Savage Awakening 447. The Second Challenge (VIII)

The instant she saw it, Reina knew what it meant.

Monster King was reserved for the most elite of Monsters.

The King was rife with the Bloodline of the Heavenly Demon—an evil older than Malzareth itself, an evil that burned through its Corrupted Bone.

It had almost as much dark Creation as Zane had Destruction.

Destruction was the only advantage Zane had.

In everything else—Level, Essence Density, even its Distortion Field, so rife with Creation it seemed to bring down reality itself—he was outmatched.

Its Bloodline was twice as dense as any Monster Prince she’d ever felt.

This was a true apex predator among Monsters.

Its very existence was a wellspring of Corruption, staining the world.

Her breath caught just looking at it.

She saw Zane looking at it with his brow furrowed, trying to gauge it. He put himself between her and the Monster—a solid wall of muscle.

He got into a battle stance as the rumbling rippled the surface, growing stronger…

“Ready?” he breathed.

She nodded, heart pounding. But she trusted him.

The island around them had been transformed.

Its walls were now hardened stone—newly made where the seas met the magma.

The island had become a crater—a crater filled to the brim with an ocean of searing heat.

Then that ocean began to break open.

The Boss was moving. And every little shift moved the landscape.

It started to charge. There was a terrible groaning sound, like a tectonic plate shifting, as it brought the bulk of its weight to bear—

They saw it rising like a continent out of the mantle.

And as it charged, it gained a searing thrust, the way meteors flare as they rage through the atmosphere…

Zane bellowed a war cry.

Then he was charging too, hammers out.

He intercepted the beast mid-air. Full-force. His hammers striking that molten stone-flesh.

CRACK!

A chunk of it broke off—a single boulder breaking off the face of a mountain.

She saw Zane’s frown—saw the reverberation going through his body, as if he wasn’t expecting something that dense…

Then the beast clamped around his chest.

And barreled right through.

Smashed him into the seas.

In an instant, he’d been dragged thrashing under.

Reina cried out, ran to the edge—she heard smash after smash hammering out, even as it tried to crush him.

The magma down there was seething with Corruption, especially the far depths.

If he got stuck down there…

She tried to invigorate him, tried breaking through the magma, but it was just too thick.

“Come on!” she cried.

She knew her man—Zane wouldn’t let himself down like that. He just wouldn’t.

A heartbeat passed—

Then the magma started trembling again.

There came a bashing, a booming, deep under the surface—

Then she felt Zane’s fury break through. Heard his roar, pure defiance.

He broke the surface a second later. He landed on a float just a few feetaway; his whole body was seared raw.

She tried patching him up as fast as she could, but there was only so much she could do.

The Monster barely gave him a breath before it rounded back again. Zane felt it coming, whirled to face the threat—

This time it burst up right underneath them.

He tackled it again, no hesitation. Booms rattled the surface as he went under.

Two titans wrestled for dominance under the waves.

But Zane was in enemy territory.

It wasn’t a fair fight.

Frustration and worry tightened in her chest—she couldn’t just stand here; she wouldn’t. There had to be a way—

She lit up.

Reina began to run.

 ***

Zane was getting battered, and he knew it.

All that Bloodline—all that essence, that Bone…

He felt like a man trying to wrestle a mountain. And he was taking landslide after landslide.

Brimstone teeth sank into his abs, crushing ribs—he roared, bashing again and again…

It wasn’t enough.

He just couldn’t get his feet underneath him.

But it wasn’t over just yet. Not even close.

His Asura State was still heating up.

Burning past 250% power. With every blow he took, his heart pumped stronger…

And so he gritted his teeth and fought his heart out.

Once he hit Limit Breaker—once Reina could boost him there—he’d have a better shot. Right now, all he could do was protect her and hold on.

He just couldn’t get anything going. It felt like he was swinging through the world’s heaviest mud. It took a hellish effort just to break free.

Meanwhile itsmashed him through so many tons of steel he could hardly think straight.

But he never let it crush him.

Smash by smash, he forced his way free.

Kicked off hard for the surface.

He landed in a crouch, feeling absolutely worked, coughing blood.

The sea was bubbling again. That thing was making a long circle—looping back around. RElentless.

It wouldn’t be long before it was coming at him again.

And his health was dipping dangerously close to 50%...

He’d barely done anything to damage.

It couldn’t go on like this. His eyes narrowed. He’d have to—

“Zane!”

