It was an interesting feeling.
Knowledge was flowing into Jaune like a stream of water, except there was nothing gentle about the sensation. It poured directly into his mind with an impossible purity, nourishing thought itself as it entered, filling the spaces between memories and concepts with information that had never existed there before.
It was not merely knowledge in the ordinary sense of the word, such as neatly organized pieces of information that could be recalled at will but rather, understanding.
Context.
An invisible framework beneath things, the reasons behind the reasons, the connections between phenomena that Jaune had never even realized could be connected. The Rune of Knowledge did not simply tell him something but made him understand it.
And somehow, despite the fact that the rune possessed no will of its own, Jaune could feel a question being posed to him from somewhere deep within the phenomenon, an instinctive question that did not require words because his mind understood the meaning immediately.
What do you wish to learn?
Jaune knew that the moment he envisioned a topic, the relevant knowledge would begin to manifest inside his mind. He could almost feel the pathways forming as concepts poured into him, his brain attempting to accommodate information that might have taken decades of study to acquire.
Yet the sheer power behind Knowledge was becoming increasingly frightening.
He could feel the rune's crimson energy lodging itself within his mind like an enormous vice tightening around his skull, pressing against every thought, every memory, every fragment of consciousness.
Jaune understood almost immediately that if he had not possessed Null, his head would have simply exploded. His brain would have been presented with an amount of information it could not contain, and the result would have been biological destruction.
A Rank 3 would have fared better, their Domain providing a degree of resistance against the phenomenon, but even they would only be delaying the inevitable. They could resist because of their enormous aura reserves and the authority of their Domains, but they could not simply separate themselves from the rune once they had begun absorbing it.
Knowledge would continue pouring into them until their resistance failed, and when it did, the rune would destroy them from within.
Jaune's understanding of hierarchy deepened as he endured it, and that understanding was perhaps more valuable than any individual fact the Supreme Rune could provide. Supreme Runes were incredibly close to the zero-point hierarchy that Null had supposedly acquired.
Jaune still couldn't determine precisely how close they were, nor could he properly quantify the difference, but he could feel it. It was like standing before an enormous cliff and knowing that there was another cliff beyond it, separated by an impossibly thin distance.
Knowledge and the other Supreme Runes possessed a hierarchy so absurdly high that ordinary runic phenomena might as well have been pebbles beneath their feet. And yet Null remained just slightly above them.
Not by some overwhelming margin or enough to make the difference meaningless, but by the smallest possible distinction that nevertheless granted it an advantage that mattered more than anything else.
Null could reject phenomena that was below it in hierarchy. An phenomenon that was harmful to Jaune.
And that was the reason he was still alive.
Oddly enough, Jaune could also sense his father moving closer through his weakness wense. The sensation was faint beneath the overwhelming pressure of Knowledge, but it was there, an awareness of something approaching that his mind instinctively recognized as vulnerable.
Jaune wasn't entirely sure why Nicholas was coming closer.
The storm of runic energy surrounding Knowledge was dangerous enough that approaching it should have been suicidal, even for someone whose primary purpose at that moment was to protect Jaune.
Yet considering that they were dealing with the Supreme Rune of Knowledge, perhaps it made sense that Nicholas would want to be near him. Perhaps he intended to physically push Jaune away if Null began failing.
Perhaps he had seen something through Foresight that Jaune didn't know. There was no way of knowing. What Jaune did notice, however, was the strange sense of quiet resolve buried within his father's mind.
It wasn't fear or hesitation but rather, something far more subdued, something Jaune couldn't quite put his finger on.
He pushed the thought aside.
There was no time for it.
Jaune focused entirely on Knowledge and began absorbing as much understanding as he could, trying to use the Supreme Rune to push his own three runes into the realm of Mastery.
Weakness, Plunder, and Null had already reached Comprehension, and each of them possessed applications that would have been considered absurd among ordinary Rank 2s. Yet Jaune had reached a point where advancing any further had become incredibly difficult.
Weakness alone was capable of an astonishing range of applications. It could weaken molecular bonds, diminish intangible forces, interfere with physical structures, and even directly disintegrate creatures or objects that were weaker than Jaune himself.
