Divine Apostasy Book 9 - Chapter 39 (Repost)

[Author's Note: I made significant changes to the Realm Zipper encounter and added some necessary foreshadowing for later books. What I posted below is the end of Chapter 38, all of 39, and the beginning of 40.]

Everyone remained quiet as Ruwen contemplated the lines of approaching destruction.

Ruwen had two recalls—Bookmark and Holy Rapture.

Effect: Bookmark: Set location and, once per day, instantly return there.

Set Bonus: Holy Rapture: once per week transport yourself to any location in the current Realm and sector using mental gate runes.

Neither would bring Rami and Tarot along so Ruwen didn’t even try them.

Finally, Ruwen spoke. That Realm Zipper is insanely long, and it seems pointless to try and destroy it. Even if I somehow managed to stop it, the System would just activate whatever’s next on its list of annihilation steps. We can’t use gate runes to portal away and we can’t outrun it.

A stone’s skip stirs the sea, Sivart said.

Ruwen had gotten much better at understanding Sivart’s condensed way of imparting wisdom, but this didn’t immediately make any sense.

Oh, Overlord said. Excellent idea.

Help me out, Ruwen replied.

We don’t need to eat the whole appah at once, Overlord responded.

With Overlord’s clue, Ruwen understood. The spreading ripple in front of them, like a skipping stone touching the water, had just started. It would expand, separating the universe as it ripped the Creation and Destruction Realms apart.

Ruwen had made the false assumption that he needed to destroy the entire Realm Zipper, but he didn’t. He only needed to block the ripple directly in front of him, and if he took it one step further, stopping the spread of the expanding wave that headed in the direction of Grave would spare that section of the Universe keeping Grave safe.

Not only that but demolishing only a small section likely wouldn’t cause the System to abandon this method of destruction, buying them more time to figure out a solution.

Thank you, Sivart. Okay, here’s the plan. We try everything we can to stop the Realm Zipper portion in front of us, if we fail, then Tarot takes us home via a higher dimension and we risk the femite froth.

Chapter 39

Ruwen spread his arms and the Shed vaporized. He faced the oncoming lines of death. Lir, can you calculate the location that roughly lines up with Grave.

To just Rami, Ruwen added. Please facilitate the communication between Lir and Tarot to make sure there are no misunderstandings.

Will do, Rami replied.

Without anything in the Darkness other than the approaching edges of obliteration, one place looked exactly like another. The only way Ruwen knew they’d moved was when the fragments of the destroyed Shed disappeared. Tarot didn’t have any problems moving them short distances through three-dimensional space.

Okay, Tarot said. We’re in place.

Ruwen studied the oncoming Realm Zipper. Lir, I lost the countdown clock when Tarot moved us. Can you estimate the arrival again from this new location please and display it.

With what confidence interval? Lir asked.

Ruwen gave it a moment of thought. From now on, let’s use color for your confidence. If it’s within three standard deviations use red, two yellow, one green, and if it is higher than ninety-nine point nine percent use white.

Excellent, Lir responded.

A red countdown appeared in the top right of Ruwen’s vision, next to his map, and it displayed three hundred forty-eight minutes. Less than six hours to find a solution.

Ruwen spent ten seconds in the third meditation calming himself and removing any traces of fear and anxiety. When he emerged, a Shed appeared under him, and he sat cross-legged. Memories of his time near Shiny and on Rainbow’s End surfaced, almost producing a smile.

The Realm Zipper remained too distant to use Spirit or Soul power, and Ruwen didn’t have much confidence either would work anyway. His most potent tool, Harmony, also happened to have the longest reach.

Using Harmonic Sight had allowed Ruwen to see the Realm Zipper, but now that all the discussions had ended, and he focused on the surroundings, a powerful silence emerged.

Harmonic Sight paled in comparison to Ruwen’s Harmony ability, but it still allowed him to experience music and vibrations visually. In the past, the environments he’d used Harmonic Sight in had provided an abundance of sound, which made the silence surrounding him now a bit shocking.

Ruwen cast Harmony toward the approaching Realm Zipper. To his shock, nothing happened. He frowned and attempted to stretch Harmony outward, but the result didn’t change.

Did Harmony not work because of the lack of matter here in the Darkness? Maybe the ability required a constant source of material to propagate itself through. Tarot’s and Rami’s bodies both rang out loudly in this oppressive silence, so he knew the ability hadn’t malfunctioned.

It was like Ruwen had up until now traveled a road free of obstacles, but currently stood at the edge of a massive canyon with no bridge to cross the gap.

When Ruwen had died to replace his Fighter Class with Merchant, a necessary change that allowed him to understand the mystifying world of musical theory, he’d immediately taken the Crafter sub-Class and then Specialized as a Composer. This specialization came with two critical abilities: Harmonic Sight and Harmonic Knowledge.

