Zeke was disappointed.
[Wrath of Annihilation] had torn the dome-like shield completely apart, but the damage it had done to the city of Ivern was minimal.
“Minimal?” Eveline said, mentally focusing on the blocks of ruined buildings and slain Knights who’d been stationed on the outskirts of the city. “You and I have very different interpretations of that word.”
He could acknowledge the truth of that. However, given what he’d seen on the Mukti Plains, Zeke felt justified in expecting [Wrath of Annihilation] to do more. He’d even held out hope that it would end the battle before it had even begun. The results came far short of that mark, leaving him a little dissatisfied.
Of course, the rest of the plan had worked to perfection. After the collaborative effort to destroy the shield had failed – which was expected – Zeke had moved on to the next step. So, once everyone had been evacuated into the tower and he’d desummoned the gate, he’d used his most powerful skill to tear the shield down. In the wake of that destruction, he’d summoned his gate, and the kobolds had raced through the tunnels they’d dug in preparation for the battle. Of course, before, they’d been stopped by the barrier, which formed a sphere around the entire city, but now that it was laid bare, they brought their sharp, purposeful claws to bear.
After that, they’d burst forth into the middle of the city, where they’d been only met with nominal resistance. At the same time, Zeke had been kept busy by the most powerful man or creature he’d ever fought. The armored human was not as strong as either of the wyrms back beneath Min Ferilik, but he was far closer than anything else Zeke had ever fought.
That suggested he was Lord Adontis himself, which Zeke had taken a few brief seconds to verify via his [Inspection] skill. The results were as disappointing as the results of [Wrath of Annihilation]:
Lord Adontis – Level ??
Zeke had hoped to get some measure of the man before the battle began in earnest. Yet, he was clearly too low of a level, which was both troubling and exciting. After all, Zeke had long since acknowledged his own pattern of behavior, which was characterized by constant challenge.
But on the other side of that coin was the fact that he had no idea how much more powerful Lord Adontis was than him. Not only had he taken Zeke’s best shot – albeit after it had been diluted by the city’s shield – but he’d shown no signs of injury, even after Zeke had hit him with a couple of attacks.
That harkened back to Zeke’s fight against Karik. That man had only been level seventy-six, and he’d taken everything Zeke could dish out only to keep coming back for more. Clearly, his superior would take even more to defeat.
Never was that more apparent than when Lord Adontis pulled himself from the wreckage of one of the city’s towers and stepped onto a beam of moonlight that sent him on a collision course with Zeke. For his part, Zeke leaped up to meet him, using Voromir’s ability to summon a blood-red copy that extended his reach by no small degree.
However, Lord Adontis was no novice fighter, and he summoned some sort of silver shield to block the attack. Zeke saw a few cracks spread across the bulwark – which seemed to have been made of pure moonlight – but the higher-leveled combatant seemed otherwise unaffected.
What’s worse, Zeke’s swing had left him slightly off-balance, giving Adontis the opening he needed to send a spectral sword slash slicing through Zeke’s chest. Agony erupted in its wake, though there was no visible wound.
“Soul damage,” said Eveline, providing unhelpful commentary.
But as painful as it was – and it cut through his racial pain tolerance like nothing else – Zeke knew how to deal with it. Even as he met another slash with Voromir, knocking the attack aside, he embraced [Cambion’s Awakening] to heal the damage. Then, he kicked out, connecting with the powerful lord’s knee. With all his strength, the strike was very effective, buckling the joint.
However, Adontis barely let it affect him, and he responded with a backhanded blow with his moonlight shield that sent Zeke tumbling backward into a mostly destroyed building. What was left of it fell atop him in a cascade of bricks that buried him in rubble.
To combat that, he used [Shifting Sands], but as he had been against Karik, he was stymied by a plane of glass-like moonlight that covered the entire area. Zeke was ready for that, though. He flared [Aura of Desolation], then slammed his hammer into the restrictive sheet of silvery light. Weakened by his domain, it shattered beneath the blow, and he sank into the ground before sliding through the earth, only to erupt directly beneath the armored lord.
As he did, the entire area was bathed in earth and hellfire, but Zeke was more intent on hitting the Knight with as much force as he could muster. He connected with an uppercut that sent the man flying high into the air. The arc of his trajectory took him hundreds of yards away before he crashed into a building.
