Savage Awakening 555. Making Progress (III)

“They call it the ‘Vault of the Heavens’ opening,” said Kain. “Once a year, the stars align just so. The pull of the Pure Yang grows strongest, and all those shards return from whence they came. In that one night, the sky will light up with Creation and Destruction. Well over a hundred shards will crash to ground level in a single night.”

“…Really, now.” That definitely got his attention.

“Those shards will be spread across all the Pure Yang lands. But Mount X is a hotspot and tends to attract more than its fair share. On a typical end-of-season shower, one would expect ten to twenty shards to fall on these slopes! It is also when those in the valley are most encouraged to brave the mountain. For if they manage to come away with even a single shard, they may change their entire fortunes.”

“You must remember that most of the shards accrue to the strongest,” said Kain. “It is not unusual to come to the Pure Yang and leave empty-handed. Desperate men make dangerous men, especially if they decide to band together.”

It was the most Kain had shared in all the time he’d known the guy. He was a bit surprised Kain opened up that much, actually.

He considered the smoking dragon barracks below—barracks whose tent poles were made of the bones of Empyreans and whose skins were molted dragonscale. They obscured pretty well what was going on within. But every so often, black or red dragonflame would burst out of the flaps.

They were sparring down there, sharpening themselves for battle.

He started considering what his strategy would be. He had confidence in a one-on-one duel against most folk down there. But there were big coalitions, several with T1s and T2s, and they’d likely be duking it out all night. He was pretty sure it’d be chaos down there. He’d have to carve out his own niche somehow, in the midst of it all.

“Who gets how many shards is often a matter of territory,” said Kain. “Often the man who pockets the shard is the one who gets to it first. If a shard isn’t within striking range on that night, you can expect it’ll be gone by the time you get there. That’s the best case. The worst is that you’ll be embroiled in a firefight among dozens seeking the same thing you are. The ideal strategy is to get there first, seize it decisively, and move on to the next with haste… but to do that, you need control over land. Territory.”

Kain gestured to the dragon camps below. “That is why the war has raged so fiercely over the past month. The dragons have swallowed up the heartlands of the Pure Yang, where many of the prime drops will take place. It’d be difficult to challenge them there, and they know that.”

“That does make sense,” said Zane. “So…We’ll both be on this mountain that night.”

“That seems likely.”

“We could do it like the starfield. You take the east half, I take the west half?”

“That…” Kain looked surprised. “That is not how I usually operate.”

“What do you usually do?”

“I carve out my own territory. A circle of ten li radius of my camp, backed by runes. I then defend it for the duration of the night. Few dare challenge me there, and I gain all the shards that drop.”

“That’s fair.”

Kain shrugged. “It would be easier if I only had to defend from down the mountain. It would let me cover more ground, too. True enough. But it would also require a level of trust which… perhaps, I will admit, I was unfairly unwilling to grant you when we first met. Still, I’ll have to decline.”

“I feel like if I were going to backstab you, I feel like I would’ve done it already.”

“There were never shards at stake.”

“I guess that’s fair.”

Zane knew how Kain was. At this point, he didn’t begrudge the man. 

“Right then,” said Zane. He nodded to the Astrolith field. “Let’s get clearing.”

After they were done, Kain stopped him.

“Yeah, what’s up?”

“I’ve thought it over,” said Kain, frowning a little. “Perhaps there is a way to make it work. And the arrangement would yield far more shards for the both of us, I’d wager… I will get back to you.”

“Sure,” said Zane. He didn’t think too much on it after that.

Weeks passed. He started making solid initial progress on chaining his fourth Slash. He ticked up his Starfire speed another 8% or so.

Then he got some much-anticipated updates from his friends. Messages from Evan, Avery, and Reina arrived on the same night—the day before the end-of-season meteor shower was set to go down. He read them lounging on a sofa in his little ladder-apartment.

He read Evan’s first. A little image of Evan popped up, who waved cheerfully.

“I’m in this inn on Floor 53!” He gave Zane a quick room tour. It was a pretty normal inn room, but Evan was quite happy with it.

Evan and Chomper had gone off to fight a tyrant baron called ‘The Scribbler,’ if he remembered right.

When they arrived, though, most of the local folk closed their doors to him. A few even threw apple cores at Evan. Evan seemed a little despondent at the thought, but he quickly rallied. 

“I didn’t know what was going on at first, but then I read the news bulletins, and they were all full of stories taking down anyone who tried to fight the Scribbler,” said Evan. “They just kept saying the heroes who were causing all the Floor’s problems! I think the Scribbler’s convinced everyone the heroes are the real bad guys, destroying everyone’s stuff with their fights… That’s my conclusion after a few weeks’ investigating, at least.”

