Victor of Tucson-Chapter 45Book 12: : World Breaker

45 – World Breaker

Victor lost himself in the microcosm of his flesh. The potential in his cells was malleable to his will and capable of seemingly impossible feats, but it required guidance. So, as his body sank to the bottom of the molten lake, absorbing the magma and its fiery Energy, it might have seemed to the other occupant of that nascent world that he’d been destroyed, especially when he didn’t stir for days as he underwent his metamorphosis.

Despite the stillness of his flesh, Victor’s Core roiled like a reactor, processing the magmatic Energy and drawing the rage out of it. The pressure continued to mount in his Core space, and Victor knew a breakthrough was imminent, and the timing could not have been better, because his flesh was hungry. The process he’d begun—the purging of his mundane cellular materials and their replacement with the stuff of primordial titans—was a demanding process. If he hadn’t been in a lake of lava beside a furious volcano, he might have run out of the required Energy and material.

Every cell in his body drew in a hundred times its mass from the lake, folding and compressing into shapes mirroring their surface forms, yet housing the explosive seeds of proto-creation. Instinct guided the folding—something written in Victor’s primordial titan DNA—but his experiences with the transformative nature of the ivid royal jelly certainly gave him clarity in the process.

The lava still churned restlessly above his resting place, a sure clue for Xelhuan that something was happening down there, but perhaps Victor’s fall had truly been convincing or perhaps the Death Caster was so prideful that he couldn’t imagine Victor had survived his death ray and subsequent plunge into the super-heated molten rock. Whatever the case, he left Victor alone in his fiery chrysalis, and when the Energy of the lava grew too thin, Victor stretched his aura out to nudge his mountainous brother.

The volcano’s wrath was hardly cooled; it knew no peace, and when it felt Victor’s pull and his whispers of promised vengeance, the mountain was quick to oblige, sending a current of hot fury through the lava and directly into Victor’s pathways. At long last, the pressure became too great, and Victor’s Core broke through, shattering the adamant ceiling of the legendary tier.

When it happened, the resultant implosion drew the Energy from the lava, but not just around Victor. As if the lake and molten rivers had become extensions of his pathways—in a way, they had—his Core’s pull stretched for hundreds of miles in every direction. The lava flows at the furthest extremities of Xelhuan’s island hardened to stone first, but as Victor’s Core drew those rivers of Energy into itself, the lava flows rapidly cooled. Millions of tons of basalt were formed in seconds as the spider’s web of flows around the mountain cooled and hardened until only the lake remained, and then, first at the edges, then rapidly, inch-by-inch, even that great body of lava hardened to stone.

Victor’s Core had undergone an exponential leap in power. The inferno that blazed at its center had become the molten core of a planet—black and blue flames that roiled and raged against each other, punctuated by starbursts of red rage. The nature of his cyclical Core construct allowed his spirit to dictate the attunements of the Energy he absorbed; rage instantly split into fear and hope.

Victor paid his Core’s transformation little heed; he was too busy working on his metamorphosis. In his focused state, the advancement of his Core meant one thing: more Energy with which to work. In his cocoon of hardened stone, he drew basalt into his cells, molded it with his affinities and folded it into his cells as his primordial instincts dictated. Using the potential Energy of his flesh, he broke through tier after tier of his bloodline, purging the remnants of his lesser flesh.

In the end, mind weary but spirit brimming with accomplishment, Victor sat in a spherical void at the bottom of the basalt lake, contemplating the fruits of his labors. He flexed his hands before him, nodding at the perfection of his work. He didn’t look much different on the surface, but he knew the changes inside were profound. The potential in his flesh and bones thrummed, a hundredfold what it had been before. It was waiting for his command, ready to respond to his demands.

He looked into his Core, confirming what he’d already known; he’d broken the ceiling and his new Core blazed, ready. His growth hadn’t come without consequences. Peering about his rocky cocoon with his veil walker’s senses, he saw the feeble flows of Energy in the world. He traced a slender thread of hot magma back to the mountain and found it cold and still—the spirit within having returned to slumber, hibernation its only option as Victor’s Core drained it dry.

Expanding his senses, he found the air above the solidified lake heavy with the miasmic Energy of death. So, he mused, Xelhuan had returned to his machinations, working to undo what Victor had accomplished with his mad rampage. Victor stretched out his hand, resting it on Lifedrinker’s haft.

“Battle-king! Are you well? You feel…changed.”

