Savage Awakening 445. The Second Challenge (VI)

A/N: The Crow-King and Queen have been changed to Crow-Brutes! Same bosses with the same characteristics, just a name and slight aesthetic change.

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The first thing he noticed about his new storm was the size of it.

It started off slow—his axes racing out a mile wide… but with each revolution, it doubled.

Doubled in intensity, doubled in height, in speed—

The firepower shot up even faster.

And with Reina’s boost, he pulled through that thing in a heartbeat. Then he was hurtling down the slope, already pulling into a second.

He felt her pull back, gasping.

This was the plan—get him a running start.

Then leave the bulk of the damage to him.

She knew she couldn’t boost him the whole time—it was just too much for her right now. She’d try to save her strength and come in when the time was right.

In the meantime…

Three steps and he was crashing down the mountain, full bore.

Every step, he pulled harder, faster—

And a Red Giant was flaring to life around him. Streaks of heavy metal red; his axes tracing the lines of it, one by one, each Destruction-white…

He bellowed, feeling that Red Giant strain on his body—even at just the third pull, he felt the weight of dozens of planets in his hands.

A breathtaking amount of power was being summoned out of thin air, whipped into a fury—the kind of power only found at the creation of stars.

And at the heart of it all—holding it all together by dint of sheer will and strength—was a charging Zane.

Four.

The cloud wall rose before him, so thick with Tier 7 Law that it seemed made of raw, hardened energy in the Astral Plane. And behind it, he saw the grunts flocking—a dozen, more Wraithcrows holding it strong, lending it their strengths.

A great glut of Corruption stained the surface of the world.

That was just the first line of defense—but it was a brutal one.

He’d just have to go through it.

He gave one last stomp—and soared.

Five.

In that moment, making a violent arc through the air, a star crashing around him, axes blinding with the light of Destruction, his fists were loaded with the heaviest they’d ever been.

All that force sank straight through that shield.

For a moment, the cloud wall flexed inward—he saw the whole thing shudder, heard the screeches, the shock, as his force crushed through—

Destruction rammed in.

BOOM!

And that shield exploded.

Dense ghost smoke blew out to the far horizons.

Three Wraithcrows exploded in fireballs of gore and wasted flesh.

Their bodies managed to slow him just a step—managed to shudder.

Then Zane burst onto the ramparts, smoking, streaming blood and heat.

The birds rushed him in an instant.

Screeching and clawing and slashing—it felt like running face-first into a hailstorm.

Cuts burst open down his face, his arms, slicing at his muscles.

Over a dozen True Gods let him have it, all in close quarters.

At the same time, Tier 7 Distortion Fields hammered him all at once—like weight vest after weight vest stacked heavy on him, making him grunt—

In that first strike, they’d slashed off a tenth of his Health.

But they weren’t done. Even as he growled, made to counter, made to feed them his Axes, the Crows went into ghost form, one by one…

His Axes went right through.

He narrowed his eyes.

“Alright,” he breathed. “Show me what you’ve got.”

Three seconds. This was their one shot to take him down.

And in that time, they gave him hell.

Even as he kept fighting to keep his Axes moving, kept fighting to make that sixth step, dozens of pairs of wings hardened with ectoplasm; he was thrust into a ghostly storm, a storm of talons and wings, all blisteringly sharp—a storm within his own, a storm of feathers and spirit—

It threatened to unravel him.

In those three seconds, he took over a hundred hard blows.

There was a lot of him to slice open—and the birds damned near got all of him.

He took it all with gritted teeth, even as his blood splattered the bulk of the stones red—

Warning!

Health under 75%

Still dropping fast.

He could handle Tier 7 True Gods just fine now. But this many, all at once…

He just had to bear it.

His ears began to ring. His muscles, sliced and shredded, were starting to protest under the sheer weight of the Storm—

He had to keep it straight, even as he felt his knees begin to buckle—

He heard a battle cry.

It was Reina. A warm halo graced his body. And his blood burst with new life; his skin stitched back together, closing as fast as it opened up.

