LIGHTNOVELONLINE Chapter 291: Zach and Ryun
Zach
Their team was gathered in a large round room that resembled a classroom. In the one corner were benches with tables in front of them, going in a half circle and arranged like steps. All facing the small podium at the bottom of the room. They were waiting for the Empire’s team, and finally hear the details of their mission. They had been asked to make an oath, not to reveal anything about the powers of the Empire’s team to anyone outside of the people in this room. From the Empire’s side those were Teeran Hoofline, Custodian of the Citadel, Rella Re Raha, Knight Commander of their Order of Shadows, and White Tide, the skreen Lesser Queen that they had also met before. And they had given the same oath in return.
Zach was eager for them to begin. He had gotten as much as he could out of training and preparing, and a part of him was ready to begin the mission. They were about to meet the rest of their team, the Empire’s chosen. Zach wondered who they would be, he was aware that he would probably be one of the weakest among them, at least as far as the highest tier of power in their main focus was concerned. He was only in the sixth tier, and even that just barely. He didn’t doubt his strength, he had learned to accept and understand it. But he was sure that some others from the Empire were going to be stronger.
Regardless, he wasn’t here for his power, he was here because he could open ways through the Ethereal Realm, because he could see more in it than others. He was their team’s backup, the insurance against any schemes the Empire might plan. Zach didn’t see why though, the world and everyone in it were at stake, they should all be trying to help. But he also knew the nature of people, he had seen it over and over again. Some people just couldn’t accept reality, even when it kicked them in the face, others didn’t care and were willing to doom everyone just so that they could get what they wanted. And in the Infinite Realm it was even worse, where peoples own power shaped and pushed them.
He had seen it with Naha, and he had noticed it with himself as well. He hadn’t lived long enough with his power to fully see it, but… there were moments when he found himself drawn to studying more and more about the aspects. The library was the first time he had really noticed it, when Naha had to pull him away from it. There was something there, at the core of his Class that made him want to learn about anything related to aspects—spirits and shades too.
But on the other hand, it was also something that he himself wanted and enjoyed. So he wasn’t too bothered with it, he would only need to learn how to keep himself in check, to manage who he was becoming.
The door leading into the room opened, and five people stepped in. The first was a tanned human man with deep red hair, dressed in a simple tunic and trousers that were black and gold in color. The second was a demasi woman, her skin pale orange with black hair, wearing a long white dress. Behind them came a cthul woman, her skin pale with a tint of purple and golden eyes that immediately took everyone around the room in, then looked around as if marking where everything was. Zach narrowed his eyes, the first two seemed relaxed and unconcerned with anything. The cthul though, appeared on guard and ready for anything. Something about her made Zach on edge, even without any visible weapons on her person, he felt as if he was staring down a naked blade. It was… a disconcerting sensation. The last person entered after her, a skreen champion bent down to enter through the doorway and then straightened to tower over the rest of the room. Zach stared at him for a long moment, shocked at the difference with the other skreen that he had seen before. In the core, there were two types of skreen, the more bug-like and dour colored members of the Triumphant Hive, and the more colorful members of the Blue Forest Hive, who often had almost coral-like growths on top of their carapaces.
In the Empire he had seen a few skreen that had looked familiar enough, but this champion was… very different. He was thin, with elongated limbs and sharp claw-like endings on his top set of arms. His lower arm set looked like that of a praying mantis. His carapace was rough and deep green, and his head had long antennae that curved back over his head and twitched. His eyes were big and round in his head, multi-faceted. His mouth a small opening with two sets of mandibles around it. He was completely different than any other champion he had ever seen.
Zach knew that the Third Iteration skreen did not have big world wars when the Framework arrived like most of the other of skreen Iterations. The First and the Second only had a single hive’s representatives arrive. The others were either killed or crippled enough that they didn’t manage to become Rankers. The Third had arrived here with many different hives.
There was a moment where everyone was just staring at each other intently, and then the Custodian spoke.
“Guests, these four behind me will accompany you on your mission. We don’t have much time, so if you all will introduce yourselves, then they will introduce themselves.”