“I’m well, beautiful. More than well. It’s time I put an end to that pinche Death Caster, and break this world. I think you’ll need to sit this one out.”

Lifedrinker vibrated, pulsing a heavy wave of disappointment into Victor’s hand. “No! I want to taste the black blood in his heart. I want to sup on the foul Energy within!”

Victor smiled, shaking his head. “I know, chica, but you’re not suited for what I have to do. When I unleash my potential, you’re going to become tiny to me; I won’t be able to—”

“I can grow! You can help me! Share your spirit with me, Battle-heart!”

Victor tilted his head, contemplating, then he grinned, nodding. “Okay, we can try that. Are you ready?”

She vibrated with eagerness, and Victor felt a warm comfort in his heart. It was good that he wouldn’t be alone for this.

“Here we go, then.” Victor concentrated briefly and cast Spirit Domain, focusing on Lifedrinker as the epicenter. She flared with white-blue flames for several seconds before they settled down into a dimmer aura. “How’s that?”

“My heart, I swim in a sea of blissful Energy. With this gift, I will cleave worlds!”

“Let’s do this, then.” With those words, Victor imposed his will on his newly evolved flesh, unleashing the potential of his primordial form.

###

Xelhuan flew in the necrolith, soaring above his world, seeding the dwindling currents with the vast stores of death-attuned Energy he’d collected in the spherical vessel’s core crystals. As he’d slumbered on Dark Ember, his loyal servants had gathered the spirits from hundreds of thousands of sacrifices over the span of millennia. Originally, he’d intended the vessel, and the power stored within, to be a reserve—something to draw upon to ensure none of his vassals ever attempted to usurp him. With his plans significantly altered by the young titan’s intervention, though, he’d have to improvise.

He contemplated a descent into rage, but knew it would serve no purpose. His necrolith would undo the worst of the fool’s damage; a hundred loyal servants lay ensconced in their sarcophagi, awaiting his call to action. Thousands of well-bred thralls similarly slumbered in the vessel’s habitation chambers. He’d been set back a few thousand years, but what was time to a god? If anything, he’d have a chance to better perfect the skills of creation.

He chuckled ruefully as he realized the young titan’s attack on Dark Ember had broken him from his doldrums. How long had he lain dormant, uncaring about the world? None of his rivals—former apprentices, all—had been able to encroach upon his power. It had taken the prospect of losing it all to stir forth an ounce of caring in his ancient, bitter heart.

Sadly, as soon as he had the thought, visions of Citlalmina danced through his mind’s eye—ancient images from a time long past—and his mood began to turn sour again. He consoled himself with the knowledge that as he gained power in this universe, a bridge to the old one would become not only possible but trivial.

As he completed a pass, circling back toward his mountain, he was surprised to see that the lava had cooled so much. Many of the flows had turned to stone, and even the edges of the lake looked solid. He supposed it was to be expected; the youngling had stirred up the mountain’s wrath, but what really could it draw upon to fuel its ire? Most of the world was missing. Xelhuan wasn’t even sure how deep the ground went. “Something I’ll have to explore,” he mused.

Speaking to himself made him acutely aware of his solitude, and he considered waking one of his servants. He thought better of it, though; there’d be time aplenty for that, and it wouldn’t do for them to wake into a world made so inhospitable. Their minds were fragile things next to his, and they might struggle to see how this new reality was an improvement.

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He dusted the slopes of the mountain with miasma and then began another circuit of his world, flying away toward the edge before embarking on another slow, spiraling flight toward the center. All the while, miasma drifted from his necrolith, pouring from the central eye to supplant the violent Energies that the young titan had awakened during his rampage.

The fool had been strong; there was no denying that fact. Xelhuan congratulated himself on activating his ritual when he did; had he remained on Dark Ember, he had no doubt the strapping, rage-filled lad would have been his undoing. Here, though? Here, Xelhuan wasn’t sure he could die—certainly not while his necrolith existed; so long as a shred of his spirit yet existed, he could find his way to the reconstitution chamber and reform his ancient vessel. Even without the mighty craft, he thought he’d be able to build a vessel anew—given time. No, the young titan had been a fool to follow him there.

“Not that I’d given him a choice!” Xelhuan laughed as he swooped low, near the edge of his realm, his necrolith’s shell scraping the barrier between the infant universe and the null-space beyond. So he went, his great flying vessel gliding over the ground, dusting his death-attuned miasma onto the rough, torn ground. His dark Energy would gradually mold the contours of the land into something more to his liking, twisting the various lingering attunements to his purpose.

