Chapter 713 - Unbearable Necessity

“They did nothing to you!” bellowed Terra as massive earthquakes swept across the entire planet.  Magma erupted into geysers, and the atmosphere was filled with ash.  The planet was dying, and Zeke was the man who’d ultimately killed it.

“It doesn’t matter,” he growled, stepping forward.  The ground shifted with every footfall, but he maintained his balance nonetheless.  Such was the advantage of godlike physical prowess.  “They were in the way.  You knew you put them in danger the moment  you allowed them to worship you.  You hold yourself up as a god, but your power is a mirage.  You are false.  You are nothing.”

“Nothing?  Nothing?!” screamed the enormous stone dwarf, his chest heaving.  With a shrug of his massive, boulder-like shoulders, he slammed his hands together.  The impact emitted a shockwave that swept over Zeke with the force of a thousand hurricanes.  He bore it with characteristic stoicism.

“Like I said,” Zeke said.  “A mirage.”

He could feel the weakening domain, and he sensed Terra’s waning power.  How many of his worshippers had his armies already killed?  Thousands, to be sure.  Perhaps millions.  Such was the price of victory.  The unbearable necessity that came with the pursuit of the greater good. 

Zeke shouldered that burden and continued forward. 

Terra reacted with predictable fury, summoning one stone spear after another.  They erupted from the ground like small mountains, each one aiming to tear Zeke apart.  Some, he deflected with Voromir, shattering the pillars of earth with massive blows.  Others, he simply endured, rebuilding himself with [Hand of Creation] when injured. 

It was not pleasant, but that had been the case with every battle he’d fought since his descent into hell.  His largest advantage was his ability to regenerate from any wound, but it did nothing to mitigate the pain of being ripped apart.  He felt it all, embracing it and continuing forward in spite of the agony inflicted upon him.

Of course, this instance was slightly different.  In the past, he’d felt justified in his attacks.  He’d painted himself as the good guy.  But this time, Terra had done nothing to earn Zeke’s ire.  He was simply in the way.  Another rung in the ladder that led to the top.  A mountain to be climbed.  Nothing more, and certainly nothing less.

Did Zeke feel guilty for waging war against the innocent?

Perhaps. 

But like so many other useless emotions, he ignored those thoughts.  He had a mission.  He needed to join the Creator in The End if reality was going to be preserved.  His higher purpose gave him license to commit whatever atrocities he deemed necessary. 

And what’s more, he knew that made him the bad guy – at least in this instance.  Once, that might have derailed his quest.  Back then, he might have strayed from the path. 

No longer was that a possibility.  Zeke had seen behind the curtain, if only briefly, and he knew just how fragile their continued existence was.  Weighed against its collapse, what did a few million deaths matter?  It was a trade he was prepared to accept, even if he damned himself in doing so.

When the preservation of reality was at stake, could anyone afford to consider comparatively small questions of right or wrong?  Morality didn’t even come into the equation, as far as Zeke was concerned.

Or maybe that was just what he told himself as he’d given the order to slaughter millions of Terra’s worshipers.

Whatever the case, he was committed, both in terms of justification and necessity.  So he advanced with surety of purpose.

Terra did not remain idle.  Instead, he harnessed a flood of his waning divine energy into a skill that saw him grow to the size of a mountain.  Zeke countered with [Eye of Judgement], which tore through his rocky form with ruthless efficiency.  At the same time, he used [Vengeance], so when Terra returned fire – with a storm of sharp rocks that scoured the broken surface of the planet, leaving glass behind – he was subjected to a wave of fiery retribution. 

And then, Zeke was on top of him.

He leaped, springing off a rocky outcropping and toward Terra’s chest.  He came in with an overhand blow that took advantage of [Primordial Strike].  The hammer hit with the force of a thousand meteors, shattering the greater god’s rocky torso.  He staggered backward, seeming to move almost in slow motion as he tripped over a cliff and fell to his back.

Zeke kept up the pressure, hammering the greater god with every ounce of strength he possessed.  More often than not, he used [Primordial Strike], which added an untold amount of damage to each attack.  In addition, he peppered Terra with as many instances of [Eye of Judgement] as he could manage. 

The result was a tidal wave of damage that cracked the greater god’s façade, melting his rocky armor and keeping him off-balance.

It was not enough, though.

Zeke found that out when Terra roared, hitting him with a backhand that sent him skipping across the planet for hundreds of miles.  His brief flight only took a couple of seconds, but in that time, he smashed through dozens of mountains.  His path didn’t come to a halt until he managed to thrust his hands into the ground, arresting his momentum. 

But the attack didn’t end there.

Earth loomed all around him like a collection of tidal waves that crashed into him, burying him beneath millions of tons of rock.  He met the first wave with an attack that shattered the swell, but he was incapable of repeating the feat.  He found himself being shoved downward – ever downward – until he felt an insurmountable heat suffuse his form. 

The core.

He shot free a second later and into a roiling mass of divine energy, mana, and molten rock.  Immediately, he felt his body succumb to the pressure and heat, which compacted his form a thousand times in only a second. 

