Chapter 489: Ryun

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."

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.