He blinked.

There was Reina, over by the sea wall—the lip of the crater—pointing her staff at that newly made stone, the lip where the lava met the sea.

She’d made a bright X.

Instantly he saw what she wanted.

Despite the pain lighting up his chest, he grinned. This woman.

“It’s the weakest link,” she cried. “Hit that hard enough, and it all crumbles—I’ll boost you!”

“Do it,” he breathed.

“One, two—!”

He bellowed and unleashed his hammers.

And she blasted him with her hardest Invigorate yet.

His muscles bulged with Creation and Destruction, all at once, pumped with so much power they felt on the verge of bursting—he howled.

She’d made the target.

And he hit it dead-on. With everything he could muster.

The crater lip shuddered—a violent wave passing through every inch of that stone, raising giant cracks as it did—

And the edge of the island—the one thing holding back all that ocean—shattered at once.

The sea crashed in.

The Megalodon was still swerving around, still rising for one more go at him, when he felt it still, deep under the waves.

Felt it rumble in confusion, its mind slowly searching—taking in the thousand-foot-tall waves crashing in on every side—swamping the magma, raising a new world of steam…

Making new land. Seizing its territory miles at a time.

Then there was no stopping it. Faster and faster the waves crashed in—

A new continent rose before their very eyes.

And deep beneath the surface, he heard a groaning.

Its confusion was turning to rage.

Reina was back on him, keeping up her Invigorate even as she gasped—there was a sudden urgency to her. “Zane—get ready!”

At his look—

“We’re flipping the script on it,” she said. “We’re cornering it—and if we’re facing a cornered animal…”

He set his jaw. “It’ll come with everything it’s got.”

Then he felt fury spike far beneath the surface—felt the crater begin to teeter on its axis...

“I’ll hold the line,” he informed her.

The sea was sucking in like a whirlpool, breaking wide open, condensed into that great bulging form—

The Boss breached the surface, jaw unhinging. Bringing such force it nearly destroyed everything they worked for—sent the seas tumbling back…

Then only Zane stood between that angry continent and Reina.

He landed twice, hard—

It wasn’t enough.

It mauled him straight out of the sky.

Warning!
Health under 50%

Even now, he couldn’t quite match it for raw heft. His body took the punishment.

He was backed up hard into the ground, crushed deeper and deeper—

For a split second, they wrestled like that. And in that moment of impact, the beast put all its heft into him.

Tried to break him where he stood—he let out a sound of raw exertion.

But this time, Zane found his footing.

It could not beat him down.

The exchange ended like that—with the beast skidding on by and crashing back into the bubbling magma.

But he’d held it off.

It came at him again, full-force—smashed him into so hard that new continent shattered into thousands of little floating islands. Hit him with so much power it would’ve annhilated a horde of True Gods.

But it could not bring Zane down.

And as it rolled away, water rushed between the cracks, filling it up—making new land.

Blood flowed freely from Zane’s heaving mouth. He was more broken than whole right now—he couldn’t take many more of this. But it didn’t matter. He was so pumped he knew he had to be on the verge—

“Zane!” gasped Reina. “Can’t—hold—much longer—”

But by now, that magma ocean had narrowed to only a lake.

That Monster was running out of time too. And it knew it. He grinned through bloody teeth.

He felt every inch of that massive body flare in the Astral Plane. Like it was burning every last ounce of essence it had—

Creation burned at its maximum. So much that Bone began to crack.

The Megalodon bellowed and made one last all-out charge.

Just as Zane’s own body broke past its limit.

Chains shattered all over Zane’s body.

And they came together one final time.

As they soared, it seemed one man—a meteor of war red—collided with a falling planet of magma.

The force of the collision threatened to break the very realm itself, sending rivers of void crashing down the skies…

For the first time in that fight, Zane met it force-for-force.

And held that beast to a standstill.

***

Reina watched, breath caught, as the Megalodon fell first.

She felt a split-second of relief; her heart surged.

Then the Megalodon let out an insane roar. Its pupils went wide.

Then its Corrupted Bone burst open. Exploded. Sacrificed…

It wasn’t done.

It had one last trump card left.

She watched in horror as a glut of Creation went straight to that war-club of a tail.

She was still crying out a warning when it whipped up from behind, lightning-fast—

Zane barely had time to brace.

It collided with his body with a sickening CRUNCH!