Savage Awakening 541. Star-Crushing Slashes (I)

Reina had also gotten news about Haxorax. The prince was seeking out soul experts in the various Factions.

“He’s doing a stint at the Constellation Order,” she told Zane. “They do have some of the best soul magics this galaxy has to offer…”

She hesitated. “The World Tree does too. Especially some of our Grand Alchemists. I’m pretty close to a few. They’re proud, but... they could work something out for him if I asked. He’s sent a letter here too, asking to plead his case with them.”

She showed it to Zane. It was quite a polite letter, all told. Haxorax apologized quite sincerely. He hadn’t been himself, the prince said, but he felt that didn’t excuse what he’d done. He said he’d be in Zane’s debt.

She gave Zane a look. “What do you think?”

“Sure,” he said. He had no hard feelings. “We had a chat, actually. He’s a pretty chill guy.”

“I’ll let him know then.” 

She’d actually felt bad for the prince too—a part of her, at least. Zane sensed her instincts had kicked in there. She liked fixing things and people, on occasion. At first, she’d also felt annoyed at how much Haxorax had wounded Zane. But her other instincts won through in the end. She did feel it was the right thing to do.

She just didn’t want to go through with it without asking Zane explicitly.

“It’d be different if he wound up doing anything permanent…” she said, lips pursed. 

“We’re good,” he said, a bit amused. “Really. It’d be fun fighting side-by-side one day.”

Sometimes, when he was bored, particularly fun fights started replaying in his head. This last one would be just such a fight, he could already tell. He still had fond feelings about it. And he’d quite liked how Haxorax had conducted himself afterward. Sportsmanship was in rare supply these days in his experience. 

Later that day, he and Evan went bird-watching in one of the World Tree’s upper-bough wildlife reserves, where they glimpsed a truly astounding stork.

That evening he got a letter from Noughtfire.

It arrived while he was relaxing with Reina on a hammock. They lay on a beach on the Sixth Sea. Colorful ships stuffed to overflowing puffed along the horizon; the Sixth Sea sat right in the middle of one of the World Tree’s most successful boughs of commerce. It teemed with activity even as dusk started to settle. 

Reina put down her drink, sat up off of him, and blinked at the sunset. “Is that…?”

A phoenix clutched the letter in its beak. It drifted in, handed it to Zane, and promptly vanished in a burst of flame.

Feel free to stop by to claim your Gravity Gear, it read. The Pure Yang lands await. Don’t forget your Jack disguise. This will be important.

He showed it to her. She wasn’t sure what to make of that last bit either, but it did seem like classic Noughtfire fare. Noughtfire didn’t do P.S.s, apparently. It did seem the kind of thing the old Sage was too cool for.

“I’ll do it tomorrow,” he assured Reina.

She made a pleased noise and settled back down.

He still quite enjoyed these breathers for what they were. They were harder to come by as the build-up to the war rolled on. It was also getting harder to escape, even for a little.

He didn’t need much escape, but it was nice. 

It seemed to mean more to Reina. They were just Zane and Reina here, though, just like old times, on this semi-private beach—not the Savage Sage and the Mistress, which she seemed to quite appreciate.

The Mistress wasn’t really meant to curl up on a man. It just wasn’t done. Even though it was an open secret what activities they got up to in private, in public she still tried to maintain a certain image.

Her chest slowly rose and fell with her breaths; he gave her an affectionate look. He quite liked seeing her unwind like this. 

They lay there for a while. Seahawks wheeled overhead, cawing gently.

…He was pretty sure he could see folks on those merchant ships clocking just who was lying on that beach. He heard a shout; he could vaguely make out binoculars glinting over the decks.

She just nuzzled in and ignored them.

It was the only break she’d had with her man in decades. She was determined to enjoy it.

***

Before he left for Noughtfire and Astra, he took stock of one more thing.

He found a training room late at night after she’d gone to sleep. There he opened up his System Store.

He’d thought it’d be crucial to his growth before. But the Haxorax fight showed him he might still be underestimating this thing. The more he looked into it, the more he was certain that the Destruction stash was a privilege exclusive to his ‘Friend of the System’ perk. 

He made a mental note to thank Aiwe if they ever met again. Also to catch up, come to think of it. It’d been a while. He was curious what his friend had gotten up to.

In any case, he had 71 Credits to spare now. That was all the Destruction he’d managed to buy before the store had finally run out of stock.

His shards now numbered 16. Those four extra shards made a serious difference, but they wouldn’t have been enough to blow Haxorax away like that.

Except the moment those shards hit 16 back then, he’d gotten a notification—

Destruction has reached a threshold.

