Book 6, Chapter 100 - Modifying Equipment

Cloudhawk had to use the Eye of Time for a number of things . Most important was to find a way to unify Skycloud and the wastes so they could stand together against the Supremes . It was going to be difficult and complicated, even Cloudhawk wasn’t confident, but there were others who could help him .

He put Wolfblade in charge of the wastelands . Skycloud was under the Cloud G.o.d’s management .

The four Supremes weren’t going to give Cloudhawk a lot of breathing room . He had to maximize what was left – and the best way to do that was his pocket dimension!

He opened it up to provide a place for training and manufacturing . Efficiency improved more than ten times while under the dimension’s time-slowing effect . Even just half a month could be stretched out, giving the Green Alliance a handy advantage .

Cloudhawk made his way to one section of the pocket dimension . Wolfblade and the Cloud G.o.d were in charge of the day to day, so Cloudhawk was left with trying to find out how to make the Alliance – and himself – stronger . Four Supremes was a major crisis, and they had to be ready .

After some thought, he’d come up with two ways to improve their situation .

First: Obviously better training would make their forces stronger . That was the foundation . To that end Cloudhawk ordered Dawn and others like her with exceptional potential to train in the cube . In what little time they had, these lieutenants had to get as strong as possible .

Second: Better, stronger relics . Foundational improvements were great, but better equipment would heighten their stopping power by a lot . So Cloudhawk was faced with a problem, and it wasn’t that there were too few relics . It was that there were too many .

All the recent conflict meant Cloudhawk and his people had seized all sorts of relics . What’s more, the inherent hards.h.i.+ps of living in the waste had forced two very different people to work together . Relics that were once squirreled away in Skycloud saw increasing use out in the wastelands .

Cloudhawk had a slew of tools for himself, but there were limits to what one person could use . More didn’t necessarily mean better, and compatibility with one’s fighting style was superior to quant.i.ty .

For example, in the battle for Skycloud Cloudhawk had s.n.a.t.c.hed up several relics . Ashfall, Arbitralux [1], Riftshard… the only one he hadn’t taken was Phoenix’s Blood of the Phoenix .

Cloudhawk separated relics into three categories . The first were outfitter relics – the most common, ninety percent of what they had were outfitter relics . Next were implantation relics . Those were rare but not unheard of . Squall’s h.e.l.lion Arm and Selene’s Eyes of Time were examples . Finally came symbiotics . Exceptionally rare, they were also very powerful . Cloudhawk’s Castigation Fire was symbiotic, as well as the Blood of the Phoenix .

Now Cloudhawk’s const.i.tution was unique . He resonated with relics on a fundamental level and was able to make them a part of himself . Theoretically he could turn his own body into the most versatile and destructive weapon ever made .

Of course, there were limits . Cloudhawk could sense there was a ceiling . That ceiling increased with his mental capacity, but he couldn’t afford to be liberal with the ability . It would be foolish to absorb every relic he came across . So, in order to garner the greatest benefits, he chose to a.s.similate Bruno’s Riftshard daggers .  

The trick was to use the psychic-empowered fires from his relic to create new, more powerful tools . Relics were complex things and even to this day Cloudhawk only had a beginner’s knowledge . He’d managed to make some simple, low-grade relics for his people to use . However, he did know a little more about joining two relics together . To start, then, the Arbiter’s Staff and Ruin .

These two were enormously powerful artifacts! Together their destructive abilities would be greatly improved, probably more powerful than any other relic in the known world .

Motes of green flame emerged from Cloudhawk’s fingertips . They seeped into the small orb of lightning that was Ruin . During this process he could sense how intricate Ruin’s structure was . He’d never seen anything like it . If the relics Cloudhawk had made were slingshots, than Ruin was a railgun . The difference between primitive and highly advanced .

Given hundreds, even thousands of years Cloudhawk might not have the knowledge required to make a weapon like this . It was a disappointing discover that filled him with anxiety . It was a clear picture of just how further ahead the G.o.ds were from man .

It didn’t matter… now wasn’t the time to get wrapped up in these thoughts .

With his other hand Cloudhawk released more dancing flames . They slithered over the Arbiter’s Staff and slipped inside . He discovered its construction and how it could be combined . While Cloudhawk didn’t know how to make relics of this caliber, his sixth sense meant he heard their resonance clearly . It was what allowed him to combined relics in the first place .

Ten long, tiring days pa.s.sed . Eventually Ruin and the Arbiter’s Staff were combined into one! It’d cost Cloudhawk a lot of effort and concentration, but finally the work was done .

