59. Fighting Fire With Fire (IV)

Well, that was easy.

Zane watched a few hundred tons of steel go toppling over as the wall caved in. Its runes glowed uselessly—some had gone totally dull. His fires burned everywhere. Rivers of melting steel pooled over the ground.

He leaped over the mess, landing neatly on the other side. He found some turret towers waiting for him, primed to fire. The guards at the top screamed incoherently at him. The cannons spat out a few useless rounds before he cut the tops off.

Warriors poured over the burning walls, streamed out from ugly stone barracks, their fists blazing with black flame. Rangers came after, arrows smoldering black. Then came the Rogues in loose formation, streaming black embers.

They were dressed in flowing inky robes. Like dark tides coming to drown him. He was surprised at their faces—red with fury, almost demented with it. They seemed to want to kill him quite badly.

He made it quick. No need for Inferno Cyclone. He made two little arcs with his Axes, like a painter drawing Rising Sun Slashes in the air. The scars rippled out.

This time it didn't even seem violent. Violence was two things clashing, making sparks. But nothing clashed here. The scars simply went through them all at once. In two easy motions he'd sliced an army in half.

They didn't seem to know they'd all been cut until the momentum carried them forward, carried their upper halves off of their lower halves. They stared down dumbfounded.

The fire gnawed not downward but up. They seemed not to believe what was happening to them—not until it was up to their necks. Then the screaming started. It cut off quite abruptly.

Zane didn't wait to watch it all. He just kept walking.

There were a few gnarled stone strongholds here and there. When he walked past them he expected to find a city.

Instead, he found a wasteland.

A warzone. All he saw everywhere he looked was black. Scorched barricades, crumbled walls, buildings hollowed out, cut to half their size, stumped. All seared the color of ash.

What had happened here?

He walked down the shambling excuse for a street—really just an uneven ash path between piles of smoking debris. He saw heads hiding behind them, eyes shivering—they ducked away as they looked. He heard the clinking of chains.

To his right, behind a shabby excuse for a wall, he saw a whole line of ash-streaked people all dressed in rags, cringing. They had cloth sacks and pickaxes in hand. Black tear lines ran down their faces.

Zane sighed.

He'd take some satisfaction wiping this Cult off the face of the earth.

Then there was much screaming, much shouting, much pattering of feet, and suddenly the side streets were alive with people. People in cult uniforms came rushing at him, mobs of them pouring into the street. They all burned with the same black flame.

Zane was starting to get an idea of how it worked. He saw the Warriors rushing at him—burning with their own flame. It seemed to enrage them, to inflame their spirits even more. He checked one of them out, the angry-looking guy swinging for Zane's head.

𝔻𝕒𝕣𝕣𝕖𝕟 𝕂𝕚𝕟𝕘 (ℂ𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕥𝕦𝕣𝕖)

𝔼𝕤𝕤𝕖𝕟𝕔𝕖 𝕃𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕝 𝟛𝟙

ℂ𝕝𝕒𝕤𝕤: 𝔹𝕖𝕣𝕤𝕖𝕣𝕜𝕖𝕣

𝔽𝕒𝕔𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟: ℂ𝕦𝕝𝕥 𝕠𝕗 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝔹𝕝𝕒𝕔𝕜 𝔽𝕝𝕒𝕞𝕖

𝕃𝕒𝕨𝕤: 𝕄𝕚𝕟𝕠𝕣 𝕃𝕒𝕨 𝕠𝕗 𝕊𝕡𝕚𝕣𝕚𝕥𝕦𝕒𝕝 𝕀𝕟𝕔𝕒𝕟𝕕𝕖𝕤𝕔𝕖𝕟𝕔𝕖 (𝔼𝕝𝕖𝕞𝕖𝕟𝕥𝕒𝕝 𝕃𝕒𝕨 𝕠𝕗 𝔽𝕚𝕣𝕖)

𝕂𝕖𝕪 𝕊𝕜𝕚𝕝𝕝𝕤:

𝕊𝕠𝕦𝕝 𝔽𝕚𝕣𝕖 (𝔸𝕔𝕥𝕚𝕧𝕖) [𝕌𝕟𝕔𝕠𝕞𝕞𝕠𝕟]

𝕀𝕘𝕟𝕚𝕥𝕖𝕤 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕤𝕠𝕦𝕝, 𝕥𝕖𝕞𝕡𝕠𝕣𝕒𝕣𝕚𝕝𝕪 𝕘𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕥𝕝𝕪 𝕓𝕠𝕠𝕤𝕥𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕊𝕥𝕣𝕖𝕟𝕘𝕥𝕙 𝕒𝕥 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕔𝕠𝕤𝕥 𝕠𝕗 𝕍𝕚𝕥𝕒𝕝𝕚𝕥𝕪

Oh, pretty cool. So the fire was inside them. Burning inside out—a fire of the spirit. Then he dodged, hefted a Chain, and slapped the guy into oblivion.

