Return of the Runebound Professor Chapter 701: Catastrophe

Noah played harder than he ever had in his entire life. He would have sworn that smoke should have been coming from where the string of his bow met those of the violin, but he didn’t dare spend the attention to check.

His entire world was music. His — and that of the Night’s Shadow.

The song of his violin was like that of a buzzing bee in the face of a nuclear explosion that was the haunting screaming that emerged from the enormous gray tendril that hung far above him.

Noah wasn’t even sure if the Night’s Shadow had even noticed him. He was so small in comparison to the monster that he might as well have been an ant, and it was taking every single scrap of magic he could muster up just to keep the Formation going around him.

The forest all around him was slowly but steadily transforming into a meadow of howling stones. Nothing had been spared other than Noah, and at the rate things were going, he wasn’t sure how much longer that would hold true.

He could feel his soul squirming and twisting like a worm in a vice grip. The Night’s Shadow’s music demanded that he change. That he bend to its will and slot into the rest of the world it envisioned like a good little puzzle piece.

If it hadn’t been for Garina’s training on soul shaping, Noah was pretty sure he wouldn’t have even known what was happening. It was the only reason he could fight back. That, and the pattern twisting around him.

Noah had never tried actively using his personal pattern and creating a Formation at the same time. There was a subtle but very significant difference between simply allowing magic into a Formation and using a pattern whilst creating a Formation.

It was like trying to spin one hand in circles while moving the other up and down in a straight line. Noah’s mind stretched thin as it fought to manage all the different parts of the ever-changing Formation to make sure the power he’d gathered within it didn’t dissipate, all the while calling on the abilities he’d used the previous night while fighting Garina.

Crackles of Chaos magic arced around Noah. They drove into the invisible power surrounding him, sending red waves through the air like ripples through a still pond. He was pretty sure his magic was striking the literal notes that the Night’s Shadow was playing and destroying them before they could warp his soul into a squeaky rock.

But that was just about the extent of what he could manage. Merely existing so close to the monster was drawing every scrap of power and energy that Noah had. If he dropped his Formation, he’d have no way to strike out against the monster.

If he relaxed his pattern or let his focus lapse, his soul would be twisted up and tied into a knot that not even death would be able to undo. He was trapped. No matter how hard he dug through his thoughts, he couldn’t think of any way he could fight back against something like this.

The strength of the Night’s Shadow was beyond anything he’d ever seen. Just the mere presence of a fragment of the monster was enough to completely lock him down and threaten to destroy the entire Scorched Acres.

If Noah had been in any other situation, there was only one action he would have taken.

Running.

The Night’s Shadow may as well have been a force of nature. It couldn’t be stopped. Not by a Rank 5.

But Noah wasn’t alone. Moxie, Lee, his students — everyone was still in the Scorched Acres. His pattern could unmake the magic of the Night’s Shadow before it destroyed his soul, but none of them had that luxury.

Noah’s bow flitted across the strings of his violin faster still. Twangs of pain rolled down the tendons of his hand from the speed he was forcing it to move at. The Fragment of Self had turned it into a fuzzed blur that would have made even Paganini jealous.

And it still wasn’t enough.

“Mascot!” Noah yelled over the cacophony around him. He could barely even hear his own words over the clashing music.

The white cat on his shoulder glanced at him. Mascot’s face was so close to his that he could feel the little monster’s whiskers on his cheek. In spite of the situation, Mascot didn’t seem to be bothered in the slightest.

He just sat on Noah’s shoulder, watching everything unfold with the idle interest of a distant passerby. Noah might have assumed the cat was too stupid to know what was going on if he didn’t know far better.

“Help!” Noah yelled. “Do something!”

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Mascot didn’t reply. And, even though Noah couldn’t spare the attention to give the cat a proper look, he got the very strong feeling that Mascot was grooming himself.

The only thing keeping Noah from panicking was that he knew Brayden was with the others. His Space Magic would definitely have been able to buy them some breathing room… but that wasn’t going to matter if Noah couldn’t find a way to slow or stop the Night’s Shadow here.

