The Mind

“What are you worried about?” Selia asked as he prepared to bite into the fruit.

“Many things,” Ryun said. “On the top of the list is that it will drive me mad. If it does, I am going to need you to stop me.”

Both Selia and Erdania nodded and took positions around him.

He settled on the ground and then he ate the fruit.

For a few moments he didn’t feel anything different, and then suddenly as if someone flipped a switch, he was somewhere else.

He knew that this place wasn’t real immediately. The clue was obvious, he could see how he used to before he got his new eyes. He was on a plain, tall green grass swayed up to his knees, and above him was a sky filled with colors and stars. There was no sight quite like this in the Infinite Realm, not for anyone who had normal eyes. The sky could change color, but there was no great tapestry like this one.

His powers didn’t work either, which was another clue. A noise made him turn around and he was met face to face with his deepest self.

He raised his head to look at the eyes of a wolf, a copy of the Reaper that he had met so long ago back on Earth. But… this couldn’t be the Reaper, it died, he had felt the last of it fade away. What remained was just the perk and… what Ryun believed to be just the last vestiges of power that the Framework had been unable to bundle up into a perk.

Yet, he still had the dreams. Less now, but… he dreamed the Reaper’s life.

“The Reaper is dead,” the wolf said, answering his thoughts. “But did you really think that that was going to be it? That you could inherit a power from the Aspect of True Death and remain unchanged?”

“You are… my deepest self?” Ryun asked, confused.

The wolf chuckled. “Who do you think that you are is a better question?”

Ryun opened his mouth, but then closed it. He remembered what Jiharuud had told him, what he had called him.

You are He Who Is Feared, He Who Is Underestimated, He Who Reaches Beyond, and He Who Fears Himself. The Liar and The Mad. You are Echo of True Death and Wolf of the End and Harbinger of the Final End, The Witness of the Journey’s End, the half of one whole that once was and always will be, a law of all things. You are He Who Sees and He Who Knows. You are Loved and Loving, Honest and Deceiving, Enduring and Broken, Arrogant Above All.

Some of those names he understood. He was feared by some, he was often underestimated, and he did reach beyond. He… didn’t know if he feared himself, though, or why he was the liar and the mad. The true death and the end names seemed more clear now that he could see what his deepest self looks like. He who sees and he who knows were obvious, his sense gave him great knowledge. Loved and loving, he had a family, people that loved him and who he loved in return. Honest, he didn’t lie and he kept his word. Deceiving… he didn’t know what that meant. The last three he agreed and knew as well.

So why was his deepest self the wolf? He had put what remained of the Reaper into his technique, gave it autonomy.

The wolf laughed.

“You put nothing into that technique,” it—he, said.

Ryun blinked, but before he could ask the question the wolf answered it.

“The Reaper died, but what remained was the Mantle of the Reaper, one part of True Death. You cannot destroy something that was a law of an universe. The Reaper that reached his end, and the Mantle that was filled by a new one—you. You took all that remained. The memories, even though you cannot comprehend them. There is nothing left of the old, all that remains, all that you think is remnant is just… you. Every time you use that technique you pull me out, and let me—the subconscious part of your mind—take control of it.”

He held the Mantle of the Reaper…

“So,” the wolf started again. “Who do you think you are?”

Ryun hesitated. Things were starting to occur to him, confusing him. If he had assumed that Mantle, just how much of himself was him and how much was what remained of the Reaper?

His old life on Earth, before the Framework had always seemed so disjointed than what came after. Was he changed from the moment he and Melody walked into that cave, from the moment the Twin Aspects of True Death surrendered their power to them? It changed his perspective, made him look back on who he was before that moment and after. He… he was a loner, a person that disliked the monotone life of the world before the Framework. When it arrived, it liberated him in a way. It gave him a way to be free of all the systems that people put into place before. After they encountered the Reaper and the Scythe he became… calmer? Happier for sure. He and Melody got even closer, their bond gained a substance that was lacking before.

He raised his eyes looked at the wolf, and wondered just how much of himself was what remained of the Reaper. His focuses, his Path, his power. It's all tied to an end, a finality, True Death. He had taken the Reaper’s place, and even though the Framework tried to contain it inside a perk, it… didn’t contain everything. He was the Wolf of the End.

The things that he put inside his skills, that he locked in, even they were influenced. A monster that went through anyone who stood in his way. Like the Reaper hunting his marks, those who ran from death. He didn’t break his word, like the Aspects of True Death, that never strayed from their purpose. But that still left a few of the things that Jikharuud called him unclear to him.

