Battlefield

Ryun walked the battlefield, his sense expanded as far as it could go, and he kept his mind focused with a combination of his {Mantle of Gathering Twilight} boosting his intelligence and his Titanic Swift Mind. Every moment stretched into almost infinity, as his perception of Time slowed down to a crawl. There were great warriors on the field, powerful individuals. Though few of them had reached the final, ninth, tier of their primary focus. It made sense, not many had done that in the Real Realm either, and of those that had, not all were warriors.

And Eerv had told him that there were other areas of the Warrior Afterlife away from this place. Ryun, wasn't really interested in all that fighting, instead he focused more on avoiding attacks, whether by focusing his Aura to dismantle techniques and abilities before they reached him, or simply moving out of the way of swords or spears.

But |Divided Mind| allowed another part of his mind to focus on something else. Something far more important. As he walked through the battlefield, Ryun pulled Essence into his core and cycled. It took a lot of concentration to do it even just while walking, but by now he had become very good at it. And he had done it every moment since he arrived in this place and realized that the Essence here was... Different. His eyes couldn't see the individual particle of Essence, but everything around him was still part of the same laws. The Essence was just... More complete, or at least that was what his current theory was. He didn't really know, nor did anyone who he asked that lived in this place.

Still, pulling in Essence that was the foundation of the Afterlife had proven to be a great boon. It was obviously of a better quality than what he had encountered before, and that was probably the reason why most people in this place had managed to reach the last tier of their Aspect Mastery here when some might never even accomplish it during their lifetime. They couldn't advance their focuses through the tiers, but they could progress in other ways.

Ryun assumed that the nature of this place and the Essence was made so that they would have an easier time of it. Though, he still didn't know the purpose of for it, there were things about the Afterlife that intrigued him.

An attack broke his concentration, and he had to stop cycling. A needle made out of extremely compressed and powerful Ice Qi blasted through Ryun's aura before he could react and pierced through his throat, exiting out the back of his neck. He blinked and turned his head at his attacker.

A woman grinned at him just at the edge of his aura, a victorious expression on her face. If Ryun still had flesh and blood, she probably would've succeeded. A wave of cold spread through his body from the wound, chilling his own Essence, and spreading into the air and the ground around him. His mantle stuttered and failed as Qi slowed in his conduits, the ground beneath his feet froze in an expanding circle around him and snowflakes appeared in the air. The outer shell of his body, the layer that was made out of the Essence around him to mimic the appearance of flesh and blood, turned to ice and cracked as he tried to move.

It was an incredibly powerful attack, and deftly delivered. As the foreign Qi spread, his defenses fought it off, keeping his core unfrozen. With an effort of will, Ryun pulled Qi out of his core and blasted it out through his body in an enormous wave, flooding his conduits with as much Qi as he possibly could. Oblivion met Ice, and destroyed the concept of cold at the core of the invading Qi. His body unfroze, and he took a step, cracking the shell around his real body along with his clothes into a thousand pieces of ice.

He saw the warrior in the distance take a step back, her face taking on a different kind of an expression. Other warriors around him did the same, and soon a circle appeared around him.

He stood in there for a moment, letting them gaze at him. He was a human shape nothingness, a hole in the world with just the edges of his real vessel visible, a silver and violet threads that wove around him and flickered. He could feel the flakes of his Essence trailing away as if in the wind, a consequence of the lack of a shell. His Soul had taken... Not really damage, there was no Soul damage in this place, something protected the souls that lived in the Afterlife, but... There was an impact nonetheless, an effect on his Soul. He was certain that if they were in the Real Realm, that would've hurt a lot more. Especially against him, as his Body and Soul were inescapably bound together.

The consequence of the attack was that Ryun felt slower, as if his Soul's meaning was harder to push on his Essence. His shape flickered, his arm turning into a shapeless tendril for a moment before he pulled it back.

Before he could react, more attacks came, more needles filled with the same type of Ice Qi. Now, he was paying more attention, and he unleashed Oblivion's Mirror. Space rippled around him, and Gravity shifted as he started eroding those two laws. The needles sputtered in the air, with no gravity and the rippling of space their trajectories went wild, flying in all directions. He tried to rob them of their Kinetic Essence with his Aura, but he was too slow to get all of them.

Some dropped to the ground, and others hit the people around Ryun. One though, hit a stone and bounced off, ricocheting and grazing his leg.

He grimaced inwardly as he felt Qi enter his body and attempt to repeat the earlier feat. This time Ryun didn't waste time by trying to fight the invasive Qi, he just swung with his arm and summoned an axe mid swing, cutting his leg off. Before he even finished a step Qi and Essence flowed out of the wound and a new foot landed on the ground.

His shape rippled widely, his meaning and the idea of his being inside his Soul wavering. He felt his body grow, turning into the Wolf of the End without him meaning to. It was what he had discovered his Soul defaulted to, when he didn't pay attention. He let it change, there was no need to keep his human shape now.

Qi flowed through his body as warriors around him decided to fight him together, their cries filled with elation and calls to glory. They were after all Souls who had earned their place in the Warriors Afterlife, they enjoyed the battle and challenges above all else.

He was their guest, it was only proper that he gave them what they were looking for. The Wolf of the End took a step, and Qi flowed out of his body, spheres of concentrated Oblivion Qi formed outside of his body, and his mantle empowered him within. With a thought, he began.

He fought and lost all semblance of time. His mind dropped into a state where his core reached out naturally, the plane of Oblivion opened up and his core started to fill, Qi replenishing as it was spent.

In the distance he felt another fight, a great one. He recognized Nayra, and made his way over to her. Without a word exchanged, he slipped next to her. A Wolf walking on air next to a flying Valkyrie shrouded in black and gold fire.

Together, they dropped down and met the brave warriors of the Afterlife.