Ruwen hadn’t used Harmonic Knowledge while in danger yet. He’d planned to rely on it heavily when improving his proficiency with Harmony, but in this current situation, he hoped it would provide the clue he needed to succeed. He recalled the ability’s description.

Name: Harmonic Knowledge

Description: Identify, understand, and replicate complex musical compositions with one hundred percent accuracy.

Ruwen cast Harmonic Knowledge and keeping Harmonic Sight active, magnified his vision. What had appeared initially as a single boundary across the horizon, had eventually resolved into two, and now that it had grown closer, its appearance had drastically changed again.

In Ruwen’s magnified view, what would in just a few hours be their reality, became crystal clear. A blazing sky filled the area above and a blinding sea below mirrored it. He hovered in the area between them, insignificant before the might of this destructive force.

Instead of allowing hopelessness to take root, Ruwen used Harmonic Knowledge to study the sky. From his current position and using his magnified vision, the details blurred, but for the first time he glimpsed the type of power he faced.

The sky above didn’t possess a symphony but creatures of a single tone. They carried a note so high, with a pitch so energy dense, that it sliced through the fabric of creation. Ruwen’s thoughts spun as he tried to reconcile the knowledge the Composer Class bestowed to him with what he witnessed.

As if sensing Ruwen’s observation, the sky above fell, or at least a tiny portion had, and it quickly filled his vision.

Incoming, Overlord said.

Ruwen dropped the magnification and focused on the approaching object. A spark had separated itself from the area he’d just studied, only visible because of the blackness of the surroundings. Had the Realm Zipper sensed his gaze?

The spark quickly grew larger, and Tarot spoke. It’s coming for me, and maybe Rami. Is your danger sense flaring up?

Ruwen responded immediately. No. Nothing.

The spark had quickly closed the distance, revealing tiny flat creatures who appeared very bright with Harmonic Sight.

I can’t reach it with Harmony, Ruwen admitted.

Let’s confirm the targets, Tarot replied. He worked his way through Ruwen’s hair until he found Rami. Then they both disappeared.

Moments later the oncoming spark separated. Both climbed higher and angled in opposite directions.

That confirms it, Tarot said. They won’t attack you because of that Maker quest, but Rami and I are in danger.

The System might not want to kill Ruwen, but the details of the Maker quest didn’t ease his fears as it sounded like more trouble would soon arrive, assuming the System’s notification had made it through to the Outerverse.

Name: Maker

Description: The System has triggered this quest on behalf of the Prime. You have crossed a critical mental threshold which requires your immediate presence at the Spire. Your Harbinger, if applicable, has been notified of this summons as required by decree. A Spire representative has been dispatched to your location.

Step: 1 of 1

Step Description: You are hereby restricted to the first six dimensions of your current Universe. Failure to comply will result in catastrophic consequences.

Origin: Prime

Allocation: Mythical

Difficulty: Egregious

Risk: Deadly

Duration: Short

Reward: Testing at the Spire. Additional Prime and Faction rewards if assessment confirms the status of Maker.

Ruwen tried again to reach the approaching creatures with Harmony, but it felt like pushing a rope. Why wouldn’t Harmony work?

I’m not leaving, Rami said before Ruwen could say anything.

Ruwen already knew Rami would respond like this. Tarot can you safely draw those things closer to me without endangering yourself or Rami?

Immediately the oncoming attack merged back together and headed directly at Ruwen. In seconds they had reached him, and he estimated they’d pass less than twenty feet above his head. He flicked Harmony toward them, but even though less than twenty feet separated them, they might as well have been in different galaxies.

Ruwen concentrated on the creatures with Harmonic Knowledge and triggered Last Breath.

Even with Last Breath, the pair of creatures only existed near Ruwen for a fraction of second before they faded, skipping into a higher dimension. His Perception didn’t trigger, nor did Identify.

Harmonic Knowledge provided a little information. The creatures, while insanely bright with Harmonic Sight, were actually very small, likely no bigger than a finger. They almost looked two-dimensional because of their thinness, and the tone they emanated didn’t vary, the note impossibly high.

After they disappeared Ruwen released Last Breath. He had really counted on Harmony working when the creatures got so close. A flicker in his Harmonic Sight attracted his attention to the area the creatures had passed. It looked like the wake from a speeding boat.

Ruwen moved closer until he hovered directly in the path the creatures had taken. He focused intently and Harmonic Knowledge provided a mass of discordant sonatas, like millions of lonely notes. With intense concentration, Harmonic Sight displayed the entire spectrum of color, all cast in a harsh hue.

What made Ruwen’s thoughts swirl was the fact something remained, even in this Darkness, to provide that sad dirge. This space wasn’t empty after all.