Everyone from the core spoke up, each giving their name to the Empire’s people.
“Now our side,” the Custodian said. “The full sheets with their powers will be made available to you as will yours to them, so that all of you may familiarize yourself with each other. For now, they will just give you a general idea of what they can do.”
The skreen stepped up first, he looked over everyone from the core, then spoke in a rasping voice mingled with mandible clicks. “Champion of Hidden Grass Hive, healer, I can heal anything short of true death.”
And with that he stepped back. Zach frowned, apparently the skreen wasn’t a big talker. The cthull stepped up next. She looked around for a moment, then inclined her head at them.
“I am named Hlyanis Lur, and I am a master of the blade focused on Skills. It is no boast to say that I am the greatest swordmaster in the Empire. I am a Ranker and have been honing my craft for a long time. The only reason I am not at the Wall is because the nature of my power makes me more suitable for this mission.”
She didn’t elaborate more on what the nature of her power was before she stepped back.
The demasi woman stepped forward next. “I am Anashi Vekos, and my focus is Ethereal. I will be the one that will safely guide us to our destination, navigating the dangers of the Ethereal Realm and bending it to serve our purpose.”
As she stepped back the last member of the team, the red haired human, stepped forward.
“I am Erik Ornn, of House Ornn. I am here because the Empire could not suffer to replace the numbers this team lost, so instead of three they chose to send me,” he said, his eyes looking around the room. He raised a hand, palm turned to the ceiling, and then blue fire blossomed above it. “I am the master of fire and combustion, my role in the team is flexible. I can fight many just as easily as I can fight few or one.”
With that, he stepped back.
Zach blinked at the man, recognizing his name. He glanced to the side at Ryun and saw him staring at the man on the podium. He knew some of what had happened, and that there was an issue between them. Though Eratemus had mentioned that Ryun had settled what issues he had with the Ornn family. Ryun’s expression was devoid of any emotion, but… Zach could see something more beneath.
And then the Custodian stepped forward again.
“You will have today and tomorrow to familiarize with each other, and then the mission begins.”
Ryun
Ryun kept his eyes closed, sitting next to Selia and Erdania as people stared at each other, waiting for someone to make the first move. He had no desire to be the one to start the conversation, so he focused instead on trying to resist the desire to start pulling in Essence from his orb. He had filled his core with the last of his Void Essence, so that he could turn it into Qi if he ever needed to. Replenish his core in an instant. But that meant that he couldn’t cycle with the orb, he couldn’t mix the Essence, not when his core could only use Void Qi. The only people that knew about his orb were Selia and Erdania, and they had been interested in it a bit. How he got it and why. But while they were somewhat shocked to learn what he had gained, in the end no matter how powerful, it was an item that was worthless to them.
Then, his sense caught movement. Eratemus walked down to the podium and stood in front of the four, then he spoke.
“I greet you all. I hope that we will find success in our mission, despite the circumstances,” Eratemus said.
Ryun opened and turned his eyes on the four individuals that would be part of the mission. Like most Classers, their bodies were still flesh and blood Essence, though it was obvious that it was the highest tiered Essence. And they had something else, traces of different Essence in their bodies, similar to what he had seen from other powerful Classers like Ender and Karya Ornn, the Emperor. All except for one, the female cthul. She felt like a… skill user, and a powerful one. She reminded him of Zenker.
They wore high tiered clothes, but nothing else that was special, at least nothing that Ryun could see or sense.
“Eratemus,” the cthul, Hlyanis, started. “It’s been a long time.”
The necromancer tilted his head, and she chuckled.
“Of course, you do not remember me, it was a long time ago and I was young and weak. Just one among the tens of thousands. I do not hold it against you.”
Eratemus looked at her then inclined his head, as if in respect. “It has been a long time, yes.”
“A long time,” she said then looked around the room. “And you send us this. Are these people the best that the core can offer?”
Silence stretched again. The air was filled with tension, and everyone glaring at one another. Ryun decided that now was as good of a time as any for him to say his piece. He stood, ignoring the questioning looks from Selia and Erdania. He walked down to the podium and climbed on top, coming to a stop in front of one of them.
