Return of the Runebound Professor Chapter 880: Uneven Odds

Noah was doing his utmost to keep everything straight, but it was proving to be quite the burden. The world was stubbornly persisting in phasing in and out of… well, existence itself. He began to suspect everyone had suddenly mastered spatial magic without his knowledge.

At one moment, combatants would be engaged directly before him. The very next, they would vanish. Sometimes they would simply cease to be mid-combat, while at other times they would teleport to the periphery, suddenly afflicted with numerous fresh wounds.

It didn't require a genius to deduce that the entire world hadn't, in reality, acquired the ability to teleport. The randomly appearing injuries were evidence of this. No, the issue resided entirely with Noah, not with anyone else.

He was phasing in and out of time. Or perhaps reality. Or perhaps… something else entirely. He remained uncertain of its precise nature. Curiously, he himself didn't feel as though anything had been lost. His memories remained intact, and his soul bore no apparent damage that could account for this phenomenon.

It was as if the world was gradually… forgetting his existence.

Even more peculiar was the reaction of others towards him. Until he actively did something, the other mages seemed entirely oblivious to his presence. It was akin to being a phantom. Noah put this theory to the test by walking directly up to a pair of mages locked in a duel of fireballs.

He lightly tapped one of the men on the side of the head before they even registered his proximity.

Then, the world skipped forward once more, and one of the duelists was gone. The remaining mage was fleeing from a new combatant who had entered the fray —

The world skipped.

There was no trace of the third party, but the fire mage who remained appeared to be at his limit. He bolted as swiftly as his legs could carry him, seeking refuge amidst the thunderous magical onslaught surrounding him.

Not a single individual attempted to engage Noah.

Frustration mingled with his bewilderment. This situation was truly vexing. Yet, intriguingly, the actual duration of the temporal skips appeared to be diminishing. He had lost several minutes upon his initial arrival on the arena floor. Now, it was reduced to mere seconds.

Several hypotheses were already forming in his mind regarding the unfolding events. However, Noah deferred them for later consideration. He perceived no immediate danger. On the contrary, whatever predicament he was in was affording him a significant advantage. Given how little awareness others seemed to have of his presence, he was quite certain he could have approached any of his rivals and ended their combat right there, had he been so inclined.

However, that course of action was considerably less beneficial for making a significant impact. This peculiar magic, while incredibly potent, stood directly in opposition to his objectives. If this obscuring effect that rendered him invisible to other mages had also hidden him from the spectators… then his presence would go unnoticed.

Noah's gaze surveyed the other competitors. The world skipped forward a fraction, no more than a few moments. Then, the corners of his lips curved upward as he identified his next target.

***

“To your flank!” Seleth commanded.

Vincent dropped low, invoking his storm magic and executing a sweeping leg strike without looking. A solid thud echoed, followed by the crack of thunder and the sharp sizzle of burnt flesh. A mage tumbled across the ground, wisps of smoke rising from his shoulder, before coming to a stop at the feet of a cluster of mages.

One of them promptly unleashed a blood-red scythe of magic, slicing into the fallen man's chest. A beam of light descended, engulfing him entirely and teleporting him out of the arena. The mage who delivered the final blow hadn't even been part of the original engagement.

However, this was hardly surprising. Those who gravitated towards larger groups were opportunists. They only struck when they believed they could do so with impunity. Vincent found such behavior despicable, yet he wouldn't reject assistance when they were being overwhelmed from all sides.

Such actions were simply inherent to the rules of the tournament.

“Thanks,” Vincent acknowledged.

Seleth merely nodded. Liquid stone flowed, forming a serpentine construct around her, as a beam of light enveloped the battered form of the mage she had been dueling. Joining forces with her had proven to be a wise decision. There were simply too many combatants in the chaotic melee.

Had she not been present, Vincent felt reasonably confident that he might have already fallen. He could still sense the collective gaze of the grouped mages. They observed like starved, ravenous rats, all waiting for an opening, for someone to falter.

Vincent was forced to admit that the quality of his opponents was… higher than he had expected. He’d thought the melee would have been a clean sweep, barring the potential presence of any Rank 6s. But that couldn’t have been farther from the truth.

The pounding of his heart and his shortened breath told the story. His enemies were skilled. Far more skilled than he’d expected. He was at the peak of Rank 5, nearly Rank 6… but it seemed many of the others were in the same boat. Vincent didn’t allow such thoughts to go far. They served him no good. Especially not here, when the fight was far from over.

“Shit,” Seleth said, fighting to catch her breath. “It never ends. Why is this fight going so long? I swear the other rounds were shorter.”

“Groups are too big,” Vincent replied grimly. “Not enough people are getting eliminated, and the big groups are just sitting around and waiting around for the little guys to fall before they risk making a move themselves.”