Its greatest gift, however, was perhaps its Weakness Sense, the strange instinctive perception that allowed him to identify vulnerabilities in nearly everything he encountered. Null made that ability even more dangerous, because by passing Weakness through Null's hierarchy, Jaune could apply it to things that normally existed beyond his reach.
He could weaken space-time itself to a limited extent, distort space, and even produce something resembling a nascent Domain. He rarely used the latter ability because the aura cost was simply ridiculous for what it accomplished, but the fact that it was possible demonstrated just how far his runes had already developed.
Plunder had perhaps even greater prospects. Once Jaune reached Comprehension, the rune had expanded beyond its original applications of stealing physical objects and statistics. It could steal memories and could even take runic energy.
It could manipulate things that shouldn't have been considered tangible at all. It had become one of the most versatile and terrifying abilities in his arsenal. And when combined with Null, its potential became even more absurd.
Jaune had already manipulated causality to a small extent when he healed Raven, and he had used Plunder against space-time to achieve something akin to teleportation. These abilities had placed him firmly among the absolute upper echelon of Rank 2 combatants, perhaps even beyond what the conventional understanding of Rank 2 strength could explain.
Then there was Null.
His ultimate rune.
The culmination of everything he had experienced, everything he had learned and everything he had become. Unlike his other runes, Null possessed only one fundamental ability.
Nullification of phenomena.
Yet that singular ability was so fundamentally powerful that it needed nothing else. Its theoretical hierarchy of zero allowed it to deny phenomena that should have been impossible for him to interact with, and its Comprehension ability had expanded the Nullification field beyond his own body, allowing him to project it outward.
More importantly, Null worked exceptionally well with his other runes. When Jaune channeled the runic energy of Weakness or Plunder through the Null rune, those phenomena effectively borrowed Null's hierarchy and became capable of producing effects far beyond what their normal hierarchy should have allowed.
But that was also the problem.
Null had become a crutch.
A magnificent, terrifying, indispensable crutch, but a crutch nevertheless.
Jaune had developed his other runes so extensively along their natural paths that he was struggling to see where they could go next. Every direction seemed to lead back toward Null. Every improvement relied upon borrowing its authority and every advancement seemed to reinforce the same structure rather than create something new.
He had begun to suspect that there was simply no path forward.
So he poured that thought into Knowledge and Knowledge answered. The concept that entered his mind was so simple that Jaune almost dismissed it.
Why not go the opposite way?
The understanding unfolded inside his consciousness, and suddenly dozens of seemingly unrelated pieces began snapping together. Jaune had spent so much time trying to make his runes stronger by pushing them farther along the paths they had already taken that he had never stopped to question whether the path itself was the problem.
His runes were phenomena.
That was the foundation upon which everything had been built. Weakness was a phenomenon. Plunder was a phenomenon and even Null, despite its absurd hierarchy, was still a phenomenon that existed according to some conceptual framework.
Then why not nullify the laws governing his own runes?
The answer struck him with such force that his consciousness almost seemed to recoil.
Inversion.
The knowledge flooded into him.
For the first time, Jaune saw the shape of the puzzle he had been trying to solve. It wasn't complete, but nearly all of the pieces were suddenly visible.
Null didn't have to merely empower his other runes.
It could reject the assumptions upon which those runes operated. Weakness did not necessarily have to weaken something in the conventional sense and plunder did not necessarily have to steal something in the conventional sense.
If the rules governing those phenomena could themselves be denied, then Jaune could potentially invert the very foundations of his abilities and create entirely new applications.
It was the final piece.
He was so close.
99%
All three of his runes were there, at the threshold of Mastery, with the final fragment of understanding hovering just beyond his grasp.
And then... Jaune was kicked away.
The impact came without warning.
His body was hurled backward through the dense crimson energy, and Jaune's mind immediately screamed in confusion.
'What?! My weakness Sense didn't activate to warn me? That's impossible.'
Jaune twisted his body in midair and coughed as the force of the impact sent him tumbling through the red-lit space. His eyes snapped toward the source of the attack, and what he saw made his stomach drop.
Nicholas Arc.
