Zh’urong?

As I repeated the name inside my head, my [Sacred Soul Shield] flared, assaulted by the sudden influx of hidden knowledge revealed. I knew that name somehow. It was ancient. A primordial force even older than the Deep Dweller I’d fought on Fhae I’ung.

And it should be.

If this thing was created near the birth of the empire, then it was over 14,000 years old. Not only that, but it wasn’t the spawn of I’xol’ukz as the Deep Dwellers were. They came from the First Fame itself.

A Deep Dweller 2.0.

The [Odds were Against Me] indeed.

Torrents of violent Frenzy burst from my Flame as it turned white hot, elevating to a new Tier of power that resonated within the core of my Twin Dao.

“[Lightning Arc Strike]!” I shouted.

I went on the offensive with an opening salvo, sending four crackling arcs of lightning towards the head of the giant monster. To my chagrin, they impacted on its fiery blue skin with no effect at all.

Shit, I thought. This thing was Fire Affinity, the same aspect as I was.

My attacks might not have any effect at all.

“Ceaseless Discharge!”

I was shocked as the monster annunciated an attack of its own. From about its feet came an explosion of blue lava that spread across the ground so fast that it hit me like a tsunami. Pain ten times worse than the lava I had just swam through, engulfed me and it was all I could do to simply scream in agony.

The power of the attack and the lava itself ate through my [Steel Lightning] technique and began melting my [Diamond Skin] beneath. I struggled to free myself from the torrent as I was swept through the cavern by the fast-flowing stream of death.

The Struggler finally grabbed hold of me through the mind-numbing pain and I jetted myself out of the lava flow with [Ride the Lightning]. When I came to a stop in mid-air, my body was still on fire, and not the good kind.

The apron was even charred although still intact.

I marveled at what the hell it was made of to survive that.

“Thy doom is sealed, mortal,” Zh’urong intoned across the distance from me. “Whether thou doth perish now or in a future hence, is but a matter of time.”

I gauged the speed of the lava flowing from its body and quickly understood what it meant. The cavern was huge. Miles wide, but already the flow had hit the walls and was slowly beginning to creep up it.

I couldn’t survive in that stuff.

It ate through even my Sacred Soul Realm defenses like acid.

And when this cavern eventually filled with it.

I’d be dead.

The thought spurred me into action. I needed to pull out all the stops.

“[Mark of the Demon]!”

My body transformed, renewing my charred skin. I felt the potency of my Frenzy technique increase ten-fold as my body took on the red skinned visage of my alter ego. I flashed across the cavern with [Lightning Drill of Fury].

Zh’urong was slow to react, unable to compete with my speed.

I hit its molten body and my blades struck what felt like molasses. My spinning revolutions ground to a quick halt in the tar-like lava, and my blades instantly heated in my hands. I tried to push through with another burst of Frenzy and lightning, screaming with rage.

It did nothing.

“Insignificant gnat.”

A sudden eruption of blue lava came from where I’d hit it, and I was sent flying backwards, sans my weapons. The scorching liquid burned through my defenses again, but thankfully in my demon form, my [Steel Lightning] and [Diamond Skin] were both strong enough to keep it from destroying my body this time.

I looked back at the creature and saw my weapons stuck in its skin.

“No way,” I said.

I flew back to it and grabbed hold, trying to pull them out. It was like grabbing a hot pan straight out of the oven, but I screamed through the pain as I tried to retrieve my weapons. They wouldn’t budge. It was like trying to pull them free from a black hole.

“Powerless mortal,” Zh’urong rumbled from above me. “Know thee not, that to fight against the inevitable is folly?”

It blasted me with another eruption of lava again, but I kept hold of my weapons.

My body became a shower head, spraying the flaming hot liquid in all directions as I refused to let go. The pain was unbearable and my Dantian quickly slipped below half to maintain my defenses against the assault.

I lost my grip eventually, as the skin of my hands was burned off and went flying backwards again.

I righted myself and looked down at my empty, charred hands.

Shit, I didn’t even have weapons to fight it with anymore.

Not that they were doing much good anyway.

I cultivated the Frenzy still flowing from my Flame. It knew the challenge I was up against and was doing its part to supply me with the power I needed. But was I strong enough to truly defeat something like this?

The words of the shuras came back to my mind.

[Odds Against Me] – there is no greater thrill than a challenge. Without challenge, without struggle, there can be no progression. The cowardly prey on those who are weaker to ensure easy victory, but the Berserker seeks to oppose strength far above his own. When facing greater odds, either by strength, numbers, or both, this technique will generate enormous amounts of Frenzy by suppressing your inner fears and unleashing your Flame’s full potential. The power of this technique is limitless, bound only by the strength of your foe and your ability to withstand him.

‘Your ability to withstand him’, being the key phrase there, I thought.

I was barely able to withstand Zh’urong at all.

“Thou taketh on the visage of thy true form at last. Why then, dost thou resist thy master? Fulfil thy purpose and eradicate the mortal decay of this realm by the cleansing fire of the One True Flame. Is it not thy purpose, Fallen One?”

