Chapter 220: Pressure

Chapter 220: Pressure

DISCLAIMER: This story is NOT MINE IN ANY WAY. That honor has gone to the beautiful bastard Ryuugi. This has been pulled from his Spacebattles publishment at threads/rwby-the-gamer-the-games-we-play-disk-five.341621/. Anyway on with the show...err read.

Pressure

It was hard to describe what happened when I unleashed Ohr Ein Sof, because it wasn't just a gathering of power or a tremendous attack, though it was also those things. It was the Light, given shape in the world in a morehonest? Real? In a truer sense then what was created by Lux Aeterna. The thing is, I didn't know what the Light really was or where it came from or how it worked. There wasn't much I could really say about it, because the Light was above even Keter, which in and of itself lay above the mind's ability to comprehend; it was quite possible that any attempts to truly describe or understand it were doomed from the start.

Nonetheless, I gave it my best effort.

This world and everything in it was the 'Kingdom.' It was the Light given form, thought applied to action, the culmination of a processthe result of the Tree of Life. The Sephirot, in a sense and among many other things, represented the flow between two ends of a spectrum, the process in which one became the other. On the one hand, there was the Light, something even I didn't understand except in a vague sense; it was the true form of this world, the underlying principle behind everything, the source and the end point. Everything in this world was part of the Light, in a way similar to how matter and energy were interchangeable; different states of the same thing. Was there more to it than that? Almost certainly. But that was the general idea.

But the Tree of Life went both ways. Things flowed down it to take shape in the world in ways both literal and metaphorical, and they flowed back up todo something, I guess. There was no way of knowing what was up there and despite dying, I had no memory of it, or at least nothing my mind could make sense of. Whatever came after death and before rebirth was presumably up there somewhere, which was something I found both fascinating and terrifying. To me, it was like a box holding the answer to something people had wondered about sinceprobably as long as Mankind has existed, but there was only one way to open it. That seemed fitting in a way; the saying went that if you stopped learning, you started dyingwhich was applicable to me in a saddening number of ways, reallybut in light of the existence of souls and reincarnation, I suppose that death itself was a lesson of sorts. I hoped it was one I'd learned from the first time around, if so.

Ohr Ein Sof, however, was something specialthe Light Without End, flowing both up and down the Tree of Life. The materialization, or reduction, or creation of the Light that should exist only above Keter within the world of Malkuth.

My Light, specifically.

The moment I initialized the skill, my power turn in upon itself. My Aura seemed to shrink back into my skin, along with the light around me, energy spiraling down into the center of my being and then up, up, up, through the gateway of Sahasrara and then far beyond it. For a moment, I felt like I'd vanished, as if I'd been consumed by it and sucked down some kind of cosmic black hole, pulling in everything around me in the process. I felt it when I stopped being 'me,' as I was reduced to pieces that were hard to label. A will, perhaps, a thought, an awarenessand then nothing so easily defined. In the end, I was nothing but 'something that exists' and 'something aware of its existence.' I wasn't reduced to nothing, per se, but to a state of 'something' that was both infinitely distant and unspeakably close to nothing.

And at the same time, I became something else. As I was boiled down to nothing but 'Me,' everything I was became a part of 'Me.' My memories, my beliefs, my power, my will, my actions and intentions, my hopes and dreams, my body, my voice, my skillseverything 'I' was revealed itself as nothing but a part of 'Myself', luminous and unending and without anything to distinguish it from the rest. If you boiled everything away and reduced me down to the most basic level, beyond physicality, action, mind, or will, this was what remained.

'Me.' Not even Jaune Arc or Jian Bing or Keter or anything else created by the labels of the world, but simply 'Me.' Or, perhaps, 'Metatron,' for whatever difference it made. And for a period of time I couldn't recognize, much less understand, that was all I was.

And then the process reversed, and everything that had been subsumed rose back to the surface. I existed, thought, remembered, understood, and was, in that moment. I was here, alive, human, and real again, in a way I could understand.

But all that I was or had been? I brought it along for the ride.

A thin column of light flashed from my outstretched hand to the center of the Gilgamesh's chest, no wider around then my pinky finger. For an instant, that was all it was, something almost unbelievably small for the process that had created itand then it expanded. I didn't follow it up with another wave of power or anything of the sort, because this wasn't the devouring light of Lux Aeterna; the light drew power from itself, seemingly expanding it without limit. Instead of drawing power into itself, it released it into the world as if opening a door in a way that reminded me of Bianca. What had been a narrow column of light for a brief moment expanded quickly into a growing beam that could have devoured mountains. It grew to such an extent that the angle of the attack seemed to overflow its bounds, turning from an acute blast to an obtuse one as power slipped over my hand and back, expanding in all directions and slipping between the spaces of my fingers. The sheer light of the attack almost seemed to wash the world away, reducing it to an endless plane of brightness and power that consumed both me and my target.

Ohr Ein Sof (Active) LV1 EXP: 37.72% MP: 144000; Special

The Infinite Light from which all things are born, the truth that is hidden behind all that is. The soul of the user revealed within the Kingdom, briefly freed from the chains that bind them to mortal form, has become a brand of annihilation for all that stands in their path. A skill that is only possible for those able to reach above the spheres and grasp the Light in its pure form, it has the power to return things to the way they were in the beginning.

Slight chance of 'Unmaking' targets, returning them to a form that has no place within this world.

Slight risk of 'Unravelling.'

Damage increases with understanding of the Self and nature of Emanation.

No. I'd need to time this right.

"You play a dangerous game," He said. "When you come undone, there's nothing to guarantee you'll be able to put yourself back together again. It's an enviable weapon in some ways, but one that was lost for a reasonnamely, most of the people who used it wound up killing themselves in the process."

"Mm," I hummed in acknowledgement, shrugging a shoulder again as I returned my attention to the conversation. "Such a kind warning. But then again, I'm not the only one who'd have to wait if I disappeared again, am I? Could it be that you're worried about me?"

Gilgamesh chuckled slightly at that.

"Perhaps," He acknowledged. "At the very least, it would be a shameif you were to die, it would be a waste for you to go in such a way. I'd much rather tear you apart, I think."

"Aw," I said. "I'm touched, really."

"Perhaps so," He answered. "Have you not considered whether this battle is even necessary? If you have some idea of this place's value and our goals, why are you so certain we'd try to stop you?"

At that, I smiled and tilted my head.

"Oh, I'm sure you'd let me waltz right in if I asked nicely," I replied, only a touch dryly. "I'm just a touch less certain as to what you'd do to me afterwards, so I wanted to start with a trust-building exercise."

Gilgamesh tilted his head and cast a glance over the mess I'd made ofeverything.

"A trust-building exercise, is it?" He mused. "I don't quite understand."

"It's simple, really," I told him. "I don't trust any of you fuckers. This entire place has screamed trap from the moment I heard of it and while it's a trap I have no choice but to spring, I think I'll feel better about it if I walk over your corpses to do it. Hence, building trust."

Gilgamesh laughed outright at that, though there was a different kind of edge to it now.

"I see," He said. "It's an interesting idea, I supposebut do you honestly believe that's how this fight shall go?"

"I liked my odds enough to show up, didn't I?" I answered before slowly looking around. "And maybe it's just me, but you're place looks like its seen better days, Gil."

"I suppose I didn't really expect you to make things easy," The Grimm replied, red eyes calm. "I'm glad. Let's both do our best to enjoy this brief game, then."

I whistled quietly and smiled.

"You want to challenge me to a game?" I asked him. "Do you know who I am?"

Gilgamesh stepped forward instead of answering, vanishing abruptly a moment laterand at the same time, I released my power.