Change

Grey Horde watched from high above the valley, standing on the edge of her flying fortress. Her army stood on top of the cliffs surrounding the valley, firing and fighting the spirits leaving the underground chambers. A part of her wished that she could've collapsed everything on top of them, but she couldn't be sure that would kill all the spirits, or that she wouldn't be harming her allies.

She felt Death Essence building up as the Daughter of Dawn and Death slaughtered thousands with every step, and through Trklak's eyes and mind she watched him follow behind her, keeping her safe from greater spirits that attempted to kill her.

She could feel the Essence of War filling the area as the Grand Spirit empowered and called more of its spirits. She could feel their trap working, but she knew that it wasn't enough.

The Essence of War that now rose to fight her was so much different than her understanding of it. It was all violence and wrath, all reckless abandon and carnage. It made Grey Horde recoil, it was not what War was supposed to be.

A part of her knew that she couldn't allow this blight to infect the Essence that she had taken up and made a part of her entire being.

She understood more now, after talking with the Undying Void. A spirit's entire being might be tied to the nature of an Essence, but it didn't dictate what that Essence was. Not even a Grand Spirit. The ones that dictated the way an Aspect manifested were the chosen, that was a right only they held.

She knew that she had to aid her allies, and with the Grand Spirit connected to the Plane of War, there was only one way for her to do so.

She opened herself to the Plane of War, and dipped into the field of endless conflict. She didn't feel out of place, after all she was the Sage of War. But she could feel so many different wills, all of them pulling on the Plane, all of them fueling it and trying to carve out a piece of it for themselves. Most of them didn't even know that they were doing it, they hadn't even grasped the basic nature of their Aspects. But she had.

Still, she knew that her will alone was never going to be enough. But that was fine, Grey Horde didn't fight her battles alone, she was a Queen, and a queen was never alone.

She unleashed her Ruler's Presence Aura, pushing it as far as it could go. Then focused on her new item, the spiritual tool, the Burning Soul of War. She spread the measure of her connection with War with her army, and then she used her True Link — Hive. She focused her will and power, she reached for as many of her people, across her hive, as she could. The ring on her finger was not meant to be used like this, she understood that, but she didn't care.

Little by little she felt their presence in the Plane of War, they were an echo of her, as they held a piece of her understanding of War. But that tiny piece resonated, and it echoed in the Plane of War. Quickly, the foreign wills were pushed aside as her ideas about War grew within the Plane.

A War was supposed to be a last resort, it was supposed to be something done to protect. She had nearly forgotten that, she had nearly started a war out of fear. But it wasn't supposed to be like that.

She found the Grand Spirit of War, and remembered that first meeting, where she had touched it and had their first conversation. She had been elated to learn from the spirit, to advance her own understanding. Now she understood that the spirit was never her equal in this place.

With an effort of will echoed by her entire army and people of her hive, she forced the Aspect of War to change, and in doing so she made a Way for her understanding.

Nayra surged through the caverns, her body turned into a cloud that scorched the skreen vessels as she poured through the gaps in their chitin and cooked them from the inside. Her ideal was active, intensifying the power of her body, aura, and techniques.

It had taken her a long time to learn how to effectively use techniques when in this form, but she could now fire them off with relative ease.

Death was gathering all around her, and with every death her power rose.

Greater Spirits tried to get her, ruining their vessels as they used the powers that the bodies were not meant to hold. A Great Water Elemental Spirit of some kind tried to drown her in what felt like an lake, but all it accomplished was to get its water boiled and turned into steam that spread through the corridors underground, cooking more of its allies.

In the distance, Nayra felt something strong tear through the world, coming from the direction Ryun was in. Then there was a twist in the world, and she felt like the world was just turned upside down.

Then, one of the rifts to the Ethereal near her flashed and a being stepped through. Nayra froze for a moment as she saw a human step through, and then she saw his eyes. A shade had just entered the Real Realm.

Before she could snap herself out, the human attacked, and she was forced to react.

Each of the tendrils had a blade that pierced through his armor, almost is if it wasn't even there, as if it was nothing. The blades entered his body, then changed to wide instruments of tearing and slicing. In an a moment Ryun was torn to pieces and his armor peeled off from him.

His mind split, then coalesced back as he regenerated from the piece that used to be his head. In an instant he was shrouded by another copy of his armor. The whirling mass struck again before he could react. The tips of the tendrils hit his armor and he sensed what happened now. The Essence of his armor changed, turning into some mist-like Essence. The blades stabbed into him again, and tore him apart a second time.

