So he guessed that blur was his real body. And this weird glow-y body was meant to be his soul.
…Was everything scaled down, or was he just scaled up? He was remembering that line again, in the Skill description—something about your soul's capabilities being proportional to its power…?
Well. He supposed his size made sense.
Then he glanced across the crater. And saw the only clear thing in the whole picture.
It was Mike Masters. He was glowing too—and his soul form looked exactly like he had before the fight. Only…his soul-body barely went up to like Zane's thigh. His features all looked the same—he was just smaller. From where Zane stood, he looked like a very old child.
For a few seconds, they just stared at each other. Mike seemed rather in shock.
A beat.
Then the guy's face twisted in fury. "So you have the edge in soul!" he choked. "If you think you've won, you are a fool!"
Zane wasn't sure if it was just his 'ear'—or whatever the equivalent was in here—but it came out as a little squeaky sound. Maybe because the guy was so small?
"It is not the size of the dog in the fight, but the fight in the dog!" He was trembling a little. He seemed to be trying to convince himself, which was understandable, given the rather… big… difference. And it seemed to be working, weirdly. He was gaining confidence even as he spoke. "For I have something you shall never have. My brothers stay with me in spirit—blessing me with strength, even now!"
Zane felt him swell up with fighting spirit. "TODAY YOU DIE, ZANE WALKER!"
Then Mike charged, squeaking a battle cry, fists swinging.
This whole fight had been very unusual for Zane. He knew this was the duel to the death or whatever. But Mike looked three feet tall to him; other than the man's face, he looked like a little boy throwing a temper tantrum. Zane scratched his head. He was having a lot of trouble taking the guy seriously.
He watched as Mike waddled over, still squealing his battle cry.
It reminded Zane of that one movie with the Spartans where they made their big last stand against huge odds. Except rather than fighting off a whole Persian army on their lonesome, Mike started pounding on Zane's kneecap.
It was pretty fascinating to watch actually. Just like with those Spartans, his passion let him draw powers far beyond what should be possible. In that moment, Mike Masters had a strength no little boy body should have.
Which meant when he punched Zane's kneecap, it actually hurt. Zane wasn't crippled by it or anything, but it was probably about an equivalent amount of pain to stubbing a toe or something. Which, again, was really quite impressive considering he was doing it with his little toddler fists.
Well. What to do? He didn't mind putting an end to Mike. But something about being so fun-sized—it felt kind of weird. Like beating up a kid or something—how was he even supposed to start?
Then Zane's face changed. "HRNGG!"
Because Mike gave up pounding on Zane's kneecap. He seemed to realize he wasn't going to make much progress anytime soon. Instead, he attacked between Zane's legs with a fiery ferocity.
Zane found out his Steel Body apparently did not extend to his soul.
Mike saw him buckle; fierce hope bloomed in his face. He leaped in, pressing his advantage—
Okay. Fuck this.
Zane grabbed him by the throat. For a moment Mike seemed quite surprised he got picked up so easily. He thrashed there, wheezing, bucking—
And Zane elbowed him in the face. With an arm thicker than his whole head. And again, for good measure.
And Mike's nose exploded. In at least three places. So did his cheekbone. And his jaw. He squealed; a fine cloud of blood spurted out his face. Then Zane tossed him up; Mike went screaming, flailing head-over-heels—as Zane wound a leg all the way back.
He gave the guy a hard punt. Right in the belly.
Felt lots of soft squishy things burst. Mike goggled; his eyes bulged; his mouth hung open, choking, hacking spittle—and then he went shrieking, flying in a beautiful wide arc. At least five bloody little teeth flew out his mouth.
He flopped to a halt a dozen feet away.
Zane marched after him. Somehow, he managed to prop himself up to his elbows—"My brothers," he croaked, blood dribbling out his nose, his mouth, the five or so cuts on his face—he really was in a sorry state. But he clung onto hope. "Give me strength!—"
Zane punted him in the head again. He shrieked. Then in the body, and a geyser of blood spouted out of him. Zane kept kicking him. The more he kicked, the less hopeful the guy felt. It was interesting.
Soon Mike was just a bloody, pulped-up mess. He stopped moving. Which just went to show you. Turns out, sometimes it really was just the size of the dog, actually.
Zane panted.
…Okay. He couldn't lie. That felt pretty damned satisfying.
Good riddance. Sneaky little shit.
All around him the world started sharpening again, gaining focus. He felt a sharp tug—then the world blurred once more. He was yanked hard, like his soul was snapped back on a bungee cord. Snapped back into his body; he gasped, stumbled—
And his sensations flooded him again. The acrid tang of smoke; the feeling of a cold night wind on his skin; but most of all, all that damned pain. Flaring up his back, down his arms—just everywhere. But now it mingled with the throbbing pain in his soul.
