Suiming

  His view was filled with shadows as he reminisced about the first time he met Nameless.

  It was not long after he left Euth for the first time. In the empty fields where only tiny patches of bushes and few trees grew, passing the mountains and rivers when Treisaules could hardly be called a country, he walked alone. Sleeping in wherever he could find, torn abnormalities apart with his three-times-sharpened Realm-art if he came across one. As he lived in a craftsman’s house in Siyue’s capital, a girl walked in with a sword.

  Her eyes, amber-colored as her calmness, an unpolished appearance yet long-lasting fairness. His voice was calm as if she was talking to a cat, as Suiming found the sword in his chest.

  “You do not belong to this world,” she said in Siyuenese. Without an accent on any syllable or any emotion.

  Stars formed into animals and objects as she pushed her sword deeper.

  “It seems that we have a misunderstanding,” Suiming said as he coughed blood. His Realm-art was ready to strike.

  “Do you still belong to this world then? I can feel the scent of an Existence within you,” he continued.

  “The future has a place for me,” she answered as her creations that can only be called surreal beat Suiming’s Realm-art into pieces of light.

  “Won’t you be lonely then?”

  “I am used to it.”

  “So am I.”

  …

  Dust.

  Unending and never-beginning. The dust then faded away as Fosfor clenched her hand into a fist.

  Fosfor stood before the corpses and bodies nailed to the ground.

  Suiming looked at his reflection in the stardust as he searched for what this place looked like. A century ago, a thousand years ago, and further, but then it ended with a darkness. A darkness that mirrored his bleeding forehead and his tired face.

  There are many things he can’t remember; the memory of the beginning was nowhere in his head. He only remembered those emotions, feelings that he felt for the first time, and the fire he set by himself.

  “Are you done looking in the mirror?” Fosfor asked as she walked between the bodies. Her steps are gentle and swift. Even with her casual clothing, she cannot hide her elegance and grace as a dancer.

  “Can you tell what these things are?”

  “Have you thought about what the world would look like if runes were never discovered?” Fosfor asked as she put her hand on one of the nails. Her pale skin contrasted with it as if she were wiping the tombstone of an old friend.

  “Let me tell you a tale…”

  “I’ve seen many souls…but she made an important place.”

  “She built great machines…gadgets and weapons.”

  “As she grew old, she realized nobody would remember her, no one would call her name again, no song would sing about her, even if she tried to leave marks…they would eventually fade. Nothing escapes death, nothing escapes the end…but she gave it a shot.”

  “So she built a great tomb, a monument. It is absent from anything realm-related…from my seal onto This World. Nothing here dies.” Fosfor said, kicking a stone away as Suiming saw a reflection of tears in her eyes. The stars of his Realm-art shone as he raised his head. Above him was a darkness that his stars couldn’t shine through.

  “But guess what, in the end, she decided not to step into her creation. She wished for death to be granted to her.”

  As he tried to picture what emotions the builder of this place felt, he realized one thing. Why could he cast if this ruin is absent from the Realm?

  He had no doubt why Fosfor could cast. Barricade’s power comes from something that is not the Realm, nor Existence. So is Nameless; her Realm-art is only her harnessing the power sealed within her. Suiming didn’t question, or he refused to think why he could cast without any side effects since he had seen many abnormalities having powers that couldn’t be explained with the four archetypes of Realm-art, he just thought that his side effects came in other ways than other casters would normally feel.

  His heart began beating faster and faster. Like an impatient dancer going faster than the music. The wind blew like a flute as the dust moved like a carpet.

  Stolen story; please report.

  It reminded him of the Treisaulian flute, yet chilling and unsettling as if it were out of tune. He did not question why the corpses were there, nor why he saw the image of himself in it.

  But he put the attention on the Realm part.

  With a shaking voice, Suiming asked. His voice was quiet like an afraid child.

  “…Then…Fosfor, why can I cast my Realm-art? Doesn’t the power of an abnormality come from the Realm?”

  “Suiming, why were you here?” Fosfor said as she stopped walking in circles.

  “Iris told me that someone who spoke only in Yellian came out from here.”

  “What!? Why did she tell me? Where is that person now?!” Fosfor yelled as she leaped towards Suiming. She grabbed him by his collar as her black eyes stared into Suiming’s eyes. Suiming used to see exhaustion in her eyes, but now there was only a spark of excitement.

  “Don’t ask me, I’m not her dad. Aren’t you always busy? And why don’t you ask yourself? That guy is dead! Gone!”

  “I don’t know every dead person! Do you remember everyone you’ve met in your life?”

  “Answer my question first, why can I cast my Realm-art here?” Suiming said as he pulled Fosfor’s hand away from his collar. Something was rumbling and whaling in his heart. Like a pitiful beast lamenting. When did I feel such a feeling before?

  “…Where does my power come from? If you are so smart, answer me.” Fosfor asked back.

