Infinite Realm: Monsters & Legends

Chapter 489: Ryun

Anger

"WHERE IS SHE?" Ryun asked, his voice making the world shake as the intent of his Soul slipped through. His anger had been rising. The woman's storm had destroyed everything around her, and she had damaged him even. Wind with enough power to peel skin from the bones, if he still had them, had billowed against him constantly until he caught up. If his body wasn't able to regenerate, if he hadn't become immune to the attacks, he could've died. Most others would've died, he was sure.

The woman was on the ground in front of him, in the middle of the eye of the storm, where some calm remained in the territory. Around them, an entire forest was spinning in a circle with the winds as it was pulled from the ground. They wouldn't be able to remain here for long, he could feel the ocean returning with a vengeance in the distance.

He had to get his answers, and then leave.

She raised her head, weakly, and looked at him with one whole eye. "She is a price for a new world," she breathed out, her eye growing unfocused, her speech slurred. He would need to heal her, her injuries were too great, she probably had a concussion that made her confused. She blinked, then her eye focused on him. "You should understand, you lived in the before," she said slowly, her tone barely above a whisper. "When there was no Framework, when there was no way to gain such monstrous strength that nothing and no one could hope to stop them."

Ryun blinked, then tilted his head at her ramblings. Then he realized what she meant. She was born in this world, in the Infinite Realm, she didn't know what life on the old worlds was like. She thought that it was somehow fairer, that there was less oppression, less people who were powerful. She was wrong. But then again, what she knew of the old world were just stories, or records that might not even be the truth. Ryun could understand how someone might see what was before as something better than the Infinite Realm, but it was all just the same. You had to carve out a place for yourself, and survive, protect what mattered to you.

He leaned forward and spoke again. "WHY DID YOU TAKE HER?"

She blinked, then whispered in a confused tone. "No, I know you. We studied you, Ranker," she said slowly. "You kill everyone who you think has harmed you or yours. I'm already... dead."

Ryun narrowed his eyes, his anger soaring. The audacity of her saying that she knows me. If he still had blood, he was certain that it would be boiling, literally.

"TELL ME WHAT I WANT TO KNOW, AND I WILL... I WILL LET YOU LIVE. I DON'T CARE ABOUT YOU."

She winced, as if his words physically hurt her. She opened her mouth and gibberish left it. A moment later she slumped, unconscious. Ryun pulled out a healing potion and poured it down her throat. He would get his answers, one way or another.

Ryun looked down at the armor that was on the ground next to him, or at least the pieces of it that he had recreated. He had Bright Star consume the original, so that he could inspect the copies without worrying about destroying it, well, destroying it further. Bright Star and he had repaired it of course, aside from the Runes that had already been destroyed. But it was illuminating, and it was a much needed activity. He had to occupy his mind, he could feel his anger slipping from him, his control over his own body lessening. Studying the armor had grounded him, seeing how the Runes worked, how the armor was crafted. It was an Eternal Armor, and a powerful one at that. The Runes seemed to be a language of power similar to both the formations and arrays in many ways. Where formations were more geared toward Essence manipulation and combination to achieve an effect, and arrays were more directly tied to the Framework and manifested effects by using it as a rail system of sorts, the Runes were even more basic than that.

But Ryun had studied the prison that had held the yeti, he could see the influence of this language even there. The Runes weren't any more powerful, in fact Ryun would argue that they were weaker. They required willpower and Soul to be powered, while formations and arrays could be powered by almost any Essence through the process of conversion of energy.

The Runes were just building blocks, reduced to their most basic ideas, not actual Aspects, though there were many overlaps. It was easy to see how an older iteration of Framework could be built on them as a core.

But studying the armor gave him a new understanding. He had heard from Zach how powerful the yeti was, now Ryun knew that Ra'azel wasn't powerful because of Runes, but his mastery of them. The Runes were just a tool, the same as any other.

"Ryun," Bright Star's voice spoke inside his head. "She's stirring."

Ryun pushed against the surge of anger that welled up from inside his Soul. He could feel his entire being fighting against him, pushing him. He raised his head slowly and looked at the woman suspended above him. It had been seven days since their fight.

