Return of the Runebound Professor

Chapter 560: Infinity

The world was cold and silent. An endless void — the true void, not the replica that had existed within Sievan’s domain — stretched out around Noah like the maw of an ancient beast. Golden paths swirled through the emptiness like strands of hair as they converged in the far, far distance.

Noah couldn’t see where they were going, but he didn’t need to. He knew what came at the end of eons of journey along the sprawling paths.

Faint, translucent motes of blue shimmered upon the pathways. They moved one ponderous step at a time to the beat of an endless march. There were no words. No desires. No goals. Souls that walked upon its surface seemed to feel nothing but the millstone of time grinding away at them until they finally arrived at its head, where Renewal would be waiting for them.

There was only the Line.

This was the one location in all existence that he would have given almost anything to never return to — but he had no choice. Wizen had the Key. Noah and Moxie weren’t demons. They couldn’t be summoned, even if they wanted to be. Returning to the mortal plane was impossible without it.

Cold space pressed in on Noah, and his domain churned as it fought to keep it back. There was no air in the afterlife. His lungs found nothing when he breathed in, and yet, his body sustained all the same.

The void was pure, unfiltered magic. Power permeated everything within the darkness, omnipresent and uncaring. Even if Noah’s entire body had shut down, he got the feeling that he would have continued to exist.

This was a place in which the mortal concept of life did not exist. The beat of the heart, the breath of the lung, the pump of blood — none of it mattered. The afterlife was a misnomer. It was not a place of life or unlife. It was a place of existence.

And, no matter how badly someone wanted to live or do the very opposite, there was only one option for them here. It was to exist.

Mortals did not belong here. Noah did not belong here. It was a place reserved for those who walked the line and the gods that oversaw them.

Knots twisted his stomach and a deep sense of terror and unease clawed at Noah’s heart. It begged him to turn back toward the only point of color other than gold in the void — the stark white portal that burned in the air behind him, held open by Sievan.

Noah crushed the desire. He couldn’t leave. Not without the key. His eyes scanned the line in search of Wizen.

Fortunately for him, mortals stuck out like a sore thumb in a land where the only residents were floating blue souls.

He spotted Wizen after mere moments. The man floated above the line, churning red and gray magic enveloping him like the tendrils of an eldritch god. Pieces of Wizen’s skin had peeled back. He was unraveling at the seams, but in his right hand was the key. The mage had bound it to himself with strands of gray magic.

Noah’s lips thinned and he willed himself forward. To his surprise, the thought sent him zipping through the empty void like a rocket. He moved so quickly that he nearly slammed straight into Wizen before jerking to a halt a dozen feet away from him.

The Woven Man’s head snapped up toward Noah. Surprise and anger carved across his features and he turned in his direction.

“You,” Wizen snarled. The void swallowed his words, barely letting them make it to Noah’s ears. “Leave. I have no more need for your power. We have no quarrel.”

“That’s a load of shit and you know it,” Noah replied as he drew on his Runes. Power carved through his body and reared back, waiting for his command. “You don’t get to do heinous shit and then go around claiming we have no quarrel once you get what you want.”

“I have done bad, and I would do worse. You could not understand.” Wizen turned toward Noah and lifted his hand toward him, his fingers curling into the shape of a claw. “I have no energy to waste on you. Leave. This is your final warning.”

“Give me the key, and I’ll consider it.” Noah pulled his lips back in a snarl. “What are you going to do? Mind control me?”

Wizen mind controlled him.

Or, more accurately, Wizen tried to mind control him.

His magic slammed into Noah like a crashing river, driving into his mind in a spike and seeking to rip control of his body from him.

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If they had been outside the afterlife or if Wizen hadn’t been holding his power back for some purpose, perhaps it would have been more effective. But they were not. By the time Wizen’s magic reached Noah, it had been severely weakened.

And, when Noah felt the prickle of Wizen’s mind pressing against his own, he smiled. Noah’s mind grabbed onto the connection the other mage had established.

Then he unleashed Empty Proliferation.

His mind slammed against Wizen’s, but Noah didn’t try to overwhelm the other mage. That would have been impossible. Wizen’s runes were far stronger than his. It was impossible to defeat him as they were now — which meant Noah had to change the fight.

And if there was one place where things were even, it was when magic was a battle of will rather than pure runic force.

Noah ripped open his Mindspace.

The afterlife evaporated.

***

Gentle gold light burned beneath Noah’s feet. It was a translucent path that he knew well, but there were no translucent blue souls joining him upon it. It was the endless path that led to Renewal, but it was not the afterlife.