His father had kicked him.
Except the leg that had performed the kick was no longer attached to his body.
Jaune's eyes widened as he watched the severed limb drift through the air in slow motion, blood spreading from the stump in an ugly cloud.
The wound was wrong.
Everything about it was wrong.
The crimson light surrounding them should have painted everything in the same terrible hue, but the wound around Nicholas's leg had been transformed into something monochromatic.
Gray-ish black with a hint of white.
The very crimson of Salem's inner world had been forcibly stripped from the damaged flesh, converted into a colorless existence that seemed to deny the nature of the world around it.
Jaune knew what had done it before he even looked.
Tyrian Callows.
The man stood nearby, and he looked far worse than he had before. His body appeared sickly, withered, almost half dead. The vitality that had once made him seem like a living monster had been stripped away.
His flesh hung from his frame and his movements were stiff and unnatural. The domain that had surrounded him earlier was no longer apparent either. Whatever Tyrian had done, this place had exacted a horrifying price.
But in his right hand was something far more terrifying.
Something that Jaune recognized immediately.
It had seemingly merged with Tyrian's flesh while remaining distinctly separate from it, a constantly shifting two-dimensional shape consisting of two circles rotating in opposite directions, their flat surfaces facing one another. The circles ground against each other endlessly, and in the gap between them shone a monochrome light that seemed to erase the crimson around it.
The Light of the End.
The Supreme Rune.
Destruction.
Jaune understood instantly.
Tyrian had made it to Destruction, and he had taken the rune before immediately turning around.
He hadn't even stopped to absorb it or wasted even a second attempting to make it his own. Instead, he had used the entirety of whatever remained of his domain to suppress the Supreme Rune enough to force his ruined body forward and make his way back toward Jaune and Nicholas.
He had done it for one reason.
To ensure that nothing interfered with his plan.
And suddenly Jaune understood the other piece of the puzzle. His father had moved closer because he had seen it.
Foresight.
Nicholas couldn't see Jaune through the interference of Null. Jaune's rune disrupted his father's ability to properly perceive his future. Yet his father had still been able to calculate something, he had moved closer because he knew Tyrian would arrive.
And he had kicked Jaune away to ensure that he wouldn't get hit.
Except Jaune hadn't finished. He was at ninety-nine percent and he still needed one more piece.
One final connection
However, Jaune had been denied it.
Tyrian raised his hand and the monochromatic light of destruction condensed within it. A spear began forming within his grasp.
Jaune tried to move but he suddenly found that he couldn't.
His entire body had frozen.
Horror slowly dawned within him.
His aura reserves were empty.
He hadn't even noticed.
He had only been in contact with the Supreme rune for... what? 10 Seconds?
Null had consumed every remaining fragment of his Aura in order to protect him from Knowledge. Every ounce of his reserve had been poured into rejecting the Supreme Rune's harmful phenomena and keeping his mind from being destroyed.
And Nicholas knew it.
He knew approximately how long Jaune could remain in contact with Knowledge. He knew the maximum amount of time Jaune could spend absorbing its power before something happened.
His father had taken advantage of it.
Jaune and Nicholas were still within the Time Dimension. Tyrian couldn't properly perceive what was happening there, but Nicholas could manipulate time itself. Jaune suddenly understood what his father had done.
He had frozen him in time.
Jaune's eyes widened.
'No. Dad...'
Tyrian didn't even know Jaune was there. As far as the man was concerned, Nicholas had been the one attempting to acquire Knowledge.
His father had saved him and used himself as bait.
Tyrian thrust the spear forward and the monochrome weapon pierced Nicholas's chest.
The world seemed to stop.
The spear drove through his heart and pinned him against the ground, the light of Destruction immediately spreading from the wound. Nicholas coughed violently, blood spilling from his mouth only to disintegrate into monochrome particles before it could touch the ground.
Tyrian looked down at him and his dual voice emerged from his throat.
"If only you didn't do something so stupid. Perhaps then, I could have kept my promise to you."
His father coughed again.
"Heh... maybe I... am a fool..." he managed, blood bubbling at his lips. "But if you thought that I was going to go along with your sick game... without trying to... change... the future..." His breath hitched. "...you were dead... wrong."
