Zane and his friends were just back for the weekend, but they agreed they would at least make this a monthly thing. Long-distance teleports like this were very expensive, but Reina was happy to foot the bill.

***

There were some other World Rankers back on Earth. A bunch of Earth’s heroes had the same idea—they'd come home every once in a while. At any given time, a fair share were visiting. Most still had family here.

One of them was a bulky blonde man with a fearsome mustache.

“Greetings!” said Cain Hastings, waving merrily.

Reina had invited him.

“You two’ve never met?” said Reina, bewildered. “He's also in the Azure Flame Faction. And he’s doing pretty well—he’s ranked middle of the pack in the Outer Faction.”

“Huh,” said Zane, who hadn’t thought about the guy since maybe the Ventor Global Initiative.

“I was there, you know—in the stadium, cheering you on in the stands,” said Cain, mustache quivering. He got a little misty-eyed.

“Hell of a show—hell of a show indeed! I must say, as an Earthling my heart swelled with pride seeing you out there—I may have even shed a tear or two, I’m not afraid to admit…”

Now Zane felt a little bad for not knowing the guy was there.

Cain wasn't so into chasing ranks anymore . Instead he just enjoyed training, and dropping some nuggets of wisdom for the next generation when he could. He wasn't the best in Britain anymore—that was some upstart named Jason now in the Deep Earth Hall. The two had tea yesterday.

“Well—just dropping by,” said Cain. “Wherever you go, old boy, just know I, and the people of Earth, will always be behind you!”

He gave Zane a pat on the back and wandered off humming; he was off to go explore the Luminous Faction. He got stopped for an autograph at the edge of the plaza—he seemed delighted.

***

There was another unexpected visit that weekend.

While she was here Reina had brought over some of her Artificer elves. She was setting up some arrays to help shield Earth—making a triangle formation. Three rune circles, each dozens of miles long, on opposite ends of the planet. Someone was coming over to lease the land she needed to set up a leg of it.

A man with a slim build with sleek black robes that twinkled like the night sky—he wore clear-rimmed glasses, a golden necklace carved with a single eye, and his grin was a little too white to be natural.

“Zane, Zane! My favorite business partner. Well—former business partner, after your girlfriend bought you out—but that’s water under the bridge. Long time no see, eh? How the hell are you?”

“What are you doing here?” said Zane with a frown.

“He owns half the land this side of the Pacific,” said Reina, walking over. She pursed her lips. “He owns a great deal of Earth’s total acreage, I’m told—and it's only gotten worse after he went galactic. From what I’m hearing—”

She turned to Elias—“You’ve got an uncanny knack of buying asteroid belts rich in previously undiscovered Spirit Stone mines. Which you’ve leveraged into finding vast tracts of land in Mount Thundercrest. At this rate, in a few decades you’ll own half the Faction.”

Elias stiffened some at the sight of her—then visibly tried to relax, put up a wobbly grin. “Goodness—your spies are nearly as good as mine! Well, guilty as charged.”

He spread his hands innocently, like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

He turned to Zane. “As for what I'm doing here, she—”

He almost seemed nervous to say Reina’s name or look at her too long. “Invited me.”

“We’re here to make a deal,” said Reina. She cocked a brow at him. “We’ve done enough of them by now I hope that you've learned not to waste my time?”

“Please! The offer’s fair,” grumbled Elias. “Like a pit-bull on a bone, that one—I mean that as a compliment,” he said hastily to Reina. “In any case—believe it or not, I don't have a heart of coal!”

He paused. “Well—not entirely of coal, anyway.”

He shrugged. “Earth’s my home too! I have some… fondness, shall we say? For this place. There’s an old arcade here where I spent all my childhood, practically. And the garage where I made my first million-dollar company’s here too. I don't want to see it gone! When the Chaos Wars come, you can bet I’ll be here—fighting side-by-side with the rest of you.”

He paused. Then his smile took on an aw-shucks quality. “Well… fighting a few hundred feet behind the rest of you—I’m not built like you.”

He eyed Zane’s crossed forearms, which were about thrice the size of his own. “You understand—I’ve got delicate features, I’m sorry to say. But I’ll be there.”

In the end he leased the land to Reina without much fuss and she sent the signal to her artificers to start setting things up right away.

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Reina looked pensive after he left. She bit her lip. “For what it’s worth,” she said. “I believe him.”

Even she sounded surprised. “I think he will come to fight for Earth when the time comes.”

That was the case with most every World Ranker they'd spoken to.

“It’s written into their contracts,” said Reina. It was a clause they’d all agreed to in that global conference Zane and Reina had hosted after the Superdungeon. “If their home planet comes under threat, that's the number one priority.”

Still, though—it was a little surprising to see even someone like Elias couldn't bear to see his home overrun.

It seemed Earth’s roots ran deep.

Reina suspected they’d need all the firepower they could get. As a Frontier planet, Earth would be one of the first places attacked.

The trouble was, the World Tree, as one of the pillars of the Dragonspire Faction, was also one of the prime targets for Monsters. And for Reina’s strongest warriors, the only thing above their fealty to her was their fealty to the Tree itself. They would have their hands full—all the Great Factions would.

She would try to spare some fighters to help salvage Earth, but there was only so much she could do.

Zane assured her when the time came, she wouldn’t need to.

He would hold the line.

And it seemed he wouldn’t be alone.

Reina did have an emergency backup plan if it came to that. She could find a way to evacuate Earth’s peoples and flee, leaving just the planet behind. It would be very costly and dangerous and harrowing—it was too far out to mass-teleport everyone, so they’d need to make vast fleets of armored ships and hope to outrun the Monster tide—but it was possible.