Zeke raced forward, intent on piling on the damage.
He didn’t get the chance, though.
At that moment, the leader of Adontis erupted from the wreckage of his passage, growing into a fifteen-foot-tall behemoth of silver armor and moonlight. He leveled his sword at Zeke before a beam of pure, silvery destruction tore across the city. Where it passed, the world was ripped asunder. Zeke tried to use [Shifting Sands] again, but even with the increased perception of time that came with the skill, he was incapable of dodging the destructive stream of moonlight.
It slammed into his chest, tearing into his metallic and rocky flesh before erupting from his back. Meanwhile, he found himself knocked backward, slamming through various walls even as agony enveloped his mind.
His landing cracked the very foundations of the city, ripping a crater in the ground with every bounce.
Finally, after a few hundred yards, he came to a stop, woozy and as injured as he’d been in quite some time. But he didn’t get a chance to collect himself, because Lord Adontis landed a second later, burying his sword in Zeke’s ruined chest.
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Zeke screamed in torment as the enormous Knight twisted the blade. As he did, he sneered, “You are beneath me, monster. A piece of trash meant to fuel my rise.”
He raised his sword.
But before he could bring it down, a javelin hit him in the chest, sinking deep. Then another ripped into him. And another after that. Over and over until ten shafts of bronze sprouted from his body. Each one was connected to a tether of mana which, in turn, led to the ten golems of [Colossal Army]. Through those tethers pulsed huge torrents of mana as they weakened the leader of Adontis.
It wasn’t enough to defeat him.
Far from it, in fact. In the grand scheme of things, even that effect – as powerful as it was – was only capable of making the man stumble.
That was all Zeke needed, though. He threw himself to his feet, aiming a massive uppercut at the Knight. The moment Voromir connected, Zeke used [Unleash Momentum], lacing it with his destructive Will. After spending months inoculating himself against the Path of Arcane Destruction, the pulse of his Will wasn’t enough to damage his body, but it was more than enough to give his already-powerful skill an extra kick.
The power of a thousand swings erupted from Zeke’s hammer, hitting the Knight with unparalleled force. Adontis attempted to block it with his moonlight shield, yet it crumbled before Zeke’s Will. A second later, the sound of denting metal echoed across the city as the most powerful person in the kingdom was sent sailing across the cityscape with enough force to topple any building in his way.
At the same time, Zeke used [Shifting Sands] to race forward, narrowly keeping up with the man’s flight. As Zeke followed, Adontis crashed through one building after another, destroying them and leaving an explosion of bricks in his wake. When he finally reached the palace, he came to a sudden stop as his armor twisted into an unrecognizable hunk of gleaming metal.
Yet, he wasn’t dead.
Zeke aimed to change that with [Hell Geyser], which he summoned directly at the point of impact. Fire and brimstone erupted from the ground, melting the palace walls and burying Lord Adontis in earth and corruption.
Still, the powerful Knight persisted. So, even before [Hell Geyser] faded, Zeke vaulted forward, and at the apex of his leap, he increased his weight as much as possible. He fell with the force of a meteor, putting every ounce of strength behind the ensuing hammer strike.
And he was rebuffed.
Once again, Lord Adontis had summoned a moonlight shield. When Zeke hit it, the impact sent a massive shockwave to tear across the cityscape. Brocks were turned to dust, walls fell, and a nearby tower teetered and fell.
But Lord Adontis – with metal melted onto his body and looking like his flesh was no better off – was unaffected. Instead, he shoved against his moonlight shield, the force of which sent Zeke flying away like a ragdoll.
A second later, a hundred sharpened spiles of silvery moonlight assailed him. Even as he soared back the way he’d come, Zeke was pierced through dozens of times. Each one drained a combination of Will and mana while degrading his very soul. Pain unlike anything Zeke had ever felt tore through his body.
He used [Cambion’s Awakening], but it was too weak to keep up with the sheer amount of damage he’d had directed his way. As a result, his body was ripped to shreds, one chunk of metal at a time.
Until he’d finally had enough and shifted from the unattuned version of [Triune Colossus] to the demonic form. Even as his body transformed, he forced even more demonic mana through [Cambion’s Awakening], rebuilding his body with a rapidity that was visible to the naked eye. It could do nothing for the damage that had left his soul in tatters, but that was something he’d just have to deal with. In the interim, he had a Knight to murder.
