Divine Apostasy Book 12 - Chapter 75

Chapter 75

Ruwen’s bond with Rami hadn't been severed on his side, it remained intact, reaching across dimensional space like a bridge. Where it should connect to Rami, only empty grey space existed, and it exhibited the telltale distortion patterns of Void energy.

Rami's steps toward transforming into a Void Wyrm had severed their connection and actively repelled any attempts at reconnection. The Void didn't just consume, it isolated, creating barriers to prevent connections of any kind.

Objectively that isolation might serve as a powerful protection, like a moat around a castle, but he missed his bond with Rami and she needed his help.

Ruwen pulled his Mental Domain inward, contracting it from the chamber around them until it formed a dense protective shell around the immediate area. His eight chakras continued to spill energy into this new dimension, but they avoided the grey area.

Avoiding might be the wrong word, anything that neared the Void disappeared without a ripple. How could Ruwen fix their bond if the connection lay behind this Void moat.

Ruwen pushed his consciousness toward the grey area and as he neared, he detected a familiar vibration, one that was lost in the heavy sensations of the Universe but became obvious in the stillness of the Void. Sound of Silence, the passive ability he’d gained when becoming the Avatar of Cycles, created a constant harmonic substrate around him. And it appeared, it also worked in higher dimensions.

Sound of Silence would allow Ruwen to fix this Void tear, but Rami would only leak more Void energy and destroy it again. He needed a better solution than just patching this tear in reality.

Tapping into the small reserve of Void energy within his own body, Ruwen used Harmony to delicately braid it through his bond. The bond, Harmony, and the Void energy fought each other—Harmony sought to connect and unify, while Void energy desired isolation and total consumption, and the battle between the two forces tore apart the remnants of his bond.

Inspired by how the combined chakra energy had stuck to many of his connections, he wondered if it might work like glue. Guided by his Divine Chakra he funneled the energy from all his chakras into his bond.

The combined energy latched onto the matrix Sound of Silence produced, covering the Void near Rami in a blink. It seemed Chakra energy worked like information and could create things in the Void.

That wouldn’t matter though as Rami would destroy it again eventually. He needed this Chakra energy to help balance Harmony and the Void.

Ruwen hummed, cycling through each chakra’s preferred vibration, and then used his Willpower to force everything together. Weaving the connection repeatedly, he finally found a combination of Harmonies that tolerated the Void and prevented it from destroying the Chakra energy. As soon as it formed and stabilized on his side, he pushed it toward Rami.

The new bond snapped into place so suddenly Ruwen’s consciousness fell through it, and he dropped into Rami’s mind.

Ruwen appeared atop a massive terium-colored monument that stood in the center of a huge plaza. A vast city circled the plaza. The nearby buildings looked well made but were simple structures while those in the distance towered into a grey sky. A sky that rained words and sentences in a constant deluge.

Tens of thousands of Celestial Remnants circled above the city, their colors ranging from dark purple to harsh white. They funneled the falling information into the buildings at the pace of lightning.

“What are you doing here?” Rami asked.

Ruwen turned to find Rami. Well, an older version of Rami. She remained barefoot and her robe seemed made from the Void itself. She looked a hundred years older and much more like Miranda. He stared at her dumbfounded.

Rami sighed, placing a hand on her hip. “Did you fix it? One second.”

Rami disappeared, but the Celestial Remnants continued their endless task. Ruwen discovered hundreds of thousands more scattered among the city. They carried different colored threads which they connected to different buildings. The streets were made not from stone or metal, but from these strings.

The distances here in Rami’s mind didn’t seem stable and Ruwen stopped studying the distant buildings. He stepped to the edge of the monument and looked over the edge. Words covered every surface of the massive structure.

Someone grabbed Ruwen’s collar and pulled him away from the edge, which is when he realized he no longer wore his Ink Lord armor.

“Stop snooping,” Rami scolded. “Why are you in here?”

“You’re old,” Ruwen responded.

