"It is all over!" roared Tyler. "Ladies and gentlemen... your winner, the undisputed strongest man in the world—ZANE WALKER!"
The whole arena faded away like a bad dream. So did Zane's injuries. Until he was kneeling there, panting. Whole, but ragged.
He felt woozy. There was so much sound all around him... his head hurt. Streamers popping, little too-bright fireworks going off over the crowd, shocking noises all around... there was so much excitement and happiness flooding him from the crowd.
Bunches of them were trying to mob the arena.
He blinked across to the other side of the arena. There was Jason, also panting heavily, also blinking, looking woozy. They'd both been pushed hard there. Maybe their bodies didn't feel it, but their souls still did.
Zane felt like he was about to pass out. Jason leaned over, hacked out a mouthful of blood.
Zane didn't feel that angry anymore when he looked at Jason. It felt like some weight had been lifted from his chest. He could breathe easy again.
He'd won.
He wasn't a kid anymore. But it was like that kid-him had left a splinter he'd never dug out. Finally it was over.
Jason shook his head, sighed. A wry grin came on his pale face. "Well," he croaked. "I'll be damned. You beat me."
Zane stayed silent.
"You know. For what it's worth, I'm proud of you."
Zane stood to walk away, still wobbly.
"Really?" said Jason. "You have nothing to say to me? After all that?"
Zane looked over his shoulder. "I just don't like you," he said.
Jason blinked. Then shrugged, as though to say, fair enough.
Zane walked away. He made it halfway down the tunnel, teetering in a sea of noise. He mostly just felt relieved. He needed a long nap. But everyone was very happy for him. Lots of people cheering, shouting congratulations at him, people whose faces he couldn't make out. His head pounded harder. He groaned.
Everything felt foggy, a little unreal... he had to stop and lean against the wall.
He still felt phantom pains where those claws tore into him. His left eye stung something awful.
Then there was a softness under him, bearing him up. Hugging him. A tightly wound ball of feeling, overflowing with joy and worry. It felt rather frazzled, like it'd just had a heart attack. He saw big pretty warm brown eyes.
"I've got you," whispered Reina. "You can let go."
He nodded. She wrapped her arms around him. Together they limped away...
***
He didn't remember the trip back, or falling asleep. When he woke again he found himself in a familiar spot. His head rested on two very soft things. He felt a lot of warm feelings being poured over him. This was really nice.
He frowned, trying to remember when he'd been here.
Oh. It was when he'd fought Eze, the last time he'd been in one of those sparring things.
His head was in Reina's lap again. She was in her nightclothes, stroking his head, humming lightly. She saw him wake up, gasped.
She asked if he was okay, checked up on him about six different ways, which was kind of funny. He was okay.
"I'm proud of you," she said softly.
This time Zane felt all warm. He blinked up at her. She smiled. She looked very beautiful then, and Zane told her so. She sighed and gave him a kiss.
Then she reached over, grabbed a vial of milky blue liquid, and started to feed him. It was a soul elixir. Zane also found this kind of funny. He was definitely well enough to feed himself. But it was nice that she did it. He closed his eyes. Let out a breath… just lay there, letting her stroke him…
He wondered if he should get hurt more often.
"The Empire Faction surrendered their claim to the S-rank Dungeon," said Reina. "It's all ours. Thanks to you." She gave him another affectionate stroke of the head.
Zane grunted.
"They're saying there's no debate anymore," she continued. "Even Irina Volkova says you're the strongest in the world."
Reina said it with a kind of fierce pride. Like she knew it all along, and it'd taken this long for everyone else to catch up.
Zane looked up at her as she fawned over him. Sometimes he wondered if it was healthy she had such a high opinion of him. It was like she thought he could never lose—like he was some superhero. This was quite strange to him since she might've seen him get beaten up more than anyone.
"We know the S-rank dungeons are party restricted," she said. "They'll only let small teams in. From what I could gather the Superdungeon could be the same. They're splitting up the World Team into multiple smaller teams, which they plan to send in one by one."
Zane nodded, still sipping from the vial. He finished. She brought out another one.
"There's been some more relics discovered," she continued. "They give us a clearer picture of it. The South Asian team found a diary that seems to indicate the Superdungeon's like no other dungeon we've ever seen. For one, it's got several entrances. And it'll only let one team in per entrance. No two teams will go the same route…"
She pursed her lips. "I was thinking we could have Evan and Avery on our team. You've all worked together before and have good chemistry—and they're both in the World Top 20 now.
Zane nodded again. He liked that. Reina kept rambling, frowning a little as she thought, brushing locks of hair out of her face as she spoke. She got like that sometimes—she liked talking a lot, and he liked listening to her talk, so it worked out.
"I've worked out the team dynamics. It should go well. I can play healer, Evan a secondary damage-dealing role, Avery scouting and support…"
"You'll have to be the primary damage-dealer. And... the tank, I suppose." She frowned at that.
"Hey. It's okay. I like taking hits, remember?" said Zane. He shifted a little to look up at her. This was when he realized they were laying on a couch in their bedroom—and his shoulders took up about eighty percent of it. Which meant his shift almost tumbled him onto the ground.
