142. San Diego

Zane stepped through the portal.

For a second it felt like he was falling; there was a twisting lurch deep in his gut.

Then his feet hit something soft and loamy.

The world opened out. He stood on sandy ground, pastel yellow and so fine he sank a good half-foot into it. The expanse stretched on and on. A tang of sea-salt wafted on the air. There was the soft lapping of waves, a constant background hum; gulls' cries echoed in the distance.

He looked around at a city built on a beach.

Every Beacon stood in the town square, and this was no different. All around him there were market stalls under beach umbrellas, selling foraged clothes and sea Monster cores. A good few were dedicated to farmed sea-weed treasures.

Behind him loomed the Town hall—a towering lighthouse with bright cannons mounted at the top, streaming Laws of Water.

Out in front, dropping down to the waves, stood rows upon rows of straw huts. Most of the place wasn't even on land—a vast grid of wood planks struck out into the ocean. Hundreds of little enclaves branched out of it, full of little houses on wood stilts. It was noon. There were children swimming in the water.

Another thing Reina noted—in most Safe Zones you didn't see many big animals, mostly birds or insects. Monsters usually got to the big game first. But in San Diego, they'd preserved a bunch of giant sea turtles—after the Change they'd grown to three or four times their normal size. They were gentle giants of the sea; most families here had one for basic transport. He saw a few children riding them about, lugging wicker baskets of seaweed.

Zane met the elite team there on the beach. They called themselves the 'Starlit Defenders,' riffing on the Moon Fruit, which had come to be a symbol of the Luminous Faction.

They were four Level 90s, all young, all a little awed at the sight of him, which was pretty normal nowadays. One was Jake, a toned Warrior—a well-built Wind swordsman with his brown hair tied back. Another was Arjun, a burly archer. Then there was Cassie and Maddie, blonde Electricity Mage and a freckled Fire Mage.

They all seemed a bit nervous to speak to him. They were doing the staring, stammering thing.

Zane wasn't a very talkative guy himself. Which meant this was turning out kind of awkward. He just grunted. "Right. Let's get on with it."

They all nodded quickly. "Yes sir!"

They felt quite eager for some reason.

Three of them kept quiet. But soon Jake the Warrior opened up—and when he started talking he couldn't seem to stop.

"We're honored to have you here, sir!" said Jake, saluting like an army cadet. Zane felt a strong eagerness to impress coming from the guy.

"I've scouted out the dungeon before you came, sir," Jake continued. "I've a few pages of notes written down! If you'd like, I can give a debriefing—"

"Thanks. But that won't be necessary," said Zane hastily. It was just a B+-rank dungeon, wasn't it? "Let's go."

They all nodded again.

It was a sea dungeon, supposedly. One that'd broken just a few days ago. Their escort was a white-mustached captain driving a sleek runed wood ship; they quickly got out to sea.

Because it was a sea dungeon, they needed special equipment. Reina, of course, had it covered; she'd given Zane a few Gills Amulets to bring in his Bag of Holding, enough for the whole party. They fastened them around their necks.

It was a Water Law treasure that repelled water and gave air. It made a little air bubble all around you right over the skin. So you could breathe easily; when you went diving you'd never even get wet.

Sea dungeons were especially tricky. Most dungeons had environments that biased the Monsters inside. But Sea dungeons actively shut down lots of land-dwellers' strengths—while sharply boosting Water Monsters'.

It was why they needed Zane, Reina said. She said this youngster crew was ambitious; they wanted to go it alone—and maybe if it was a normal B-rank land dungeon she would've let them. But this one was out of their league.

