Return of the Runebound Professor - Chapter 771 (Patreon)

Noah was lost. At least, about as lost as someone who didn’t actually have a specific direction that they were trying to head in could be. T

Noah was lost.

At least, about as lost as someone who didn’t actually have a specific direction that they were trying to head in could be. The Lost Citadel, Obsidia, wherever he was — all meaningless words.

Names only mattered when they had some association to something. Directions only mattered when there was some reference to guide him. And Noah had none of that.

His entire world was stone passageways. There was no pattern that he could discern. No difference from one hall to the next. Whoever had decided to call this place a Citadel had clearly never been in one. Citadels had doors. If they happened to be one of the nice ones, then there were even fancy windows that glittered in a rainbow of color.

Or was that churches? They both start with a C. Whatever.

Either way, this place wasn’t a Citadel.

It was a labyrinth.

There was nothing but cobbled floor and sloping, carved ceilings. Walls of stone worn down by years and gouged by the scratching feet of the monsters that littered this place. There were far more of them than he’d originally thought.

Their tunnels were the only things that broke the monotony of the gray halls up, burrowed passageways that crisscrossed throughout the purgatorial maze. The tunnels would have been considerably more appreciated if they themselves weren’t another maze entirely on their own.

The dammed things were just as confusing to navigate as the normal halls were — and three times less comfortable.

Noah had considered just blasting his way out of the seemingly endless dungeon he’d found himself in more than once, and in more than a few different voices. The only thing that had stopped him was the slight sliver of self-preservation that still lingered deep within him.

There were simply too many monsters to draw that level of attention. He had no trouble handling a few of them. But drawing on enough magic to tear his way through an unknown amount of stone would draw far too much attention and leave him without the magic he needed to defend himself. Until he was absolutely certain he could afford to die again, the risk was too great.

And so he wandered.

There was no sun nor moon to tell time’s passing by. The only way at all that Noah could keep a rough estimation of how long he had walked was by slicing lines into his palm with the tip of a jagged fingernail.

And, by his best estimate, it had been a week.

The Fragment of Renewal had helped keep the time. It was only active once every twelve hours — but he was pretty sure he’d mistimed it several times. His mind wasn’t where it should have been. And even after repeated uses of the Fragment, his soul was still heavily damaged. His mind was still split.

But his task still remained. And so long as it did, Noah’s march would not be stopped.

Annoyance and impatience had already filled him to the brim. He was pretty sure he’d walked through the same hall a few dozen times. Ironically enough, the only things that had kept him from dying were the monsters littering this forsaken place.

There was no food here. No water. There was just Noah, the halls, and the twisted abominations that lurked within them. He was pretty sure he’d killed hundreds of them at this point. The magical energy within their souls had been the only thing sustaining him.

After he’d killed the first few creatures, the ones that had ambushed him in the hallway shortly after leaving the room he’d arrived in, the eating had been good. They’d come in droves. Noah had barely been able to walk more than a few feet without getting ambushed.

But they’d learned.   

Noah was fairly certain the monsters were all part of a hive mind. Even though he hadn’t left a single survivor behind, every consequent wave appeared to be smarter than the last.

Less and less of them came. The ones that did attack tried different tactics. They ambushed him mid-fight. They came from the ceiling and beneath the ground, erupting from within the stone in blitz attacks. They tried to distract him by hiding themselves in the walls, by leaving him alone so he would pass and leave his back unprotected.

Noah didn’t spare a single one of them.

His domain was a starving eye that permitted no survivors in its wake. Unraveling Disruption’s magic rose and fell like the sword of an executioner. It melted the monsters that dared attack him. It tore through the walls to seek out the ones that tried to sneak past him. It dismantled every single living being in his path, drinking their power and keeping him moving forward.

Power coiled in Noah’s steps, leaving tiny patches of jittery fractal magic in his wake.

The white void hadn’t left him. It seared around his shoulders, unsteady tendrils of magic composed of twitching geometric forms that formed and shattered faster than they could be perceived swirled at his back.

Their presence felt ingrained into him, melded so deeply with his soul that something told him it would never come free. Even though Noah hadn’t paused to take a look into his damaged soul yet, he already knew what he’d find.

The cracks riddling his being had been partially filled in by the fragments of the white void he’d shattered during his prison break. They’d somehow merged into his soul. To what purpose or effect, he still wasn’t entirely sure.

