"Today I'll tell you two secrets. The first is a great strength of the Titan Rhino. The second its greatest weakness. Listen well! If you were meant to wield the Titan Rhino's power, you likely share this weakness."
Zane frowned at that.
"I certainly do." The Barbarian Sage thumped his bare chest. "I have the scars to prove it."
His body was riddled with them. Ugly black things. Some went a finger deep—deep ridges of flesh carved out of his biceps, his legs, he'd never get back.
Zane had always wondered how they hadn't healed. He had a feeling it wasn't because the Sage hadn't drank a healing elixir. Maybe some scars ran so deep they could not be healed, not even with the System's intervention.
Here the Barbarian Sage's scarred face grew somber. "The Titan Rhinoceros's strength," he said. "Is its weakness. It is the most powerful beast wherever it goes! It is used to that feeling. It is an overwhelming creature. It never occurs to it that it might ever fall... and so it never knows its limits."
Hm.
That did sound kind of like Zane.
"Pride is a great thing! It drives us to victory. Yet too much of it fells even the greats. You'll witness scenes of incredible might. But might is a coin with two sides—and the other is mortal peril."
The Sage dissolved. A new scene colored in—a familiar one.
"You've seen this before," came the Barbarian Sage's voice.
An elven city, all pretty, shining spires of silver. And in the distance—looming beneath churning stormclouds—something that could've been mistaken for a mountain range. At first. Then it came closer and showed its true face.
A Titan Rhinoceros. Full-Blooded. And not just any Titan Rhino—an unusually large one even for its species.
It had been the very first time Zane had ever seen the Titan Rhino. When he'd witnessed the power of its Indomitable Hide. It had left an impression on him.
He knew he would have that power.
"I first came upon this through a scrying glass," grunted the Barbarian Sage. "Many lifetimes ago. Back then I was a mere Outer disciple—a heretic. An outcast in the Steelheart Conclave. I was convinced that I could harness the invincible might of the Titan Rhinoceros… back then, no creature had taken more than a few drops of its Blood and lived. But I knew I could blaze the trail."
The Sage shook his shaggy head. "That is the curse and blessing of youth. When you're too foolish to believe when they say something is impossible, sometimes you manage it. Bah! Observe. The power—and what follows!"
He flagged out one broad arm, gesturing to the shining silver city.
"We begin on the planet of Elensílan, in the outer reaches of the Dragonspire Galaxy. A planet ruled by the elves."
He pointed to the walls to the little glowing shapes atop them. "All Nascent Soul cultivators. Their souls have been so deeply integrated into their physical forms the two are inextricable! All rank in the Level 300s…"
He looked back. "But so does the Titan Rhinoceros."
The Rhino was fast approaching. A looming mountain of muscle. More muscle than Zane had ever seen, and denser too, a sheer cliff of it. Soon it came so close he could see each tense knot bunching together, rippling with suppressed force, chaining to make the body of the beast. Each great slab of muscle a nuclear bomb of sheer mechanical power trembling to be unleashed. Thousands upon thousands chaining together—stretching—he could hear the fibers groaning, see them straining hugely under the skin, building to the greatest engine the Universe had ever known—
"A magnificent beast," said the Barbarian Sage uncharacteristically softly. The big man was moved.
Zane was too. There was something harmonious. Something in the heart, something that resonated like a single spreading note, connecting all three of them, a pure feeling pumping hot through their hearts. Rising through their spirits. He started breathing heavily.
It was the joy of pure raw power. That joy made some shy away. Intimidated them. Not Zane. Or the Titan Rhino, or the Barbarian Sage. They dared to claim it.
"This is the City of Valithor," said the Barbarian Sage. "The Silver Fortress! It has stood for fourteen thousand years. Empires ruled from this seat."
Those tower peaks looked very intricate. Lots of sculptures on those domes, the kinds you might see in some old Italian church, but grander. Its streets ran on and on, paved bronze. Walls loomed proud, high, these huge hunks of Spirit Steel. Zane couldn't fathom what grade they were.
"Lines of warrior-kings called this place home… enter the might of the Titan Rhinoceros!"
Zane watched the Titan Rhino lower its horn. Watched it readying its charge. This time the Barbarian Sage gestured and the scene came into greater focus. The Titan Rhino's skin faded a little, grew translucent, and Zane saw what lay beneath. Thick cords of white tendon stretching between the muscles.
They looked like slingshots. Rubber-like. Incredibly strong, flexible—they kept stretching on, and on, and on as the muscles bunched tighter and tighter…the whole beast began to shiver. That raw pent-up power… Zane could almost feel the tension seeping through the scene, feel it tearing at his own heart. It felt like an unbearable load.