Soon—

𝕐𝕠𝕦 𝕙𝕒𝕧𝕖 𝕖𝕟𝕥𝕖𝕣𝕖𝕕: 𝔻𝕦𝕟𝕘𝕖𝕠𝕟: 𝕊𝕦𝕟𝕜𝕖𝕟 𝕋𝕖𝕞𝕡𝕝𝕖 𝕠𝕗 𝕋𝕣𝕚𝕥𝕠𝕟 (𝔹+)

ℂ𝕝𝕖𝕒𝕣𝕒𝕟𝕔𝕖 𝕆𝕓𝕛𝕖𝕔𝕥𝕚𝕧𝕖𝕤:

𝔽𝕝𝕠𝕠𝕣 𝟙

𝕊𝕝𝕒𝕪 𝕥𝕙𝕖 ℕ𝕖𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕟 𝕂𝕣𝕒𝕜𝕖𝕟

𝕊𝕝𝕒𝕪 𝔸𝕖𝕘𝕖𝕠𝕟 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕋𝕚𝕕𝕖𝕔𝕒𝕝𝕝𝕖𝕣

𝕊𝕝𝕒𝕪 𝕊𝕚𝕣𝕖𝕟𝕒 𝕥𝕙𝕖 ℂ𝕠𝕣𝕒𝕝 𝕎𝕚𝕥𝕔𝕙

(𝟘/𝟛)

𝔽𝕝𝕠𝕠𝕣 𝟚

𝕊𝕝𝕒𝕪 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝔻𝕖𝕖𝕡 𝕊𝕖𝕒 𝕊𝕖𝕟𝕥𝕚𝕟𝕖𝕝

𝕊𝕝𝕒𝕪 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝔾𝕖𝕪𝕤𝕖𝕣 𝔼𝕞𝕡𝕖𝕣𝕠𝕣

(𝟘/𝟚)

The boat began to slow; soon it halted. "We're here," said the captain.

At first, it looked like any other patch of dark-blue water. Then Zane squinted—far under the waves he could make out the outlines of what seemed to be a massive tower made of glittering prismarine, going down layer after layer. It was studded with seashells and barnacles; fat air bubbles tricked out its layers.

It was so infested with Monsters the whole thing was a big red blot on the mini-map.

Then red dots started streaking out. Coming closer.

The minions had spotted them.

Soon he saw them coming—blurry pale shapes streaking out of the top floor. Streaking right for their ship. The closer they got, the more they resolved—ghostly white squid-Monsters, trailing fat tentacles that looked like drifting seaweed. A squad of about a dozen.

ℕ𝕖𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕟 𝕊𝕢𝕦𝕚𝕕

𝔼𝕤𝕤𝕖𝕟𝕔𝕖 𝕃𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕝 𝟠𝟠

Zane was just about to pull out his hammer when--

"Sir!" Jake piped up, bright-eyed. "Could you let us handle it? It'd be a great learning opportunity for us, sir!"

Zane thought about it. Then shrugged. "Sure."

They all shot up at once, like they'd all planned this. "Let's do this," said Arjun.

"Go Defenders!" cried Maddie.

They all dove in at once.

Jake went first. He summoned a sword twice as big as he was—and just as thick. And started slashing; each slash made a gale underwater, disrupting the currents. Soon a little windstorm was brewing, dragging the Squids in. Hampering them.

They descended on Jake first; it seemed he was their tank. The others pot-shotted behind him. Arjun shot sickly green poison-bolts. Cassie shot lightning. Maddie threw Fire—which dimmed a little underwater—but it still made black marks on the Squids' skin.

Jake just kept hacking, roaring. It took him three big strokes to sever a tangle of tentacles. A fourth to skewer a squid. He just kept hacking, heaving, roaring—giant gales of wind took the Monsters to task. The squids quickly wilted under it all; they spat out a few inkblots—blots that steamed against Jake's skin, chipping off Health, making him hiss. But by the end of it they'd gotten out mostly unharmed.

They climbed back up to shore, breathing heavily but feeling proud. Confident.

"Sir!" said Jake. "So what'd you think?"

Zane wasn't sure what to say. They were all looking to him like eager students, waiting to get their teacher's grade.

"Good work," he offered, and they beamed.

"Alright!" said Cassie, high-fiving Maddie.

"Sir—with your permission, could you let us take the whole dungeon?" said Arjun hopefully.

