It was fairly unpleasant. Enough to make Zane's face twitch.
Shocks of nausea rolled through him over and over like waves on an angry sea, and he felt it trying to tear his body apart—trying to break him on the tiniest of levels. To hollow out his bones, splinter his skin, and make micro-tears in his muscles.
He found it quite interesting.
Most attacks this brutal came at him head-on, direct. He knew when he got hit.
This subtle dissolving, this undermining, making him feel oddly brittle and weak—this strange invisible light—it was a new way of attack to him.
This nuclear power wasn't as intuitive for him.
His brow furrowed; he sought more deeply to grasp it.
Once he added this to his domain, it would be like an instantaneous debuff to everything caught in his power. This was a high-powered preview.
It would make everything he touched that much more breakable.
With that thought burning in his chest, he hunkered down and felt it out. Rode out the waves.
Staying this long in its presence put some strain on his soul. But he could bear it fine.
He stood up a few hours later, joints wheezing and creaking as he did. His health was hardly dropping anymore. He was healing, even.
He'd understood some small fraction of that Concept. Enough to hold it to a standstill. At least at this density, at the edge of the field.
He needed more.
He stomped down and blasted closer. Deeper into the field. A mile, ten—and soon he was forced to a halt again.
It felt like he did at the edge of the quarantine zone again, when this had all started. The nausea, the wrongness, the overwhelming brittleness came back; his Health started dipping again; his bones started to creak. It was what he imagined very old age must feel like.
He figured this would make for a good stopping point.
He sat down and meditated some more.
Hours passed.
And soon, being twenty miles in felt easy too.
At the end of that day he headed out exhausted in body, but more exhausted in soul. He'd thrown himself into the deep end there. But he was feeling good—pleased with his progress.
The cleansing array did its job well—washed off the worst of the radiation, though he could still feel traces of it lingering in his organs as he went. His body could nullify those traces well enough.
He'd take a few rest days. Digest some of what he'd felt, mull it over. Eat well, sleep well, let his soul recover.
Then throw himself back into comprehension.
He could tell when he mastered it, it wouldn't be a small boost in power.
As he made his way back to his manor, he took mental stock of his strength.
He could wipe out hordes of common Minor Gods. The last time he faced a challenge was against the near-peak Minor Gods of Ragnos—those with uncommonly powerful Monstrous Bones, strong Monstrous Bloodlines, and a grand Circle of Tier 6 Laws to boot.
That was before he started on Radiation.
After he finished, he was quite interested to see where he'd stand against the very strongest Minor Gods.
He was feeling pretty good about his odds.
***
A week and a half later, he'd made fifty more miles of progress, putting him about halfway through the scorched black region.
The quarantine zone proved very useful. It let him subject his body to high exposure over and over. But it also let him wash out, recover, and throw himself back in. And in this way, he could go in cycles—it hastened his progress greatly.
Reina was also very pleased he got to visit her so often.
Over the course of a few weekends—
𝕃𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕝 𝕦𝕡!
𝕃𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕝 𝕦𝕡!
𝟜𝟟𝟝 -> 𝟜𝟟𝟟
***
The middle region of the radiation—what he started thinking of as 'Death Valley'—was a gray purgatory littered with giant skeletons. They disintegrated at a touch; all the structure, the solidity, had been scoured from them.
It was a stark contrast to Zane's hale flesh and hearty body.
By now, about half of those Radiation waves' powers were blunted.
Many days found him cross-legged, brows furrowed, silently meditating. And as he seized more and more knowledge—conscious knowledge, but mostly unconscious knowledge, letting him sink into that feeling, and grasp it with his intuition—his resistance only grew.
He went deeper and deeper.
And in this way, Zane felt himself gaining more mastery by the day.
***
One weekend about two months in, Zane and friends returned to Earth for a quick check-in. They all had important news.
Reina somehow found time to finish off her last Tier-4 Concept. She was doing much better nowadays even as she juggled her massive responsibilities, her handmaidens informed him—their Mistress was glowing much of the time. They seemed very invested in his coming every weekend, to his bafflement.
Meanwhile, Avery and Evan were getting ready to make their own breakthroughs. Evan had to break through to Tier 5. Avery had all her Concepts but was missing about sixty Levels. She'd set up a cave and stocked it full of specially commissioned essence-rich donuts. She announced to the group that she simply wouldn't stop eating until she hit Minor God.
There were lots of farewell hugs to go around. Mostly from Evan going around hugging everyone, sniffling a bit. They'd only be gone a few more months, but Evan made a little goodbye carrot cake. Zane could report it was quite tasty.
Then Evan waved and headed off to the teleporters.
***
On a random rest day on Earth, Zane bumped into a vaguely familiar fellow.
His name was Henry Colt—a half-step Ascendant. A handsome, tan, bare-chested young man who wore his hair long and loose. A few blue stripes marked his cheeks and chest. He looked a little like Tarzan.
Henry gave a big grin.
"Remember me, Mister Zane?"
Zane blinked.
"We met back in the Cascades, at the Abyssal Crater—you cleared that thing back when no one was clearing C+-ranked dungeons!"
"Ah," said Zane, nodding. "Right."