Erik Ornn was tall, taller than Ryun, but someone towering over him was not a hard thing to find. The man looked down, his expression haughty, as if everything around him could burst into flames at his mere thought, and perhaps it could.
Ryun spoke directly. “The debt you owed was settled by your family,” he told him. “It does not mean that I will forget.”
The man tilted his head. “They settled it of their own accord, if it was my decision…”
Ryun mirrored the man’s gesture. “You do not think that you did anything wrong.”
“Of course not,” Erik scoffed.
Ryun saw, or perhaps realized, that Erik was in many ways the same as him. Ryun didn’t regret the past either. He wondered what he would do if things were different, if Anrosh was dead. He was fairly certain that Ereclaw wasn’t dead either, just a feeling he got from the perks that connected them. But… if they were… he wouldn’t have agreed to what he had, he wouldn’t have settled.
“You nearly killed my Sect Leader, someone your sister loves, taken her against her will,” Ryun told him. “Do you care so little for your own family?”
He grimaced and shook his head. “Spoken like a child who understands nothing,” he turned his eyes to look at Eratemus. “This is what the core sends to us, weak children that haven’t even lived a decade in this world,” he glanced at the rest from the core. “Others barely in their adolescence.”
Ryun saw the others from the Empire agreeing with him, their expressions saying as much. Eratemus opened his mouth to respond, but Ryun interrupted him with a loud exaggerated sigh.
“You are disappointing. You think of age as a measure of power, it is not. It is only one part of it, and often not even that important,” Ryun looked at them all, almost daring them to speak. They were supposed to be a team, but he could see that there was too much in between the core and them. That their beliefs even were something that would come in between them. He didn’t care for all of that. And the only way for them to move forward, to at least be able to act as a team, was if they found respect for one another.
Ryun wasn’t the man to do that, to inspire and bridge people together. But he would tell them the truth, at least how he saw it. “I have seen many like you in the core, older than the presence of people in this world, and still weak. They died in the core, fell to monsters or trickery and traps, I survived. Age doesn’t matter as much as you think it does. I have lived in a world unlike what you can even imagine, my Earth would’ve swallowed you whole had you been born there.” He spoke to Erik, but he looked at around at the others, making a point to turn his head. He saw them narrowing their eyes, some tensing in anger. Ryun didn’t care, he had no respect for those who showed none to him, and the only thing he had seen from them was contempt.
“Calm,” Eratemus spoke. Ryun turned his head and met his eyes. The necromancer tried to convey something with his eyes, and though Ryun couldn’t see it he understood. “I assure you, everyone here is capable enough for this mission. Just as, I am certain, you are. I know that the animosity between us cuts deep, and I know the state of your Empire. Trust, that we have as much to lose if this mission fails as you do.”
Ryun blinked, and suddenly his perception of the room changed. He kept his eyes on the necromancer, but with his sense he studied the others. What had seemed like contempt and insults suddenly rang differently in his ears. They were… afraid. It took him a few seconds to even accept it, but then he knew. These people had been fighting this war for a while. Had lost territories and people, and now they were finally about to do something about it, only for their only help to come from the people they hated. And not only that, their fate, and the fate of everyone else in their Empire was placed in the hands of people that they considered their juniors, weaker.
Ryun grimaced. There was a reason why he wasn’t good at these types of things.
“Their fear still doesn’t excuse how they’ve been acting,” Selia’s voice startled him.
He hadn’t expected it, but then he remembered that he had made a point to keep his side of their bond open. He hadn’t realized that she could sense so much. She was getting better at it.
“Sorry,” she added.
“There is nothing to be sorry about,” Ryun told her.
He looked at the Empire’s people and bowed his head. “Trust that we would not be here if we did not believe that we could be of use.”
The tense silence stretched, but the edge of it was diffused.
Eratemus gathered everyone at the tables, and after a few more awkward exchanges they turned to the matters that were more important. The Empire’s people started with the reveal of their plan, and Ryun put everything out of his head in order to listen.