There wasn't much room for him to get out of the way of their blows in this little crypt.

  But it went the other way too. Once he laid out his Chains, they were stuck here with him.

  He quite enjoyed the feeling—like setting molten steel on an anvil.

  All he had to do was hammer.

  The Mage threw up a bright-blue barrier—too late. Gold was already searing through the sides of it; it shattered a split-second later. The archers tried shooting for him but the Chains lashed them tight. The Rogue was snared in a blink.

  Then, the crush.

  First came the mechanical force. Just the raw pulling-strength Zane could force out of his body; all over the crypt the Monsters were forced, cracking and howling, into compacted, unnatural shapes.

  Then the Flare consumed them.

  The crypt looked like a chunk taken out of the sun, streaked white with Destruction.

  When it faded…

  There was only Zane.

  ***

  60 seconds remain. Challenger, position yourself for the next Chamber.

  The crowd’s explosion was muffled through all that space.

  He looked up, curious, and saw Reina a bit flushed, breathing heavy. He gave her a wave. Then he forged on ahead.

  Just one left.

  ***

  “I feel like I just got a chance to breathe!” said Jake. “Phew… I’m losing my voice up here!”

  “Here comes the final test,” said Mox. He crossed his arms. “This is what we all came for, folks. True God.”

  This time it was only a couple hundred miles off. A few measured bounds took Zane there.

  Above him the crowd was quieting down; folks who’d gotten on their feet were settling; a hush fell over all.

  They felt the gravity of the moment.

  “Never in the history the mankind has an Ascendant taken down a True God,” said Jake. “Through those last three challenges Zane imposed his will. Could we see it one more time?”

  ***

  The final Chamber was an ancient temple. A temple made for giants, all gone to ruin. The pillars crumbled; half the roof was caved in, exposing an empty, starless sky.

  Torches of ghostly white fire lit the way.

  Three giant marble statues stood in the temple’s midst.

  Two were of priests—twenty-odd feet tall, hollows for eyes, staffs raised high, mouths open in prayer.

  They praised the statue before them: an archangel with tattered feathers, each sharp as a katana-blade.

  She was incredibly beautiful, except for the deep wells of black under her eyes; her eyes were missing. Just blank voids.

  But as Zane stepped up, a mess of chaos light filled the sockets.

  The stone began to crack. Chunks of marble crashed from the roof; the whole temple shuddered—but all eyes were on the statues.

  Slabs of stone flaked off, revealing pale flesh, veined red.

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  The priests broke out first. And pseudo-Distortion Fields blew out of them, shining with the same unholy light as that undead knight.

  Then cracks split up the archangel’s marble dress. Split up her arms, split up her face—

  A great Monster floated freed itself from the frieze, and drew breath.

  Her wings spread so wide they touched the ends of the temples. They shed feathers of ethereal shadow.

  Archangel Mariel (Monster Prince)

  Essence Level 600

  “There she is,” said Mox heavily. “The Archangel herself. Those feathers are killers. There’s her demonform to watch out for too. Then there’s that hellfire… Heavens help you if you’re caught in front of that.”

  Her Distortion Field scoured the chamber.

  It seemed to make even those great columns bend and sway, like reeds in a hurricane. They weren’t truly swaying; that was its effect on reality.

  It bent things that ought never bend.

  “Void Wind Distortion Field,” whispered Jake.

  The winds were streaked black. They dimmed the world of color, dragging at everything they touched…

  It hit Zane like a hammer-blow.

  Heavy suppression.

  Then Zane’s vitality was like blazing light filtered through darkened glass.

  “Look how badly his life force’s being suppressed—he stood so strong coming in, even against those Pseudo-Fields. But in a blink, it’s like he’s just a good blow from falling over!” said Jake.

  Zane staggered—and a tenseness rippled through the crowd.

  All over the Eclipse Stadium, and the galaxy beyond—across fireplaces and hearths all across the galaxy—the air was alive with shouts, with hopes.

  “Come on, Zane—come on!”

  Even Mox forgot to breathe.

  “Come on, kid.” He was fixed on the scene. “You took six damned pseudo-Fields. You can take this one too!”

  Zane took a breath—shook his head, like he was shaking out cobwebs.

  Then he set himself; they saw his chest rise and fall.

  His eyes blazed gold.

  And a bloody blast erupted from his runes.

  His body roared right back.

  Vitality crashed through the air—and with it, the gold of Zane’s domain.

  Jake was on his feet. “There it is—there’s the response! He was never going down just like that! That body of his just keeps powering up!”

  “It’s still a losing battle,” said Mox, watching as the gold wrestled the light and the wind, and faltering. “Two Pseudo-fields and a full field—it’s too much for him. He’s burning essence like mad just staying upright… Do something, kid—you’ve got to, right now!”