But those tendons did not break. Did not snap. They burned with their own shining power—and they stretched as far as those muscles could pull. Matching them one for one. Letting them load more… and more… and more…
The Titan Rhino snorted. A boiling cloud burst from its nostrils.
When it charged all that power unleashed. At once.
It shattered the sound barrier. It shattered the world itself, leaving a vast gaping void in its wake. It shattered those walls like they were tinfoil. Rammed straight through the elves and their formations... when the world itself broke, how could anything within it stand a chance? It shattered shields, brushed aside cannonfire. Bulldozed through everything.
Raw power conquered all.
That pleased something deep in Zane's soul.
Those tendons—loading, stretching, burning with Blood—imprinted in his mind. He would watch this a few times over once it was done. He would need some more examples before he was confident in trying to replicate it, he felt.
But the scene didn't end there. Instead, it shifted.
There was more.
"That was the fall of Valithor," intoned the Barbarian Sage. "For the Titan Rhinoceros it was a great success! It broke into the Elves' foundries, renowned for their exquisite craftsmanship, their fine metals, their precious raw resources... you must know that Titan Rhinoceroses and the Great Elves have a long and bloody history. The Elves would slaughter them as babes for their horns. But the Rhinos that grew old remembered. And sought revenge."
The Barbarian Sage paused.
"This particular Titan Rhinoceros was an adolescent. And it was vengeful. But soon, it grew to more than that. It grew hungry. For at Valithor it learned that Elven cities hide some of the finest stores of metals on the planet. And so it did not stop there."
The scene dissolved.
A dreamy vision replaced it.
Buildings of golden wood and silvered stone, gently glowing. Grand palaces seamlessly woven into massive oak trees. Tinkling canopies made the domes. A city built into a golden forest—so naturally it seemed an outgrowth of the forest itself. It was dazzling in the noonday light.
"Lorien'dor. The City of Golden Dreams," said the Barbarian Sage. "The second of Elensílan's great cities."
And Zane watched a mountain rumble closer.
A mountain whose eyes flashed with hunger, with greed, with rage—watched it heave its enormous power like a wrecking ball.
It compressed, and it launched—and it seemed impossible that something so huge could slingshot so fast. But it did. It blurred, a mountain moving, something against nature. And again nothing could stop it.
It ran everything into the ground. Trees toppled. Domes caved. When the Titan Rhino moved, nothing could stand against it.
"Again the Titan Rhino had its fill."
A huge shadow, slurping in the smoking ruins. "But then…"
A shaft of light fell from the sky. Struck it full. Not sunlight—a light of the soul.
The Titan Rhino paused. Looked up.
The Barbarian Sage gritted his teeth.
"A warning. From an ancestor of the planet of Elensílan. And the planet's true owner."
The Rhino simply snorted. It kept devouring. "Ignored. For why would it heed a warning, when it had never known defeat?"
That sounded like a pretty good point to Zane.
The scene shifted yet again.
"We come, at last. To Eldoria. The capital city of Elensílan."
It was a city built into a cliff. Three layers cascading over another, all old fine stone. Carved by the hands of old masters. Crystal bridges arched between them. Giant ancient trees popped up here and there, linking the strata together. It all overlooked a glittering sea. Sunset painted the waters orange.
At first, Zane didn't see the Titan Rhino.
Then the sea began to tremble.
And it rose.
Waves streamed off of it, sloshed halfway up the cliffs. And the beast came up so high it was almost level with the flood walls. That mountain, eyes gleaming…
Hungry. Burning.
The Titan Rhino snorted. Bent its great head low, that hefty horn gleaming burning red in the sunset. Readying itself to charge. And again Zane admired the way the grand machinery of its body worked.
It was how his body would work. Seamless. Powerful. Explosive—yet building every-higher, ever-hotter, ever-fiercer…
Then the Rhino stilled.
There was a ripple in the air. Straight in front of it. The Barbarian Sage gave a heavy sigh.
"What the Titan Rhino chose to ignore was that this planet, Elensílan, is the home planet of a certain inner-sect Disciple. A disciple of the Temple of the World Tree. A disciple deep in seclusion—who had nevertheless seen what the Titan Rhino had done."
Temple of the World Tree. That name again. Zane had read it on a lot of Alchemy Bottles. It was also where Reina's Mistress Maker title came from, he remembered—some important Faction out there.
"This Inner Sect disciple's name was Eldrin of House Arandor—yes. That House Arandor, the Great House of the Temple of the World Tree!"
The Sage seemed to expect that name to mean something to Zane. He continued. "This planet was Eldrin's Domain."
