Savage Awakening: A LitRPG Apocalypse

The Hypergolems poured over the cracks, a tsunami of livid steel, clambering over one another, squashing their brethren down in their eagerness to get at him.

Some of them were different, though you couldn’t see it on the surface. Zane could feel it.

They had pseudo-domains.

Blowing out from them in great invisible spheres, heavy magnetic fields, fields that seemed to weigh on his every fiber…

Half-step Ascendants.

They charged him in a wild rush. Wrecking-balls plunging forward on cracked shaking ground, shrieking as only grating metals could, steaming pure Steel essence—

Zane bellowed. And struck right back. Crouched, launched, sprung in with such an explosiveness it was as though they stood still—even he had trouble getting used to his new tendons.

Then he started smashing.

Skill up!

Stormfire Smash VI -> VII

The moment the Skill-up came he felt, through his Chains, his new power. Saw the way each blast sent more Monsters hurtling away, dropping useless over the edges…

But still there were just too many of them. Pouring in from all sides.

It was impossible not to get overrun.

He set his jaw. He just had to attack, and hold his ground, and trust in his raw firepower.

His first two Smashes turned back the first line; disembodied cables shooting out wildly, crumpled bodies jerking away, melting mid-air in a sea of Stormfire purples…

But the second line rolled right over their fallen comrades and smashed straight into Zane’s front side. Just as he was recharging. Still others came at him from behind as he wheeled for balance—CLANG! CLANG!

He fought hard to keep his feet—but then the claws latching his arms, clamping his chest, caught hold. And poured in high-voltage surges. More and more of those claws clamped on—at the same time Storm Serpents shot down reams of white lightning; he could feel the blinding force running down his whole body, making him shudder, locking out his arms dead-still—

Their domains were weighing heavier on him too. Dropping on him one after another, each sinking him lower and lower to earth—

He could not be caught here.

He forced the move—made his muscles fire, a brute-force thing, tore with all his might and managed to shrug off those electric shackles, managed to drag a cluster of Hypergolems deep off-balance. He wrenched an arm free, wrenched hard on a Chain, sent a blistering meteor screaming down his left flank. He loaded that thing with as much essence as he could muster.

The explosion cut out a full side of his vision.

But when the light faded there was nothing but molten puddles.

Still they just kept coming.

He was wheeling to his right flank when another batch of half-Ascendant golems barreled through the smoke. And crashed into him full-force, one after another—the first knocked him back. The second and third struck with such force that they tore their own comrades’ arms off their bodies.

Zane went flying. Dropped heavily to the ground some dozens of yards away, and there he lay smoking, spitting blood. There was a great buzzing in his ears, a flare of white noise.

He inspected his body and was pleased to see all the important bits were still there. Hard to tell sometimes what was where in the heat of battle. Though chunks of him were starting to take on the consistency of pulped meat….

He wobbled to his feet, wiping blood out of his mouth.

Warning!

Health under 75%

He wiped that away too.

He noticed he was grinning.

Weird thing—the more he fought, the louder the roaring in his ears. The fiercer his heart burst in his chest—so strong now it felt like a war-drum, firing new fuel down his limbs, even as he kept getting hammered…

The Golems were still coming. A storm of steel and lightning cresting the horizon—Zane hurled himself straight back into their midst. They were not coming for him. He was coming for them. That was the attitude he knew he must have.

One exchange. Another. Stormfire split the world. He let loose utterly.

The force of the explosions sent islands crashing from their perches.

He hadn’t realized how much he missed this.

Nothing really mattered here. That made all the difference. He was just now realizing how light he felt despite the heaviness smashing all over him. There was sometimes a little thought in the back of his mind that he couldn't let loose too much—couldn’t risk too much; he had things to consider, things to lose.

Here he could exert his powers to their fullest.

A test of raw strength. Raw will.

Zane bared bloody teeth.

And threw himself once more into that violent mess. It was his favorite place.

He got wrecked. His whole torso smashed and battered more times than he could count, his face whacked with hundreds of tons of half-Ascendant electrified steel, then driven so hard into the ground the island beneath shattered, exploded—and his nose shattering with it…

But he gave all the damage he took right back with double the fury.

Skill up!

Stormfire Smash VII -> VIII

Each new Stormfire Smash Level was a bigger power-leap than the last. And now his Smashes crumbled two of the beasts at a time. Crushing them to steel pulp, hurtling them like bowling-balls over the edges…

In the end—yet again—it was Zane who came out standing.

Heaving in thick breaths, bruised, bleeding, on top of some landfill of godly scrap metal—blood streaking down his forehead, skin a patchwork of bruises. He could feel a mass of little fractures spread all through him…

He beat his chest with one bloody fist.

He was bleeding but each drop ran hot down his veins. Each drop had more life than ever.

CLANG. CLANG. CLANG.

The world wasn't done with him. There were no waves here, he was realizing…

They just kept coming.