“Bastards,” Seleth snarled. “Don’t they have any shame?”

“There’s no shame in victory, regardless of the path.”

Seleth sent him a sidelong glance, though neither of them let their guards down. They were, after all, one of those small groups that the others were waiting to remove from the battlefield. “Weren’t you all about honor or something?”

“I do not impose my ideals upon others,” Vincent replied. “And I am not an idiot. The optimal path to victory is not always the righteous one. I…”

He trailed off as a deafening crash split the air. Both his and Seleth’s gaze snapped over toward it.

A young mage, probably just barely in their twenties, skidded back across the ground. Coils of smoke rose up from his skin and ash swirled in an angry storm around him.

Three mages darted toward him in a formation. It only took a single glance at them to tell the trio had fought together prior to the tournament. They dashed around the bolts of ash that the young mage sent in their direction, closing the distance between them in an instant.

The three of them all attacked at once, darting toward the boy from multiple different directions.

Ash exploded out from him with an angry howl, slicing through the air as the young mage threw himself back, trying to make room. He hit the ground in a roll, narrowly ducking under a streaking bolt of blue lighting, then launched himself to his feet and made to turn back toward the trio chasing after him.

But they had already surrounded him. His prior attack hadn’t slowed them at all. Bands of buzzing lightning snapped to life around them, connecting the trio in a triangle, and they closed in on their victim.

The three mages blurred forward in a synchronized attack.

And then one of them launched into the air.

Vincent blinked.

The mage seemed as surprised as Vincent was. He spun through the air, confusion and shock playing across his features as he found himself suspended in the sky.

Then he accelerated into the ground. He landed with a loud crunch. A beam of light descended an instant later, swallowing and porting him out of the arena.

Gooseflesh raced across Vincent’s back.

Standing where the man had been a moment before was the masked musician.

The other two mages of the trio noticed the man at the same time. They dashed toward him, lighting coursing between them, their former opponent forgotten as the realized there was a far greater threat to deal with.

It was pointless.

The masked musician raised his hand.

A mote of darkness twisted through the air just beside the mage on the right. He was yanked violently off course. The man tripped over his own feet, just barely managing to keep from faceplanting on the ground. He managed to regain his balance and spun back toward the masked musician…

And only then did he notice the fact that the band of lightning connecting him to his ally was gone.

His eyes widened and his gaze snapped to the side just in time to catch the beam of yellow light crashing down from the heavens to swallow up the second member of his trio. In the time it had taken him to recover his balance, the masked musician had dispatched his ally.

The mage’s face went pale as he realized all too late that the element of surprise had not been a factor in the fight. They were completely outclassed. Vincent’s spine prickled. A difference in power at this scale should have been astronomically unlikely.

He was pretty sure the trio had been at least fairly powerful Rank 5s, but the masked musician’s magic had cut through their domains with practically zero effort. It was like an adult fighting children. The difference in the quality and power of their runes must have been huge.

“What do you want with us?” The mage asked, his eyes darting around in search of an escape.

“Now? Nothing,” the masked man replied. “The fight just looked a little unfair. Three versus one. Not the most reasonable odds, wouldn’t you say? I was just fixing them a bit.”

“What?” The other mage asked, staring at the masked man in disbelief.

However, he should have truly been concentrating on the initial combat he had engaged in. An ashen shard erupted from the core of his torso, bursting outward in a crimson deluge. The lightning mage observed this with bewildered astonishment.

Subsequently, a column of amber arcane energy descended, whisking him away from the engagement.

The ash coalesced once more, swirling around the youthful mage, who tilted his head in a gesture of gratitude.

“My thanks. Shall we commence our duel now?”

The masked instrumentalist let out a chuckle. “Nay. In my own estimation, I find myself far more inclined towards… unbalanced confrontations.”

His gaze fixed upon the closest sizable contingent of mages.

No further utterance was necessary from him. The intent was as transparent as crystal.

A streak of shadow sliced through the atmosphere. A female member within the group shrieked, pitching forward with a gaping, smoldering wound marring her flank. She was consumed by a magical beam an infinitesimal moment later—yet the instrumentalist had not stirred from his spot.

The assailant had been her own comrade, a man standing adjacent to her within the formation.

“I am not affiliated with them!” the man bellowed, stepping back hastily. Then, umbra surged from the earth, engulfing him. He had fractured their formation.

And he was merely the initial casualty.

The substantial collective dissolved entirely before Vincent’s very eyes. Bursts of sorcery rent the air as they turned upon one another instantaneously, and a dozen new torrents of arcane power rained down from above.

“Damn it,” Vincent muttered under his breath. “He’s intentionally targeting the larger assemblies to incite mutual destruction.”

And, despite Vincent’s inability to behold the man’s countenance, he was inexplicably certain of one crucial detail.

The instrumentalist was grinning.