Chapter 60: Sacrificial Dance for the 'God of Life' (Patreon)

The elderly Clefable stood atop the giant meteorite, eyes half closed as if sensing something.

After about half a minute, it turned to the boy beside it.

[Honored Renan, are you ready?]

Renan sat cross-legged at the very center of the meteorite. He answered with an OK sign.

Seeing he had no objections, the elderly Clefable hesitated no longer. It called out to the Clefairy and Clefable below with two cries of "Pi!" "Pi!" Translated into language humans could understand, it said:

"Kinsfolk, offer the ritual dance to the God of Life!"

"Pi!" The answer rolled back from every throat at once, a whole chorus of voices.

The Clefable clan sat on a giant Moon Stone meteorite. On nearly every full moon, they used the "Ritual Dance"—which humans called the "Clefairy Dance"—to bring about the evolution of some individuals in the clan.

Most of the time, though, the elderly Clefable, as the clan's elder, chose not to take part. It left the duty of honoring the God of Life to the current chief.

Only for the evolution rites of a handful of exceptionally gifted individuals did it appear and lend a little supervision.

And even then, that was all it did.

This time, however…

Things were clearly different.

Once the Clefairy, Clefable and Cleffa began the Clefairy Dance together, the elderly Clefable atop the meteorite did not simply stand idle as it always had.

Instead, it drew a long, deep breath.

Then…

Its whole body abruptly blazed with the white light of evolution!

Two seconds later, the strange vision faded.

The elderly Clefable stood in the real world again, but its appearance had clearly changed.

The pink wings on its back, once mere decoration, had grown several times larger, and a pink "hat" now sat atop its head.

More important still, the mental fluctuations radiating from its body were somewhat more active than before, as though it had stepped into an entirely new realm.

"!!!"

Watching the elderly Clefable evolve into an unknown Pokémon, Misty, who was only a spectator at tonight's ritual, was stunned. Her eyes went wide.

Still, she was the heir to the Cerulean Gym, and a guess soon formed in her mind.

'Could it be Mega Evolution? But according to the League's official statement, that's only possible through the bond between Trainer and Pokémon, isn't it? So how…'

Compared to the bewildered girl, Renan was rather calm.

During his previous days in the canyon, he had naturally not spent all his time training Pokémon and making deals with the Clefairy.

The black-haired boy had long since learned the ritual's purpose, and what he needed to do, from the elderly Clefable. Now he simply kept his eyes lightly closed, his breathing already shifted to the rhythm of Meditate.

The elderly Clefable… no, perhaps it should be called Mega Clefable now.

Having triggered Mega Evolution for the first time in ages, it did not hesitate for an instant. It pressed its hands together, and a ball of pure white light quickly formed between its palms.

About three seconds later, it hurled the technique it had gathered into the air and let it take shape as a hazy, illusory moon.

The moon shed a pale, gleaming light over the giant meteorite where it and Renan stood.

And then.

—Hum!

The dance of the Clefairy, Clefable and Cleffa all around had already thrown the lunar power inside the giant meteorite into violent turmoil.

With the addition of a beam of "moonlight," it finally reached a critical point.

A strange resonant hum rose abruptly through the air.

Then countless streaks of pink light lifted from the surface of the giant meteorite.

They did not scatter in every direction, as at an ordinary ritual.

Instead, they gathered together again and wrapped the black-haired boy sitting cross-legged on the meteorite completely.

Because of the mana in his body, Renan could absorb the energy in Moon Stones.

Now, enveloped in lunar power of far greater purity, the mass of mana coiled in his brain began to spin on its own, with no deliberate control from him.

The first ten seconds.

A truly enormous flood of lunar power poured into Renan's body and fused completely with his mana.

In an instant, the Falna drew it away to some higher-dimensional space that Renan couldn't yet perceive.

The second ten seconds.

With his eyes closed, he felt an inexplicable hint of fullness.

Immediately after, the mana that never flowed into his limbs unless he deliberately directed it suddenly began circulating through his body along some set route, following his blood vessels and nerves, like the internal energy of a martial arts novel or the chakra of the Naruto world.

With a flood of lunar power at its back, the mana moved fast.

One circuit, two circuits, three circuits…

By the third ten seconds,

the mana in Renan's body had formed several channels, each running in a closed loop.

Energy in a gaseous state, blue mixed with pink, flowed through them. With every completed circuit, thin wisps of black mist were expelled from every pore on Renan's body.

The lunar power stored in the meteorite was vast.

Yet the portion Renan could absorb was, in the end, limited.

The fourth ten seconds slipped quietly in.

On the black-haired boy's back, the tattoo of scales and a sword quietly surfaced.

The sacred script beneath it rippled and twisted, then manifested and settled again. It had completed an update of its own state, without any divine blood!

In concrete terms, the physical attributes and mana that had been stuck in the Pokémon world for nearly two months, without the slightest improvement, doubled over their former level.

In doing so, they reached a kind of "completion."

But…

'Is this as far as it goes?'

Renan slowly opened his eyes. Blue and pink light shone together in his pupils.

He exchanged a glance with the elderly Clefable standing beside him, which had at some point reverted to an ordinary Clefable.

Then he raised both hands toward the sky.

As the mana in his body surged, he actually used Moonlight, a move no human should be able to master.

And unlike the Normal-type move the elderly Clefable had used a moment ago, the energy Renan used to build his illusory moon was almost entirely pink.

It was exactly the same as the lunar power the giant meteorite released.

Or rather, he had drawn it out himself, using his mana as a guide and the pink energy around him as the medium!

The illusory moon appeared above the canyon for a second time.

It was clearly smaller, yet the "moonlight" it shed was all the more solid for it.

And this time its target was not the giant meteorite beneath Renan and the elderly Clefable's feet, but the Clefairy, Clefable and Cleffa still dancing all around.

Beam after beam of pink light fell.

Then came the white light of evolution, lighting the whole canyon as bright as day.

Roughly a third of the Clefairy and Cleffa taking part in the ritual evolved into their next forms under the "moonlight."

Even among the little ones who hadn't built up enough, or didn't want to evolve just yet, and among the Clefable too, the makeup of the energy inside their bodies had clearly changed.

It was no longer that mild, ordinary Normal type, but…

something that should not have appeared at this point in time: the Fairy type!