Return of the Runebound Professor

Noah’s eyes snapped open to find a sea of gold stretching beneath his feet. It was like a dragon’s wet dream. Mountains of riches rolled on all around him. Ruby studded crowns and diamond encrusted goblets were strewn across the ground like trash. Warm golden light shone down on the sea of wealth, making it glisten like the ocean.

Three large Demon Runes were nestled within the biggest piles. They were so heavily covered that Noah wouldn’t have been able to understand what they said even if he understood how to read demonic. The pressure rolling from them was exactly what Noah had expected. They were all Rank 5 Runes, but they weren’t well formed.

These things are nowhere near perfect, much less flawless. I suppose that fits for some idiot that hires shitty assassins instead of trying to do the job himself. God, I’m almost insulted by how incompetent they were.

“You were a fool to come here,” Igris said, his voice coming from behind Noah and laden with hatred. “I’m going to rip your loin out and shove it down your throat until the effects of this potion end.”

He turned to find the demon towering over him. Igris stood at the top of a pile of gold, two enormous blades in each of his hands. There was no sneer on his face anymore. The demon was deadly serious.

“Is that so?” Noah asked, tilting his head to the side as he extended his senses into the demon’s mind. “And why do you have to make it weird? Couldn’t you have chosen a different body part?”

“You may have won the fight in the outer world, but this is my mind, not yours,” Igris spat. The pile of wealth at his feet him trembled and rose into the air behind him, forming into an enormous tsunami cast in gold. “I will crush you, wretch. Your arrogance has cost you the fight.”

“Don’t lecture me about arrogance when you decide to gloat instead of trying to take advantage of a surprise attack.,” Noah said with a snort. He waved at the runes buried behind him. “Now tell me, which of these runes is your core rune?”

Igis swept his swords down with a scream. The wave of gold roared forward and pressure bore down on Noah. The sky was swallowed by a shimmering tsunami. His head tilted to the side. A soul was pressure. There was nothing else within it. That was why people could practice magic-infused patterns safely within their mind. It was just testing pressure and functionally simulating the results. And, in a fight where runic pressure was the determining factor, Noah was rarely the one at a disadvantage. He looked up at the gold as it crashed down toward him.

Then he released the full weight of his soul. A shockwave of pressure erupted from Noah like a bomb had gone off in the center of the golden sea.

The wave shattered. Igris stumbled back as the swords in his hands evaporated. His head tilted back. His mouth dropped open. Horror played across his features and his eyes widened in disbelief. A black spear dropped from the heavens, carving through the light itself. It tore through the air before crashing down in the ground directly before Noah in a spray of coins. White cracks exploded out from where the spear had landed and Igris let out a wheeze of pain.

“How?” Igris said in a gasping cough. “How is this possible? This is my soul. You cannot—”

“You are weak,” Noah said. He reached out and grabbed the hilt of the spear. Power pulsed within it like a heartbeat. Noah had never tried manifesting Sunder’s power like this before. He wasn’t even sure if such a thing was possible in the real world — but they were in a mindspace. The rules here were different. Magic was just pressure. Everything else was just the way they viewed it.

He ripped the spear free of the ground. Igris screamed again, dropping to his knees and sliding down the hill he stood on as the coins gave way. Noah strode over to the first of the first of the three Rank 5 Runes.

It’s a shame that I can’t steal these, but I’d be an idiot to take a Demon Rune into my soul right now. Not until I figure out how they work.

Noah reared back and drove the spear into the rune. Igris’ scream turned to a strangled gasp of pain. He clutched at his throat. White cracks split even more of his soul as Noah ripped the spear free and Rank 4 Runes spiraled out into the air amidst a burst of misty power. It buffeted his face as he turned and strode toward the second of Igris’ runes.

“What are you doing?” Igris demanded desperately. He struggled to rise, but the strength had evaporated from his limbs. The demon’s feet failed to find purchase in the sea of shifting gold. “How—”

Noah drove the spear into the ground at his feet, sending a spiderweb of cracks racing across the demon’s soul. Igris screamed again.

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“I only need one Rune to work with, but we can leave you with a spare in case I break something,” Noah said as he came to a stop before the rune.

Igris managed to force himself to his feet. He drew in ragged, pained gasps as he took an unsteady step forward. His face was pale. His skin was pallid, his eyes sunken. His enormous form no longer held any of the might that it once had.

Noah glanced in his direction. His eyes narrowed. “Stay over there. I don’t need to deal with you while I’m working.”

