Kyrain was looking at Nyx in a different light. She had been holding back and still was. He had asked her about her skills directly and though it was considered rude to pry into one's skills, but they were partners and they needed to know what eachother brought to the table.

"Not here." She said as she got up from her chair. "Let's head back to the house and I'll let you in a little bit."

Kyrain opened a rift and they stepped through into the kitchen where they sat down at the table.

"I still dont want to give you the full name of my path nor give all my secrets. They are mine. I trust you to have my back, but its just easier if I keep things that don't hurt you, and keep me safer. Besides, I passed the background check for the guild and program, so that should be good enough." She began.

"Are you on the run from your dad and his company that you can't give up anything?" Kyrain asked.

"Yes actually. My father based his successor off of our paths and I have the appropriate one to be the "successor." She said throwing up air quotes.

"He doesn't really need a successor unless he ever decides he wants to take a break. I don't like how he treats people or us so I left, but that'sneither here nor there. The bottom line is that I'm the youngest of my siblings and they resent me for my path. That being said, what you are seeing is something called Ruin. More or less, I severe part or all of their time from the continuum. The more aether they possess as well as life they have lived requires more and more aether from me to cut them off. If I sever someone entirely, they cease to exist in everything, but memory and even then it is as that object is remembered like an almost a half forgotten dream depending on the relationship." She explained.

Kyrain's eyebrows went up so high they could have crawled into his hairline.

"Thats pretty powerful." He said said simply while completely dumbstruck.

"Yeah...it's something I keep hidden because imagine how people in power would react if they found out I could do that, but think bigger picture. What if I didn't like some aspect of you?"

Kyrain looked down tapping his fingers on the table on thought then looked up.

"You could essentially sever that time from their life and it's as if they never had it?" He asked.

Nyx only nodded. "Relationships, choices, skills, or I could delete the path selection. Its a skill I share with my dad and his requirement for his successor to maintain absolute control." She said shaking her head in annoyance.

"No offense, but your dad sounds like a tyrant and magalomaniac."

Nyx looked at Kyrain and smiled. "Because he is." She said. "I would just ask that you keep this skill to yourself as my partner and later as a colleague."

Kyrain nodded. "Of course. You know a lot of the limits and weaknesses of what I can can do and you keep it to yourself, it's only right." He said.

Kyrain got up. He was in thought about another problem as he tossed a coffee pod into the coffee maker and pressed start.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

"I need your help." Kyrain said looking over and Nyx. She looked up at him with her Sapphire blue eyes.

"Depends." She said with a smirk.

"On?" He responded quickly crossing his arms and leaning back against the counter.

"Whether you're making me a cup or not?"

Kyrain reached into the rack where they kept the pods and pulled another one out and set it down next to him.

"Alright, I'll help then." She said with a smug smile.

"Whatcha need?"

Kyrain turned as the coffee was done and threw some creamer into it and started to turn around. "A little honey if you don't mind?" She said.

Kyrain snorted out his nose in amusement. Set the coffee back down went to the cupboard and put the honey in then blended it.

He handed it off to Nyx.

"Thank you." Nyx said with a closed eyes smile.

Kyrain nodded then turned, replaced the pod, and started the brewing process again. He then looked back at the silver haired woman drinking her coffee and doing a small dance in her chair.

"I have two ideas for skills I'd like to try to develop. I think I've got the concepts down and I think my path can work with it. Lately I've been feeling so underpowered and outmatched. If we keep like this, I'm worried I'll get someone killed from lack of power. I'm on track for the next tier so I just need skills." He explained.

Nyx nodded along with his explanation and frowned a bit.

"Ky, we are dealing with people who are a match for Emma and Sophia. They are significantly stronger than us and they struggle. You will never be the biggest fish in the ocean and not everything comes easy, but I'll still help you develop more skills if it means our chances of survival and success go up." She said.

Kyrain sat down with his coffee and went over a few of the details as they drank their coffee. Once they had the details down, Kyrain tipped the rest of his coffee down and stood.

Nyx finished hers and got up.

"Shall we?" She said

- Near the rifts -

Kyrain was focused in his aether sense on the motes he could see on the back of the pebble boar they had found down below that was minding it's own business rooting around.

He was attempting to destabilize a mote in order to create a very nasty new tool in his arsenal. He was focusing on a single mote and making some headway though slow. Using his antimatter, he shaped it into a needle like sliver and was draining the aether away. He found that the more he drained away and opened the outer shell to the mote without allowing it to return, the aether would leak out in all directions in a wave that got weaker and weaker with distance.

It was the exact effect he was looking for, but it wasn't producing any results on the pebble boar so Kyrain kept opening the mote more and more, speeding the release. Eventually the waves got stronger and stronger until after about an hour, the boar began swaying back and forth and whinning.

Kyrain stopped draining and watched the mote shake and continue to radiate the waves while also watching with his eyes as pebbles began falling off the back of the boar. It was about this time that Nyx sat up from the lounge she had taken up behind him as he focused on the first skill that didn't require her. She watched as the boar began to throw up then lay down.

"What did you do?!" She asked shock and a little worry in her voice.

It was at that time Kyrain recieved a notification.

*bleep!*

Congratulations!

You have learned the skill: Wither(a) - Using your control of antimatter, destabilize an atom causing it to not have enough energy to keep it together. The more it is unstable, the more radiation is produced and the greater the effects. Greatest levels will kill a target in a matter of hours causing it to wither away.

"I figured out how to generate gamma radiation and use it as a weapon to poison a specific area. Our bodies are made of energy and there is different types of energy. By destabilizing this mote, I make all forms of aether pour from the mote which is absorbed by the body and eventually causes it to break down and you die. It will have different effects on people with the system, but it's lethal. Watch the boar."

Watch they did, over the next two hours, the skin fell off the boar and it withered away to bone and died leaving just bone and lesion. Not even a core.