Savage Awakening 461. Sage Visits

He opened Noughtfire’s letter first.

“I do hope you’ve rested well, disciple.” The old guy looked tired, like he hadn’t slept in a while. But satisfied. “I thought Malzareth would have some tricks come the final battle. But that Slayer creature… that pushed the limits of Creation. To think such a thing was possible at True God…”

He gave a wry smile. “You will be pleased to know that by destroying it, you’ve done serious damage to the Monster Overlord itself. No small amount of blood went into making it.”

Zane was pleased to know that.

That Slayer was a feral animal. And that Malzareth creature had set it on him.

He still wasn’t clear on what this Monster Overlord was. He’d only seen it briefly when it had attacked him.

He only knew it wanted him dead—and with the Slayer, it got nine-tenths of the way there. That thing was hell-bent on coming after him and his friends.

He’d just have to put it down. Like every other Monster it set on him.

It was a mantle that seemed too great before. Like a man of flesh and blood thinking of fighting a mountain.

As he was now, he dared to go there.

Something else gave him heart.

Like Noughtfire said—that Slayer had been Malzareth’s best effort. It had tried its damndest to kill him. And it had failed.

If this was a fight, he'd just taken its best shot.

Now he had a hundred years to hunker down and make it face the consequences.

Noughtfire set down his cup. “You’ll want to know what’s happened in the wider world, I expect… the Empyreans of the Galaxy held the line just fine. But not without casualties. There was a pitched final battle on the Sundered Plains. The Endbringers swarmed two Faction heads—the Frost Saint Selina and the Stone-Fist King. Malzareth intervened… we could not save them.”

As far as Zane knew, there hadn’t been a Faction head slain since the dawn of the age.

“We lost six Grand Elders. And the Steelheart Patriarch is crippled. The Thunder Huntress Thalia is down too. All top-tier Empyreans… and this is only the beginning. You understand what I’m getting at.”

Zane nodded.

This was the kind of firepower he’d be taking on one day.

“These times make great men. Or destroy them.”

He leveled his gaze at Zane. And though the old guy wasn’t really there, he still felt the weight of the gaze.

“You know what you have to do.”

“I do.”

“A hundred years,” said Noughtfire. “Make them count. When you’re ready, come see me. And we’ll begin the next phase of your training.”

The Barbarian Sage’s message was a lot shorter.

The Sage waved an arm, bloody up to the elbow.

“‘Lo there!” the Sage grinned. “Well, I’ve just finished up here, looks like—”

Around him was a battlefield splattered with blood and corpses. The Sage scratched his head.

“Say—why don’t you drop by? It’s been too damned long, I say.”

***

Which was how he found himself on the Sage’s home planet later that week.

Those jagged peaks and desolate valleys, harsh yet austere—every animal a beast. The wildest kind of safari, brimming with howls.

He found the Sage out in one of the lower valleys, wrangling a horde of fire-breathing True God bulls. The Sage looked up—waved.

“Just a minute! These’re some ornery bastards—”

Soon he had gotten them all penned up.

Then he leaped back and buried Zane in a hug.

“Hells, is it good seeing you again! That last fight there…”

He grinned proudly. “That’s what I’m talking about, you damned beast, you!”

The Sage ruffled Zane’s head, and he couldn’t help but grin too.

“I heard you fought some heavy hitters yourself.”

“Bah,” snorted the Sage. “Just some bugs that old worm sent. Squashed ‘em pretty quick. It knew better than to send the stronger ones after me.”

He took a step back and gave Zane a good look. “Eh? You feel solid as steel, lad—”

He squeezed Zane on the arm. “That’s a cord of damned truesteel right there. Just what’ve they been feeding you?”

“That’s my new Bone.”

“…Is that what I think it is?”

Zane nodded.

“Ten Million Year Bone…” the Sage shook his head. “I'll be damned. ‘Bone of the Ancients,’ eh? You’re in the big leagues now, lad…”

Then he brightened. “What do you say we get a lift in?”

***

They hit the gym the rest of that morning. And needless to say—with his new body, he maxed out every lift without much trouble.

“Up!” roared the Sage.

And Zane lifted every continent on Planet Press.

The Sage was beaming. “Feels like just yesterday you were down here, working away at the 16’s…”

He sniffed. “They grow up so damned fast…”

***

Late that afternoon they sat on the highest peak, eating giant legs of lamb. Watching the sunset, the shadows of clashing horns and bears wrestling in the distance.

Zane threw a bone at Fluffy, who shredded it with a happy shriek.

Now she was settling down for a nap.

It felt quite peaceful, in an eye-of-the-storm way. The Sage was rambling away—

“So I said, that’s what a real spear looks like!” The Sage guffawed. Then he patted Zane on the back. “Right. We’ve got to get you some better training. These weights just aren’t cutting it anymore.”