  “From…from the space…the River of Abyss.” Suiming said as he stuttered.

  “That’s right…Yellian created it, a miniature Realm if you will.”

  A lightning of inspiration struck. He remembered the great obelisk he saw in his vision. The feeling in his heart stirred. A lie. The lie was told to him by him. A lie that he lived in for the past uncountable years. Suiming can’t recall if he had seen the obelisk before in his visions; he did not pay attention to the stars in the background of it, but next time, he will. No, it can’t be…I am an abnormality, my power can only come from the Realm…unless…no, it can’t be…she would’ve noticed it if an Existence created me.

  “Fosfor, let’s not waste any more time on this,” Suiming said as he retrieved the floating constellations.

  They walked deeper into the ruin, through the graveyard-like nails and bodies. Suiming couldn’t stop thinking about seeing Nameless in one of the nails.

  As they walked deeper into it, they stopped at a door frame decorated with reliefs. The feeling that he felt when his Realm-art sharpened bubbled from his memory.

  His intuition told him that this was it. Suiming’s ear buzzed as if something was speaking. He frowned, but he could still stand on his injured leg.

  Reliefs tell a tale of a once-great time. The surface became rougher near the ground. From the above, Suiming could tell that it was a pillar reaching to the sky, paralleling the sun, then flocks of aircraft vastly different from those of nowadays. Most parts of the door were decorated with images of buildings surrounding a citadel that felt it did not belong with the advanced sculptures on it. It looked ancient even from the relief.

  “Yel…” Fosfor muttered. Her voice was almost as quiet as a mouse.

  “It’s no time for history lessons,” Fosfor said as she looked at Suiming. With a nod, they opened the door.

  Colors embraced them. Figures never seen surrounded them. Twisting and warping as if ice cream in summer. Creatures out of a nightmare stretched as the ground warped. A drop of tear fell from Suiming’s eye. Floated mid-air as he closed the door.

  “Didn’t you say this place was absent from the Realm?!” Suiming shouted as he put his body against the closed door.

  “I didn’t say that it was absent from Nameless!”

  “I hope when you sleep, it is too hot in your blanket and too cold without it.” Suiming cried, sword falling on the ground as the quill pen followed it.

  “I’m sorry, okay?” Fosfor lamented, hand covering her face. She was ready to face it, but when she saw what was beyond the door, she could not help but remember what she had seen. Fear. Something she thought she couldn’t feel anymore. When was the last time Nameless unleashed the seal completely? What was she facing a thousand years ago?

  The power of Nameless bends reality when out of control. The door blocked all horrors beyond it. They were not sure why it could hold it like an unmovable stone, but it felt like the unstoppable whispers were about to crack open the stone door.

  The sleep-talking mindlessly passed the stone door as Suiming used his Realm-art to make a makeshift bandage. It did not stop the bleeding, but at least held his wound together.

  “Monocle…ain’t charged…sword? Not shining…why is the Outsider still working?” Suiming said to himself as he looked into his pockets and the blood-stained bag. As he looked at the smashed-into-a-sheet bread that he picked up earlier that day, he came up with a plan. A guess and a gamble, gambling that he could close the seal of Nameless.

  “Fosfor, in terms of casting time, yours is longer than Nameless’, right?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Can you move the River of Abyss around me? Like a bubble?”

  “I can give it a shot.”

  “Cast on my signal then.”

  “Are you ready to wake up a sleepyhead?”

  The air was chill. Coldness embraced him from the inside rather than the outside. The colors that were dull became duller and less vibrant as his hand wrote with the quill pen. Dim light chained and length grew. He can’t remember when was the last time he wrote such a long passage.

  “Now!” Suiming yelled as he crashed his body into the door. The sword screeched as he picked it up, as the unnamed wind of death whistled with it.

  The ground was melting, and the air was warping. In the sound of nothing and the smell of everything, among the things that never existed that were also prolonged, Suiming charged forward. His foot was stuck in something he could not tell. Damp and soft, he used the sword as a crowbar and got it out, sprinting.

  Creatures that were not of mankind’s comprehension surrounded him. Fosfor’s power slowed them down as their body regenerated. Their limbs whipped and slammed onto the bubble around him. Every step he took may lead him to nowhere. It hurts! he thought to himself as he marched.

  The light of the Outsider shielded him as he pinned the quill pen onto his hat. Darkness from Fosfor’s miniature Realm formed a thin layer around him.

  A few seconds of dashing felt like hours. Sweat was rolling off his body as he could smell his fear. The creatures were changing shapes, turning inside out and outside in, some of them resembled the paintings, utterly mad and insane.

  At last, he arrived there.

  The white hair of Nameless bloomed as her body stayed mid-air. Her eyes closed shut as if she was sleeping, dreaming a dream never waking.

  “The seal…is intact?”

  “Then why did she decide to unleash it?”