Return of the Runebound Professor

Chapter 57: Grudge Match

Three days.

Three tries.

Three deaths.

Noah challenged the Hellreaver every day after discovering its ability to control the air. He’d had to spend some coin on buying some new clothes once again, which had gotten him a strange look from the seamstress.

Every time Noah arrived to fight the Hellreaver Ape, he found it lying in the same spot, uninjured. He’d managed to do some significant damage to the monster his first time around, but all of it was completely gone the next time he arrived.

He could swear he felt himself losing his mind in real time. The visions continued, plaguing his night so badly that sometimes he even saw them in his waking moments, when the Hellreaver wasn’t even trying to bother him. Noah hunted monsters and took naps in his best attempt to stay sane, but there was only so long he could avoid proper sleep – and the Hellreaver’s constant interference with any fights in the Scorched Acres made things even more problematic.

Noah scoured the library for any information on the monster, but there was borderline nothing beyond its possession of a Master Rune – and the books didn’t even state which one it was.

As such, he simply determined that he’d have to defeat the monster while they were both at full strength rather than whittling it down. And that was what he tried to do. Every time he challenged it, he tried to come up with a new strategy that would give him an upper hand.

The first, he just held his breath when the Hellreaver ripped the air away. It let him last a little longer than before, but with the complete loss of his access to his Wind Runes, Noah had no good way to avoid the monster’s attacks and fell quickly.

He did, however, confirm that while the Hellreaver was sucking up the airflow, it also made itself unable to use any fire. That was a fairly logical conclusion, but it relieved him, nonetheless. It meant he only had to deal with the monster’s physical prowess when it sucked up all the air, canceling the powers of his Wind Runes.

Unfortunately, the Hellreaver Ape certainly recognized Noah just as much as he recognized it. The monster had started to predict his own attacks and had wised up to the power of Noah’s Vibration rune, refusing to let him get into range for a devastating blow.

That had led to Noah’s next attempt, where he’d tried to sneak up on the monster and kill it before it could even wake up by attacking from far above it from the safety of his flying sword. He’d hoped that the monster had a range on its abilities, and by staying far above, he’d be outside of it.

That was the day that Noah discovered that, if the Hellreaver had a range on its powers, a few hundred feet was within it. He also discovered that his flying sword was quite useless when he couldn’t feed Wind magic into it.

He also discovered what it felt like to impale himself on a brittle tree after falling for several long, shameful seconds. Lee had laughed for nearly five minutes upon finding Noah staring up at his corpse doing its best impression of a bloody Christmas ornament.

Luckily, he’d managed to find his flying sword with a little help from Lee. When Noah returned the third day, he had a new plan. He’d gone through several, actually, but many of the ideas had gotten dismissed before they could come into fruition.

One of them had involved selling his collection of monster parts to buy enough magical items to just lob things at the monster until it died. That one had been tempting, but Noah decided against it, telling himself that wasting so much money was pointless when he could keep it for a rainy day.

Noah simply just didn’t want to admit that he needed the help of magical items to defeat his foe. Their fight had gotten more personal with every day, and the thought of needing a crutch to win irritated him.

It also didn’t help that he still really wanted to spend all the money on something really nice rather than using it now. He hadn’t given up his dream of a big shopping day, and the only thing he was okay with dying in this forest was himself, not his dream – no matter how shallow it was.

A variety of other strategies raced through his head. Some involved trying to bring other monsters into the fight to distract the Hellreaver or otherwise shift the flow of the battle. Noah scrapped that, as there was a good chance that the monsters just grouped up on him.

For a moment, he considered asking Lee for help to distract the Hellreaver, but that was also tossed aside. Her words about his view on death still resonated in his head. Noah wasn’t sure if he could bring himself to ask anyone to put themselves in harm's way just due to his impatience. It was one thing if he died. It was an entirely different one if someone else did.

And so, Noah returned to the Hellreaver on the fourth day, a vendetta in his eyes and conviction in his face. Noah had already died enough times to the monster to risk worsening his visions if he did it too much more, but he was beyond the point of caring. Part of him – the part that was responsible for logical, thought out decisions – was broken, and it would stay that way until one of them was dead for good. Noah arrived at the flaming circle and stepped through a gap in the fire, his jaw set. He’d brought his last spare piece of Catchpaper with him that he’d been saving up – if this attempt didn’t work, he might have to get more from Moxie.

There was one thing left that Noah had yet to try. Something that the Hellreaver Ape hadn’t seen him use – that it couldn’t be ready for.

The Hellreaver snorted as Noah stepped into the circle. Its nostrils twitched, but Noah had waited until the wind was in the correct direction to buy himself time from the monkey smelling any burnt hair he earned upon entering the circle.

Without wasting an instant, Noah drew in a deep breath and called on Sunder. He reached out to the Master Rune, drawing on its power as gently as he dared.

Sunder responded. Noah’s back stiffened as ice rushed through his veins and they turned black with the Master Rune’s power. The gravity pressing down on Noah seemed to quadruple and his foot scuffed the dirt as he fought to remain upright.

All of his Runes burned their power, holding Sunder’s enormous energy back from tearing through his body. At the same time, a deep thrum echoed through Noah’s head. The Hellreaver Ape’s eyes snapped open.

