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Return of the Runebound Professor - Chapter 799
🕑 Added 2025-08-15 16:00:25 +0000 UTC“Are you absolutely certain?” Noah asked.
“There is no such thing as absolute certainty,” the Heart replied through a crackling buzz. “This location does not have optimized facilities for analysis. The Heart Room’s core purpose is to store knowledge. However, your records were compared against all the stored knowledge of the Great Library. The chances of your runes being infected with the Beyond is 0.0004%.”
That’s a really fucking low number. But… the Beyond is definitely in my soul. There’s no doubt about that.
Which means something is different.
“What metrics are you using to compare?” Noah asked, thoughts whirring through his head.
“The presence of beyond energy when a minute amount of rune force is exerted upon each of your individual runes,” the Heart replied. “All forms of energy have varying levels of Rune Force. By applying a known amount at minute levels, the amount and type of push-back from your runes identifies their composition to an extremely high accuracy. Would you like to review the papers stored within the Great Library? I have 799 references to draw from.”
“No,” Noah said, raising his hands. He only had a few minutes left with the Heart today, and he didn’t think he was going to be able to convince the Devourer to give him any more time a second time around.
Ignoring the revelation that you can use Rune Force to figure out what someone’s runes are…
That’s the flaw. It’s checking my literal runes.
Not my soul.
“The people that were corrupted by the Beyond,” Noah said, his eyes snapping back over to the glowing blue cube. “What areas of their soul was the Beyond present? Do you know?”
“I do not have a final compositional analysis on any of the infected,” the Heart said. “But final records from the Lead Researcher showed that her runes were almost all entirely corrupted.”
“What about her soul?” Noah asked. “Was it infected as well?”
The Heart was silent for a few moments. Then it let out a crackling buzz. “There are no records as to the status of her soul. It is possible they were purged.”
“Can a soul be infected?”
“There are no records of a Beyond-infected soul,” the Heart said. “But I am unaware of the extent of the Beyond’s abilities. It is possible such records were purged.”
Goddamn it. I need information.
“Do you think it’s possible for something like that to happen? A soul to be infected, that is.”
“There is insufficient information within the Great Library. I am unable to draw a conclusion.”
Noah sighed. His lips pressed thin and he shook his head, dropping back down to a seated position. The Heart wasn’t going to be able to give him any more information. The Lead Researcher had been way too thorough on purging all the information from the Citadel’s records…
So he’d just have to figure this out himself.
Noah sank back into his soul without another word.
The familiar patchwork of shadow and light met him once again. It wasn’t accurate to call it pure darkness anymore. With the Beyond shimmering all around him and the Line burning far beneath, Noah’s soul was starting to strongly resemble a very concerning Christmas light show.
He wasted no time in walking over to the nearest patch of Beyond. The staticky white energy looked exactly how it always had. It didn’t seem like there had been any major changes since the last time he’d checked his soul about a few minutes ago.
Noah’s eyes narrowed. He glanced over to his runes. They were the same as always. There were still no signs of the Beyond touching them. For once, he wished that Noah-2 were here. It would have been nice to have someone to sound ideas off.
“I’ve had the Beyond within me for months,” Noah muttered. “So what’s different? Why isn’t it affecting me the same way that it did the researchers? I need to brainstorm. The most obvious difference is that the Lead Researcher tried to form a rune with the Beyond. Does that have something to do with this?”
His brow furrowed in thought. Noah started to pace in circles around the large patch in his soul. He hadn’t ever actually tried to bring the Beyond into himself, but he doubted the strange energy cared at all about anyone’s desires.
I should go back to the start. To when I first arrived in the Beyond. Maybe I can figure shit out from there.
The Prophet of Renewal had done something to bind his soul back together before he’d gone to fight Father. Then he’d gone and basically shattered his soul completely. And then… there had been the white void.
A void where he hadn’t been able to use his runes.
That has to be the first clue. I couldn’t use my magic in the Beyond. There were no runes there at all. None beyond Hollow Symphony… but Hollow Symphony got analyzed by the Heart and didn’t have signs of the Beyond in it.
Noah repeated that thought in his head. His eyes narrowed. Something had led the Researchers to believe that the Beyond had to be directly integrated into a rune rather than their soul.
The Researchers had been looking into the Beyond for years before their successful attempt of synthesizing it into a rune — an attempt that had destroyed the entire Citadel within a month.
Okay. So that means their fuck up was somewhere within that month. The Beyond didn’t cause difficulties up until they turned it into a rune.
The Beyond had been called anti-existence within the Great Library’s records. It apparently didn’t have any concept of space, so anything that existed within one part of it existed in all parts. The Researchers had used it to hide the Citadel from the rest of Obsidia and as a method of travel.
