The Sixth Rune

(These summaries have been taken from the author's website with permission]

# The Sixth Rune - Summary

Ruwen, flung across the Universe from the portal door in Legion’s Fifth Vault, begins learning the skills needed to make his way home. In addition, being truly alone for the first time since his Ascension, he uses the isolation to practice his Spirit abilities and explore the Architect Role.

He finds a nearby planet and makes it his home while he continues to practice his Spirit spells, Architect Role, and Step training.

As he practices worldbuilding on his new planet, he comes to terms with the new entity in his head, Overlord. Overlord had sheared away from Ruwen’s brain during the literary aneurysm trap in the library of Malth and become his own person.

Overlord is overseeing the construction of a city inside Ruwen’s mind. Ruwen is shocked to discover that some of the books he’d read had become self-aware as well and manifested as beings called Narrators in his mind.

After thirteen months Ruwen’s friends arrive in Shelly, Sift’s bound Elder Star Tortoise. They begin their six-month trip back home. Shelly can create dungeons inside herself that everyone can use to train and Hamma and Lylan are approaching level sixty from the constant dungeon diving.

Ruwen teaches Sift everything he’d learned regarding the Bamboo Viper Steps, including two new forms Ruwen had created as an improvement on the Steps used to hide the Shadow Steps. Sift learns these new forms and the other secrets Ruwen had discovered very quickly.

Ruwen, still desperate to find a crack in his soul, asks Xavier to attack him with energy like he’d done in the underwater safehouse in Malth during the Step Championship. Xavier agrees and they discover that a connection forms that vastly increases Ruwen’s body Fortification and helps Xavier with his preparation to transform into an adult.

Xavier finally transforms from a Junior Celestial Remnant into an adult, but, due to his work with Ruwen, he has achieved a perfect energy state.

A fragment of Uru arrives to warn Ruwen about the current state back on Grave. Ruwen learns that in the past Uru had sacrificed her own Divine pathways to construct Ruwen’s. She now only has seven connected paths, making her very weak and easy prey for the other gods. She is going in hiding now and will use the three Champions Ruwen freed from the Spirit Realm to guard her.

Ruwen learns the divine fragment that Uru sent to warn him will now just die. Instead, he convinces the fragment to join the rest of the entities in his head. Uru is convinced this is impossible but they try, and Ruwen, along with some of the Narrators in his mind, stabilize Uru enough to live safely in his mind. This comes at the cost of a debuff that causes him constant damage along with making synching to the Temple impossible.

When they finally come within portal gate distance of the Black Pyramid, everyone goes to the Blood Gate. Hamma and Lylan go to Ruwen’s dungeon, Fractal, so they can synch with Uru and keep their nineteen months of gains.

Ruwen agrees to quickly join them after finishing his Inklord quest line and getting Rami her final transformation. He becomes an Inklord and receives fantastic armor that looks like a tiny scroll. It deploys into full armor in seconds however and provides better protection than plate.

The quest done, Ruwen returns to Sift, but instead of finding him in the Blood Gate, he is with his parents in the Black Pyramid’s kitchen. Sift’s parents discover the incredible gains Sift and Ruwen made by sparring with them. They are worried the Founders of the Bamboo Viper Clan will be upset with the knowledge Ruwen passed on to Sift.

Echo arrives to tell them all that the summons for the Step Master trial has begun and they all need to go immediately. Everyone leaves and Ruwen is the last to go.

Ruwen is devastated that his enemies will already know he is back and debates what to do. He decides the best thing is to go to the Step Master trial and somehow trap Echo there so that she can’t tell her dad, the Infernal god Lalquinrial, that Ruwen had reappeared.

Before Ruwen can leave though, Echo, taking the form of the Aspect of Death, triggers the Scarecrow Aspect to return Ruwen to the Aspect’s bind point in the Infernal Realm.

Ruwen arrives in the Infernal Realm to find an army surrounding him and that he has materialized into a trap. Simandreial, the Plague Siren he defeated in the Spirit Realm is there and directs the psychic attacks on him.

Ruwen’s incredible mental defenses not only protect him from these attacks but allow him to counterattack and kill the demons trying to enter his mind. He then figures out a way to escape the trap and proceeds to destroy the army of demons surrounding him.

Five aspects arrive and Ruwen battles them, easily defeating them. Then Laqunrial, the god of the Infernal Realm reveals himself. They discuss how strange Ruwen’s accomplishments are and how the god needs to extract Ruwen’s secrets.

Laqunrial tries a mental attack but Ruwen survives this and then counterattacks again. Ruwen leaves his mind to fight the god physically. Laqunrial knows a Step form called the Shattered Steps that are similar to the Shadow Steps of the Bamboo Viper Clan. The god tries to destroy one of Ruwen’s Meridians and Ruwen defends himself with a Shadow Step, something he vowed not to do.

Laqunrial can’t beat Ruwen physically or mentally alone so he places Ruwen in an Infernal dimensional bubble, trapping Ruwen while he goes for help.

While in this trap, Overlord enters Ruwen’s Core to find the divine fragment of Uru who had fled there as soon as they’d arrived in the Infernal Realm. When Overlord doesn’t return, Ruwen is forced to look for ways to escape.

Talking to the Narrator Kholy Ruwen creates a plan to move himself at the maximum speed of the Universe. This will cause his location to smear across the entire Universe and allow him to move to any place in the Universe he wishes. This same research killed Kholy and she believes Ruwen will die as well.

With no other options, Ruwen attempts the escape and ends up in a new Realm, with terrible damage to his spiritual network. There he finds Blapy and learns this is the third secret. The third secret is that when a god dies, their realm remains open as long as someone exists within it.

So Pen pulled all the Spirit from the Universe and placed it in his Divine Realm along with Blapy, and then died. Blapy has been in the third secret for over 10,000 years. She urges Ruwen to stay there with her and heal and eventually transition into a peak deity. This will take thousands of years however and Ruwen will lose all his friends and family back home to time.

Ruwen thinks about his life and decides even with the risk, he wants to live his life on his own terms and not give up his friends. He has Blapy transfer him to Sift’s location, which is at the Step Master trial. Ruwen’s damaged spiritual network means he can only use Mana for the foreseeable future.