With both eyes healed, Zarian blinked them rapidly to clear his vision. Dust, grit, and smoke billowed around him.

His ears needed more time to heal back to being functional again, so he couldn’t hear much of anything other than some painful ringing.

He rose back to his feet, his arms hugging his newly adopted daughter to his chest, with Para waving and glimmering around them as his cloak.

He looked around at the devastation left behind by the portal collapse. Everyone was okay, if not reeling from the high-energy shockwave.

The one who’d suffered the brunt of the blast shifted and caused the uneven ground to quake. The mile-long gator let out a deep, air-shaking bellow while unwinding his body from around the Floridians.

Zarian swept his aura perception over the gigantic creature and saw half of his body had its scales blasted off with the meat cooked underneath. But the hell gator remained alive after tanking a massive dimensional explosion.

Para extended a long and multi-jointed arm to pat the nearest scale of the titanic creature. The hell gator let out a rumbly purr in appreciation of being acknowledged.

He’d eaten a lot. His vitality will heal everything up, Zarian thought.

It was frankly incredible that he could summon such an enormous and powerful creature. The Dreadnought Hell Gator could take on Godzilla and eat the kaiju for lunch.

Hell, they hadn’t even used the hell gator’s full powers. There was no need when size and toughness alone could get the job done.

Soon enough, Zarian’s ears healed with a pop. He felt a few trickles of blood pouring out, but nothing more than that.

He looked down and saw Foodie stirring while cradled against his chest, her eyes blinking up at him.

“The Hell Gate’s closed,” she said, matter of fact. “This is your victory, isn’t it?”

“Yes, but no. I enjoy having a total victory. And we’re not just there yet.” Zarian walked around as Para extended some makeshift parasite arms and patted everyone else awake.

“Can I just lay here and sleep?” Gilbert grumbled.

“Sorry, big guy, but no walking into the shiny light for you,” Zarian said.

“Oh, gee, that just makes me feel better.” Gilbert sighed before climbing back to his feet.

Zarian found Hannah sitting in a force-field bubble her golems had set up. She gestured with two thumbs up.

He nodded before looking up to see Bianca rising like a mini kaiju angel. She gestured with six thumbs up as she slowly stood to her taloned feet.

She seemed big to Zarian while next to her. But then one look at how much the hell gator dwarfed her made the size comparisons quite stark.

With enough meat, I can probably grow myself and become one of these kaijus of yours, Para shared via their mind.

That … is a wonderful idea. Keep that in mind for another day when we want to go in for shock and awe, Zarian replied mentally.

Isn’t that how we always do things?

Are you telling me we should change things up? Zarian didn’t like the idea of becoming predictable.

Para gave a noncommittal answer, an impression of a shoulder shrug. That troubled Zarian a little.

Maybe I need to try more low key efforts in the future, Zarian thought.

Tabling the Kaiju Para idea for later, Zarian hopped onto a boulder and took a wider look around. He also unfolded more and more of his aura. There was nothing suppressing it now.

Not only was the portal gone, but the pervasive and dimensional changes produced by the Grimrock Hell Gate were gone, too. So, with the Hell Break situation no more, the caverns and subterranean floors under Castle Grimrock were back to normal.

A bright light beamed through an opening in the far ceiling above, revealing a sunny, blue-sky day. A few pieces of loosened rock tumbled down.

Zarian noted how the cavern space was smaller and in ruins. There was barely enough space for the Dreadnought Hell Gator.

With the disappearance of the Hell Gate, the reduced space confined a bunch of creatures next to those they were at odds with.

There were still imps and demonic beasts scurrying about. There were millions of lesser aberrations turning tail and fleeing into the dark recesses and cracks that could fit their horrifying and mutilated forms.

Zarian watched as they drained away like someone spilling a large lake of oil into multiple drainage grates.

“I see,” Foodie said. “My Goddess Shadowfell is going to spread her gift of corruption even further. Some can become strong from that. Or they will become weak like … my former mother. Or even weaker.”

