Chapter 451 - Round One (Patreon)

The head of Zeke’s hammer fell with a wet thunk, collapsing the enemy knight’s skull. A spurt of blood escaped the man’s helmet as he fell to the ground in a limp heap. Yet Zeke wasn’t concerned with that foe. Instead, he only had eyes for the huge and menacing form of Lord Karik, who was racing in his direction, the huge slab of metal that was his sword held high above him.

All around him, kobolds and Knights clashed, and the light of skill activations filled the air with a strobe-like effect. Meanwhile, Zeke surged forward, clearing the way with a momentous sweep of his hammer. Knights were knocked aside as he prepared himself to meet Karik’s charge. However, just before the collision, he used [Center of Gravity], pulsing it only once with the intention of throwing the big Knight off.

It worked, and the man stumbled, albeit only slightly. That was enough for him to completely miss blocking Zeke’s next attack, which was an uppercut that took the man directly in the chin. He went flying backward, flipping twice before landing nearly two hundred feet away. Zeke followed it up with a stomp as he activated [Hell Geyser], sending a line of destruction tearing across the battlefield to erupt directly beneath the fallen Knight.

Hellfire and molten earth shot into the sky, bathing everything in a forty-yard diameter in pure devastation. Even before the destruction dissipated, Zeke used [Shifting Sands], and the world slowed as he dropped into the earth. A subjective moment later, he was ripping across the battlefield only to emerge a foot or two away from Karik. When he did, he aimed another momentous upper cut at the man, which sent him flying directly upwards.

Zeke bathed in the hellfire as the destruction began to fade, and a second later, Karik fell to the ground with the force of a fallen meteor, cratering the earth for a dozen feet all around him. Zeke had no intention of letting up, though, and he jumped at the man, enhancing his weight at the peak of his leap.

Leading the way with his hammer, he fell upon Karik with thousands of pounds of force behind him. And he found nothing but raw earth.

A second later, Karik’s sword bit into his side, carving a huge chunk of rocky flesh away as it sent Zeke tumbling sideways. He trampled a few Knights along the way, and when he came to a stop, a half-dozen others fell upon him, stabbing with spears and swords. Yet, their attacks did almost no good, at least in comparison to the screaming pain of having half his torso ripped away.

The moment Zeke recovered, he threw himself to his feet and laid about him with his hammer, knocking the opportunistic Knights aside and focusing on his real opponent. Lord Karik hadn’t moved. Instead, he remained in place, his chest heaving with exertion or pain. Half of his grizzly beard was gone, and the other half smoldered with hellfire. His face was red and blistered, and his armor had melted in a couple of places. His breastplate bore a few major dents and scratches, and one of his vambraces had been ripped away.

But he was still standing.

He even wore a grim and gruesome smile, revealing teeth coated in blood.

“That all you got?” he growled, his voice carrying over the battlefield.

“Not by a long shot,” Zeke rumbled in return.

Then, as if they’d heard the same signal, the two launched themselves at one another, racing across the trampled field as each aimed to murder the other. As they charged, the rest of the battle raged all around them. The kobolds fought with unnatural discipline, having regrouped after initial contact to reform their shield wall. The Knights were not to be outdone, though, and any time they managed to break the line, they created havoc among the individually weaker kobolds.

Zeke couldn’t concern himself with that, though. He was wholly focused on the one thing he could do that no one else could: keep Karik tied up until the rest of his army won out. He had to force himself to trust that his people were up to the task, else he would stretch his attention too thin and fail. If that happened, his army would fall soon after.

So, Zeke leveraged his attention appropriately as he collided with Karik. The first few blows from either combatant found nothing but air, but after only a few exchanges, they started to land. When Voromir hit Karik, metal dented and the man was sent stumbling to the side. Always, he regained his balance quickly, yet the effect of those blows had already started to mount.

For Zeke, the consequences of getting hit were different. Every time that massive slab of a sword hit him, it carved slices of his metallic body away. He had plenty to spare, and he constantly kept [Cambion’s Awakening] flowing, yet the damage had already begun to pile up. Something would have to change if he intended to win the fight.

