The Supreme Runes each governed a concept so fundamental that attempting to describe their limits felt almost meaningless.
Creation was the authority to bring things into existence, capable of shaping matter from nothing and, with sufficient understanding, producing things that possessed no conventional physical substance at all. Space could be created, structures could be created and even entire environments could be constructed from the imagination of its wielder and given form through the power of the Rune.
Knowledge was different. It was the restitution of information itself, an authority over understanding that granted its user a limited form of omniscience so long as the mind carrying that information could endure the sheer weight of it. Knowledge could see through deception, analyze foreign powers, comprehend structures, predict patterns, and peel away the unknown until almost nothing remained hidden.
Destruction was the opposite of Creation in the most fundamental sense. Where Creation brought things into existence, Destruction existed to annihilate them. It was entropy given authority, but even that description was too gentle, because its true expression was closer to pure obliteration. Matter could be destroyed, energy could be destroyed and even space itself could be destroyed. The very things that defined an object could be subjected to Destruction until nothing remained.
These were powers that stood at the foundation of existence, three authorities capable of turning the world into whatever their wielder desired, understanding everything that existed within it, or reducing that existence to nothing.
Devour, Jaune's Rune, had not emerged from one singular primordial concept of a god. It had been born from the convergence of three Mastery-level Meta Runes, Forceful Plunder, Forceful Weakness, and Forceful Nullification, their individual authorities stripped down to their most absolute interpretations and merged into something that should not have been possible.
Devour was the authority to force all things to be absorbed and utilized by Jaune Arc. Matter, energy, space, time, information, distinctions, boundaries, laws, and even things that existed only as relationships between other things could potentially be consumed if Jaune could reach them. Yet for all of its absurdity, Devour was still understandable in comparison to the Supreme Rune of Choice.
Choice was different.
Choice did not create, destroy or posses information. Nor did it have the ability to consume. Rather, what Choice did... was that it gave its user the ability to redo choices.
To choose again.
Yet what did that mean exactly?
Jaune had never possessed the Meta Rune of Time, but his father had. Nicholas Arc had once wielded Time, and even that power had possessed limits. A Rank 2, regardless of how extraordinary they might be, remained a Rank 2.
The gulf separating the lower ranks from Rank 3 was not merely a difference in quantity but a difference in what the body and Aura were capable of expressing.
Nicholas could manipulate time in ways that would have been impossible for ordinary awakened, and he had eventually discovered the Time Realm, a place where the normal progression of time could be circumvented entirely.
Within that strange realm of stillness, Nicholas could achieve effects that resembled stopping time, observing moments without allowing them to progress, and interacting with fragments of existence that would otherwise have been completely inaccessible to him.
But the workaround only emphasized the limitation. Nicholas had discovered ways around the limitations of Time because he could not simply overpower them. He lacked the Aura capacity necessary to draw out the full potential of the Rune.
He could not casually freeze the entire flow of reality. He could not simply reverse history whenever he desired. He could not reach into the past and drag events forward with the same ease that another person might reach for an object on a table.
The Rune was powerful, perhaps unimaginably so, but Nicholas was still bound by the limitations of the vessel wielding it.
And above all of that was the River.
The great River of Time was perhaps the most powerful thing in all of existence. It was not merely a metaphorical flow through which events traveled. It was a vast, incomprehensible river whose waters carried all of existence from the infinite past of history toward the ever-present future, its currents moving with such overwhelming force that even a being who possessed authority over Time could not simply command them.
Nicholas could enter the River and observe its currents. He could stand upon its impossible waters and perceive the tapestry of existence stretching in both directions, but he could not simply swim wherever he wished.
If he attempted to move forward or backward, the River would consume him. The power contained within it was too vast. It did not matter that Nicholas possessed the Rune of Time. He was still a single being attempting to impose himself upon something infinitely larger than his own existence.
Choice possessed a relationship with that River that was similar, but fundamentally different.
It did not command time but could rather... command the decision.
That was why it was so dangerous.
Jaune understood that now, as the Supreme Runic energy of Choice flowed through him, wrapping around his spirit and dragging him away from the Crimson Moon.
The battlefield disappeared and so did Tyrian.
The broken fragments of the moon, the black sky, the ruined ground, the immense domains of two Rank 3 beings, all of it vanished beneath an ocean of temporal darkness. Jaune's mind and spirit were pulled into the Time Realm, but even that was only the beginning.
