341. The Third Planet (I)

Zane was plunged deep into smothering darkness. Dropping down, down, down—he landed in a crouch.

He was fighting from the first breath.

The air alone would've killed most Ascendants in seconds. Each breath went down burning. Zane didn't mind much; after the Conclave it'd take some pretty serious toxins to bother him now. But it did eat up essence and energy—his Asura body was already working, tattoos swirling, fending it off.

He looked around, taking it all in.

He seemed to be at the bottom of a gorge. Jagged cliff faces ran up to either side of him, made of a sheer stone face stretching deep into the skies. He couldn't tell where it ended and the smog-clouds began.

And it was some stone. Pitch-black to the eye, but in the Astral Plane the walls shone bright—packed with obscene amounts of essence and Earthen Law.

This wasn't like the other planets. It wouldn't be so simple breaking through this stuff.

The walls towered deep into the skies. They must've run hundreds, maybe thousands of miles up—and the farther they went, the thicker the smog. Walls of stone and smoke hemmed him in on all sides.

The only open space lay before him. A narrow road between forbidding cliffs, stretching to a dim horizon…

ℙ𝕝𝕒𝕟𝕖𝕥 𝕋𝕙𝕣𝕖𝕖

𝔹𝕖𝕘𝕚𝕟

Then he heard it.

A low rumbling, a sound like rolling thunder. Echoing down the far end of the gorge, crashing down the walls, fast picking up speed, until the whole place was trembling—until the pebbles at Zane's feet jumped and skittered…

Then came the aura. The domains. A torrent of them filling the gorge wall to wall, gushing down the slopes.

Zane blinked.

He knew that power.

He'd seen it before—he recognized the feel of it. It was in that one Monster he'd fought, back when he was deep in training camp with the Barbarian Sage. The Godsbane Cobra.

Tier 6 Law—Void Rot. A poison that could melt through the cores of even E-ranked planets.

Back then, he'd had to be quite cautious around it.

Moments later, the source of it burst into view.

𝔸𝕡𝕠𝕔𝕒𝕝𝕪𝕡𝕤𝕖 ℍ𝕠𝕣𝕤𝕖𝕞𝕒𝕟 (𝕄𝕠𝕟𝕤𝕥𝕖𝕣 𝔾𝕣𝕒𝕟𝕕 𝕂𝕟𝕚𝕘𝕙𝕥)

𝔼𝕤𝕤𝕖𝕟𝕔𝕖 𝕃𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕝 𝟝𝟚𝟘

Massive horses, easily twice as big as the ones Zane knew, were galloping down the canyon at breakneck speed. They were diseased things, yet flush with a supernatural vitality—their flesh was pale, translucent, strewn tight over masses of bulging muscle. Their faces were drawn and skeletal, and in place of eyes they had eerie purple flames.

And on their backs rode knights of the same make. Ghoulish creatures. Skin and bones and hollow eyes and gleaming white teeth, knights clad in lodestone armor, wielding ten-foot lances sharpened to fine points.

Their tips gleamed with so much of that Tier 6 Rot they tore screaming jagged voids in the air wherever they passed.

These strange knights were not what caught Zane's attention. They alone would not have troubled him.

But they were far from alone.

Pouring down the canyon like a raging river crashing down a barren valley threatening to swamp the world—easily a dozen of them. It might've been the most Minor Gods he'd ever seen in a single rush; their domains stacked up on each other, building to a single thrust. Until they seemed a single great beast bearing down on him.

The only thing in its path was Zane.

They were bent on running him over.

He would see about that.

He held out his hands, and his Chains crashed into being. The hammers at their ends surged with tongues of Heavenly Flare, and his domain blew out of him in an instant.

Sunlight blasted through the gorge, scattering that dreadful night, burning away the smog for hundreds of feet—and Zane's domain became an oasis of gold. An island of brightest day in an ocean of darkest night.

He set himself. Stared down his enemy. Feeling more and more Asura energy, essence, rushing through his body, pumping him full of power—

A thousand feet. Five hundred—three, and he stared down the hollow sockets of the nearest ghoul-knight, pale eyes cracked, manic—

His heart calm, firm, as he braced for impact.

Then the stampede ran straight into his domain.

Their dark domains ran straight into his own—and it was like a river breaking against a dam; it simply could not pass. Melting against the brilliance of the Heavenly Flare.

The knights charged through heedless, tongues lolling, howling like banshees—and their ghostly flesh instantly started to melt. But those war-horses still came on strong; muscles working even as they disintegrated.

One hundred feet.

Zane felt dark whirlpools forming at the tips of those lances, gathering speed—some wicked Skill coming at him, dozens of poisoned drills aimed straight at him—seeking to tear right through him.

But he struck first.

He loaded his hammers full of essence, so full they shone brighter than suns.

They held nearly as much power as he dropped them over the horde.

BOOM-BOOM!

The canyon quaked with the impact. Heat, and Law, and concussive force packed into a single blast.

It was just like Zane expected.

These things weren't a match for his power.

A dozen Gods were annihilated on the spot. Most didn't even have time to scream as their horses were crushed, their armor crushed like tinfoil cans, bones shattered and vaporized—all fed straight into the light. Swallowed up in a brutal moment.

In one heavy blow, he crippled nearly all of that charge.

But two still got through.