"It was crazy to see up-close…" Henry flushed a little. "Honestly—a lot of the reason I'm here is 'cause of you, Mister Zane. I wanted to fight like that too."
Zane remembered now. It did feel like quite a while ago. So much had passed since then.
A lot of folks came up to him these days with a similar story. It was nice. But there were so many he got them a little jumbled at times.
"Since then I worked my ass off," said Henry. He now had an offer to join the Cult of Eternal Ice.
"In a few years' time, when the Monsters come, I'll be right there with you, Mister Zane!"
Henry pumped a fist, all bright-eyed.
Zane was a bit surprised. "I appreciate that."
Henry headed off.
Though most of these folk wouldn't be much help—Zane was pretty sure he would have to take the brunt of the fight—he meant it. He did appreciate the thought.
He'd seen much of what the galaxy had to offer now. Countless fantastical realms. And there wasn't much special about Earth—other than that it was his home. He seemed to keep coming back to it.
He looked out of his fifth-floor window, gazing out at the Luminous Faction. This place he'd built pretty much with his own bare hands. At Earth, this place he'd gone through hells to save. It was where he'd met all his friends. He'd made this place his own.
Somehow that all meant something.
Reina came up beside him and asked him what he was thinking—he told her.
She took his arm and gazed out over their lands with him, at the sun setting over the wood-and-stone skyscrapers, at the lush forests beyond, dappled soft orange. She felt the same way.
***
Zane sat cross-legged in what looked to be an apocalyptic landscape.
It was strange, being here for days at a time. His body was the only heat in a cool world; his flesh the only color. The only sign of life was the beating of his heart.
It went on, steady and strong, day and night.
His Asura Body was constantly slightly activated. Using his life-energies to fight off that radioactive decay, burning essence to keep his body flush with life.
He could feel the strength of that distant fallen star-core quite viscerally. It wasn't activated; it sat there passively—but even dormant like this, it was dangerous.
A worthy weapon.
***
A month later, and he'd crossed into the final region. The colorless white.
He could shuck off nearly all Radiation's effects by now, and cast small rays of it around his fingers.
He was getting close.
One weekend as he teleported back, he caught a bizarre sight in the Azure Flame's main square—a returning crew of Azure Flame elites, Minor Gods and True Gods, most blood-splattered, looking haggard. Corruption slashed through their clothes and limbs.
A team of healers were coming through, carrying a groaning True God Elder on a stretcher. His head was bandaged, white hairs matted with black. He'd taken a massive soul attack from some tentacle-eye Monster King. At least, that was what Zane gathered from the crowd's whispers.
The poor guy had to be shipped off to the World Tree for special treatment.
***
Not long after, Sage Burnwater invited Zane for tea. The old fellow was as cheerful as usual, but unusually twitchy.
"This Cycle's sure ramping up fast, isn't it? It might be the strongest Chaos Cycle in recorded history," he said. "I'm… well, I must say I'm worried, Zane."
Zane wasn't one for worry. He didn't see how it helped. But telling someone not to worry, in his experience, didn't help matters.
He just took a sip of tea.
"It's looking like I'll have to get involved, sooner or later," said Burnwater, dabbing at his face. "Oh, dear… might I show you something?"
"Sure thing."
Burnwater took him out behind his little portly cabin.
The front yard was a field of lovely flowers.
But the backyard was desolate. Just a crater of ash and silt.
The only thing it held was a chunk of gleaming emerald.
"It's called Everstone," said Burnwater, trembling a bit, as though afraid. "It's among the hardest stones in the Galaxy, you see. It's meant to be impossible to crack."
But that Everstone was cracked.
Lodged in it, buried to the hilt, was one of the biggest axes Zane had ever seen. Its handle was a single Sacred Bone, ancient and powerful—nearly as strong as the thing he'd seen in the Barbarian Sage's weapon.
Its head was stark silver, and the edge was stained the color of fresh blood—a blood that kept bleeding. Out into the stone, slowly, continuously, pooling deep into the soot.
"When I gave it up," said Burnwater. "I drove it in with the most force I could muster—so it'd be impossible for even me to take it out…"
Burnwater licked dry lips. His fingers were trembling. The way he looked at it… his pupils were dilating a little.
Zane blinked.
He was pretty sure his first thought was wrong.
Burnwater wasn't afraid—the old fellow looked a bit hungry.
He wondered if he should say something.
In the end he didn't need to. With a visible effort, Burnwater turned away, blinking. He put on a wobbly smile. "Well! Let's hope it doesn't come to that, eh?"
They headed on back in, where Burnwater took a long, deep breath, poured some tea, and drank it. Then he picked up a watering can.
"I'd better go check up on the frost petunias," he said. "It was lovely chatting—ah! Best of luck with Radiation! Finicky one, that…"
Burnwater shuddered. There was a traumatized look in his eyes. "Why, it must've taken me a hundred years to build up each dose—and even then…let's just say I know folks who've gone mad because they were exposed to too big a dose too early—that stuff can crack minds like dry straw! I do hope you're taking it slowly."
Zane thought back to when he'd first opened the case—and being blasted right in the face, full-force.
"…Yes," said Zane.
"Well, good," said Burnwater, relieved.
***
That afternoon, Zane went to finish off the Concept of Radiation.