𝕃𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕝 𝕦𝕡!
𝔼𝕤𝕤𝕖𝕟𝕔𝕖 𝕃𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕝 𝟙𝟘𝟛 -> 𝟙𝟘𝟜
Well. That… that was certainly an experience.
For a little while he just sat there, recovering. From everything.
Soon he was well enough to start walking back. He was annoyed to find the Marquis' Bags of Holding had burned up. At least Mike's hadn't—and a quick peek inside told him it was stuffed to the brim with high-grade essence stones; fifty or sixty, at the very least. That, at least, pleased him. Quite a hefty haul.
***
He was passing through Silicon Coven territory all the way back to VGI. Which meant a lot of quaint little mystic forests with fuzzy blue-leaved trees, silver wizard towers, and random totem poles cropping up here and there. Very wood-and-grass feel to the place.
He made it three Safe Zones in before he got stopped. A white-bearded, short old man in Twinkling Coven robes scrambled out to catch him—
ℍ𝕒𝕣𝕣𝕪 𝕎𝕒𝕝𝕤𝕙
𝔼𝕤𝕤𝕖𝕟𝕔𝕖 𝕃𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕝 𝟞𝟞
ℂ𝕝𝕒𝕤𝕤: 𝕎𝕚𝕟𝕕 𝔸𝕣𝕔𝕙𝕞𝕒𝕘𝕖
𝔽𝕒𝕔𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟: 𝕊𝕚𝕝𝕚𝕔𝕠𝕟 ℂ𝕠𝕧𝕖𝕟
"Is it true?" He said eagerly. "Master Sage! Did you defeat Mike Masters?"
"Uh. Yeah," said Zane. "… How did you—"
"Incredible! I wish I could've seen the battle. I'm sure it was a spectacular affair!"
"Thanks."
For a moment the old man just goggled at him. Looking him up and down, wide-eyed.
"What are you doing?"
"Ah! Pardon. Simply—simply taking you in, good sir! I hope you don't mind—it's my first time meeting a top World Ranker… Yes! You do have that air about you. One can tell just by looking—this is not a man to be messed with!"
Since when was Zane a top World Ranker?
"Right…Uh. I'm going to go now."
He heard the guy's bubbly voice ring out behind him—"It was an honor meeting you, Master Sage! A true honor!"
***
It was the same way the rest of the way back. He wondered how news traveled so fast. He caught folk cheering or pumping their fists as he passed. In some Safe Zones folk in coven clothes young and old, men and women, lined the dirt streets, waving and grinning, some staring and blushing. But none of them dared get too close—it was like there was a force field around him.
They weren't like this just a few hours ago when he was making his way here. Was it really that big a deal?
***
He got back to Silicon Coven headquarters late at night; most folk had gone to sleep by then. But when he got to the south gate, the guards there greeted him with a big cheer—"Savage Sage! Savage Sage! Savage Sage!" They chanted over and over.
Elias came out to greet him. He looked quite pale.
"Zane motherfucking Walker!" He shouted, grinning wide. For once it seemed genuine. "You beautiful bastard! That's a huge weight off my shoulders—my God!"
He chuckled. "Can't lie, I got a little nervous there. But I always knew you'd pull through, bud."
Sage Mind told Zane that last bit was definitely a lie.
Elias winked. "If they weren't paying attention to you before… put it this way. An hour ago Yuki Urabe—that's World Rank #6, by the way—told me he wants to meet you as a representative of his Faction, which, by the way, is the second-strongest in all of Asia! And that dude doesn't give anyone the time of day."
"Huh."
"You still don't get it. You know who's the best in the world? The ones a cut above the rest—the ones they call world powers?" Elias held up his hands; he started counting them down. "The Top 7! In terms of talent, all perfect ten-out-of-tens. Irina Volkova. D'Angelo Hall. Emeka Eze. Jason Walker. Jian Shi Ming. Yui Urabe. Cristina Dos Santos… and now—I'll bet all my stones on it—they'll be putting you in there too."
He chuckled. "Your girlfriend has a message waiting for you, by the way. She's wondering why every single global superpower just hit her up in the past two hours."
"Oh." Reina had so much work already… Then he remembered the Tomb Kings had half a continent's worth of territory. He winced. Poor Reina. He seemed to have a strong effect on her stress; he wondered if there was a way he could spend more time with her. Could he could find some way to go back at night? Hmm.
"By the way," said Elias. And he tossed Zane a silky-white Bag of Holding. "There's your payment! Exactly as we agreed. Three A-rank treasures."