Enigma of Sin

17 days prior, Kayn was looking down at a swarm of soldiers clambering over the walls to gain access to the palace courtyard after being slaughtered trying to go through his Mana Thread nets. He was currently using a blend of darkness and light elemental magic to make him invisible to any of those below.

At this point in his journey of elemental mastery, he didn't strictly need the Shadow Phoenix Set's passive stealth abilities, but the active abilities and the other bonuses were worth it to keep using the set. Not to mention the protection it offered.

Even with the time he had spent meditating or trying to consolidate his gains, it would take him decades if not centuries to get through and actually incorporate all of the knowledge he had gained on Earth into his own magic. For now, he was picking and choosing what he pulled out of all that he gained.

Of course, there were also the passive bonuses he gained to his elements that didn't need him to actively try and understand them, they were just engraved into his being by forces far stronger than he was, and he wasn't going to complain about it.

Kayn sighed, he wished that he had time to relax and delve into the knowledge, but his priorities right now were Lara, Kinzie, Rowen, and Charlotte. One thing that he had already realized was that none of them were inside the protective dome over the palace.

Maybe Kinzie wouldn't be able to be close enough to the barrier to observe outside because she wasn't strong enough to help, but Charlotte definitely would have been helping them and would have seen him fighting. Once she saw him, he would have been contacted by her.

However, since no one had come out during the rest period to come talk with him, he assumed they all found him suspicious and no one who actually truly knew him was in there. While this did drop his spirit a bit, he was still going to continue with his plan.

The people hiding in there had been there for a long time according to what information he could gather, if he could give them enough of a reprieve that they were able to stand for themselves again, he would.

Kayn understood that his ridiculous power didn't fall into this world's scale anymore. Sure, he was only as strong as a beginning or mid-stage 6 individual, but he could fight much, much longer than they would be able to, especially if he efficiently used his mana.

From what he could tell, he was growing stronger as he fought. Utilizing the skills and mastery of his elements was another way to ingrain this knowledge into own style.

Mind, body, and soul. If one considered these as the three aspects to learning and growing with the elements, Kayn was doing things backwards. Usually, one would learn it with the mind, put it into practice with the body, and then the soul would grow from use.

In Kayn's case, he had this understanding and growth forced into his soul, and now he was in the process of pulling it out through his mind in order to understand the intricacies of it all. While fighting however, he was pulling it straight from his soul and ingraining it into his body.

His body was adapting to the power and using it instinctively, allowing for him to do things he couldn't before or didn't have the exact understanding of, but if he thought of doing something, it would work. The more he did this, the more his mind would begin to understand and adapt to the changes his body was going through.

It was a backwards process, and he knew that, but this was as great of an opportunity as he was going to get to help even out the disparity between his three aspects. Knowing about this also made him realize that the lower worlds, or at least Talgonoth and those connected to it, didn't have any understanding of the soul.

They seemed to think it was purely about gaining as much knowledge as possible and mastering their elements while waiting for their core to rank up over time. There were definitely intricate underpinnings and restrictions placed by the world to how people ranked up here, and that was what Kayn didn't understand.

However, if one had an understanding of what their elements were doing within their body, and had unconsciously gone through both the mind and body processes, their soul would respond to those changes and they would gain a little bit of progress with their core.

This probably explained why some could move through the ranks faster than others and it wasn't just a specific time frame for every person no matter what.

With all these new thoughts flowing through his head, he was becoming excited to spread his knowledge once everything settled down. But at the thought of that, pain bloomed within not just his mind but his soul. This was a pain he was all too familiar with.

The pain wasn't anything compared to what he had experienced in the past, but this was the pain of burden. It seems that whatever underlying authority laid within the world, it didn't want him spreading that knowledge around.

Kayn grimaced, but forced his thoughts back to his present situation which quickly relieved his pain. The soldiers had started setting up descent points into the courtyard and it was time for him to get back to work.

There was a part of him that felt disgusted with himself for his current and future actions as he was slaughtering soldiers, soldiers who most likely didn't want to be here and had no choice but to follow orders or they would be killed anyway. Kayn knew there was a time and place for morals though, and a war where one side, his side, was almost wiped out already was not one of those places.

For now, he needed to set aside everything else and just get the job done. Once things settled and he had time and his family with him again, then he would address his mental health that was surely going to be affected by his actions.

