It had always occurred to him—just one thing.
His ability to manipulate objects... to turn them into something else just because he could see deeper into the bonds that held them together, and how they were held.
Altering just one bond in these objects was usually all it took to destabilize them, sending the whole thing crashing into something else.
But now, with Sovereign Rewriting at its max, Ryuk’s view of it was different—and he had planned to test it on these two assassins before him.
The second Sovereign Rewriting was created, golden motes of light appeared around him, freckling the very fabric of reality within a radius of roughly 1,100 meters.
The two assassins expected a blast of some sort the moment Ryuk flicked his fingers, and they instantly shot further back with speed.
But no matter how fast they were, they couldn’t escape the freckled golden zone in time.
And in an instant, the greatest horror they had ever experienced occurred.
It was sudden, almost instant.
A sensation that could only be described as a sailor being caught in the jaws of a shark and reduced to nothing.
That was exactly what happened.
Their retreating momentum halted the moment they felt the space around them twist inward.
A grin spread across Ryuk’s lips as he watched the assassins violently implode with a bang.
The Eternity-stage expert died immediately, his head being the first caught in the folding of space—and therefore giving in to total annihilation.
The Apocrypha-stage assassin managed to save himself quickly, with only his lower body being severed in half.
The second he escaped the crumbled space, a dark card appeared in his hands, which he instantly shattered into pieces.
From the surrounding space, the head of a dark fox seemed to materialize, instantly opening its maw wide and trying to clamp down on him.
It was as if the assassin had used a suicidal art as he was no doubt going to be bitten by the fox head that he summoned, but one look, and he could tell:
’He won’t die like he made it look.’
’He would only be teleported away instead. It’s an escape art,’ He thought, something he could instantly narrow down from the void energy he sensed, and he reacted in an instant,
The fox technique was attempting to consume him, and so Ryuk moved, appearing beside the expert like he had always been there, just as the dark fox tried to clamp down.
Ryuk’s leg pressed firmly against the space to anchor himself—but it shattered into fragments, unable to withstand his weight.
Still, that brief moment of resistance was all he needed to drive his claw upward through the air with tremendous force.
Instantly, a powerful force slammed into the Void Fox Art, blasting it backward as it unraveled into nothing but fading motes of dark energy.
The assassin, now nothing but an upper body, collapsed to the ground.
His dark cloak had long been torn away by the folding of space, revealing the bizarre, otherworldly form of his true race beneath.
When Ryuk looked at him, the first thing that came to mind was:
’...A Dark Elf?’
The man’s ears were long like an elf’s, but instead of elongating backward, they extended sideways.
A dark scar lingered on his face, looking more like a tattoo, rippling with a strange dark energy that was neither Void nor Abyssal.
It caught Ryuk’s attention as he bent low to the man.
SLASSSHHHH
He made a swift claw attack that instantly slashed toward his face, fast and deadly.
But—
CLAAAASPPPP
The sound of a palm clashing with another rang out as Ryuk’s right hand moved, clasping the claw into his own, instantly bringing down all the force it contained.
"I told you, you’ve already lost, didn’t I?" he asked, watching as the assassin tried to exert strength against him, the claw inching closer to his face.
KAAA-CCHHAAA
ARRRGGGHHHH!!
The sound of bone splintering, followed by skin unraveling.
A moment later, a hand was brutally torn off from its source, flying into the air amidst continuously oozing dark blood.
The assassin writhed and struggled under the pain of losing his arm, his fate imminent.
But Ryuk looked at him silently for a couple of seconds, before asking:
’Now that I remember... Hey system, even though I no longer have Void Energy, I haven’t broken the pact I made to eventually become a Void Asura, right?’
’What happened to the Void Asura Rift?’
[Your Void Pact is still available under a section called "Pacts" in the system interface.]
[Would Host like to check it out?]
’Maybe later. Activate Void Asura Rift,’ he ordered, and in an instant, a rift appeared to the side, arresting the attention of the elf, whom Ryuk picked up by the neck.
"I’ll spare your life..." he said, watching as the assassin’s eyes widened in disbelief, just before he was thrown in, and the rift disappeared the moment he was gone.
"...for now," Ryuk finished, before glitching away from where he stood, reappearing beside the princess who lay on the ground.
His white scales slowly faded off him, along with the shards that hovered around his forehead.
He knelt beside the princess, and it was easy to see she was unharmed.
Not even the hem of her skirt had been touched, which was a relief.
But when he turned her face to him, he was surprised.
Her golden eyes had turned pitch black, their focus lost, her lips opening and closing, muttering bizarre words he couldn’t understand.
’What’s gotten into her?’
[The girl, due to being only at the Initial Cataclysm Stage, yet trapped in an Apocrypha-level Dark God Art, has lost her mind to its power.]
[Even though she bore no injury from the illusion art, her mere existence within it was enough.]
Ryuk nodded.
’So... she freaked out?’
[That’s a way to put it.]
’Then it’s easy to get her back on her feet,’ Ryuk said, rising.
[Only with the help of a Soulmancer or a powerful Illusionist would that dark force be slowly exorcised from her mind.]
[Both of which you’re not.]
[Maybe if you hadn’t gotten rid of your Aetheris energy. You could have done something.]The system rubbed in, but Ryuk shrugged it off while focusing his gaze.
"If she freaked out from coming in contact with a powerful energy source, then all she needs is another powerful energy source that could re-freak her out of her current state..." Ryuk muttered to himself,
[Pretty sure that’s not a thing]
"Activate King’s Aura,"
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A/N:
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In and Out_SnowySmoos