Children Of A Lesser God

Laz had a moment of clarity as he circulated his energy. His eyes glowed gold while his white hair took on a red sheen. The black, tribal like tattoos looked even more pronounced as his grey skin seemed to lighten. The thought that entered Laz's mind in the tenths of a second as the giant prepared to destroy him was that Laz was never a violent guy. His mind was working in a way that allowed years to pass in a moment while he thought about what brought him here.

Those that he killed.

Those that wanted to kill him.

Those that he loved.

Those that hated him.

Those who came into his life.

And those who have yet to make an appearance.

The moment all of these thoughts rushed through, emotions came with it like a flood. With those emotions came one simple and primal dėsɨrė.

Live.

And the blacks flames exploded from deep inside Laz, his massive foundation bursting into flames while something started to grow from it. Something dark, ancient, and primal. Above it, a faint, golden glow pulsed outward from the drop of blood his master had sealed in place. This faint light came into contacting with the rising growth and acted like a stimulant, causing it to grow faster while also shaping it at the same time.

This wasn't something Laz would have understood, had he noticed it.

Laz's focus was on the outside of his body as the bronze giant arrived right before his face while swinging his palm at Laz's ċhėst. If this palm were to hit, fused as it was with pure, raw earth energy, Laz's body would explode like a balloon.

Yet for some reason, Laz was excited.

He side stepped while twisting, causing the attack to miss. Instead, a huge force erupted out of the giant's fist and blew behind Laz, causing a massive wave of energy to go shooting out in a V shape as it destroyed buildings, tore up roads and kept going, crashing into one of the retreating groups of solders who had been putting distance between themselves an the attack zone.

Hundreds of troops died from the attack while the armored vehicles when flying. Not even a scrap of their clothing remained.

Tommy, sitting inside the car and enjoying the air conditioning and a drink, froze in place. Agent Wallace along with the military commander, couldn't help but look on in horror. The commander started yelling into the radio for everyone to run as fast as they fuċkɨnġ could.

"How long until the strike commander?" Agent Wallace pressed.

"Five minutes. We need to be out of here in five minutes since they are going to lay waste to this entire city block," the commander responded.

"Sir! What about civilians in the area?" One of the captains serving under the commander asked.

"If there are any civilians, they probably won't survive this fight anyway, much less what comes after," Agent Wallace commented, his face and voice solemn.

The commander couldn't help but agree while giving the order to pull back farther. .

Although the attack missed, the wave of energy still hit Laz and sent him flying. He was able to get up quickly, but he could feel his bones aching with the effort. A wave of energy, coming from his now changing foundation, quickly healed and strengthened his body in response.

This time, without waiting for the giant to move forward, Laz attacked. He sent out fist after fist, striking his opponent several times in the ċhėst and back. The yellowish brown earth energy surrounding the giant like armor absorbed the impact so the giant didn't feel any pain.

It quickly regained it's stance to meet Laz's next attack head on.

While the giant's power was beyond Laz, Laz was able to read and avoid every attack. There was no skill involved in the giant's movements, as though it had only ever fought with others at his level. Due to the years of training Laz had done, the giant wasn't able to land a hit even once while Laz rained fist, foot and palms down on the raging bronze giant.

Every time the giant missed, the energy would still cause injuries to Laz's body, but those were quickly healed.

"YOU DAMN PEST. JUST DIE ALREADY!!!" The bronze god screamed as Laz once again skillfully dodged it's attack.

This time, instead of again attacking Laz directly, the giant clapped it's hands, causing a huge wave of energy to burst out like an explosion. The wave hit Laz who couldn't respond and sent him flying. Once he landed, he couldn't help but cough again and again as he spit out mouthful's of blood. This was the first attack that actually landed as intended and caused Laz harm.

Standing quickly to his feet, the giant recovered himself, his own attack having caused him some pain as well, but much less than what it did to Laz. Seeing Laz stand on no longer steady legs, the giant smiled and attacked again, his speed greatly reduced as the light surrounding him was close to fading into nothing.

The first hit landed on Laz's stomach, causing him to bend forward while the upwards knee hit Laz's head, causing him to see stars. As his body arched backwards, the bronze god grabbed Laz's head and brought it down again on his knee sending him flying backwards again.

"AH HA HA HA. SO RELAXING. I WAS RIGHT TO REVIVE NOW. I WILL RULE THIS WORLD AND KILL ALL THE OTHERS BEFORE THEY CAN WAKE. I WILL ONE DAY BE THE ONLY GOD INSTEAD OF JUST A FOOT SOLDER TO YOU BASTARDS. I, CORMAC, WILL BE THE SUPREME RULER!!!" The bronze god Cormac laughed while looking upwards, as though daring the world to tell him no.

Laz's strong body was in bad shape. Even if he had worn away some of Cormac's strength, Cormac was still considered at the fifth great realm of strength while Laz was just at the peak of the foundation realm. And even then he wasn't sure what he should do next to break through.

The damage to Laz wasn't enough to take his life just yet, but if something didn't change soon, the internal bleeding would be more than enough to put him down forever.

Even now, despite this, Laz rose to his feet, the smile not yet faded from his face as the sound of his blood pumping filled his ears.

"This... this is what I needed. To be so close to death. To battle for my life with someone far stronger... this is what every warrior needs..." Laz whispered to himself while he fought to hold back another mouth full of blood.

The last time he had been this injured, he had almost died. Or maybe he did die, he was never really sure about that.

But right now, standing here and facing this foe, Laz felt alive again like he hadn't in a long time.

