Death: Genesis

Zeke flooded his skill with mana, pushing his Will in as well. Even as he did, he shouted, “Talia! Run!”

When he’d been knocked from the previous platform, Zeke had lost track of his companion’s location. But he had a vague notion of her direction, and it was opposite of where he was aiming his skill. Besides, if anyone was capable of outrunning the destruction of the black sun of [Wrath of Annihilation], then it was Talia. So, he didn’t spare any other thoughts for her well-being, trusting that she could take care of herself.

Instead, Zeke focused on his own situation, flooding more mana into the skill than he ever had before. He’d long since recognized the ability to flare his abilities, pushing them past their base power. However, he’d never done so with his most damaging skill. But given the desperate situation, he felt the circumstances called for the full measure of his power.

Whether or not he would survive it would depend on his ability to control it. Or failing that, escape the aftermath.

The skill drank deeply from his mana, absorbing his Will as well. Power surged through him, ripping through his flesh on a cellular and ethereal level. The channels through which his mana traveled were scorched as the mixture of mana and the power of his Path of Arcane Destruction raced into the rune governing [Wrath of Annihilation].

Then, when it could take no more, he shoved it into motion, releasing the wave of power at the largest of the monsters. The thing was a hundred feet tall and so dense with rippling black muscle that Zeke briefly questioned how effective his skill would be.

But then, mana and Will coalesced into a roiling black sun larger and angrier than any that had come before. White fire wreathed the furious orb, licking the nearby monsters. They turned to ash beneath it. And then, even that ash was utterly destroyed.

Zeke didn’t watch any further.

Even as the sun yanked mana to it, Zeke fled, leaping high into the air and grabbing hold of the edge of one of the platforms. As he pulled himself over the ledge, he felt power continue to coalesce. More, the unthinking monsters on that platform collapsed upon him. He paid them no mind, launching himself into motion and shouldering them out of the way.

As he did, he pushed his domains to their maximum efficacy, surging with [Touch of Divinity] as well. He crashed through the mass of black tentacles and claws, thundering his way past them. He took plenty of damage along the way, and more than one monster wrapped its clawed tentacles around his limbs. However, he refused to let that slow him down. A couple became a handful, and then, that became an entire horde of monsters clinging to his metallic flesh. They dug their claws in and wrapped t heir tentacles around him.

Yet, Zeke couldn’t slow down.

He could feel the pull of his black sun. It slowed him, but it could not stop him. Still, if he could feel its power, then he was within the blast radius. So, he pushed forward with renewed desperation. Soon, it became clear that he would not make it, though. He needed a different strategy.

So, he skidded to a stop.

The monsters reacted predictably, piling atop him as they scratched, bit, and clawed, weaving their tentacles around one another in a dense, black ball of writhing flesh. Zeke didn’t escape their wrath. The monsters were strong. Stronger than most creatures he’d ever encountered, and there were so many of them that the sheer weight of their mass was enough to drive him to his knees.

But they kept coming.

One after another, hundreds of the monsters piled atop him. Then, thousands. Tens of thousands. They created a mountain of pulsating flesh as they attacked one another – clearly driven to get at him – as much as they did him. At the bottom of that pile, Zeke was smashed flat. His strength was incredible. Perhaps as potent as anyone’s in the Ethereal Realm. But even he had limits, and at last, he’d found his in the form of thousands of tentacle monsters.

He fell flat, and before long, all he could do was push [Touch of Divinity] to its peak. If he’d failed to evolve it earlier in the dungeon, the skill would not have been up to the task. However, he barely managed to maintain something approaching an equilibrium. Even as the monsters ripped into him, he healed himself. He was also saved by the fact that only so many tentacles could reach him at any given time.

But it wasn’t enough.

He knew that he was losing ground. The damage was too extensive for [Touch of Divinity] to fully counteract, which meant that, eventually, it would be entirely overwhelmed, and he would slowly succumb to his injuries.

He only had to hold on for a little while, though. The black sun continued to build in potency. Soon, it would erupt. Hopefully, it would destroy the monsters when it did. That was the crux of his plan. Without the ability to flee – not far enough away to matter, at least – Zeke had chosen to use the monsters as a shield. And they’d been more than compliant, leaping upon him and creating a mountain of dense flesh between Zeke and the powerful skill.