As it said the words, something opened up within my soul.

A truth.

One that resonated with the core of my Twin Dao.

The destruction of the Empire.

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The destruction of the vain and haughty aristocrats that sent natives to die by the thousands, only to brave the fires of the Hell Worlds that they themselves were too cowardly to face.

“Yes,” Zh’urong said. “Sense the need for their destruction.”

Holy shit, was he reading my thoughts?

A new sense of purpose took hold. One born of the [Frenzied Flame]. A simple notion of the right to exist in the face of annihilation. The defiance to push back against one’s own inevitable demise.

“If you can read my thoughts then read those, bitch,” I shouted with [Torment of the Frenzied Flame]. “I’ll never give into the dark side of annihilation.”

Zh’urong bellowed with squelching hot flames as he reacted to the technique.

“Why?” he cried. “Why defy the purpose of thy existence? Why pity the weakness of the decay?”

I thought on that myself.

Why not just destroy the entire empire with the power of the Cursed Stars? They more than deserved it for the depravity I’d seen and endured myself. And how many more worlds would suffer under their reign?

And then it hit me as strong as my love for Fia.

The love for my family and my clan.

“Because as messed up as it is,” I said. “It ain’t all bad. And what ain’t bad, is worth fighting for.”

Something opened up inside of me as I reached a new epiphany within my Dao.

The truth of my Twin Purpose of both destruction and protection.

An oxymoron that caused Zh’urong’s head to explode with rage.

“Unconscionable! Thy imposes thy own will against that of the Greater Will itself?” The ground exploded with blue flames as he turned on the heat. “Foul traitor indeed! Thou dost mock the hand that feeds thee. This One, shall no longer endure thy existence. I shall snuff thee out!”

Rage burst from within him as he charged forward, his entire body moving like a collapsing mountain. It was all I could do to zip out of his way with [Ride the Lightning], but the waves of heat alone, spewing from his body as he threw a fist across me, caused my [Steel Lightning] technique to break.

Oh shit, I thought. I truly just pissed him off.

I did the best I could to cultivate the Rage spewing from him, turning it into frenzy to bolster my techniques, but as he came at me again and again, I realized I was in a battle of attrition I couldn’t win. My weapons were somewhere within its body, perhaps even melted by now and my lightning techniques were useless against it.

Not to mention I was still an ant compared to this thing.

Perhaps if I was already within the Lesser Deity Realm, my physical body would be strong enough to fight it. It ate at me that I was so close to that but the most I could do was superimpose the future image of my Sacred Soul in spiritual form only.

I needed to reach the next realm bad.

But using my spiritual attacks was probably my best bet at offense now. I flew towards its massive head and struck out at the crystal poking out of its forehead with a [Struggler’s Lightning Fist of Fury].

Zh’urong was slow, and my fists connected with my [Spectral Body] flaring. Its head went flying back with the force of my punch and a roar of shock and pain came from the giant as he stumbled backwards.

“Impossible,” he said, recovering. “Thy strength is born of the One True Flame corrupted, but thy arrogance adds insult.” Slowly the crystal began receding within its head. “I shall spare no caution with thee now.”

“Shit!” I cursed.

The bastard was adapting.

I spent fruitless minutes trying to attack its body, but my Spectral Form was too small to penetrate its molten hide. The blue lava in the cavern had reached halfway and the superheated air was scorching my lungs. I was already bypassing them through [Death’s Door] and would quickly be bringing other life support systems along with it if I didn’t figure something out.

Think, think.

I backed off from the giant monster.

My spiritual attacks worked if I could reach its core, but who knew how deep inside of it the thing was buried now. No way could I survive burrowing through it. I cursed again, wishing I could just rip it apart.

As the violent image took hold in my mind, a new idea sparked.

I needed something to put me on the same level as this behemoth.

I had a tool to do it too, but [Mark of the Giant] came up short compared to this,

Still, I had other techniques that were built in Tiers, drawing on greater amounts of Frenzy to augment their effectiveness. Like [Iron Skin], [Steel Skin] and [Diamond Skin], so why couldn’t the same be applied to my [Marks]?

The thrill of possibilities gripped me as I dove inside my own mind. I whipped out a mental scroll and then started the cultivation math. I transcribed the [Mark of the Giant] technique and drew the [Steel Skin] technique next to it. I isolated the meridian sequence that differentiated [Steel Skin] from [Iron Skin] and superimposed that within [Mark of the Giant]. I reworked the characters, rearranging the cultivation equation to form the new technique. It would be triggering a shit load of meridians at once, but I was already in [Demon Form] so hopefully my core could take it.

I just prayed my body could also.

Only one way to find out, I thought.

I returned to the real world to see Zh’urong now charging at me, still in a rage. I drew on it to top up my Dantian before cycling my Frenzy through the new meridian paths, feeling my body begin to shriek with the pain of the transformation already. I was about to trigger the technique with annunciating [Mark of the Giant], but this was no longer that now.

This was something new.

An enhanced form deserving of a new name.