Evan nodded.  

“There’s all these newspapers, but they’re all in the Scribbler’s pocket… but maybe if I can get enough evidence, I can show everyone what’s really going on.” 

Evan seemed heartened by the thought. “I guess I was just used to folks thinking I was doing something worthwhile,” he added, a bit sheepish. “At first it was kind of hard, trying to do my best and having apple cores thrown at me… I started wondering if it was even the right thing to do, trying to take down this Scribbler, if everyone I was trying to help was so against it, y’know? But then I talked it over with Miss Reina. I just think sometimes being a hero’s about doing what you think’s right! Even if no one else thinks so.”

One thing about Evan—he did try really hard to be liked by folks, so Zane could imagine how the boy must’ve felt getting cold-shouldered like that.

Still, throwing an apple core at Evan… that was the lowest of the low, in his view. Who would even do that?

Next up was an update from Avery. It was much shorter than Evan’s.

“I’ve cracked the code,” Avery declared.

She gave him a few highlights from her time. She was seeing serious gains from her 100 push-ups, 100 sit-ups, 100 squats routine.

“You wouldn’t believe how much strength I’m gaining,” she said. “Seriously! This is some game-changing stuff. I don’t really get it myself. At first, I thought it might be exaggerating… it was promising some pretty wild stuff. Y’know how sometimes on TV shows they say ‘do this one thing, and you’ll get really strong?’ But this really is the one thing!”

She squinted at the camera. “…I can sense some doubt.”

Zane wasn’t actually all that doubtful. He just wasn’t sure what to make of it. Avery looked pretty much the same as always, as far as he could tell. He took her word for it, though.

“At this rate,” she said. “I’m not joking—by the end of the century, if this keeps up, I’m going to one-shot Malzareth.”

She was quite wide-eyed as she said it.

…That part Zane was dubious about.

Some other highlights: she’d cut her lifting from four days to three days a week, with the goal of prioritizing her recovery. She thought maybe that was why she’d made so few gains in the muscle department.

“There’s only one problem,” she said, crossing her arms. “Only one thing stands between me and being the strongest being this Galaxy has ever known. And that thing is Counterstrike: Global Offensive. They just got the servers re-booted on ScryNet… I won’t lie, I’ve been slacking quite a bit on my fitness routine these past few weeks. But I’m gonna recover, just you watch!” 

That concluded her message.

Then there was Reina’s message. He smiled just seeing her image show up over the letter.

She spent the first five minutes of her letter just gushing about the starfield’s Law crystals. He’d included a little sample for her when he’d sent her a letter. He had a feeling she’d nerd out over it and was pleased to be proven right.

“There's an agreement called the ‘Pure Yang Accords’ that regulates how war’s done there,” she told him. “Most territory gains or losses seem to happen through individual duels, and they’re very strict about imprisonment rather than murder… but that Accord’s violated most often on the final night of shard season, when the meteors are at their fullest.”

She bit her lip. “Zane… you said there are T1s and T2s there. It sounds like it’ll be a free-for-all. And with how difficult it is to get there, if something happened to you out there, not even Noughtfire would be able to get there in time. You know I—we—the Galaxy, I mean—we can’t afford to lose you.”

Nice save, Zane thought.

“I… I trust your judgment. I don’t know why I said that; you know all that already.” She flushed a little. Then she brightened. “As for updates, I’ve almost mastered the ‘Sanctified Physique’ buff! It’s the one that boosts your physique two rarity grades…”

She felt confident she’d learn all her buffs and mass blessing spells by the end of the decade. Then she’d be ready to move on to her final World Tree ritual, which was set to grant her a substantial physique buff and make her a better vessel for the World Tree’s Creation too.

“There is one more thing…” She hesitated. “Ever since you left, Malzareth’s been trying to launch assaults on my soul, nearly every single day. But it’s nowhere near strong enough to break through the World Tree’s astral shielding! It’s barely strong enough to make contact with the shields. Just enough for me to know he’s trying to attack me. I’m not sure what he thinks he’s accomplishing. I think he might be trying to intimidate me?”

She flushed even more. “If he thinks I’d go weak-kneed at that…”

Zane felt that snake knew exactly what it was doing.

If it wasn’t meant to intimidate her, it was meant to try to get in his head. It was like Malzareth was telling him he could have a go at her whenever he liked, and there was nothing Zane could do about it. 

He felt such a spike of fury his Asura physique activated, like he was in a fight. It just had to keep poking him, didn’t it? 

In the short-term, maybe that snake was right. He couldn’t do anything about it. 

But in the long-term, when the war came… they would see about that.

It wasn’t long before dawn came the next day.

He found himself quite motivated to collect some Shards of Destruction.