A Hand-Woven Universe 82 82. Retrospective

Noone's entire being felt hot. He felt as though he had fallen into a molten forge. His skin burned with vicious intensity - p.r.i.c.kling with the overwhelming sensation of being pierced by needles a thousand times over.

Everything about the world around him was impossibly loud.

The colors of the world were loud.

The sounds in the silent caverns of Tapestry were loud.

He could taste the smallest changes in the air. See the universal makeup of stone around him. Every hairline crack that was unnoticeable to the human eye had become highlighted within his sight.

When his hand moved through the air, he felt every molecule of resistance against his flesh.

Unprecedented power flushed through him, everything he had ever known about existence itself seemed to become overturned in that one moment. His brain, without even trying, was seeing through everything in slow motion.

If he wanted to, he felt that he could count the settling particles of dust as they fell to the ground.

It would be an experience he could only imagine would be comparable to joining the ancestor on her throne.

But the sensations and majesty did not last for long. When he saw the being, who had watched him bury everyone he had ever known, madness overtook him. There was no saving his mind from that descent. He was alone, and the sudden influx of unprecedented strength mixed with inconsolable grief overcame any sense of self control he had.

His world went red, and he gave himself over to something which had planted itself deep in his heart. Hate perhaps, or possibly to the madness.

Leaving Tapestry behind, Noone scaled the cliff at an unprecedented speed. He barely even attempted to hold onto the wall while he leaped vertically along the side. His eyes pierced into the sky as though wis.h.i.+ng to break through it.

Days and Nights pa.s.sed without any exhaustion setting in. Noone's consciousness was aware of his surroundings, but he realized that the madness he gave himself over too was in control.

And he embraced it.

It was rage and calculated hate, and power!

What more could he ask for with the thoughts of the death of his home so fresh in his mind?

Finally, he reached the world above. A place only a few of Tapestry ever imagined and fewer still had ever seen.

Cracked earth and a forest of stones greeted his sight. It was desolate and bland as he always thought the world above would be after the calamity that had sent them underground.

But now, he knew that there must be something on the surface. Whatever that was which took the life of everyone he had ever known, it must have come from somewhere. And Noone was prepared to hunt it down.

The sun was past its zenith, and the world would soon be plunged into night. Despite a burning revenge in his core fueling him, he could not leave his corner of the world so easily. Not without one last look back…

Even madness has moments of clarity and sentiment.

Noone turned to face towards the horizon.

"One last time…" He thought. "One last time I will face this horizon and the setting sun, I will not return until my hatred is satisfied."

His resolve was set.

As the sun quietly dropped beneath the clouds, Noone thought about everyone he had ever seen in Tapestry. Everyone who had ever treated him well. Anyone who had attempted, no matter how poorly, to converse with him in spoken word.

It was like this, he thought, that he would want to spend his last moments looking back. Everything forward would be of a new world. A desolate world, he though. Filled with violence. Monsters made of bones that stood eight feet tall and willing to slaughter the population of the conclave. A conclave carefully created for protection by the Ancestor against the end of the world.

Hatred surged in his heart.

It was in this moment of bitter regret and cruel clarity that a group of the Order of Life spotted a lone figure standing stalwart at the edge of the world. A being seething with hate and hurt, reminiscing while watching the sun set. They went unnoticed by him, who was burning his thoughts of hatred and sadness into power.

The sun set lower, only twenty minutes of light was left in the day. Noone was completely absorbed in his thoughts. Cruelty seethed from his pores.

Suddenly, a couple hundred meters directly at his back he felt an existence appear within his awareness. Multiple existences. It wasn't a perfect feeling, more like a hazy instinct that he was not alone.

Noone's head turned to look back, wanting to see what caused this twinge in his mind. It was then he saw five beings, the likes of which he had never seen before.

Their differences were not the first thing Noone thought of. He wasn't sure he thought much of anything at this moment. Soaked in the memories of lost family, and being confronted with an existence as foreign as the skeleton being which slaughtered his city… there was only one thing he thought to do.

Noone turned, facing directly towards the five weird beings. His lungs burned with fire. His throat itched with fury.

A scream of anguish and hate erupted from his mouth and ripped his vocal chords into shreds, as though trying to expel a never-ending fire of madness from the core of his being.

The air around him gave way to the power of his emotions. Cosmic energy which flowed through his meridians and core mixed with the anger, ripping through the laws of the s.p.a.ce around him. A shockwave built with his body as a catalyst impacted the 5 creatures.

