Return of the Runebound Professor - Chapter 798

Noah stood in stunned silence for several seconds as pieces clicked together in his head. The Beyond was the reason that nobody had been able to locate the Citadel. It was some kind of energy that completely interfered with normal magic… and that very same power was the reason the Citadel had fallen.

 The Researchers had tried to harness the Beyond and had ended up corrupting themselves with it instead. Given the state of the Citadel, it didn’t seem like they’d found a solution. The strange white energy had overwhelmed them — and it was the very same magic that was currently woven so deeply throughout his own soul that Noah wasn’t sure if there was even a separation between the two anymore.

Fuck me.

“What else is there?” Noah asked the Heart, dragging his thoughts back into place. He had to focus. “Are there any more entries from the Lead Researcher in the Great Library?”

“No,” the Heart replied. “That was her final entry.”

Gooseflesh prickled against Noah’s skin.

“Do you know her status? What happened after she left that report?”

“This information is not recorded within Access Point 1. It is possible that one of the sub-access points retained information, but due to the damage to the grid, I am unable to query them,” the Heart said. “However — given the damage sustained by the Citadel and latent remains of Beyond present within it — it is very likely that she perished.”

“Damn,” Noah said. His teeth clenched as he thought furiously. “Over what period of time did the Lead Researcher give you the information about her research into the Beyond?”

“Research ran for many years. The exact information about the research has been purged from my records, but the earliest purges indicate that it was over fifty years,” the Heart replied. “However, the time between the first success into utilization of Beyond energy and the warning left by the Lead Researcher was approximately one month.”

Things went to shit that quickly? That’s really damn fast. Fifty years of research… all up in flames in the span of weeks.

“Did she ever do a compatibility test with that Rune she created from the Beyond? Do we have any information on it?”

“The Great Library has records of her entering the tests, but their results were purged,” the Heart replied. “No information about the Rune remained. As per the Lead Researcher’s command, anyone seeking information about the composition of that Rune is to listen to her warning again. Would you like to—”

“No.” Noah grimaced. This wasn’t good. “To what extent was the Beyond integrated into the Citadel before the grid took all this damage? Was it just used to isolate this place from the world, or is there more?”

“There are a number of passages established with imbuements that draw on the Beyond that run throughout the Citadel, but they are inaccessible without possessing some degree of Beyond yourself,” the Heart reported. “There are a number of recorded artifacts that bond to these passageways.”

“Do you know where any of them are?” Noah asked.

“The Great Library does not hold records of their current locations. It seems this information was purged.”

Noah grimaced. He wasn’t surprised. The Lead Researcher really had done everything she could to stop anybody else from repeating her mistakes. She’d left warnings and records of what the Beyond had done, but then gone and destroyed everything he could have used to try and reverse engineer it.

Had Noah just been a random passerby who had stumbled into the Citadel, he was pretty sure that he’d have gotten the message. This was like sticking his nose into the remains of some old scientific lab that had been working on a bioweapon. Only an idiot would try to go and replicate said weapon.

Unfortunately, it was well too late for warnings.

The Beyond had been a part of his soul before he’d ever set foot in the Citadel.

At least I know why the Beyond let me force my way through that mirror. Whatever trick or artifact you might have been meant to use to pass through it normally, the passageway must have been created with power from the Beyond.

I just brute forced my way through it.

Noah sucked on the insides of his cheeks. He desperately wanted to dive into his own soul and finally get a look at just how extensive the damage was, but he had limited time with the Heart.

The last thing he wanted to do was waste it.

After all… no matter what the Beyond may have done or how difficult it was to control, there was no way Noah was just going to sit around within the Citadel for the rest of eternity. He’d rip the damn thing free from his soul if he had to.

Do I just dig up that book the Devourer mentioned? It said that there was some more research below the Heart Room. But I’m also pretty sure it wouldn’t appreciate me doing that. I don’t want to get into another fight with the damn thing.

Best thing I can do right now is probably just dig for all the information I can possibly get before my time runs out for the day.

“Right,” Noah said, focusing his thoughts and shaking his head. His eyes narrowed. “I’ve got a few more questions to get through.”

***

The rest of the four hours passed far quicker than Noah would have liked. He couldn’t say he was particularly happy with the new information he was able to dig up. His efforts didn’t yield much more than the initial information he’d gotten.

All of his questions were answered with suggestions to repair the grid and restore connection to the other access points or that the information he wanted had been purged. The Lead Researcher had left history spotless behind her.

Despite Noah’s annoyance, he couldn’t blame her. She’d done a very good job of making it impossible to replicate her experiments from her work. There just couldn’t have been any way for her to know that the person listening to her warnings would already be infected with the very problem she’d worked so hard to trap.

Before long, the blue light blinked out and the Heart faded as the Devourer took its place once again.

“Your time for the day is complete,” the Devourer said.

The tone of its voice felt normal. Well, relatively normal. There was only so normal that such an enormous monstrosity’s voice could get, but it didn’t seem any different than the previous times Noah had spoken to it.

Odd.