"We think we're ready for it!" said Jake, nodding. "Actually…" He hesitated. "We all appreciate how Vice Leader—" that was Reina's official title, even though she was for all intents and purposes the actual Leader—"Is looking out for us! But honestly…we also feel it's holding us back."

Jake paused, like he wasn't sure if he should say this or not. Then he decided to say it.

"We feel if we just work together, there's little we can't overcome—we feel we could even match some of the top World Rankers!"

The other three nodded. "Please, sir—give us a chance to prove ourselves!" pleaded Jake.

Zane looked around at them. It definitely felt like they'd planned this.

Still, though—

"Eh," said Zane. "I don't think so. This one's mine."

He was going fishing with Evan later this afternoon. At the rate it took them to clear those minions, this could go a while.

And—'match some of the top World Rankers'? They were pretty solid middling World-Rankers, Zane supposed. But at some point, quality trumped quantity. If they thought that was enough to go toe-to-toe with someone like Eze…

Anyway. Reina told Zane to take care of it. So Zane would.

"Oh," said Jake. They all looked a little put out, but they seemed to know better than to complain about it.

Zane eyed the temple. Made some back-of-the-napkin calculations. Well—less calculations, more just squinting and feeling it out.

"Back the ship up," he said to the captain.

"Eh? Oh—of course, sir!"

They puttered back a few dozen feet.

"Is this enough?"

"Keep going until I say stop."

The captain blinked, confused. "Uh. Right away, sir!"

About halfway to the dungeon boundary, Zane started setting up his Smash. He threw it up high above—

𝕊𝕜𝕚𝕝𝕝 𝕖𝕧𝕠𝕝𝕧𝕖𝕕!

𝔸𝕡𝕠𝕔𝕒𝕝𝕪𝕡𝕤𝕖 𝕊𝕞𝕒𝕤𝕙 [𝕄𝕪𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕔+] -> 𝔸𝕡𝕠𝕔𝕒𝕝𝕪𝕡𝕤𝕖 𝕊𝕞𝕒𝕤𝕙 [𝔼𝕒𝕣𝕥𝕙 – ℂ𝕠𝕞𝕞𝕠𝕟]

𝔼𝕒𝕣𝕥𝕙-𝕘𝕣𝕒𝕕𝕖 𝕊𝕜𝕚𝕝𝕝𝕤 𝕨𝕚𝕝𝕝 𝕓𝕖 𝕕𝕖𝕟𝕠𝕥𝕖𝕕 𝕨𝕚𝕥𝕙 𝕒𝕟 𝕒𝕤𝕥𝕖𝕣𝕚𝕤𝕜 *

All Zane's Skills so far were in 'Mortal,' apparently. This was the first that'd crossed some kind of threshold. He wondered what that meant.

He looked up and found a sea of shining sapphire blue.

A glorious, beautiful, blue so brilliant, so vast it blotted out the sun—the Sun didn't just seem dim in comparison. It literally dimmed, as though afraid to outshine Zane's new Stormfire. The whole world changed color in its presence, like everything got filtered through that strange blue lens.

It was, as far as Zane could tell, the highest grade of Pseudo-Stormfire possible. And it changed the color of the sky, deepening that bright blue to something more ethereal, something seldom seen in nature. It gave off waves of blazing heat; so hot the surface of the water started trembling, like it was about to boil.

It was impossible not to stare at it. Team Starlit Defenders was openly gaping.

Zane nodded, smiling. He liked the look of it. But it'd be hard to say how much he liked it until he saw it in action.

The captain, distracted, started slowing the boat.

"Farther," Zane reminded him, and he flinched. "Y-yes sir!"

They kept going until they came up to the very edge of the dungeon boundary. Miles away. This would probably be fine, Zane thought. He just wanted to get them out of the splash radius.

"Brace yourselves," was all he said.

Everyone on board tensed.

Then Apocalypse Smash dropped.

If Zane were around to see the meteor that ended the dinosaurs, he imagined it would've looked something like this.

