Infinite Realm: Monsters & Legends

Chapter 602: Naha

Lesson

Naha sighed from her spot on the roof as she looked down at the mess below her. This entire thing was nothing more than an annoyance really, but she knew that it mattered a lot more than that to Zach. She knew that this would affect him. It was nothing, a scene that probably repeated a dozen times in this city alone. It was reality.

But Zach so desperately wanted to believe that people could be better, could be good. That what he was seeing was just a symptom of the few who ruled with cruelty.

Naha agreed with him in some ways. If the world had an example to look up at, things like this might happen less. But reality would still remain the same. They were a long way away from a world he imagined.

The group below decide that it was a smart thing to try and attack him.

The first attack was clumsy, fueled by arrogance and numbers rather than actual skill. The human’s punch was telegraphed, not that it would’ve mattered if it wasn’t. Zach, moving with an economy of motion that seemed almost lazy, swayed just enough for the fist to whistle past his ear, the wind of its passage ruffling his hair. He brought a hand up, not to strike, but to gently redirect the human’s momentum, using the man’s own force to spin him off balance. The large human stumbled, surprised, crashing into one of the ravzor who had been lunging with claws extended.

He had to control himself completely just not to splatter them across the cobblestones by accident.

Another ravzor came at him from the side, a saber swinging for his head. Zach sidestepped, the movement fluid and precise, and the attack found only empty air. He didn’t even seem to be trying hard, more like he was avoiding collisions in a crowded marketplace than fighting for his life.

“Hold still, damn you!” One of the demasi hissed, launching a series of quick jabs with a short blade that appeared in her hand. Each strike was aimed such poor understanding of offense, of combat, of… everything really. Zach anticipated them with no effort at all, deflecting the blows with open-handed parries that looked deceptively soft, yet turned the blade aside every time. Her attacks met nothing but air.

Whatever he was going to say got lost in the noise as one of the humans yelled and gestured widely, using an ability. A piece of the ground ripped upward, then shot out straight at Zach.

He didn’t even bother to evade. The rock smashed against him, turning to debris and sending pieces flying everywhere.

The dust settled quickly, leaving Zach standing there unharmed. He sighed, a barely audible sound. It didn’t take long for them to realize their mistake, that he was much stronger than they had assumed.

It didn’t take long for the terror to grip them, freeze them in place. Zach glanced up, meeting her eyes. Naha dropped down next to him, immediately she smelled the fear increase, the stench of urine as one of them had an accident. She could tell by the way Zach stood that he felt guilty about the way they reacted. He was still soft like that. She hoped that at least that part of him wouldn’t change.

He looked over them, then gestured with his head. “Leave.”

They ran, vanishing from the street in what seemed like a second.

Zach walked over to the karura, who was still on the ground completely petrified.

Naha turned around as he knelt next to the kid, she looked out, monitoring their surroundings for any interruptions. Sometimes she was amazed at the power she held, it almost trivialized everything. There were no secrets from her, no place to hide. Once, she had looked up at those at the top, the powerful High Rankers of the Infinite Realm and wondered what their power would feel like. Now… now she eclipsed even them.

There were many powerful people in this city alone, people on the High Ranker list too. She could feel them, and knew that they couldn’t even hope to notice her attention. The power that had once felt so grand, so far above her, unattainable. Now felt almost trivial before her. She could plunge this entire city into shadow before anyone could do anything to stop her.

That was why she understood people like this group of explorers more than Zach ever would. They knew that strength was freedom, that only the strong could survive and be free to truly make their own choices, and they were willing to do anything to attain that power. And barring that, anything to just survive. ȐâΝОᛒÈ𝓢

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Stomping over somebody else was almost expected in their viewpoint. There was no room for weakness in the game of survival that they all played.

Zach walked up to her as she felt the karura running away. He stopped next to Naha, leaning his shoulder into hers.

“What did you say to him?” She asked. She could’ve listened in, of course, but she had found that knowing everything impacted their relationship in a negative way. They stopped talking when there was the expectation that she knew everything that happened near him. So she had made it a point not to listen in when she was away from him, which wasn’t that often anyway. It was good practice for control of her power too.

“I gave him some Essence, advised him to leave and find a different team. Advised him about a few other things, gave him one of the primers on Class advancement.”

