Infinite Realm: Monsters & Legends

Chapter 479: Ryun

True Death and Oblivion

Ryun opened himself up to Oblivion fully, diving as deep into it as he ever has. He tried to remember what he felt from the six Sages, how their mastery over their Aspects felt while they fought. He needed that, to reach and grasp that level of knowledge about an Aspect, to become a Sage himself. Yet he was missing something, he knew, his understanding of Oblivion was his own, it wasn't what Oblivion itself was.

What Zach had said made things harder for him. For him, Time had been an almost instinctual part of him, he had done something more. Took the step beyond Sage to craft and shape his own Way. To force his Aspect into his own idea of it.

Ryun had been trying to do that ever since he learned that it was possible, and he failed at every attempt. He felt like he was making progress, inching closer and closer, but... It wasn't showing any real result. Not at the rate he was used to. And that... Bothered him, he had to admit it. He was used to this coming to him with ease.

Or perhaps, he was just trying to do too many things at the same time. He didn't know, and this was a personal journey, something that he had to figure out on his own.

Oblivion to him was peace, it was a state of nonexistence, something other than reality, untouchable and able to interact with other Essences, but never being able to be changed by invasive Essences. It could be suppressed, pushed back, as he had seen when he fought the Sages, but they couldn't turn Oblivion into something else, not like how Water could turn into Ice.

When he had grasped Oblivion, he had felt the emptiness, the lack of voices, of anything guiding it. He had been close to glimpsing something, but then the Plane of Oblivion threw him out, and he left it with a sense of loss. He remembered that his perks, his titles, had reacted in a way they had because there was something closely related between Oblivion and True Death. Again, he hadn't advanced on his own accord, but because the part of him that was True Death already had something that he lacked.

It was frustrating, because he knew that part of him was the aspect of True Death, but he didn't remember it aside from a few memories that he remembered as pale shadows of what they truly were.

He didn't know how to continue, yet he felt the need and the desire to do so. This was what he had always loved the most in his life. This advancement, pushing through obstacles and grasping something beyond his current self.

Oblivion opened up inside of him an endless expanse of nothingness, a realm of purest Silence. A realm that could take away the nature of anything it leaned on. Yet it was unguided, free in a way that no other Essence that Ryun had ever experienced was.

As he let himself feel it, the True Death inside of him grew louder. The ticking of the Call was nearly deafening, and he felt as if the pulsing was coming from... Farther in the plane of Oblivion.

That realization nearly threw him out of the deep meditative state he had entered, it nearly broke his connection to Oblivion. Somehow, he managed to clear his mind, to divide it and push the alarm and surprise into a deepest part of his mind and let the rest absorb the information freely.

He had known this, True Death and Oblivion were linked, they always had been. It was why his Aspects had merged into Oblivion. Everything in his life had been colored by the fact that his Soul had inherited the mantle of the Reaper, one of the Twin Aspects of True Death.

This shouldn't have surprised him, and yet... A memory rose into his mind, a memory that was a dream of a being bearing a scythe. A memory of a being stepping through the fabric of reality to speak with the ultimate creators of everything, the Three. Ryun remembered it as if he was there, as if he was the one that had swung that scythe and cut through reality, as if it was him that had stepped out. And it was, an older iteration of him, the first Aspect of True Death, before it split itself into two.

Ryun remembered stepping through the layers of reality and into...

The Call reached the crescendo and Oblivion pushed him out. His eyes opened and he knew that it was time. He turned and looked at the karura, and found that he was now looking straight at him.

"You are like them," he gestured with his head toward the battlefield. "Aren't you?"

Ryun's perception was still focused on him, on his Soul. And like Zach taught him, he could feel... Something. An impression of the Soul's meaning. It matched the look in karura's eyes.

"Them?" Ryun asked, though he suspected he knew the answer.

Karura looked back at the battlefield and spoke. "The warriors that ascended."

Ryun followed his gaze. "Why do you think that I am the same?"

"You feel similar," karura said. "I can tell that you are close to reaching whatever it is that makes them worthy."

Ryun turned to look back at the karura. "I'm not dead, I'm just visiting."

Karura blinked, looked surprised. "Ah, I've heard of you, visitors," he nodded after a beat, his eyes turning back to the vague and almost unseeing look they had before, gazing at the sky. "Why are you here?"

Ryun hesitated for a moment and then spoke. "I'm here for you, I believe."

He turned again to meet Ryun's eyes. "For me?"

Ryun remembered the last times he had done this, and he saw the common threads. He saw what tied Jikharuud and Ullia with this warrior.

"You are tired, aren't you?" Ryun asked instead of answering.

The warrior tilted his head, and then nodded, not bothering to speak. Ryun saw it in his eyes, and he felt it in his Soul, the deep weariness, the weight of everything. In that moment, everything slid into place for him.

The memories of the Aspect of True Death, and his half of the Twin Aspects of True Death after, they were there in his mind. They informed him of things, that colored who he was. But what those memories showed him wasn't true, it was a different iteration of Reality. A reality in which every being had a clock, a Time when their life was to End. The Aspect of True Death was the instrument that ushered them from Reality into the beyond, and Ryun finally understood what it was.

Names were important, there were no coincidences.

"You don't want to struggle anymore," Ryun said.

Karura closed his eyes, then spoke. "I have tried, both in life and in this place. I had watched others grasp at things that are beyond my understanding. I have seen the great Wheel come down and take them away to someplace else, to something more. I will never reach that," he raised his hand to the sky, his old and twig like fingers grasping at the air. "I will never be like them."

It finally made sense to Ryun, why he had been feeling this sensation so rarely. Why he didn't feel it all the time, what True Death really was. It was so obvious, it had been staring him in the face from the beginning.

