novelraw Chapter 167: His Synaxis
Chapter 167: His Synaxis
Ignotus drifted, his consciousness unmoored from his body, falling through his own history.
He didn’t have a choice in the matter. When a Runebearer’s Soul ran dry of Divinity before a wielder of Illusion, they became vulnerable to direct attacks, ones that used the Runebearer’s own mind against them.
Ignotus fell to such, and now...
Like a creeping mold, the complete reality of his existence threaded its way through his mind. Birth, death, birth again. Decay and bloom. A million stitches from a million microscopic wounds he’d inflicted on everyone he’d ever met.
With every muscle he’d moved and every word he’d spoken.
Ignotus’s very existence hurt himself.
A lonely Soul in a void by itself.
It lived for decades, and then it was gone.
And then it was there once again.
A reprieve. A fulfilling life. An attempt at love. A steady path. Recognition from his people. Respect and admiration. All here one moment, gone the next...
The worms have found their orifices.
His Soul was reborn.
A lonely Soul, lonely again.
"LET ME OUT!"
***
Ignotus witnessed a relentless rain.
A miserable downpour that soaked the area he was in, though not reaching him, thanks to the umbrella he held up.
This ’area’ Ignotus stood on the edge of was a graveyard, partially hidden by the thick trunk of an oak tree.
He wore a tailored dark suit and a heavy black coat, all helping keep the worst of the rain off his shoulders.
From a far distance, he looked like just another mourner arriving late, but that was so very far from the despairing truth.
His grey eyes were fixed on a small gathering around a fresh rectangular wound in the earth.
A priest, draped in the somber robes of his office, stood at the head of the grave.
"He was a man of courage..."
His voice was amplified slightly by a minor wind-focusing Divine Relic, enabling him to be heard over the patter of the rain.
"Ignotus of House Plant... a brave soul who gave his life defending the Third Stratum from the incursions of Hell. He did so while many in his position escaped. May the Gods grant him the peace he earned in the fires of battle."
Ignotus chuckled from the shadows.
’Brave? No, I was just tired of running.’
The ceremony was brief.
People in this realm didn’t like to linger in the rain, especially not for a "hero" whose death was as messy as his life.
They stepped forward, tossing white flowers into the pit, petals that immediately turned brown in the mud.
Their departures began soon after.
Acer, his older brother, was the first to turn.
He didn’t offer a prayer or a final look. He simply adjusted his collar, signaled for his attendant, and walked toward the waiting carriages. He’d long since forgotten the man whose headstone this belonged to.
One by one, the rest of the family and distant relatives followed. His older sister lingered the longest of them, her face a mask of controlled grief, before she too bowed her head and retreated.
Only two figures remained.
His mother and father remained standing at the edge of the grave. They didn’t have an umbrella; the rain drenched their hair and ran down their faces in rivulets, but they didn’t seem to notice.
They stood there for hours, staring down at the dirt as if they expected him to climb back out.
Ignotus watched them, a heavy sadness settling in his eyes. He only came to check if his plan worked; that was all. He didn’t mean to stay this long, but...
He didn’t move... he could not.
The man had realized the complexity of humans, and also their simplicity... daring to feel sadness for a "death" they could’ve easily avoided, or at least delayed.
Ignotus simply watched until the light began to fail, and when he finally had enough, he turned his back on his own funeral and walked into the trees.
’It’s too late.’
***
Snap!
The scene shifted as the scent of damp earth was replaced by the overwhelming stench of blood and smoke.
"SPEAKER! WE NEED A SPEAKER OVER HERE!"
Ignotus was moving before the shout even finished, now wearing dark green robes.
A leather beak mask sat over his face, its dark glass lenses reflecting the orange glow of a burning battlefield.
He skidded into the mud beside a soldier who was clutching a mangled mess where his hand used to be. The man was screaming, a raw sound that cut through the thunder of distant explosions.
Ignotus gripped the man’s forearm, his fingers glowing with a faint, pulsing grey light.
He wasn’t a healer; he didn’t have the Rune for that, but he had Time.
Beneath his touch, the wound began to change. It was undoing itself... indeed, his was a Rune of reversal.
The blood pooling in the mud began to defy gravity, sliding back into the veins. The shredded muscle fibers untore, weaving themselves back into their original patterns.
The same happened for the man’s skin, returning to how it was prior to the injury.
It was a slow, agonizing process for the patient, whose body was being forced to relive the trauma in reverse.
"Don’t worry..."
Ignotus, voice muffled by the mask, patted the soldier’s shoulder.
"I’ll end this skirmish soon. You just hang on... all of you just hang on."
***
Snap!
The battlefield vanished.
Now, the air was still and cold, smelling of expensive incense and fresh blood.
Ignotus stood in the center of a grand manor’s ballroom, dressed in a skin-tight assassin’s fit of matte black, his face covered so that only his cold, grey eyes were visible.
Around him, the "luxury" of the house had been dismantled, the white marble floor slick with crimson, and at least a dozen guards lay in twisted heaps.
The survivors—a handful of terrified Shepherds—were backed into a corner, their swords trembling.
"STOP!"
Suddenly, a man scrambled forward.
"PLEASE! DON’T ATTACK!"
It was a retainer, and he threw himself between Ignotus and the cowering guards, his arms spread wide.
"Are you all fools?! Look at him! He’s just one man, and he’s barely broken a sweat!"
The man turned his head slightly, pleading with the guards behind him.
"Our House only exists right now because he chose not to wipe us out! He’s letting us live! Please... see reason! Put your weapons down before he changes his mind! PLEASE!"
Ignotus stood perfectly still, his black blade held loosely at his side, his eyes bearing down on the man who was risking his life to save a House that had already fallen.
Their trembling sight made him feel a familiar exhaustion. He didn’t want to be here. He didn’t want to kill the guards, and he didn’t want to be the reason this man was screaming.
But that was his path forward...
These were the rules of Runethera.
The path was the path, and the world was what it was.
Dog-eat-dog
"Ha..."
Ignotus reached out and gently tapped the man’s shoulder.
"I’m sorry."