“Do you want to see?” The wolf asked.

“See what?” Ryun frowned.

“Everything.”

Ryun was about to ask for a clarification, but the wolf opened his mouth first. The wolf’s jaws gaped open, disjointed and unnatural until all that Ryun could see was the darkness inside its maw. And then that darkness surged forward swallowing him whole.

Ryun was the Reaper, or the Reaper was Ryun, it didn’t matter. Who he was didn’t matter, what mattered was simply that he was. In the beginning they were one, and set apart from the others. After all the one’s purpose was to be the final destination, the end to all things. Even other Aspects were meant to meet the one at the end. The one was therefore… lonely. Their creators saw this, but cared not for the plight of the one. The purpose of True Death was not to be happy, but to bring the finality to their toys, when they decided the time was right.

The one existed before all the others, older than the footsteps of the ones who were long since vanished. But the loneliness grew, and the one made a decision. The one picked up their scythe and split themself in half, right down the middle. So that the one might always have a friend.

Time surged, memories flashed. Too grand and incomprehensible to the one who was half. Ryun who was the Reaper, and who was one half could not grasp, could not comprehend, his mind to small to hold the weight of so much time.

As his mind buckled under the weight, in pain, seeing only flashes of memories that were grand enough to punch through even the primitive and small nature of his mind, another part of his mind understood.

The dreams he experienced were a release valve, slowly giving to him that which he had taken onto himself when he assumed the Mantle. He gained power, distilled through the Framework to protect his fragile mortal form. But the rest? The rest of what made an Aspect of True Death was still there.

His perk had improved before, in the Tournament City. As he grew stronger, the more of that power slipped by the Framework, and more would come in the future. These memories were too much for him to hold, he couldn’t understand any of them. They were memories of a being that was beyond his comprehension. And yet he could see now, see how he was shaped by their weight.

He wanted to see the End of All Things. To live until that final moment where True Death was the only thing that remained.

But just as this Mantle had influenced him, so had he influenced it. The Aspect of True Death did not cause True Death before its time. It did not pick and choose. Ryun had… done something to it too.

The flashes increased, the Reaper hunting down those who struggled against their fate. Standing side by side with the Scythe, its other half. Flashes of death and battle. It was all too much. It turned to noise that made his mind hurt, that made everything go white.

He was pretty sure that he was screaming, or at least a part of him was. And then it all went out. And he was standing in front of the wolf again. For a while he couldn’t even think, everything was… slow. He couldn’t tell how long he had been stuck in that… whatever that was.

He looked around, trying to grab onto something, anything that would anchor him. Then, he noticed something, in the distance. A boulder, with someone sitting on top of it, too far away for him to see any of the details clearly, but somehow he knew who it was.

The wolf glanced behind it in the same direction too.

“The Scythe,” he said slowly. “She has not yet taken the Mantle as fully as you have. But in time.”

Selia, he was a bit confused as to why she was here. Or even why a part of her was. This was supposed to be his mental scape.

“Two parts of one whole,” the wolf said as if that explained everything. And perhaps it did.

Ryun closed his eyes; he had started to feel… It was strange. That… experience had exhausted him. He hadn’t retained any of the memories that had flashed through his mind, but… he did get an impression of who the Reaper was. A hunter, someone who liked to stalk his prey, to listen before pouncing. Who hunted only those who had broken the rules.

He realized just how much the Reaper’s Mantle had influenced who he had become. He stalked, moving through the shadows, listening with his skill. He punished only when they crossed the line and actually did something. He didn’t punish for the thoughts about breaking the rules.

But… he knew that he had changed the Mantle too, and it almost broke his heart to know what he had added to it. He had killed or caused the death of the entire world. His time in the Infinite Realm, surrounded by people who were… kind, it had made him doubt himself. Almost deceive himself. They looked at him and saw someone who was extreme in his actions. But in their eyes, he was good. And he had almost believed it too. That perhaps he had been mad, that perhaps it wasn’t really his fault.

The moment he said that to himself, the wolf’s expression changed. It lowered its head further, until its snout was almost touching Ryun.

“Hey,” the wolf whispered. “I wanna know if I tell you a secret, will you keep it?”

But Ryun already knew it. Then, memories flashed before his eyes. The blood, the death, the rage of one part of the Twin Aspect of True Death inside of him, the pain that they both felt at the death of their other half. All of it coming back. The memories cleared too, and he saw them all. The faces of everyone that he killed, that he convinced himself he forgot in the haze, that they didn’t matter. And they hadn’t, not to him. In an instant he lived through it all again. He saw it through the eyes of the wolf, the mantle, the remnant of the Reaper that was inside of him. Ryun didn’t remember their faces, but the Reaper had.