Essence couldn't be destroyed, it only changed shape, it changed its nature, its purpose.

"Yes," Ryun said, he saw it, he understood. The karura had given up, his Soul was done.

There was a purpose to everything in Reality. There was no longer a timer for True Death in this Iteration of it, not like how it existed before. That was why he didn't feel the coming sense of True Death of everyone he met. Now, he only felt the coming death of those Souls that had reached some point that he didn't quite understand yet. Perhaps they had fulfilled all that they had to do, like Jikharuud, or perhaps they were just tired like Ullia and this warrior.

But he knew deep down with unwavering certainty that this was the end for them. There was more to this life, but the warrior would never meet the requirements to take the next step.

Ryun understood that this was the core disagreement between the old Aspect of True Death, the Dealmaker, and the Three. The Aspect of True Death of back then was created for a singular purpose. It had felt betrayed by the change in plans, it had wanted to be the True Death of everything, even itself.

And what was True Death? It was ultimately the same as Death. It was a transition, a way to move a Soul from one reality to another.

Ryun remembered the memories of old, flashing in front of his mind like pictures scrolling through, too fast for him to see it, to know it, but enough that he glimpsed and understood.

A True Death was not non-existence, it was not a true End, such a thing didn't exist. It was a concept with no reality. A True Death was an End though, a Final End in a way. It was a passage from all the layers of reality into Oblivion, and what awaited beyond. That which Ryun had glimpsed through memories and dreams. The Three, the creators of everything. The beings that had given pieces of themselves to breathe life into Oblivion.

Ryun wondered if his young self would've collapsed as a result of some existential crisis at knowing the truth. But Ryun of now didn't feel anywhere close to something like that. It didn't change anything. They were all pieces of the Three, everything around them was. They wouldn't exist without them.

He didn't know the ultimate purpose of why they had created reality itself, but he was grateful for it. Grateful that he existed at all. And he knew, that True Death and Oblivion were the first Iteration of what came to exist in this one as Death and Afterlife.

The Three had added another layer, another chance. Ryun knew one thing for sure, the Wheel didn't lead to True Death, it didn't lead to the Three. There was another layer of reality above, another plane of existence. He didn't know how many such layers there were, but he was certain of one thing. Ultimately, there would be a last one, and after that there would be only one step for Souls to take, the return to the beginning, to the Three.

He couldn't even attempt to comprehend why the Three wanted that, perhaps they just waited for the pieces of themselves, that they had cut off to create those Souls, to return, to experience their lives. He didn't know, but he felt like that idea was close.

Ryun stepped closer to the karura, then spoke. "I can help you reach the end."

The warrior looked into Ryun's eyes, and somehow Ryun felt like he knew him. His Soul was laid bare open, and flashes of dreams like memories surged through Ryun's mind. There was a roaring inside of Ryun's ears, a sound that wasn't sound, that rolled through his Mind and Soul. Somehow, Ryun knew that the karura's name was Hashk of the Hidden Creek. He knew that he had been a warrior all his life, that he had not been able to achieve immortality. That his life was that of struggle and always coming up short. His Afterlife was much the same. Hashk had gazed upon the Wheel many times, and each time his hope of achieving the same, having it come down for him, faded.

The six Sages fight against Ryun and Nayra was his last straw. His Soul could bear no more failure.

"I would appreciate that," the karura, Hashk, said.

It felt so much clearer to him, the thing that Zach had talked about before. The idea behind his being. He was The Witness of Journey's End, and he was the Final End and the Unbreakable Wall. He was the Aspect of True Death, and eventually he would be the Aspect of Oblivion.

The old Aspect of True Death had rebelled, had wanted to be something that wasn't intended for this Iteration. A part of Ryun wondered if the Framework was changed after Ryun became the Reaper, or if he was being used as a way to clear up Souls like the karura's. An aimless Soul unable to progress. Or was it that Ryun's own existence, already bound to the new Framework, had changed the purpose of the old Aspect. Had they just made a new role for him when they integrated the Aspect of True Death into him through the Eternal Hunter: Reaper perk?

He couldn't know that, but he felt that this was right. That this was a good end.

Ryun stepped closer to Hashk still, and took his hands in his own. He released his presence, the red field of the Reaper, and kept it close. Hashk blinked, probably reading the notification, and then his beak clicked in what Ryun knew was karura laughter.

"Yes," he said. "This is what I want."

Ryun focused his Qi, pulling Oblivion from his core. He shaped a technique in an instant and focused his mind and intent on what he wanted.

A small {Final End} blasted out of him, and in an instant the karura was gone. His Essence not deleted, not destroyed, but transformed. He didn't see it, didn't sense it anymore, but in the deepest part of himself he knew that he had sent it through the layers of reality, as all Essence that he had deleted before. He returned it back to its origin, the Three sitting outside of reality, in an endless Oblivion.

The Oblivion that was the first Essence in existence, the realm in which the Three had come into being as its opposites.

He closed his eyes and felt notification inside of his mind, with a thought he pulled them up.

Insightful knowledge acquired

You peered into the deeper laws and concepts of Essences. You grasped the truth behind them.

Great Feat accomplished

Rewards:

Glimpse of True Death Title

Grasp of True Death Title

Sage of True Death Title

Sage of Oblivion Title

Witness Life Title and Grand Perk

Tittle

Witness Life

+100 to base wisdom, Witness Life (Grand Perk), 10 Celestial Essence

Perk

Witness Life

Gain a glimpse of memories from those whose journey you hasten through True Death.

He allowed himself a small smile, he had finally managed to cross the hurdle that had been in his way.