In the time it took Ryun to pull himself back together, the spirit stabbed its limbs widely all around it. He saw its tendrils hit nothing but air and push through space itself. Then, he saw it ripple, and something hit the world all around him. It felt... like Change.

For a moment he felt an alien sensation, as if he was somewhere where he had never been before, a new world. And then it settled, and it was as if this was what reality had always been.

Ryun's perception of time slowed down, as he tried to make sense of it, then he pushed that aside. He had to fight. As the pieces of his body flew in all directions, he used his sense skill and studied his opponent.

The Grand Spirit of Change had come in its real form, it had no vessel. Ryun could feel the Real Realm impacting its body, but he also saw it change every time the effect got any purchase. A spirit couldn't exist in the Real Realm for long, but that didn't mean that it couldn't stay for a while. And the Grand Spirit of Change seemed far more effective at fighting off the undesirable effects. And it had done something to the Real Realm.

What the Grey Horde had done, what Ryun had done, had weakened the barriers between the Real and the Ethereal enough for it to do whatever it seemingly had. He couldn't let it do anything more.

Ryun regenerated from a piece of his arm behind the spirit. His Qi had dropped a significant amount from the struggle with War and regenerating such severe damage from Change.

Before he even fully regenerated, the Grand Spirit turned and lashed out. This time Ryun was fast enough. He shaped a {Field of Twilight's Calm}, destroying its momentum and kinetic force. The spirit flickered, and a monster stood in front of him, a blast of light scorched through the air and blasted a hole in Ryun's chest.

He grimaced as the wound closed up nearly instantly, his vitality was soaring, most that he wore were copies, so he could just equip new ones, but his scepter wasn't. He hadn't had the time to copy it, nor could Bright Star copy the Qi stored in it.

Quickly he formed a technique and the air in front of him filled with the {Avatar of the Twilight Reaper} and then he released his Presence of the Eternal Hunters. In the back of his mind, he felt Selia notice, and reach out, and with |Divided Mind| he filled her in. They were too far away for her to help in any way, and without their aura's overlapping he couldn't use her powers, but he wanted her to know.

His stats soared and as his avatar slowed the Grand Spirit, Ryun jumped back, putting distance between them as he unleashed the full power of his Oblivion's Mirror, eroding the space and gaining distance quickly.

The Grand Spirit swatted his avatar away, then went for Ryun, while his avatar followed behind. Ryun released the hold of his meaning, and his body lost its human shape. He grew as he reached a large cavern, and turned into his Wolf Form.

As soon as the Grand Spirit reached the cavern, Ryun fired a beam of Oblivion straight at it. He made a direct hit, and could feel his will and intent erasing a piece of the spirit's body, but then it changed, and was whole again.

Ryun could already tell that this was going to be an annoying fight. Then a thought struck him, was this what it was like to fight against me?

Before the Grand Spirit could act, Ryun spoke loudly.

"I have no issue with you, Grand Spirit of Change."

The spirit paused, its body now a trembling blob that resembled a slime. Then mouths started appearing on its body, and it spoke.

"You've captured one of my own," every word came from a different mouth, sometimes overlapping in a way that made the sentence almost come too fast to be understood. Ryun's perception helped him understand clearly, where his ears only heard a jumble of sounds.

"War intended to cause death and destruction to this world, I couldn't let that happen."

"Change is inevitable," the Grand Spirit said, then it surged forward again.

Ryun cursed and dodged, he didn't want to get injured by it again. Somehow, it was taking more to regenerate from its injuries than it should be. What happened to his armor gave him an idea, but he wasn't sure. He assumed that it was somehow changing Ryun's own Essence when it struck him, which dealt more damage to his being.

His avatar finally caught up, carrying Ryun's scepter as Ryun dashed across the air in the large cavern, firing beams of Oblivion at the Grand Spirit. The space around him was trembling as he ripped holes through it to move, and he could feel more and more rifts to the Ethereal opening up, but also to other planes, the ones that this conflict had been brought closer to the Real Realm. He was weakening the space too much, and he didn't want to see what would happen if space failed fully. One thing he was certain of was that Change would only get stronger if Ethereal spilled through.

He had to end the battle quickly, he didn't know if he could kill it, but an idea formed in his mind. And he didn't see another way to deal with it quickly.

He evaded Change for a few more times, then as it came at him again in the form of writhing tendrils he opened back the door to his territory. He slammed the spirit with a technique made out of Oblivion

With a |Pouncing Rush| he slammed into the spirit, and carried it through the door to his territory, inside his Soul.