Time seemed to slow down as death approached in the form of Zerad’s blazing blade. Jonathan felt like a snail watching a race car approach, knowing that he needed to get out of the way but without the means to do so.
Zerad was nearly unrecognizable at this point, a pillar of melting flesh. Fat and liquified muscle ran down his body like candle wax, the bones visible beneath. He was close to death, but as long as he could defeat Jonathan before his time ran out, it wouldn’t matter. His regeneration would eventually mend his injuries, but death could not be recovered from.
Jonathan’s hand raced up towards the incoming glaive, but he was still a bit too slow. His fingers were only halfway up by the time the edge of the glaive had made contact with his Aegis. The edge of the shield almost immediately started to crack, only able to leech off a small amount of Zerad’s power.
Heat began to spill through the crack, torching Jonathan’s neck. Had he not upgraded it with Divine fortitude at Tier 5, that heat alone would have melted his neck in half, ending the fight there and then. Instead he had a moment to think and in that moment he directed half of his available Void energy towards his shield, compressing it tight against his skin. Then he used the momentum of Zerad’s strike to angle his head away from the glaive.
The flaming weapon screeched against the suddenly reinforced shield, continuing on its path but slowed enough that Jonathan was able to move out of the way. A sudden pain bloomed on the left side of his head as his shield broke and a large chunk of flesh and bone was sheared off. He felt dizzy for a moment, nearly vomiting as his brain rippled from the impact. The heat began to worm its way in and his vision darkened. Then Jonathan’s regeneration patched over the hole, returning him to fighting condition. The actual wound was cauterized so thoroughly that it wouldn’t heal for a while, but it wasn’t instantly fatal unlike an exposed brain would be.
Jonathan drew deeper upon his Divinity, using his Vengefire array. Red flames burst into life around his fists, accented with plumes of purple. His Divinity was now intrinsically connected to the Void and any skill that used the former now also included the latter.
Empowered by the damage he had taken in the fight, the flames of Vengeance were larger and hotter than they usually were. Jonathan waited for Zerad to strike again and countered in an instant, relying on his foe’s desperation to gain an opening. The Umber Troll had been able to seriously injure Jonathan, but at the cost of his own health. His Ur-Flame had burned him so severely at this point that he was little more than a skeleton draped in muscle and flesh. Jonathan was quite impressed with Zerad, if he was being honest. The Umber Troll must have been under a horrific amount of pain, but he didn’t show it beyond a few grunts.
Jonathan’s fist snaked past the burning glaive, a layer of flesh burned to ash from the proximity. His fists, the closest to Zerad, were incredibly damaged, even Aegis of the Void’s Dichotomy unable to resist the crucible of life force and primal flame that was Zerad’s ultimate skill. Sacrificial skills carried a great amount of weight in the world of the System, allowing for temporary power far beyond one’s normal limits. It was the only reason Zerad was still alive.
The nerves in Jonathan’s hands were gone at this point, a small mercy. He couldn’t even unclench his fist at this point, the flesh burned together. Instead he powered through, driving his fist into the center of Zerad’s gut. An explosion tore through the city lord’s internals, washing out the other side. With a pained gasp, Zerad fell to his knees, the Ur-Flame flickering out. He collapsed a moment later, the light in his eyes gone out. He wasn’t dead, as Jonathan hadn’t gained any essence, but he was close enough that it barely made a difference.
Jonathan took a few deep breaths as the agonizing sensation of nerves beginning to regrow suffused his hands. The damage reversed over the next quarter of a minute, but the pain wasn’t gone and there would be residual weakness for quite a while. He considered finishing off Zerad, who was beginning to heal a little, but decided to spare him to make negotiating easier.
“You,” a voice hissed from down the broken street. It was one Jonathan recognized, but he had previously heard it emanating from the air around him.
He focused on a group of Umber Trolls making their way down the road, coming from the center of the palace complex. There were eight in total, each dressed in a similar fashion to what Zerad had worn.
The source of the voice was a thin, almost reedy Troll, shorter than his peers and far less muscular. His skin was pallid, more the color of a watery sunrise through mist than the rich ochre of the rest of his people. His hands twisted in complicated patterns, the air shimmering around them.