A black space stretched out in all directions around him. It was the void, but it was not the afterlife.

There was only one other being present upon the golden pathway that stretched out into oblivion. Wizen stood a dozen feet away from Noah, staring at him in stunned disbelief. They were on the Line, but it was not the afterlife.

It was Noah’s mind — but it was more than that. A foreign presence burned within it. This place was Wizen’s just as much as it was his. Their minds had linked.

“What is this?” Wizen demanded. “What have you done?”

“You’re the one that established the connection to my mind. But the thing is, those things go both ways,” Noah replied, cracking his neck. “Don’t you think it’s fair to even the playing field a bit?”

“You have Mind Runes? Since when… no. No, it does not matter. You are in my way. What is one more death?” Wizen’s jaw clenched and he thrust a hand toward Noah. A sea lightning exploded from his hand.

It ripped through the air — and folded in on itself. The magic barely made it a foot away from Wizen before it had shrunk to nothing more than the size of a worm. It vanished with a blip, disappearing well before it could reach Noah.

“Whoops,” Noah said. “No tantrums, Wizen. Your magic isn’t going to work here.”

Wizen clapped his hands together. He ripped them apart, and gray threads burst from his palms. They extended like the tendrils of Cthulhu reaching for Noah, only to collapse and disappear within feet once more.

“What is this?” Wizen demanded, disbelief gripping his features. “You are a Rank 4! How is this possible? I am not in your soul. I am a far greater Mind Mage than you. Neither of our mindspaces rule over this place. It is a common ground that you merely aided in shaping. You cannot control it.”

Damn. Wizen really knows his Mind Magic shit. I’m just glad this worked. I was a little worried Wizen would crush me with sheer strength.

“Maybe I’m in more control than you think.”

“You are not,” Wizen said flatly. He thrust his hands forward again and unleashed a storm of black flames. Once more, the magic sputtered out well before it reached Noah. Wizen’s hands tightened. “This is impossible. I have fought other Mind Mages before. A mental connection like the one you formed is perfectly balanced. Our minds have equal control here — so how is it that you have snuffed my magic?”

“I’m sure your magic is fine, but it can’t do anything when it can’t get to me,” Noah said with a small smile.

“I cannot waste time with the likes of you!” Wizen snapped, a note of panic entering his voice. He snapped his fingers. A magical storm ripped out from him in every direction. It expanded through the darkness — and vanished.

Not a single scrap of his magic drew close to Noah.

“It seems to me that you can,” Noah said, trying not to show just how fast his heart was beating. His magical energy was draining away at an alarming rate. Empty Proliferation wasn’t a particularly large rune. He couldn’t keep it going forever. “My Mind Rune is the concept of emptiness, Wizen. The closer your power gets, the more space it has to cover to reach me.”

Granted, this doesn’t work anywhere outside of my own mind. But while we’re here… Empty Proliferation is built off the endless bullshit that is the Line’s waiting time. Anything passing from Wizen’s mind into mine is going to take a few thousand years.

“How can you possess a rune like this?” Wizen demanded. “It’s not possible. A concept like that isn’t something that the human mind can comprehend.”

“See, there’s the thing,” Noah said. “The human mind is capable a lot of shit. Shit that it doesn’t want to do — but it can still do. Our minds can experience a lot of things. They just might not make it out in one piece. I know that from experience.”

Wizen’s gaze bore into Noah. His eyes flicked down to the translucent gold path that shimmered beneath his feet, then out to the void surrounding them. When his attention returned to Noah, realization lurked within it.

“You’ve been here,” Wizen said in awe. “You’ve been to the afterlife.”

“We’ve all been to the afterlife. I just remember the experience. It did a lot of things to me, Wizen. I hate waiting — but I’ve had no choice but to become very good at it.” Empty Proliferation had no more than a few minutes of power left within it — and that number was even less if Wizen started attacking him again. And, thus, Noah did what he did best. He lied through his teeth.

“How long can you afford to sit around, Wizen? Because I’m not letting either of us leave here until you give me that key. I hope you decide quickly. I doubt the Goddess of Reincarnation is going to be pleased about intruders.”

“She would kill you just as surely as she would me,” Wizen said. “You seek to kill us both. Mortals cannot—”

“That’s the second time today that somebody associated me with the likes of you,” Noah said interrupting Wizen as his lips thinned. “There is no more torture that can be done to my mind that has not already been done. I have been forced to bear witness to infinity. And if you don’t give me that key, your fate will be the same.”

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