Are you okay? Ruwen asked Rami.

Yes, although Tarot appears to be having fun despite the danger, and I feel like puking from all the sudden transitions.

Harmony hasn’t worked for me here, and I think it’s because there’s nothing for it to travel on. But when those things passed by, they ripped space apart and their wake revealed something.

Femites?

I hope so.

What does that mean?

I think my only chance at reaching that Realm Zipper with Harmony is by using the femite layer.

Ruwen glanced at the countdown next to his map. It had turned green which meant Lir had high confidence in the value, and that number had dropped significantly. Either the Realm Zipper had sped up or the earlier calculations had contained large errors. The counter now displayed fifty-nine minutes.

Tarot could likely extend that time a little by yanking them backward away from the Realm Zipper, but that would make dodging his current attackers more difficult. The simple fact remained that without access to the higher dimensions nothing they did would prolong things for long.

Ruwen had always thrown Harmony outward when he needed it, with no thoughts of layers. Now he needed to find something to support Harmony and allow its passage. In fact, if someone wanted to neutralize his Harmony ability, they could protect themselves with some type of void shield.

Femites had come up multiple times in the last two years, and Tarot had just explained that destroying all the femites in an area wasn’t possible, at least not for long. If the faint wake Harmonic Sight had detected consisted of femites, and he could figure out how to use them as a layer, nothing could ever stop his Harmony.

It took ten minutes to confirm that what Ruwen had seen in the wake didn’t consist of individual femites but more likely massive clumps of them. Even though he knew the femites existed, he could no longer detect them.

Ruwen spent five minutes using everything at his disposal, from the Architect Role to Spirit based spells, to his soul and mental power, trying to make the femites bunch together again using violent energy, but none of it caused the femites to even flicker.

Ruwen pushed his sight to its maximum magnification and even with Harmonic Sight active, couldn’t find a single femite. The strings of his wings remained still, a very odd sensation, eventually they latched on to the Harmonies of Tarot and Rami in the distance behind him.

Twenty minutes had passed and according to Lir’s updated timer Ruwen had thirty-four minutes to figure this out. If he couldn’t see the femites he reasoned, maybe he could hear them.

Ruwen pulled his legs up, crisscrossing them as he entered the Third Meditation. In the tranquility of this level, he pushed his awareness outward, straining to hear his surroundings.

The complex harmonies of Rami and Tarot made Ruwen wince, and it took him five minutes to successfully neutralize their tones, returning him to silence once again.

Ruwen flexed his mental muscles, and visualized pushing Harmony into the fabric of reality. To his immense joy, which the Third Meditation immediately siphoned away, he heard something

It took a full minute for Ruwen to grasp the tone he’d found was his own soul.

After three minutes Ruwen hadn’t figured out a way to mute the sound or even to lower its volume.

Twenty-five minutes left before the Realm Zipper overtook them and they’d be forced to risk the dimensional chaos and almost certain death.

During this entire time Ruwen had felt the attention of Overlord, Uruziel, Lir, and Sivart. He hadn’t bothered asking for their input because they knew they didn’t need permission to offer up ideas. Which is why when Uruziel spoke it didn’t bother him at all.

I have an idea, Uruziel said. Overlord for obvious reasons resonates strongly with you, and my, well Uru’s, experience with sealing Ascendants’ souls gives me the same expertise. I want to try and wrap Overlord around your soul. He’s the only person in here who can survive that.

Because he’s basically me? Or an old version of me? That sounds terrible. Because—

I know what you mean, and yes. That’s exactly why it might work.

If Overlord is okay with it, do it, Ruwen said.

A minute later, Ruwen heard a distinct drop in the volume his soul radiated.

Over the next minute it gradually grew quieter until it disappeared completely.

We have it figured out now and it will go faster next time, Uruziel said. It’s a little painful for Overlord but he assures me he can last for the twenty-three minutes we have left.

Thank you both. I hope I don’t need that much time.

With silence surrounding Ruwen once again, he pushed his awareness downward. Two minutes later his excitement spiked as he detected different tones, so faint he knew they must be the femites.

A minute passed and Ruwen had separated the sounds into eight distinct tones, all of which remained incredibly faint. The number eight made his hopes fall that he’d detected femites.

I have a terrible feeling I’m hearing my chakras, Ruwen told Uruziel.

It seems likely. The Dark Chapel’s stained-glass displayed eight of them.

They’re so faint though I’m going to see if I can mute or push past them.

Twenty minutes remained.

It took two minutes, and Ruwen could still vaguely hear his chakras, but he didn’t think he could improve the situation much more, not with the time he had left.