His passage around his vast island was long, and his progress had to be slow in order to properly optimize the seeding of his power. He’d only completed one pass, but he could already feel the beneficial effects of his efforts. The necrotic engine of his power hummed, and his pathways flowed once again with the ambient Energy flowing through the channels of his new world. During his necrolith’s spiraling passage, he let his mind wander, and he lost track of the hours and days, so it was perhaps less surprising than it should have been when he arrived back at the mountain to find it and the lake of lava had grown cold.

Xelhuan frowned, looking at the cold, rocky expanse. Only a thin ribbon of smoke emerged from the enormous caldera atop his former home. He flew over it, frowning as the necrolith tilted to afford him a clearer view. The innards of the mountain were cold. Had the young fool truly burned so much Energy? He scanned the mountain and then the lake with his inner eye, tracing the flows of power. Hardly any magma- or fire-attuned channels remained, and those he found were just trickles.

His death magic had begun to reform the natural channels, though, and they surged up and around the mountain. “Good,” he muttered, shifting his gaze further out to the lake, searching for the resting place of his foe. He found nothing but cold, inert stone—a great void of Energy. How thoroughly the young titan had been destroyed!

Once again, he considered awakening some servants. There were tasks they could perform while he seeded the world. After careful thought, he held off. “One more pass.” It wouldn’t do for them to struggle to thrive in that airless world. No, he had seeds to sprinkle—fungi and lichen that would thrive in an atmosphere of death. In time, as they helped to alter the environment, he’d add other plants. Soon enough, his thralls would be tending macabre crops. It was a stepping stone—that was all. Eventually, he’d breed mutations into his thralls, raising up a variety of—

Crack!

The sound split the air so sharply that he started, nearly sliding out of his throne-like seat. He chuckled almost nervously. “Just the rock cooling, surely—”

A concussive boom shook the air so violently that his necrolith lurched, carried higher by the shockwave. Something like panic gripped Xelhuan’s heart as he touched the control orb and spun it to the left, turning the craft so the mountain and the lake of molten stone came into view. Smoke filled the air, and even as he watched, thousands of boulders, from fist-sized to cart-sized, fell from the air, crashing down in a series of further concussions. He could see where they’d come from—a huge smoking hole marred the lake’s surface.

Xelhuan stared, his heart telling him one thing, his mind another. “Impossible,” he breathed, refusing to believe the young titan could still be alive. Then a hand emerged from the hole, but something was wrong with its appearance. It took his brain several seconds to make sense of the incongruity: it was too large. Xelhuan touched the crystal that would give his craft more lift, soaring high into the miasmic clouds so he could tilt the view to peer down into that hole. He needn’t have bothered; another tremendous explosion shook the world, and the hole expanded tenfold.

Enormous boulders tore through the air, surging toward his necrolith, so he slammed his hand against the speed crystal and the vessel surged away from the mountain. When he’d gained a few miles of distance, he turned and beheld a nightmare.

The young titan was crawling forth from the petrified lava; his arms and shoulders were already clear of the massive opening, and as he roared—a sound like an avalanche—and clawed his way up, his head, still adorned with a great black crown, rivaled the nearby mountain for height.

“Impossible!”

The titan’s chest was bare, as were his arms and hands, but his black greaves remained. His boots, too, still shod his feet. It was a strange thing to think about at a time like that—why certain pieces of his enemy’s armor could so vastly expand in size while others, apparently, could not. Still, the question flashed through Xelhuan’s mind. Shaking his head to force himself to focus, he touched the controls for his necrolith’s Death Ray. The aiming crystal gleamed with a sickly green light, and he triggered it with a touch of Energy.

Xelhuan had to close his eyes against the glare of the beam, but only for an instant. When he opened them, he saw the terrible titan still stood and that his furious, fiery eyes were focused upon the necrolith. A tiny tendril of black smoke drifted up from the monster’s chest, but it faded in seconds. Xelhuan’s necrolith ray, the most destructive weapon he’d ever conceived, hadn’t even slowed him down.

Then, the gigantic titan took one tremendous step and lifted his right hand. That was when Xelhuan realized his tormentor still gripped the horrible black axe that had so punished Atltepacuitl, his macahuitl. “No!” he screamed when he realized that single step had brought the huge titan within striking distance. In a panic, he spun his control orb and frantically pressed the speed crystal.

