Planet Gurkon
Galaxy of the Path of Core Magma
Gurkon was the meanest of the home planets for disciples on the Path of Core Magma. Three runty sputtering volcanoes on a hunk of molten rock hardly bigger than a moon. Only a handful made their homes here.
One of them was Prince Yarrow of Elistria, Ranked #473 on the Phoenix Scroll. He looked every bit the hero—handsome, with porcelain-smooth skin and brows like sword slashes. In these wastes he’d made a palace of red and gold. He’d brought in servants from his own planets to feed him grapes and fan him and giggle at him. It might be true that he wasn't respected by his fellow disciples in the Azure Flame Faction. But in his own home he insisted on being treated with the respect he was due.
He smiled and licked a grape out of the giggling serving-girl’s hands.
“We'll be moving soon, darling,” he murmured, tickling her ear. “Get ready.”
“Really?” gasped the girl.
“They'll give me a much bigger planet once I break past the upper 400s.” He laughed. “They all say I’m from a ‘backwater’ planet—but they've never given me a chance to prove myself, have they?”
He gnashed his perfect white teeth. “Once I humiliate this ‘Zane Walker’ in battle, they won’t dare underestimate me any longer. They’ll all see!”
“Yes, my prince,” giggled the serving-girl.
Yarrow licked his lips, and closed half-lidded eyes, and drifted into a pleasant dream. He could already see it. He would use his fierce, fast blade to whittle the big brute down. And then he would drag out the end—make him stumble around bleeding, make a show of it. Something to remember. Maybe Sage Noughtfire would be so impressed he’d kick Zane out and take Yarrow instead. Anything was possible, wasn’t it?
“Eh?” said Yarrow, cracking open an eye. He picked up a golden mirror off the little mahogany table by the couch. An image was swirling to life. “Ah! It seems like our show is just beginning.”
His grin widened, growing wolfish. “Let’s see just how our friend Zane gets on, shall we?”
The next twenty minutes or so, the mirror filled the golden palace with many crashes, and bellows, and roars, and sounds of shattering rock.
When it ended, it left only a drawn-out silence.
Prince Yarrow put down the mirror with a trembling hand.
His shriek sent hosts of crows into flight for miles.
***
Planet Dai
Path of the Meteor
Meteors showered constantly in the skies of Planet Dai. Barren mountain-peaks poked out of a cloud-layer so vast and unbroken it seemed an icy tundra. Here, many an Outer Faction Disciple made their home.
On one such peak, there were three mighty stone temples. Home to the Brothers Kane—among the highest-ranking disciples on the Path of the Meteor.
They hadn’t been recruited directly after their Integrations. But over the centuries as rogue cultivators they’d proven themselves as mighty warriors, crushing dungeons and slaying Monsters some Azure Flame Faction disciples couldn’t touch. It was said they feared no Monster; they were nicknamed the ‘Brothers Stone’—for their appearance and for their rock-solid attitudes.
They’d received a direct invite to the Faction. Their rise had been meteoric ever since.
They were bald, blue-skinned giants with skin like stone. Their expressions were stone too.
Right now, they sat cross-legged, watching a recording projection.
One brother blinked. Then another. Then another.
“…Is it too late to back out,” said one brother.
“I believe so,” said the second.
A pause.
The third brother said, “FUUUUU—“
The cry sent hosts of wyverns into flight for miles.
***
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“Ow,” said Zane.
For a few moments, he floated in warm darkness. Then he got spat out into the light and stumbled, blinking, to his feet.
He was standing at the teleporter station again. He looked back over his shoulder—it seemed the shattered planet was quickly reforming, the God Golem subsiding into the depths. Islands mending one by one, the debris merging back. The whole planet resetting…
Well. That was an interesting experience.
That went alright, Zane thought, for his first test run.
When he came back with the full Law though… then he would see how far he could really get.
He turned back around and made to go back home when he realized Lin Rai was still there. Twitching, looking strangely pale.
“Hello,” said Zane.
She jumped. Then she let out a cry and pointed at him—“What the hells was that?!”
“What,” said Zane.
She trailed off, finger trembling. Then she started holding her head again, groaning. “How… how could you last so long… it just doesn’t make sense…”
Zane thought about it. The whole thing was a bit of a haze in his memory—one of those early whacks got him pretty good over the head. As far as he could tell, he just kept getting back up. He told her so. He wasn’t sure it helped much, though; she seemed just about as confused as before.
“Is it really just a matter of willpower?” she croaked, looking back up at him. She looked quite frazzled. “How… how do you even get that?”
Zane thought about it.
“I get hit in the face a lot,” he informed her. “You get used to it.”
“…”
His belly rumbled.
All that fighting had got him rather hungry. It was time for dinner.
He ambled off.
***
“How did you find Ragnos, my Lord?” said Jawl, who was waiting by the teleporter. The grizzled old warrior was wearing oven mitts.
“I like it,” said Zane. “It suits me.”
