Savage Awakening 208. Red Moon Pagoda (III) (Patreon)

The words SHIELD OF THE BLOOD MOON appeared in devilish red letters over the spirit’s head.

The mists thickened. Another vision flashed o view. 

Disciple! It was the Spirit, big again here. It is time to learn the foundational technique of the Red Moon Pagoda. Unlike most techniques, it does not merely make use of your own essence. It wields the Red Moon Pagoda itself! Which makes the Blood Moon Shield a uniquely potent Skill. If you max out its Level, the Pagoda itself will fail before you take Soul damage—and this Pagoda… Let us put it this way. I could count on one hand the number of old monsters in this galaxy who could threaten it. 

The Spirit snorted. It was forged at the behest of the Celestial Emperor five Chaos Cycles ago!

To Zane’s right, the present-day Spirit coughed. Five-and-a-half now.

The vision-Spirit kept going. It is made from the highest caliber Heaven-Grade Spirit Steel. Every strand of it tempered and infused with the Concept of Everlasting by Patriarch Diamondfist himself! If you can master it fully it is no exaggeration to say you’ll never need to worry about soul attacks again.

It paused as though to let that sink in.

But there is a reason this treasure is graded so low, relatively speaking, as of now. Nearly all its powers are shackled. What you see is akin to the tip of an iceberg whose depths scrape the ocean floor. Indeed, it is the unshackling of the Red Moon Pagoda which is the difficult part. Be warned, disciple! Even those with immense talent find this the most difficult challenge of their lives—it may take years, perhaps decades, to master even the first level—

The scene abruptly ended. The present-day Spirit gave another awkward cough. The rest is merely a few such disclaimers. We can skip that part—not relevant here. 

Zane nodded.

Very well, then, said the Spirit gravely. Close your eyes, and I shall impart to you the Skill in full. Since the Pagoda is bonded to you, I can transmit the knowledge directly to your mind. This means will allow me to grant you up to the Skill up to Earth-Epic… beyond that will require real-world Trials. Let us begin. 

Zane closed his eyes.

The Red Moon Pagoda would like to impart to you: 

Skill: Shield of the Blood Moon 

Accept?

Zane did.

And his head burst open with knowledge. With history. A flood of it blurring before his eyes. Scene after scene.

He saw a Titan who must’ve been hundreds of feet tall, wielding an enormous golden hammer made to fit him. A hammer wrapped in bands of Law and essence. They swirled about it like rings around a planet.

The Titan groaned and smashed, and a sea of sparks flew high. High over an anvil set in a lake of lava. And in the middle of it—coming to life—a pagoda. Taking slow shape… a disc of bloody-gold light blossomed out of it. Zane felt the Pagoda inside him flare in recognition.

That was the first instance of the Shield of the Blood Moon, he realized. That halo-thing. He paid close attention.

Skill learned! 

Shield of the Blood Moon [Common (E)]

…That was easy. This learning took almost no effort at all. Maybe because it was transmitted directly. 

Then he realized—he had only learned the very beginning of it. The scene kept going. He kept paying attention. 

He saw the Titan collect the treasure gingerly, between two fingers. Kneel. Drop it at the feet of an old dwarf overseeing it all from a high ledge. A dwarf with eyebrows so bushy you couldn't see his eyes. The dwarf collected it, pleased, and bonded to it.

The next scene showed that dwarf leading a charge. A battle in the middle of a desert planet. Two armies—one of dwarves, one of men—mages in silver cloaks, showering vast, sky-splitting spells from gnarled iron staffs. 

But the old dwarf gave a cry and made a hand gesture; the red moon blossomed out of him. Instantly, half the enemy’s spells got voided—swallowed by the redness. Stomped out where they were. Like they were blotted out of existence. It looked easy. 

Zane took special note of it. He felt the knowledge welling up in his mind, more and more, the more he saw… 

Skill Evolved!

Shield of the Blood Moon [Common (E) -> Uncommon (E)]

Huh.

The dwarf’s side charged through, and won.

The scene shifted. The dwarf was now even older, droopier, with coarse white hair that dragged on the ground. He stood atop a balcony in a grand old castle mired in sandy dunes. All around him—surrounding him—was an army of men. Warriors.

A clean-shaven, handsome general stepped forth, pointed, roared. His armies descended upon the castle…

They won through sheer brute might. The old dwarf could block their soul attacks—but not the points of their swords.

The general snatched up the Pagoda from the dwarf’s fallen body.

The scene shifted. The general was now older—clad in shiny knight’s armor scattered with shining white runes. He stood in the middle of some grand arena, an arena thronged with cheering spectators. He thrust his sword at his enemy. An aged wizard with glimmering eyes and a scheming smile.

The wizard wore a big pointy hat colored like the night sky, dotted with little pinprick white stars. He wielded a staff with a crystal ball at the end—and when he cast his Technique, its milky surface began to swirl…

The air warped. Illusions exploded through the air. Storm clouds sweeping in. Vast armies of the dead rising all over. Dark mists hazing the arena. The audience gasped, entranced. Lost.

But the general’s eyes were trained firmly ahead—like he could see right through all those illusions. His pupils shone red, like two full blood moons.

Zane paid close attention to that too.

Skill evolved!

Shield of the Blood Moon [Uncommon (E) - > Rare (E)]

The general charged right through. And carved the wizard up. In the next scene, the crowd crowned him king.

One after one, the scenes came at Zane like waters in a fast-flowing river, almost blending into each other… 

And each time he came away with a little more of the Skill in his mind.

The very next scene showed the king face-down on the ground, lost in a pool of his own blood. His body was a pincushion of arrows.