At the moment, he didn’t particularly care. The distraction would have pulled his mind away from his goal. And right now, his only goal was to find everyone. And to do that… he needed a way out of this damned citadel.

Noah’s eyes narrowed in irritation as the edges of his domain prickled. The monsters had figured out the limits of his mind’s eye. They were smart. Noah could admit that. The monsters’ attack patterns constantly improved. They tried new tactics. The ones he fought now, though no more powerful in magic than the very first wave, were a dozen times more competent than their predecessors.

It changed nothing.

He killed them all the same.

But their most recent tactic was quite annoying. They’d taken to staying out of his range, no doubt so they could prepare some manner of ambush. There hadn’t even been a single attack in the past few hours.

Every time he drew near, they ran.

As if that would stop me.

Noah extended a hand toward the wall to his side. Unraveling Disruption sliced out, a bolt of clean, jagged red energy with barely any deviation to its path. It cut right through the stone and pierced into the fleeing monster, tearing it to shreds before it even had a chance to fight back.

He felt the monster’s energy flowing into him before he’d even turned the corner. Smart they may have been, but these things had no domain. They had no way to fight back against his magic. And that made them easy prey.

 His eyes drifted down the hall he’d stepped into. It was longer than the range of his domain but came to a dead end just about fifty feet away — where one of the centipede-like monsters had pressed itself against the far wall.

Noah’s lips curled. It was a pathetic attempt at hiding. Even without his domain, he could make out the monster’s blood-red eyes easily in the darkness. He could practically taste the fear and terror swimming within them.

He started toward it. Unraveling Disruption crackled to life along his fingertips and the white magic around his shoulders seemed to hiss in anticipation.

The monster pressed itself farther back against the wall. Its legs scratched against stone as it tried to burrow to safety, but there must have been a connection to the maze of tunnels nearby. It was trapped.

Then the monster’s legs twitched. They rose up before its horrid, warped face. It had no eyelids with which to blink, but if it did, something about the monster’s expression implied it would have been squeezing them shut.

Noah paused.

Is it… surrendering?

The monster’s fang-filled maw twitched. It let out something between a hiss and a hacking cough. Then, amidst the wretched noise, came a single word.

“Prayer,” the creature rasped.

It took Noah a moment to even realize that it had spoken. The word was so broken that was practically incomprehensible — but it had been a word. And it had been in a voice that he recognized, if only vaguely.

Sebastian’s.

“What?” Noah asked, his head tilting to the side as his lips went thin. The monster was repeating words that Sebastian had said.

Taunting me? You want to taunt me with the voice of a man you killed?

He took a step forward. The magic coiling around his fingers intensified with a crackle.

The creature let out another raspy wheeze as if it were in desperate need of an inhaler. It pressed its back against the wall, but there was nowhere left to run.

“Prayer. Prayer,” it hissed, begged. Sebastian’s voice was clearer now. As if it was learning as it went. “Prayer. I’m… sorry. Prayer.”

Noah hesitated. The buzzing insanity beating against the walls of his mind paused. For a moment, he stood still. His domain scanned the surrounding area. There were no other living beings near them.  

If this was an ambush, it was a poorly set up one. Even though these creatures were likely a hive-mind, he didn’t see what they stood to gain by killing one of their own just to mess with him.

“Don’t bother. Nobody can hear you,” Noah said. His voice sounded strange to his own ears. It was cracked and dry from days of disuse. “I’ve already tried.”

“You,” the monster said. “Please. Can’t die.”

Me? Or you?

Noah stared at it for a moment. Then his eyes narrowed. “You want me to leave you alive? You’ve been trying to kill me for days. Why would I do something stupid like sparing you?”

“Not… strong enough. Prayer.”

Noah raised his hand. Panic flared in the monster’s eyes.

 “The key. The Citadel. Its secrets.”

It was repeating Sebastian’s words now, each one coming out faster and more terrified than the last.

Noah paused. “What?”

“Secrets,” the monster repeated urgently, desperately. “The outer walls. Take the key. Prayer.”

“You… have a way out of here?” Noah asked. Excitement broke through the buzzing thoughts twisting around his mind. The tendrils of white magic around him thrashed. “A way to… what, the spot where this damn key is useful?”  

“Prayer. The key. The outer walls,” the monster rasped.

That sounds like a yes to me. Perhaps not a way out, but a way deeper. But anything is better than these damn halls.

A dangerous smile passed over Noah’s lips.

“Show me.”