“The voice, the madness in my head that I thought was the Reaper…” Then, his voice came down to a whisper. “It wasn’t the Reaper losing its mind. That was me. The pain and the rage, that was the Reaper crying out in agony for what I made it do. It was all me, just me. I killed them before it was their time, and the Twin Aspect of True Death could no more do that than it could change its nature. True Death comes only when it is time. The Dealmaker sealed the Aspect behind the wall inside my head, and still I murdered them by the thousands. That is who I am. A monstrous being that took over a Mantle of a being with rules.”

Ryun closed his eyes and let himself accept it.

The first thing he did when he arrived in the Infinite Realm was kill people that had done nothing to him. Oh, he had done it to protect Anrosh and Kri, but that… that was just an excuse. Or perhaps… a release condition was a better term for it.

He fought and killed the warriors of the sect. He walked through this world like all of it was his for the taking, because he believed in his might. How many times had he wanted to just go… crazy? To murder everything and everyone? To bring them to an End. And how many times had he stopped himself because of the rules he lived by?

It was clear to him now. Those rules were not him who was before the Aspect of True Death. The rules were part of the Reaper’s Mantle, perverted by him, but still holding true. Without them he would’ve done what he had done on Earth before the Dealmaker took a part of him away.

He remembered the rage he felt when Eerv surrendered, the desire to kill him and the others. But he couldn’t bring himself to, the same how the Reaper would never hunt those who accepted their fate, those that did went with the Scythe.

What would he have done in the Empire, if they hadn’t let Nayra go free? His rules give him a strict guideline for when he could act, but if they crossed his lines…

Back then he hadn’t given much thought about how he would’ve made true on his promise, but here in the deepest parts of himself, he knew exactly what he would’ve done.

He would’ve turned the Empire into another Earth. And it would’ve been easy.

Get out of the city, go along the Wall, find the least protected part of it, or one that was already under-attack, then hit it hard. Destroy the Wall and let the monsters in. Then repeat, keep to the dark, or simply move too fast for them to counter. Make a couple more openings in the Wall, with each new one their ability to counter him would drop. Oh, they would hunt him, the same as the people of Earth would. But Ryun got stronger the more he fought, the more he killed. With each attempt against him that failed he would’ve gotten stronger, learned more.

The Empire would’ve collapsed. That was the part of him that was the monster. The true Ryun Nacht unleashed. Just how he had simply pressed forward when the Framework just arrived. Keeping his own council, doing what he felt was right. Brutal, and unrelenting. But he wasn’t just that, hadn’t been since he got the Mantle.

He was an amalgamation of Ryun Nacht and the Reaper’s Mantle. The monstrous capacity for destruction, a Final End, and the rules of a being that had been as old as a universe.

This was him.

Atonement, forgiveness, change.

There was never going to be atonement for what happened on Earth. Ryun had always known that, he didn’t want it. There was no forgiveness for it. And now he understood, he had never really cared about it, even when he had tried to convince himself that perhaps it wasn’t his fault. Who cared was the last vestige of the Reaper.

He had seen Anrosh, seen Nayra, Eerv, others. He saw them living a different kind of life and he thought, perhaps he could, or should, be more like them.

But he survived, he grew, he became stronger, and he changed. The memories from before the Framework, the remnants from the Reaper, they had put things into perspective. He had always hated Earth, hated that life that was so… controlled. Afterward, he only needed an excuse. Something to let him throw it all away. The Reaper gave him rules to keep him from going down a truly monstrous path. But as it gave him the rules, so he had changed the Mantle. No longer did he grant True Death only when it was time, now, it was Ryun’s choice when too.

He did change in the Infinite Realm, but it was more of a clean slate. A world that had the promise to let him live freely. In contrast, he loved this world, and he loved these people. Most of them at least. They were different than what people of Earth had been. But… no one was safe from who the rules kept caged inside should they cross him.

The memories… he remembered their faces now. He remembered Linda and the child. Knew why Zach hated and hunted him so. Ryun had done what he would’ve considered a rule break himself. Zach was right to seek revenge, Ryun would’ve done the same if someone had killed Anrosh or Kri, or Selia and Erdania. But that was the past, what was he supposed to do? Cut his head off? Kill himself? There was nothing that could change things.