All around him streamed a cadre of elves, clad in woodland greens and browns—their insignias seemed familiar to Zane. It took a moment to recognize the World Tree Faction.

A woman descended, strutting forward—she seemed a half-elf. She was dressed in light airy silks, a beauty, fair, with eyes the dark-green of the forest. She was wearing some kind of tiara made of branches. She pursed her lips at the sight.

The elves rushed around her, bowing and scraping. Zane noticed flaming ruins in the background, still lingering with motes of green essence. They’d wrecked this place. Plants blossomed around their feet as they ran, seeding a new biome. Around this woman’s feet in particular.

Something about her seemed familiar… Zane watched as she lifted a dainty hand and healed a gash on her forearm. There was a mending white light—and it came away perfect. That was exactly like Reina’s Skill.

The elves around her were much more powerful than she was, he just realized. He could see it in their auras. They were so dense with essence and high-tier Law it spread out from them in little hazes, their little islands of power which they imposed on reality. Just by being there.

He didn’t know what to call that, but this woman didn't have that—she was at least a stage below them. And they were bowing to her.

One of the elves retrieved a pagoda from the King’s corpse. He knelt and presented it to her.

“Mistress Maker!” called the elf, bowing his head. She blinked at the thing, curious, and took it.

Zane blinked. Then frowned more. That was Reina’s Title after all. He kept mulling it over as he saw her wielding the Pagoda, leading her elf-army against a nest of dragons, a coven of witches. Blocking fields of illusions, and sound-wave attacks, and paralyzing lightning bolts thrown by some massive storm deity… 

He was thinking about how the men had called that general king. And how the elves were calling this woman. It looked the same. It was almost like ‘Mistress Maker’ was more than a title—like it was some kind of position.

Before he could think on it more, the scene changed again—and this time it was the Mistress lying, eyes closed, splayed out, unmoving. A spear through her belly. Her elf-guard were all shattered, broken, strewn about—burning.

Blue and red-clad warriors fell all over them. And Zane knew those insignias too. That was the Azure Flame Faction. A burly bald warrior strode forward, fists clenched, blazing red and black—just oozing gobs of magma. Some higher fusion. He ripped the spear out of her, then grabbed the treasure floating over her corpse.

“At last,” he crowed. “The Pagoda!”

This scene Zane found most disturbing. That woman reminded him too much of Reina.

He got the gist of it, though. Lots of fighting and killing—and examples of wielding the Blood Shield. Over and over. He saw a behemoth of a steel golem wrestling down the bold flame warrior, seizing the Pagoda from his mashed-up corpse. He saw a ninja in a cloak of living shadow with sickle knives whirling, blanketing the golem in so many corrosive hissing slashes it looked like a tornado. Rusting it, melting it, bringing it to its knees slash by slash… he saw an ice mage gunning down the ninja. With what looked like flintlock pistols, shooting… snowballs?

The Pagoda kept changing hands. Over and over—it didn't take long before—

Skill evolved!

Shield of the Blood Moon [Rare (E) -> Epic (E)]

It did come pretty easy. Zane barely needed to pay attention to the Skill this time. He was more interested in whatever was going on in the background, honestly. It seemed a semi-complete history of the Pagoda’s ownership, a montage flashing on and on. Not a lot of it made much sense without context but there were some nuggets in there. 

More and more examples went by. He waited patiently for it to finish. He saw empires rise and fall. A kingdom of steel and gears swallowing up a kingdom of dragon-riders. A little boy from a fishing village rising to become the hero of the land—soaking up the Ghost King’s soul-strikes with Blood Moon blossoms. On and on. It just kept on going.

He had already hit something of a hard wall with this kind of transmission-vision learning, though. It was like the Spirit said. He had the theory, was what it was. But it could only take you so far. Now he needed practice. 

He wondered when this thing would end. He already had the Skill—he just wanted to try it out now. He guessed he had to sit through the rest. At least it was going faster now. Every ten minutes or so an interesting storyline would pop up, and he’d see a few important old powerful guys. But then they would fade to history like all the rest.

Maybe half an hour later, it finally ended. Zane was rather bored by then. And eager to get started.

***

Well then. Shall we play it again? said the Spirit.

“No,” said Zane.

…Just one go? The Spirit seemed dubious. Are you certain?

“Yes.”

You’ve hit Epic. Already. 

“Yes.” 

By now it seemed to be slowly getting used to him. It stared just a bit this time.

Err. Right it said. The Trial, then.

“Let’s do it,” rumbled Zane. 

I’ll summon the dragon spirit first. We will see how you handle it.

“Okay.”

It was much less pompous than with the young Emperor. No spiel about ‘push your spirit to the limits’ or whatever, which Zane was thankful for. It just fired the Trial up. 

The mists swirled. The air began to tremble—and a ghost flickered to life. The head of a dragon, smoke trickling down its thick lips.

It was also much smaller than Zane remembered from that one vision. It materialized at about chest-height with him. Zane looked down on it. It looked up at him. It almost seemed a bit surprised to see him up there. 

Fire, Xanath! instructed the Spirit. 

The dragon took a second to get its bearings. But when it did, a smoke-storm gushed out of it. 

Zane turned up his Shield. 

He felt a tug on the Pagoda in his soul—and it trembled a little. Responding. Bloody-red bloomed out of it—bloomed out of him. Expanding and expanding, blowing up to fit his Soul, until it was a shining crescent moon covering him wholly…Blanketing the dragon in a bloodred light.

The dragon almost seemed embarrassed to fire on him. When it did, it looked a little like spit flying off a windshield. It vanished. 

The dragon blinked at him. He blinked at the dragon. 

They both blinked at the Spirit. 

…It appears said the Spirit faintly. You have passed the First Trial.