Savage Awakening 570. One More Thing (I)

The young masters watched in silence as Jack finished off the Astrolith King. Fists clenched, wrenching back his chains. The very same he’d used to bring down the giant.

“He just keeps going!” said the Drawn Sword Sect young master, eyes shining.

That was the strongest impression Jack made on them—his relentlessness. Even after he’d just exhausted himself with that huge slash he threw himself right back into the fray, fighting with every last scrap of strength and essence…

Ghostly time Laws kept streaming off Jack too, like he was fighting time itself to get the job done. Those Laws were quite the annoyance to Zane, but to the young masters they made a striking visual effect. This man bringing down a goliath with his bare hands, even as reality itself resisted him. They could all see the sheer effort, the straining in the muscles of his neck and jaw…. 

“Cool…” whispered a white-haired young master. A few other young masters nodded in agreement.

Zane’s decision had paid dividends in this respect, actually. He’d gotten a bit lucky in terms of the coolness factor. If he’d chosen to keep smashing at the King, it might’ve been possible to get the job done. But flailing very slowly at it would’ve been significantly less awe-inspiring.

The King’s head finally had enough. It crumpled under the pressure.

Jack staggered, sweat pouring down his frame, matting locks of long hair to his head… but it was done.

***

Zane had been racing there, trying to finish the King before it had a chance to get that ‘Annihilation Star’ skill back. In the end, he was pretty sure he finished it with a decent margin to spare.

He had to go down to a knee for a bit.

He felt absolutely wrecked.

It was the first time he’d had to pull that much out, over and over, in a single fight. Three charges, back-to-back.

Physically, he felt utterly smashed. Even his soul felt steamrolled.

But overall he was feeling quite satisfied right now. Just a rush of warm feelings… it felt like a fitting end to his time in the Pure Yang.

He headed over to Kain, who’d collected himself. He thought about giving the fellow a fist bump, but he wasn’t sure Kain would know what that was. Kain also just didn’t seem like a fist-bump kind of guy, to be honest.

Kain coughed and stood back upright. He dusted himself off. “Good work.”

“I’m happy with it.” Zane glanced over at the King, then at the little crowd in the distance. “Do you think we’ll have any trouble from those guys?”

“Unlikely, I’d think.”

They headed over to pick up their prize.

The King collapsed into stone. Its starfire streaked back into the Pure Yang lands. The only things left in its wake were a collection of shards floating mid-air, the most Zane had ever seen in a single bundle.

Shard of True Destruction (???)

There were twenty in all, counted up. They agreed to split them half and half.

Which left Zane with a clean 92 Shards of Destruction heading out of the Pure Yang lands. Just under 6 plates. Not bad at all. 

“You didn’t need to use those escape runes after all,” said Zane amiably.

Kain had only agreed to the fight if they came with escape runes. Runes that would let them tear rifts in reality and get to a safe distance if things went wrong. This fight was a fight at their limits, after all—a fight with a fair chance of going wrong.

“No, I didn’t,” said Kain. 

A part of Zane wasn’t really a fan of the idea on principle, but he ended up agreeing. He didn’t think he’d fall here, but he had too much counting on him these days.

Kain looked over the King and seemed pleased with the result too.

“So what’d you think?” said Zane. “Pretty fun, right?” 

“You are not making a fighter of me,” said Kain dryly. “This isn’t kebabs.”

“You never know.”

“This one, I am certain about. This simply isn’t my kind of battle. I prefer things more… set up, shall we say. Less getting my hands dirty.”

Zane nodded. “Yeah, I get what you mean.”

He’d seen Noughtfire fight before; taking down Gilgoroth, for instance, way back in the Superdungeon.

“But yes,” said Kain. “I did enjoy that.”

“At least learn a movement technique or something.”

Kain seemed amused. “I’ll do that.”

“…That’s that, then.”

“That’s that,” Kain agreed.

It felt a little bittersweet. Not all that much; he reminded himself he’d probably be debriefing with a version of Kain before too long. But still... he never finished up a training stint without feeling at least a little melancholy.

He’d spent fifteen years here studying starfire, watching Yang League with the guy, smashing astroliths—just overall having a pretty chill time. A more chill time than he’d expected coming in. 

“I’ll see you later,” said Zane.

“Later?”

“You’ll see.”

He felt surprised how at much he’d miss this place, his routine here. He’d spent most of it putting his head down and grinding his Skills and Laws… it’d been the kind of quiet in which he could really focus. He’d quite appreciated that. 

And he’d made a new old friend here, too, and gotten some unexpected entertainment out in Yang League to boot. Couldn’t really complain about any of it, honestly.

He gave Kain a wave and made to set off. 

“How lovely.”

The voice came out of thin air.

A line cut through reality in front of them both, making a rectangle. Then it flipped like a revolving door. 

“But not so fast, I’m afraid… so sorry to spoil your little finale! There’s just one final order of business.”

