Return of the Runebound Professor - Chapter 783 (Patreon)

The Devourer lasted slightly longer than Noah would have expected. He supposed that it had already spent much of its life in wait. That must have helped a little. He also had no idea just how its mind worked. The Devourer certainly wasn’t a human. With the number of heads it had warped into its body, there was a good chance it had multiple minds to distribute processing to.

Perhaps that made the Devourer more resilient than another monster would have been. But in the end, it didn’t matter. The creature had opened its mind to Noah. It had let the Line in. And, in the face of Infinity, the Citadel and everything within it were nothing more than a little blip upon a speck of dirt upon a bowl of rice.

As all inevitably did, the Devourer of the Lost Citadel broke under the weight of the Line.

Its mind crumpled like a poorly sealed submersible a thousand leagues beneath the sea. There was a pop and a whump — and then Noah emerged from the monster’s mind as he had been just a few moments before.

It was ten more minutes before the Devourer spoke another word.

“What are you?” the great beast rasped. It laid on the ground before Noah in a pool of rancid black liquid, its legs splayed out like those of a basking house cat. “You… you are no mortal. You aren’t even a mage.”

Noah studied the Devourer in silence for several long seconds. The thoughts buzzing through his head were all his own — but a fair amount of them were ones he was pretty sure he hadn’t thought.

His focus was still fragmented. Fragmented, but not so much that he couldn’t process the world properly anymore. His soul was a patchwork quilt riddled with holes. But given the fact that it had been nothing but ragged scraps just a short while ago, he couldn’t complain much at all.

This would be enough. A few more applications of the Fragment of Renewal would probably get it into something approaching a normal state. Then he’d be able to look at just how extensive the changes to his being were.

A cracling buzz of fractalized white energy coiled past his ear from where it connected to his shoulder. The power from the white void hadn’t receded in the slightest in the time since returning to Obisida. Whatever it was, it was here to stay.

Something tells me those changes might be quite extensive. Every day, I become less human than I was. But… what am I becoming?

   “I’ll tell you what I am when I figure it out,” Noah said. He cracked his neck. “We had a deal. Will you hold to it? I won’t bother with a Rune Oath. I don’t need them. There are far more effective ways of enforcing promises made.”

I’ll just refrain from mentioning there’s no way I’d be able to break through the Devourer’s mental defenses if it keeps them up. This thing is still immensely powerful. I need to reach Rank 6.

“I… will serve my purpose,” the Devourer rasped.

“Prayer,” the centipede whispered.

“Stop it,” Noah snapped, glaring at the smaller monster before returning his gaze to the huge insect taking up the vast majority of the hall before them. He pressed his fingers to his temples. "I -- shit. Look. I won’t need you to serve as the Heart constantly. I’m not a fan of keeping prisoners like that. Just give me a few hours every day. You can do whatever the hell you want with the rest of your time. Just like a job.”

The Devourer stared at him. It didn’t so much as twitch for a few seconds. Then its legs scraped against the floor, sloshing through the black saliva as they found their purchase. The monster’s head lifted into the air to look down upon Noah.

“Why?”

“You saw why,” Noah said flatly. He didn’t need to explain any further. The Devourer had witnessed the Line. And, even if Noah had only used it as a tool and the monster had only been subjected to its power for a few short moments, that was enough.

It would understand.

“A job?” The Devourer asked. “You will become the Master of the Citadel? You will not depart?”

“Never said that,” Noah said. “You never know where life takes you. I’m not binding myself somewhere arbitrarily. But with all the research here… there’s no way I’m just abandoning it. But not without you. I need the Heart for any of this to function the way it’s meant to.”

“You replace me,” the Devourer said in an accusatory tone. “I cannot be replaced. I am—”

“Trust me,” Noah said flatly. “I am not making anything close to you. Whatever research the people you consumed were doing… I have absolutely no interest in it. You’re the only Devourer, and it’ll stay that way.”

The Devourer’s mandibles clicked. It still seemed to be recovering from the effects of the line, which really wasn’t much of a surprise. Another few moments passed before it spoke again.

