Ryuk could still remember it vividly.
When the Beyonder Bloodline arrived, slaughtering both the Knull and Jade Dragon Bloodlines and forcefully merging them to create the Hurricane gem, he had always had a question at the back of his mind.
Even though his previous bloodlines had told him that when Hurricane and Apex merge, they form a new bloodline called Hurricane, why couldn’t he control it?
Even after he had gotten rid of Zar’kul and fused with his Skeletal system, Ryuk still hadn’t been able to truly control Hurricane Energy.
When he shifted to his Knull transformation, that purple energy usually covered his claws, but that was the extent of it.
Why, despite having Apex and Abyssal Energy flowing in his veins, could he still not control Hurricane?
Now he knew the answer.
The only true way to control Hurricane energy wasn’t by inheriting it from his previous bloodlines, nor by having both the Knull and Draconic bloodlines flowing within him.
It was by forcefully seizing it, as the Beyonder Dragon had done.
It had crushed both his Knull and Jade Dragon essence, forcibly seizing their energy before turning it into Hurricane and passing it to Ryuk.
And that had only happened when Ryuk refused his original bloodlines and the names they tried to force on him.
The entity’s words were true: True Hurricane is born only from refusal.
It isn’t inherited rather seized.
Now he understood what Hurricane was and why it differed from other energies.
But many questions remained, and he turned to the being, who relaxed back in its seat before continuing.
"This definition of Hurricane that you understand, Ryuk, is simply the layman’s term I use to clear the confusion you may hold," the Spirit said. "But truly, Hurricane is far more than something seized or born from refusal."
"In truth, Hurricane isn’t an energy."
Ryuk found this hard to grasp.
"Do you still remember Sage Esh Terion?" the Spirit asked. "The cloaked being you met when you first awakened to Hurricane?"
Ryuk’s memories drifted to the wizard who held the staff and tried to pass his Hurricane Energy to him before everything exploded.
"He was one of the greatest cultivators to ever wield Hurricane, and he believed Hurricane is a Memory."
"But truly, Hurricane is a Stain," the Spirit continued.
"A stain?" Ryuk asked, confused.
"When worlds end," the Spirit began, "so too do their energies, laws, gods, and truths."
"But sometimes, these deaths are not clean."
"Sometimes, the war between energies is so great it burns even the roots of existence, leaving behind a stain."
"A stain that remembers, and this stain becomes Hurricane Energy."
"It is not a singular element but a recording of collapse, embedded with fragments of all that came before."
’It’s not a singular element but a recording of collapse, like a memory that remembers each death of a previous timeline,’ Ryuk thought, storing the important bits he felt he needed to remember, in the way he understood it.
"The white-cloaked sage you met, Esh Terion, was the last surviving master of Hurricane Energy from a timeline long erased," the Spirit said as Ryuk listened attentively.
"He discovered something that may be true before his unfortunate erasure: even though gods, devils, worlds, and histories are erased when the Cosmos begins its cycle of Erasure and Creation, it somehow leaves one thing alone—the only force that refuses absolute erasure, and that is Hurricane."
"Even when timelines are consumed, Hurricane Energy drifts, remembering it all."
"Esh Terion theorized that reality itself was the dream of a Sleeping True God," the Spirit continued, prompting Ryuk to raise an eyebrow.
"That sounds stupid," he said.
"Maybe it is," the Spirit replied, neither arguing nor convincing.
Instead, it continued.
"He believed this illusion forms layered timelines, each repeating with slight shifts."
"Hurricane Energy was the leak in that illusion—a loophole, or the glitch that gives this Sleeping True God an anchor to his own True Reality, the one that God itself uses to avoid falling into its own dream and becoming lost."
"He believed that if all this ending and erasure is just the dream of someone, then the only key to breaking it is the same thing this Sleeping God uses to stay awake and avoid falling into its dream."
"So, to him, Hurricane Energy is the only spell that can break the ’illusion of reality,’" Ryuk said, and the Spirit nodded.
"Yes, that’s exactly what Esh Therion believed."
"And while you might feel quick to call him an idiot who lived too long to remain sane, he was once a Lord of Hurricane—a stage only a few Hurricane Holders ever reach across infinite destroyed timelines."
"His words are worthy of being quoted and passed down," the Spirit said, as Ryuk hummed.
Truly, he had thought the sage was a bit lost.
Ryuk knew what illusions were—one of the pathways Aetheris cultivators could take.
They looked real but weren’t, and they could be broken.
But to call all of reality an illusion?
That seemed too far-fetched.
"Still, this doesn’t bear much use for you, does it?" the Spirit asked, and Ryuk nodded.
"That’s true."
"Reality is an illusion?"
"Hurricane is the spell to break it?"
"These theories sound cool, but they don’t have much use for me."
"The Knulls coming for me won’t sit down and let me explain how their reality is an illusion, nor will the knowledge be enough to have them willingly give back what they stole in exchange."
"If it doesn’t increase my power, it doesn’t aid my quest," he said.
The Spirit nodded, and Ryuk could swear he heard it wheeze, as if laughing, though he couldn’t be sure.
"Esh Terion would have argued the opposite—something like ’Knowledge is Power!’ And he’d be right, because he was truly powerful," the Spirit said with a helpless tone before turning to Ryuk.
"But let’s talk of Hurricane in ways that could provide substantial use to you."
"And that brings us to the Cultivation Stages of Hurricane and how to climb the ladder."