Zenith Online: Rebirth of the Strongest Player

Weeks had passed since the last Culling of the Voiceless, and Kieran was overcome with crushing indolence. Whatever the Flame had used as fuel robbed him of his desire to accomplish things.

However, that was neither an ideal situation for Kieran nor the Flame.

Kieran needed to search for the answer to this Trial and unravel the mystery of the Chronicle and the Flame… it wanted many things and one thing all at once.

Still, he lingered in a malaise where he spent most of his days staring at the ceiling in transient thought or hating the Equality Gate for its ineptitude. Deep down, however, he knew the mystic symbol could not be blamed. It didn't deserve his ire.

The Gate had done its best to keep Kieran's mind a sovereign environment, but alas, it fell to the Flame's incursion. Due to its fall, however, there was now a growing pond of mystical essence seated at the bottom of his Realm of Self — too little to be of tremendous help but too much to be useless.

Understanding was easy, but accepting was hard.

For that reason, Kieran needed to hate something, and he didn't want to despise himself, though he did have such feelings aimlessly adrift within his mind. And, he had learned that the Flame loved when people hated it. It empowered it in the same way mindless fanaticism did.

Did the Flame have no weakness, then? Whether it was loved or hated, it thrived. If it were without weakness, why did it hate the Gods?

Kieran set aside the question and looked at the larger picture as he entered something similar to a trance. Sure, he could sit here and hate it forever, but that action wasn't conducive to creating a solution.

Studying was, though.

Despite the failure in the end, the Equality Gate had opened Kieran's mind to the understanding that mysticism was one of the highest powers in the world. Knowledge was a universal and versatile power, after all.

It was the principal tenet of the Great Philomath.

So, while he remained in a daze and under inspection by the Flame, Kieran used the reflection of the crystalline pond to study Equality Gate and break it down into its fundamental elements.

During his study session, the Flame never stopped questioning his idleness or urging him to get up and do things.

"Why do you languish when you can become stronger? More battle is coming — a greater war, my War — and you must be ready. Call upon that bloodlust to strengthen us. Do it because I like it!"

The Flame's corruption spiraled around Kieran inside his Realm of Self, but it never fully encroached upon him. However, it did make good on its promise to burn him.

What initially began as corruption coalesced into a crimson flame with a pure silver interior. That core burned hotter than the rest, and that was where all of the Flame's wicked energy gathered.

It had gained enough purchase in Kieran's mind to manifest its scathing agency. And with the manifestation came a caustic heat and then a fiery face without features, only a demented and jagged grin.

The Flame wreaked havoc in this place and sought Kieran's suffering until he obeyed, but Kieran had learned quite a lot about the Flame by listening to its voice. Every burn it left became an agent of its taunts, an extension of its presence to whisper different types of madness into his ears.

Utilizing what he had learned but also lost, Kieran remained impassive, like he had become desensitized to the Flame.

"No! Why are you ignoring me? Don't I cause you unbearable misery? Oh no. Have I broken a part of you I didn't mean to break? This is bad. Heal. Heal up nicely and return my pleasure."

The Flame's assuaging touch began repairing Kieran's Realm of Self, but still, that part of him that had been burned away did not return. He looked into the Flame's manifestation with eyes bereft of delight.

They looked dead and vacant, with a poignant silence suspended in the depths. Kieran's body had gained power, but his emotions had lost them.

A balance had to be maintained.

'…Balance.'

Kieran looked away from the fiery face and stared at the Equality Gate. His understanding of Eni's craft flitted through his mind.

The First Syllable — Anatomy — stood for form, composition, and vessel. It acted as the leading mystic vessel and was the form from which most symbols originated.

The Second Syllable — Born — represented birth or emergence. It was equally as vital as Anatomy because it permitted the creation of ciphers and birthed meaning in any symbol it touched.

The Third Syllable — Comprehend — represented a recognition of knowledge, insight, and the mind's ability to understand.

Together, they represented the Three Foundations of Mysticism, which meant some form of each principle could be found in the Supreme Letterings that came after.

Beyond those three, the Syllables began to gain unique and derived meanings.

The Fourth Syllable — Distinction — was a combination of Anatomy, Born, and Comprehend's disparate parts that achieved a unified and distinct meaning. That's where its name came from. It meant all are involved, but one remains unique.

The last was naturally Equality, which stood for balance. But Kieran felt something was wrong with this symbol. It wasn't incomplete, just lacking something to augment it.

He hadn't realized that before because he had never encountered an enemy as terrifying as the Flame. His mind could usually deal with whatever it suffered. It could not, however, withstand the Flame and its debauchery.

Soon, Kieran found himself forgetting all about the Flame. His interest had become completely vested in learning more about the foundation that led to the Runemasters.

Did the Supreme Letting have an order to it? Perhaps. Did he need to follow said order and follow them step by step? Maybe not.

Hekaina and Eni regarded the Supreme Lettering as each having a particular purpose. In Kieran's eyes, the symbols could be viewed as separate principles capable of being grouped together.

Then, Kieran thought back to the Trial that had taught him mysticism. It had trained him to see the connection — the strengths and weaknesses of what was present and absent — and how to extract meaning from it.

Eventually, Kieran found that his passivity had not been as useless as he had suspected. It gave him time to think.

Despite his lack of empowered eyes, Kieran was beginning to see clarifying hints of the Equality Gate's weakness, and it had everything to do with its defense against the Flame. It lacked something to substantiate it.

'What is missing from Equality? What could complement it?'

To find the answer, Kieran thought back to how equality and balance were determined. The first thought that came to his idle mind was scales. And with the idea of scales came the notion of judgment.

'…Judgment.'

When it came to the aspects of wielding knowledge, judgment played a pivotal role. Information and knowledge could be used as a dreadful weapon without fair judgment.

'Judgment.'

As he murmured the word, the Equality Gate and the mystical pond skating the depths of his Realm of Self vibrated. Judgment was undoubtedly a principle of mysticism. He encountered a problem, though.

How would he draw what he supposedly had never seen?

And for that answer, Kieran turned to his memory.

A key had rested there all along. Kieran had stared at it with his two vigilant eyes, and it burned him.

'Ah, the runes in the room. Did they not use the Supreme Lettering as their basis to make something new? The fundamentals can't be manipulated, so it must bear the truths I need. I just need to feel and remember it.'

Suddenly, the Flame's torment seemed like an immense blessing.

'Never mind, I lied. I'm not that masochistic.'