Given how much the monster feared the Beyond, he suspected it wouldn’t have been a fan of his conversation with the Heart. That meant the Devourer didn’t actually have access to the conversation — or maybe it was just ignoring it.

Though… interestingly enough, the Devourer was able to consume all the researchers and avoid being destroyed by the Beyond. Why is that? And if it’s somehow immune to the Beyond, why is the Devourer so scared of it?

Either way, it didn’t matter right now. His time with the Heart was up — and for the first time since he’d returned from the Beyond, his soul felt like it was in good enough shape to take a look at.

Noah couldn’t afford to delay it any more. He had to sese the extent of the damage the Beyond had caused and make sure it couldn’t do to him whatever it had done to the Lead Researcher.

She said it did something to your Runes. I can’t let that happen. There’s no way its powerful enough to damage Sunder, is there?   

“Don’t eat me while I’m meditating,” Noah said. He crossed his legs beneath him and sat down. “If you do, I’ll kill you.”

Then, without waiting for a response, he sank into his mind space.

The familiar darkness of Noah’s soul bloomed all around him… but the soul wasn’t as it had been when he’d last seen it. Golden passageways shimmered far beneath his feet like hairline cracks in the distance. As far as they were, Noah could feel the power radiating out from within them.

The effects of the Line on his soul — they were still there and closer to the surface than ever. Even now, he could feel the immensity of the magic beating down on the edges of his mind and trying to wear away everything that made him who he was.

But the Line wasn’t the only thing here. Running throughout the darkness rising around him were buzzing lines of white energy. They crisscrossed across the ground and rose up into the sky around him, all made from the same cubical energy that was attached to his body back in the real world.

The Beyond.

Curiously enough, the cracks in Noah’s soul were gone. It didn’t seem like any of them remained after his repeated uses of the Fragment of Renewal. The Beyond lined his soul wherever the cracks had once been, almost as if they’d been filled in with putty.

There were a number of patches of pure Beyond scattered throughout the darkness as well. They seemed to be in the places where the damage had been so bad that Noah’s soul had somehow drawn the Beyond into it in the process of healing itself.

Despite all of that, a relieved breath slipped from Noah’s lips.

Not a single one of his runes had so much as a speck of the strange white energy upon them. It looked like, at least for the time being, the Beyond was woven exclusively into his soul.

This is odd. I’ve definitely had the Beyond integrated into my soul for a while. It took me months to escape from it and get to the Citadel in the first place, but I don’t feel any adverse effects from it yet.

The Lead Researcher was a Rank 8 when she got the Beyond. My soul couldn’t possibly be bigger than hers. Even with its abnormal size, I’m only a Rank 5 right now. The difference between me and a Rank 8 is massive.

So why haven’t I suffered whatever adverse effects that she did? I don’t see any issues with my runes right now.

Noah’s brow furrowed. Something didn’t make sense. His soul felt… well, about as normal as it possibly could have been given the situation.

I need more information. It looks like there’s a way out of here by using the Beyond… but I need to make sure I can’t accidentally infect anyone else with this shit on accident. Fortunately, I still have the Citadel at my disposal, and it’s aware of the Beyond. No reason not to use the tools I have.

He slipped back out of his mindspace and into the real world, rising to his feet and glancing over at the Devourer.

The Heart is the only access point with connection to the Great Library right now. That means it’s the only one that knows about the Beyond. I don’t have a realistic way to re-connect Access Point 4 to it right now, which means I can’t use that test to analyze my runes.

“Does the Heart Room have some way to get an analysis of my magic?” Noah asked.   

“Yes,” the Devourer said. “But it cannot gauge aptitude.”

“That’s fine,” Noah said. “If you give me about five more minutes with the heart right now, you can have an hour off tomorrow.”

The Devourer considered him for a moment. Then its entire body rippled as if in a shrug.

“Very well. Your offer is accepted.”

A few moments later, Noah stood before the Heart once more.

“Analyze my soul,” Noah said, his hands resting against the cold blue cube. “Search for the Beyond. How extensively has it infected me?”

 “Query accepted,” the Heart said. Noah’s palms tingled as power passed from within the blue cube into him like an electric current. “Do not draw on your runes during the duration of the analysis. Your runic composition is being compared to the records within the Great Library.”

A minute passed. Noah’s eyes narrowed as a thought struck him.

“You are checking for the Beyond, right? I know information about it has been purged, but—”

“The Great Library has records of the Beyond’s presence. It can be analyzed.”

“Good,” Noah said. He waited for a few more moments. “How long is this going to—”

“Analysis completed,” the Heart said. The flow of energy prickling against Noah’s palms stopped. He let his hands drop.

“Right. Hit me with it, then. What percentage of my soul is infected with the Beyond? Is it spreading?” Noah asked.  

“An answer to this question is impossible. It is suggested that you refine your query,” the Heart said. “According to records of Beyond-infected souls and methods used to analyze them…no traces of the Beyond are present within your soul.”

Noah blinked. He stared at the Heart, but it offered up nothing more.

What?