Zarian was too tired to stop that. He knew it would become a problem later. But he and the others were running on fumes after two weeks straight of high-octane hell action, and none of them wanted to admit it.

He had another idea he could put into play with Shadowfell. But that was for later.

His attention turned toward the Dreadnought Hell Gator. The massive creature’s wariness grew as the gator shifted and collided hard against the walls.

Large boulders and rocks fell loose from the ceiling and crashed down. The gator groaned in frustration at the tiny space. It looked like it was time for him to go.

“Thanks for the help, buddy. Until next time,” Zarian said.

The hell gator nodded up and down before his summoner dismissed him. This was the first time Zarian and Para had summoned the creature and didn’t see him die.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Unlike his usually violent entrances and exits, the hell gator faded off like ash and smoke on the wind, his demonic spirit returning to the deepest and most violent layers of Hidden Hell.

The leftover ash and smoke came down after circling and spreading, raining everywhere. Zarian freely used his Aura Mastery to push it back and make a clean bubble of air around him and the others, including Bianca’s giant form.

He didn’t concern himself much with anything else, especially with how tired he felt. That left him vulnerable for this once. Someone hateful flew like a burning arrow straight at the wizard.

“ZARIAN!” Jack roared, with searing white sparks trailing behind him.

The hater looked as fucked up as Zarian expected. The man had lost some teeth. His face was puffy. He was bruised up everywhere.

His legendary armor was gone. Naomi had stolen it piece by piece.

Despite all of that, Jack still had a lot of fuel in the tank keeping him going. He was much stronger than when the battle had started, having powered up like a Shonen character under pressure.

Somehow, he’d gotten away from Naomi.

He finally had Zarian close at hand. The hater’s sword of starlight grew bright white and big, like a towering monument of hateful good and tyrannical order. He cocked back to prepare for a big slash.

Thankfully, Zarian had someone like Para who remained on the ball. She already had multiple spells and countermeasures going.

Zarian was also fortunate to have Hannah and Bianca. Both of them moved to defend and counterattack without him having to ask.

Hannah’s golems shone with an array of elemental colors as they flew to get a proper firing angle. Bianca moved her large body gracefully into Jack’s path with six towers of light held in her hands.

Gilbert was a little slow, but he had his Healing Force +2 going at full force for the Floridians. Even the little goblin cook braced herself while held in Zarian’s arms, ready to spring into action to defend her savior.

For a split second, Zarian felt touched by all he had, all he’d cultivated by putting the emphasis on others he wanted to grow and raise. He didn’t have to do a thing to have the fruits of his labor show in proud and powerful ways.

In fact, there was one person who stood as the epitome of taking what Zarian offered and paying it back tenfold, hundredfold, thousandfold, and even further beyond. And that person was Naomi Washington.

She flew in faster than Jack.

She counteracted him before Para, Hannah, Bianca, Gilbert, or Foodie had to.

Naomi struck the hater with a tackle from his blind side while using Aura Ignition, making herself look like a blazing blue comet.

No, wait. That’s not full Aura Ignition, Zarian realized with shock.

“She’s using Half Ignition,” he said aloud, surprising everyone, especially Foodie.

“There’s a Half Ignition?” she asked, sitting up in Zarian’s arms. She balanced herself against his chest with her hands on his shoulders. “How can that be? Her Half Ignition is greater than my First Ignition!”

Zarian and the others didn’t have time to explain before the inevitable eruption happened from Naomi tackling Jack into the side of the cavern wall.

Their crash landing caught the tail end of some lesser aberrations still trying to flee and blew them up. They knocked down tons and tons of rock down on everyone’s heads.

More pieces of the ceiling fell free, some of it pure rock, others coming from the castles and fortifications bundled into the mountains above.

Zarian and Para worked together to create a hard aura barrier, protecting everyone who wasn’t involved in the fight. Hannah assisted by blasting a few large pieces of rubble with concentrated destruction beams.

Keeping the barrier up just in case, Zarian tapped into the spider network to feel what Naomi felt. He invited everyone else as well, especially Foodie.