The man floating before them could only be described as rat-like. He was greasy, hunched, twitchy, and paunchy—one of the more punchable men Zane had seen. Especially with that big grin on his face.

“I hope you didn’t think you were done here,” said the man. “I haven’t even had my say!”

Zane looked to Kain. “Do you know this guy?”

“Not by name,” said Kain, frowning. “Though I may be familiar with his work.”

“Then let me introduce myself.” The man bowed. “They call me the Undying One, but I go more commonly by Hreinn. I am but a humble servant of the great and mighty Lord Malzareth.” 

Zane blinked. He remembered Noughtfire mentioning this guy a long time back, actually—just as someone to watch out for. 

“Today, Zane Walker…” Hreinn’s grin widened.“I’ll be serving as your executioner.”

He snapped his fingers.

For a moment, nothing happened. Zane was starting to suspect this guy was a bit knocked in the head. Malzareth had been rather quiet all these years. Zane been ready for an attack at any moment. Though Noughtfire hadn’t seemed too concerned about it at the time… 

And then he saw it.

Seams started down the horizon. Shining cracks spread, one by one, through the very fabric of reality. More and more showed up, circling down the entirety of the horizon, making a very wide net.

There was a commotion in the distance as folks took notice.

“You don’t know what that is, do you?” giggled Hreinn. “Well then! Let me educate you just how, precisely, you’re about to die. In exactly fifteen minutes, this realm will be severed from the fabric of Astra… from the fabric of Dragonspire itself! Cut off from all reality. Sunk into the void, like a pebble down a bottomless well. And you, my dear Zane—you’ll fall with it. Simply vanish into nothingness.”

Hreinn winked.

Zane considered this news with furrowed brows. Back then, Noughtfire also seemed to think it’d work itself out. Or that he could simply tank anything that came at him.

But as he inspected those cracks, worsening by the second, he had to admit—they did seem like a pretty real threat…

This still felt a little out of nowhere, honestly. 

Kain didn’t seem too surprised, though. He just spoke up. “I have a few questions, if you don’t mind. May I call you Hreinn?”

“Of course.” Hreinn seemed tickled. “Ask away!”

“You’ve set up a vast rune formation, then. One that stretches the length of the Pure Yang.”

“Correct,” said Hreinn.

“Runes that would tear away this realm, simply to assassinate one man?”

“Correct again!”

“Surely there’s easier means to do that than condemning an entire sector of reality.”

Zane wasn’t quite sure what Kain was playing at, but he got the feeling the guy had something in mind.

“Ah, but reality’s quite easy to shear through if you’ve got the right scissors,” said Hreinn. He looked happy to play along. “You’d be surprised! There’s vast domains of knowledge you dirty little humans don’t have the faintest clue about… with a little prep time, and the right application of that knowledge, this little trap was no trouble at all. But there’s another good reason for it. Our dear Zane here’s survived quite a lot he really shouldn’t have. It’s proven infuriatingly difficult to kill a man like him! But this? This method’s rather foolproof.”

Hreinn gave Zane another wink, which Zane rather wished he would stop doing.

“Not even your dear master can do anything about it. Your poor Mistress will simply wake up one day to find you gone. I’m sure she’ll wonder why her dear Zane simply decided to abandon her when he’d promised all those years to stand by her side… Ah, well. I’m sure she’ll have no difficulty finding another man. Heavens knows how many are chomping at the bit to take your place!”

“Are you trying to be this annoying?” said Zane, frowning. “Or does it just come naturally?”

This guy was quickly becoming the most punchable guy he’d ever met, which was saying quite a lot.

Hreinn just laughed. “I’ve got an instinct for what pushes folks’ buttons… it’s something of a gift! Thank you for noticing. It makes my enemies furious, which in turn makes rather unwise choices… though in this case, it really doesn’t matter what choices you make. You’re dead either way! Just force of habit, I suppose.”

Hreinn considered the horizon again, where the cracks were fast linking up, their fissures thickening. “Are you sure this is what you’d like to be talking about in your last few minutes of life? Perhaps you’d like to try to get a message out to dear Reina, or precious Evan, or little Avery. Perhaps you’d like to try giving them a last word or two—maybe even try portalling out yourself! Go on, then.”

Zane didn’t humor the guy. He would’ve blasted him already if he couldn’t tell what he was seeing was just a projected soul with the body far off. There wasn’t anything physical to hit there.

A real shame.

…He supposed he could try having a go at the soul…

“No? You’re no fun,” sighed Hreinn. “If you’d tried, you would’ve realized your portals aren’t working. All their fate-lines were severed just as reality itself began to sever. Not even the little escape charms in your pockets will do you any good… you’re stuck here, I’m afraid, ’till the end.”

“A clever enough plan,” said Kain.

“Isn’t it?” Hreinn paused. “Say—for you two to be standing there so calmly, you really must not understand what’s about to happen to you…”

There came a great RIP—voids were starting to crack down the horizon. The skies were now riddled with fissures everywhere the eye could see.