He bit down hard—roared—and stepped into his sixth Revolution.

And the winds scorched back to life. Scorched to speeds you could never find on Earth; the sorts of winds that could make canyons of planets. And at the head of it—two huge Axes, burning like never before.

Just as the birds flickered out of Invulnerability—and made contact.

He caught three birds dead-on.

Three explosions—feathery blood balloons burst mid-air. And he hacked them right out of the sky.

By now, his Giant was reaching truly world-shaking sizes.

The rest of those birds squawked, tried flapping away—but it was no use.

They faced the meat grinder of his all-out power.

And none of them could take it.

He took hit after hit—claws raking his flesh; spears stabbing at him—

None of it came close to stopping him.

All the while, birds exploded in spectacular fashion. It was one of the most pleasing sights he’d been treated to in a long time.

His Axe hit one last bird—THWACK! It burned up before it hit the ground, its ghostly Distortion field swallowed up by the color of his fury.

Then there were just a handful left. Holding their ground at the heart of the fort.

At the very front—the giants. The Crow-Brutes, with just a handful of elites flanking them. They didn’t even seem the same species; they were so massive.

Their auras dwarfed anything he’d faced so far.

And they were lit up with rage; trembling with it.

A deep rumbling started from their chests.

Then they unsheathed their talons one by one. Their chunky bodies went incandescent with that ghost-form power.

And in the same instant, their Corrupted Bones went ballistic.

Creation raged through their musculatures. Just as those beady eyes honed in on his Axes.

They let out hideous shrieks. And bounded at the coming storm.

They wanted to take him head-on?

He grinned.

Alright.

Zane charged—and they charged him right back, leaped, their arms bulging with Creation powers—

Their talons went all the way black.

CLANG-CLANG!

They caught Zane’s Axes straight up.

And the fury of the Red Giant exploded all over them.

In that ghost form, they should’ve been invulnerable. Their talons were streaming heavy with that strange ghostly smoke, the stuff of spirits—

Yet the Brutes screeched.

Feathers blasted off them. Scorched black.

Somehow his Red Giant hit so hard it punched through that invulnerability. A wave of force rippled down their thick musculatures, tearing muscles as it went.

But that ghost form had done its work.

They’d taken all that force—and forced Zane’s charge to a sudden halt.

He frowned, pulled harder—but Creation backed their muscles. And they held him down.

The force coming back at him was tremendous.

One, he could’ve taken. But two…

He gritted his teeth.

But the Creation just kept coming, bursting out of their bones.

He’d burned so much blasting through that shield wall.

These Brutes were just getting started—and they knew it.

They screeched again, shoved harder; Creation surged harder. New muscles bulged over their bones…

And to Zane’s surprise, he was forced to stumble back a step.

His Red Giant shuddered. The winds were grinding to a halt—for a moment, he looked on the verge of flaring out…

He gave a furious roar.

Chains shattered all over his body.

And he forced out one more step.

And a new life surged through his Storm; he threw himself right back—

CLANG!

The Brutes stumbled back squawking—just a step.

He pushed harder, and harder still, teeth gritted.

They were deadlocked. The battle hung in the balance. As they wrestled back and forth, Zane against those Brutes, the slightest edge could tip things.

Then the rest of the grunts descended on him.

Clawing at his face. Clawing at his arms. Unleashing a hailstorm—slashing at his wrists—trying to break his grip—

He roared, furiously holding on, but his arms began to tremble.

It was too much to bear.

Then he heard one more cry—“Zane!”

And a wall of pure warmth slammed into him.

Thump.

Thump—THUMP.

And in that moment, the slashing of the crows, the wrestling of the Brutes—it all seemed a background hum against the beating of his heart.

His body exploded with Vitality. Every muscle singing with so much raw power he hardly knew what to do with it. A moment ago, he’d been dizzy, teetering—now the heat of his emotion burned through all that noise…

He turned hard eyes on the Brutes.

And blasted them right out of the nest.