“Will I receive teeth-care?”

Noah nearly choked on his own saliva. “What?”

The Devourer stared at him. “What? My knowledge reveals that it is a common question.”

“Your — how many jobs have you applied to?” Noah asked, baffled. “How is that possibly a common question?”

“The researchers I consumed believed it to be of importance,” the Devourer replied. “Their memories linger within my mind.”

Noah pinched the bridge of his nose. “Do you need dental?”

“No,” the Devourer replied. “But I want it anyway.”

“Then… sure, I guess. You can have dental.” Noah blinked heavily. He wasn’t sure if the fragments of his mind were acting up again, but the Devourer seemed satisfied with his promise. The creature inclined its massive head ever so slightly.

“Then I will do as you request. For four hours a day, I will activate the Grid. I will serve as the Heart. For the rest — I will be the Devourer.”

“So long as you don’t devour anything I care about,” Noah said, his eyes narrowing slightly. “That is not negotiable. You kill one person I care for — you so much as scratch them — the deal is off. There won’t be enough of you left to even remember what your name is.”

The Devourer’s gaze flicked to the centipede behind him. “That creature?”

Noah paused. Then he let out a huff. “Technically, no. But don’t kill this one. I still have use for it. I will identify the ones that matter when they arrive. There shouldn’t be any of them here yet. But… for that matter, is there anyone else alive within the Citadel?”

“No,” the Devourer replied simply. “They have all been consumed. We alone reside within this place.”

Noah shook his head. “That makes things easier. But how does a place like this possibly stay concealed for so long? I’d have thought the scale of research would have brought hundreds of treasure seekers at the minimum. How is it untouched?”

“Not all of the Citadel’s defenses are gone,” the Devourer replied. Its mandibles clicked. “The passive shielding remains, though the vast majority of it is non-functional. Due to circumstances. Ones beyond my control.”

“Right,” Noah said dryly. There was no point crying over spilled milk. What was done was done. He couldn’t make the Devourer un-destroy the citadel. “So there are some defenses still here that… what, prevent people from noticing it?”

“And that restrict spatial magic,” the Devourer said. “It is not possible to teleport into the citadel by any means.”

Noah started to nod. Then he paused, a frown crossing his lips. “Well, that can’t be true. I teleported here. Is it possible those defenses are damaged?”

“No,” the Devourer said instantly. “They are still present. I can feel them. They are a part of the Heart. It is not possible that you teleported here. Spatial breaches cannot be permitted within the Citadel under any circumstance. It is the utmost rule of this place. To breach space would be to invite the Beyond.”

The what now?

“How do you think I got here, then?” Noah asked. “I certainly didn’t come in through a door. I teleported.”

“Impossible,” the Devorer said. “Even sealed within the Inner Walls, I would have felt a breach in the defenses of the Citadel if such a thing had happened. No spatial magic was utilized.”

“Well, it wasn’t spatial magic,” Noah said. He nodded to the crackling white tongues of magic coiling behind him. “It was this.”

“I do not understand,” the Devourer said. “You indicate nothing.”

Noah’s brow furrowed. Then he blinked. “Wait. Can you not see it? The white magic?”

“White magic?” the Devourer repeated. Its mandibles clicked uneasily. “What are you speaking of?”

“Wait,” Noah muttered, realization starting to set in. He’d wondered why he’d landed in the Citadel of all places when he’d emerged from the white void. Perhaps it hadn’t been random at all. “What is the Beyond?”

“It is the space between realities. A forbidden magic,” the Devourer replied in a wary tone. “Nothingness made manifest. The original goal of the Lost Citadel was to channel its power, the research ended in a failure that caused the Citadel to be lost from the eyes of the world. It persisted for hundreds of years after that — but in decline. All research into the Beyond was sealed away behind a barrier that even I have not broken. It remains beneath the Heart Room.”

“And this Beyond… how would you describe it?” Noah asked. “Have you seen it?”

“It takes many forms,” the Devourer replied. “But only once did I witness it in true — and it was nothing. An endless expanse of white nothing.”

Noah’s skin prickled.

The white void.