Infinite Realm: Monsters & Legends

Chapter 490: Ryun

Lost in Wrath

Ryun's anger boiled into WRATH. An emotion that roared from the depths of his soul, woken up from its sleep. It remembered all the other times it had lost. Back when the Dealmaker broke his word, when his purpose was discarded. When humanity had decided that he was wrong just for not fitting in. When a greedy rat killed people he considered friends, when his first love, Melody died in flames. When he lost Eerv, his friend, to the arrogance of a failure. Lost the chance for their relationship to grow, to become something more. The afterlife was not life, he had understood that when he had visited. It was the loser's bracket, a chance for something, but it wasn't a path that could be walked with those who were still living. Long ago, Ryun had made a promise to himself that he wouldn't lose the things that were precious to him again. He had tried to be alone, as to not give the world the opportunity to take, and he had failed in that. He had people who he cared about, who he had made promises to, people he loved. And he lost again, Ender, his people.

And now he would lose something once more, there was nothing that he could do to find Tali that wouldn't blacken his soul, wouldn't change him in ways that he was incapable of changing to. For all of his power, he was powerless.

And that made him filled with that terrible emotion, WRATH. At himself, at the world, at those who went after Tali.

His power bubbled out of him, he didn't call for it, but Qi surged and the Essence Shell around his body disintegrated as if it was never there. Techniques burst out of him as his body grew ten times its size, then more. His body was Essence, and his Core was a bottomless pit of Oblivion, he felt the gate to the plane break open and the world faded away as his rage took control. All around him, everything started to die.

Ryun was someone who felt deeply, but only for those who were close to him. He had never been a person that cared about strangers, that cared about the world, he was an outcast. Born different, wrong according to many. Despite all of that he endured, he pushed forward and built an existence for himself. A place that had people who looked up to him, who expected him to shelter them, to protect them, to be the mountain that stands in between them and the world. But he made a mistake, he had focused so much on what was his, that he dismissed everything that existed outside. He had forgotten, just how easily decisions of others could impact him. He had looked at the Dome armies as something like a force of nature, like a storm, or a volcano. He had fought against those armies because he didn't want that storm to reach his shores. But people... He had always thought that he could just end them if they became a threat. But what he cared about had grown too large. He couldn't be everywhere at once, he couldn't protect all of his family.

That realization was the first ember of what became the firestorm of his Wrath. An emotion, an Essence that was burned into the world, created by his very Soul. He lost control, and everything around him died. His body grew to the size of a mountain, a twisted image of a gaping hole in space. Tendrils lashing out with wolf claws and maws, fangs slashing and cutting everything and nothing. Animals in the woods died as Oblivion Aura stifled everything in the territory. Rivers dried up, and mountains crumbled. Waves of his techniques lashed out in all directions, burrowing into the ground, cutting open the sky and letting the Void spill in.

Ryun was buried beneath all that Wrath, all that guilt. He had failed before, and he was failing again.

He was watching like a passenger from deep within his Soul. He unleashed so much power, more than he had ever done, more than he knew he was capable of. He demolished the territory, transforming the hills and rivers and forests into a desolate landscape where nothing lived, where not even rock or air existed, just a gaping hole in reality. The Under caverns deep below, and the Void spilling like a waterfall from above. The damage wasn't contained to the single territory, his wrath reached beyond. His perception expanded so far that he could watch people crying out in fear, then run away as a calamity approached them. He couldn't bring himself to care.

The world shook for leagues in all directions. Territories far away from the source suffered the consequences, earthquakes struck dozens of territories, wild dungeons were disturbed and their occupants displaced. Towns crumbled as the ground rippled, as if the foundation of the world itself was tearing apart. The sky lost its color in the lands near enough, cracks in the Sky ceiling spread, leaking Void across territories, making the people living below panic. Not many knew what existed above the sky, most people were weak, uneducated. For them, the sky itself was falling apart, the end had come.

Monsters ran, barreling through everything in their way, new monster hordes were being formed as they ran away, their fear pushing them into a frenzy. The effects of which would be felt for years to come. Notifications blazed in the minds of many as new events were born, opportunities in all that calamity. People would die, people would advance. It was the nature of the Infinite Realm.

As lost as he was, he almost didn't notice another voice in his head. He couldn't hear what it said, he couldn't even tell what it felt, yet he knew it. It was the voice of his other part, Scythe, the Twin to his Reaper. Two parts of a single whole. It was trying to bring him back, to help him push the anger back. She was trying, but he was too lost to hear her. Still, her presence lessened the hold, Ryun could feel himself being drawn forward, closer to control. He perceived what he had done all around himself, and was... Disturbed. He remembered what he had done to the woman, he... He wasn't someone who lost control so easily. That wasn't who he was. He was the Emissary of the End, the one who ushered everything to the beginning, he was a Monster that cut through anything in his way, a survivor, he kept his word, he wanted to understand, he loved cultivation and he loved smithing, and he advanced.

He wasn't this eldritch abomination wreaking havoc on the world. He poured his will into his |Mental Fortitude| felt it shaking and changing into something more to help him control his actions. And he slowly grabbed hold of himself. With a gargantuan effort of will, he pulled his body back, compressed it back into a human shaped nothingness. He tried, and couldn't manifest his Shell, his Soul was angry, it didn't care to appear human. Menially he understood that he was his Soul, so that meant that it was a part of him that didn't want to return to what he once was.

Afraid that he would lose control again, he quickly used his Oblivion Territory Gate, and threw himself into his Territory.

The world inside of his Soul was trembling. He heard attempts from Bright Star to communicate, but its voice, just like Selia's, couldn't break through the haze in his Soul. It was wrath, fury, indignation, it was scorn toward everything in the world that dared to stand in his way, to take from him.

It would overwhelm him again. And Ryun didn't know what to do.

Bright Star was pulsing, the stars and nebulas at the center of his Territory where the forge stood, were flickering, as if calling to him. He walked over and pulled out Bright Star. The hammer's dark shape with flashes of light was replaced by exploding suns within its body, as if the forge too could feel his emotions.

He couldn't hear Bright Star's voice, he couldn't hear anything but the pounding in his mind, drowning everything else. Somehow, he could tell what Bright Star wanted, and he let himself go. He grabbed an ingot from a bucket nearby and placed it on the anvil. The hammer came down, the nebulas around him pulsed red, and the piece of metal bent, his skill pouring out of him to shape its Essence, his anger taking it and disfiguring the metal in an instant. He felt.... Lighter for a moment, as if a piece of his anger poured into that metal.

It wasn't strong enough, it couldn't hold not even that tiny piece. His head was thrumming now, the memories of the smith bubbling up to the surface, mingling with the ancient memories of the Reaper, of the one who walked before, of Ryun's own work, creation.

Ryun wasn't really in the driving seat anymore. Something else took hold of him, an inspiration, like what he had felt before when he advanced his Cultivation, a moment of clarity. Ryun moved, and the territory twisted, he reached for the body of a Grand Spirit and raised his hammer.