章 9: Blessed by Apolaki and Blessed by Mayari

Luna suddenly found himself on a different place. "Is this a dream?" He was aware that just a moment ago, he had fallen asleep on the sofa, because he let Sura have his bed. He recognized this place, he went here before as a kid. Mount Kanlaon*, an active volcano south east of Bacolod City.

The situation he was in was quite peculiar, as he wasn't really standing on anything, as a matter of fact, he was right above the crater. But for some reason he felt as if he was standing on solid ground, the scene before him was even more strange. It was as if the place was cut in half, one side was night, the other, day. Just as he was observing his surroundings, a man, seemingly coming from the Sun was headed towards him, and on the other side, a woman, seemingly coming from the Moon arrived in front of him at the same time as the man.

Looking at the two who were meeting each other's gazes, Luna could feel the warmth they felt towards each other. At the same time, Luna could see guilt in the eyes of the man. The woman, with all her charm and beauty, was missing one eye. "Dear brother, why do you still blame yourself?"

The man, with his fists clenched replied "Mayari.. How could I not? If it weren't for me."

Before he could finish, the woman, Mayari, interrupted him "Hush now, we have a guest, you see? A descendant of the people who used to follow us. What is your name, child?"

"My name is Luna. Are you Mayari? The Goddess of War, Revolution, the right to equal rule, and of the Moon? And you, sir, are you Apolaki? The God of Wisdom, Strategy, the Chief patron of warriors, and of the Sun?" Luna could not help but stare in awe. He had read about them, they were labeled as myths, the son and daughter of Bathala, the supreme God of being in Philippine mythology.

"Correct. It is good to know that we are not completely forgotten, but.." Mayari had a solemn look as she continued, "without faith, without people who believe in us, Gods cannot continue to exist for long. At least, not us who haven't broken the shackles and elevate ourselves higher, but you are far off from worrying about that, what is important now, is that you inherit our blessing."

Apolaki followed up on her statement, mirroring the solemn expression on Mayari's face, "Kid, we were able to stay this long, due to help from the other Gods who still have a lot of people believing in them, but something has happened, and they can no longer do so, neither can they stop what is about to come into our beloved Earth, they can only offer some help. With your permission, we would like to give you our blessing. You stand to gain more than you could currently hope for, but there is a very high chance that your soul will not be able to handle it, and perish, leaving your physical husk of a body where you last slept. Are you willing to take this risk?"

Luna pondered for a while, weighing the pros and cons. Even without the blessing, he was confident he could continue to grind out levels and survive. On the other hand, was survival really all he could hope for? They keep speaking about a great danger that even the currently existing Gods, whoever they are, are having trouble handling.

With that in mind, who knows what would come next? It's only been over a day, but they had already encountered many zombies that a regular human being could never hope to win against. As such, Luna steeled his resolve. "I am willing."

BOOM!

Almost instantly, moonlight energy containing her essence starting siphoning out of Mayari, and into his soul, Apolaki followed soon after, as sunlight energy containing his essence.

Luna felt as if his soul was like a balloon being filled with water, trying to contain it, getting closer and closer to bursting, but as his soul was on the verge of breaking apart, he felt a warmth in front of him. Looking down, he saw Sura hugging him, as she looked up at him, "My soul is bound to yours, let me carry some of your burden. After all, if you die, I die, if you grow stronger, I grow stronger. You're the only human who was deemed fit for me to follow, after all."

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Inherited Passive Skill: Mayari's Blessing.

Inherited Passive Skill: Apolaki's Blessing.

With the blessing of both Mayari and Apolaki,

Your body has been refined by Apolaki's sunlight essence.

Your soul has been refined by Mayari's moonlight essence.

Both essences will be provided the more capable your current body and soul can handle at safe parameters.

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They could both feel that there was still a lot of remaining essence yet to be digested by their bodies, they would need to level up further until they received all of it. Even so, the improvement on their bodies alone, meant that they had far surpassed the capabilities of people around their level. The scary thing about this is, that it would not show up in their stats, the same way the game does not quantify the difference of Maria and Clara's athletic bodies when compared to Boni's more sturdy build. So in the future, even if someone was capable of scanning their levels, if they based this duo's combat capability on that alone, the enemy would have caused themselves the most severe misinformation.

Even with Sura's help, the two of them were still only barely able to contain the energy they inherited, they both woke up in the morning, both sweating and gasping for breath, facing each other, while under the covers and only their heads showing, and right at this moment, "Luna, Sura, breakfast is rea----" Boni wanted to invite the two of them to have breakfast with the squad and the door was unlocked so he went ahead and opened it, only to hear panting and the two laying together on the sofa, goodness knows what ran through his mind as he quickly closed the door and ran downstairs, yelling "I CAME AT A BAD TIME! I'M DEAD! I'M DEAD! I'M FOR SURE DEAD THIS TIME!"

Luna felt a severe migraine coming as he knew he had to clear up whatever assumptions Boni came up with in his head somehow. Sura couldn't help but snicker as she looked at Luna with a wide smile, showing her perfectly white teeth and her eyes almost disappearing and said, "I could get used to days like these. I didn't think I'd ever have so much fun." Luna was stunned at how beautiful this girl was, although he had never done it before, he leaned forward and gave Sura a kiss on the forehead, it felt strange, but right to him, even more so because he had never been one to date before, as he found it hard to trust anyone with his heart before.

To his surprise, he was met with a stunned look, thinking it might have been wrong to do what he just did, he was prepared to apologize when Sura interrupted him, "How did you know?"

Seeing her eyes opened wide in shock, all he could say was, "Eh?"

"We're laying together, and you kissed me on the forehead after we spent the night in one bed together. You just did a traditional Asuran style of proposing for marriage. How did you know?" She was still staring at him wide-eyed and looking for an answer.

"Wha--at?" As if Boni wasn't enough of a headache to start this day off with, now he went ahead and caused himself an even greater one.