That was really all the information Noah had to work with.
Noah’s pacing sped up.
Strangely enough… it looked like the actual applications of the Beyond had worked. The mirror he’d gone through hadn’t had any problems, and the Citadel was still hidden from the rest of the world. There weren’t any signs of corruption or the Beyond being some malicious entity that consumed everything it touched.
If it were, wouldn’t the Citadel have collapsed completely? Why would the passageways still be active. Surely the mirror…
Wait. That’s it. The mirror!
Noah jerked himself back into the real world and shot to his feet. The Heart was still active.
“Give me information about the imbuements used to control the Beyond,” Noah said urgently. “Like the ones on a mirror that connects two spaces. They’re not made with the Beyond Rune at all, are they?”
“The records of their formation have been removed from the Great Library, as has how to create them,” the Heart reported.
Noah’s teeth clenched. “What about their name? Do you have any information at all about them?”
“Their name remains. The imbuements you are likely referencing are the Beyond Channeling Arrays.”
A grin split Noah’s lips.
It might have just been a name, but a name was enough.
Channeling.
The Imbuements weren’t made out of Beyond Runes. They directed the Beyond. And they were still perfectly intact.
That meant the Researcher’s mistake had been trying to transform the Beyond into a rune. Something about that had caused things to go horribly awry — but that knowledge alone wasn’t enough.
Noah needed to know why it had gone wrong. He couldn’t just leave the Beyond alone if it was just a massive bio-bomb weapon waiting to go off.
He sat down and plunged back into his soul, making his way back over to the patch of Beyond he’d been examining a few moments before. Noah chewed on the insides of his cheeks in thought.
Something about the Beyond went awry when it was put into a rune. But he didn’t know if that was because the Beyond was inherently some kind of all-consuming entity that was just waiting for a chance to destroy everything around it or if the Researchers had just made a fatal mistake.
Is there any information I’m missing? I’m just working with so little right now. I wish the Lead Researcher hadn’t been so damn thorough in purging information on the Beyond. All I really know is that it has immense destructive potential, is somehow present everywhere that anywhere that a single part of it is, and does not like being turned into a rune.
The only thing I have is my experience within the Beyond. I lost access to all of my Runes… but Hollow Symphony was still there.
“Anti-existence,” Noah muttered to himself. “Damn it. I’m just not seeing the pattern. It clearly isn’t just the presence of the Beyond that destroys something. If it were, my soul would be toast already.”
He continued to pace, his jaw clenched. There was an answer. He knew there was. It was like he was sitting on a mountain of puzzle pieces, and half of them had already been assembled. He just had to figure out how to hell to slot the last few components together.
Patterns still functioned within the Beyond. They’re a universal truth. At least, I’m pretty sure they are. I also existed within the Beyond, as did Hollow Symphony. Why would we be so unaffected when the researchers — who theoretically should have less Beyond within them than I do — all got corrupted? That has to have something to do with the fact that they put it into their runes, while mine is directly part of my soul.
But why?
How does the Beyond function? Is it a sentient entity? A virus, like the Researchers thought it was? Just some form of natural law? Something else entirely?
Noah came to a stop.
He looked back down at the pool of fractalized energy, the crease in his brow growing deeper.
And then a thought struck him.
Hold on. If the Researchers were right… if the Beyond actually acts like some kind of virus… then wouldn’t it only target things that it views as foreign bodies? No virus consumes itself.
“When you bring a new rune into your soul, it isn’t actually part of you yet,” Noah muttered. “That’s why removing it is easier. The more energy you gather while it’s connected to you, the closer the connection grows. But that also means the Rune itself gets changed. You fill it with power you gather. And if you combine it with another rune… that would change it even further still.”
A chill ran down Noah’s back.
If the Beyond is actually like a virus like the Researchers thought, then it saw them as foreign bodies. And if they were right about the Beyond being anti-existence, then you obviously can’t mix that with other kinds of energy. On top of that, their research concluded that every part of the Beyond exists in all locations where one part is present.
That means trying to change even one tiny part of it is like an attack on the Beyond as a whole.
But Noah had never absorbed a rune. When he’d arrived in the Beyond, his soul had been tattered. He’d been basically nothing more than a tiny scrap of will. And then, as his soul had healed, he’d assimilated fragments of the Beyond into it naturally.
He hadn’t tried to influence or change the strange white energy at all.
He’d merged with it.
“Shit,” Noah breathed. “That’s it.”
The researchers had basically tried to corrupt the Beyond. They’d tried to mix it with something else, and that went against its being as anti-existence. And the Beyond had never had any issues at all with things existing within itself. If it had, it would have done something during the months he was trapped within the endless white void.