A hammer of sonic force slammed down on Jonathan, making him grit his teeth. Now that Zerad lay at his feet, however, he was done with holding back. He had reached his destination and if these people insisted on standing in his way over a matter as trivial as him having a few Uthraki in his party, they would either make way or be forced to do so.
Jonathan’s aura swept out, carrying a far greater amount of Void energy than it normally would. His aura generally served as an expression of his various abilities rather than an actual technique, but with his near limitless reserves of energy, he could infuse it with far more power than most would consider possible.
The wave of negation blasted away the vibrations like they were whispers struggling to be heard in a crowded marketplace and continued on its way, bearing down on who could only be the other Council members.
They manifested their own auras, thinking that Jonathan would be a pushover. A panoply of crimson shades mingled into one, their color seemingly organized by the ratio of Earth to Fire in their elemental signatures. Only the vibration mage’s aura was different, a nearly invisible dome of force layering over the rest. Their faces paled as Jonathan’s aura smashed theirs aside with ease, before crashing into them with all of the force and fury of a hurricane.
Some of them stumbled and the physically weakest amongst them, the vibration user, fell to the ground. Jonathan took a threatening step forwards, stomping down with such force that a crack raced all the way down the street and beneath the feet of his enemies.
“Enough!” he bellowed, using all of his might to empower his voice. “Your leader is almost dead, and only still breathes because I spared him. If you don’t want to follow in his footsteps, it’s time to get over this bullshit that seems to have infected your entire species. Have any of you even seen an Uthraki? Know anything about them save for horrors perpetrated by their people billions of years ago?”
One of the Trolls, distinguished from the others by a thick beard, the first facial hair Jonathan had seen amongst the denizens of the realm, spoke. “A demon is a demon-”
“No,” Jonathan cut him off. “Call off your guards, let me and my party through to the Rim and we don’t have to fight. If you think what I used against Zerad was the limits of my ability, then you’re in for a rude awakening. My patience is limited and I’ve already expended enough tiptoeing around your people rather than fighting back.”
“Who are you?” the smaller Troll asked, his voice no longer as resonant as it had been before, devoid of his elemental manipulation. “We all outlevel you significantly, yet you can shatter our auras with ease and defeat Zerad, the strongest of our number.”
“My name,” Jonathan said, smiling wryly as he prepared to say something he had many times before, “is Jonathan Harlowe. I am the Hellbreaker, not that that might mean much to you. All that matters is that I am likely the strongest being in this realm and not by a small margin. In a matter of minutes, I could raze this entire city to the ground. Now tell me, do you still want to stand in my way?”
The resolve of the Umber Trolls broke at Jonathan’s words. One of them sighed. “Very well. But we do not wish to interact with the more… unsavory members of your group any more than is necessary. Is that acceptable?”
“Fine. How do we get to the Rim?”
***
Thirty minutes later, Jonathan and his party stood in front of what looked like an empty door frame fifty feet tall. The Umber Troll council members stood around them, begrudgingly accepting the presence of the Uthraki.
Arkanon kept glaring at them, but didn’t do anything too egregious. He might have been eager to fight the Umber Trolls, but he wasn’t so foolish that he would let that get in the way of the greater objective.
The vibration mage, whose name Jonathan had learned was Axos, stepped up to the portal frame and withdrew a small amulet from within his robes. It pulsed with darkness for a moment before spreading that darkness out into the air around it. The empty frame filled with energy rapidly, transforming into a functioning portal.
“Go through quickly,” Axos commanded. “If I leave the portal on for any longer, it will draw the attention of the monsters.”
Jonathan nodded. “Alright. I don’t think I’ll be seeing you again, but maybe think upon what I’ve said. Your people have a lot of potential, but if you let things like racialized hatred define your culture, you won’t be able to reach it.”
Axos clenched his fists, but Jonathan could almost see the image of Zerad lying broken on the ground flashing across his eyes, and the mage calmed himself down a moment later.
Having said the last word, Jonathan headed through the portal, closely followed by the others. None of them wanted to be left behind in Valryis, though if anything happened to them, Jonathan would be back with a vengeance. It wouldn’t matter how difficult it was to return from the Rim, he would manage it somehow.
Space warped and for a moment, Jonathan caught a glimpse of the shadowy realm that the under-rail had passed through. This portal was clearly different, and far more efficient, transporting him near instantly across distances far greater than those between Ekbis and Valryis. Those trains were meant for reliability and consistency, meant to serve regular workers and travelers rather than warriors for whom time was essential. Had Jonathan tried to take the under-rail to the Rim, he suspected the journey would have been one of days or weeks.