  Zane did.

  Even as Mox spoke the gold began to churn, began to froth like an angry sea.

  “That’s Magnetic Hotspot!” said Jake. “He’s getting ready to—”

  Zane stomped.

  A comet of muscle and flame exploded across the marble.

  Mariel let out a horrendous sound—three voices, each gorgeous on their own, but taken together, making a horrible disharmony.

  She flared her wings. A skyfull of shadow feathers ripped jagged voids down the chamber.

  It missed.

  “Fast!” gasped Mox.

  And Zane was on his target.

  The first undead priest was still buffing its lady when a golden fist took it under the chin. A fist powered by the full strength of Zane’s buffed-up body, laden with a Flare’s worth of nuclear power.

  The detonation nearly killed the priest then and there.

  It didn’t even have time to fall. Zane’s other fist caught it in the chest—and blew a hole clean through.

  A third sent Monster body-parts blasting into space.

  “It’s just easy for him!” laughed Jake. “He’s fighting through deep suppression—getting hammered by that True God field—and he’s still doing that!”

  Mariel howled. A beautiful, terrible howl, a kind of war-song. You could nearly see the black notes staining the air—an attack straight at the soul.

  A great tower shimmered over Zane in the Astral Plane, just faintly visible to the naked eye.

  “That’s a mistake,” said Jake. “She doesn’t know what caliber soul she's dealing with—that’s Zane we’re talking about, that's his strongest defense!”

  Still those notes fell heavy on him. And in one blast, they cracked a third of the way through that tower.

  But a third of the way was not enough to stop Zane.

  Already he was bearing down on the other priest—and the Archangel could only watch in fury as he dismantled her minion with four bursts of explosive, glorious violence.

  This time Mariel’s shriek came from somewhere deep in the spirit; a heart-rending lament; and in the sound was a black rage.

  She slashed the air.

  And rifts tore open in a dome. A dome that closed off Zane’s sky—hemming him in even as he finished off the last priest.

  Mox swore.

  Zane’s eyes widened; he instantly recognized the danger. But he barely had time to throw up his Chains.

  Then hellfire raged out—and for the first time that fight, the Archangel hit him clean.

  A fire made out of the fury of the void. A black the color of hate blasted Zane from every which way. The fury of a True God, made manifest.

  For a few seconds he was lost in the rush—all they could hear was his defiant roar. All they could see was a faint outline of gold staggering under the great outpouring.

  Far above, Haxorax stared at the flames, unblinking. Dya let out a laugh.

  “COME ON, LAD!” someone roared; there came an eldritch screech.

  ***

  “He just ate that head-on…” said Jake.

  Mox didn’t say a word. Just watched, jaw clenched.

  At last the onslaught subsided.

  And there was Zane. Down on one knee, smoke drifting from every blackened limb, breathing heavy.

  He’d been scorched bad—his chest, his arms, were scorched dead in places. Half a brow had been singed off. And as the smoke cleared they saw chunks of him burned so raw they exposed bone.

  When he stood, it was staggering, coughing black blood.

  “Is Zane grinning?!” said Jake. “He just got roasted for half his life—and he’s smiling!”

  “’Cause he knows he just took an all-out hit from a True God. And he’s still standing,” said Mox hoarsely.

  Zane shook his shaggy head.

  And his runes ran so hot—his body was pumped so full of life—his every heartbeat began thudding down the marble. A war-drum of his own making.

  “Zane’s not done.”

  ***

  The Archangel frowned down at him, as though he were some insect that should’ve long been crushed.

  Zane bared his teeth. Flare filled his fists, torched his hammers.

  Then he and the True God went to war.

  He struck first—cracked high, but she caught the blow on a wing and batted him out of the sky with another. He cratered into the ground—it hardly fazed him. He launched himself straight back.

  Hammers fell. Void-feathers flew, carving huge gashes down Zane’s body, drawing out fountains of bright blood.

  Back and forth they went—a titanic collision. Slicing and smashing, gold erupting against blood and shadow. Temple shook with the force of every exchange.

  “He’s getting in some good damage,” said Jake, who could hardly make out the exchanges, through all that explosion, through all that vicious speed. “Those wings are starting to look beat-up!”

  “But she’s breaking him faster,” said Mox, brow furrowed. He could make it out just fine.

  Zane roared and attacked anyway.

  He’d spilled so much blood, he’d stained the frescoes on the marble half-red, given bloody color to the murals of the battlefield.

  “Zane’s still just under True-God firepower. You can see it. He’s got heart, he’s still fighting hard as ever—but he’s slowly losing… it’s just not going to be enough!”