Return of the Runebound Professor

Chapter 152: Payment

Noah left the others behind, walking deeper into the forest. His tremorsense stretched out, feeling for the jaguar, but there was no sign of the monster yet. But, even though Noah couldn’t directly feel it, the hair on the back of his neck still stuck on end.

He didn’t need his senses to know the monster was watching him. His subconscious could tell. It was the preservation instincts of many ancestors passed – the ones that warned them to run when something too dangerous to fight was approaching.

Instead, Noah walked voluntarily out to meet it. Without Moxie or Lee, he was at a significant disadvantage against the monster. It was blindingly fast and had Runes strong enough to put even Moxie on the backpedal, and it was likely a Rank above him.

It might have seen Sunder, but it shouldn’t know about Combustion or Pyroclastic Resonance. Given how clever it is, those will probably be the best way for me to put it on the backpedal. And, worst comes to worst, it’s not like death is the end.

Dying would give everything away to Emily as well, though – not to mention the jaguar might be intelligent enough to take advantage of that. No, I can’t afford to die here.

Noah came to a stop and held his hands out. He’d walked for nearly five minutes now, and he didn’t want to be so far away from the others that he couldn’t make it back if the panther decided to turn and attack them.

“Well?” Noah called. “You called me out here, didn’t you? What’s wrong? Too scared to attack now that you’ve stacked the cards in your favor?”

A low growl came from behind the trees. Noah kept the smile from crossing his features. The jaguar was certainly clever, but it had also just confirmed two things beyond a shadow of a doubt.

The first, and one he’d already had very good reason to suspect, was that it could understand him. There was always a chance it had just been picking up on body language or tone back when he’d been speaking with the others, but this was just an insult.

The second was that the jaguar was still cautious of him. Noah stood still, feeling the area out with his tremorsense and waiting patiently. He could still feel the jaguar’s eyes boring into him.

“You’ve chosen poor prey,” Noah said casually as he took his pipe out of a pocket. He’d refilled his supplies of Flashgrass slightly through the monsters he’d killed, so he pinched a bunch off and packed it in before placing the pipe between his teeth. “If you kill me, then the others have no reason to stay any longer. We aren’t going to all let ourselves get killed, you know.”

If it’s a monster, I’d bet it’s pretty selfish. I doubt it’ll think that all three of us would let ourselves get killed for the sake of other people – though I’m pretty sure Lee would snap this things neck if she could get her hands on it.

The shadows shifted around Noah, growing longer. Another growl came from the trees, on the other side this time. Noah didn’t even bother turning toward it. There was no point trying to follow the jaguar directly – it would just be wasting energy, and that was exactly what it wanted.

Noah’s tremorsense picked up a flicker of movement. He twisted his body, igniting the Flashgrass in his pipe with a spark from his finger, and leaned back to avoid the jaguar’s paw as it swept over his head.

Another paw shot for Noah’s chest. He fell back, landing in a roll and violently shaking the ground where he’d been standing. The jaguar stumbled and sank into a shadow before Noah could follow up on the attack.

“Guess you only care about me, huh?” Noah asked, letting out a puff of smoke. “I feel bad about this, but I’m afraid I only see you as a friend. My romantic interests lie elsewhere. Besides, you’re a big toothy cat-thing. I’m a human. We could never be.”

The jaguar shot out of the shadows, its yellow eyes transfixed on Noah’s neck. Two whips of water swirled off its back, shooting for his body. Noah launched himself to the side with a blast of wind.

His foot dug a furrow through the forest floor as he pivoted, then thrust his hands forward. A thick wall of violent wind screamed out. The jaguar dropped into the shadows, flying out of them an instant later like a dolphin breaching the sea.

Noah whipped around as his tremorsense picked up on the monster, then grinned as he formed a powerful gust of wind before him. He leaned back at the last moment, letting the panther pass over his head.

It yowled in surprise as the wind launched it skyward. As it flailed, Noah released his hold on the Howling Maelstrom Rune, swapping to Pyroclastic Resonance. He let out a sharp whistle, gathering the smoke that had been rising up around him, and formed it into a dozen jagged spikes of packed, smoldering embers.

Noah drove the spikes toward the jaguar. A sphere of water swirled to life around it, forming a protective bubble. Noah’s magic shattered against it and the jaguar dropped to the ground, hissing and baring its rows upon rows of teeth.

Sucking in a breath and letting out a large cloud of smoke, Noah clicked his tongue in disappointment. “Not enough to get you, huh?”

The water splashed to the ground and the Jaguar sank into the shadows once more. Noah didn’t mind – the more time it gave him, the more smoke he’d have to work with – and it still hadn’t seen him combust it yet.

A minute of tense silence passed. It had returned to its strategy of trying to wear Noah out, and Noah was annoyed to admit that it was working. The style of fighting the jaguar employed was beyond infuriating to fight against.