The problem was when the Beyond’s nature itself was challenged. If it were really the antithesis of existence, then there was no way such a thing could ever merge with existence and co-exist.
But the beyond within Noah’s soul was pure. It hadn’t been changed or mixed with anything. Noah’s soul had drawn it in to fill up the huge holes filling it. But the energy hadn’t been changed during that process. It had just been assimilated, used like building blocks and left untouched.
And if it was pure… that was why the Beyond hadn’t tried to corrupt him. It didn’t need to.
As far as the Beyond was concerned, Noah was already part of it.
Comments
Cees Tollenaar
Oooh, didn't think of that! That's tricky if it actively prevents him from helping others progress anymore!🫣
Dray Kruesi
So, is the Devourer able to isolate the memory of the researchers it devoured? Like could it basically emulate the lead researcher to help Noah experiment with his unique assimilation with the Beyond? Noah seems like he's gonna need some help with this one.
Darshar Griffonmane
So, possible rune using or based upon the Beyond for Noah to create. We know since he absorbed Hollow that he can add runes that aren't beyond based. So any new rune he gains, the beyond is currently not seeing them as foreign entities to be eliminated. However, I wonder very much if he can enter anyone's mindspace or soul any more as it is very possible he is an active virus like entity that his own soul would auto-attack "foreign" souls. Very good stuff! tyftc
Kitti Lumpo
hell yeah! love when i guess right~ also lol now im picturing noah as the vaccine from that "this is how vaccines work" cartoon; the one where a vaccine cell wears a lil suit that LOOKS like a virus, and then it taunts white blood cells to train them to hate the virus. noah has become a vaccine! ... hm, i wonder if this metaphor makes his students the white bloodcells of obsidia 🤔🤔🤔 hmmmmm and moxie is penicilin maybe?? lee is... gut bacteria, probably. beneficial for the body but not actually part of the immune system. and i think she'd like living in the food tract!
Chris Welsh
Everyone in the dimensions connected to Obsidia is relegated to the Line… like the Beyond is an administration realm, one among many, designed to bring Order to souls by instantly moving them after death…
Unidog C
I wonder if the rivers of resurrection and the beyond have any connection. I wouldn't be surprised that the endless void Noah sees whenever he dies to often might be these naturally occuring rivers and the beyond is just a sea of it.
Aironfaar
So you're saying that Noah is now a stupidly large quantum particle, eh? In the sense that, because he's now part of the Beyond, he's also everywhere where a single part of the Beyond is, except we can pinpoint his location as he remains observed.
Erebus
Haha
Ty
So if the Beyond... which i'm guessing has actually been what he has been seeing for a while every time he fractures his soul and the white light shines thru the cracks... is an antiexistence that can be found in all places any of it is... its like a background that bubbles of existence and reality float within, the citadel being a different bubble...and runes are a distillation of patterns and energy that exist and thus trying to force antiexistence to exist will cause a natural mutual annihilation... (sorry. i'm not using proper sentences brain flow speed has exceeded good englishing) ... makes sense how it can be channeled but not forced to directly exist as a rune... actually are antirunes a thing? what would be the opposite of a symbol representing where information comes together to form a pattern... chaos? a chaos antirune of the beyond? a node where all pattern breaks down like a reality void where everything stops making sense? its part of his soul now. his being. much like how the Line is part of him and represents pattern and existence via the endless step step stepping throughout nigh infinite time. he doesn't even need a rune if he can just soul shape and channel the beyond directly right?? maybe he layers imbuements in his soul that help to channel it... [•••] I came with an idea and started a fractalizing tangent before ever getting to it. So many thoughts. ANYWHO Would he be able to have an infinite range (or rather none at all; he's already connected via the beyond to wherever he's going. distance and thus travel from one place to the other is an illusion) portal that takes no energy (he pulls it in from the beyond, channeling it, not from a stored reservoir of patterned energy) and is thus undetectable via normal rune force (since its not a rune and doesnt 'exist' as something to interact with) ... he'd be able to teleport as far and as fast and as frequently as he wants while being untraceable and probably seriously creeping out anyone that tries. unless they too have a connection with the beyond. actually, them too probably. he wouldnt wormhole thru reality, he wouldn't bring two points together and puncture thru. he would step back from existence and simply BE there already and reemerge. which interesting that there is a quality of time and space in how noah interacted with it. which might have just been his mind trying to cope with it. but theoretically he should be able to do it all instantly if its outside of normal time and space right? that which is in between, beyond and backdropped to all reality? or at least as fast as he can manipulate his soul. and i wonder if him having a maximal speed at which he can manipulate his soul is self limiting and self imposed because i don't think it has its own shaping-speed limits other than what it needs to hold itself together. stronger the soul, the more shaping it can tolerate. ok. my brain has well and truly over taken my thumbs. i'm gonna go back to basic human things and eat and stare blankly at a wall and dissociate or something.
