Zeke’s stomach tightened into a knot.

“What’s wrong?” demanded Eveline.

“Pudge,” he grunted, already embracing [Titan]. “He’s in trouble.”

Without hesitation, he summoned a gate and told Talia, “Get the army.”

“How many?” she asked.

“All of them,” he stated. “The second they’ve assembled, I expect them to attack. Get Sasha, too. Tell her that Pudge is in danger. Tell her not to hold back.”

The second his transformation completed, he sprinted for the bridge connecting the island to the shore. As he did so, he summoned Voromir to hand and readied himself for the upcoming battle. At the same time, he tried not to focus on the pain he felt through the bond he shared with his brother. He didn’t know what had happened to Pudge, but he knew that if he didn’t step up, the person he cared about more than anyone else in the world would die.

“You need to think this through,” Eveline cautioned as he reached the bridge. His heavy footsteps were nearly enough to topple the structure altogether. “You can’t just barge in there. We had a plan for a reason.”

“I don’t care,” Zeke said. A long time ago, he’d made a decision to sacrifice himself for his brother, and he’d died for that choice. Even if he’d never been reborn, he was okay with that. And even though he and Pudge didn’t share blood like he and Tommy had, the bearkin occupied a similar place in his life. As such, Zeke wasn’t about to place his own well-being – or anyone else’s, for that matter – over saving his brother.

Skeletons and zombies reacted to his charge, pouring out of every nook and cranny in an attempt to bar his way. He crashed through them, pulverizing most of them with repeated swings of his hammer. Others, he simply squashed beneath his heavy footsteps.

He refused to be denied.

And yet, before he’d even reached the castle, the first true obstacle presented itself. The weight of his titanic body was not insignificant, and the bridge was barely capable of withstanding its own mass. It crumbled under the additional weight of his passage. A rumble from behind announced its collapse.

Zeke poured on the speed, pushing himself as fast as he could manage. The rapidly crumbling bridge continued to chase him until, at last, he leaped. Pushing with all his strength, he sent himself sailing through the air for almost a quarter of a mile. The skeletons and zombies fell along with the bridge, disappearing into the black waves beneath.

Then, Zeke thudded into the oddly square boulders that marked the island’s boundaries. He hit hard, flipping over as he skipped across the beach until, at last, he came to a rest. But he didn’t lay there long, because he saw something enormous and pale coming in his direction.

The enormous skeleton’s foot landed, crushing the boulder a second after Zeke rolled away. Pebbles and dust shot away, clouding the air as Zeke found his feet. He looked up to see that a half dozen skeletons, each at least a hundred feet tall, with proportionally thick bones, had already surrounded him.

They loomed over him, pale and white, though he did see a few strips of ragged flesh hanging from various joints. Otherwise, they were entirely bare, save for green flames that burned in their eye sockets.

Zeke didn’t even bother with [Inspect]. He knew they were at the peak, but he didn’t care. He leaped into action, racing forward and swinging Voromir with every point of strength he could muster. The second the weapon made contact with an ankle, the sound of shattering bone filled the air. The skeleton didn’t react to what should have been a debilitating blow. Instead, it kicked out, its foot larger than Zeke’s entire, fifteen-foot body.

However, he’d already used his racial gift to increase his weight as much as possible, so when the foot connected, it was stopped cold. Zeke had already used [Flames of Reprisal], so a swirl of corrupted fire swept out, enveloping the creature and singing its bones.

It didn’t react to that, either.

Clearly, the things were incapable of feeling pain.

But that was fine, because he didn’t care about making them suffer. His only concern was getting through them as quickly and efficiently as possible. To that end, he summoned both of his domains, then let loose with [Hell Geyser]. The gout of flame enveloped the skeleton’s entire leg, scorching its way all the way to mid-thigh, but when they guttered out, the bone showed no signs of damage, save for a few burn marks that were ignored.

By that point, the other five monsters had closed on him, and he spent the next few moments dodging their heavy blows. Finally, he’d had enough. If fire wouldn’t do anything, then blunt force would have to do.

He summoned [Storm of Hammers], and as the winds whipped a tornado of blows into the surrounding skeletons, he used [Titanic Smash]. Finally, one of his attacks did some good, shattering the already-injured skeleton’s femur.

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The monsters might have been magical in nature, but physics was still a thing. And with one bone broken, the creature could no longer support its own weight. It tipped over, and as it was pummeled by one storm-driven hammer after another, collided with one of its fellows. The sheer force of it sent the other skeleton stumbling into a third, and they all collapsed in a heap of bones.

They weren’t dead, but Zeke now had a good path to changing that.

Because from his experience, glowing bits usually meant weak points. So, he pounced on a skull, swinging Voromir with all his might. The first blow sent a spiderweb of cracks arcing over the white bone. The second widened those fissures, and the third shattered it altogether. A fourth dug a huge hole in the bone, exposing a swirling green mass of pure death energy.

Zeke dove in, wrapping his hands around it and channeling his Will.