A wave of searing heat washed over him as soon as he exited the portal, so hot in fact that he felt a surprising level of discomfort. Jonathan raised an eyebrow. He hadn’t felt heat like that since Tier 1, meaning that whatever was producing this increase in temperature was likely hotter than most stars.
The landscape around him was twisted and uneven, jagged hills and pitted mountainsides mingled with drifts of long cooled volcanic rock. The skies were choked with ash and smoke. There was little ambient light, and had Jonathan still been a mortal, he would have been completely blind.
“Shit!” Edgar cursed as he left the portal, his skin blistering in an instant. His durability was far lower than Jonathan’s and he was forced to surround himself with a mantle of cooling wind, wicking away the heat and keeping himself from being burnt to a crisp.
Eva and Eliza were better off, the former suffering what looked like a severe case of sunburn before Edgar shielded her, and the latter ignoring the heat for the most part.
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Of course, the Uthraki were completely unaffected by the temperature, used to such extremes for their entire lives in Tartarus.
The archway of darkness that had transported them to the Rim winked out, leaving them standing alone in the midst of the vast and empty wasteland. There was no life in sight, and likely none existed for thousands of miles. According to the Umber Trolls, the Rim was only home to a few thousand monsters at most, each far stronger than their levels indicated. Any weaker beasts had long since perished.
“Alright,” Jonathan announced as soon as everyone was out of the portal. “We need to be as efficient as possible here. This won’t be like many of our previous hunting trips. It’ll take more time to find the monsters than to fight them.”
“I know that the Umber Trolls gave us some sort of idea of the strength of what we’re going to face, but are you sure we’re ready for this?” Edgar asked. “I know you can probably deal with anything this realm has to offer, but what about us?”
Jonathan shrugged. “What about you? You’ve all proven to be powerful enough in your own right to follow me through the Hells without dying. I have confidence in your abilities. Besides, I’ll be around to help.”
Edgar nodded. “Fair enough. It would be a shame if we died before reaching the Loop just because we were too weak to complete our training to do so.”
“All that would mean was that we were going to fail anyway,” Jonathan said. “Do you think we’re going to fail?”
“I don’t,” Edgar admitted. “We’ve won every battle so far. We’ll win this one too.”
Jonathan smiled and clapped his friend on the back. “That’s the spirit. Let’s wrap this up quickly and keep on our way. We need to free the entire Greater Circle of Sloth before the Circle Lords all are able to maximise their levels. If we have to face off against three peak Tier 11 Circle Lords, I’m not sure how we’ll survive.”
With Jonathan having said the last word, the group got on their way, heading out into the hellish landscape of the Rim.
Nothing changed for the first few hours, neither in the scenery or in terms of life. The world around them was completely empty, devoid of even traces of Life elemental energy, let alone the thing itself. The all encompassing heat began to get at everyone’s nerves, despite their attempts to ignore it. Even Arkanon, the most acclimated to Fire amongst the whole party, was not immune. For the first time, Jonathan saw the Uthraki sweat, and he himself began to do so profusely.
It was a lesson that no matter how far he had come in terms of strength, he was still anchored to mortality by his all too human body. That would all change as time went on, but for now, despite all his accomplishments, he wasn’t even a tenth of the way to the peak of power in Telvaria. With how the strength of levels exponentially increased, he was most likely far, far closer to his existence on Earth than he was to being a true god.
The first signs of life came like a blessing from the heavens, a set of massive footprints intersecting with their path. The prints were somewhat avian in shape, three clawed toes extending out from a central base, with another, shorter claw poking out at the back. The only difference was that unlike the footsteps of a regular bird, these ones were almost a hundred feet wide.
The rock at the bottom of the craters bubbled and hissed as latent heat melted away at the ground. The footprints were growing steadily deeper as Jonathan watched, and they didn’t show any signs of slowing down.
In the distance, where the footprints led to, a shadowy figure hovered on the horizon, towering over the hills and other terrain features. With the dim light and the omnipresent ash, even Jonathan couldn’t make out more than its vague outline. It looked somewhat like a raptor, but naturally far larger, at least a few thousand feet tall. Twin orbs of blazing light could be seen around where its head was, most likely eyes.