Firel Dakuraito
Another theory I got to while reeding this. The head ressearcher created a some crazy nesting feedback loop Beyond be where Beyond be Beyond rune being inside soul Citadel has been hidden inside beyond However, soul is still living and walking inside the citadel. And suddenly, You are looped. Everything inside Beyond is inside the rune, inside the soul, the soul inside the citadel inside the beyond inside the rune inside the soul... Could be, that all the craziness happened AFTER the plunging of citadel inside the Beyond closed the loop. But I do love where Noah got. If Viviane is the head ressearcher, there are now 2 possibilities. The beyond is in her and trying to reach the astral/cosmos and basically conquer all existence. She is trying to completely assimilate all of the beyond for herself.
Ty
" I have 799 references to draw from " Chapter 799 heh I see what you did there
bananaphone
But if he gets souldamage, wouldnt the beyond within hin get attacked/Fractured? And an attack would trigger an immune reaction?
Ben Bass
TYFTC! That makes a lot of sense that The Beyond won’t attack Noah, as it sees him as a part of it already. I do think that The Line had some influence, to help empower him to keep him from being subsumed when his soul started incorporating The Beyond into his soul when it started ‘healing’. There was also Renewal’s power as well that he was using to help heal his soul.
Tom C
I am wondering if he needs to take the line into the fabric of his soul as well to balance the anti-existence? The line is a pretty pure example of existence right? Souls marching through infinity? But idk. Maybe its existence in there is already enough. Or it doesn’t even matter TFTC!
Justin Lucier
I still want to believe that the Beyond is actually a creation realm. It's everything, and everywhere, all at once, one piece is the whole and it can't be corrupted. I also would like to believe that he has been bound to the beyond since the beginning of the story and it's beyond energy that creates his body from the gourd. It's less likely now when talking about how putting it into runes corrupted them, but I wonder if that's more the scope of what the beyond is. If Noah's chaos rune is just a fragment of chaos and that's why he can use it. Beyond doesn't seem to fragment though, since one piece is all of the beyond. Absolute power corrupts. Also when the uhh, Renewal priestess talked about it, it seems she can enter and exit the Beyond, but she said there's dangers in moving the energy itself. So it has to be some kind of a realm or domain of some concept.
Cees Tollenaar
Does it make him able to know where Vivian is or sense her having a rune influencing the beyond?
Cees Tollenaar
Love the pun
Levi
Time for Noah do some completely inadvisable bullshit based on a soul damage related chaotic whim. I can't wait.
Temp Email
Noah is truly beyond Father now.
A
So once again Noah steals from some sort of divine being. Lol
Robert Mullins
And if Noah is part of the beyond, then Noah is also everywhere the beyond is. All he needs is for some part of the beyond to be in Obsidia and he can be there too.
TheCrazyDuck
For all we know Noah was pondering for hours after retreating to his soul space.
Lizy Flore
Makes me wonders if the Line considers Noah a part of it too… I mean the man got a copy/reflect/piece of it branded on his soul, in a similar fashion than the Beyond at that. As always, wonderful world building. I love this story.
ReadingObsessed
Rune purely made of beyond our just leave it as a new fashion accessory?
Danielle Warvel
I don’t know, but I wonder if his strong affinity for THE LINE played any part in what happened. It seems to be a type of eternal afterlife or Beyond, in a certain sense. There might have been enough conceptual overlap already that the beyond accepted him more easily.
AlucardFF
You deserve some time off, but damn, I am going to be fiending for more chapters like this one the whole time
yazu
the legendary 5 minutes that lasted an entire chapter
Lee
Okay. Theory time Revised! Looks like some of us understood the assignment! Because Noah’s soul was broken in the beyond. It merged with the beyond. He’s not sick at all he’s Part of the beyond. So he’s okay. Like for real. And really in danger and dangerous. Why do I think Noah is in danger? Because if Noah is apart of a weapon people for millennia have been trying to weaponized there is a high chance Noah will be a target. And he can’t die but his companions can so the situation is dangerous. Just throwing ideas out there. Have a great vacation!
Danielle Warvel
The Beyond already considers Noah as a part of it? Sure, that’s not concerning at all….
Green0Photon
NGL I kinda wonder if it's just that Noah can now see the beyond in him and everywhere that's always existed there Anything that exists must contrast against nothingness
N0ct3m
FIRST! and DUn DUN DUUUUUUUUUN
