Beyond Wrath

Ryun entered the tower. The moment he passed through the threshold, he realized that the place was somehow shifted in Space—which was why he couldn’t perceive anything inside of it from the outside. Now that he had entered, he slowly spread his perception out from his vessel, his Qi ready to respond to any threats.

First he sensed the various items scattered all around. Pieces of animals, bones and flesh, and some that were not animals at all. Jars filled with liquids, Essence crystals; formations and arrays that had been taken apart.

Then blood on the ground. He paused, then after a moment continued on, walking deeper into the room while slowly expanding his sense.

He found her on the other side of the room, and he walked over to stand in front of her in the blood that pooled beneath her.

There were runes carved into the wall behind her and on the chains that hung from above. He called to Scorn, and had it sheath his vessel, compressing it further to allow Scorn the room to create flesh and blood, to create eyes.

He opened them and looked at her.

“Oh,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry, my friend.”

There were no arms, and there were no legs, only poorly sewn together nubs, dried blood caked all over them. Tali was hanging on two hooks that had pierced her armpits. Her wings were spread behind her, only bones remained of them, the skin was flayed and the feathers collected in a barrel nearby.

Her horns were cut level with her skull. She had no eyes, no lower jaw. Her stomach was open and organs were missing, glowing crystals were wedged into place, pulsing softly in rhythm with her barely pumping heart. There was barely any blood inside of her veins. He didn’t know how she was being kept alive.

Her physical body was a husk. It wasn’t what made his heart break. His eyes saw Essence, he saw the Soul nestled inside of her. It was pulled into the Real Realm, and it was mutilated beyond any hope of recognition.

What his Soul perception sensed made him want to cry, and he hadn’t cried in a long time. He reached out with a hand and touched her cheek. Tali twitched, and he was filled with rage.

There was no recognition, there was nothing but a base reflex. He could feel the call inside, faint, so faint, but he sensed a Soul that called out for True Death.

There was nothing of Tali left. Her Soul was cut up and harvested. He could see the pieces taken out of her that had once housed her power. She had a perk that allowed her to continue and survive any type of Soul damage, but there was nothing of her left. That told him that the monster had cut that perk out of her.

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There was no room in the wretched and ragged thing that she remained for any measure of power. No immortality, no power, not even thought, there wasn’t enough for a thinking mind.

He was too late, and the guilt pushed his anger away. It pressed down on him and made everything feel pointless. All that he had built in the Infinite Realm. The connections that he had made, the power that he had amassed, it felt like it was all for nothing. Like no matter what he did, he would lose people.

He remembered the conversations he had with Selia and Erdania about immortality, about loss. They had lost so much over their lives. People that they loved, their family, friends.

To them it was the way of life, it was inevitable. Ryun had tried to fight against it for as long as he lived. When he lost Melody, he had pushed everything and everyone away. He had lived his life alone, in part to spare himself the pain that he had felt back then.

Then he started making new connections in this new world. And again he lost people, those who could’ve become friends, allies, those who relied on him, those that followed him; Eerv, Zenker, Reyla, Ender, so many more whom he never even had a chance to get to know.

What was the point of all the power that he had earned, if this was the result?

Tali wasn’t like the others, she was strong. She had what it took to be one of the strongest. Yet, here she was, reduced to this by a monster, and for what?

Why? Why? WHY?

ANGER RETURNED, WRATH FILLED HIM TO THE BRIM. HER SOUL CALLED TO HIM, TRUE DEATH GROWING INSIDE OF HIM TO TAKE THE WRETCHED SOUL TO WHAT WAS BEFORE AND WOULD BE AGAIN.

—Ryun pushed his anger down. He pushed True Death down and embraced Oblivion.

“No,” he whispered, turning his boiling anger and wrath into a cold instrument to fuel him. “Not again. Never again. I promised.”

—Conclusion Dominance—

His vision filled with lines, with strings of future probabilities, with strings that had been cut, of probabilities that would never be. One shone brightly in his mind, attached to what was left of Anatalien’s Soul. A True Death that was coming, a True Death that was inevitable.

He opened himself to the Plane of Oblivion fully, and dove into it. He felt it all, felt the faint touches on it, drawing power, tainting it with their own understanding of it.

He sunk his mind and his will into it. To him, Oblivion was the power to change anything. To erase what was in front of him. To alter the rules, to break down cognition, to defy creation itself.

He forced his idea, his understanding on it. He shaped Oblivion into his Way. And as he wrought it in his image, he pulled on his perk—Ayin.

The power to deny fate. To erase anything that he wanted out of existence. He reached up and gently touched the face of the husk before him, touching not only flesh but the Soul itself.

Power thrummed through him, his entire being was consumed with it. The Plane of Oblivion was trembling, faint voices were crying out, but Ryun’s cold wrath fueled his will, he crushed them all beneath his weight.

As he felt the Essence of what Oblivion was changing, becoming something that he wanted it to be, he focused on what he wanted it to do.

Ayin

To erase the strings that had been cut. To erase the pain, to erase the damage, the butchery before him. To erase fate that had already taken place. To erase the Time itself and return it to what it was before. To defy everything and everyone.

His will shook the room isolated from Space, and it fractured. Sending them back to the Real Realm. And Ryun’s mind was consumed by Oblivion.