Gingerly he lay his head back down on her lap.
"Oh Zane," she sighed. She kept stroking him.
"We'll have to clear the S-rank soon," she said. "It's starting to leak badly. A few Kraken from there have made it all the way out to the Philippines. And... I think we're ready. You're ready."
She nodded. "If we could clear it and get all its treasures… assuming it's as big a treasure jump from B to A as A to S..."
She paused. "The best treasures at the Auction were S-rank. It'd be huge for us."
"I will get them," promised Zane.
Reina gave him a few more updates. The World Clear percentage had passed 97%. For now, the world's Factions were holding up, clearing the Monster hordes. The dungeons were breaking faster and faster, though—sooner or later they'd have to tackle both S-rank dungeons.
After a bit more rambling and frowning and speculating, Zane started kissing her. This turned into an impromptu Leveling session.
𝕃𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕝 𝕦𝕡!
𝔼𝕤𝕤𝕖𝕟𝕔𝕖 𝕃𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕝 𝟙𝟝𝟞 -> 𝟙𝟝𝟟
***
He left Reina blissfully sleeping, went out to explore a bit.
They were in one of their home skyscrapers on their private grounds a little ways off from the town square. It had been refurbished by their new A+-ranked Beacon. It had the looks of a majestic and handsome medieval building, all polished wood and stone—Reina had designed it herself. But it had all the perks of something modern from before the Change. Air conditioning, for one. Except here it was essence conditioning; the air here was pumped dense with essence.
You could sit here and meditate for a bit, and it'd be about the same as bathing in a B-rank essence geyser.
He found Evan and Avery on the other floors. Evan was busy baking Zane a celebration cookie. He was halfway done with it when Zane came to visit and got so excited he fell over himself.
Evan finished about half an hour later. They played some strange alien board game to pass the time, which Evan had swiped from one of the other floors. They were both equally bad at it, which was what made it fun.
The cookies had sprinkles on them and spelled out across the platter read 'CONGRATS ZANE! YOU DID IT AGAIN! I KNEW YOU COULD DO IT!'. They were very good. Zane asked Evan where he learned to bake like that.
Apparently when Evan was young, a mysterious wounded stranger passed by the farm he was living on. His uncle offered this stranger a stay, and in return this stranger taught Evan the secret ways of very good baking for a full season. After this stranger recovered, he told Evan he'd just imparted the secret baking techniques which he was never to tell anyone else. And that one day he would find Evan again, and take him as his apprentice. It had been five years since then.
Zane wasn't sure what to make of all that.
They were quite good cookies though.
***
Avery dropped in to snatch a cookie too, which was how they met up. She saw Zane, broke out into a grin, and gave him a big slap on the back.
"I told you you were gonna win!" she exclaimed. Then she paused. "Not gonna lie. I got a little scared for a second there. Then I remembered—nah, it's Zane! He'll be fine."
Zane wasn't sure what that meant.
"A mountain could fall on you and you'd probably get up and shrug it off," Avery explained.
Evan nodded.
"…" Zane scratched his head helplessly.
It wasn't just his friends. He did notice even strangers had a different kind of awe when they met him these days. It used to be like they were meeting a celebrity. Now it was like he was larger than life. Even larger than he was already, that was. It was weird. There seemed to be some kind of invincible aura around him.
He felt like he'd been publicly beat up a lot. He could definitely lose. But somehow even Reina and Avery and Evan now seemed convinced he could come back from anything.
He tried to explain so. "Pssh! I'll believe it when I see it," Avery told him.
"Really," he said.
"Hmm," said Avery. She squinted at him. "Maybe. One-on-one, against something really really really strong… maybe you could lose. But if one of us is with you, no way!"
Zane blinked. "Because… teamwork?"
"Because if you go down, we'd be in danger," she said, grinning. "And you wouldn't let that happen. You'd go all super-Zane on 'em! Kapow!"
"…What?"
"It's when Evan or me or Reina gets in trouble," said Avery. "Especially Reina. You go all Super Saiyan—then it doesn't even matter what you're fighting."
Evan nodded. "Yup!"
"…What?"
"Even if it's crazy strong, you would just refuse to lose. You'd just be too stubborn," She nodded sagely.
"That doesn't make sense."
"I don't get it either, honestly."
"…" Zane sighed.
Anyway.
Avery had almost perfected her own Concept of holograms. She was well on her way to merging Water and Light to make a Mirage. Zane wasn't sure how that differed from her Signature Skills already. She said it was more like outfitting her car to take rocket fuel rather than gas, which didn't make much sense to him.
The important part was—she and Evan had delved into a bunch of water dungeons on their little trip east, especially in the Great Lakes. She brought out some special A-rank 'Naiad's Charms,' these necklaces you wore with a gleaming blue shard on the end.
"They let you move as well on water as you do on land!" she explained. She wrinkled her nose. "It can't help with the deep ocean de-buff though… anything non-Water has to fight against so much Water Law down there just to get going. But your Stormfire should be okay."
Reina woke up a few hours later and finalized everything. They were to set out for the S-Ranked Dungeon, Marianas Trench. In two days' time.