The super-tornado was picking up speed. And as it moved, it shook the world. Wrestling streams of souls straight out of the ground. Curving the flows of the very atmosphere, sinking sooty clouds, making all the other fiery tornadoes tilt toward it, falling in helpless, erupting in columns of shocking light. Swallowed up by greater fire.
And it burned ever brighter.
The Monster horde stood still. Mesmerized almost by the sight of it.
Then the ground began to rumble. Began to crack—and it settled on them that this force of nature, which had been this distant phenomenon, was coming upon them incredibly quickly. Not only because it was getting closer—it was growing bigger too. And soon they felt the pulls on their own frames, felt a hot crackling current sizzling down their skins…
The demons' at the front line began to shriek. The whole line wavered, threatened to split.
Everywhere air began to bend. The skies shivered, as though about to cave in. And all the while the roaring only grew louder and louder, drowning out the world, throwing searing blue over all there was…
The Monster Knights, though, did not move.
This, they had realized, was the work of their prey. A mere Core human. It looked flashy from afar—but they did not believe it could threaten them. They had their pride.
They snorted. Hunkered in. Shrieked commands at their armies. And the rest of them formed up, glomming together, making a wall of pure Corruption. A purple-black haze sweeping over them all, offering a gruesome protection.
The Monster Knights both started seething dark essence. Started sinking into the ground. The giant spider oozed thick oily liquids out of so many pores, linking to make a swirling shield, coating its enormous body. The Mammoth's bones began to shine—in the physical realm and in the Astral Plane—twice as bright as those lesser Monsters beside it…
𝔾𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕥𝕖𝕣 𝔹𝕝𝕚𝕘𝕙𝕥 𝕊𝕡𝕚𝕕𝕖𝕣 (𝕄𝕠𝕟𝕤𝕥𝕖𝕣 𝕂𝕟𝕚𝕘𝕙𝕥)
𝔼𝕤𝕤𝕖𝕟𝕔𝕖 𝕃𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕝 𝟛𝟙𝟘
𝔾𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕥𝕖𝕣 𝔹𝕝𝕚𝕘𝕙𝕥 𝕄𝕒𝕞𝕞𝕠𝕥𝕙 (𝕄𝕠𝕟𝕤𝕥𝕖𝕣 𝕂𝕟𝕚𝕘𝕙𝕥)
𝔼𝕤𝕤𝕖𝕟𝕔𝕖 𝕃𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕝 𝟛𝟘𝟞
These Monster Knights had refined souls, Nascent Souls. Woven into their physical forms at the deepest of levels. Inseparable. Existing as much as the physical plane as the Astral.
Which meant the essence they could project through their bodies was unlike anything their Core brethren could fathom.
Still. Even they—looking up, watching as the tornado drew near just seconds off, seeing it levitating whole mountains of soot off the ground, seeing those swirling Axes, twin beacons of light, crashing through air, streaming storms of essence…
Even these Nascent Soul Monster Knights felt niggling doubt then.
Was this man truly merely one Core human? The amount of aura driving at them felt like that of some great army, thousands strong…
And at last a Bloodline billowed out of it all—the image of a beastly Rhinoceros, charging with the tornado, roaring, flickering high overhead—
And one charging man collided with a demon army.
Death came in many forms then.
The explosions at the moment of contact. Chain Combustions, so much swirling essence slicing in at such obscene speeds, igniting all matter they touched, all souls they touched—
Shrieks lit the air.
Firebombs of Stormfire crashed through the army, running long shining lines through the dark masses, voiding huge chunks of them, leaving nothing but ashes in their wake, corpses blowing away in the scything winds—
And then the natural disaster that was Zane Walker had arrived in the midst of them. Burning with so much essence, so much Bloodline, so much raw heat and vigor and power he seemed a supernova crashing to ground level.
The first line of demons went flying—all at once. Rammed off their feet. Spinning, howling, desperately clawing at nothing, sucked into the vortex where they vanished and flares of brilliant Stormfire—
And the axes were among them too.
SCHLUNK-SCHLUNK-SCHLUNK!