Choice carried him farther, past the stillness of the Time Realm and toward the great infinite River itself.
The first thing Jaune felt was pressure.
Existential pressure.
It was as though every moment that had ever existed and every moment that could ever exist was pushing against him simultaneously. The stretch of water stretched beyond comprehension, as an infinite tapestry of liquid time.
Each portion of its water resembled a thread, yet every thread contained an entire sequence of events, countless moments layered within one another and carried along by the current. Jaune could see fragments of existence within the River, pieces of moments that had already happened and possibilities that had not yet occurred.
He could see the past stretching away into infinity and the future rushing toward him in a direction that did not truly resemble movement at all.
Choice pushed him backward.
Gently.
That was perhaps the most terrifying part.
There was no violent force dragging him through the River. Choice simply established the destination and made the universe acknowledge that Jaune had selected it. Supreme Runic energy flowed throughout his spirit, protecting him as the River attempted to tear him apart, and Jaune felt himself being carried backward through the current.
Then the protection began to erode and Jaune's expression tightened.
The River was touching him.
The shell of Choice surrounding his body began to dissolve beneath the infinite pressure of time. The erosion did not feel like an attack but felt like being forgotten by existence itself. Portions of Jaune's spirit became translucent and pieces of his memories flickered. His consciousness felt thinner.
He immediately understood the danger.
'Damn it.'
The energy he had absorbed from reality all around him earlier, was gone.
Choice had not carried it backward with him.
The matter, space, light, energy, and countless fragments of reality that Devour had absorbed during the battle belonged to the future he was abandoning. When Jaune traveled backward, those reserves remained behind in the discarded iteration of events. He had only his original Aura reserves with him.
His eyes narrowed.
'This is going to be problematic.'
Even worse, Jaune could not simply use Devour to solve the problem.
The River was infinite.
If he activated Devour against it, he would not be consuming a finite amount of temporal energy. He would be attempting to devour infinity itself.
And that would kill him.
Instantly.
There would be no regeneration from a surviving cell because the thing being consumed would not merely be attacking his body. The River would consume the distinction between Jaune and the entirety of Time, and Jaune would cease to exist within the process.
So Jaune forced the full power of Devour down and only utilized it's Nullification property.
His Rune pushed against the River's erosion, nullifying just enough of its authority to keep his existence intact while Choice carried him backward. Even then, the protection was temporary. His Aura reserves were being consumed.
Five percent.
Ten.
Fifteen.
The River continued.
Jaune gritted his teeth as another portion of his spirit was stripped away.
He couldn't go too far.
That was another limitation.
Choice could take him backward, but only to a point where the Supreme Rune itself existed within his possession. If he went farther back than the moment he had acquired Choice, then Choice would no longer belong to him. The very act of traveling to a point before he possessed the Rune would create a contradiction in his own existence.
And Jaune knew exactly what happened when contradictions became absolute.
He would die.
Choice therefore could not simply take him back to the beginning of the battle, however, it could take him to the moment he had gained Choice.
That was enough.
It had to be.
The River continued eroding him and Jaune felt another portion of his Aura disappear.
Then another.
His body began to fracture at the spiritual level, pieces of his existence dissolving into the current. Yet there was one thing that no other being possessed, that allowed Jaune to continue.
His body had no weakness.
Every cell of Jaune's existence contained his mind. There was no single point that could be identified as the true Jaune Arc. His brain was not the seat of his consciousness nor was his heart was the core.
His soul was not a singular vulnerable point and his body had become an existence in which every individual component contained the whole.
As long as one fragment remained, Jaune remained.
That was the only reason he could survive the River at all.
Even Tyrian, despite possessing three Supreme Runes and an increasingly monstrous vessel, would have been consumed if he attempted the same journey. His body could be reinforced. Creation could make it stronger and Knowledge could understand the River. Destruction could potentially resist portions of it but none of those things solved the fundamental problem.
Tyrian still had weakness.
Jaune did not.
Choice carried him farther, then the River released him and Jaune's mind snapped back into reality.
The Crimson Moon returned and the battlefield returned. The broken fragments of the moon were exactly where they had been and the Rank 3s were still trapped within Tyrian's matter cages.
Tyrian was still standing before him.
Jaune looked down.
Bits of his body were still falling apart, but the destructive force that had caused it had vanished. Golden flesh flowed back into place as his body reconstructed, the wounds closing almost instantly.