So, in a brief respite that came after another titanic blow took Zeke by surprise and sent him tumbling away, he chose to shift his form. Dragging earthen mana from the ground, he transformed, his body thickening with jagged and rocky protrusions. As he thundered back into the fight, he did so a few feet taller and quite a lot heavier, and when he took another hit, it only resulted in a cascade of pebbles as the bulk of his form remained intact.

That was due to the increased endurance that came with his earthen colossus form, though for all its advantages, it came with weaknesses as well. Never was that more apparent than when Karik aimed one savage blow after another at Zeke, who was too slow to block or dodge the bulk of the attacks. He endured them well enough, yet he knew that even a mountain would succumb to the constant barrage of erosion. So it would be with Karik. Each attack shattered a bit of Zeke’s earthen body, and it was only a matter of time before the damage reached the point of making a true impact on the battle.

In the meantime, Zeke tried to fight back, but his attempts were lumbering and, ultimately, easily dodged. As a result, his shift into his earthen form was largely useless.

But he maintained it, even using [Shifting Sands] a couple of times to get the jump on his opponent. On those occasions, he managed to land massive blows that sent Karik stumbling away. However, the man was more than capable of enduring whatever Zeke could dish out. He also had some sort of regeneration ability, though it seemed far less efficient than Zeke’s own [Cambion’s Awakening].

So the fight went as the two herculean combatants traded blows. Meanwhile, the overall battle continued apace, with each side surging back and forth as they rode the tide of momentum. Which was fine with Zeke. The strategy hinged on him keeping Karik busy, not defeating him. And in that endeavor, he’d been largely successful so far. Still, fighting the overlarge Knight was frustrating, and the lack of a decisive victory rankled on Zeke’s pride.

But he wouldn’t let that derail him.

So, he fought on, trying to beat Karik into submission. At the same time, the hulking Knight attempted the same with him. As a result, they went back and forth, trading titanic blows that would have crushed lesser combatants. However, Zeke definitely got the worst of it.

Still, Zeke’s frustration was mirrored by Karik, who clearly wasn’t accustomed to anyone being able to stand up to him. His blistered face contorted with effort as he rained one attack after another down on Zeke until, finally, he’d had enough.

Zeke saw the mana swirling just before Karik erupted into silvery light that bathed his surroundings in the power of the moon. Under the influence of the enemy domain, Zeke stumbled, weakened as agony ripped through him. At the same time, his kobolds faltered as well. Shields clattered to the ground as they let out a collective scream of torment. The Knights, meanwhile, were emboldened, either by Karik’s skill or by their enemy’s stumble, and they fell upon the kobolds with wild frenzy.

Dozens died in the space of an instant.

But then, Zeke’s own domain, [Aura of Desolation] went to work, ripping the silvery light apart with the power of Hell mingled with the might of Zeke’s path of arcane destruction. Clearly, neither Karik nor the Knights of Adontis were prepared for that, because when the effect on the kobolds dissipated and they turned the tables on the stunned Knights, they were taken by complete surprise.

The kobolds slaughtered the shocked Knights, falling upon them with enhanced strength as well as their own skills.

At the same time, Karik screamed in fury, activating another skill that wreathed him in moonlight. His already commanding power increased as he leaped at Zeke. For his part, Zeke was entirely incapable of responding to such an expression of power, and as a result, he was nearly cleaved in two.

The Knight’s blade bit deep, carving into Zeke’s torso almost to his spine. The only reason he wasn’t entirely bisected was because the immense momentum of the attack sent him rocketing across the battlefield until he collided with a group of his own soldiers. Some of them died on impact, but a few merely experienced broken bones.

Zeke, meanwhile, tried to keep himself from falling apart.

And he failed.

Karik leaped at him, his immense slab of a sword held high. As he descended, Zeke embraced the corrupted mana inside and around him, shifting it into [Cambion’s Awakening]. At the same time, he used [Shifting Sands], though when he tried to fall through the earth, he found the way blocked by a plane of pure moonlight. Still, he was under the effects of the time dilation that came with the skill, so he had a moment to think.

