Savage Awakening 124. Gala (I) (Patreon)

Oh yeah. This countdown thing.

He remembered seeing it every time he checked the Beacon. Integration Phase 1, huh. What happened when it hit 100%?

…Eh.

Probably not something he had to think about right now. So he didn't. He wasn't the type to ruminate. Most of the time he wasn't thinking of much; he just went about life.

***

The Warrior Dojo stood in the middle of a misty lake landscape. All around it, soft waterfalls trickled into serene ponds; pebbled stone paths snaked between them, leading to the main building. A tower of dark polished stone, spartan and clean. Its door was a giant oak block bound in steel, cracked all the way open. Statues of armor-clad warriors flanked the entrance.

Everywhere he went now he drew a crowd—but his Reina glare worked wonders. That, and his flared aura, meant there was always a nice little sphere of space around him.

When folk looked at him it wasn't with just respect anymore. There was also a sense of… awe? Folk dipped their heads a little as he passed; most didn't even know they were doing it. Stares and whispers trailed him everywhere.

***

He made it into the lobby, a clearing of clean-cut stones, and requested the soul sauna. The receptionist fell over herself trying to help. She gave him access to their top-tier sauna and reserved all the slots so it'd be private. An elevator took him up.

The sauna itself looked like a dormant volcano in miniature. And sure enough the lady said it was made of volcanic rock and 'living wood,' whatever that was. A cave mouth on the side led deep within; it was so steamy there he could hardly see. He stumbled his way to one of the pockmarked rock benches and sat.

It was scorching hot here—a comfortable discomfort. The steam here carried heat weirdly. It soaked his skin, but it went deeper too. He felt it scorching his soul. But it also invigorated him. Like it was steaming and scraping the tiredness out of him.

He sat there and just chilled. A few hours passed like this. By the end of it, he was feeling a lot fresher, seared raw.

That night when he went back home, only Avery joined him and Reina for dinner at one of the fancy hotel restaurants. Evan was still breaking through apparently. Which reminded him—he asked Reina if she could get a specific thing for him. She had lots of reach now, but it was still a bit of a stretch. She said she'd put out a call.

***

Two days passed pretty quickly. He spent most of it recovering until—by the end of it—he was nearly ready to start tackling Laws again.

The whole time he was in public, he kept his 'leave-me-alone' aura turned up. The few times it didn't work were when other top World Rankers really wanted to talk to him. At one lunch, a very friendly Norwegian guy came up to their table using words like 'diplomatic relations'. Reina took care of it.

She still spent a lot of her day on that kind of thing, shuttling to and from VGI. She had to integrate all that Tomb King territory too, which was slow going. But she'd put together a good team back at the Luminous Faction; they had everything under control.

During the night, he got most of his Leveling done. After two nights, he got up to Level 106, while Reina got into the high 80s.

In the meantime, Evan broke through Foundation. They threw him a little surprise party. It was, in retrospect, a bit of an unintentionally cruel trick—after he broke through, he'd been so excited to share it with his friends, only to find no one was waiting to celebrate with him.

So he went home all alone, feeling sad. And because it was Evan, who felt pretty much everything quite intensely, 'a little sad' still had him sniffling.

Then Evan opened his door and was greeted by a shower of confetti. "SURPRISE!" cried Avery. Reina smiled. Zane blew the little streamer toy that Avery forced him to blow.

It was just too much for poor Evan. He experienced such sensory overload—on top of a rollercoaster of emotions—he went "Wahhhhhh!". And promptly burst into tears.

It took him a while to calm down. He was still crying into his cake a little in between hugging everyone.

At which point Zane presented Evan with his gift. Which was a copy of a magazine event said he liked to read—not a special copy or anything, just one of the few that survived. It had been in some kid's backpack when the apocalypse hit. It was 'Weekly Shonen Jump, April 18, 2022 edition.' They paid a good sum for it.

Evan gasped. And stared. He grabbed it trembling. And burst into tears again. Zane couldn't even tell if he was sad or happy. But their 'Power of Friendship' definitely got noticeably stronger, so there was that.

***

Zane was walking back from his last session in the sauna when he made a detour to check out the Asura Hell Array.

The new leaderboard went:

CAIN HASTINGS, 552 KILLS

YUI URABE, 703 KILLS

EMEKA EZE, 758 KILLS

So Eze had gotten up to the 750s. Wasn't he in the 600s just a week ago? Yuki, the other top World Ranker—who Zane hadn't met yet, he didn't think—was right on Eze's heels too.

It was a reminder. Everyone in those top few ranks still grew crazy fast. Last time Zane saw Eze, the guy had Elemental Earth and half of Elemental Darkness done. At this rate there was a good chance he'd come out of VGI with two Elemental Laws.

Zane planned to do the same.

Just then—"Savage Sage!" It was the technician manning the array, a young curly-haired man smiling nervously at him. "Are you making an attempt, sir?"

Zane shook his head. "Not yet."

He'd get his Fire Laws first. Then he'd see. He'd never been all that competitive, really. He was more interested in good fights. But somehow… drawing with Eze only meant their fight hadn't really finished.

When Zane gave it a go, he wanted that #1 spot.

Tomorrow, Fire Law. Then Hell Array. Right now he had to go pick up Reina at the Wood Law area.