Ruwen took a moment to glance at the oncoming Realm Zipper and immediately regretted it. The destructive construct filled his vision, and it would shortly engulf them. Harmonic Sight revealed the blinding light of its razor-sharp attack, and clearly displayed the effortless way it sliced through the boundaries between realms.

We should leave, Tarot said. Right now we have a small chance at surviving, but if it gets too close, even that chance might disappear.

Frustration filled Ruwen. Give me three more minutes. I’m going to try reaching it one more time. If you sense any kind of disturbance return to me immediately.

Lir helpfully moved the timer from eighteen-minutes to three.

Ruwen only had this one chance left, and dropped his legs, taking a standing position again. With a thought he dropped his chin to his chest, spread his wings, and wrapped them around his body, covering himself in a cocoon of strings.

Then Ruwen forced his awareness downward, plunging into the fabric of reality that surrounded him.

Ruwen’s wings remained motionless until he encountered his chakras, when they vibrated a fraction. He concentrated intently on the strings of his wings and using Harmonic Knowledge prayed a countermelody would emerge.

The wing’s vibrations were weak, and would never have worked against Ruwen’s soul, but the chakras were weak as well. He gently grasped the vibrations, the tones coming away like a string of fireflies. Instead of pushing the countermelody at his chakras he draped them over his back like a cloak, and the melody of his chakras disappeared.

Ruwen didn’t know how much time remained so he took advantage of the newly regained silence to continue pushing further into the depths of reality.

Time passed as Ruwen travelled the nothingness of silence.

An echo of an echo made Ruwen pause. Had he imagined the sound?

Ruwen intently focused on his wings, willing them to create a resonance with whatever that echo contained.

Silence.

Then a string quivered, and Ruwen cupped his mental hands around it, like protecting a spark, giving it the time needed to catch fire.

The vibration stopped and the Third Meditation took Ruwen’s despair. He remained motionless, his hand protecting the vibration he’d sensed.

With an explosion of sound, the darkness around Ruwen burst into life, and he stood in a forest of vibrating trees. His wings trembled as they resonated with the suddenly dense surroundings.

Ruwen heard the femite symphony—the fabric of the universe—and thankfully the Third Meditation kept the awe and shock from overwhelming him.

The femite forest, like a massive grove of aspen, existed as one entity and Ruwen heard and felt the approaching Realm Zipper which appeared far closer than he’d expected.

Up until now, Ruwen had used Harmony like an artist throwing buckets of paint at a wall. That explained why he couldn’t stretch Harmony across this space. To paint on a canvas this small required the most delicate of brushes.

Ruwen deconstructed Harmony, stripping it of layer after layer, until only a sliver of a fraction remained. He took this new brush and touched his wings, like dipping into a pallet of paint.

Extending the brush toward the Realm Zipper, Ruwen executed the first stroke of the painting he meant to create.

This time, Harmony obeyed, the forest of colors reacting to his desire in an instant.

As Ruwen sliced through the ultra-dense energy of the Realm Zipper, deep tones escaped.  The unraveling vibrations shook the surroundings and threatened to shatter his body.

Ruwen waved a mental hand upward, pulling the surrounding femites from their roots and into a shield, blocking the destructive ripples.

Ruwen’s wings detected the tones released from the damaged Realm Zipper, and created a countermelody—a mournful dirge, the vibrations barely detectable even at this new femite level.

Without hesitation, Ruwen sliced downward, channeling this lamenting harmony through the femite forest and into the oncoming Realm Zipper.

The dirge struck the upper section of the Realm Zipper and continued downward into the bottom layer, passing vertically through them and creating two halves.

The ends quickly unraveled, the damage spreading through the construct like a raging fire through dry grass. Space warped as devastating energy rippled outward in every direction, spreading the destruction further.

Ruwen wrapped himself, Rami, and Tarot in a protective layer of femites as the split Realm Zippers continued past them, one on each side, while the area in front of Ruwen roiled with chaotic energy from his destructive use of Harmony.

They’d survived.

Chapter 40

Ruwen waited until the femites surrounding him returned to normal before releasing the shield around himself and his friends. He admired his surroundings knowing it might be a long time before he could return. Only the complete lack of sound and vibrations here had made this journey possible. Even then, the music of his own body had nearly sabotaged them.

Someday Ruwen would find this layer without a second thought, but it wouldn’t be soon. It also concerned him that his own body had worked against him. What would happen to the pace of his Harmony advancement if his soul became louder or his chakras awakened? He knew what he’d experienced here held vast significance even if he didn’t yet understand completely why.

With a last look around, Ruwen left the femite layer. He unfolded his wings and with Harmonic Sight studied the blinding Realm Zipper that no longer surrounded them. The destruction had spread in both directions like a chain reaction had occurred. Thankfully it appeared to be slowing, as he didn’t want to demolish the whole thing—at least not right now.