Savage Awakening 589. Boot Camp (X)

The Kaijuu looked confused at first, but then it gave a roar of fury. It seemed to think Zane was toying with it, which he wasn’t doing at all. He really did just want it to give him everything it could muster.

Then it squinted at him. After the first few punches it seemed to realize he was up to something. He wasn’t really fighting with the intent to embarrass it, or even hurt it—just to give it the damage it needed. There came a bit of confused growling.

He got the sense it was kind of realizing what he was up to.

Now it seemed kind of… pleased?

He did wonder why the Kaijuu seemed much less hate-filled than most Monsters, at least when it came to humanity. From what he could tell it seemed primarily motivated by destroying things. Which did include mankind, granted, but it didn’t feel laser-focused on extermination.

Something about its Bloodline … it felt more like the Monsters he’d fought in the Ruins. It had that same ancient feel to it. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that it came from outside the Galaxy, he wasn’t sure.

In any case—a few more punches, and he’d charged it all the way up. That bright orange raged through its system in the Astral Plane. It gave a mighty shriek.

Then it squinted back at him, like it was a bit uncertain.

“Just hit me,” said Zane, nodding.

The Kaijuu screeched again.

It did so with pleasure.

Every seam in its body erupted with that bright orange light. It looked far brighter in the Astral Plane, where Zane could feel all its Destruction coming through clear.

He braced himself, feeling quite expectant.

He could tell it’d be a good one already. He could tell just by the reaction his body was having; the moment he sensed it coming his heart started pumping faster, his senses heightening in response to the threat... He primed himself to explode in any direction he needed to.

Then the Kaijuu unleashed on him.

He kind of expected a beam to blast at him, or for it to charge him straight up, but even stronger.

Instead it leaped straight up and stomped straight down.

And when it landed its four legs had giant force-pillars for boots, the most force-Laws he’d seen the Kaijuu muster. And there wasn’t just that—a boatload of Pure Size shone through too…

It ‘landed,’ and space shattered.

A shockwave burst through all three thousand miles of black hole land in an instant. A shockwave that went through reality itself, and everything that stood in it got violently thrown. Which would include one Zane.

Before he knew it he was flying, reality thrashing under his feet. Then another shockwave struck, then another, batting him back and forth.

It felt like all of existence was battering him. 

The Kaijuu was screeching, stomping over and over, making an earthquake through space itself.

It wasn’t just a physical thing. Every time he tried to right himself, tried stomping his Red Giant steps, the next shockwave would hit. And it’d totally disrupt the Skill.

That must’ve been what it felt like to be hit by his Daybreak Horn, he was realizing.

Another shockwave smashed him headfirst into a gravity knot. Zane groaned.

Yet another slammed him hard, sending him tumbling… by now all the essence in his body was in chaos. His body felt slammed hard—even his soul got hit, and surprisingly hard, too.

He felt his Aegis of Infinity shattering down halfway. He could feel quite clearly what that soul attack was trying to do, too. It was trying to daze him.

This whole attack was trying to daze him every which way.

Which worked pretty well, even if the soul bit hadn’t gotten through. Getting earthquaked by reality over and over was pretty rough. Then he’d been thrown around so much it was impossible not to smash into a whole host of gravity knots.

He blinked, trying to clear his eyes. He groaned again, trying to right himself however he could. He had to give it to the Kaijuu. That… wasn’t something he had any inkling how to block. Maybe if he had more Pure Size he wouldn’t have gotten thrown and ping-pong’d around. Though that wouldn’t solve the shockwave bit…

It was at this point, still mostly upside-down, that Zane felt the enormity that was coming for him.

He was a little out of sorts, but even still. It was pretty hard to miss a giant charging Kaijuu.

This wasn’t just any giant charging Kaijuu, though. The thing was charging him nearly five times as fast as he’d ever seen it, and its whole body was wrapped in so much solid force that even the Kaijuu was having trouble keeping itself on course.

It was hobbling a bit, unsteady. All the Gravity now tearing at it couldn’t help either. But there was so much raw energy running through it in that moment, it didn’t even matter.

The sheer momentum going through that thing caught even Zane off guard.

It let out a proud battle cry.

The thing was almost upon him; there had to be less than two seconds before it made contact. It still wasn’t running insanely fast, but with its sheer size, there was just no way he was getting out of the way in time… for the first time that fight, Zane felt he had to take this seriously.

He was forced to right himself, slamming his fists together. Alright.

The combo was pretty neat—utterly disorient him and then ram him with its single strongest charge while he was still upside down.

The Kaijuu gave another screech. He felt its surprise that he was even in shape after that, that he could even recover in time to take its blow. But it still felt confident. No doubt thinking that with all it was bringing, it didn’t matter how recovered Zane was.

And it was right. If it caught him head-on like this, just got in a free shot at him…

He still didn’t think it would kill him. But he had to admit with that much force, it’d have a solid chance of it.

But Zane didn’t plan on letting it get that free shot off.