He looked up, seeing Karik hanging in mid-air.

And he knew he didn’t have a choice but to play the card he’d been holding since the beginning. Because Zeke hadn’t spent the past weeks idle. Instead, he’d been working to upgrade his skills – or one, in particular. And the results had been spectacular.

[Colossal Army] (C) – An evolution of [Colossal Legion], summon ten colossal golems to fight at your side. In a symbiotic relationship, they enhance the summoner, while he augments their prowess. In addition, the golems have the ability to immobilize an opponent. Upgradeable.

Zeke used the newly evolved skill, and a gate opened beside him. At the same time, he dove to the side, skating across the moonlight barrier, as he narrowly avoided Karik’s thunderous attack. The dilation effect of [Shifting Sands] faded a moment later, and the ground erupted into a wave of earth as the shockwave of Karik’s impact threw even Zeke’s massive and weighty body a dozen feet across the battlefield.

But he recovered only a second after skidding to a stop, pulling on the demonic mana created by [Aura of Desolation] to fuel his transformation into the corrupted version of his colossal form. His body slimmed, and the effect of his already-inflated stats were massively enhanced. He threw himself back into the battle, riding a wave of unprecedented power as he bore down on the Knight.

And he got a face full of sword for his trouble.

The great slab of metal nearly decapitated him, but with [Cambion’s Awakening] drinking deep from the ambient corruption, the wound healed before it could do any lasting damage. However, as had been the case each time he took a hit from the overpowered Knight, the momentum of the attack sent him tumbling across the battlefield.

Somehow, Zeke managed to find his feet, thrusting his hand into the ground to arrest his own momentum as he skidded to a stop.

“Demon!” the Knight thundered in rage as he threw himself in Zeke’s direction.

For his part, Zeke didn’t respond because he had nothing to say. Instead, he stood his ground, his muscles twitching with barely-restrained need as the man bore down on him. Then, when the enraged Knight drew close, Zeke cocked his hammer back, then used [Unleash Momentum] as he swung his weapon in an all-too-familiar baseball swing.

The results were explosive.

The air briefly ignited under the massive impact as Zeke struggled to contain the force to a small corridor of a few feet. He was mostly successful, funneling the unleashed momentum into a tight window that took the Knight directly in the chest. However, he was completely incapable of completely containing so much power, and as a result, his surroundings suffered. It didn’t matter if it was a kobold or a Knight, they all were affected. The closest were killed outright, their armor vaporized and their bones turned to mush as they were thrown aside. The ones that were a little further away were merely injured as that same shockwave sent them flying. And even dozens of feet away, the force was felt as kobolds and Knights stumbled.

But none took as momentous a hit as Karik, whose chest cratered under the impact. That was all Zeke saw before the huge bear of a man went skipping across the battlefield, his limbs flopping around as his massive sword flew in the other direction.

He wasn’t dead, though.

Zeke knew it.

So, he used [Center of Gravity], yanking the man in his direction. Under the influence of Zeke’s skill, the Knight’s body reversed course. Yet when Karik finally arrived, Zeke got quite a shock as he took an armored fist to the jaw. Suddenly, the situation reversed itself, and Zeke found himself bouncing across the field in the other direction.

And he’d had his jaw entirely ripped away for his trouble.

A few moments later, when he recovered, he pushed himself to his feet to find that the lower half of his jaw was barely hanging on by a thread. So, he adjusted it back into position, then flared [Cambion’s Awakening].

Across the battlefield, hundreds of feet away, Karik was no better off. His chest had become a massive crater, and his armor was barely hanging on. The flesh on one half of his blistered face had been ripped clean off, leaving only a skull.

Yet, he was still alive.

And he didn’t look too happy.

Zeke rolled his shoulders, ignoring the battle still raging around him as he focused on the insanely durable Lord Karik. He raised his hammer in salute. Karik raised his fist, embracing a skill. He grew taller and broader, while his armor became more jagged.

Then, the two launched themselves across the battlefield for the second round.