And yet he knew that this feeling wasn't his own. It was something that he was feeling deep inside, something that was apart of him and yet not.

"Although I cannot say you were a worthy first opponent to announce my rise to power, at least you were able to continue standing until the end," Cormac said, turning his attention back to Laz.

"You... think... you've.... won...?" Laz got out after much effort.

"Ha! Of course I have. You never had a chance. Perhaps I drew upon this power too quickly, but it shouldn't take more than a few days from over drafting myself like this. After that, I can heal up the rest of the way while hunting the other sleeping deities and your friends. And just like you, I can use their blood to help fix the weakness of my own body. That is all you Jotankind were good for in the past. Our bodies our weak, but with the help of your blood, we too can be strong," the bronze god confirmed this, something that Laz had never heard before.

Laz couldn't help but ċȯċk his head over to where he knew Tommy and the others were. He was glad they were out of earshot and couldn't hear that, otherwise the end result would be terrible.

Turning back, Laz could see Cormac walking towards him. While the yellowish brown flare of energy around him was gone, Laz was so beat up that it didn't matter. Even the black flame on his body had gone out, or at least was no longer visible. Instead, it seemed to be condensing in upon his foundation, causing even more pain. But that hardly mattered seeing as how Laz could bȧrėly stand, much less fight back. Cormac seemed to know this and therefore wasn't in a hurry to expand any more energy in this fight.

Walking up to Laz, Cormac smiled and reached out, his intent to grab Laz's neck in his hand and choke the life out of him. Just before the hand reached his neck though, Laz smiled as his body, weak and rocking, swayed forward while he took one step towards the bronze god.

A rush of neutral energy, containing none of the black flame, surged from the depths of Laz's feet through his legs, around his stomach and coiled out through his fist as the weight of him falling forward was added to the step he took as well. His fist connected with Cormac's ċhėst and sent him flying, not having been expecting the attack.

Even with that, Cormac quickly got back to his feet. The attack, draining the residual energy out of Laz was enough to send him flying, but it didn't cause much harm. As for Laz, that final attack took the rest of the energy of his body and left him little more than an empty container. Even with the surging waves of energy in his center, causing a reaction he still didn't understand nor had time to pay attention to, Laz was fully spent otherwise. Since he couldn't use that energy, there was no point in it even being there.

Laz wistfully thought about using one of the strange battery like cores to restore his energy as he had collected a huge amount from the storage in the gate, but he knew his enemy wouldn't give him time to do so.

"You surprised me. But I can tell there are no more surprises from you this day. Now, you shall die. I wish you luck in front of whichever maker you ants now believe in," Cormac said sincerely, having a little bit of respect in his eyes now for Laz. Although he had fought on the battle field many times, it was rare to find someone who would fight until the very end even when they had no hope. Enemy or not, a person like that deserved respect.

Just as Cormac reached back and was about to strike a killing blow towards Laz, the world suddenly seemed to freeze. Smoke rising in the distance along with flames and even the wind froze in place. The only thing that didn't seem to freeze was Cormac. But even then, he felt like he was suddenly surrounded within a thick liquid and was unable to move at even a tenth of his normal speed. It was only as he looked around for some sort of clue that he noticed the tattoo on Laz's ċhėst. Having been surrounded by the black tribal like lines, the dark, leafless tree was almost unnoticeable while the red moon behind it normally looked rather faded.

Right now however, that tree was pulsing with life while the red moon seemed to grow brighter and brighter.

Cormac couldn't help but look closer at this strange symbol before a wave of chills entered his body.

'Something was extremely wrong,' he thought to himself as the need to run overcame everything else, including the need to kill Laz.

But before he could turn around, a pulsing blue circle appeared behind Laz from which walked out a startling figure. Her hair was a bright shade of green while the red dress she wore was skin tight and bȧrėly covered her generous proportions.

She stepped out and surveyed the scene alone, clearing having come here by herself.

Seeing Laz standing there, she couldn't help but move over to him, her bȧrė feet bȧrėly touching the rubble laden ground.

Setting a hand upon his bȧrė and bloodied ċhėst, she closed her eyes for a moment and opened them again quickly, a rare small smile gracing her face. Laz would have recognized her at a glance, but his eyes were slightly glazed over, as though he had passed out on his feet. The truth was somewhat different though. The strange happenings in his center had grabbed what little attention he could provide, causing him to shut himself off from the outside world to focus.

The strange structure that seemed to be rising up from the foundation was already half way there or at least, that's how Laz felt it to be. The structure itself was massive, intricate, and felt primal in nature. It was like watching the sunken great city of Atlantis rise up from the sea, except the sea was the foundation base Laz had built for himself. The strange part was that the energy needed to build it was causing a huge drop in the energy Laz had stored and it looked like it would run out before the strange building had finished.

Laz wasn't the only person who had noticed that. The strangely dressed girl who had come to Laz's side reached over and stuck her hand into Laz's pouch, and quickly drew out the glowing red cores, one after another after another. She then crushed them in her hands like they were brittle candy and blew the resulting dust into Laz's face where he kept breathing in the dust through his nose and mouth, causing a huge influx of new energy to arrive and help the building process.

After she had done this with almost three fourths of the cores Laz had gathered, she finally nodded and stepped back, turning her attention to the frozen Cormac for the first time.

"GOD DAMN YOU AND ALL YOUR KIND," Cormac yelled, angry but unable to hide the fear in his voice.

The beautiful, goddess like woman then smile again, but it was a smile with a chill that even the coldest depths of hell couldn't match.

She then stepped forward.