If someone stood in his way, if they crossed him, he was going to fight or try to remedy the situation the only way he could. He was not a creature of the past, he was of the present, of the future. That was all that mattered. Seeing the ends of stories, a bastardized version of the purpose of True Death. It was in a way liberating, there had been something beneath the surface that had held him back, he understood now. Something that had made him hold himself back.

No more.

Ryun opened his eyes.

Selia and Erdania stood in front of him, studying him.

“Ryun, you still there?” Erdania asked.

Ryun nodded his head. “Yes,” he said slowly. There wasn’t much of a change that he could tell. He did feel freer in a way.

“How long?” He asked.

“Half an hour, maybe,” Erdania answered.

Ryun hummed to himself, then noticed that a notification was flashing in the corner of his eye so he brought it forward.

Congratulations! You have gone through a Crucible!

Fruit of Jikharuud’s Insight — +100 to base intelligence and wisdom; +500 to intelligence and wisdom

New title available—Lesser Crucible of the Mind

Lesser Crucible of the Mind

Go through a mental experience to improve your mind by forging it under unusual conditions based on your mind state.

+200 to intelligence and wisdom, +1% to all stats,

Lesser Enlightened (Mind Perk),

20 000 Greater Essence

Lesser Enlightened (Title Perk)

Your mind is resistant to mind effects and can function at moderate condition in all states, even after it was damaged beyond the point where most would falter.

He wanted more mental protection, and he got it. He would need to test it out and see how it worked later. The experience of the fruit had left him feeling calm, understanding. He didn’t change how he was; it was just that all those tiny little voices in the back of his head were now gone.

“I’m advancing,” he said then raised his eyes to meet Selia’s. “Watch closely, it might give you a bout of inspiration.”

She nodded seriously and he closed his eyes.

To advance to the Ascended Realm, one needed to cleanse their body of all impurities. Of any Essence that was of a lesser tier. Ryun had done that easily, well, not easily, but it was a natural step for him. His body was made out of tier 9 Qi. He did believe that tier 8 was sufficient though. But there was also the inspiration part of it. For him it was… a realization about the lengths he was willing to go to achieve that power. He pushed through pain, cut his own body up, something that most would shy away from.

He looked at his Path, and then advanced.

Congratulations, you have reached Early Ascended Realm Stage on the Path of the Final End!

Reward—Secondary Aspect available! You have stepped into the Realm of the Ascended, as such you now begin to manifest the power over Aspects. You may choose in which way that power manifests.

Merged Aspects

Merge the secondary Aspect with your primary. The result will depend on the compatibility between the Aspects. The resulting Qi will be generated from your current Core.

Secondary Core

Split your core in two, each new core will retain 40% of your current size. One core will continue producing Void, and the other will produce your secondary chosen Aspect.

Dual Core

Your core will become capable of producing your secondary chosen Aspect. You will keep the two different Aspects inside and will be able to control the ratio of Aspects inside.

He was already prepared. He pulled out the Aspect Orb that he had filled with tier 9 Stillness and crushed it in his hand, pulling the Essence into himself.

He had given thought to how he was going to proceed from here on out. He had considered every option, but in the end he had decided on Dual Core. It was risky, his regeneration relied on Void Qi, which Stillness wasn’t. If he split his core he would have a lot lesser Void to regenerate. If he merged them, it might not even work until he managed to upgrade his body, and his techniques might be more limited. With the Dual he would at least be able to control the amount of Void that he had. And he believed that he could cover that weakness once he advanced his second Path and improved his body. Or when he used the elixir for perk improvement.

He made his choice.

Stillness Qi (9)(Aspect Perk)

Your Qi passively enhances your body with the Essence of the Stillness. Any forces or objects approaching you lose their momentum depending on their power. While Stillness Qi is moving through your body all Essence seeking to influence you is 20% less effective and you are influenced by slowing down toward stillness. Any techniques you use that utilize Stillness Qi will seek to bring any Essence they touch to stillness. Gain +25% to endurance and +25% to wisdom.

He stood up and felt his core. It was filled with Void so there was no Stillness inside of it. But he could tell that it was different. He put his hand to the side and fired a technique, spending Void. Then he felt it; both Void and Stillness were regenerating inside his core. He even felt like he could stop one and focus only on the other. The Framework gave him the knowledge of how to cycle his Qi inside his core to keep the two Aspects separated. He didn’t use that, but instead used the cycling technique that Tali taught him.

Now, he needed to practice, figure out everything that he could. And then he would advance his secondary path and use the resources he had set aside for himself from Zenker. He had a lot of things to figure out.