Thread of Existence

Like all living things in this world, spirits had a core of their being. For beings living in the Real Realm, it was the Soul, as was for the Shades. A spirit, almost like a cultivator, had a core, a piece of it that was connected to their Essence. Some had a physical core, an orb that contained their Essence and gave their beings meaning. Others had cores that were more Ethereal and nebulous things. Unlike Cultivators, spirit cores weren't directly connected to the plane of the Essence that defined them. The Essence that they had was a finite resource, unless they increased their power through entering into a service of another stronger spirit and fulfilling the terms of that service.

The Grand Spirits had no such cores. Ryun's eyes and perception had told him exactly what the Grand Spirits were. Their center of being was their connection to the Plane of the Essence that defined them. They were literally the manifestations of that Essence in the Ethereal Realm.

When they had designed the armor to trap War, Ryun and Grey Horde's smiths had made a way to specifically target that connection and stifle it. War wasn't severed from the Plane of War, she just couldn't reach it.

That was the exact same thing that the prison was designed to do, at its basest form. It cut of the connection to the Planes and therefore the Framework.

Except the Grand Spirit of Change didn't embody a single Essence like War that could be specifically targeted. The connection that the Grand Spirit had with its plane was the same as the spirit itself. It was ever changing. Ryun knew that he would never be able to keep up or even attempt to get ahead and stifle that connection.

There was only one way to deal with the Grand Spirit. His Ideal manifested all around him, threads of future probabilities of all reality stretched in all directions. He could feel the weight of all those threads, and instinctively he knew how much will it would be required to cut them and end those outcomes.

He didn't look to end anything. He searched through the threads, seeing how they shifted and changed and he reacted by crafting plates faster, anticipating what the Grand Spirit would change its nature into. The Essence of Change was such a fascinating thing, an Essence that could take the form of other Essences, in that it was similar to Mind. But it could also induce change in other Essences. If he had the time to study it, perhaps he would've been able to figure out a way to trap the Grand Spirit.

But he had no time. The Grand Spirit of Change realized that Ryun was up to something, and it fought back.

Its body transformed into a mass of a thousand different Essences, each lashing out from the center mass. Flaming tendrils burned through his Avatar in an instant, blades stabbed into the walls of the prison, cutting the walls apart. Wind like a hurricane howled and sent the pieces flying in all directions at speeds that turned them all into deadly shrapnel. Ryun ignored it all as he kept trying to suppress the spirit. A piece of the prison wall smashed into his head, the armor held, but the impact rocked his head enough that he felt a big drain on his Qi as he healed from the damage. Pieces pelted him, stabbing into the armor and he triggered the Last Will of Kha Yu and Gravity smashed down on the spirit and the flying debris.

Ryun was just buying time as he prepared a technique. He opened himself up to Oblivion, reaching down toward the center of his core, the bottomless void, the gaping maw that led to the Plane where all things eventually ended up in.

A calm settled over him, and silence filled him. It was always like this when he touched the plane. He knew Oblivion, he had glimpsed and grasped it, but he hadn't truly mastered it, not like he had Void. His Cultivation let him exert his influence, but being a Master of Oblivion and having Mastery of it was two different things.

The Grand Spirit fired pieces of itself at him. Essences that changed into weapons that Ryun couldn't even keep track off. They pierced his armor, sheared it in places along with his body. He entered his Ascended State as his armor succumbed under the assault of the spirit, reducing all the damage that he received. His body lost its human appearance as he no longer had a need to keep his meaning in a human guise. He was a hole of complete darkness, Oblivion shaped like a human.

Time crawled down to a halt as his Oblivion's Mirror eroded the laws of reality around him. It was dangerous, to do this within his own Soul, but he had no choice. His Soul and body were made out of Oblivion, but he was still bound by the laws that governed the world. He didn't know what the result of him fully eroding those laws in this place would be, and he didn't want to test it.

The Grand Spirit had nearly reached the edge of the prison. One of its tendrils, a black ice spike headed straight for Ryun's body. He could tell that the Essence of that ice was powerful, and something told him that he couldn't allow it to hit him.

