Savage Awakening 452. Rampage

Silence followed Skarnox’s challenge. It watched, feeling smug, as the best of humanity beat a full retreat.

They’d tried. And they couldn’t leave so much as a scratch.

Such was the fate of the lesser species when faced with an apex predator.

Only one man was left standing. The biggest of them, in many ways.

The one they called Zane.

Skarnox let out a shrill trill.

It made a greedy whirring sound and soared toward him. And its brethren took flight before it.

A looming, impenetrable wall of thousand-tempered Primordial steels bore down upon him…

This Zane’s body was tempered like steel. A powerful thing, Skarnox could grudgingly admit—but it was ruined by that heart, beating proud and strong. The engine that pumped inside him.

The energy of all living things ran strongest in that man.

Skarnox hated it. Hated how proud that man looked—how proud his heart beat.

But Zane was a puny human, and he had never felt the weight of true steel.

He would be shown his place.

It screeched, thrust out a wing.

And its Dread Eagles soared.

When the Master Endbringer Orcs forged its brethren, they had seen the scripts of Zane’s body, extracted from the soul of Hovarth the Defiler itself. And they had used that as their baseline.

They forged themselves just as strong—then stronger. Faster. Harder.

So that when they met the real thing...

Skarnox let out a cruel trill.

It was still trilling as Zane stomped, hammers surging.

Instantly, the flock moved to intercept him. Feathers folded. Eagles torpedoed him—but moments before impact, they fanned out. Locking tight.

A shield wall ramming him head-on.

Even a charging Heavenly Elephant would have bounced right off. But not without shattering its tusks.

Nothing short of a truly elite True God could withstand that.

Skarnox watched greedily as the human slammed hammers into steel, watching for the moment of realization—

BOOM!

A shudder went through the flock.

And Destruction ran through their bodies like forks of white lightning.

Another hammer descended, stuffed heavy with Red Giant essence.

And all that steel blew straight to smithereens.

Skarnox shrieked.

A thousand fragments exploded, shrapnel hail ripping into deep space—

All those birds howled at once.

Then another hammer descended and blasted them right out of the sky. There came an explosion of feathers as the hammers swept through—

BOOM-BOOM-BOOM!

All Skarnox could do was gawk.

Then its Tier-7s rushed in, trying to crowd him.

But they met his hammers too.

And they met the same fate.

Five blows. A string of explosions. Every time that giant hammer made contact, it went nuclear. Set upon that steel—and wrecked it like mere glass.

The human wound his hammers back around, aiming to finish them—

KILL HIM! shrieked Skarnox.

Then the mightiest of them attacked.

Skarnox’s second-in-command, its third-in-command—both bearing weighty Corrupted Bones—went straight for Zane’s head.

They smashed him from behind just as he was reloading.

Plainly the man had not been expecting that. He wheezed, the wind knocked out of him. His eyes went wide with the force of it.

He face-planted right into a dwarf planet.

Then Skarnox dive-bombed him and finished it.

Slammed two mountains for wings right down on Zane’s head.

They landed with such force the vibration wrecked through his body. Such force it passed beneath him, into the dwarf planet—exploded it utterly.

Millions of pieces of rock whizzed through space, shattered utterly…

The only thing left intact was Zane’s body. And he lay limp—floating there.

That was what happened when the most dense steels in the Galaxy made contact with one man’s head.

Skarnox let out another screech. A sound of indignance and fury.

This upstart human had made the great Skarnox feel doubt.

Skarnox the Endbringer, lord of the Dread Eagles, soared among the kings of space. The only living beings worthy of its eye were the likes of True Dragons. That such a man could shake it…

But it turned out he was just like the rest.

It cruised closer, ready to finish him.

Then Zane coughed, shook his head.

Skarnox stilled.

The man wiped his face, blinked at the blood coming from his shattered nose… He stomped upright, breathing heavily.

He looked like he’d just taken a hard punch.

But otherwise…

He was… fine.

***

“I actually felt that,” breathed Zane.

Then he grinned bloodily and struck right back.

His hammer caught the first bird. And Destruction crushed right through those armor plates. Creation held them up. The stuff of Corrupted Bones.

But the magnitude of the Destruction proved far too much. And Armor’s Bane showed its worth.