He didn’t mind that he couldn’t dodge in time. Right now, all of his attention was on the very thing it was using to charge him—its head. Sagging a little under the weight of the gravity, but still mostly upright…

All these thoughts went through his mind in fractions of a second.

Then he executed.

He bellowed and stomped straight down, aiming for something right at the edge of his vision.

The Kaijuu let out a triumphant screech, but he wasn’t trying to run. Instead, he turned mid-air and landed hard on a gravity knot—the very hard wall of force he’d been thrown through earlier.

This time, he used it as a launchpad. He took one massive Red Giant step straight into the path of the charge.

If he had to get hit, he’d do it on his terms. His terms being that he wanted them to make contact right at the weakest point in its head—a point he’d already severely compromised, the very point he’d struck with his first gravity-assisted punch. A point that hadn’t recovered nearly well enough given how much he’d hammered it over the fight.

And he wanted to do it at an angle, coming in from above… he knew if he wanted to break through all that inertia he’d have to hit it as hard as he goddamned could.

He cranked a fist all the way back, feeling chains break all over his body.

Charging Kaijuu met roaring man.

Zane smashed the weakness.

And that giant anti-grav plate shattered yet another time—CRUNCH-CRACK! At the same time, the force, coming in at an angle, drove the Kaijuu’s head straight down… less than he would’ve hoped, given what he’d put in. But that was inertia for you.

It’d still done what he’d wanted it to do.

It sent the Kaijuu crashing off-balance, right in the direction of gravity—even as the single strongest anti-gravity shield it had took yet another heavy blow.

That tipped its dire scale situation well over the edge.

From a distance, it looked like Zane punched the Kaijuu straight out of its charge.

Punched it so hard it started careening downward, started crashing sideways—still in slow motion, like everything about the Kaijuu. But it was totally out of control now, and all that gravity on it only made things worse.

And once it was thrown that violently, spiraling two hundred, three hundred miles deeper into those heavier sections of gravity, it just couldn’t stop the momentum anymore.

It clawed and clawed, screeching furiously, but it was falling too fast.

It made one long spiral, then another, crashing through a half-dozen gravity knots as it went. Then it gave one last screech and sank below the event horizon, not unlike the way a ship capsized.

And the Kaijuu was gone.

Most of what’d done it was the massive plate-shattering damage he’d inflicted there. The force itself just gave it a hard kickstart. Then its own redirected momentum and gravity did the rest. He did quite enjoy punching something that massive and seeing it go flying, even if he’d only set off the effect.

One day he’d like to be able to hit a Kaijuu and send it flipping head-over-heels entirely with the force and size of his own fist. He felt it was quite an achievable goal.

Now all of this, Zane only thought in retrospect.

Because the inertia going the other way meant the instant he made contact with that wall of Size and force, he felt it too.

Specifically he felt like he’d gotten walloped by a tail-slam ten times as big, ten times over.

The arm he’d used to punch it exploded pretty much instantly. Every bone, going up his hand, up through his shoulder.

He even felt the force ramming him in the torso, breaking several small bones in the upper chest. Blood filled his mouth, though he didn’t spit any of it out.

That was just the actual damage.

The inertia bit meant Zane went flying at speeds he frankly didn’t know he was even capable of. He wasn’t sure just how fast he flew, although, reconstructing from memory later, he’d realize he flew just about 1800 miles in a fraction of a second.

And then—

CLANG!

The back of Zane’s body and the back of Zane’s head hit something very, very hard.

When he would tell Reina about this moment later, she’d be in disbelief he didn’t black out then and there. She of all folk was used to seeing him walk through some pretty extreme stuff. But even by Zane's standards, that was something.

Honestly he wasn’t quite sure how he stayed up either. His skull didn’t even crack. He was actually pretty sure he momentarily blacked out, although he did come to instantly after, just quite dazed.

Warning!

Health under 50%

“Lad!” shouted the Barbarian Sage, though his voice came through a bit muffled. “You alright down there?”

At which point Zane realized he’d hit the deadlifting platform, back-first.

And then all those other realizations—about the Kaijuu and all he’d done to it—came through. Since the Kaijuu fell in slow motion and Zane’s impact was pretty much instantaneous, he actually did get to see his work, albeit a bit blearily. It took him a few seconds to really snap back, but that was enough to see the latter half of the Kaijuu’s long fall.

It was quite enjoyable watching giant things tumble over, he decided. Especially if you were the one to cause it.

He counted that as a win.

He gave the Kaijuu a salute. Good fight.

…He wondered just how many of them were down there. Maybe in his Kaijuu-punching career, he’d get to see it again?

Then he picked himself up, shaking his head—“Get on up here, lad!”

At which point he clambered out from under the platform, and the Sage pretty much just tackled him.

“You godsdamned animal, you!” roared the Sage. He pulled back, grinning. “I just knew you’d take to it—you were a damned rhino in mud down there! How were the gains?” 

Zane nodded. “Pretty good, actually.”

And not just Law gains, too.

Skill up!

Red Giant Step IV -> V