He had to move them to another territory, they had wrecked the other one, storms ravaged its landscape with such intensity that if he focused he could perceive them even from here. He had to fight himself to bring his attention back in front of him, and keep a tight grip not to lose it. He was growing more and more impatient, more hopeless, already this had taken more than he had planned.

The woman, Maya Rebadotter, was suspended above him. Two swords pierced her shoulders, pinning her to the boulder. The old and new blood had pooled beneath her, and her clothes, what remained of them were thoroughly soaked. The latest healing potion that he used on her had finally done its work, the empty bottle joined with dozens others already on the floor. She was conscious again. The stubs of her limbs were starting to regrow, a side effect of the potion that he had given her. With a thought his Qi moved and four beams flickered out, cutting them down again. He had to splash a weaker potion over the wounds to have them close.

She screamed once more, as she woke up fully. Ryun looked at her, and asked the same question he had been asking over and over again for days.

"WHERE IS SHE?" He whispered, not trusting himself to speak louder. His control was at its limit. It had been failing him for days now. Sometimes, he looked at her and wondered how they had gotten to this point. He didn't mean to do this, but every moment she refused to tell him where they had taken Tali was another moment where he imagined what was happening to her. He didn't know why they had taken her, didn't know what they were doing to her or if she was even still alive. He didn't know if they had Sigmund either, though he was an afterthought in Ryun's mind.

Tali was all that mattered.

Maya glared at him through bloodshot eyes. She was strong, unyielding in the face of pain, and that only made Ryun angrier. He had no tools to make her tell him anything. He had bargained, he had offered riches, he had offered power, even offered to fight for her people. Then he had pleaded, and yes, even begged. The woman's loyalty to her cause was unflinching. He could see it in her eyes. He had known that this wouldn't get him what he wanted, but he was just... So fucking angry. Angry at the fact that people kept coming at those who were close to him, that always someone else's desires intersected with his. And he tried, he really did. Zach had once told him that some people only needed a chance. And he had tried to give a second chance, a third, a fifth, a hundredth. Nothing had phased her. Her belief in her cause didn't waver.

She didn't answer his question, instead she just glared. The cold seeped into his Soul, into his body and mind, as he returned her glare.

"WHY ARE YOU STILL DOING THIS?" Ryun asked. "YOU KNOW THAT THE ONLY WAY THIS STOPS IS IF YOU TELL ME WHAT I WANT TO KNOW."

She didn't speak. Ryun's hand snapped forward, piercing into her stomach. He grabbed a rib and twisted it, breaking it and pulling it out so that it stuck out of her body. She screamed, her body shaking, the swords through her shoulders cutting her up more. It took him a moment to realize that she wasn't shaking in pain.

She was laughing. "I'm already dead," she repeated. It was the only thing she ever said.

Ryun's mind went blank, his anger paused for a moment and he could think clearly for the first time in weeks.

"You're not going to tell me anything, are you?" Ryun asked, she just laughed.

He closed his eyes. She had resigned herself to her fate days ago, he knew that this was all futile, but she was his chance... A thread leading to Tali that had been keeping him from losing it. He could feel his anger rising up again, threatening to swallow him whole.

A red aura spread from his body, uncalled for, the True Death filling the air. He placed his hand on her head without meaning to move, and her eyes bore into his. Then he paused, wrenching control back from his anger. He was a Sage of True Death, it was his choice, but her Soul didn't sing to him as the others had. He didn't care if she died a True Death, but it had to be his choice, not that of his anger.

He gritted his teeth, and pulled back the Presence of the Eternal Hunters. He bowed his head, and then before he lost control again he unleashed his technique. Oblivion Qi washed over her in an instant, disintegrating her body. A gust of wind formed, and attempted to blast away. Ryun shaped with his Qi, trapping it. He looked at it with eyes that saw Essence, and with a surgical pulse of Oblivion he cut the connection it had to the Soul, dismantling her Immortality power. The Wind dissipated, and the Soul faded through the planar barrier, into the Ethereal Realm.

For a moment, there was a silence. He stood and raised his head to the sky. He had just lost his only way of finding Tali. The things that the woman had said told him that they didn't want her for anything good. His friend would suffer again, and there was nothing that he could do.

Only anger remained.