Flowing around his strikes the way a river raged around stones. He stomped out of the way of one of them, letting its lance careen by. But the other was bearing down on him, and the canyon was too narrow to get out of the way—

It drilled into him.

Piercing bone and Void Rot sheared through a track of skin, stabbing the rot into him—and hot blood gushed out of him in a bright crimson arc.

He staggered a step, whirled, growled, and sent his Chains crashing back around.

BOOM-BOOM!

And like that, he dispatched the rest of them.

***

"That's a great deal of essence this early," said the Patriarch, crossing his arms. He cocked a brow at Noughtfire. "You never told him what the challenge of this planet is?"

"Ragnos is training," said Noughtfire simply. "It prepares Zane for what comes. You do your disciple a disservice if you give them a crutch. There will be no crutches when the war comes."

"Perhaps!" said the Patriarch. "Even so, at this rate he won't get to the Final Boss. Even with those freakish essence stores of his."

Burnwater didn't like admitting it, but he had to agree with the Patriarch.

It wasn't that Planet Three was so much harder than Planet Two when it came to absolute power. The strength of the Monsters Zane faced would only be a half-step up.

Only Planet Three had much, much more.

Burnwater liked to believe that only played into his junior apprentice-brother's strengths. Zane just had to outlast this world.

Only—even with his reserves—it'd be a hell of an ask.

And once Burnwater thought about what the Final Boss's powers were…

He took a nervous sip of tea.

***

As Zane turned back, reloading his hammers, he stilled. Looked into the distance.

The rumbling was beginning again.

But this time the pebbles were jumping twice as high as before…

Another wave was coming.

But Zane was fine with that. Let them come.

He was pleased to find that Void Rot lacing his body was more a pain than a deadly worry. It couldn't make much inroads in his flesh—his body's Vitality walled it off just fine. It was stopping him from regenerating easily—that was all.

There was a time not long ago, before his new Asura Titanform, that it might've been crippling. But even if his cultivation was not yet a Minor God's, he knew his body was easily a peak Minor God's.

He still had plenty left to fight.

The Second Wave came down fast. A black tide coming to swamp him—nearly twice as tall as before, and frothing more furiously too. The stampede had added a few layers to its ranks.

He readied his hammers just the same. Took aim.

Just like the first time, two heavy blasts were enough to sink most of them.

But this wave, four of the Monsters made it through the blasts. Got within striking range of him—and then it was down to close combat.

He twisted out of the way of the first lance, a blur of motion, caught it as it swung wide, ripped it right out of the ghoul-knight's grasp.

Then he spun with the momentum, and fed it down the horse's mouth with such force its head burst in an explosion of bone shards.

Its rider toppled over, screeching. And Zane snatched the Monster's neck right out of the air, holding it by the throat in an iron grip.

Solar Flare vaporized its head in one magnificent blast.

He executed it all in one motion—all in less than a second.

But that was enough time for the others to descend on him.

A lance slashed at Zane's back, carving a bloody wound over his shoulders. Another ripped at his thigh and a third slashed across his chest, tearing new wounds all over him, crossing over old ones—wounds that still couldn't heal.

And blood gushed out of him like a fountain. Blood filled with his lifeblood, his Vitality—so potent it shone even as it streaked the bleak ground.

But all they were doing was bleeding him. They could only manage shallow strikes.

If they wanted to down him, they'd have to do better than that.

They swerved around him, readying for another charge.

Zane wrapped his chains around his knuckles, eyes narrowed. Stomped down.

And took the rest of them to task.

Three punches, and three Monsters exploded—bones scattering for miles, sinking into the walls, blown out by the force of the blasts.

And Zane still wasn't breathing heavy. A little winded—that was all.

It did take some essence out of him. Some blood, too. He supposed he was feeling a bit light-headed…

Before he even had time to catch his breath, he sensed a new disturbance.

The rumbling was starting again—somehow stronger than the last two.

Zane frowned.

That fast?

He growled and set himself to counter.

Seen from above, it was a sea of obsidian purple-black crashing down the gorge, sloshing around the edges, towering a third of the way up the slopes—ramming against a lake of shining gold.

A gold that flared massively on contact—crushing through, swallowing the bulk of the onslaught. But again a few broke through, descending on the heart of the light…

Then vivid red splattered the grounds, gushed through the air.

And through it all there came one man's furious roar as he spun around, taking them all on. And enacted violence on his enemies.

And again it was done.

𝕎𝕒𝕣𝕟𝕚𝕟𝕘!

ℍ𝕖𝕒𝕝𝕥𝕙 𝕦𝕟𝕕𝕖𝕣 𝟟𝟝%

This time, Zane was breathing heavy.

He still wasn't too badly wounded, he felt. He could still go a while. He was down some more blood, and a good chunk of essence. But that was all.

Then he felt the ground shuddering again.

"…"

…Just how many of these things were there?

These beasts felt strange to Zane. They came at him wildly—pouring sheer numbers on him.

They weren't going for his throat, but his chest. His back, thighs—not necessarily vital points, but the big chunks of him where wounds could open wide. And when they came bunched up like that, they took some firepower to put down.

Back when they'd been on campaign, Reina liked to tell him strange battlefield patterns like this were red flags. They'd tell her the other side was up to something. He wondered what she'd make of this.

All these beasts wanted to do was slice him open and make him use power, it felt to him. It was almost like…

He blinked, frowned.

That… changed things.