Tonight they were going to some kind of fancy ball Elias was putting on. Zane had been skeptical of it from the start but apparently all the top people would be there. And Reina convinced him all that 'networking' stuff Elias kept touting wasn't totally fake. At least—she said she'd do the talking if he liked. But he still had to be there.

Elias was talking up some kind of secret he'd discovered about the Integration Phases. He was making it out to be some grand reveal. But Zane wouldn't be surprised if it was just talk.

***

Meanwhile, halfway across campus…

World Rank #43 Tanner Hammond had been a frat boy before the Change. He'd actually been in jail for a DUI when the blue boxes started popping up.

Then he found out he Leveled way faster than everyone else! And Bam!—before he knew it he was the ruler of his own Kingdom, a little stretch of Oklahoma.

Which he ran pretty much like a frat. So his life didn't change all that much. The main difference? The stronger he got, the more he got laid. Which was pretty fucking awesome.

He came to VGI 'cause Elias had said it was one big party. His goal was to bang 10% of the female population here before it ended—and he was crushing it so far, he couldn't lie. He smirked.

He was just leaning against one of those weird rune stones on the side of the road, chatting up a girl, when he caught something out of the corner of his eye. And froze.

His head swiveled. His jaw dropped.

Holy shit. That's a ten out of ten right there!

Tanner never gave out tens. But this girl was drop-dead gorgeous. And that loose dress she had on wasn't fooling anyone. She was stacked. That fabric was struggling hard around her rack—shit was holding on for dear life!

He was staring. So were half the men on the street, but they were trying to be discreet about it. Tanner didn’t care. He was practically drooling.

"Tanner?" said the seven he was talking to. She tried getting his attention, which pissed him off. He put a hand on her face and shoved her out of the way; she fell crying out. Then he put on a winning smile and strode out.

“Hey there!" he said. "The name's Tanner. How's it going?"

The gorgeous girl looked at him—started smiling warmly, like that was how she greeted people by default. Then something about his face seemed to give her pause.

"You're Reina, aren't you? Reina," Tanner purred, lingering on the word like he was tasting it. Then he smirked. "A beautiful name for a beautiful girl."

He came up with that one on the spot, right off the dome.

She started frowning. "What do you want?"

“Well," he said with a smirk. "I don't know if you've heard, but Elias Ventor's holding this big Gala tonight—huge deal. Only Top-50 World Rankers are invited. Like yours truly."

He waggled his eyebrows, just in case she hadn't Identified him yet. "Seems you're just outside the cutoff. But don't you worry your pretty little head, okay? It just so happens I have a plus one! How'd you like to come with me?"

He gave her a roguish wink.

"I have a boyfriend," she said coldly. "I'm waiting for him right now, actually."

But he'd heard that line a lot before. "Oh yeah? But you don't have a Top-50 boyfriend, do you?" he said, grinning.

To his shock she didn't even bother responding. She turned up her chin and treated him to a look of utter contempt. Then turned on her heel and walked away.

He stood there flabbergasted. Did—did she just turn her back on him?!

A vein bulged in his temple.

What the fuck?

He almost blew up at her right then. Then—no, no. Play it cool.

So he plastered on his winning smile again and ran after her. "Oh, so the boyfriend's the problem? Okay. That's cool. How about this? Your boyfriend and I, we'll have a friendly spar. If he wins, I'll leave you be! But if I win you come home with me. How's that sound?"

She kept walking.

He twitched.

Now he was actually getting mad.

"Hey, what's your problem?" He snarled. He ran to catch up. "Why do you have to be such a bitch, huh?"

Now Tanner hoped her boyfriend showed up. He'd fuck the dude up right in front of her. Then they'd see if she could still act so high and mighty.

The more he thought about it the angrier he got. Actually, fuck that! He'd put this stuck-up bitch in her place here and now! He reached out a hand—

A shadow fell across him.

And a giant hand grabbed his wrist. And smothered it.

He let out a gasp—all it did was hold him, and he still felt his bones grinding together. What the?!

He turned around. And looked up.

Tanner was tall. This man was taller.

Tanner was big. This man was bigger.

Then Tanner saw the name.

Zane Walker

Signature Title: Savage Sage

Essence Level 106

Zane Walker.

Zane. WALKER.

He stared into those narrowed black eyes in disbelief.

All the blood drained from his face.

This… this was the strongest man in the world.

Here.

And Zane was looking very pissed. At… Tanner?!

Tanner was pretty sure he had a nightmare exactly like this once.

Then it hit him.

The boyfriend she was waiting for…

He had a very, very bad feeling just then.

It—it couldn't be—

"You were saying," said Zane in a deep, calm, tight voice. "About a spar?"

Tanner’s eyes bulged. His mouth dropped open.

Nothing came out.

Then there was a high-pitched sound like steam escaping a kettle. Which was about the only sound he could make, since he was shitting bricks.

"I accept your challenge."

Then four massive knuckles sank deep into Tanner's face. There was a CRACK! A mass of bones shattered as all the things that protruded on his face were flattened at once.

And Tanner went shrieking, spitting blood, spitting a fountain of teeth, one by one—flew a good twenty feet in the air—and flopped to a halt. In the branches of a tree on the other side of the road.

Through a haze of leaves and pain, he saw Reina’s face light up with heartfelt joy. She flung herself at Zane; they started making out passionately.

Tanner whimpered. And blacked out.