Across from him, Tyrian stood motionless.
The enormous territory surrounding him had contracted by a fraction, enough for Jaune to notice. This was the moment just after Jaune had taken Choice.
Tyrian's face twisted.
"Jaune Arc!"
The rage in his dual echoed voice was immediate.
Jaune raised his eyes.
"In the flesh."
Tyrian froze and his expression changed. The anger remained, but something else appeared beneath it.
Surprise.
Knowledge was telling him something. Something that should not have been possible. Tyrian's eyes narrowed.
"Choice. You were able to use it?"
Tyrian's voice became quieter, then a strange smile formed across his face.
"And from the looks of it, this is the first iteration. That means you lost against me in the future."
The statement was not a question but rather Knowledge had told him. Tyrian looked at Jaune as though he had just discovered an entirely new specimen.
"How curious. You're able to block Knowledge's ability to parse the future of yourself."
Jaune said nothing, but inwardly he felt relief. So Knowledge could not simply see everything that would happen in the future. Jaune had been worried that it would be able to take future Tyrian's memories back but fortunately that wasn't the case.
That was important.
Knowledge could analyze possibilities, information, patterns, and perhaps even glimpse what was coming, but Jaune's Nullification remained capable of preventing it from fully resolving his future.
After all, the only person to have travelled back was Jaune himself. Which meant Knowledge was stuck and that future timeline didn't exist.
More importantly, Tyrian had not yet understood everything about Devour.
This was the first iteration.
The future Jaune had experienced had been one where Tyrian had continued adapting, where his absorption of Salem's reserves had grown, where Jaune had been forced into a losing battle.
Jaune had spent that future learning. Now, he had returned carrying that knowledge with him and Tyrian had not.
That gave Jaune the advantage.
A small one, but an advantage nonetheless. There was another detail Jaune could infer. The absorption of Salem's runic reserves had only just begun.
At this point, Salem and Tyrian were still in the process of transitioning from the conscious participation of her mind into the utilization of her enormous reserve of energy. Tyrian had not yet reached the terrifying level of energy regeneration he had possessed in the future.
Jaune had arrived before that escalation, which meant that he needed to strike now.
Except... that there was a cost.
Jaune could feel it.
His Aura reserves were wrong. He had returned with only eighty percent of what he should have possessed.
The River had taken one-fifth of his maximum reserves.
Not destroyed them forever, perhaps. His maximum Aura could likely recover with sufficient time. Maximum reserves were not necessarily immutable. Especially for special Rank 3's like him and Tyrian. But recovery required time, and Jaune had no idea whether he would be granted enough of it.
He also did not know whether he would need to use Choice again. If he did, another journey through the River could take another portion of his reserves.
That was a problem.
Still, he wasn't helpless. He could devour energy from all forms of things which would supplement his reserves as temporary energy.
The problem was Tyrian.
If Tyrian learned to destroy everything before Jaune could consume it, then the battlefield itself would become barren of resources.
Jaune's eyes moved toward the Rank 3s still trapped within their cages. His mind considered the possibility of using the inverse property of Devour.
He could.
'Not yet.'
He would keep that trump card hidden. Because using it would be a little problematic. He had already revealed enough.
Jaune inhaled.
Then reality began to converge upon him again.
Matter, light, and Space warped.
The ground beneath him fractured and dissolved into golden energy as Devour spread through his domain. The matter cages surrounding the Rank 3s began to collapse as Jaune's authority reached them, forcing the material Tyrian had created to become fuel. Even the light itself bent toward Jaune's body, spiraling inward as though a black hole had suddenly appeared in the center of the battlefield.
His domain expanded and the Null property spread with it, preventing the two domains from directly clashing.
Jaune vanished and Tyrian barely reacted. Jaune had appeared directly in front of him.
Devour condensed around Jaune's body, forming a golden spear of concentrated authority that he thrust straight toward Tyrian's chest.
Tyrian's eyes flashed and Destruction appeared. A monochromatic force erupted between them. However, Jaune devoured it and the spear continued.
Then Creation answered and matter appeared.
Kilometers of it.
Titanic masses of stone, metal, crystal, bone, compressed minerals, and strange materials that had never existed before were suddenly created between Jaune and Tyrian. Layer after layer appeared in an instant, an enormous artificial continent forming directly between them.
Jaune tore through it, and very layer was consumed, every structure became energy.
His body accelerated and he became faster and stronger.