Qi churned inside of his body as he moved and formed a technique, he pushed all of his Qi into it, his will gathering Essence from around him and stuffing it into his core to immediately consume and turn into more Qi. He was destroying the land inside of his territory, salvaging it for more Qi. The air was the first thing to go, as he pulled it all into himself.

And once he had nearly finished with the territory he pulled on the deepest part of his core, on the connection to Oblivion. His mind settled into a state that he remembered, and it was as if memories suddenly became available to him that he had forgotten. The Plane of Oblivion was quiet, it was nothing, an existence beyond anything—everything. It called to him, and he remembered already accepting. It was always there, it had always been there, it would always be there.

As he sank deeper into it, he heard faint voices, he could glimpse into the meaning behind their unintelligible words. They had their own ideas about what Oblivion was, and Ryun found, to his surprise that he didn't agree with them. Some thought that Oblivion was the ultimate weapon, that it was there to help them destroy their enemies. Another thought that it was a way of ultimate purification of all that was evil.

Ryun wished that he could reach out and yell at them for not seeing it.

Oblivion was True Death in its most basic form, the return to the great whole. It was also the potential for Life, it encompassed everything. It was an existence where nothing mattered, and everything did. It was a stepping stone to the beyond, the place that he remembered oh so faintly from the time before he existed in this form. From when he was the first Avatar of True Death, a being wielding a scythe that had stepped outside the boundary of creation itself and seen them.

They lived in Oblivion, and from it and themselves they had shaped reality.

Ryun's understanding grew, and then it was like a flower opening up inside his head. He understood what Oblivion was.

He reached out and it responded to him as if welcoming him back home. Oblivion spilled into his core, compressed and turned into Qi, pure Essence bound to his control. His technique filled up to the brim, and with his will, he pushed the meaning that was the core of what technique that he was crafting. A {Twilight Cutting Flicker} compressed and bound to a singular purpose, to destroy a single thing and return it to Oblivion.

His awareness switched back to reality and he realized that he didn't have much time. His skills were pushed to their limits, his nearly Qi gone and the flow from Oblivion halted, his will held his being together.

He saw the tendrils of a monster of Change reaching for him saw the threads that predicted that they would make contact with him and accomplish their tasks. He grabbed hold of those threads and leaned his will on them.

The spike made out of black Ice changed as Ryun broke the thread that kept the water frozen, he dashed down, his body moving faster than his stats could account for as his will and |Velocity| accelerated him. He broke threads or moved them aside, and evaded through the onslaught as he fell toward the center mass of the spirit.

In his right hand he still had Bright Star, and as another tendril shifted into razor sharp blades intending to slap him out of the way, he swung with his hammer.

Bright Star hit the tendril and he activated Star Forging and Forged Memory. He crafted a plate out of the material available to him, the Grand Spirit's body itself. A plate with a formation branded itself on the spirit's flesh, and for a moment it went still. Then it went wild, a Change rippling from the core up to demolish the plate that was suppressing it.

It was a moment, but it was enough for Ryun to see the thread that he was looking for. The thread at the heart of the Grand Spirit of Change; its connection to the Plane of Change. Ryun pointed his other hand along that thread, then leaned his will on it even though he had no chance of severing it with will alone. Then he fired his technique and turned all his attention on a singular goal. His Aura and Oblivion's Mirror leaned on the core idea behind his power, to erase a nature.

A line of piercing nothingness stabbed out, it consumed the thread in an instant, as if it had never been there in the first place. It stabbed into the core of the spirit, the connection it had to the Plane of Change; for a moment there was something opposing him, but Oblivion was behind Ryun, and what the spirit had was just Change. In the end, even Change would return to its ultimate destiny.

The line of his Qi cut, and the connection was no more.

The whirling mass of tendrils stilled, all of its body turning back into unstable grains that Ryun now knew were the Essence of Change. It fell to the bottom of the prison, filling the large floor with a body that was the size of a whale. It hit with a thump, and then it lay still. Essence waiting for impetus to change, but an Essence that had no meaning and will to change.

Ryun fell on top of it, exhausted. In the corner of his mind, he acknowledged notifications, and with quick command he removed his filters.

You peered into the deeper law and the concept of an Essence. You understand the truth behind it.

Rewards:

—Sage of Oblivion Title

—Aspect Mastery II Title

—Aspect of Oblivion Perk