He quickly fed a spectral spider to the little goblin, and she accepted it without question. Once her mind spider settled into her brain, she linked up on the spider network.

From there, they could feel what Naomi felt as she beat the shit out of Jack like he owed her reparations.

They could feel how she walked barefoot on the razor’s edge between maintaining her profile skills and having outright power from Aura Ignition.

Once she transitioned from Half Ignition to First Stage of Aura Ignition, or First Ignition, her skills would stop working. She would have to rely on traits and pure brute force.

First Ignition came with more physical boosts, but that was at the sacrifice of flexibility. In a game of beating down a hater and keeping him from getting what he wanted – a crack at Zarian – she needed the flexibility just in case.

But that wasn’t the only thing at play.

Naomi was sharpening herself against Jack’s hatred. She was teasing out more and more power from the mythical hater, to almost a ridiculously dangerous degree.

As much as Zarian and the others – especially Gilbert – wanted Jack to get more of his well-deserved comeuppance, the well of power Jack could pull up to make himself grow stronger ran deeper than Zarian had expected from Jack. It was almost to the point of arrogance from Naomi to play this dangerous game, even if she was following Zarian’s orders to the T.

“Should we tell her to end this?” Para asked from a few mouths formed in the cloak. “All that’s left is to knock Jack unconscious. Or kill him.”

“Please don’t kill him just yet,” Gilbert said with desperate fanaticism.

“I’m scanning Naomi and Jack both,” Hannah admitted. “I’m curious about how far they can push, especially with Naomi. Her power tier has been rising steadily, going beyond past tiers, even while she keeps a slow build up in Aura Ignition.”

“GO, NAOMI, GO!” Bianca roared boisterously, making a few of them wince.

“After the Darkrun Apocalypse, Jack would hurt me while I was too enslaved to do anything,” Foodie said. “We had spars, too, but I wasn’t allowed to fight hard. He always fought hard against me.”

That was all it took for the dogs to come out of every Floridian. Zarian and the others yelled, cheered, and screamed for Naomi to put an even bigger whooping on Jack and not let him off easily.

Naomi responded by putting an even harder whooping on Jack. She struck him in the crotch with a rising knee. She dashed around and slapped him on the back of his head like she was beating an unruly child. She kicked the legs out from under him, kicked his face like a soccer ball, grabbed his ankle before he flew away, and treated him like he weighed nothing by swinging him back and forth, bashing him into the floor or the nearest piles of boulders. Her beat down of Jack was the most thorough and satisfying thing Zarian had ever seen, so he and the others couldn’t help but cheer for Naomi at the top of their lungs.

Maybe they were playing with fire.

Maybe they should kill Jack and be done with it.

But they could kill two stones with one bird here.

They could see Naomi build her Aura Ignition and maybe even reach Second Stage. And they could see someone like Jack get what he deserved while being made the tool he was.

How many people like Jack got to live their lives, ruining others because of something petty, and get away with it?

Of course, such sweet desserts didn’t come easy in the Infinita Star System.

Jack hit another power up somehow that forced Naomi off him. His entire body went supernova similar to Bianca, but with such a hateful and burning white light, it stung Zarian and Para. They were standing at a distance and had an aura barrier up, but Jack’s hatred still got to them.

As Jack screamed and powered up, Zarian let instincts take over. The Madness Wizard passed Foodie into the crook of one arm. He signed with one hand and chanted to unseal a portion of his darkness.

Everyone watched as the hater’s body burned with pure white hatred that turned the nearest rocks and rubble into melted slag. The mythical force he emitted even pushed Naomi back into a stagger, nearly blowing out her Half Ignition.

When she regained her footing, Jack appeared in front of her like a bullet out of a gun.

He had a bead of condensed star energy in one fist. He had a perfected star sword in the other.

A powerful white immolation covered his body like living armor. A heavy and judgmental atmosphere expanded from his star-bright body and slammed down on everyone, especially Zarian and Naomi.

Naomi couldn’t get out of the way in time. Jack struck a one-two combo that went off like two bombs of atomic hatred. And if that wasn’t bad already…

Jack stole the POV Shift.