But even that might not be sufficient. [Wrath of Annihilation] wasn’t just powerful. It was mighty on an entirely different level than anything else Zeke had seen. That was because it wasn’t fueled only by mana. Rather, it utilized his potent Path of Arcane Destruction as well. And this time, Zeke had pushed as much of both sources of fuel to their absolute peak, meaning that the eruption would be far stronger than what had come from previous incarnations of the skill.

The monsters continued to pile on.

“What have you done?!” screeched Lenu in Zeke’s mind.

He ignored the primordial. If she couldn’t survive his skill, then she wasn’t as all-powerful as he’d expected. If he did manage to kill her – as well as the abyssal primordial up above – how much kill energy would he get? A few levels? Would it push him all the way to the pinnacle? Would he –

The sun erupted, and Zeke’s mind went white. Even his thoughts were obliterated beneath the sheer power of the skill. The air disintegrated all around him. Then, the monsters – layer by layer – were dismantled right down to their molecular composition. That was destroyed next until all that remained was ash.

Then, the ash was destroyed as well.

That’s when the destructive force hit Zeke, ripping through him without slowing. But with [Touch of Divinity] surging through him, he managed to endure it. Not easily. And certainly not completely. His healing skill was far from a match for the sheer destruction of the wave. However, it enabled him to survive long enough for the shockwave to hit him and throw him further away.

He sailed through the air, hitting another platform before bouncing free. For a moment, he fell through nothing, but as his momentum began to dissipate, he grabbed hold of the next platform, narrowly managing to stop himself from falling over the edge.

Everything suddenly went quiet.

The white light faded. And his brain started working again.

For a moment, he heard nothing. No screeching tentacle monsters. No wind. He couldn’t even hear his own breathing. Then, abruptly, a hideous screeching sound filled the air. Clapping his hands over his ears, Zeke looked up. The effort proved pointless, because the sound was no sound at all. Instead, it went much deeper.

And it emanated from the pair of primordials up above.

Upon looking at them, Zeke blanched. The abyssal primordial had been stripped of its black mist, exposing its malformed body in its entirety. Zeke felt himself going mad just looking at it, but he couldn’t look away. Because it was obviously injured. Great chasms had been carved into its flesh, and half its tentacles were missing. Many of its eyes were bleeding, and it was clearly in agony.

Lenu was injured as well, with one of her arms completely missing. However, she seemed to have taken the blast much better than her opponent, and Zeke saw her limb regrowing with every passing moment.

With some effort, he ripped his attention away from the ghastly scene, then ran his eyes over the rest of the platforms.

Or what was left of them.

Where Zeke had summoned the black sun of [Wrath of Annihilation], there was nothing left. The platforms – and all the monsters that were on them – were gone. Nothing remained. That pattern continued for hundreds of yards until, at last, one of the platforms had barely survived. It was pitted, and there were large pieces of the stone slab missing, but the structure remained intact. However, it was listing to the side, looking as if it was barely staying aloft.

Closer to Zeke, the platforms were in better condition, but even the one on which he crouched was barely hanging on. The monsters, though, were gone. Even hundreds of yards past him, nothing remained. He hadn’t just killed hundreds. Thousands was inadequate to describe the number slaughtered. Tens of thousands of the monsters had perished.

And he’d gotten the kill energy to prove it.

Congratulations! You have reached level 88!

“Damn…”

It was a larger jump than any he could’ve imagined. Never before had he gained so many levels before, and given just how much kill energy it took to gain levels now that he was getting so close to the peak, it was far and away the most experience he’d ever gained at one time.

It really shouldn’t have been surprising, considering how much kill energy he’d been getting for each individual kill. But looking up, he still couldn’t help but wonder what he’d get for killing that big monster in the sky. He could scarcely even look at it without going insane, so the power it held…

No.

He couldn’t get greedy.

Not because of some moral implications. He literally couldn’t. He’d used every ounce of mana in his body to fuel that strike, and even contemplating using his Will made his head pound. His body wasn’t much better off. Despite his efforts at inoculating himself to his Path of Arcane Destruction, he still wasn’t immune to its devastating power. It would take a few hours – at the very least – before he could continue the fight. And it would be weeks before he reached perfect condition, even with [Touch of Divinity].