###

It took Victor a moment to acclimate to his size. It was all a matter of perspective, really. The world looked different, but he felt the same. For a moment, it didn’t register to him that the nearby rocky mound was the mountain that had towered over him before. Even when he’d been fully engorged with fury, he’d only been a fraction of the mountain’s height. Now, though, he was a mountain—of flesh and bone. The lake, once large enough to stretch to the horizon, was now like a parking lot to him.

His height greatly expanded his view, and perhaps the size of his eyes did something, too. He could see the edge of Xelhuan’s world in the distance where the land met the blackness of null-space. When he roared, boulders moved and thousands of tons of dirt that looked like dust to him, blew away from the lake’s edge.

He reached down to grasp Lifedrinker’s haft, lifting her out of the hole he’d broken through the petrified lava. She felt good in his bare grip; the metal of his gauntlets had been too rigid and the enchantments not quite dense enough to allow them to expand to fit his primordial form. The same was true of his aegis. He’d sent them into his spirit space. His crown, dense beyond comprehension, had expanded, as had his boots and greaves—perhaps because they were made of scaled hide. Whatever the case, they were stretched so thin that they were nothing more than clothing, but that was fine; his flesh required no armor.

Movement caught his eye, and Victor saw his foe’s vessel. Where before it had been enormous, a significant portion of the mountain, it now seemed small—little greater than a basketball would be to a normal person. It flared with brilliant green light, and he felt the touch of its ray, but it was nothing—less than a wasp’s sting.

He’d promised Lifedrinker they would end Xelhuan, and he felt it was past time he did so. With a single step, he traversed the miles-wide gap between them, and as the orb spun and began to move, he hacked Lifedrinker at it.

Lifedrinker, a skyscraper-sized hatchet in Victor’s hand, might have seemed to move ponderously to a distant observer, but she covered hundreds of feet in a second. Her gleaming edge, flaring with the fire of her Energy, smashed into Xelhuan’s orb-shaped craft, burying her wicked blade halfway through it. As Victor held her aloft triumphantly, the sphere flared with black-tinted blue flames, but the Energy couldn’t escape Lifedrinker’s hungry bite.

She drained the orb, her hunger amplified by her expanded size. The blue-black fire continued to burn, but she consumed it like a heat-sink, drawing it into her metal, gorging herself on a feast that, just a short while ago, would have been incomprehensible. Xelhuan’s screams echoed through the air, over and over again, the tormented howls of a madman defeated. Every time the screams stopped, and Victor thought he was dead for good, they’d start up again, and he wondered how the ancient Quinametzin could still hold on. It never occurred to him that Xelhuan was dying and reforming, only to die again. 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖

Victor held Lifedrinker and the orb on which she feasted at arm’s length, watching as the flames of death Energy ever so gradually dimmed. “That’s it, chica. Drink that pendejo’s power!”

Something about being the size of a mountain seemed to alter Victor’s perception of time. He might have stood there, watching those flames die down, listening to Xelhuan’s horror-filled screams, for hours or days; he wasn’t sure. All he knew was that eventually the flames faded, and the screams stopped. Lifedrinker had finished her work. The axe was full to bursting, and she couldn’t speak, but Victor knew she was pleased with herself.

He reached out and ripped the shattered orb from her blade, peering within the cleft. Inside, he saw desiccated flesh and bones, shattered crystals, and precious metals, but he couldn’t be sure everything in there was dead. He knew it was probably overkill, but he inhaled and blasted the orb with Abyssal Magma, breathing a river of it into the tear Lifedrinker had made. The magma washed over the orb and his hand—hurting him not at all—until the enchanted granite turned white-hot and began to melt.

Victor didn’t relent. He continued to blast the sphere until it was gone—just hunks of molten stone and metal. He shook his hand out, then looked around Xelhuan’s world. It was a cold, lifeless place. Even his mountain-brother had gone cold and still—a casualty of Victor’s metamorphosis.

“Okay, brother,” he rumbled, his voice echoing over the continent like thunder, “let’s break this damn place.” With that, he lifted his right leg and, as he stomped it down, he cast Wake the Earth, pouring everything in his newly expanded Core into the spell. His boot’s impact was like a moonfall, splitting the world in half. As the rush of Energy poured out of Victor, surging through the bedrock of the little planetoid, every inch of stone liquefied and the broken world came apart at the seams.