That idea did not sit right with Zane.

Zane was not one for running.

Earth was, in a way, just a pretty blue-green hunk rock. But it was also where he made first Faction—built it with his bare hands. Where he became the man he was. There were beaches he remembered spending many a nice afternoon strolling with Reina, and exploding mountain-peaks where he’d learned his first Concept, and giant trees where he and Evan had fought backs to the wall in life-and-death battles… Zane did not think of himself as a sentimental man. But after going through so much for this place, he felt a sense of pride in being a man of Earth. Earth was his.

He didn’t go through a whole Superdungeon to save it just to surrender it to the Monsters.

If they wanted his home, they would need to get through him first.

***

At last the weekend was at its end, and they all said their goodbyes.

Evan was sniffling a little, a little tearful. He waved and promised to send lots of letters.

Avery put on sunglasses, said “Peace,” put her hands in her hoodie pockets and vanished into the teleporter.

“…”

Reina gave him one last kiss. “You’re off to Steelheart, then?” she said.

Zane nodded.

He’d focused on his Laws for a stint. And he’d made great strides with it—he’d gotten to the peak of Tier 4, and used that to breakthrough to the strongest Ascension he could.

He was proud of all that.

But his body had fallen a bit behind—by Zane’s standards, at least.

It was time to remedy that.

He would see her in a week, he told her.

***

He gave her one last wave, and stepped off through the teleporter.

He was still feeling a little warm and fuzzy—and a touch melancholy—when he stepped out into the light.

The square around him was all shades of gray. Around it squatted houses thick and sturdy as bomb shelters, all reinforced steel plate-walls with little smoking chimneys popping out the top. Towers made of blackened steel and rough-hewn stone surrounded the square, scribed with glowing runes. There was a CLANGING in the air, the low thrumming of active forges, the wispy cackling of arcane energies.

At the center of the square—crafted from a single immense block of pure adamantine—was a fifty-foot-tall statue. A statue of a very buff dwarf in warrior’s mail wielding a spiked battle-hammer as big as he was. He looked quite serious.

Around him—set on giant grand beautifully wrought plinths, with stairs leading up to them—were a few peculiar things. A series of enormous stones made of a steel blacker than any Zane had seen, one larger than the next—they had no aura, no Law, and yet they bent the air around them just the same.

There was a massive hammer that crackled red lightning constantly, sat atop a massive anvil.

Both these stations had twenty-foot tall steles around them, carved with long lists of names.

Two more stations lay around the back of the statue, out of sight.

Then Zane noticed all the folk standing about. A few of them had their arms crossed—and they were muscular forearms. Lots of sturdy-looking folk around here—muscular men and women, most bare-chested, wearing furs and leathers.

For lots of them, a steely sheen shone down their skin.

Something about them made Zane instantly take to them. He wasn’t sure what it was. They looked Zane up and down, and a few nodded too, murmuring.

Above his head read a sign in giant blocky all-capital letters: PLAZA OF TITANS.

Then—“If it isn’t Zane!”

It was the Barbarian Sage, to Zane’s surprise. Frizzy-haired, leaner in his old age but his big lanky frame was still laden with dense muscle. He was grinning ear-to-ear, a little piece straw hanging out a corner of his mouth as he romped over. He caught Zane in a crushing hug.

“You’re here—at last!” said Sage. “Let me get a good look at you.”

He patted Zane on the shoulders and grunted in approval. “Sturdy lad,” he said approvingly. “Well—how’ve you been?”

“Good,” said Zane, blinking.

The Sage’s grin just radiated joy—it was almost like heat. You couldn’t help but feel some of it too.

The Barbarian Sage rubbed his hands. “There’s so much to do—hell! I can hardly wait to get started. I s’pose I should introduce the place to you, eh? You’re in the Steelheart Conclave now. This here—”

He flapped a hand around. “Is the main bit, the ‘Plaza of Titans.’ I don’t spend much time here, I’ve got to admit—I live on the outskirts. But… eh. I s’pose there’s time for a quick tour. Follow along!”

He led Zane along, merrily pointing out a forge, another forge, an armory, a bakery—which looked the same to Zane as the other few buildings—an ore-shop, a few mine entrances glowing red, leading deep into the bowels of the earth. A mead hall, another mead hall, a third mead hall, and a grand town hall that was about as simple and functional as the rest of the place. It did give a sense of sturdiness, though: four floors of giant stone and steel blocks, welded strong, with a wrought-iron gate at the front.

The two of them stopped at the giant statue.

“That there,” said the Barbarian Sage, pointing. “Is Thalgrim Titanborn. Bit of a hard-ass, if you ask me, but he built this Faction with his bare hands, so you’ve got to give that to him. The Titan’s Trials were named after him. Now those might just be the only interesting part of this whole place.”

He led Zane to the first of the plinths. They were the only things there carved prettily; murals of buff long-gone warriors—mostly hammer, axe, and gauntlet-wielding—ran down the front, all in the middle of swinging, shouting battle-cries.

“You might’ve noticed,” said the Barbarian Sage. “The Conclave prizes physical might. We’re the strongest, toughest, most explosive of all the Great Factions. And these little lovelies—”

He gestured to the plinths.

“Are proof for all to see! See that?”

He pointed to the giant hammer and anvil resting atop one of them. Its handle was leather-strapped and so thick it’d take some large hands just to pick it up. Its head was an enormous, clean-cut chunk of pure, blemishless steel that shone faintly in the afternoon sun. Beside it lay a gauge like a thermometer, marked up to ‘100 Apocalypse Units.’

“That is the Worldbreaker Hammer.”