Zenith Online: Rebirth of the Strongest Player

Several years blinked by.

After returning from seeing and learning of the Great Bloodshed, Kieran assumed his role as the teen Voiceless with alarming precision. Many birthdays passed unknowingly and without celebration. Like the years before, no fuss was made.

Of course, he hadn't truly lost himself, but he always put up the facade of having done so.

It appeased both Cardinal Weiss and the Flame to great extents. With that change came his falling into a strict rhythm. A spartan regimen of learning, training, understanding, and honing.

Regarding combat skills, rarely any of the old Voiceless could match him.

The seamlessness of this facade was accomplished through his attainments that deepened by the day. In years since his eye-opening experience, Kieran's understanding of Anatomy, Born, and Comprehend reached the purported pinnacle.

It might not have been the pinnacle for every Mystic Runemaster, but it was the one Kieran could support with his half-reassembled Mystic Gate.

Aside from those three, Distinct and Equality had also reached new highs, with the latter being accomplished through the help of Further and Judgment.

Unsurprisingly, Further was the easiest of all to attain mastery in. The Syllable's straightforward principle of existing to reinforce, further, or augment what was already present only had one application, and that was… furthering anything it was applied to.

Thanks to that, he now had ample experience in augmenting things, and so this principle came easy, and so did its truth.

In hindsight, its truth was the ability to use knowledge to reinforce things. It also detailed how furthering something could end up helping its augmentation. A simple lesson but a powerful and resonant one nonetheless.

If Kieran had to sum up Further in one word, the word he would use was teaching. That encompassed all that Further embodied.

'And so… another truth is found, I believe. To go further is to learn and teach.'

Aside from learning more about those basic principles, Kieran also took time to break down the other symbols that resonated with Equality inside that brilliant dreamscape.

That process was a lot slower but still rewarding in the end.

Those other symbols provided insight into what wordmancing could become, what applications he could wield, and what new knowledge he could potentially create and inscribe.

Compelled by his current thoughts, Kieran touched the healed scar on his throat.

A recurrent question flitted through his mind — would he ever regain a voice in this Trial? He wasn't like the others. He had mysticism at his disposal. If he could find the right combination, perhaps healing his voice was possible.

Then again, it was strange as he thought about it…

The Flame could remedy every injury inflicted upon the body, but it couldn't heal the damage to his throat. It was a question he had asked the Flame many times over the years, and it avoided it in its same slippery fashion.

However, Kieran had an inkling as to why the Flame wouldn't heal it. It was similar to the fact the Flame couldn't undo the damage it did to the Realm. It couldn't revert the ruin it had caused.

That idea made Kieran think about the Flame's words several times. It had called itself the Demon of Ruin. Ruin was what came after destruction — it was its aftermath. This much he had already connected.

Kieran had ample time to think over the years, and a stable mind supported by Furthered Judgment and Equality — which Kieran liked to call the Furthered Scales of Balance — made for a peaceful and conducive environment to think.

The mystical apparatus made the corrupted parts of his mind irrelevant. It obtained balance in what was present by optimizing what was available. That was how his sound mind was achieved despite the Flame's maddening influence.

So, with the help of the Furthered Scales of Balance, he began to sift through disparates hints the Flame had left during frequent tirades and boastful monologues. Considering how much the Flame blabbered on, it required a lot of organization, but Kieran was acquainted with structure.

Anatomy's lessons were invaluable here.

Soon, Kieran separated the information into four parts: drivel, vague, compelling, and key.

The drivel was forcibly ejected from the front of his mind but not banished. With the way the Flame spoke, it might have disguised critical information as mindless drivel to throw Kieran off his scent.

The vague was left alone in case something to clarify its meaning came along. For example, the Flame's motives in recreating the Failed Reckoning. It was a war, yes, but Kieran had yet to grasp the point of it. These days, seeking ruin and causing destruction seemed like an empty reason the Flame tried to conflate and use as a smokescreen.

The compelling was the information that tickled Kieran's thoughts. Most of the details here tickled his mind like how the brilliant world had tickled it. There was significance in the compelling, however, he simply did not know how much.

Lastly, there was the key information. And somehow, there was almost a mountain of it. Kieran suspected it was because of how clear his thoughts had become and because of Cardinal Weiss' story.

He had learned how to separate the Flame's truths from its misdirection.

The Flame spewed a certain kind of raw emotion when it talked about things it loathed — like the Gods and its divorce. Those were the only topics where its expression and feelings changed.

Those changes became patterns after repeating themselves, eventually becoming distinctive signs.

'Eni… you are a genius. Without your teachings, I probably wouldn't have encountered the flaws in the Flame's mannerisms.'

During its monologue and heated diatribes, the Flame had repeatedly called itself Ruin and extensions of that name, referred to Destruction as its beloved, and called Death its willing servant that followed and called for Blood.

However, Kieran felt the Flame's telling hid fungible facts.

It wasn't as absolute as it made itself out to be. If it were, then the Flame shouldn't be so focused on retribution. If such powerful forces were at the Flame's beck and call, it should have long since reclaimed its glory.

So, either the Flame was lying about its past… or it was restricted in some hidden way. The secret lay in its sudden use of power. It felt like it could ruin and almost destroy everything.

The older Voiceless was filled with judicious thoughts about the Flame now. After pondering several different angles, Kieran arrived at one realization and another.

The first and most apparent realization was how the Testament of Dying Blood was likely a pivotal point for the Myths. With the vague assurances he gained from Cardinal Weiss, this period was before the Current Generation of Myth.

One thing that confirmed this was the absence of the Chasm of Apogeton. The Old Myths Kieran was familiar with were not even conceived yet.

The second realization related to the Flame, more distinctively how it referred to certain things. It was like the Flame was giving them permanence and discussing something divorced from the concepts he knew.

'Ruin… Death… Destruction. They're actual beings. They have to be. Then, does the Flame seek to summon beings that embody those terrifying concepts? Isn't that… the end of the world level shit?'

Kieran shuddered.

If summoning was indeed the Flame's intention, he doubted the summoned beings would wield trivial power. That simply could not be allowed to happen.

But there was more… so much more. And it all deluged Kieran's mind as an assault of questions with a stark relationship.

'Wait… relationship. Death is the Flame's follower, and the Flame is the ruin that follows destruction. But what if we invert the Flame's words, treating them as lies?'

Then, ruin would cause destruction. But more importantly, they could occur together.

Ruined because it was destroyed and destroyed because it was ruined. The relationship was circular and mutual.

Circular and mutual… marriage… union.

'...Damn! I was wrong. The story isn't about the child. It's the Flame. It's about the Flame's dying wish!'