It struck the ocean—and the moment it did, everything for miles around went stark blue, the blue of sunlight streaking through fresh ice, a blue you'd only glimpse in the most intense lightning-storms. A very, very bright blue, a crackling blue—a huge chunk of ocean was seething with Stormfire, just like that. At the snap of a finger.

But most of the power wasn't even out yet.

The hammer kept sinking. Getting brighter, somehow, driving into the depths, miles upon miles upon miles, down near the ocean floor, down to that monstrous Temple…

There was a deep THUD. It wasn't the loudest thing—muffled by all that water—yet it reverberated endlessly; even folk on land tens of miles away heard it, stopped, looked up—saw a halo of brilliant blue on the horizon…

Deep in the ocean, there was a flash—a ball of blue-white, impossibly bright. It rose then, like sunrise at the bottom of the ocean…

And thousands of dots on the mini-map winked out at once.

𝕋𝕙𝕖 ℕ𝕖𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕟 𝕂𝕣𝕒𝕜𝕖𝕟 𝕙𝕒𝕤 𝕓𝕖𝕖𝕟 𝕤𝕝𝕒𝕚𝕟!

𝔸𝕖𝕘𝕖𝕠𝕟 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕋𝕚𝕕𝕖𝕔𝕒𝕝𝕝𝕖𝕣 𝕙𝕒𝕤 𝕓𝕖𝕖𝕟 𝕤𝕝𝕒𝕚𝕟!

𝕊𝕚𝕣𝕖𝕟𝕒 𝕥𝕙𝕖 ℂ𝕠𝕣𝕒𝕝 𝕎𝕚𝕥𝕔𝕙 𝕙𝕒𝕤 𝕓𝕖𝕖𝕟 𝕤𝕝𝕒𝕚𝕟!

𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝔻𝕖𝕖𝕡 𝕊𝕖𝕒 𝕊𝕖𝕟𝕥𝕚𝕟𝕖𝕝 𝕙𝕒𝕤 𝕓𝕖𝕖𝕟 𝕤𝕝𝕒𝕚𝕟!

𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝔾𝕖𝕪𝕤𝕖𝕣 𝔼𝕞𝕡𝕖𝕣𝕠𝕣 𝕙𝕒𝕤 𝕓𝕖𝕖𝕟 𝕤𝕝𝕒𝕚𝕟!

𝔹+-𝕣𝕒𝕟𝕜 𝔻𝕦𝕟𝕘𝕖𝕠𝕟 𝕊𝕦𝕟𝕜𝕖𝕟 𝕋𝕖𝕞𝕡𝕝𝕖 𝕠𝕗 𝕋𝕣𝕚𝕥𝕠𝕟 𝕙𝕒𝕤 𝕓𝕖𝕖𝕟 𝕔𝕝𝕖𝕒𝕣𝕖𝕕!

This all took less than one second.

Then there was a silence.

A silence as everyone on board—especially those youngsters with him—took in just what a top World Ranker looked like.

They seemed to be having a good deal of trouble understanding just what it was they were seeing.

Two of them had gone shaky—a moment later they fell to their knees. The other two looked a stiff breeze from doing the same. They were all quite pale.

Zane didn't blame them. They'd probably never seen a tenth of that raw power unleashed at once. They were all experiencing a strange feeling—a feeling Zane noted back when he'd met that Cain fellow. It was a sense of vertigo. Like you thought you saw the top of a mountain; then the cloud layer opened up, and you saw just how high it really went…

"Oh…" whispered Maddie.

One second water soaked through with Elemental Law. The next second, all steam. A perfect cylinder of open air stretching from the top of the ocean to its bottom. It didn't stop there; it drove deep into the earth beneath. So deep geysers of lava fountained out.

Then several things happened at once.

Time unfroze. And hundreds of thousands of tons of water crashed in over itself.

At the same time, the mother of all shockwaves roared out from the blast, rippling across the surface of the ocean—sending up a twenty-foot wave…

"Hold on," said Zane, frowning.