I wish there was some way I could force it out of hiding, but I can’t tell where it is. I could try just tearing up a clearing around me, but something tells me the stupid cat would just run off and either make me fight it somewhere else or just kill a student.

It isn’t going to take a fight it doesn’t think it can win. I guess that means I just have to trick it into thinking it’s got a chance to take me out so that it overextends. All I need is an instant where its guard is down and I can Sunder it, but it takes me a few moments to actually call on Sunder’s magic, and it’ll just hide in the shadows if I try calling on it early.

The panther leapt, clearly unwilling to give Noah any more time to sit around and plan. He lurched back as it shot out of the shadows, but the beast managed to snag his chest with one of its claws as it passed, leaving a deep furrow through his skin. Noah swore as hot blood started to pour down his clothes.

Pressing its advantage, the panther slipped into the shadows and emerged from just behind him, swiping a claw at his leg. Noah set off a blast of wind, rolling to the side and skidding across the dirt.

His back hit a protruding root and he hissed as a spike of pain shot through his body. The pipe tumbled from his mouth and bounced across the ground, spilling the smoking Flashgrass onto the dirt.

As Noah lunged to grab it, the jaguar struck once more. Two interlocking blades of water shot toward Noah in an x-shape. He twisted his body, sending a blast of wind out to both reposition himself and slow the water.

The two spells collided in the air with a loud crackle, but the jaguar’s magic carved through his. The cross slammed into a tree behind where Noah had been, ripping the bark apart like it was paper, and the jaguar leapt, aiming to finish Noah off.

And, as it took to the air, a smile replaced the terror on Noah’s face. His hand shot out and a gust of wind blew his pipe across the ground and into his hand, leaving a trail of smoke that connected the thickening smoke clouds in the air.

The panther, which was still hurtling toward Noah, was in the air and had no way of dodging – not that dodging would have helped in the first place. Noah let his finger brush across the trail of smoke and he called on a Master Rune.

Caution lit in the jaguar’s eyes at the new magic, and its stance changed mid-air, shifting from aggressive to bracing itself for a landing. He waited until the last instant before he let himself act. The timing had to be nearly perfect.

An instant before the jaguar touched down, a spark leapt from his fingertip. It caught on the smoke trailing away from him, racing up the thin path and into the cloud above them. There was a roar as it ignited, followed by a whoosh as the air was all sucked into the ignition.

A brilliant flash of flame lit the forest up for just a moment, but a moment was all Noah needed. After all, just like all forms of magic, the jaguar couldn’t actually create anything – not at Rank 3.

And, as the light flooded through the clearing, for just the very few moments that it took for the jaguar to alight on the forest floor, there were no shadows. Its limbs, which had been prepared to simply slip into nothing, met unexpected resistance and the jaguar pitched forward, its head cracking against the ground as it flipped, landing on its back with a surprised yowl.

It would have been incredibly amusing if the monster hadn’t been so deadly. Instead of appreciating the sight, Noah was focused on drawing out the powers of Sunder. Even as the light started to fade and shadows crept back, grey spiderwebbed out through his veins.

Noah lunged. The jaguar’s body slipped as it tried to sink into the ground, but it was just an instant to slow. His palm slammed against the back of the monster’s rough fur. A black line carved through the air, and blood sprayed as a deep wound split down the monster’s belly.

It didn’t cut it completely?

The jaguar let out a pained hiss, slipping into a shadow. It emerged just at the edge of the tree line, panting heavily as blood poured from the savage – but not fatal – wound.

I only had an instant to grab Sunder’s power, so I got way less than I would have liked, but that should have been enough.

The jaguar shifted, and Noah tensed. He didn’t have time to wonder why he’d failed to kill the jaguar. He had to deal with it now, before it could do any more damage. His eye twitched as his tremorsense picked a footfall up from just a short distance to the jaguar’s right.

Noah drew on the remaining smoke, combusting it and letting out a whistle. The flaming bolt shot from the jaguar, winding to the left and heading for its feet, forcing the jaguar to hop in the opposite direction to avoid getting struck.

It stumbled as it landed, then started to slip into the shadows. A pair of razor-sharp clawed hands reached out from the shadows behind the jaguar, wrapping around its neck and ripping across its throat.

The jaguar didn’t even get a chance to be surprised. It stumbled, then collapsed to the ground, blood pooling beside it.

Lee stepped out from the shadows where Noah had sensed her, blood dripping from her clawed fingers. She shook her hands off and her fingers returned to normal.

“Got it,” Lee said with a grin. “I figured, if I couldn’t sense it, then there was probably a good chance that it couldn’t sense me either.”

“That logic is… flawed,” Noah said, jogging up to stand beside the Jaguar. “But I’ll take it. I sensed you there and pushed it in your direction. Good timing. But, for now, give me a moment.”

“A moment? What, are you sad it’s dead?”

“Sad? No,” Noah shook his head, then drew on Sunder’s power once again. “There’s a price for challenging someone to a game and losing, you know. I’m getting my payment.”