Jonathan scanned it immediately.
Zathrax, Guardian of the Eternal Flame
Level 899
Health: 7500000/7500000
Mana: 4300000/4300000
Stamina: 6400000/6400000
Status: Healthy
Highest Skill Rarity: Ancient
Highest Pathway Skill: Grandmaster 3
The monsters that have roamed the Rim of this realm of Tartarus have evolved over time, much like the Umber Trolls that were once the slaves of the Uthraki. Over the course of eons, creatures like Zathrax have gained limited sapience, enough to facilitate System access. While not as intelligent as natural born members of the sapient races, these monsters are still capable of communication, foresight and strategy. Zathrax himself is the chosen one of a powerful Fire elemental spirit known as the Eternal Flame, one that exists mostly in the elemental planes, but occasionally allows fragments of its power to be assumed by loyal servants. It was that fragment that allowed for Zathrax to ascend to loftier heights of intelligence.
“Damn…” Jonathan muttered. “I wasn’t expecting that.”
“What is it?” Eliza asked. “Stronger than you thought?”
“Somewhat,” Jonathan said. “The creature is sapient. It has skills and System access.”
“Sapient? Does the monster have a name?”
“Zathrax. It looks like it was empowered by an elemental called the Eternal Flame. From the description, most of the monsters of the Rim have similar levels of intelligence, either because of outside influences such as the Eternal Flame, or simple evolution.”
“This will not be such a straightforward fight then,” Edgar said worriedly. “Fighting a being with all of the strengths of a monster and all the strengths of a System user will be difficult. Maybe even for you, Jonathan.”
“Perhaps,” Jonathan replied, frowning slightly. “Zerad, the ruler of Valryis that I fought, was surprisingly strong for being in the same Tier as me. The Umber Trolls went through a similar sort of evolution as the monsters here.”
“This is such an odd realm,” Arkanon observed. “The natural order of things is completely overturned. I hope this fight will not spell our end.”
“Well,” Jonathan said, “waiting’s not going to change anything. Let’s engage the monster in combat before it gets too far.”
He held out a palm, aiming carefully at Zathrax’s head. For a battle like this, half measures wouldn’t cut it. Power thrummed through the air as it condensed in front of his hand, glowing an ever deeper shade of purple as it grew and grew in strength. Divinity introduced itself into the matrix of energies, an ethereal flame whooshing into life around the projectile. With a shout, Jonathan sent it on its way, the projectile elongating into something that looked more like a comet than an orb. The Minor Endfire he had added to the energy blast trailed behind it, the flames erasing the air they came in contact with.
The technique crossed the gap in a matter of moments, hammering into the back of Zathrax’s head. The monster stumbled slightly, before Jonathan’s attack detonated. A wave of purple fire washed over the landscape, carving a smooth crater deep into the ground. Zathrax let out a loud cry of pain, the noise not unlike the cry of a hawk, but far deeper and louder.
The burning globes of flame that were the monster’s eyes brightened, giving Jonathan a moment of warning before beams of searing white fire streaked towards the group. He used Aegis of the Void’s Dichotomy, a dome of protective energy surrounding his allies. The surrounding landscape whited out as the beams made contact with the shield, driving Joanthan a few steps back as the force threatened to destroy his Aegis entirely.
Ultimately, the shield held and a barrage of projectiles arced towards Zathrax from the entire group. Compressed tornados sharpened to needle thin point, enough kinetic energy contained within to blast apart mountains, left Edgar’s fingers. Titanic fireballs dripping with molten rock were fired in a steady barrage by the Uthraki. Eliza and Eva waited, their talents more suited for close quarters combat.
Jonathan, having learned from his initial strike, began to channel one of his most powerful skills. Void’s Hunger. The air screamed as it was torn apart at a molecular level, sucked into the tiny black hole forming between Jonathan’s fingers. The ground beneath his feet warped and tore, the stone unable to stand up to the pull. He carefully controlled the force, ensuring that all of the fuel that his skill was consuming in the form of matter was taken from in front of himself, so as to not endanger his allies. The black hole spun rapidly as it grew, Jonathan moving his hands apart as it went. As soon as it was about the size of a watermelon, he let it loose.
