Return of the Runebound Professor

Chapter 597: Tithe

Twisting clouds of misty magical energy curled through Yoru’s soul, washing over the night sky like an ocean of shimmering stars. The cracks riddling the ground in the garden trembled, slowly stretching to consume more of its surface.

The smell of cut flowers filled the air, lingering from all the crushed plants that littered the ground. Many of them had fallen through the cracks to vanish into the endless white void below.

Silence ruled. Moonlit Prophecy sat, its silvery copy of Yoru’s body as still as ice before Noah. Even the wind had stilled itself. The entirety of the demon’s soul was focused.

Uneven waves of pressure rolled out from Yoru as her hands clenched and unclenched at her sides. Runes floated all around her, and the lanky form of the stitched abomination that was Noah’s Grimoire loomed over her like a grotesque shadow that had risen up from the ground.

“Give up,” the silvery form of Yoru hissed. “Give yourself to me and a part of you may live on. I crafted this existence for you, Yoru. Everything you are is what I have created. You cannot exist in a world that I do not control. This struggle will only ruin everything I have worked for. This life is—”

Yoru’s eyes snapped open, and they burned with the brilliant silver light of the moon.

“Mine,” Yoru said. “It is mine to destroyed.”

There was a snap. The air before her twisted like a miniature black hole had formed directly in the air before her, crumpling in on itself. Pressure roiled through Yoru’s soul and twisted the light swirling around her.

And from the fragments formed a shimmer of light.

Fragment of Yoru

The abomination’s lips twisted into a smile.

“What?” the manifestation of Moonlit Prophecy breathed, eyes going wide. “Impossible. How…”

Yoru ignored her clone. It rested its gangly hands on Yoru’s shoulders and whispered into her ear. As to what it was saying, Noah was unaware. The runes in the air around Yoru shifted and drew closer.

Then they drove together with a brilliant flash of light.

And, where there had only been Rank 1 Light Runes before, a Rank 2 Cracked Silver Light Rune had formed.

Yoru had combined a rune.

Unfortunately, it was far from perfect, much less flawless, and building a foundation upon weakened runes would just mean Yoru had to suffer through an immense amount of soul damage a second time around.

She had to get it the first time around.

“Good job,” Noah had said.

Then he’d sundered her efforts, splitting it back up into a cloud of misty energy and its constituents.

Yoru didn’t even flinch. Her head tilted slightly — not to the sides, but forward — in a nod of appreciation. Then she’d continued to work.

The cracks in her soul continued to spread. Blood poured down her face in rivers. It soaked into her clothes and dripped to the ground, turning the dirt into mud. There was so much damage to her soul that Noah couldn’t even understand how she was still alive, much less working.

But still Yoru pressed on. Something more primal than determination drove her forward. She formed the rune twice more. Twice more, Noah sundered it.

And on the third try, she made a flawless Silver Light Rune.

When Noah didn’t sunder it, Yoru moved on immediately. More runes followed afterward. Three more Moonlight Runes, joined by three Shimmering Light runes.

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Yoru was a terrifyingly fast learner. The Shimmering Light Runes didn’t need to be repaired. They were all done correctly on her first attempt.

The pressure in her soul still had yet to see much of a change. A Rank 2 Rune was so insignificant in comparison to Rank 7 that her soul was still in just as much danger than it had been before.

She pressed on.

The Rank 2s were combined into a Moonlight Rank 3 — and to Noah’s shock, that too was Flawless.

Even though he and Moxie had been the ones to initially figure out that Runes could reach Flawless, not even Noah had managed to adapt to it so quickly. Yoru was learning like a sponge in water.

It took him a moment to realize why. Noah would have laughed at the thought if the state of things hadn’t been so tense.

Children learned things at incredible rates. Yoru had never had a chance to truly experience anything for herself, so she was speeding through understanding. He just hoped it would be enough to fix her soul in time.

Loud cracks echoed out. A tremor shook the ground, and more dirt sloughed into the void below. Noah stepped to the side to avoid pitching into the endless white space that was quickly growing to consume Yoru’s soul. Nearly half of the solid ground in her world had fallen away.

Cracks formed on Yoru’s fingertips, burning with brilliant white light as she continued to draw runes in the air and the Grimoire continued to feed her magic and runes to work with, ripping them out from within its own body and tossing them into the air beside her without even stopping to draw them.

Yoru combined runes into a Rank 3 Moonlit Reflection Rune.