“What’re you thinking?” said Zane through a mouthful of meat.

“Matter of fact…” The Sage grinned. “I’ve been working on some good stuff. You ever heard of the Ruins of the First Ones?”

Zane shook his head.

“Well, it’s where the first folks that came to this Galaxy stayed. Same disaster that made the Undying Cliffs all those years ago wiped them out. But there were some damned strong Titan Rhinos among ‘em…maybe the strongest Rhinos there’s ever been. And they left some real treasures behind. Buried all this time.”

The Sage let out a breath. “It’s been sealed off the whole Cycle. Only near the end of that last wave, the thing started cracking open. Damn near blew out the Scryer’s guild, so much aura came out.”

“So what’s down there?”

“Well. You’ve got to imagine there are some real ancient Monsters.”

That actually got his heart beating faster. He wasn’t the most proud of that instinct—it was the kind of thing Reina found endlessly amusing. But there it was.

“Ancient Bones, too,” said the Sage wistfully. “There’s got to be. And Bones only get stronger with time. The Rhinos had Skills that made them damn near stronger than anything else! It’s all gone now. It’s not just the Rhinos—the First Men, too… that’s all just rumor, mind you. I’ve still got to do some digging to make sure to clear out the more explode-y bits before it’s safe to explore. Might take a few years.”

They took another few bites.

“Might as well get on with that Fire Law of yours,” grumbled the Sage. “Could be a few decades yet…what’ll it take you, you said—a quarter century to get that first Concept done?”

“Something like that.”

“I figure it’ll be ready by then.”

“There’s that much digging?”

The Sage laughed. “That’s nothing! 25 years might sound like a lot now. But soon it’ll feel like a blink—those 10 years you spent taking in Law, that last time. Passed pretty fast, didn’t they?”

He supposed so.

“It’s just the same here. The stronger you get, the faster time seems to go… So you’d better get going.”

The Sage grinned. “You’ll be back before you know it. It’s hard to say what’s down there, anyway. That’s the fun of it, eh?”

It sounded rather light on the details. But what he’d heard had him pretty pumped.

“Let’s do it,” said Zane.

***

The next day he headed up the misty mountain to Noughtfire’s study. The sun was a dull coin in the sky. Whenever he came here, he felt like he was walking through an old painting.

There was that wood cabin next to the peach tree—he knocked once.

“Come in.”

The tea was already ready. Noughtfire seemed even wearier in person.

Now that Zane took a closer look, he noticed that blow he’d taken from Malzareth—the one he’d taken at Zane’s Minor God breakthrough—was still there. It had healed some, but not all the way.

It bothered him, even if Noughtfire didn’t seem to mind.

There was a new wound too.

Noughtfire saw him frowning. “It’s nothing.” He waved dismissively. “You’ll remember our old friend Gilgoroth.”

“The thing that went after me in the Superdungeon.”

“Just the one. Its master saw fit to restore it to its station. It felt entitled to take the Azure Flame… we had a difference of opinion. It left a mark.”

“But you won.”

A ghost of a smile.

“Let us simply say its master will have to decide whether or not to restore it again. In its current state, it will be considerably more difficult, I imagine. In any case, a congratulations is in order. Three shards of Destruction, in the space of a year… well done.”

Zane nodded.

“You’re ready to build the Great Circle of Tier 6 Law.”

Noughtfire took another sip. “By now you’re far enough up that great mountain of Universal Law… you should feel it all coming together. The Red Giant is a star, after all. It is as much steel as it is fire… you'll come to that soon enough, I expect. First, though. The plan.”

He stroked his beard.

“You’ve laden your Law with all that Destruction. That makes your task orders of magnitude harder, especially now that you’ve achieved Tier 6. Your aim is to make a Tier 6 Law fit to overpower Tier 7 Laws… you understand the weight of the task.”

“I do.”

Noughtfire looked satisfied.

“Then let us begin. To achieve that Great Circle in just a hundred years of real time, you'll need to rely once more on Astra… only now, you’ll take on a slightly stronger region.”

He took out a map. It showed Astra, like constellations in a cloudy sky, constantly shifting. In places, splotched dark.

“Corruption,” Noughtfire intoned. “Its levels in this Galaxy—across the universe—are still rising. Even Astra’s been infected. And at a cursory glance, I sense some dangerous signatures hiding in the mists…almost as though they’ve been sent there.”

He turned to Zane.

“Astra grows more mysterious by the day,” said Noughtfire. “Malzareth would never admit it. But it fears what you are becoming, Zane. It will take any measure to eliminate you—and you’ve experienced it already. It likes to stack the odds in its favor. Which means—like with the Slayer—it will want to crush you with overwhelming force.”