He felt it when the Rangers shot at him too. The arrows tried burning him, but not his body. They went for his soul.

If Zane had to guess, this Major Law had to do with the more spiritual, mystical kinds of fire.

Whatever the case, he just kept striding up the street, swatting cultists aside like flies. They just weren't interesting to him—and none of them could really hurt him. They kept throwing fires at him, but what good was a fire that couldn't ignite? Only he knew that Law.

After he splattered a few dozen of them, most of them seemed to get the message. They started treating him like a natural disaster—not something to be resisted, something to be survived. They started getting the hell out of the way. Good choice.

The city was so hollowed out there was scarcely a building above four stories. He picked out the palace pretty easily. It was the one shining splendor in the barren desert. It looked faintly Roman, but with glossy black columns instead of white marble, accented red, with a grand obsidian dome. A set of wide steps led up to two fat crimson steel doors.

He saw it on the mini-map—half of it lay on one Safe Zone, half of it in another, and between them was the C-ranked dungeon Gorge of Elemental Winds. What an odd design.

He made it onto the grand avenue leading straight to the palace, and here the Cult seemed to be making its last stand. They'd dragged out a huge row of gleaming silver cannons.

Then they peppered him.

One socked him in the eye. Another one just punched him in the jaw, a third in the gut, and he was surprised to find they actually hurt. Well, "hurt." They felt like paintball shots. They were more annoying than anything.

He got out his Axes and went chop-chop. One Axe swept through from the left, the other swept through from the right.

And each cannon they cleaved exploded on impact, like balloons. It was weirdly satisfying popping them. Then he popped the people manning them, who insisted on running at him screaming bloody murder. The thing about his Axes, especially now he had Rising Sun Slash on hand, was they had gotten incredibly efficient. Two slashes could bring down an army.

𝕊𝕜𝕚𝕝𝕝 𝕦𝕡!

ℝ𝕚𝕤𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕊𝕦𝕟 𝕊𝕝𝕒𝕤𝕙 𝕀 -> 𝕀𝕀

Speak of the devil.

Then there was the last line of defense.

A circle of hooded men waited for him right outside the steps. A glut of fire mages, all Level 40s and 50s—he figured these were the strongest of them. Their cloaks were billowing, trimmed with gold. Their staffs burned at the ready, Laws shimmering off them. They hummed an ugly tune. They'd been waiting for him—they seemed to be charging something…

As he drew closer, they shouted as one—and their fires streamed together, congealing into one boiling black ball.

A giant flaming hand reached out, up to the arm, then another. A black-fire head burst out the top; obsidian gems made the eyes. The torso burned down, swelling to thick black legs, until it was complete. A monstrosity of flame and brimstone.

He checked it out.

ℍ𝕖𝕝𝕝𝕗𝕚𝕣𝕖 𝔾𝕠𝕝𝕖𝕞 (ℂ𝕠𝕟𝕤𝕥𝕣𝕦𝕔𝕥𝕖𝕕 ℂ𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕥𝕦𝕣𝕖)

𝔼𝕤𝕤𝕖𝕟𝕔𝕖 𝕃𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕝 𝟟𝟘

𝕃𝕒𝕨𝕤: 𝕃𝕒𝕨 𝕠𝕗 𝔼𝕥𝕙𝕖𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕝 𝔽𝕝𝕒𝕞𝕖

ℍ𝕖𝕝𝕝𝕗𝕚𝕣𝕖 ℍ𝕒𝕟𝕕 (𝔸𝕔𝕥𝕚𝕧𝕖) [𝕌𝕟𝕔𝕠𝕞𝕞𝕠𝕟]

𝔸 𝕤𝕥𝕣𝕚𝕜𝕖 𝕓𝕦𝕣𝕟𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕨𝕚𝕥𝕙 ℍ𝕖𝕝𝕝𝕚𝕤𝕙 𝕗𝕝𝕒𝕞𝕖𝕤, 𝕤𝕔𝕒𝕝𝕕𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕤𝕠𝕦𝕝.