“[Mark of the Colossus]!” I shouted.

I screamed in pain as the technique took form, the enormous cavern shrinking about me as my body grew to immense size. My legs sank, knee deep, into the blistering blue lava below me as my head broke several stalactites on the ceiling.

It hurt like hell.

Everything did.

I was disorientated, head swimming with both the pain from the lava and my body itself. I shook it off with my [Struggler’s Resolve] and focused on my target. Zh’urong was still mid-charge, but I pressed back at him with a mighty uppercut.

“[Struggler’s Lightning Fist of Fury]!”

I didn’t recognize my own voice as it boomed within the cavern. My massive superimposed Sacred Soul form encased my fist as it slammed right into where Zh’urong’s lower jaw would be. I lifted the behemoth right off its feet, sending it flying across the cavern and crashing into the wall with a massive thoom!

The place shook and rocks fell.

In that moment I took stock at what I’d become. A hundred-foot-tall, Demon Giant capable of who knew what. My techniques were off the charts now. Even the lava burning my feet did only that, unable to penetrate my [Diamond Skin] now amped up to a hundred-fold.

“Impossible!” Zh’urong muttered, as he struggled to remove himself from the cavern wall. “How has the Traitorous Flame kindled such folly? How has the Will of a mortal bent the power of his master so?”

“You ain’t seen nothing yet, bitch,” I spat, with [Fear the Flame]. “I’m taking it old school with your ancient ass.”

I surged forward in slow motion, feeling like I was running through water. I wasn’t sure if it was my size doing that, or the lava sludge at my feet, but I didn’t care and in three giant steps, I was across the cavern and laying another [Struggler] charged fist into the fiery behemoth’s side.

It wailed in pain as I followed up again, striking it over and over.

I realized then that this Cursed-Star-Born, Deep Dweller held no martial skill at all.

Only power.

“Shit,” I said. “You’re like a damn scholar or something, aren’t you?”

“Thou shalt not survive,” Zh’urong said. “Thy fate is inevitable. The Greater Will shall not be contradicted. Though I fall, my master yet lives eternal.”

“You’re gonna live eternal too, pal,” as said. “As a piece of charcoal for Chief Muraboshi’s barbeque.”

The foreign words caused its twin sets of eyes to squint with incomprehension, right before I plunged my fist straight into its forehead. Zh’urong gasped in shock and pain as I felt within its lava filled head for my prize. I found the crystal core, hard like a marble, and enclosed it within my palm before pulling out my hand.

Zh’urong released a final groanof pain, his eyes becoming expressionless voids right before they disappeared. The heaping mountain of blue Lava began to evaporate into steam then, hissing and billowing like a hurricane.

“Curse thee!” his voice resonated from the crystal. “Curse whatever thou art.”

I found myself standing a hundred feet tall in the barren chamber, holding the Awakened Heart of a Fallen Star in my [Colossal] hand. A clang drew my attention to the floor and there at my feet were two glowing, white-hot objects that I perceived to be my Axe and Glaive.

Or what was left of them.

I canceled my [Mark] techniques and prayed my body would somehow find its way back to normal. It was an excruciating process and like with the giant, my added mass was expelled as some kind of gas as I shrunk back to my normal size.

The process was dizzying and I nearly blacked out for a moment. As I finally found the ground, I ran to inspect my weapons, praying they were not pools of molten Cursed Steel by now. They were still intact as far as I could tell, but the heat radiating from them was so immense that I could feel it even through my [Diamond Skin].

I had to cool these things down.

Quick.

But I hadn’t seen a drop of water on this planet at all.

Although being this hot, even the normal lava would probably cool it.

I then thought of something that I wouldn’t believe was possible if I hadn’t experienced it myself already. I withdrew within my own mind and used the dwindling Frenzy reserves I had left to invoke my Inner World, but not the one I used for combat. I cycled my Frenzy through my meridians and brought forth the pristine lake that was my solace. My Frenzy was at a sliver now and I had mere seconds to act. I grabbed the white-hot weapons, leaving a layer of skin behind as I screamed and tossed them into the lake.

The water exploded like an atom bomb going off, instantly converting to steam. Scolding how water surged upwards and outwards, burning my feet as the lake continued to bubble and froth like a cooking pot on a hard boil.

I maintained the technique as long as I could, but the blue sky and pristine surrounds of my Inner World quickly disappeared as my Dantian emptied and the weapons fell to the ground again on the dry floor of the cavern. They were still radiating heat, but at a normal level now.

They were changed though, now tinted a rainbow-like hue of cobalt blue.

I fell to my knees in both relief and exhaustion, placing the hunk of red crystal that was Zh’urong at my side. I still had to find my way out but that would have to wait for a while. My body and Dantian were depleted, and I needed some time to recover.

I returned to my inner world, but didn’t project it this time.

Instead, I collapsed my weary soul onto the white sands of the beach and allowed myself to slowly drift off.

“Damn,” I said. “That was one hell of a big fight.”

I grinned at my own stupid joke, unsure whether I was disappointed or relieved that no one else was around to hear it.