Condensing…

Then all his Destruction had drawn together. Making shards in the astral plane; he’d felt all 16 of them in his soul. He hadn’t even had time to be all that baffled—all those shards crushed in, fitting like puzzle pieces.

They made a single shining chunk. He’d drawn out a little essence, fascinated, and found it significantly denser than the Destruction he’d wielded before.

Neat. 

He’d had a feeling that shard was a lot stronger than the sum of its parts, but he’d have to wait for the fight to see. He’d decided to keep his Destruction a little looser going into the fight to give the look of his old shards. Best to keep that card in his back pocket, he’d figured.

It’d ended up paying off nicely.

One chunk turned out to be the maximum he could take in at Minor God. The System had given him a warning notification right afterward. His shard purchases came in packs of 4, so he ended up with 1 shard left after maxing out. 

He’d stash it for when he broke through to True God.

He still had two Concepts to nab before he hit that point, though. It meant he’d made all the progress he could on the Destruction front for a while.

He had mixed feelings on that. It would’ve been nice if he could just keep stacking shards. 

…Though it would’ve been a little much if he could charge all the way to Tier 8 Law at Minor God, he had to admit.

He browsed the rest of the items.

71 Credits wasn’t a great deal when he looked down the prices here. But he could still get one solid prize to grind away on. He had the time now.

The prize that drew him most was still that 100 Million Year Bone, which he was still a little surprised was up for purchase. He wasn’t even sure the Barbarian Sage had one of those. The only information the store offered was that hoof icon, along with—epithet: ‘Quake Bone.’ Recovered via Time Vault circa 114th Cycle B.S.E.

It was one of those very few items that could live through Chaos Cycles. He’d never gathered precisely how long that was—Reina had said once that it varied by Cycle—but he was pretty sure it was around 12 or 13 Million Years.

He figured the bone would grant an earthquake Skill or something. Maybe a reality-quake Skill? The epithet seemed pretty straightforward. At the very least, he’d expect it to give a pretty drastic boost to his Annihilation Charge… no point speculating more on it now, though. He didn’t even have a way to gain more Credits until the next War, as far as he was aware, and that thing cost 200 Credits.

He made himself move onto the next most-valuable prize. The thing he was actually after.  

The Nine Star-Crushing Slashes.

An incomplete technique purported to be the remnants of the Star-crushing Archon’s infamous ‘Thirteen Slashes.’ The System has evaluated this remnant at Rare Origin grade. Key effect: every slash is 99% stronger as well as 99% greater in size… when the Star Crusher moved, galaxies shattered. 50 Credits.

Prerequisite: 1 Plate of Destruction.

That thing was called a Plate?

He liked his ‘chunk’ better, he had to say. Plate it was.

He was hoping these Slashes might just replace his Red Giant Storm. He had a soft spot for his Storm. It’d served him well over the years. But these days he only pulled it out every now and again, and even then, mostly against hordes of grunts. It just took too long to set up, and once he was into the thick of it it was far too hard to back out. Most bosses didn’t let him get it off.

He had a feeling this slash Skill would solve both those things while keeping that stacking effect. He wasn’t sure if it’d stack quite as high as his Storm could in theory get. It also wouldn’t have the Storm’s ‘vacuum’ effect. But the speed and maneuverability bonuses would be well worth it.

He also just liked the name.

It was expensive. But there wasn’t much he could use his Credits on until the next War. And he could do with a super-Skill to grind. He was going to Astra, after all, where he’d mostly be meditating and resting—it could get a little dull in the downtime. It’d be nice to have a project.

His only other consideration was that he already had Daybreak Horn. This would mean doubling up on Axe Skills. Daybreak Horn seemed more to do with reality-rupturing and Skill-breaking—from what he’d read, it seemed more like an essence-destroyer. It’d slot in his arsenal as a shield-breaker, the kind of thing that would’ve come in handy against the Founders’ force field back in the Ruins.

This thing, meanwhile, seemed like quite a useful all-purpose everything-destroyer. Which was something he was pretty sure he’d heard Avery call himself once, actually.

He wasn’t sure how he felt about that.

Without further ado, he bought it.

A scroll floated down, emblazoned with the icon of a fist clenched around a star. He happily pocketed it.

Before he left, he also took a look at the next section of the Store—Section III. It was locked right now. But it was always good to scout ahead. Last time it’d pretty much won him the Haxorax fight, after all.

Only a few were visible for preview, the topmost ones in the list. There were more bundles of Destruction, which he’d been expecting. Even bigger ones, by the looks of it.

There was also something that looked like kind of like the Red Moon Pagoda, just much fancier.