The spear of Devour continued forward as Jaune tore through kilometers upon kilometers of matter, the golden authority around him consuming everything Tyrian created and converting it into momentum and strength.
Then Jaune changed the rules.
He took the Destruction energy he had devoured earlier and imbued it into the space surrounding himself.
Space vanished and a void formed.
Jaune had copied Tyrian's capabilities from the previous timeline. The space between them was destroyed, leaving nothing where distance had once existed.
The resulting collapse dragged reality inward and Jaune's attack accelerated. Tyrian appeared directly in front of him, yet his expression remained calm.
Space bloomed between them and the void disappeared.
The spear missed.
Jaune's attack passed through where Tyrian had been as the man slipped through a newly created spatial layer, drifting past him.
"It appears..."
His voice was almost conversational.
"...that attrition is your weak point."
Jaune turned and Tyrian continued moving through the collapsing space.
"So that's what my previous self had done. I see it now."
His eyes gleamed and Jaune's expression darkened. He immediately destroyed the space between them again. But this time, Tyrian's Destruction followed.
Jaune's domain reached for it.
The space vanished and the Destruction energy that accompanied its destruction immediately began destroying itself before Jaune could devour it.
The energy disappeared.
His eyes narrowed.
Tyrian watched and Knowledge had already learned. The monochromatic light suddenly spread and the entirety of Tyrian's domain filled with Destruction.
It was another test.
Tyrian wanted to know the precise range of Jaune's domain, how quickly Devour could consume the energy, how much of it could be incorporated before Destruction annihilated itself.
In the previous iteration, Jaune had been able to devour some of it but this time, almost none remained.
The Destruction energy destroyed itself immediately, leaving only the faintest residue before Jaune could complete the absorption.
Jaune cursed internally.
'Damn it. Tyrian's already figured it out.'
Knowledge was creating a gulf between them again.
Jaune's eyes sharpened. He needed something Tyrian had not anticipated. He reached toward the distinction between their spaces and his rune activated. The space occupied by Tyrian and the space occupied by Jaune ceased being separate.
The boundary between them disappeared and for an instant, the two regions of reality folded into one another, and Tyrian's body extended into Jaune's space as the distinction between their positions collapsed.
Tyrian vanished and a pocket space appeared, parallel to reality.
Jaune had expected it. This was the next move Tyrian had learned from the previous timeline. Jaune reached into the spatial structure with the stolen fragments of Creation he had incorporated.
He found the distinction and pulled. The parallel space folded into the primary reality and the two spatial structures collided.
Stability shattered and the entire region erupted.
Tyrian and Jaune were violently ejected from the collapsing space as enormous spatial shards formed around them, razor-thin fragments of broken reality cutting through the battlefield.
Jaune twisted and one shard passed through his shoulder.
Another sliced across his torso.
He ignored them as his entire domain suddenly condensed around his skin. It covered his body like a second layer of existence.
Jaune released every bit of energy he had stolen from Creation, matter, space, light, and the remnants of Destruction, forcing all of it into a single direction.
His body became the weapon. The golden light around him compressed until there was almost nothing left to see.
Tyrian's eyes widened.
Knowledge processed the movement but it was too late.
Jaune launched and the acceleration was beyond anything his body had displayed moments earlier.
He became a projectile.
A line of golden plasma that tore through the battlefield like a bright supernova, reality screamed around him as the force of his movement compressed space into a burning trail. The broken fragments of the moon were vaporized along his path. Light itself seemed unable to keep up with him.
Tyrian moved and created space, attempting to escape, but Jaune was already there. Tyrian only barely managed to shift his body to the side before Jaune hit him.
A Jaune-shaped mass of golden force tore through Tyrian's left side.
His legs, arms and half of his torso disappeared. Disintegrated in an instant. Creation erupted instinctively, desperately attempting to rebuild what had been destroyed.
For the first time since Jaune had returned from the River, Tyrian's calm expression broke.
His body was torn apart by the golden streak that had passed through him, and the force carried Jaune far beyond him before Jaune finally slowed, his body surrounded by the remnants of everything he had consumed.
Behind him, Tyrian's ruined form hung in the crimson sky.
And Jaune turned to face him.
The future had changed.
.
.
AN: The story's epilogue is now written and posted on Patreon. So now, you guys will get chapters every single day until the story is over, then I'll write an Authors Note afterword, or whatever those things are called.