It wasn’t Flawless.

Noah sundered it. More cracks ripped through her soul in response and he winced, his teeth clenched tight enough to bend iron between them.

Yoru’s second attempt worked.

A third Rank 3 Rune followed after — this one named Empty Sky.

It was Flawless.

More damage spread through Yoru’s soul. A distant howl picked up, growing louder by the second. Yoru’s pinky finger crumbled into dust, and the cracks spread to cover her other fingers and began to work down her wrist.

She made the remaining Rank 3 runes and slammed them together with a brilliant flash of light, leaving behind a Rank 4 Moon rune.

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Not once did her features even flicker. Noah was pretty sure she was advancing at a rate faster than anyone since before Arbitage had been built, and Yoru barely even cared. The only thing on her mind was combining runes. Now that she’d started, it almost seemed as if she couldn’t stop.

Something prickled against Noah’s skin. It was faint, but he could feel pressure starting to fill her soul once more. Yoru made three more copies of the Moon Rune.

Her hand crumbled away in its entirety, and the damage reached up her arm for her shoulder. Noah’s jaw clenched, but there was absolutely nothing he could do. Activating the Fragment of Renewal now would just doom her. It would partially heal the damage, but she’d still get more as she continued to advance — and if he patched her too early, then her soul would still accrue more damage and collapse shortly afterward… and he’d be unable to do anything until a day later.

Yoru didn’t acknowledge the damage. She just swapped to her other hand and continued to draw. Cracks already riddled it, but her fingers were still there.

“She won’t make it,” the Grimoire said, lifting its head from Yoru’s ear.

“What?” Noah asked. “Look at her! She’s—”

“Putting up a good struggle, but she will die. Look around you.”

Noah didn’t have to be told that. The dirt beneath his feet was shifting and crumbling. More than half of Yoru’s soul had already fallen through the cracks into oblivion. She was well through Rank 4 now, but the amount of time it took between every rank grew higher and the combinations grew more difficult.

“She’ll make it,” Noah said firmly. He injected determination into his words. He wasn’t going to doubt Yoru to her face.

“No, she will not.” The demon’s claws tightened around Yoru’s shoulders as Yoru finished making a Rank 4 Starflame rune. It was good, but it wasn’t Flawless.

Noah Sundered it.

Yoru coughed. Blood splattered across the soaked ground before her. More cracks tore through the ground. She got back to work.

“Enough,” Noah said. “You’re distracting her.”

“She could not be distracted even if we wanted to. Yoru is completely focused… but focus alone is not sufficient. You cannot build hopes and dreams from nothing but desire, Herald. You should know this better than anyone. Your goals ended on Earth unaccomplished.”

Noah’s answer caught in his throat. “How do you know about that?”

“You have imbued countless pieces of your soul into me when you leave runes upon my pages. I have absorbed much of who you are, Herald. I know your power. I know your goals and desires.”

The fingers on Yoru’s left hand crumbled away. Her jaw clenched and she continued to draw with nothing but the stump of her wrist, but the accuracy of the lines in the runes suffered. She was forced to abandon her current attempt and restart.

“Get to the point,” Noah snarled. “This isn’t the time.”

“I can help her,” the Grimoire said, its voice little more than a deadly whisper. “Repairing bodies is something of my specialty.”

“Do it,” Noah said immediately.

“It is not that simple. I will not give up a portion of myself. What has been lost cannot be regained so easily, and I am not so kind as you.”

“You want me to give up a portion of my body?” Noah asked.

That’s easy. I barely need the damn thing. I’ll just make—

“Your soul,” the Grimoire replied. “And not a piece you can rebuild, Herald. But your life is infinitely more valuable than that of this demon. I have felt your strength. Your potential. We will feast on the gods — but not if you rip yourself to shreds. No, I am not asking you. There is another. If you spoke the truth, then you do not care about this power.”

Noah turned to follow the abomination’s gaze. His eyes landed on the fallen form of the Moonlit Prophecy rune.

“What do I have to do?”

“One hand should suffice.”

“No!” the rune exclaimed, scrambling to her feet and lifting into the air as energy gathered around her. “I won’t —”

The rest of the rune’s sentence was lost in a loud crack. Noah’s hand carved through the Moonlit Prophecy’s arm, Sunder’s magic empowering his blow and severing it completely. He grabbed the limb before it could hit the ground and spun to the Grimoire, thrusting it out.