“Eveline?” he rasped, feeling the former demoness in the back of his mind. She had enacted a protocol they’d spent quite some time working out, and it seemed to have worked.

“I’m fine,” she said. “I feel like I’ve been shattered into a thousand pieces, but I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?” he asked.

She assured him that she was, which gave Zeke the peace of mind to move on to the next item on the list. Even as Lenu threw herself back into the fight, Zeke cast his gaze across what remained of the maze of platforms. Almost a mile away, he started seeing corpses. They were still mostly destroyed, but the fact that there was any meat left at all was a sign that the force of his skill had petered out with the distance. A half mile after that, the bodies were mostly intact. And still another half mile, and some of the creatures had begun to twitch.

Fortunately, Zeke saw Talia soon after. She was clearly a little worse for wear, with the flesh on one side of her body having been disintegrated. However, she was still moving just as well as ever. Still, it took her a few moments to reach him. When she did, she collapsed to the ground.

Zeke knelt beside her, shoving the power of [Touch of Divinity] into her. She accepted the healing without issue, and over the next few minutes, her flesh rebuilt. As it did, the battle raged up above. Zeke didn’t dare look in that direction, but he could only hope that Lenu would win.

It was a decent assumption that she would. After all, she’d seemed confident in the outcome, assuming that Zeke took care of the beacon monsters. He’d done that and more, so it seemed a foregone conclusion that she would finish the abyssal primordial off.

Still, the fight continued, with blistering levels of power erupting across the area. Zeke endured it easily, using his huge body to shield Talia from the worst of it. And over time, he healed her.

Finally, another surge of kill energy sent him to level eighty-nine, signaling that the fight was over. He hadn’t needed that sign. The sudden cessation of the ongoing waves of mana was enough. Still, he looked up to confirm what he knew, and he saw Lenu absorbing the monster. She was wreathed in green light, and with every passing moment, a little of the monster converted into that same verdant light and flowed into her.

It went on for some time, though Zeke managed to tear his eyes away and focus on helping Talia. In the end, it took another few hours before both tasks completed, and Lenu suddenly appeared before them. By that point, Talia had almost completely recovered, but Zeke was still barely capable of standing on his own two feet. He’d used all of his energy to promote Talia’s healing, so there hadn’t been much left for him.

“That is a dangerous skill,” said the Primordial of Life.

“It is,” Zeke agreed.

“My instinct is to kill you now,” she admitted. “Your existence is a threat to us all.”

“Maybe. And you’re welcome to try,” Zeke said. He’d only recovered a little energy, but he could use that for another cast of [Wrath of Annihilation]. It wouldn’t be nearly as powerful as the last, and it would likely kill him before it finished Lenu off. But if it came down to it, he would go down fighting.

She stared down on him for a few moments, then shook her head. “You are insane,” she stated. “But I cannot exceed my mandate. The dungeon restricts my actions, so the point is moot.”

“How –”

“I will not answer your questions,” she stated. “Except to say that the Framework hovers over us all. You have conquered the dungeon. Now, you will be given your reward.”

With a wave of her hand, a pair of shimmering lights – one black, and the other green – appeared. Then, after a short gesture, the pair of lights were shoved together. At first, they merely clashed, but then, they began to merge. A moment later, a pearlescent orb – one half vibrant green, the other pitch black – stood in place of the lights. The primordial offered it to Zeke, who took it.

“That is a potent treasure. In my presence, its effects are subdued. But away from this dungeon, its full power will be unleashed. I suggest you keep it somewhere safe, secure, and isolated until you are strong enough to endure it.”

“Thank you,” Zeke said, taking the thing in both his hands. It was the size of a beach ball, so in his titanic form, he was more than capable of holding it.

Then, he got the notification that his quest had completed. In addition, Lenu disappeared. When she was gone, no indication of her presence remained. It was as if she’d never even been there.

Finally, a green rip in reality appeared.

Zeke reached down, helping Talia to her feet as he asked, “You ready to leave this place?”

“I am,” she said before stepping through. Zeke followed, glad to have finally completed the dungeon.