Some Essence could mean many different things. It would be trivial for Zach to give him enough to advance several tiers of power with ease. He would never do it, though. Both of them believed in teaching people to help themselves.

The primer he had gifted was something they’ve been working for the academy. It wasn’t finished yet, but it would be useful to any low tiered person. It held far more information that what was widely available.

“I hope it works out for him,” Naha said genuinely. She wished that people had more choices, that they had more freedom to grow. She didn’t berate or try to convince Zach that what he was doing was pointless, she had the same hope he did, and all it took was one good act that took, that changed a life enough that that person then continued the cycle and helped change someone else’s life.

Naha stirred from sleep as she felt Zach tense next to her in bed. They had returned to the room they’ve rented at the inn, tried to sleep—something that they rarely did these days. Just relax, as both of them knew life was going to become a lot more difficult soon enough.

She felt a wave of emotions coming through the True Link, which she kept active most of the times these days. Immediately she focused on the Shadows and found the source, she deflated but stood up from the bed after Zach.

With a thought both of them were clothed.

“Naha, please.”

She put her arm around him and gathered Shadow, then pulled them both into it. A moment later they exited a shadow on the other side of the city.

They were in a small dark alley, and there in front of them sprawled across the stone against the wall was a young karura, bleeding from a wound in his chest.

A shadow one street away rose from the ground and grasped a running form, though her attention wasn’t fully there.

Zach got down on one knee next to the kid, looking at his dead body. There wasn’t anything that they could do, not really.

Death came so quickly for weak people. Their Soul’s anchor to their bodies was so faint, so fragile that it took little to shake it loose, send it away into the Ethereal.

“I should’ve paid more attention,” Zach blamed himself, as she had known he would.

“You know that isn’t sustainable, you can’t just watch over everyone all the time.”

Besides, they couldn’t. Zach’s perception was greatest in the realms of Essences that were in his Arsenal. She knew how he had noticed the karura dying, he could feel every death in the city, when the Soul vanished. It was trivial then for him to look in and see what was happening, to listen as the wind carried the sound to his ears. But that meant that he would’ve noticed something was wrong only after a death had happened. Even Naha struggled to perceive everything, she had to focus to narrow her feel of the Shadow.

“Can you bring him?” Zach asked.

With a thought, she pulled the murderer through the shadow from where she had captured him in his escape attempt.

A moment later, an unfamiliar demasi was before them. A part of her was surprised that it wasn’t anyone from the karura’s Guild team. But the reasons for the murder were apparent immediately. In his hand, the demasi tightly held a small storage ring. Theft, such a stupid reason.

“This is my fault,” Zach said as he stared at the petrified murder.

“It isn’t your fault,” Naha told him.

He shook his head. “If I hadn’t given him Essence, haven’t helped him, then he wouldn’t have had anything of value great enough to kill for. If I hadn’t interfered, at most he would’ve gotten beaten up and forced out of that team, the Guild. He could’ve found another job, managed to… something. But he would’ve lived.”

“Or he would’ve starved on the streets,” Naha countered. “Don’t put the decisions of others on your back Zach.”

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, when he opened them he turned away from the murder and looked back at the dead karura. On the grand scale, this death was meaningless. Dozens died every day in this city alone, ones that were the same as this child before them. It was wasteful, and sad, but it was reality.

He turned back to the demasi and walked over, he pried his hand open and took the storage ring, shaking his head in the process, then he just stared at the frozen demasi.

“Do you want me to kill him?” She asked.

Zach narrowed his eyes, then shook his head. “I don’t want to kill him at all. I… they’ll never learn, will they?”

Naha tilted her head, confused for a moment.

Zach didn’t elaborate. “Take him to our rooms, he’s going to come with us, for a while at least.”

Naha frowned, but didn’t comment. She was used to Zach’s eccentricities.

“What are you going to do?”

“I…” He turned back to the karura. “I’m not a Valkyrie, but I know Ethereal well enough. I’ll go and escort his Soul, it’s the least I owe him.”

With a wave of his hand, he opened a rip in space and stepped through into the Ethereal Realm, leaving her with the demasi.

Naha turned her full attention on him, realizing that he too was a child, probably not even twenty years old, malnourished too, gaunt and pale. His eyes were open so wide that she almost feared they would pop out of his skull.

She tsked to herself, then sighed. Somehow, she had just known that her and Zach’s quality time would get interrupted.