“No hesitation,” the monster observed, its wide mouth splitting apart in a massive grin. It lifted the arm to its mouth and bit down on the end. A loud crunch echoed out through Yoru’s soul, and a wave of power buffeted Noah’s hair back.

Moonlit Prophecy screamed in agony.

The Grimoire took what remained of the hand, which had been cut to perfectly match the missing flesh of Yoru’s right arm and pressed it onto her stump. There was a loud hiss and the smell of burning flesh filled the air.

A crack split the edge of the Moonlit Prophecy rune in the air far above them. Yoru’s body stiffened.

Then she lifted her new hand and started to draw.

That easy?

Something told Noah that it was anything but, but now wasn’t the time to question what had just happened. He watched with bated breath as Yoru continued to draw runes to life, moving with renewed speed now that one of her hands had been returned to her.

The cracks on that side of her body stilled, but they continued on the other. Her left arm was eroded up to the elbow and the damage was making for her shoulder.

Yoru clenched her one remaining hand. She’d managed to finish making her Rank 4 runes during the past few seconds of conversations. A number of her runes weren’t Flawless, but they were close to perfect.

Their time was running out. There was no time for Noah to sunder anything. He didn’t interfere. Another brilliant flash of light lit her soul.

The pressure rolling off her magnified, and the spread of the cracks slowed as a new Rank 5 rune appeared within her, nestled in the misty clouds of churning energy and runes awaiting their turn to be combined.

Her new creation was a Rank 5, not quite Flawless but better on average than a normal Perfect rune — Night of the Moon.

It was one of the most abstract runes that Noah had ever seen. Yoru was far from done, though. She was forming runes before the last one had even finished, dragging power from the air around her and driving it home at an incredible speed.

Everything sub Rank-4 component she made was either Flawless or close to it, and the Rank 5s were far better than the average mage’s ever could have been. More copies of Night of the Moon took form, joined by Rank 5 Falling Night rune.

Noah’s fingers twitched at his sides. The damage to Yoru’s soul was well past critical. Almost the entirety of her garden had fallen away. Only a few sparse bushes remained, their roots desperately holding the dirt together and keeping it from plummeting away.

Moonlit Prophecy’s stolen body laid on the ground, unmoving at Noah’s feet on one of the few remaining patches of unbroken ground.

Noah reached for the Fragment of Renewal and kept it at bay, the gentle power twisting within him, an entire ocean of magic waiting to be released from behind its dam.

Yoru’s left arm was completely gone. Her shoulder was cracked and splintering, and the damage threatened to reach into her chest and wrap around her heart.

She was so close.

Rank 5 runes swirled around her.

The cracks on the ground pressed forward, encircling the remains of the solid ground. They were moving slower, but they were still moving. Another Rank 5 rune took form — the last one Yoru needed.

She clenched her glowing silver hand.

The cracks reaching for her heart froze. The world locked in place, specks of dirt suspended mid-fall into the void.

Noah’s heart thumped in his ears.

A flash of brilliant white light lit Yoru’s soul.

The pressure rolling out from her magnified exponentially. It slammed into Noah and roared past him, whipping his hair back and forcing him to squint.

Yoru’s soul stopped shrinking.

Floating before her was a new Rune.

The Rising Moon — Rank 6

Noah practically dove forward. He put his hand on her forehead and unleashed the Fragment of Renewal directly into the demon. An enormous wave of power coursed out from within him, sending pearlescent shimmers dancing across her soul as it worked deep into the damaged ground.

A shudder rocked Yoru’s body. She dropped to her knees, drawing in a ragged, choking gasp. The enormous amount of soul damage covering her began to slowly pull itself shut.

The cracks on her body closed as well, but her missing arm didn’t reform.

Behind her, the Grimoire’s smile grew wider. It lifted a hand, and all the excess magic swirling within Yoru’s soul — more than Noah suspected he had within his own body — gathered above the monster’s palm.

Then its fingers slammed closed around it. The magic vanished as if it had never been there. Red flashed within the Grimiore’s eyes and it let out a delighted sigh.

“A bite of a Master Rune and an ocean of energy. A good tithe.” The Grimoire looked down to Noah, and a pallid tongue ran across its lips. “For now, it will suffice.”

For now? I don’t like the sound of that.

Noah didn’t get a chance to say anything. Yoru’s eyes fluttered shut. She finally passed out.

The world went black, and Noah was hurled back into his own body in the Scorched Acres.