As fury raced through his mind, Zeke hit the ground feet first, then shoved his hand into the ground, arresting his momentum. When he looked up, Lord Adontis was already on his way, sprinting across the battlefield with an eye toward finishing Zeke off.
Using [Center of Gravity], Zeke sent him tumbling forward. At the same time, he summoned the blood red expression of Voromir before slamming the weapon down in an overhand swing that marshaled every point of strength Zeke possessed. The red hammer fell, smashing the off-balance Knight into the ground.
Then, Zeke ran toward the man.
He was tired of playing games, so he let his Will encompass his mind. As it did so, it raged through his body, leaving behind a wake of destruction that was almost instantly repaired by his demon-fueled [Cambion’s Awakening]. The corruption was so powerful that it became visible to the naked eye, misting around his jagged form.
When he reached Lord Adontis, he didn’t say a word. Nor did he try any fancy techniques. That wasn’t his style. Instead, Zeke brough his hammer down with world-ending force. The earth shattered in every direction as he pummeled the fallen Lord Adontis into the ground.
The hammer fell.
Over and over again, it descended. The first few were blocked by shields of moonlight. Then, when those were exhausted, the next couple had to make their way through the man’s raised hands. Those broke soon enough. Next came his armor. Then, the man’s body.
Throughout the onslaught, Zeke was assailed by hundreds of lunar spears. They ripped his body apart like nothing ever had. Before those attacks, his vaunted endurance was worth almost nothing.
Yet, when those blades retreated, the corruption-fueled [Cambion’s Awakening] healed him before the next could add to the damage. It was a cycle of destruction and reparation that, at any other time, would have been fascinating. But in those few moments, with demonic fury raging through him, he only cared about annihilating the mana beneath him.
And he did.
Metal crumbled. Flesh was rent. Bones shattered.
Still, Lord Adontis persisted.
Zeke continued to pour his Will into his attacks. At first, he’d only taken a few sips, but after only a few moments, those had become the gulps of a man dying of thirst. And the results were obvious.
The ground burst, cracks of pure devastation spreading from the point of impact. The very air caught fire, and reality seemed to shiver beneath the might of Zeke’s Path of Arcane Destruction. His body fared no better, yet with [Cambion’s Awakening] roaring through him, it was rendered moot.
Not so for his already wounded soul.
He couldn’t worry about that, though. Instead, he could only focus on finishing the man off. If he didn’t, there was every chance Lord Adontis would recover and rejoin the battle. Now that he had the upper hand, Zeke needed to kill him, once and for all. He didn’t dare pay attention to anything else.
Which was why he had no idea there was another huge Knight barreling in his direction.
The man hit him with a reckless shoulder tackle. Zeke’s latest hammer fall went wide, thudding into the ground instead of continuing to crush Lord Adontis into paste. He backhanded his assailant, snapping the man’s neck in the process, but another hit him a second later.
Then another after that.
Hundreds of Knights followed, each one enhanced by some sort of lunar based skill that coated their whole bodies in silver light. None of them could stand up to Zeke in single combat. In fact, it was only a matter of time before he killed them.
Yet, with every passing moment, Lord Adontis would recover.
He couldn’t let that happen.
So, with fury raging through his mind, Zeke targeted the ground beneath him and slammed his fist into the ground. That was enough to satisfy the requirements of [Hell Geyser], and a second later, corrupted fire and earth exploded from beneath. Zeke increased his weight a hundredfold, so he managed to maintain his position. The Knights that had piled atop him were not so lucky. The ones that weren’t burnt to a crisp ended up being thrown aside like so much confetti.
Meanwhile, Zeke was assailed by the demonic flames. They blistered his flesh and melted his rocky skin, but [Cambion’s Awakening] managed to keep pace. Without his domains, that wouldn’t have been possible. He’d have long since run out of fuel. But because of [Aura of Desolation], he had more than enough corrupted mana for his purposes.
Still, that brief delay had allowed Lord Adontis – wounded and barely alive – to climb from the crater where Zeke had been beating him to death.
And he wasn’t happy.
He let out a roar, shouting, “You cannot defeat me! I am a god!”
And then, silver light erupted from his body, sweeping across the battlefield.