Sacrifice

Ryun removed Scorn and the shell of Flesh and Blood that it had created around him. He expanded his being, Oblivion spreading into a perfect sphere, just large enough to encompass the husk in front of him.

Oblivion surrounded her, and he released Qi into his Area Authority. With his will, his Master of Oblivion, and the Authority within his being, he focused and shaped techniques.

He destroyed everything that was foreign, everything that touched her that wasn’t meant to be there. The hooks that held her suspended, the gemstones inside of her body, the runes and the walls that they had been carved on. Everything but her body was gone in an instant.

He cradled her in his being, in Oblivion. His Essence and Qi flowing through hers. It saddened him to feel no resistance from her. Nothing that could push his authority back, there was no meaning and there was no intent left anymore.

He felt what was left of her Soul and his anger only grew colder as he gained a deeper understanding of the damage, of what had been done to her. It was beyond cruelty, beyond any reason, beyond what Ryun could even comprehend. He considered himself a very harsh person. He was willing to do things in order to safeguard what was his. He was willing to punish, to kill.

But this… there were no words that could describe it.

There was nothing left of her. So he focused on what was missing. On the pieces of her Soul that had been carved out, on the pieces of her body that had been butchered. On the strings that had been cut. Ayin thrummed within his being, a piece of his Soul that felt like it was on fire.

He hit a wall almost immediately. He was trying to subvert fate itself, to change what had happened, to erase Time, action and reaction. His will was pitted against another, against Time itself, and the Way that declared that it could only ever travel in one direction.

His will and being filled the entire Plane of Oblivion, and he found its limits. It was finite… a realm of nothingness that could change the rules of other Essences.

It passed through everything, as if it was not even there at all. And yet, with will and intent it could interact. It was made to be the instrument of change. Or at least that was what Ryun’s understanding of it was.

Destruction was just one part of it, a big part. He could feel his understanding setting into the foundations of the plane, becoming law. An Essence that was an instrument of change.

And it wasn’t enough. He knew it instinctively. Oblivion was too small, too narrow to do what he wanted it to do. Ayin allowed him to tap into the source of Oblivion, into the Plane itself and utilize all of it through himself as a conduit.

He had always felt like Oblivion didn’t quite fit with the rest of the Essences in the Infinite Realm. Like it was too foreign. It was why he liked it so much, why he felt that it was perfect for him. Because often, he felt the same, and he didn’t fully belong. He was the living manifestation of True Death, and he didn’t even understand what that meant fully. What it had been had changed.

The Plane of Oblivion filled him fully, a pocket of reality that was filled with only its Essence. He could draw on it all, and never change what truly mattered to him.

He was going to fail again. He was going to be too weak again.

NO

He knew that power to do what he wanted existed. That it was out there somewhere. He had a memory of a time long ago when he was one. When he stepped out of the marble of reality itself and into True Oblivion. It was so long ago, but the memory resonated with him

And he realized what it was that didn’t fit. This Plane was a fake. It was a piece of Oblivion taken from its source and constrained, turned into a pocket surrounded by reality. The Three had not created it, they had taken what they found around them and bound it within their reality.

But True Oblivion wasn’t that, it could never be that. It was a vastness that was beyond reality, that surrounded it, not the other way around.

The memory came to him again as he submerged himself fully in Oblivion, rising to the surface with perfect clarity that not even the old him had remembered.

I stood at the edge of reality that all things existed in. The end of the end, so far that the growing reality had not yet reached it. With a hand of white and black, I pushed on the wall separating the dream and the end beyond it. I stepped out of the reality and into the emptiness beyond, the Oblivion.

It sought to extinguish me, to take me. But it could not, for I, just like all reality, was made from the piece of something greater than even this place.

It understood me in that moment, and I understood a piece of it.

I sensed them before me, without sight or sound or any sensation at all. It came from within, the piece of me that was part of them.

The Three were here, so vast that I could not comprehend it. Greater than the reality, greater than all things. Three pieces of existence dwelling inside an infinite Oblivion—and made small by it. It surrounded them and dwarfed them.

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This gave me hope, perhaps they could understand. I spoke, and I asked.

The answer came like a roar of a million suns, the grinding of a thousand worlds pressed together, songs not yet invented and all that had been sung before. It was impossible to comprehend the full breadth of their words, they were on a level so far beyond everything else. And their voices touched only my being, they did nothing to the Oblivion around them. Yet I understood one meaning, a tiny part of what they meant, for I was like all else, made out of a piece of them all.

In that moment, I understood also what Oblivion was. What they understood it as. For I was them, and they were me. Yet I cared nothing for that glimmer of the truth, for I had come seeking an answer.

Their answer was: No.

Anger rose, and I turned around and left before I did something to end my existence before its time. Though the Three wouldn’t have cared, nothing he did could ever anger them, for them it would be as if they were angry at themselves.

I returned to reality and pondered. Forgetting what I learned of Oblivion the moment I stepped back into the marble of Reality.

He knew it then, that this piece of Oblivion could never be what he wanted it to be. It could never give him power that he needed. Oblivion was indifference, it was.

