Suiming

  The remnant tide never stops. The ruins in it rarely repeat themselves. It is the largest source of arcane items and materials for Realm-art implants.

  “Could she be here?” Suiming muttered. He recalled his memory of meeting Nameless for the last time. It was a time so long that Euth just started to count their calendar.

  He brought a bag filled with pastries and snacks. It was for Nameless, but in case she wasn’t there, then they would be all for him. Suiming couldn’t find the exact ones Nameless liked, but based on his understatement of her, she would most definitely prefer something slightly sweet and well-textured.

  The unsettling chill wind howled. Suiming thought that it could hardly be called a ruin. He wouldn’t call it a ruin as it was in great condition, wind and time seemed to ignore it, to despise it.

  The wall looked like paper made of stone and concrete. Somehow, the ruin looked familiar, yet Suiming couldn’t tell why it did, as if the memory was stained by the dust under his feet.

  The building was undecorated and sharp-edged, well-kept as if it refused to be aged, yet the entirety of it was covered by something foul and sorrowful as if it was glazed by tears. Suiming could not identify its age. The style did not belong to any era to his knowledge, but he could imagine it being in any time, as if it were a nail that stood in time for eternity.

  He didn’t feel the scent of Existence and other things that he could not face.

  Sand that didn’t belong to the withered grassland of the remnant zone whip-lashed his face. He took a deep breath. The ruin was as tall as a church. On its walls and pillars, carved runes, he could not understand. They were older than old Euthian, more obscure than the dialects only spoken in the Siyuenese mountains; they could tell a story stranger than Senhashian tales, but Suiming could not read them.

  “Old…way too damn old,” Suiming muttered to himself.

  He put his hand on the gate of the ruin. It started to turn as the smell of rust and the noise of gears twisting filled Suiming’s head. As the dust finally settled and the gate revealed the darkness that he could not see through, he took a step forward.

  Realm-art: Dance of a Stardust

  Constellations popped from nowhere. He adjusted the stars to show what the place looked like a thousand years ago.

  Through the nebula image of his Realm-art, Suiming saw Nameless standing in the ruin. She stood there as if she were the last thing remaining. His Realm-art could only show things from his memory or things that once happened in the place where he was right now.

  Suiming can only see her back, but whatever the reason is for her to be here, Suiming knew that he was on the right track.

  He unsheathed Seren’s sword, and his other hand held the Outsider. If not because of how precious it is, Suiming would like to pin the quilt pen on his hat.

  Stars illuminated his way. His footsteps echo as if he were walking on a church organ. The unnamed wind blew like a flute. He could smell the moisture in the air as he sent the stars above him. Up there was a floating pillar. Suiming couldn’t tell by which mechanism it floated as he felt no scent for any Existences nor waves of casting. The stars can’t show the entirety of it; his image of the past showed nothing of it. The nebulas only shone their own lights of star formation and bizarre colors.

  He looked at the pillar above, there were no decorations or carvings; it was not like any other pillar in the ruin.

  It was untouched, yet it felt truly like a ruin, a remnant.

  What could possibly make that thing? Existence? But I feel no scent of it…Nameless? I’m afraid that her power could emanate or go out of control…but that thing…doesn’t seem alive.

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Suiming tried to sense the scent of Nameless’ Realm-art, her summons, and creations, but the darkness did not answer his call.

  He wandered around the space under the spirit-like pillar.

  Seren’s sword was as clean as before entering. The half-dim, half-visible scenes repeated themselves countless times as Suiming navigated himself through. Suiming almost forgot how long he had been inside the ruin.

  He saw himself. To be exact, the ‘Suiming’ from thousands of years ago, before the descent of Starseeker and before the building of the Grand Dome.

  Nails attached to chains pierced through and pinned the ‘him’. Brownish blood was already a dry puddle on the ground. The limbs of that figure were twisted at an impossible angle as if it were an entomology specimen.

  The glorious figure it used to mean, the sage beyond all sages and wiser than all wises, now pinned by the metal unearthed and foul as if it were merely insignificant like an insect.

  Hand and heart trembling, Suiming let his Realm-art illuminate further. His body hurt as he pushed it to his limit, hand holding the sword and the Outsider as if he were holding the edge of a cliff.

  The stars shone and revealed the rest of the space. Vast, beyond what he could see clearly.

  All of the hall was filled with similar nails and bodies. Their blood resembled a tree’s branches. All strange faces, some with white hair similar to Nameless, some of unknown ethnicity. He could not see the end of them.

  He prayed, something he did rarely, that he would not find Nameless in the forest of the dead.

  As he froze, a tall nail fell next to him. Chips of the cold, hard ground sent flying and cut his face. As the blood slithered down his face, another nail fell. He had to be swift on his feet. Suddenly, the wide hall felt immensely narrow.

  He wished that there was something. Anything, any scent of Realm-art, abnormality, Existence, yet what he felt was nothing. No scent, only the sound of his breathing and his heartbeat. If it were some highly precise mechanism, the type of technology that did not rely on the Realm or runes, it must have a power source or somewhere where the nails fall from. But he saw none. The image of his Realm-art showed nothing but the same scene he was seeing.

  In situations beyond any flowers, call out my name

  Suiming bit his lip. He did not know what could be out there; he would like no one else to be involved, but there was no choice for him.

  “Fosfor Luce Oakside, Barricade of Death!” Suiming yelled as he wrote down words with the quill pen. The words shine a dim light and slither towards the nails.

  Yet the metals unearth refuse to be bound by the light.

  Seren’s sword almost fell out of his hand as he dodged the falling nails. The echoes of them piercing the ground boomed through the space as more and more ground broke.

  One nail pierced Suiming’s already broken trousers, cutting deep into his leg. Blood oozed out as he tried to remove the unmoved piece of stone metal. He could not, as he tried to blast it with the Outsider.

  One by one, the nails fell closer as if he were a tree to be cut. The beams of the Outsider, his Realm-art, did not slow it by a second. His sweat flooded down his head as he put the sword on his leg.

  The nails reflected the light of despair, and from the shadow of his stars, an arm stretched out from it.

  The pale fingers grabbed the nail, colored by blood, and pulled its master from the shadow. The nail stood still. All wind was silenced as if not to anger the one creeping from the dark.

  “I hear you! Loud and clear.” Fosfor cried. Her white hair was tied in a ponytail as she dusted her clothes. She hadn’t changed much since the last time they met.

  The darkness spewed the nails and chains as if it were a snake spewing its poison. In answer, bones emitting an unspeakable aura rose from the ground like a rib cage protecting the heart. The bones crushed the nails and chains into dust.

  Fosfor turned to Suiming. Her face was as carefree as her stance. Straight back looking around with her chin up like an elegant dancer, both hands in her hoodie’s pocket, Suiming even noticed a crumb of bread on her face.

  “A ruin? What are you doing here?”

  “Anything else? Or I’ll be going.” Fosfor said as a scar in space opened.

  Not a projection…she really meant it then…

  “Hold it, Fosfor. Nameless may be here.”

  She did not respond, only closing the darker-than-black scar.

  “…Suiming, do you feel anything?”

  “If you count my infected leg in, then yes,” Suiming answered as the nail on his leg faded into dust. Thankfully, no ordinary germs can infect him, not yet, before some mad scholar makes a specific pathogen targeted against abnormalities.

  “Whatever, that’s how things should be here,” Fosfor answered carelessly.

  “Idiots call it a safe house.”