Tyrian merely shook his head, then he reached towards Knowledge. The floating crown drifted towards him and settled over his head.
The instant it touched him, Tyrian's body seemed to collapse inward. His flesh became skeletal. and his skin tightened around his bones. His frame withered before Jaune's eyes, as though decades of decay had been inflicted upon him in a single instant.
Yet the man remained standing.
He staggered forward and didn't look back at his Jaune's father.
"Suffer under the purity of Destruction," Tyrian said, his voice called out, still carrying that terrible duality. "I will make certain you will have an agonizing and slow death. My. Dear. Nicholas. Arc."
Then he vanished.
Despite his seemingly ruined appearance and his skeletal frame, Tyrian still possessed the speed of a Rank 3. He disappeared in the blink of an eye, leaving only the fading sensation of runic energy behind.
The instant he was gone, the flow of time around Jaune halted. But this time, Jaune had recovered a tiny fragment of Aura.
It was barely anything and yet it was enough.
Null activated and the frozen temporal phenomenon shattered around him. Jaune tore himself out of the Time Dimension and immediately ran towards his father.
His father's body was still pinned beneath the spear of Destruction.
Jaune reached for it.
"Don't!"
Nicholas's voice stopped him and Jaune froze.
"It's too late," Nicholas said. His voice was strained now, the words barely emerging between ragged breaths. "Don't touch me, Jaune. If you do... the runic energy of Destruction will spread to you."
Jaune's hand had stopped inches from the spear. He stared at his father and could see that the monochrome light was spreading.
It crawled across Nicholas's body like cracks spreading through concrete, each fracture converting more of his flesh into pale dust. The wound in his chest had become a center of annihilation, and everything around it was slowly being consumed.
Jaune clenched his fists.
"You fucking bastard. You lied to me."
Jaune's voice shook.
"You said we'd have enough time. Your entire plan... you knew, didn't you? Even though you couldn't see me with Foresight, you knew we'd fail at the last moment."
Nicholas smiled.
It was a small smile that was both pitiful and painful. Tired and sad at the same time.
Jaune's expression twisted seeing his father's pathetic smile.
"Why? Why would you do something like this?!"
There was nothing Jaune could do. That realization was worse than the wound itself.
He couldn't touch his father because Destruction would spread to him. He couldn't Plunder the damage onto himself because the phenomenon of destruction would simply follow. He couldn't Nullify it because his Aura reserves had been exhausted. And even if some miracle allowed him to do so, he had nowhere to draw the necessary life force from to heal the wound.
He couldn't Plunder his father's life force. Because doing that would defeat the entire purpose. He could steal his father's vitality and use it to repair himself, but then Nicholas would die anyway.
There was no trick or causality loophole.
They had lost.
"We've lost..." Jaune whispered.
The words barely sounded like his own.
Nicholas coughed, another stream of blood leaving his mouth before being consumed by the monochrome light.
Then he looked at his son.
"You didn't reach Mastery did you?"
Jaune's jaw clenched.
"I only had ten seconds with the damned rune." His voice cracked with anger. "If I had just another five seconds... no. Just one second. One fucking second, and I could've finished it."
Nicholas watched him.
"But the framework is there, isn't it?"
Jaune fell silent and closed his eyes. The understanding was still there and he could feel that it was practically at ninety-nine percent. The final concept of Inversion was incomplete, but its shape existed inside him. He could feel it. The pieces were there. He simply hadn't managed to connect the final fragment.
"...Yeah."
Nicholas's smile widened slightly.
"Then there's only one thing left to do, isn't there, Jaune?"
Jaune looked at him and something about his father's expression made his heart sink.
Nicholas stared deeply into his son's eyes.
The man who had spent years preparing for a future nobody else could see, the man who had manipulated time, altered destinies, sacrificed pieces of himself to change outcomes, and who had finally been reduced to a dying body beneath the power of Destruction, looked at Jaune not as a strategist looking at an operative, nor as a Rank 2 looking at a future Rank 3, but simply as a father looking at his son.
Then Nicholas Arc spoke.
"Plunder my memories."