Hreinn nodded at the edges of the valley, where shouts were starting up. “See? They get it.”

“I wonder if you’ve considered the System,” said Kain, stepping up. “Surely it won’t let you tamper with reality on this scale. Especially since these are ancient times, when it’s still quite strong. There are rules you cannot break here lest you risk divine punishment.”

“Ah… I thought that’s what you were counting on. The System! Tsk-tsk… remember when I told you just how much you didn’t know? Well, this is yet another such instance. It turns out there’s runes that can hide vast swathes of reality, even from the System’s eyes. By the time it finds what’s gone wrong, it’ll be far too late!”

“I see.”

“But you never figured that out, did you? Even when it was right before your very eyes! Comedy!” Hreinn giggled, turned to Zane. “This man journeyed every week to the edges of the Pure Yang just to study my runes. Week after week, he tried to make sense of them, tried to tamper with them—and week after week, he failed spectacularly.”

Kain was silent. 

“What? You think I wouldn’t notice?” said Hreinn. “Why did you think I let you keep up that farce in the first place? Let me guess. You saw some complex runes, runes far too advanced for your understanding. You might’ve worked out that the first set was meant to break something or another… I’ll bet you never even realized what my concealment runes were doing! After a while, you gave up on it. You trusted that whatever it was, the almighty System would come bail you out in the end, and left it at that. How close am I?”

“Fairly close,” sighed Kain.

“That’s what I thought.”

Zane was starting to feel a worm of doubt. …He wasn’t really screwed here, was he?

He trusted Noughtfire knew what he was doing, but…

He gave Kain a look. Kain made a little subtle hand motion, and Zane understood.

He just sat back and let them work it out.

“I must admit,” said Kain, even as the cracks widened to chasms behind him, “I’ve never seen concealment runes quite like yours.”

“They’re my own invention,” said Hreinn. “They’re the most sophisticated runes of their kind ever designed, if I do say so myself. A refined iteration of old Pyrex’s Heaven-Shrouding Runes. They’ll fake the appearance of anything—down to the very aura signatures! So real-seeming, they’ll fool the closest inspections… even one done by the System itself.”

“I had not known they were possible,” said Kain. “So you broke reality, then hid the evidence. You’ll get away scot-free.”

“Exactly right.”

Kain nodded thoughtfully. “I only wonder if there’s anything you’ve overlooked.” 

Hreinn cocked his head. “You know, if you’re trying to do the wise act, it’s far too late. The game is up, dear Kain.”

“Is it?” said Kain, arching a brow. “I’m not convinced. I don’t think you have the full story.”

“Really, now?” Hreinn grinned. “Just what are you playing at? Oh! You know I’m the only one who can reverse the trap once it’s underway! So you’re putting up a front to make me question my own runes. To make me think, perhaps, there’s something wrong—that you really did do something to them. Make me halt things so you can save your own hide.”

He grinned. “Alright, alright. Go on. What am I missing?”

“I merely have an alternate story. Let me know if you think it’s possible,” said Kain. “Perhaps your runes did fool me. For the first few days. But then I worked out what they did. I continued coming back, however, never succeeding in altering them, pretending they kept puzzling me, because I needed to convince you I was clueless. That I was no threat at all, so that I could do my work without suspicion… and so that after I was finished, you wouldn’t look too closely, because you’d never suspect anything was wrong.”

“A good start,” said Hreinn. “Go on.”

“One day—right after you completed your rune circle seven months ago—I returned. But this was the one time you never noticed me. Because I came with the cloaking of a sophisticated disguise amulet, one that would cloak my presence as I altered every rune, just slightly.”

“I see!” said Hreinn. “And where would you get such an amulet—an amulet that could fool even me, pray tell?”

“I asked to study my friend’s,” said Kain, nodding at Zane. “The very one he’s wearing now, in order to make one for myself.”

“You really have quite the imagination,” said Hreinn. He still looked sure of himself, although he did seem to be taking this slightly more seriously than at the start. “It’d almost be believable, except for the fact that I did inspect my runes afterward, despite this ruse you definitely played. Do you consider me a fool? Don’t you think I would’ve noticed any of these so-called changes?”

“You just said your runes were the most sophisticated concealment runes ever invented,” said Kain. “They can give off the appearance of anything. So I tweaked a single thing… instead of cloaking reality, they’d cloak themselves. They simply gave off the appearance that I hadn’t done anything to them. In other words—rather than fool, the System, their purpose became simply to fool you. Meaning all that…”

Kain nodded at the rips going through reality. “Isn’t actually concealed at all. And once it reaches a certain threshold of damage, once the System considers this a violation of the first order, it’ll blast you with so much heavenly tribulation it’ll send you into deep hibernation.”

He considered Hreinn. “I’m curious. What do you think of this story?”