The Barbarian Sage's jaw clenched tight. "Eldrin could stand the Rhino no longer! Even at the risk of breaking seclusion…"
Someone stepped out of the ripples in the air. An elf dressed in simple flowing white clothes. Purple-eyed, white-haired—there was something pristine about him, something untouchable. He gave off a timeless feeling.
He shattered the world just by stepping in it. His very presence made reality unstable. It started to warp—cracks spread out from every edge of him, forking through the sky—vast chunks of sky started falling out, crashing into the seas, leaving chunks of gaping void…
The Titan Rhino frowned up at it.
Then snorted. Eyes narrowing. Roared its defiance—and charged.
The Titan Rhino charging was a magnificent sight. Whenever Zane saw it he felt something stirring in his heart. When it moved, when every atom in its body burned with that fiery passion, that pure feeling—Zane knew he, and that Rhino, were the same kind of beast.
When it moved, it felt like the Heavens themselves couldn't stop it.
Eldrin pulled out a bow. Small thing—pearl-white, silky-soft string, almost invisible. But the moment Zane saw it he felt an unsettling lurch deep in his soul. The way you feel when you see a red hourglass on an otherwise tiny, insignificant spider.
Eldrin pulled. Calmly, precisely. And as he drew an arrow filled the space his fingers left. Pure white.
A Bloodline Manifestation flickered over his head. The snarling head of a dragon. Dark blue scales, shining eyes, whiskers streaming from its brow, its jaw.
"The Godbeast — the Azure Dragon. Guardian Spirit of the World Tree," intoned the Barbarian Sage gravely. "But that is not what decides things. Eldrin is well in the Level 500s. He has long since conquered the Nine Tribulations… he is an Ascended being. At the same Level the Titan Rhino is ranks among the Four Heavenly Beasts. It loses out to no-one! But this…"
The Sage sighed.
Eldrin summoned a simple Skill. A Skill concentrated on the very tip of his arrow—the finest of fine points.
And when it shot out Zane sensed a dragon's aura. A Godbeast's teeth, its claws, carried on that one blazing point—along with a kind of Law, a kind of Essence, that was totally lost on him. It all made a swirling funnel. Wrapping the tip of the arrow. Spiraling down. Striking deep into the hide of the beast.
It punched straight through. It rocked the Titan Rhino to its core. Blood fountained out of it—like a lake spewing from a cracked dam. Foreign Law, foreign essence, raged within—
And still it kept rising. Kept bellowing.
"There are two hundred Levels of difference!" said the Barbarian Sage. "And yet… the Titan Rhino refuses to quit. That body, that blood—its vitality defies all reason!"
The Rhino meant to smash the elf from the sky.
The elf blinked, shocked. It quickly loosed another arrow. Then another—and another—
The Rhino kept fighting.
It was exactly what Zane would have done.
A fourth arrow and it staggered. As though drunk. It refused to put down its head.
A fifth and it was careening to the sea.
A sixth took it through the eye—and it dropped. Slumped.
And… that was it.
It was a stunning sight to Zane. The Barbarian Sage flickered up beside him—the big man looked upset too.
"I know how you feel," said the Barbarian Sage. He closed his eyes. "Let me show you one last scene."
What came next angered Zane.
Elven smiths, stringing up a bow. The curve was the same. Eldrin's Spirit Weapon. But the string was being replaced with a familiar brand of sinew—hyper-condensed. It was the Titan Rhino's colossal tendons.
"You are witnessing the making of the Colossus Bow," said the Barbarian Sage softly. "A Heaven-grade treasure. The legendary signature weapon of Eldrin, who is now a pillar of House Arandor."
One final scene. Eldrin testing the bow—pulling it. And Zane could see even for this Level 500+ monster, it wasn't easy. He turned his eyes skyward, fired a plain, simple arrow.
And the Titan Rhino's Colossus Tendon showed its power.
That arrow tore through the fabric of reality itself. Touched the sun. It flared ferociously bright… and winked out.
Like that, day turned to night.
The scene finally ended.
***
It left Zane with a lot to chew on.
He took the Skill.
As for the advice—he thought about it a while.
In the end he agreed. And he disagreed.
The advice seemed to be, 'know your limits.'
Zane did not like to think that way. When he dug deep inside of him, he always found he could smash what everyone else thought was his limit. The parts of him that mattered… he did not believe those had a limit. Limits made for timid men. He would not be cowed by them. Not now. Not ever.
But he thought back to how that great beast fell. The path it had chosen.
So maybe the advice was—don't be stupid. Pick your fights.
Zane could agree with this.
He wasn't sure how you could hold the idea that he could win any fight you set he heart to—and that he should be smart about picking his fights—side by side. There seemed to be a break in logic there. Somewhere right in the middle.
He scratched his head.
Eh.
He was comfortable with that.
He was big. He contained multitudes.