Unlike some of the other times he had used this skill, Jonathan had enough time to charge it up properly. As soon as it left his hands and was no longer a threat to his party, the rate at which it devoured the world around it increased. Tons of rock were swallowed in an instant, quickly becoming tens and then hundreds of tons as it sped towards Zathrax. Even some of the trailing projectiles still in the air were eaten up, all serving to fuel the bottomless hunger of the Void.
“It burns,” Zathrax said, the monster’s voice rumbling across the landscape. “The Eternal Flame is here with me. I am its chosen and you too shall burn.”
As Void’s Hunger stripped away the smoke hiding Zathrax from sight, the monster was fully revealed. It looked somewhat like a velociraptor, but its scales were as black as obsidian and sparks tumbled down towards the ground far below. What Jonathan had originally thought were eyes made from flame were in fact orbs of fire suspended within Zathrax’s empty, charred eye sockets. The raptor twitched and shuddered constantly, clearly in immense pain from the dubious blessing its elemental master had bestowed upon it.
Zathrax opened its beak wide, revealing row after row of serrated teeth. Each one gleamed in the light produced by its flaming eyesockets, and arcs of shimmering plasma danced up and down their length. With a howl that split the skies for miles in every direction, the sheer force blasting the ash away, Zathrax tore into the air itself. Its beak flashed as its teeth ground into the fabric of reality, opening a jagged tear into another dimension. A torrent of liquid fire poured out, enveloping the monster entirely. Hideous cries of agony rippled out from the conflagration, and when the flames dimmed, condensing around Zathrax, they transformed into a suit of armor.
The sizzling of burning flesh mingled with the hideous smell, making it very clear that whatever Zathrax was doing, it hurt it just as much as the monster intended to harm Jonathan and his allies.
Jonathan’s black hole impacted the titanic raptor mere moments later, hammering into the flaming shield with the force of a meteor. Behind it stretched a vast canyon, miles in length and thousands of feet deep. Fueled by enough rock to create an entire mountain, Jonathan’s skill was strong enough to leave rips in space as it went.
The flaming armor covered Zathrax warped inwards, stripping the protection away. Melted and charred scales were left behind, wriggling serpents of living flame slithering across them.
“You will not refuse the blessing of my god!” Zathrax roared, and with a blinding flash of light, all of the fire it had gathered detonated. Void’s Hunger was torn apart, even the might of Jonathan’s element unable to stand up against the inferno.
A shockwave raced across the land, a tidal wave of fire following right behind. Jonathan braced for impact, but he had a feeling that even his Aegis of the Void’s Dichotomy would not be enough here. If he’d had more time to prepare, he could have defended, but as it stood there simply wasn’t enough Void energy available.”
The gaps in his skill were quickly filled in by the desperate efforts of his allied mages, the air thickening around the dome of swirling purple light. A layer of vacuum formed next to the compressed air, Edgar and Eliza hoping to starve the flames of the oxygen they needed to survive. Only, these were no ordinary flames and as they buffeted the shield, the vacuum was about as useless as tinfoil before a bullet. Both the magical weight of Zathrax’s assault as well as the wave of hypersonic wind preceding it combined to smash aside the paltry defence like it wasn’t even there.
Layers of stone grew from the ground, lava hissing as it rapidly cooled into obsidian strong enough to stop a direct nuclear strike. It started to melt as soon as the fire made contact, and for the first time, Jonathan was able to sense the malevolent will of the Eternal Flame. In the crackling hum of the flames and the hiss of vaporized rock was a whispering voice. Only one word could be heard, repeated over and over again so quickly that it merged into a single sound.
“Burnburnburnburnburn”
Jonathan turned out the maddening noise, drawing upon the gate to the Void within his soul. Streams of elemental energy reinforced his shield, but it was barely enough. Not only was he being pushed back, but the Void energy was actually melting before the onslaught. Whatever form of Fire the Eternal Flame used, its mastery was far greater than Jonathan’s own. At that moment he realized just how dangerous the monsters of the Rim actually were, and why the Umber Trolls had elected to seal them away. Sure, there was a near one hundred level gap between Zathrax and himself, but that shouldn’t have been an issue. Against any normal opponent, Jonathan was confident in fighting up multiple Tiers, but it seemed that Zathrax was more akin to a Circle Lord than any regular monster.
Jonathan hadn’t expected it, but for this battle, he would need to go all out.