The moment he made contact, he felt the force, the Destruction going through his fists skyrocket.

The steel on the wings exploded first, those feather plates. Then the chest plates. Then the hinges and the joints, rippling down its chunky bird body.

It barely had time to squawk before it was smashed right out of the sky.

One of its brethren clobbered him right in the head—CLANG!

Sent him hurtling through the chaos… he had to give it to them.

These things hit pretty damned hard. It was good steel—it took him a moment to get himself upright, to shake out the ringing.

He launched right back in.

He could see why these things had been confident against him.

Their Laws gave them that immense planet core density. But they moved like birds—fast and flitting.

It was easily the most brutal defense he’d ever faced. And there were four of them ganging up on him at once…

If this was before he'd gotten this last shard, things might’ve been rough.

But right now?

He hit one right in the belly. A Tier 7, Corrupted-Bone chunker.

It was a uniquely pleasurable experience, whacking a bird. Even better when it was a big one.

Something about hitting the thing—seeing its eyes bulge—then cracking all that plate armor—seeing all the feathers explode off it in a thousand directions—seeing the whole thing go up in flames, squawking and flapping, before it all went bust…

That was the stuff.

He was grinning even as a wing walloped him from behind.

Warning!

Health under 75%

He turned right around, growling, ears ringing, and hammered his revenge.

The toughest one was the Boss. And Endbringer—its Bone was a clear size bigger than all the rest.

He went blow-for-blow with it. Smashed it into an asteroid belt. Even as sent feathers hammered him like missiles—CLANG-CLANG-ing heavy off his head.

Then he felt chains shattering all over his body.

After that, it wasn't close.

Two heavy smashes wrecked its armor. It spun head-over-tail three times before it cratered into an asteroid.

Seven more got the job done.

Endbringer Skarnox wheezed something at him as it lay there broken. You’re only… a man…how…?

“We can get pretty damned strong when we set our minds to it.”

One more smash, and that was that.

Warning!

Health under 50%

He was still feeling pretty good.

He let himself drop out of Limit Break. He didn’t need it right now. He didn’t want to burn himself out. The horde was still going strong… he looked around.

They were still a battlefield's worth of Monsters left to go.

He got right to it.

****

“C’mon, Henry!” cried World Rank #55, Vivian Lin. She threw out a cloud of dense lightning. World Rank #46, Henry Colt spun and slashed like a blizzard. His spear punctured zombie werewolf after zombie werewolf—

It just wasn’t enough.

He took blow after blow; he was bleeding badly, just about to be overrun—

“Brace yourselves.”

Then a man stood right in front of them. A very familiar man.

He smashed.

And all the horrors before them were crushed.

“You alright?”

They nodded dumbly.

Then he was off.

***

“Just one more mile,” gasped World Rank #68, the Cloud Witch Shae White. “There’s his Beacon, right there!”

The orc stampede was so close they could hear their heavy breathing, smell their awful breaths. The clouds at their feet sped her party along—but it was barely enough. 

A giant green hand clawed at World Rank #39, Syl Frei’s cloak. But his arm transformed to an Elder Grizzly’s, and he punched it right off.

“What if he can’t handle them?” gasped Syl. There were thirty True Gods. Several tier 7. “He’s got to be busy with his own Monsters too—”

The truth was, she wasn’t sure either.

Those Orcs had blasted right through Vanessa Volkova’s glaciers when she tried to intervene. And everyone on Earth knew Vanessa was a Monster. A horde she couldn’t beat…

But they had no choice.

They saw the boundary line drawing near—it filled them with hope. Another bound.

They made it.

She could only wave and hope. “Zane!” 

They could see him in the far distance, facing away—just finishing up a pack of kobolds. He looked over his shoulder. They saw his eyes narrow.

Then he stomped—and blasted right by. So fast they got whiplash.

Their eyes widened.

Then they heard the explosions go off behind them.

They looked back, trembling…

There was nothing but a smoking wreck.

One blow was all it took him to annihilate them all. 

The two of them collapsed to their knees.

“That was so easy for him…” said Syl.

But Zane had already moved onto the next horde. 

***

That day, he went on a rampage for the ages.

Giant horde after giant horde. The Credits kept racking up.