Without considering his next move, he launched himself towards the being which seemed to be the most dangerous. The stone under him shattered and the remaining distance between them closed in the span of a single breath.

DIE

Every thought in Noone's mind was to kill.

Kill the big one. Then the others.

Let no one escape.

Madness fueled his battle prowess, he did not care that every move he made injured his own body in the process. He now had a target.

When the hand which he was wanting to pierce through the being with was blocked, Noone did not hesitate to continue to wage a slaughter.

The beings had strange tools. One of them had a long pike-like rod which she repeatedly jousted towards him. He kept his distance, coldly calculating its trajectory before closing the distance, using the reach of his leg to kick into that being's side.

Like an itch in the back of his mind, he felt the dangerous one approach with his weapon and strike downwards. Noone dodged out of the way, coldly watching the axe cut into the stone.

He did wait for the big one to recover and instead chose to change targets. Right when he was about to make his move, his shoulder was crushed under the weight of a silver hammer.

Noone did not even feel it. His muscles held the pulverized bone in place enough for Noone to grasp onto that being's wrist, crus.h.i.+ng it into tofu.

He was stabbed in the gut. But he crushed that one's skull with his own. Blood rained down his clothes. Normally this would have disgusted him, but he did not see these beings as anything other than evil.

THEY COME FROM THE SURFACE! THEY MUST DIE! A voice screamed inside of him. He was the last survivor of Tapestry.

He was rushed by another with a long blade, and he showed no mercy to that one.

The one with the pike-like tool approached again. Noone couldn't help but sneer in response, he had already dealt with her once.

This time that one proved much more difficult to handle. It repeatedly landed slices across his flesh drawing blood. He saw the dangerous one approaching and knew he should handle it quickly.

With a stomp, the ground under him exploded in a vision-obscuring cloud.

The one with the pike paused due to the sand and the dust. Using this opportunity, he repeated his initial attack - Noone pierced through her body with his hand before throwing her out of the dust.

Then, he waited. It was only a few breaths before the dangerous one approached. Noone's hand pierced towards his head through the cloud he had created. He missed.

Before he could retract his arm though, the axe was swung through the air, and his arm. His tendons, his muscles, his bones were all sheared from his body. His blood sprayed across them both.

Although the pain was quickly suppressed as fast as it occurred, fury was not so easily dissuaded.

They engaged in a back and forth exchange of blows, Noone's mind lost track of how violently he moved, even striking so hard that he was causing more of his own injuries. But he did not care.

There was a sudden flash of blue light off to the side, and suddenly Noone realized he was unable to move.

Before he had a real chance to fight back, the dangerous one shot towards him and forced him on the ground. The bindings tightened around his body, and a crus.h.i.+ng weight dropped onto his chest. Ribs and lungs collapsed. He fought violently but failed to get any leverage. Both of Noone's arms had become rendered unusable.

Out of a purely instinctual rage, Noone's broken twisted arm stretched out to the spear which laid near the tall thin one.

Like a third limb, Noone's mind took control of the object and flung it towards the large one who was standing on his chest.

After it was dodged once, Noone had no trouble turning it around. It slashed into the paladin's arm, cutting it off, similar to what was done to him.

That was when everything went cold.

A pendant dropped by the man which stood on him fell onto his chest, submerging his entire being into a violent chill that affected his very soul.

It was pain that seemed to subdue and fracture the rage which burned inside of him. The inner devil which had formed its own consciousness when he broke through had become exposed, like a glacier being cracked open revealing the land underneath. It was violently ripped from his core.

Slowly Noone fell into a slumber. The world around him went dark and his consciousness was submerged into ice.

When Noone awoke, he was unsure how much time had pa.s.sed. An occurrence which seemed to happen a lot in his short life. But from his best guess he estimated a few weeks?

He had nothing to base it on. All of his senses were sealed, and it left him with a feeling similar to when he was absorbed into the plant. However, having broken through into the third level of Qi Condensation left him with an awareness far stronger than before.

The first thing he realized was the burning fiery core which formed inside him had become incredibly subdued. It still felt as though it existed just below the surface - but Noone was thinking more clearly and was far calmer than before. He could sense the burning hate which he had allowed to take over his body, but it felt as though it was encased inside a block of never-melting ice.
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Noone continued to a.n.a.lyze everything which occurred to this point. His mindset had stabilized, like a building built upon concrete foundations, Noone's awareness was harder to shake.