Almost anyone else in the universe would have given in to the pain.  Or they would have been incapable of enduring the incalculable power of the very planet trying to crush him.  However, Zeke wasn’t like everyone else, and the second he felt himself being torn apart, he used [Hand of Creation]. 

For the first time ever, the skill felt strained. 

If Zeke was in any condition to think straight, he might have realized that it made sense.  Terra was head and shoulders ahead of Simeon, who was in turn significantly more powerful than Mak’tar.  That Zeke would be taxed by the full expression of the greater god’s power was wholly expected.

However, he could scarcely think, much less consider the power scale at work.  Instead, he acted on instinct, boring his way to the center of the core.  It was already damaged, but it needed a little push to completely destroy it.

To that end, he used [Steps of Creation], and the universe shook beneath his feet.  As he stepped forward, the molten rock parted before him.  That was when he realized that it was acting according to one of Terra’s skills.  He easily dodged a tentacle-like band of magma, taking another step. Then another.

Finally, he reached his destination – a massive crystal, glowing with divine energy and unused mana.  More, he could feel Terra’s Will in there.  Clearly, the greater god had not fused them. 

Zeke felt Terra coming, so he activated [Pantheon].  A hundred peak lesser gods stepped out of a suddenly-appearing gate.  They looked like automatons, but they carried with them enough power to threaten just about anyone in the universe.  Zeke didn’t direct them at Terra, though.  Instead, he commanded them to attack the crystal.

Meanwhile, he turned to face the oncoming god.

With magma and divine energy swirling around him, he felt the first shockwave of his minions’ attack.  More importantly, Terra finally appeared – a roughly humanoid collection of magma – and attacked.

Zeke returned his efforts with his own, and soon enough, the pair were grappling at the center of the god’s world.  The automatons continued their own attacks on the crystal, cracking it after only a few moments. 

“No!” Terra shouted, reaching out to stop them.

Zeke pulled him back, ripping his molten arm free of his body.  At the same time, he bored into the greater god’s torso with another instance of [Eye of Judgement].  All the while, he continuously remade himself with [Hand of Creation]. 

It was too much.

Terra clearly knew it, judging by his increasingly panicked state.  But he could neither escape Zeke’s grasp nor stop the inevitable destruction of his planet’s core.  It was practically foretold.  The moment Zeke had set foot on the greater god’s planet, he’d kicked off a chain of events that could only end in the greater god’s death.

And that of his worshippers as well.

Most were already dead.  Zeke could feel Terra’s waning power.  He wasn’t wholly dependent on worshippers – he could pose a significant threat without a single follower – but against someone like Zeke, it made all the difference.

“Please…spare them…”

Zeke shook his head.  “They’re already dead,” he growled, aiming another [Eye of Judgement] at the molten rock god’s chest.  It bore into his torso, digging deep. 

“Why?  Why must we die?”

“The system will fall.  I’ve seen the Framework.  I know how close we are to ruin,” Zeke said, barely comprehending his own words.  “They will break free.  We can no longer continue this way.  I am here to do something different.  That requires your death.”

“Hubris,” coughed Terra.  “That is what it is.”

“Maybe.  I hope not.  But I have to try.  Reality depends on it.”

Then, he hefted Voromir, activated the weapon’s inherent trait, then used [Primal Strike].  The following swing came with a red copy only an instant later, both of which pummeled Terra into submission.

Of course, it wasn’t so easy to kill a greater god.  Even the least among them had some ability to regenerate.  And Terra was far more powerful than Mak’tar had been.  So, it took days to completely destroy Terra.

Even when the deity did not regenerate, Zeke worried he’d somehow escaped.  There were only two reasons he recognized his own victory.  One was his status, which had once again changed.  The second was that the world’s molten core finally stopped spinning.  The crystal had long since been destroyed, but suddenly, the core began to lose its heat.

“Shit,” he muttered as the rock solidified around him.

He dug his way through the hardening earth and into the mantle – a process that took long hours.  Once there, he found himself confronted by a veritable labyrinth of cracks and crevices. 

Zeke considered simply bashing his way through.  That was his preference.  But instead, he chose to follow the flow, and it took another two days before he began to make progress.  Still, he kept at it, slowly climbing from one layer to the next until, almost a week later, he finally emerged onto the much changed surface.

It was cold.

Very, very cold. 

And lifeless.  Whatever atmosphere had existed was gone, and Zeke could feel the Void creeping in.  Without Terra, there was nothing to stop it.  For a moment, Zeke considered summoning a gate to the Tower, but he chose not to do so when he saw a familiar ship hovering in the distance.

A few bounds later, and he arrived to find Iris, Tucker, and the rest of the crew waiting for him. 

He waved, and the ship descended low enough for him to shift back into his normal form and leap aboard. 

“Casualties?” was his first question.

Tucker shook his head.  “Too many.  But less than our estimates.  The others acquitted themselves well.”

“What about…”

“She’s fine.  Irritated and impatient that she’s forced to wait in the tower, but she’s alive and well.  Same with Pudge.”

Zeke almost smiled, but then he realized that it was a bad time to show his relief.  If Tucker was right, then thousands had died.  Sure, he didn’t personally know them, but that wasn’t the point. 

In the back of his mind, he could only hope that it would end up being worth their sacrifice.

“Let’s go home,” he said.