But none of that told Noah how he would do it. He could feel his body’s strain growing. There was only so much magic he could call on. Noah was going to run out far sooner than he could afford.

His pattern had previously destroyed other mage’s spells and left their energy floating around. That didn’t seem to be working against the Night’s Shadow. The notes of its song that shattered against his pattern just… canceled out.

It was like the Night’s Shadow’s magic was the perfect inverse of his. Wherever they touched, both of their energy simply ceased to be.

That would have been great if Noah was even close to the enormous monster’s level of power. He might have been able to match it or even start fighting back. But, as things were right now, it was all he could do just to remain standing.

“Mascot!” Noah yelled again. “Come on, you little shit! I know you’re more than capable of doing something! I need you to get me near the Night’s Shadow!”

Mascot pressed his face into the side of Noah’s cheek. It felt like the cat was trying to push his head right through Noah’s skull. It most certainly did feel like Mascot was taking the situation anywhere near as serious as he should have been.

“Come on!” Noah exclaimed. “Isn’t there anything you can do? You’re going to get turned into a rock too, you know! Can’t you get me up there somehow?”

He wasn’t actually so sure. Even after all this time, he still had no clue what Mascot actually was. He might have been completely wasting his energy asking for help. Mascot had also made it more than clear that teleporting living beings wasn’t on the table.

Noah just didn’t have any other options. He couldn’t think of a single way to actually get the Night’s Shadow’s attention that didn’t involve dropping his Formation and losing all the power he’d layered into it already.

“Shit,” Noah hissed through gritted teeth. His soul squirmed and twisted. The pressure building on him was starting to press cracks into his defenses. There was only so long he could hold out against a monster like this… and he didn’t get the feeling Garina was going to be popping up anytime soon to save them.

It didn’t seem likely. There was no way for him to end the Formation without spending all the magic within it, and he couldn’t both create the Formation and call on his runes to make himself fly at the same time.

“If I can’t get close to the monster, we’re all screwed,” Noah hissed. “Come on. I’ll get you some extra fish or something. I know you’re more than capable of doing . Isn’t there a loophole where you teleport the ground I’m standing on or something?”

Mascot’s eyes seemed to bore into his soul. Then something passed through them. Before Noah could tell what it was, the cat vanished.

Noah’s eye would have twitched if he had the energy to spare for it. It looked like the cat had gotten bored of sitting around and—

The sky went dark.

And, for an instant, Noah’s eyes went wide in disbelief.

There was a mountain in the air above him.

He wasn’t talking a big boulder or a large hill.

It was a literal mountain, and it was upside-down. The peak hung suspended several hundred feet above the enormous tentacle of the Night’s Shadow. It sprawled out far past the clouds, blotting out the sun entirely.

The world hung on a hook of silence for a brief instant.

Noah could do nothing but stare in disbelief. He nearly lost control of his Formation, but even the Formation seemed to be so stunned that it didn’t notice the missed note.

Then the mountain fell.

It slammed into the enormous tendril with a resounding crash.

The screams coming from the holes within the Night’s Shadow’s body grew louder as the huge tendril accelerated, the sheer weight of the mountain bearing down on it sending it hurtling toward the ground…

And toward Noah.

Mascot hadn’t been able to bring him up to the tendril, but it seemed the cat had found a different way to oblige Noah’s request.

He’d brought the tendril to him.

Noah sliced the bow back across the strings of the violin, grabbing his Formation before it could collapse in on itself. Screams tore into his ears as Chaos magic thundered all around him. It tore into the Night’s Shadow’s magic, stopping it before it could turn Noah into stone.

He barely even noticed.

The tendril had filled the sky above him and was growing larger at a rapid rate. There were only moments before it slammed down on him and flattened everything in the area.

Despite the situation, Noah couldn’t keep the corners of his lips from twitching up. It looked like Mascot had employed his typical modulus operandi.

He readied his Formation. There would be no running, even if he wanted to. Mascot may as well have just killed him… but he’d also delivered the favor that Noah had asked for.

For one very brief moment in time, the Night’s Shadow was going to be right in front of him. And after that — well, he wouldn’t be getting much use from his magic again anytime soon.