Rami blushed. “This is just how I see myself.”

“Okay, I guess that makes sense. This place is amazing.” Ruwen lightly stomped on the monument. “What’s all the writing on this thing.”

Rami frowned and put both hands on her hips this time. “Stop stomping my mind, and it’s not proper to ask a lady about her most personal thoughts.”

“So, it’s like a journal?” Ruwen asked, feeling a little guilty.

“Something like that.”

Rami stepped forward and hugged Ruwen tightly. “Thanks for fixing the bond. I thought I’d lost you forever.”

Ruwen hugged her back and patted her back awkwardly. “You know how hard I am to get rid of.”

“That’s for sure,” Rami said stepping away. Her eyes glistened and she cleared her throat. “Do you mind if I put some of this in your head? Maybe a few Messengers as well.”

“Sure, that’s why—”

Ruwen was interrupted by a gigantic multicolored portal opening in the sky. As soon as it formed all the information falling from the sky angled toward it, as if being sucked in by an invisible vortex.

A distant pressure appeared in Ruwen’s mind as the sky cleared.

Rami grinned at Ruwen. “You did more than repair our bond. It’s like our minds overlap now. I bet I can swallow this whole library right now.”

Ruwen held up a hand. “Take it easy. I just convinced the library to play fair, and if you go all Perception Wyrm on it, we’ll end up in a fight that destroys everything.”

Rami pouted, which didn’t work as well on this more mature form. “Fine. You’re no fun.”

Ruwen glanced around the vast city one more time. “This is impressive, Rami. Can we talk about it later?”

After a slight pause, Rami responded. “Sure.”

Ruwen nodded and Willed himself back to his mind. To his surprise this took him through the giant portal in the sky, and dropped him on an unfamiliar planet. Light came from the distant sun held in the palm of an incomprehensibly tall statue. A statue Ruwen recognized all too well. The rest of the light came from the hundreds of thousands of Celestial Remnants that now filled the sky, shepherding the torrent of information spilling from the portal.

“She said a few,” Ruwen muttered to himself.

With another quick glance at the four-sided statue of himself hovering in space and the sun it held, he returned to the outside world.

Rami’s new planet inside Ruwen’s mind felt different, like an itch he couldn’t reach. This might be from the overlap between their minds that she’d mentioned. The planet had a tangible weight the others didn’t. He sensed the Shelf Wraith’s thousands of years of accumulated knowledge, the compressed contents of entire libraries from the dying Lexicon Sentinels, and the pure mathematical concepts from the data-fragments zipping around like hummingbirds.

The sense of pressure eased as Rami’s Messengers, or perhaps Rami herself, organized the chaotic information.

As Rami’s planet became less noticeable, smaller irritations came to Ruwen’s attention. Four significant ones plus a handful of others. Maybe Rami had already started branching out into other structures.

The tension in Rami’s face had disappeared, but her battle with the surroundings still raged on and Ruwen didn’t bother her. They could figure out the details of these new mental structures after the fight.

Hamma staff blurred as she casually sidestepped a clump of equations that seemed vaguely familiar to Ruwen—something to do with dimensional curvature. Lylan flickered in and out of sight as she expertly removed any ranged threats to Hamma with well-placed daggers.

Ruwen extended his Mental Domain again, making it about two hundred feet before the library decided that was enough. Ten more Lexicon Sentinels had appeared, but Rami had weakened them with her knowledge siphoning, and their regeneration had slowed considerably. This had allowed Sift to quickly overwhelm the creatures with damage. Echo had sliced the ones near her into various sized cubes.

Lyra's steam generation had dropped off considerably, but she’d successfully protected Rami through the assault which deserved credit.

Overlord's warning about approaching enemies had been specific. Something had systematically destroyed Ruwen’s clones, as they headed directly toward him and his friends. The chamber quieted as the last of the mobs died and the portals closed. His Mental Domain didn’t detect anything hostile.

“No loot,” Hamma said, “I don’t think we’re done.”