Infinite Realm: Monsters & Legends

Chapter 506: Zach

Skills

Zach and Naha retreated to the back of the airship, standing in the open dock area. He looked out at the endless ocean beneath them. He had never seen anything like it, an endless expanse that truly gave weight to the meaning of Infinite Realm. If he didn't know better, standing there and looking out, he could believe that the water stretched forever in all directions, infinitely.

"What are you thinking about," Naha asked, jolting him out of his thoughts.

Zach glanced at her, then looked back at the ocean. "Some of the things he talked about resonated with me. The things about madness though," he shook his head. "What do you think?" He asked, she was the only one among them who had felt its grip on her fully, and had managed to come back.

"When I went mad, my imbalance turned me into a monster. The things that I wanted to do, to be, were perverted. I had the two focuses that were... I can see the truth in what he had said. The Devourer Class and the Path of Horrifying Visage, they were both conflicting with what it was that my core beliefs were, to protect my people. I failed in what I had tried to do, and then I spiraled, I advanced and it only became worse. My Skills, if I apply Ryun's theories to what happened to me back then, it does fit. My anchors reinforced my desire to protect, but my focuses were opposing to that, the ways that I used them were opposing to that."

"Did you feel your mind slipping before you advanced and further imbalanced yourself?" Zach asked.

"I... It blurs together, I can't tell. At some point I just snapped under the weight of the influences of my focuses. But, I can see how they forced me into something that I didn't want to be. I know that my focuses could've been used to protect, but I didn't use them for that and I went mad. It turned around when I met you, when I anchored my love for you into the skill. It gave me something, someone, important to protect. A reason to fight and turn back from the abyss. My meaning if that even exists, had always been to protect. And now my madness had vanished as I advanced further, as I molded my Class into something that can be used to protect. Shadow is something that can shroud, that can conceal, that can protect. That can help me remove the threats to those I want to protect. And I've anchored more of myself into my Skills, reinforced my purpose."

Zach nodded, his experience was similar. His madness, was it because he had too many tiers over too many focuses, or was it because those focuses conflicted. Lord of Aspects and the Path of the Lightning Blade clashing against his Soul's desire to learn, to gather Knowledge. Did his madness recede because he removed his focus, or because he established a Way, reinforced his understanding of an Aspect according to the direction of his Class while also following the meaning of his Soul?

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He didn't know, but now he questioned everything.

"You are close to having all of your skills pushed to the ninth tier, how do you feel, how do your anchors feel?"

"I feel better, I've locked in pieces of me that love the Shadows for what they give me. Shadow can hide, it can hold, it can protect. It aligns with what I've always wanted to do and be."

Zach turned pensive, there were a lot of things that he felt were on the right track. He himself had been holding off on advancing his skills because he worried about what he was locking in. But was that actually the key to a proper advancement? To seal things into skills slowly, as you advanced, reinforcing who you were, shaping your meaning and your focuses. Most people advanced skills slowly, through the use of skill quests, he himself had several that were finished and waiting. He could evolve all of his remaining lower tiered skills at least once with those quests. But why allow people to skip the quests?

"Why do you think that people advance Skills easier if they are broken? If they had experienced trauma?" Zach asked after a while.

Naha leaned against him and put a hand around his waist. "Because hardship reveals. It forces us to look into the deepest parts of ourselves and face who we are at the core of our being."

Zach closed his eyes as he returned her embrace. He was thinking the same, which meant that at least part of what Ryun theorized was right. The Skill was the manifestation of the Soul's will into the world. The ability to force the world to change according to your will. Broken people developed the sense of their Soul faster, they could impose their will with greater power because they knew themselves better than most.

If what Ryun spoke about was on the right track, the Skills, as they were, would allow people to slowly learn themselves as they completed the quests, or perhaps shape themselves if they didn't know their Souls. Perhaps that was another way, the Framework was very big on choice. Being able to choose your Soul's meaning might actually be something that was possible.

Which made Zach think about how much of his own meaning was him choosing it by anchoring pieces of himself in the moment, and how much was it what he had shaped by his life choices, the person that he became.

After a while, he turned to look at Naha next to him.

"You never went into details about what you learned from from the Grand Spirit of Horror," he said.

Naha shifted, then responded after a few seconds. "The Grand Spirit of Horror is," she paused. "Exactly what you think it is, but also, it's not just that. It is so much more. Horror exists as a response to something that is wrong, that is terrible, that is abhorrent to all. The response itself isn't evil or wrong, it's a defense mechanism, it's our conscience telling us something."

She grew silent, her face turning to look at the sky, her eyes betraying a mind lost in thought. "I learned that Horror had its place, that it can be a tool that I could use to protect people. Fear is a motivator, and not everyone deserves to die. You always say that people deserve a second chance. Sometimes, terrifying your enemies will be preferable to killing them."

Zach smiled and pulled her closer. He was lucky that he had her, that she understood him so well. That she shared his beliefs and desires.

There was a lot on their minds, matters that concerned the entire world and everyone who lived in it. But for these few moments of peace, he let those matters settle in the back of his mind. Together they looked out at the ocean, enjoying the rest of the night.