It knew.

Noah could tell, just from looking into its eyes. Intelligence and malice swirled within them, mixed with what just might have been a flicker of fear.

Good.

Instead of waiting for a perfect moment like it had in the previous fights, the air around them whooshed. The flame covering the monster and making up the ring instantly vanished and the Hellreaver Ape lurched to its feet.

There was no roaring or displays of strength. There was no time for such things. The Ape stomped a foot on the ground. Noah forced his body to leap into the air, avoiding the rumble that shook the ground.

The Hellreaver threw a punch at Noah. He couldn’t use wind to boost himself anymore – but Noah had more ways to move around than just wind. Ash surged beneath his feet, launching him to the side like a springboard.

Noah hit the ground in a roll and came up, diving for the Hellreaver Ape’s feet. The monster leapt back, avoiding his grasp, and stomped in his direction. Another wall of ash shoved Noah to the side.

He skidded across the dirt. Sharp rocks and dirt dug into his clothes and bit into his back, drawing blood. Another pillar of ash erupted before Noah and he grabbed on, using it to pull himself upright.

Noah thrust his hands forward and the trees around them all groaned. A huge cloud of ash tore away from them, swirling around his body and forming into a large sphere. He swung it at the Hellreaver like a bowling ball.

The monster drove its open palm into the spell, and a loud crash shook the clearing. Ash exploded, raining everywhere as the ape’s fist demolished it. Falling ash slithered beneath Noah’s feet and aided his charge toward the Hellreaver.

He lunged once again. Roaring in panic, the Hellreaver pitched back, flailing its arms and missing a step as it just barely managed to keep out of range of Noah. It drove a foot into the ground, shattering it.

Cracks raced through the dry dirt like spiderwebs and it shifted beneath Noah’s feet, threatening to send him tumbling. Noah would have loved to try and cancel the earthquake with his own Vibration magic, but he was still nowhere near the point where he could match the exact frequency of the trembling.

Instead, a platform of ash materialized before him and he stumbled onto it. The ash ferried him forward, building momentum before launching him into the air toward the monster.

Eyes widening, the Hellreaver stepped out of the way. Noah’s trajectory would take it well past the monster, leaving him open as he passed it by. Both he and the Hellreaver knew it. The monster started to turn, lifting a foot to crush him into paste when he landed.

A grim smile crossed Noah’s lips. It was only for a flicker of an instant, but the monster was paying attention to where he would be, not where he was. Ash spiked out of the ground before Noah in a thin pillar.

He grabbed onto it as hard as he could. Pain spiked down Noah’s arm as he jerked to a sudden stop. There was a loud pop and something shifted where it shouldn’t have, but Noah forced himself to ignore it. He spun around the pole once, holding on for dear life with numbing fingers, then flung himself at the Hellreaver’s side.

The monster realized that he’d changed his path of attack an instant too late. It bared its teeth and a vision of its massive eye ripped open before Noah, burning into his soul.

Evidently, the Hellreaver had saved one final trick. It had yet to actually use the visions in their fights, clearly hoping to catch Noah off guard with it – but it had miscalculated one thing. Noah was beyond the point of feeling fear. He had been for a while.

Noah launched right through the eye, ignoring it completely. The Hellreaver spun, trying to duck out of the way, but Noah was already upon it. He drove his hand into the side of the Hellreaver’s neck and unleashed the pent up power of Sunder.

Energy flooded through his fingertips in an instant, pouring into the Hellreaver’s body. It opened its mouth to roar in defiance as Noah slammed into the ground with a pained grunt. Agony shot through his shoulder and he rolled to a stop against a rock.

Darkness encroached on the edges of Noah’s vision, but he forced his eyes open to look up at the Hellreaver. It had a foot raised, prepared to crush him, but it had frozen. A trickle of blood ran down its lip.

The fur on the Hellreaver Ape’s neck shifted in the breeze. A black line traced across its neck. Then it burst into flames. The monster pitched forward, its head rolling off its body as it fell. Noah’s eyes widened and he reached for his Wind Runes.

He wasn’t fast enough.

The Hellreaver’s body crashed down on top of Noah. A momentary flash of pain flooded his body before his soul was launched out, leaving him floating above the dead Hellreaver as it set his squashed corpse alight.

Goddamn it. That’s not how that was supposed to go. I still won, though. Damn you and your maddening visions. Damn you and your monsters constantly killing me. I hope you rot.

A sudden rush of energy flooded into Noah. He stiffened, his eyes widening in shock. That wasn’t just a little energy. It was a lot. More than enough to fill both of his Greater Wind Runes and top off his second Greater Vibration Rune.

Well, at least that answers the question of whether it’s the soul or the body that gets stronger for a fact. That was definitely enough for me to get to the next Rank.

As a grin stretched across Noah’s features, the Hellreaver’s body shuddered. Red lines flashed through the air above its still smoldering back, drawing a pattern in the air. It wasn’t a Rune that Noah recognized, though. It didn’t even look like a rune.

A shrill shriek split the forest as a beam of light erupted from the Hellreaver’s back, tearing up into the sky and piercing through the clouds. Noah’s grin vanished.

Oh, shit.

Energy bound Noah’s neck and he was yanked away, denied the chance to even think anything else.