Rotted necrotic heads spun into the breeze, gushing fountains of hissing black blood. Claws flailed into the distance as demonic bodies were crushed, bisected, ripped open at every conceivable joint—random shattered limbs flailing through the mess, burning up in showers of Stormfire. Swathes of demons were shredded all at once—scattered like they'd been thrown into some great meat-grinder. Bloody tongues wheeled through the air, thrown out from burning husks, shriveling up as they flew…
There was a huge grinding sound. A ripping. The crisp shrieks of steel splitting bone, skin, all manner of matter, splitting the very air—a great heaving, a crashing, a booming, a flood of violent sound, of shining light and essence all at once—
It was Zane at his finest. The very essence of him, set on fire. A hot-blooded machine of pure destruction, running up against that looming black wall of an army…
High Core Monsters perished in their dozens. The next few dozen became unwilling sacrifices—swathes of thick bone and tendon and muscle, donating whole skeletons just to slow Zane's fury. Little more than fodder.
Slowing him was all they could do.
He was still running white-hot, Asura aura skying to the horizons by the time he crashed over the two Nascent Monster Knights….
And there came one final explosion. The biggest of all.
And at last. Zane was forced to a halt.
The explosion took everything out of him. Tore massive yawning voids open in the middle of the realm.
The explosion was so powerful the man himself went stumbling back, bellowing furiously. So powerful it swallowed all the momentum, all the energy, completely…
At the end of it, Zane was on one knee. Panting heavily.
All around him lay a scorching wasteland. Shakily he stood.
The Mammoth lay before him. Tongue lolling listlessly. Its massive red eyes stared him dead in the eyes.
Then they began to roll back.
And its skull came apart right down the middle. Shattering in real-time. Falling away—just like the rest of its bone-armor, giving way to the inconceivable force it had just absorbed. And Zane saw his Axe embedded deep in its ruin of a corpse.
The whole thing erupted in Stormfire. Chain Combustions lay waste to it. Exploding it even as the two halves crashed heavy to the ground… and that was all.
A Nascent Soul Level Monster. Crushed in one brutal blow.
***
Only… that killer blow had taken everything Zane had.
He was on his knees, heaving in deep breaths, glistening sweat all over, matting his hair.
His eyes were still burning, though. You could still hear the thumping of his heart—at a lower intensity now, struggling for fuel. Zane's Asura state granted him a tremendous boost in power. But it was also tremendously intensive to run. It took not only his essence but also his bloodline, his body—every aspect that made Zane himself. Even his soul.
It left him lightheaded. Feeling drained in every possible way...
Next to the mammoth Monster knight lay the giant spider. And it had taken Zane's other Axe.
He had gotten up well past twelve revolutions—it might have been the most he'd ever done. And the force of it showed. It'd crushed half the demon's head in, lopped off a pillar of a forearm. The Monster Knight was teetering, its exoskeleton burning...
But its three of its red eyes still shone bright. It clung on.
It still thirsted for his life.
In the meantime, the slag all around Zane began to shift. More survivors making themselves known, two, now three emerging from the wreck, hobbled but seething for revenge—now a fourth—
Zane closed his eyes. Dragged in a deep breath.
With how spent he was, he would like to have wrecked them all then. It was that Nascent Mammoth—it had taken a huge chunk of his powers before succumbing, an almost unreasonable chunk. It felt like trying to break through tempered steel if the Core demons were plywood. A different quality of creature altogether... but that was Nascent Soul for you.
It was still not enough to stand up to Zane's firepower. But it had ground him to a halt. And that was its purpose served.
Now the other demons circling him again… drool dribbling from broken gnashing teeth…
Zane growled. Reached for his Bloodline. Came up empty. Reached for essence, and could hardly find a drop left. His head pounded awfully; every limb felt anchored in heavy steels. He was not used to feeling so heavy.
He only had one thing left to him.
His fighting spirit.
That raged as hot as ever… and that would never run dry. The final fuel of his Asura State, that shot his aura high and wide and fierce—and in the end, it was this that gave him the strength to stand. To stand, and face his enemy.