“Very good.” Jawl rubbed his mitts cheerfully. “We’ve kept busy in the meantime. A feast awaits on the front lawn. If you’ll follow me…”
The front lawn in question was a nice little field in front of the courtyard on Zane's floating home island. Jawl had noticed Zane’s affinity for storm yak meat, given Zane had chomped down all he’d been offered last time. This time Jawl had a host of Storm Drake Tribe cooks make even more.
Zane had a nice time chomping down enormous slabs of yak steak.
In the meantime, the steward went off to fetch the letters. He came back in a state of some excitement.
“Big news, my Lord!” said Jawl. He set the letters right beside Zane. “You’ve risen to almost the top of the Outer Faction, just behind Throck—that’s rank #4 in the Outer Faction, and #136 overall.”
“Nice,” said Zane. The number floated over his head a bit. He swallowed a fatty bite of steak. He figured it’d change a lot in the coming days—especially after he got Full Fusion…
After his meal, he hopped in the soul sauna for a bit and cleared the last of his exhaustion. He came out feeling scrubbed clean.
He’d sleep and go for Astra the first thing tomorrow morning, he decided.
He went for a little post-dinner lakeside walk. The lake was simply called the ‘Great Lake’ here, on account of being the biggest, richest reservoir of Stormfire on the whole planet. He liked the views—the streaks of shining purple rising and falling, overlapping each other, like a more aggressive geyser… the soft crackling of it all was quite soothing. The storms raging over the distance, spewing lightning, was also calming to him. He saw boat-sized fish, with fire-tipped bones sticking out of their spines leaping like dolphins.
He started turning over the run in his mind.
There was one part that he frowned at.
He did not like that he got smashed. If he willed it hard enough, Zane believed he could power through pretty much anything. His will fueled his body and the Asura State.
It was a very rare thing when that got overpowered… he was miffed at being reminded he had limits. His body should not fail before his will did, he felt.
When he got to the Steelheart Conclave, he would make some more buffs to his body. You could never have enough endurance. He could last even longer still.
In the meantime… the Final Concept. Life Immolation.
***
But first, bed.
That night, he plopped down on a goose-feather mattress built to size, and slept as deep as he could remember.
He went back the next morning to finish the job.
***
Astra was the same as he remembered—a whirlwind of stinging embers that blanketed him the moment he stepped out of the portal, scalding him head-to-toe.
When he sat down, though, and called his Stormfire and his soul to mind, they came much easier than he remembered.
He threw up a flame just as a test and sent a column of purple sky-high—so pure, so bright in the Astral Plane and the physical, he almost thought he’d gotten it first try.
It was like he’d trained some new muscle of the soul. He could move it around so much easier now—maybe it came from that Level of Emperor’s Might he’d gotten on Ragnos.
Whatever it was, something clicked.
The second try, he willed a flame to life. And it raced into the skies, swallowing all those lesser sparks around it—blowing out in a wild inferno until it covered him utterly… and even when it faded, its presence stayed behind—a shadow of its powers searing everything in its presence, material and soul…
Concept Comprehended!
The Concept of Life Immolation
It was a pseudo-domain, Zane realized. When he exercised it, it suppressed the world. A field of dangerous purple blowing out from him, dimming those other Stormfires—they couldn’t touch him any longer. Not here. Here his powers raged fiercer than ever.
Stormfire [Mythic+ (E) — Mid Fusion] -> Stormfire [Rare (S) — Full Fusion]
Zane stood, wreathed in new flame. A flame that burned in body and soul. He breathed out, and saw his life-breath catch flame, licking like flares off some purple star, almost too bright to look at with the naked eye, burning every realm it touched…
He didn’t need to force his soul anymore. It just burned along with his essence like they were one and the same. The force that struck down those Storm Serpents had come with the one that wrecked the Golems, in a fusion so natural even Zane was surprised. Maybe it was like riding a bike. Once he got it, he got it. He watched it flicker in front of him with some pleasure. Even little sparks of it exerted a visible pressure on the world.
Now it was time to see what he could do with it.
***
He was eager to go for round two in the Killing Field. But first it was time to collect a certain reward.
***
The days seemed to slip like waters through his fingers, thought Noughtfire. He glanced at the ash-tree outside his home.
He turned his mind back to his tome. The insights here were ones he himself had recorded about sixty thousand years ago. The trouble with living so long was that you could fill encyclopedias with the amount he’d forgotten… indeed Noughtfire had. He spent much time these days reminding himself of things he once knew.
It was all in preparation to make his final breakthrough. The last step in his Path—that, he knew, would be the end for him.
Noughtfire turned up his nose at despair. It was an emotion worthy only of contempt. Yet at times the millennia felt like they passed as quick as blinks, and the thought did occur to him that he truly might die before he saw the path of Stormfire walked to its end… the task was a great one. Perhaps too great for him, loathe as he was to admit it. He did still hold out hope, though, for one of his disciples…
He stilled.
Someone was coming up the winding steps.
It was his newest disciple, to his surprise.