So great that even the Three were just tiny compared to it. Tiny, but capable of defying it, yet even that defiance didn’t matter, for it was so vast, a true infinity, grander than all others. There was no Time, no thought, there was nothing within it. Yet it encompassed the Three and their marble of reality, and so it encompassed everything that they had created. All Essence, all thoughts and things. Everything that happened, happened within it, everything that could happen, everything that never would. It was a witness to it all.

And that was what Ryun needed. That vastness. That was what his Oblivion needed to be.

He focused, and with his will, he pulled all of Oblivion to a single point on its plane, the boundary that contained it in reality. Then he gave it intent. He gave it a singular guidance, to bore a hole through reality itself, to that place that he remembered beyond.

Reality wrenched, and the power of his Plane bore through, barely. A tiny gap was opened, for a single moment. He felt something incomprehensible touch him, three hands that blasted his mind to pieces and put it together again in an instant. The bore in reality closed, but it was open, and Ryun felt the vastness of the Oblivion beyond. A trickle of it entered, a thread connecting to the real thing, and in that moment, even as his mind was blown apart, he used it to reshape the Plane of Oblivion into the image of what it always was beyond reality.

The new Way settled fully, the framework accepted his changes and with a finality it was sealed. A foundation of reality altered by Ryun’s hand.

Oblivion filled him and he lost himself, he lost awareness of who he was, lost any knowledge of his goals and desires, knowledge, memories, cognition, his consciousness, it all went away.

Except one small piece, one that he had pushed away—True Death. And within it one small desire remained, sheltered by the Aspect that was the other half of his Soul.

The desire to save his friend, to erase what had happened to her. For True Oblivion, it would be a simple thing. It was not destruction, it was not change, it was not even emptiness, it was infinity. And within infinity all things were possible, all were natural. There could be no outcome that infinity wouldn’t see.

He channeled that understanding through Ayin, targeting the friend cradled within his being. His authority changed with the change of the Way he created. The Way of Oblivion, that he had altered with a new understanding that pushed his power to greater heights.

Strings of probability, of fate, reemerged, wounds on her body vanished as if they were never there. Her body was a butchered mess in one moment, and in the next Time since she had been captured was no more, the effects, the wounds, they had been pruned from existence, lost to all but the infinity that had witnessed it.

But her Soul… her Soul was something else. No matter what he did, the Soul didn’t change. It remained the crippled shell of what it once was, pieces still missing.

It wasn’t enough, it would never be enough.

IT WILL NOT END LIKE THIS.

He spoke with the voice of his true self, the voice of HE WHO ENDURES TO BEHOLD THE BEGINNING OF ALL, the one that would remain until infinity witnessed all.

YOU WANT MORE FROM ME? I GIVE IT, TAKE IT ALL.

He focused his will on his Soul, his being, his authority. He found the piece of himself that channeled the power of the Framework to manifest Ayin, the location of the perk within his Soul. And he pushed all that he had into that one point. He carved his Soul apart, pulling the perk out and burning it, the same way he used to create his spiritual tools. He pulled it out and offered it all.

His will trembled under the effort, his core was burning as pure Oblivion poured in from the Plane shaped in the image of infinity within a constrained space. A smaller infinity, but one that had been touched by the real thing, if only for a moment.

Ayin blazed out of his being, the piece of his Soul burned out as he targeted the strings missing from her Soul.

The perk shattered alongside a piece of his soul, and the Framework obliged.

Anatalien’s Soul pulled itself together, becoming whole again. Causality itself reversed.

Ryun’s core shutdown, the connection he had with Oblivion broke and his Soul ached, the parts of it that were Oblivion hurt. He pulled himself back, condensing his body as agony threatened to fracture him in half. True Death reemerged, and a vessel manifested, cradling Tali in his arms.

She was whole, and he could feel her Soul. He had done it.

“Tali?” He whispered, trying to wake her up, but there was no response. Her Soul was whole, but he felt nothing from it. No thought, no emotion, only the reflection of the Essences that made up her Soul.

He had to get her out of here.

His link with Selia reestablished itself, and she told him what was happening. The battle against the yeti. He had to help.

He reached to his Send Thought perk, improved by his advancement, and that of the one who carried its twin.

“I have her,” Ryun sent. “Come to me.”

Claws dripping with Oblivion carved through the Real Realm, opening up a way through for the Emissary of Twilight whose power had grown as Ryun had advanced.

Erclaw stepped through, with Reki Ra Jhan and Eari Ji Van following close behind.

“You did something,” Erclaw rumbled. “That was easier than last time.”

Ryun didn’t respond, instead he stood on shaky legs and offered Tali to him.

“Take her, protect her. Go straight to the sect, to healers. Something is wrong with her Soul.”

Ereclaw grabbed her without hesitation.

“Should we stay?” Reki asked, his eyes looking out the hole in the wall and the battle beyond.

Ryun shook his head. “She is why we came, she is more important. Go.”

They didn’t question, and Ryun turned around as they stepped back into the Ethereal Realm.

As the tear in the planes closed behind him, his wrath grew as he allowed himself to feel it fully once again. The cold anger turned into a burning bonfire within his Soul, and True Death called for an end to the one who had done that to his friend.

Ryun’s body grew as he unloaded his density, it shifted and changed, becoming a massive black wolf with a white mask on his face. Becoming the visage of who he once was.

The Reaper glared across the world with blind eyes, seeing a Soul whose end he had decreed. It was time for Ra’azel to end.