𝕄𝕠𝕝𝕥𝕖𝕟 ℂ𝕣𝕦𝕤𝕙 (𝔸𝕔𝕥𝕚𝕧𝕖) [𝕌𝕟𝕔𝕠𝕞𝕞𝕠𝕟]

𝔻𝕣𝕒𝕘𝕤 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕖𝕟𝕖𝕞𝕪 𝕚𝕟𝕥𝕠 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝔾𝕠𝕝𝕖𝕞'𝕤 𝕖𝕞𝕓𝕣𝕒𝕔𝕖, 𝕔𝕣𝕦𝕤𝕙𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕥𝕙𝕖𝕞 𝕥𝕠 𝕕𝕦𝕤𝕥 𝕦𝕟𝕕𝕖𝕣 𝕚𝕟𝕥𝕖𝕟𝕤𝕖 𝕙𝕖𝕒𝕥 𝕒𝕟𝕕 𝕡𝕣𝕖𝕤𝕤𝕦𝕣𝕖. 𝔸 𝕡𝕠𝕨𝕖𝕣𝕗𝕦𝕝 𝕗𝕚𝕟𝕚𝕤𝕙𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕞𝕠𝕧𝕖.

He'd never seen anything like it—you could combine Skills with other fighters? His first thought was, if Reina got her hands on something like this, she'd have a field day.

Then the Golem hit him.

Just slapped him open-palm, blisteringly fast, and he slammed halfway down the street into a crumbling building. Its floors crashed down on his head.

The Golem bellowed.

…

Well, that was annoying. Coughing, he picked himself up and walked out into the street. That actually kind of hurt.

He felt scorched there in a way that felt incredibly odd, since he only knew pain physically or emotionally. But this was weird; it happened somewhere in between. He couldn't pin it down to a place on his body. It really had whacked him in the soul.

Not enough to do much other than annoy him. Souls… he hadn't thought much about them. He was sure they had something to do with Law comprehension. He wasn't an idiot, but he didn't think himself smarter than the next guy. Yet he grasped Laws far quicker than anyone he knew. It seemed to him he had a feel for how the world worked, an intuition that seemed to outstrip anyone he knew—and he suspected by a rather large margin. Only Avery came close.

Then there was that time under the Lava Falls when he could sit there for hours on end, and she almost passed out… that was 'Soul Power' too, whatever that was. He seemed to have been endowed with quite a lot of it.

Only why wasn't it defined anywhere? Why didn't it show up in his Stats? Was it innate? Could it be trained? Very odd.

… It was telling how bored he was, that he was getting off on random tangents like this mid-fight. He figured he should probably stop procrastinating and depose this damn regime already. A lot of it was he was dreading explaining the whole thing to Reina, if he was honest.

Sighing, he stepped out to face the Golem.

It roared and charged him.

This Golem was made by the Fire Mages. Fire Mages who stood way back there on the steps, cloaking themselves in a cocoon of black flame. He chucked another Axe at them—

The Axe had only gotten halfway there before the Golem slapped him again. He tried dodging, but nimbleness was not one of his strong suits. Instead he blocked it. He still went flying, this time into another wall. He was starting to get annoyed. Fine. Let's make this simple.

The next time it came for him, he chopped clean through one of its legs. Sharpness cleaved through it and it fell off balance; the torn-off limb smoked to nothing. It swiped for him and he leaped over, Axes whirling, and chopped off another leg. He'd take this thing apart piece by piece if he had to—

Then its arms clamped down around him like a bear trap, smothering him.

They started to constrict, crushing him tighter and tighter—an immense brute force powered by the essence of dozens of mages. It seemed to be putting everything it had into this one crush. And in that moment, Zane experienced a force like two hydraulic presses smashing in on him on either side, a force like he'd never felt before. The Golem roared in triumph.

The arms closed tight… and stilled.

Then its arms began to tremble. And slip. The Golem blinked, baffled.

Inch by inch, those massive arms were forced open to reveal a man at its center, face drawn tight, muscles working furiously. He grunted with the effort; he was grinning. Just brute force set against brute force. And with one last screaming effort, he blasted the Golem off and stood there panting, muscles slicked with sweat.

No Skill. Pure strength.

That was unexpected. It actually made him work. That was kind of fun, actually.

Only... that seemed the end of it.

He blinked—he was hoping for another round but the Golem was smoldering out. Up on the steps, the mages were collapsed in shuddering heaps. Their essence was gone, their shield was gone.

They'd really poured everything they had into that crush. It was a shame—they didn't know they were trying to crush a crusher. Zane's first love had been brute force wrestling. He still longed to go back to it sometimes. You were just not going to beat him in a contest of raw power. Even if it was the combined essence of nearly thirty mages, set against just his body… And his body won.

His new steel body had taken turret fire, cannon fire, and now the crush of a giant magma Golem. And he still seemed unscathed. Elias had been right. This was a hell of a passive Skill. Zane was quite pleased.

He had a funny thought. His body was at a point now where he could've walked in here and wrecked them. All without using a single Skill.

He took care of the last of the Mages. This was probably the elite of their military. A few slashes turned them to essence.

Now nothing stood between him and the palace.