So long as that remained his Asura State had at least some fuel. So long as his heart was still beating, then. He could go down swinging with at least this much strength.
He looked around. Stared down the beasts. Stared down the Monster Knight, Level 310, limping toward him—and felt how much essence it had in reserve. Still a huge quantity. They were on opposite ends. It was broken, but it still had so much fuel. Zane was empty. But untouched.
Not for long, it was looking like. The other demons' jaws began to unhinge, black blasts shooting out—
It took a massive effort just to crouch then. Readying to spring away.
Then mirrors popped up all around Zane. Catching the gunk-blasts—rocketing them back, smashing straight into the demons, scalding their own skin. They screeched.
"Hang tight, big fella!" cried Avery.
At the same time, Zane heard Evan give a little battle-cry—and the boy rushed in in a stream of golden light. And began whacking.
The lesser Monsters were forced to turn to face the new threat. Zane stood there grateful.
But there was no time to focus on all that.
The big one was still rushing straight at him. The Monster Knight. Blurring across the landscape at a speed something so big should not have been capable of. A dark star exploding corruption essence—fangs dripping with oozing reams of it—it felt manic, deranged, as it descended screeching upon him.
At the same time, Zane felt Reina come near, throwing regeneration at him. Letting him know she had his back.
He snarled. Braced.
And the massive demon crashed into him.
Then it felt like he'd gone back to the very beginning—right after the Change. When he'd had nothing. He was so burned out he couldn't summon a thing. No essence, no Skills…
He only had his fists and his Axes.
He wielded them with a fury.
It rammed him—and he went head-over-heels; it felt like he'd been struck by a freight train. He felt two anchors sink deep into him, drilling into his midsection, burning deep inside—spearing them straight through. Those massive mandibles. Injecting oozing tar globs deep through him—
Zane bellowed. And smashed, and smashed, and smashed big fists right over its wreck of a head. Yanked back his chains, drilled an axehead deep into its exposed skull where Stormfire still burned in waves—
It was absurd how resilient this thing was. Even as he crushed out gobs of brain, it still fought. Something about that soul, woven deep into its body, meant it could keep going.
The Monster Knight let out a terrible shrill cry. And they went tumbling over each other. Biting. Crushing. Grappling to the death.
For the first time, Zane felt the difference between Core and Nascent. It was clearest in the essence—that power could match Zane's own. Zane's was more pure, more dense… yet there was a difference in the quality when it came to Nascent Essence. A difference in how bright it could burn…
All that essence injected the deadliest poisons Zane had ever encountered. Deep into his guts.
Zane's body was made of strong stuff. Even without essence, his muscles, his bones, his tendons could fend it off. In the Asura State, his body's vitality coursed with new energy, boosted fiercer than ever…
His organs couldn't take as much, though. The stuff went everywhere—
And it burned. Shot a pain deep into him—a pain so intense it would have shattered nearly any human mind in an instant, sent them spasming and frothing—
Even Zane had to groan.
It only pissed him of more.
He started wrecking the Monster Knight with renewed vigor. They were so close now, pressed so tight, he could make eye contact with each of its bloody eyes as he crushed them one by one, staining his fists bloody—
𝕎𝕒𝕣𝕟𝕚𝕟𝕘!
ℍ𝕖𝕒𝕝𝕥𝕙 𝕦𝕟𝕕𝕖𝕣 𝟟𝟝%!
Those big spidery limbs had wrapped around him. Stabbing into his back. His arms. Bleeding him all over. Pumping poison into him every which way—he could feel its furious intent, hear it screeching oozing black spittle even as he bashed it in—
Neither of them any intention of stopping. Not until the other was dead.
ℍ𝕖𝕒𝕝𝕥𝕙 𝕦𝕟𝕕𝕖𝕣 𝟝𝟘%!
He felt the Spider's disbelief then—its few remaining eyes popping... it had pumped him full of enough poison to bring down a Godbeast Elephant.
Yet he was still bellowing. Teeth clenched painful-tight. Smashing in fist after furious fist…
In the end it was the one that went limp.