He focused the pressure from his soul, sending it driving down onto Igris without restraint. The demon let out a scream of defiance as he tried to resist, but it was fruitless. Noah’s soul bore down on his and slammed the blue-skinned demon to all fours. For a moment, Igris managed to remain there. His arms trembled in fury. Golden coins rattled around him as he tried to muster the strength to push back.

It wasn’t enough. Igris crumpled, driven face-first into the ground of his soul. His limbs sprawled in every direction. He couldn’t muster the strength to so much as move as single muscle. Igris’s breath rattled as he fought to draw in a breath with his compressed lungs. The white cracks running throughout his soul started to spread. Noah turned his attention back to the rune.

He’ll live. You can’t suffocate to death in your own soul. I’m just grinding him to paste a bit with my soul. Soul damage isn’t fatal. Not immediately, at least.

“Now then,” Noah breathed, extending a hand to the buried Demon Rune. “Let’s see what I can glean from you, shall we?”

***

For the next twenty five or so minutes, Noah used Igris’ soul as a sounding board for every single theory and idea he had with regard to Demon Runes. He committed every line of both remaining runes design to memory. Even though he didn’t know exactly what they did in their current states, he knew that Igris feasted on greed — and in the end, he didn’t really care what the runes could do. He only cared about what he could do to them. Noah sought to glean every single scrap of information that he could from the Demon Runes. The tests he put them through were numerous, and absolutely nothing he ever would have subjected Lee or any of the demons that he cared about to, but that courtesy was not extended to Igris.

And, once Noah had finished testing every last scrap of information that he could, he carved both Runes apart piece by piece. He split the Rank 4s into Rank 3s. The Rank 3s into Rank 2s, and the Rank 2s into Rank 1. Every time, Noah studied the resultant runes, searching for a pattern. Searching for anything he could use to understand the runes just a little more.

The culmination of his efforts was confusion.

Noah was intricately familiar with the designs of the Demon Runes he’d taken apart, even though he didn’t know their names. He’d figured out how they reacted to a variety of different scenarios. He knew their limits — but it was their origin that completely baffled him.

Igris’ runes had been largely composed of a mixture of demon and various metal and earth runes. All of their qualities had been quite poor. But, when he’d ground everything down to their basest components, he was completely caught off guard to find the exact same Rank 1 Demon Runes that Aylin had. It wasn’t just one of them, either. It was every single Demon Rune. Without fail, they were identical. And that made no sense.

The Fragment of Self was a manifestation of me. I could feel how closely connected it is to every part of my body. It’s not some generic thing, but it also definitely serves the same purpose. Given how the soul and body are connected so closely in a Demon, these Rank 1 Demon Runes are basically serving the exact same purpose as my rune. So why are they all the same?

Igris’s weak wheeze tickled the back of Noah’s mind, but he ignored it. The demon’s soul had almost completely collapsed. There were more white cracks than gold, and the cracks expanded with every passing second. Noah didn’t have much time left until the damage spread everywhere. He had even less until the last Rank 1 Demon Rune ran out of energy and dissipated, but something priked at the back of his mind.

Aylin’s Demon Rune hadn’t been unique to him. There had been a chance he and Violet had shared their runes, but there was no way Igris also would have happened to have the exact same rune by coincidence. That meant the Rank 1 Demon Rune had nothing to do with the emotion they ate. A common denominator was something he could work with. It was the key to figuring out what he was missing. He just had to find out what door it went to.

Noah studied the rune intently. The closer he looked, the more he felt as if there was something he was missing. Something obvious. Familiarity scratched at the back of his mind like a cat at the door.

Gold coins tumbled through the growing cracks around Noah, falling into the growing void around him. Igris’ pained breathing started to give way behind him. The demon wasn’t long for this world, and neither was his soul. Noah’s jaw clenched. His senses poured over the rune, feeling for more than just its appearance. He sent his intent deep into the rune itself, probing for anything he could find.

What is it? What feels familiar? I—

And, just like that, he realized what the familiar sensation was. A chill raced down Noah’s spine. The Demon Rune crumbled away into the ether, but it didn’t matter. He didn’t need it anymore.

It made no sense, but there was absolutely no denying it. Something had clicked in his soul and shifted in his mind. Perhaps it was just an old memory knocked loose. Perhaps it was something else entirely. But, no matter what it was, he changed. For the first time in his life, Noah read a Demon Rune.

Its base name was simply just Demon Rune. But that wasn’t all. Demon Rune was a rough translation, its true meaning lost. The pattern within the rune held a different message — and it contained a presence that Noah would never forget in all his years.

Miniscule Shard of Decras.

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