While he appeared calm on the surface, his anger was boiling at being separated from his family for so long, for losing friends, and for seeing so much death and destruction because of one man's envy and greed.

Wrath was his now, and he knew that he shouldn't use it. Not until he gained a better understanding of it and his new elemental mastery. Wrath would take everything his soul knew and bring it out to the fore if he let it, and he didn't know what kind of destruction he would cause right now.

It was bad enough on his body the last time he let Wrath take over when he needed to escape the sealing rune. Now though? His body might just explode with the things that were ingrained into his soul. Using Wrath was no longer an option until he had his body, mind, and soul back in sync.

Kayn drew the Akikana and rolled his shoulders before cracking his neck. This was going to be a long slough and he might as well have some theme music to do it to. Quickly searching for a song he discovered during his time on Earth, he had a playlist of sorts start playing through his mind.

The best part of the ear clasp he received was definitely the music ability, and while he was on Earth, he was able to incorporate all of the newer music into it as well. He chose a song by a man from Russia named Alex who was covering a song made for a video game about a division of soldiers who used big fucking guns.

The song had the perfect build up for Kayn to stretch and prepare himself, and just as the intro reached its climax, Kayn dove out of the air onto the wall like a bomb.

He regulated his mana to be as efficient as possible and purely used infused elements as well as his sword aura that was currently incorporating a lightning effect. Those around him would be sliced in half every time his sword moved, and those behind the strike were then killed by the lightning that chained from his sword strikes from one soldier to the next.

Like a whirlwind of blood and death, Kayn made circle after circle atop the courtyard perimeter wall. None of the soldiers stood a chance against him and most couldn't even see his movements. One moment they were climbing up the wall or just getting on top, the next their view was upside down and they were looking at their own dismembered body.

…

Kayn's first real challenge came a few days into the fighting. He had been constantly replenishing his mana day and night while fighting, so his mana stores were still practically full with how he was utilizing it, but his mind had grown lax with how monotonously easy it was.

He was quickly pulled out of that lull when a blade caught him by surprised and cleanly severed his arm. The mistake his attacker made was not using whatever mana they could to corrupt the wound as a dark shadow extended from the severed limb, quickly pulling the arm that was about to fall back into place.

Within just seconds, Kayn was back to using that arm with full ability and his attacker's face scrunched into a frown. Kayn didn't pause to examine his attacker, but did so while he was replying to her earlier aggression.

It was a knight wearing full plate armor with a sword and shield combination. The metal plate seemed more flexible than a traditionally thought of full armor though as it was quite form-fitting, revealing that it was a she underneath it all, at the 6th stage no less.

The following fight lasted for half a day as Kayn wasn't able to put his full attention into it and still needed to kill the other soldiers trying to make their way into the courtyard. He had left his Mana Thread nets active the entire time, which proved a good idea as the soldiers would try to use the gate entrances from time to time only to be sliced to bits.

The fight wasn't too taxing on Kayn, but the knight was quite durable and without using his more mana intensive elements, she was able to hold on for a long time. She had landed a few good slashes on him, but nothing critical as he dodged or blocked those. His arm had even been broken in several places when she bashed him with her shield.

His sleeves were now in tatters, but over time it would repair itself so long as the whole piece of amor wasn't destroyed. The broken arm required a small burst of his mana to heal that fell out of his regeneration versus use allowance though, so he would now be running on less mana than he wanted to be.

Not giving him any time to rest, the soldiers continued pouring in day and night with groups of 5th stage or sometimes one to two 6th stagers attacking him. Slowly but surely, Kayn's exhaustion was stacking up and he was becoming sloppy.

It happened when he failed to perceive the stealth specialist who had snuck up behind him during his fight with two 6th stagers. Kayn looked down as a blade was passing through just under his rib cage. His Akikani was on the verge of breaking and he watched as it shattered when a massive hand slapped it aside while grabbing his wing.

The next thing he knew, his entire body felt like it had been a bug splatted across the windshield of a car. Through the blurry red haze, his one open eye could see a face that he thought he should know appear after his body was pulled back suddenly.

He was having a hard time thinking, and the talking was muffled by the pain and shock of what he just experienced. Then a warm healing sensation began to flood his body and he finally lost consciousness.