The final product looked very different from either of the originals . His Arbiter’s Staff was initially a four foot long metal staff . Ruin was a blade of condensed energy . What rested in Cloudhawk’s hand now was a simple sword .

The sword had inherited the Arbiter’s Staff material form . It was made from metal from hilt to tip and didn’t look particularly special . Four feet long, the weapon was no wider than three fingers . The only detail of note was a gem inlaid in the hilt .

Cloudhawk wrapped his fingers around it and activated the weapon .

All of a sudden the plain metallic body of the sword sparked to life! Threads of purple and black lightning danced across its surface . Air bent around the weapon from the sudden influx of power . He flicked his wrist and carved a gash in a nearby wall .

“Excellent!”

After a few seconds the wall reconstructed itself . Cloudhawk admired his new weapon with satisfaction .

The Arbiter’s Rod had ma.s.sive physical destruction capabilities . In an instant it could drop a thousand tons of pressure, enough to flatten a mountain . Meanwhile, Ruin was highly condensed energy . Lethal in its own right, while attacking it also released deadly radiation that caused tremendous and usually -permanent damage to living things .

The perfect pair .

Not even Cloudhawk could see a separation anymore . IT was a complete and new relic unto itself . And a new weapon needed a new name .

As he pondered Cloudhawk thought about how eventually he would have to face the G.o.ds . Sooner rather than later, he would go to war against that divine race . This weapon he bore had a single purpose, so that’s what he would call it – G.o.dslayer .

It would serve to prove Cloudhawk’s resolve .  

He also used this time to transform several other relics . Using the slow crawl of time within the pocket dimension, he got a lot done . Rimeshard and Frozen Dirge were combined into Ashfall to create an ice-elemental halberd for Frost de Winter to wield .

It was one of ten other projects he completed . They were all given to the upper echelons of the Green Alliance . He sought out Dawn in particular and handed her Arbitralux . This item was unique in that it wasn’t easily combined with others . However, its properties melded well with Dawn’s talent . She was likely the best choice to wield it .

She’d been taking advantage of this time to train almost nonstop . Her strength had taking great strides . Her total fighting abilities were comparable to Phain Mist now, and with this weapon she could probably beat him in a fight . Between her considerable mental and physical abilities, plus the new equipment, she could probably give a Master Demonhunter a run for their money .

For days he’d been keeping busy improving his forces, until at last the moment he’d been anxious about came to pa.s.s . h.e.l.lflower gave him the news personally, “Selene is awake . ”

Cloudhawk’s heart skipped a beat . She had also been brought into the dimensional s.p.a.ce where she was being looked after by Ja.n.u.s and the others . Selene had been unconscious for so long, but finally she had come around .

Cloudhawk quickly made his way to where she was being kept . When he arrived she was indeed awake and sitting on the side of the bed . She stared blankly at the white walls, her hair a mess around her shoulders . For the first time he saw this strong and intractable woman wrapped in a sense of loss and innocence .

He walked over to her and wrapped her up in a hug, never saying a word .

When she felt the warmth of him press into her, Selene couldn’t stem the flow of tears . They tumbled down her cheeks, cutting hot paths . She’d lost everything – everything except him . He had never abandoned her .

“Nothing but a bad dream,” he whispered to her . “Welcome back . ”

A bad dream…?

Selene didn’t say anything . She bit her lip so hard that she could taste blood . For the rest of her life she would never forgive herself for what she’d done, but she wasn’t about to give up either . Her dream of leading Skycloud to a peaceful future was shattered . Her father, who she’d been seeking for years, was dead by her hand… but he was still here . Cloudhawk was still with her .

She had to push pa.s.sed it and live on .  

That steel was where Cloudhawk’s unconditional trust came from . She wasn’t the girl who’d gone chasing after her father’s footsteps anymore . She was a woman, a warrior, who would never give in no matter how bad things got . Facing the truest parts of herself and the cruelest realities of life wouldn’t keep her down .

In that way Cloudhawk didn’t even have a tenth of her character . With her on the side of the Alliance, it was better than a thousand armies .

1 . To my knowledge this wasn’t expressly mentioned in earlier chapters, unless I missed it . But it should be the staff with the Sage Crystal affixed to it . It’s name is ‘Light Ruler’, so I called it Arbitralux, a combination of ‘arbiter’ - latin for ruler – and ‘lux’ - latin for light .

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