And they just kept getting stronger.

He felt them before he saw them. The powers of the domains—but ratcheted even higher, making those other Golems’ domains seem pale shadows by contrast… this was what a full domain felt like.

The instant one came over him, it felt like he'd been dunked deep underwater. And as each new domain came on, it was like he’d been thrust a thousand feet deeper, and a thousand feet deeper still, until the pressure was so immense it felt hard to breathe; like a great weight was crushing down his battered chest…

But Zane was robust. He trusted his body—he knew he was built to withstand this.

Still it made him stagger. It was the Law. Tier 5. It had within it parts Steel, and Lightning, and Heaviness. Some horrible magnetic field dragging at his every limb, making even little movements hard…

He dragged in a breath.

He was upright when those strange machines came for him. Rolling up from the depths, flat crimson eyes glaring…

Hypergolem (Simulated Monster)

Essence Level 409

Hypergolem (Simulated Monster)

Essence Level 418

More and more crawled up.

At the same time, descending from the fraught skies—

Storm Serpent (Simulated Monster)

Essence Level 414

Storm Serpent (Simulated Monster)

Essence Level 422

Seven Ascendants in total. And Zane knew then these would be a far greater challenge than any horde that came before. He felt, even just standing there, the difference between an Ascended Being and a Nascent…

Their forms were beacons in the Astral Plane.

He knew then why Lin Rai thought he would not be able to win.

He narrowed his eyes, feeling them circling him, coming on from all sides…

He took out his Chains.

Just the Chains this time, no hammers. This was more heavy-duty, one-on-one work. He felt the reassuring weight of the dark coils in his fists, their sheer density disturbing the air around them…with all the Weapon Souls they had taken in these Chains were peak Sky-grade treasures. No matter what came at him, he knew they could handle it.

A red moon flared behind him. Flaring brighter as the beasts came in, closing a sphere around him…

He lashed out just before the moment of impact.

Sent one thick Chain coiling like some demented python, crushing the fat belly of a Hypergolems just to the left of him. Caught another in a vice grip, locking around its own thick coils. Tightening in lines of searing purple—and he summoned the full heft of his body. Firing off each muscle in a chain of burning Bloodline, calling to bear the raw explosiveness of his Godbeast tendons, linking to one great kinetic chain—

He let out a guttural sound, a sound of pure exertion. Fighting gravity. Fighting their Domains, their powers… and overpowering them. He lifted with all his might—a matter of raw force—and sent two vast, struggling, flailing weights airborne.

Pulling them off their bases even as lightning crashed into him from all sides—lightning of an intensity he'd never felt before. This was full Tier 5. Law. A blinding white that ran roughshod through his body. That locked out his jaw, so it looked like he spasmed in one silent scream…

His eyes never lost their focus. Their intensity.

Warning!

Health under 50%

But all his will was honed on the task. Two Anchors of the Gods bound his captive Hypergolems and an inevitable gravity took hold of them—and with brutal lashes he sent them hurtling over the edge….

Skill up!

Stormfire Renewal IV -> V

Then the Ascendant Storm Serpents were upon him, descending in crackling coils, and Zane was forced to turn. Gritting his teeth, still fighting through that blinding lightning. The red moon behind him flared just as bright. Crimson fists burst out in air, ethereal, wispy, yet their danger was very much real. They halted those Serpents in their tracks.

The fists reached out—and in two quick motions snatched their bodies from the sky… for all their mighty electric powers, these Monsters could not resist him. Not in the domain of the soul. They made creaking strangling sounds, stuck cogs and creaking hinges, as he crushed them—then they fell, sightless, into the depths…

Skill up!

Emperor’s Might III -> IV

It took a tremendous effort of will and concentration just to do it. It would have been lost if he had been struck then. But he managed it. It took more out of him than he could afford to acknowledge in that moment.

He crushed them just in time—the rest of the Ascendant Hypergolems descended.

Zane gave it his all.

At the end there was a grave silence.

Warning!

Health under 25%

Zane knelt there. One of his arms was fully broken. So were a great many organs within. Blood leaked endlessly from his lips. His body was so shattered in so many places he didn’t even bother looking, didn’t bother counting them all. It didn’t matter to Zane.

So long as he breathed he would keep fighting.

Skill up!

Stormfire Smash VIII -> IX

There was nothing but destruction left around him. The useless sparking of shattered golems, coil limbs scattered for thousands of feet, burned-out husks littering the blackened charred islands…

Zane lifted his bloodied head, and roared.

***

Lin Rai just gaped. The scene just didn’t make any sense to her. She couldn’t wrap her mind around how he was still upright—how he’d wielded that huge soul like that—

But even more, there was a viciousness, an animal intensity to Zane Walker… she’d never seen anything like it. As he stood there, bare chest rising and falling, big bloody fists clenched at his sides…

“What… the…hell…” croaked Lin Rai.

She was starting to get just what those scryers saw in him…