Chapter 90
Price of Ignition
The sun had fallen, but two new stars lit up the basin.
Heat mirage rippled the air, the temperature spiking.
Struggling survivors’ chests heaved, desperately drawing in the stifling air.
All but one.
Chris stalked straight into the heat-shimmer, prosthetic thunking smoothly onto the cracked dirt, arms swinging loose at his sides.
He strode cockily into a haze of steam, smoke, and swirling embers.
Perfect fuel for the freshly ignited Core.
Ears popped, as the low hanging smog pulled, drawing into Chris like a tide.
The Embergolem was revealed in all of its glowing fury.
Twelve feet of living magma, veins of liquid fire spurting from its cracked basalt skin.
Everything else forgotten, orbs of fire were locked hungrily onto the spark standing before it.
Chris’ mind had room for only one thought behind his crazed, starving face.
I need it all!
As heat poured in, roaring through his channels, it compressed tighter and tighter.
Injecting into his Core, it burned, the RPM ramping up as he shifted into gears unknown.
The constant tug-of-war of burning and healing flesh went unnoticed.
George groaned, feeling every moment as if it were his own.
Chris’ palms came up slow, deliberate, shaking.
Two fireballs flared to life.
Not the orange, prettily burning spheres he used to throw.
These were dense, angry.
Sparks of bright yellow at the core, with a deep red roaring around it, crackling with a frantic energy.
With a flick of a wrist, the first screamed through the air, trailing a tail of smoke.
A chest-thumping boom knocked everyone a half-step back.
Chunks of obsidian skin blew outward in a black hail as the Embergolem rocked from the explosion.
Magma rained.
Chris didn’t wait.
Left hand, right hand, left again.
Chained explosions, each one louder than the last, each feeding into the next.
With every explosion, the elemental stumbled back, losing more chunks of midnight black basalt.
Streams of magma spurt, drawing hisses of pain from burning skin.
Chris felt great, smiling as he matched each cast with a driving step towards the crumbling guardian.
The air filled with the smell of scorched stone.
With every fireball formed, ambient Qi was torn out of the environment.
Veins glowed like burning wire under his skin, delivering the molten payload straight into his new Combustion Core.
A ringing explosion marked the continuation of the cycle, almost drowning out Chris’ exuberance.
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“A legend is born! Ah-Hahahaha!”
Smoke rose, leaking from his nostrils with every breath.
The air filled with the smell of cooking meat.
His own.
“Dan!”
Jaime’s scream cut through the roar.
Overdrawn Aura flickered, trying to encompass her husband, as she drew her focus from the walking torch.
Dropping to her knees, her face twisting with effort, the air flashed around her.
The powerlifter tore his gaze from the blinding silhouette of his brother, spinning.
Afterimages burned into his retina, adding to the confusion caused by the myriad of reflections before him.
Tired gray matter struggled, taking a moment to process what he was seeing.
The first obsidian golem.
Reformed.
Smaller now, but undeterred.
A razored limb descended.
No time.
Dan didn’t swing the hammer, simply using his will to pull the weight… straight up.
Bulging forearms creaked with strain, trying desperately to assist the ascension.
Blue and black stone constructs collided.
The hammer head slowed the blow in a blast of obsidian shards and flakes of ice, before plowing into his precious torso.
Breath blasted from his lungs as he flew sideways, ribs screaming, hammer clutched like a life raft.
Hitting the ground rolling, he came up on one knee, coughing blood.
Right side sagging, fingers wrapped tightly around the shaft of his hammer, he rose to his feet.
George felt the spike of pain, tearing his eyes open, his heart froze.
His eldest son stood, dazed and hurt, as the golem closed the gap.
At the same time, Chris’ flame shuddered.
A small tear of blood leaked out of his eye.
Stand strong, son.
He redoubled his efforts to sustain the flickering flame, shaking under the strain.
Kim lay helpless, watching everyone begin to fall around her.
The last few drops churned sluggishly in her Core.
I have nothing left…
Her hand reached out, clutching Luna weakly against her side.
The poor pup cowered from the raging flames and explosions, tail tucked, whimpering.
“You always hated fireworks, little girl… and you can’t hide behind daddy…”
Dan’s head rang, vision swimming, as he tried to regain his footing.
His Domain billowed out, as the faceted shadow loomed.
Belle’s small voice roared out, “Watch out!”
She grunted with effort, her thin frame spinning.
A rock launched through the night, wrapped in crackling blue-white static.
It struck dead center.
The elemental locked up, joints sparking, frosted surface spider-webbing with electricity.
Belle stood thirty feet away, arm still outstretched, eyes wide, fingers smoking.
Dan took the gift, shaking the rest of the cobwebs away.
Taking a stumbling step, he brought it around in a two-handed swing that carried every ounce of Frost-Weight he had left.
Knee first.
Then torso.
The golem burst into a pile of inert, frost-rimed fragments.
Behind him, Chris laughed again: wild, cracked.
Inspirational.
Two more fireballs, bigger than all that came before, left his hands with extreme prejudice.
The Embergolem came apart in a thunderclap of superheated stone and exploding steam. Shards of basalt rained like shrapnel.
The valley floor glowed dull red beneath the drifting ash.
Chris threw both arms skyward in victory.
And saw blacked skin.
His gaze panned down.
Clothes charred to tatters.
Skin blistered, cracked, blackened in spirals up both forearms.
Smoke curled from his hair.
His bloodshot eyes, glowing faintly, mirroring that of the cooling rock.
“Oh… no…”
He folded, a puppet with its strings cut.
The only sound was the soft hiss of cooling rock.
The soft gasps of people remembering to breathe.
Dan dropped the hammer, and staggered over.
Kneeling, his voice was thick as he pressed a hand to brother’s chest.
"Idiot... don't die on me."