For a moment, it seemed to resist – as if there was another Will fighting his – but he quickly overwhelmed it. The thing exploded, tearing a hole in his chest before sending him flying away. He rode a wave of bone shards as he skipped across the boulder-strewn beach, then came to a stop only as he rammed into a particularly large rock.

“Well, one down, I suppose,” Eveline said. “Five more to go.”

With a growl, Zeke pushed himself to his feet and threw himself back into the battle. The second skeleton went down much like the first, which meant that he once again found himself skipping across the beach. Afterward, he used [Hand of Divinity] to mend any damage he’d incurred, then rushed back in for more.

Four more times, he repeated the process by destroying the death-attuned power source in their skulls. Twice, he did so by felling the giant creatures via well-placed hammer blows. However, the two other times, he was forced to climb the hundred-plus foot tall creatures and destroy them even as they attempted to dislodge him.

For anyone else, it might’ve been a death sentence, but for Zeke, it only took about ten minutes for him to defeat the creatures. And he didn’t even have to use his most powerful skills. He didn’t dare – not until he knew Pudge was safe.

The bearkin was somewhere down below – how far, Zeke couldn’t tell – and he was in more pain than he’d ever felt before. Zeke ached to rescue him, but he needed to reach him first.

To that end, Zeke picked himself up after the latest explosion, only to find a horde of zombies collapsing onto his position. They tripped and clambered over the rocks, but they didn’t seem to care about that. They just kept coming like the mindless creatures they were.

But he did see a trio of newcomers that seemed different. Elves, unless he was mistaken, and they stood atop the wall, looking down on him with equanimity.

Then, they disappeared.

A second later, Zeke felt a huge chunk of his torso being ripped free. He looked down to see mercury-like blood flowing freely down his side and to his hip. Then, he was hit again, this time in his thigh. A piece of his forearm went next. And then most of his calf.

[Flames of Reprisal] lashed out, but the flames found nothing.

It didn’t take a genius to figure out what was going on. After all, one of his closest friends could move so quickly that she was practically invisible to the naked eye. Clearly, the elven undead were similarly fast.

“Revenants,” Eveline said as he activated [Shifting Sands]. On an island in the middle of the ocean, the earth-attuned mana was so thin that it didn’t work nearly as well as it normally would, but Zeke was forced to take what he could get. “All three at the peak, too.”

“Fantastic,” he muttered inwardly, slipping into the earth. He was tempted to simply keep going, but [Shifting Sands] would give out before he ever reached Pudge. Chances were, he’d end up reforming in the middle of a rock. He didn’t want to know what would happen in that instance, so he shot off as fast as he could manage, looking for a particular setting.

He found it only a few subjective moments later when he spied a trio of rocks leaning against the castle’s wall. The longer two were leaning together, with the third balanced on the top.

But there was a small gap in between, and it was just large enough for him to fit – so long as he let [Titan] fade. As soon as he surfaced, letting [Shifting Sands] lapse, Zeke changed back to his natural form and dove inside. During that dive, he flipped around and activated [Eye of Reckoning].

Fire and corruption lanced out from his forehead, bathing the entire entrance in destructive power. When the skill faded, he saw three bodies – each one missing their entire top half – falling to the ground.

“I didn’t think that would work,” Eveline said.

“They were always going to follow,” he reasoned. “I just needed to restrict their avenue of approach.”

“Smart.”

“You sound surprised,” he said, picking himself up as a few drops of rain fell outside.

“Maybe I am. You don’t usually use your head like that,” she stated.

He countered, “Most of the time, I don’t have to.”

“Fair enough. What now?”

It was a good question. He’d rushed off without a real plan, but now that he had a second to think, he realized that he didn’t really know how to get to Pudge.

“He’s down there,” he said, pointing to the ground. Frustration bubbled in his mind. “A ways, too. I don’t know anything else.”

“The castle,” Eveline said.

It was the most obvious place to start, so Zeke stepped out from between the boulders and used [Titan]. A second later, he leaped atop those same boulders, then climbed the wall. There were no handholds, so he was forced to create his own by slamming his metallic fingers into the stone. It was old and crumbly, so he didn’t even need to use much strength.

The wall was tall, though. Hundreds of feet, at least. From afar, it didn’t look quite as huge, but that was an optical illusion. Whatever the case, it took him only a minute or two to reach the top, where he found more skeletons. These were all human-sized, though, so he tore through them without issue before turning his attention to the courtyard on the other side of the wall.

“Is that a…”

He answered, “A necromantic vessel. Yeah. Same as before.”

It felt slightly different, though. More powerful, but also incomplete. Like it was missing a piece. But otherwise, it was an enormous, vaguely humanoid mass of necrotic flesh.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Eveline asked. “Last time, you almost died.”

“I did die, Eveline. I just came back. And I’m a different man than I was then.”

With that, he leaped from the wall, ready to do battle with a carbon copy of the creature that had once killed him.