Noah hadn’t been planning on spending all that much time in the Access Point once it had revealed it didn’t have any knowledge of a way out of the Citadel. But he would have been an absolute fool to simply turn and leave now.

He’d been missing for months, and he didn’t even have the faintest idea as to where Moxie or any of the others actually were. It was tempting to go sprinting out like a madman. To just charge out as fast as he could to return to the wider world and set about hunting for them like some rabid bloodhound.

Impatience and desperation were powerful motivators. But the cracks riddling Noah’s mind now were nothing compared to how he’d felt when he’d first arrived on Arbitage. Back then, he’d had almost nothing left to fight for. Nothing to worry about beyond himself.

Things were different now. And these cracks, no matter how scattered they may have made his thoughts, were not nearly sufficient to completely cloud his gaze.

The Lost Citadel wasn’t just some trap. It was an opportunity. Moxie, Lee, everyone — they would be okay. He knew that much with such certainty that even a god couldn’t have changed his mind. No matter how burning his desire to reunite with them was… he still had to look to the future.

To what they would do once they regrouped.

Arbitage was gone, but their schooling was far from finished. Even Noah’s own understanding of runes proved itself every day to be lacking. The more he learned, the less he realized he actually knew.

And after the whole debacle with Renewal’s Prophet, not to mention the presence of the Apostles, Noah got the feeling that finding a place out of the way of prying eyes was going to become a very important thing indeed.

And that isn’t even getting into Og and his fucking nutjob demon army. I’d like to think the destruction of Arbalest handled them… but something tells me that he might not have been from Arbalest at all.

Nobody else I met in the Empire, Father notwithstanding, had access to that magic. But I can’t afford to jump at shadows right now. There will always be enemies. That’s just life. Can’t go looking for fights until the ground is out beneath me.

Noah examined the glowing eye of white magic that floated in the center of the room. It was still staring at him expectantly.

By his best guess, he’d been here for just over a few hours. He’d taken it up on the offer to review the fights from individuals with similar fighting styles and scores to himself. Noah hadn’t been sure what to expect, but he’d been completely taken aback.

The moment he’d confirmed his interest, the eye had emitted a beam of hazy light, as if it had turned itself into a giant projector. All the surfaces that the light touched took on a shimmering haze. The eye had then proceeded to scan the entire room, coating every surface with its magic.

And from that glossy white power had emerged an alternate reality. The form of a plain-looking man in casual robes had appeared just a few paces from where Noah stood, and across from him was a golem of glowing white runes identical to the one Noah had just fought.

The fight had started instantly. Golden arcs of wind appeared above the man’s hand and he sent them flashing toward the golem as he burst into motion, charging toward it with a soundless roar.

For that matter, sound also seemed to be missing from the recording. The fight unfolding before him was completely silent — a fact which the eye took advantage of to begin rattling off information about the man’s runes.

And, to Noah’s disbelief, it had told him everything. His combination. The efficiency of each rune within it. But that wasn’t even all. It had torn apart the man’s own fighting patterns, identifying missteps in his movement and spots in which his style didn’t mesh well with the magic he had chosen.

The fight had only lasted around two minutes before the recording ended.

It took less than one second for Noah to request another one.

He wasn’t even sure how many he watched. After Arbalest, after getting used to noble families waiting to tweak out at the first mention of someone even getting a sniff of their rune combinations, the idea of a place that was so open about them that it flat out told strangers was… baffling.

Taken from NovelBin, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

A part of him wanted to sit here and watch the recordings for a week straight. There was so much information within them, and much of it wasn’t the kind of things he’d have ever thought of. It was like having a mini-Garina, minus her murder tendencies, here to show him all the things he could improve at.

“This is incredible,” Noah muttered. His disbelief was so intense that even the cracks in his mind seemed too taken aback to mess with his thoughts. “If I could train with this for a few weeks, forget months, how far could I get?”

“Would you like a personalized training plan?” the Access Point queried. “The extent of its customization will be slightly limited due to your refusal to save record of your testing. It is also suggested to retrieve your Reading from Access Point 1. Automatic retrieval is not currently possible due to the damage sustained by the grid.”

Meaning this Reading is something it thinks I should have already done?

“Please clarify that point,” Noah said.

“The reading obtained upon your entrance to the Citadel,” the eye clarified. “It contains detailed information about your runic composition, combination intent, and will allow me to further aid you in analyzing your progress.”

Holy shit. How did they make something like this? What level of complexity can an imbuement like this even be? It’s practically human. No. More than human. What kind of human can look at somebody and come to detailed conclusions about their runes?

“What methodology do you use to draw these conclusions?” Noah asked.

“I am unable to answer queries as to the function of this Access Point. All such requests should be directed to the Heart. No other portion within the grid possesses high-level understanding of the Citadel. I am unable to query the Heart at this time.”

Right. Gathered that much. So the Heart is basically a control module of some sort. Everything depends on it. Sounds like I need to go pay it a visit, and for more than one reason. If any location in the Citadel would have details about its location… it’ll be that.

“I see,” Noah said. “And you can’t give me any information about the location of the Heart? The Citadel has suffered damage. It isn’t just the grid. Locating it may be difficult.”

“This Access Point does not store information on anything unrelated to its primary directive. Would you like to activate—”

“No,” Noah said promptly. As tempting as it was to keep seeing what this place was capable of, there were other tasks he had to accomplish first. “Not now. I’ll be back.”

“Understood. Access Point 4 will de-power for the time being. Thank you for your service.”

The eye sputtered, then blinked out. Shadow swallowed the room in a flash, retaking all the land that had been claimed by the light and plunging everything back into darkness. Noah stepped back from the podium, the faint chitter from his guide centipede picking up once more.

“You know where the Heart is?” Noah asked. “At the deepest, most inconvenient, infuriating to access location of this place, I take it?”

“Prayer,” the centipede said.

Noah took that as a yes.

He blew out a sigh. Then he cracked his neck. There were 750 of these Access Points throughout the Citadel. That meant this place was huge. It was probably going to be a bit of a pain in the ass to get to the Heart — but standing around here wasn’t going to get him any closer.

Time to see what else this place has to offer.

Noah nodded to the door. “You first. Lead the way. I know you can.”

Reluctantly, the centipede’s feet clicked against the floor as it headed back the way they had come. Noah followed after it, and the two of them left Access Point 4 behind on their way back to the main hall.

The centipede emerged from the hall a moment before Noah did, turning to head deeper into the Lost Citadel.

And there it froze.

A sound like all the air being let out of a balloon slipped from within it as it seemingly deflated on the spot, not even bothering to try and murmur one of its chittering prayers.

Noah stepped out from behind it, reaching for his Runes before he’d even fully emerged from the hall. He got the feeling he already knew what was waiting for them.

Looming before them of them was none other than the Devourer. The massive creature’s back was pressed to the ceiling, the gazes of the many faces sewn into its chitin-covered form all staring down at him.

It wasn’t actually that much of a surprise that the monster was here. It had, after all, admitted to devouring the entirety of the Lost Citadel. That did tend to mean that there shouldn’t be anything else here.

“You again.” Noah’s violin materialized within his hands. “Well, I suppose I can’t complain. Didn’t finish you off the last time. I won’t make that mistake again.”

“Wait,” the Devourer rasped, flinching back. “Cease this, lest you wish the entirety of the Citadel to collapse around us and destroy it forever.”

“What?” Noah asked, blinking. Then he laughed. “I promise you, I can kill you without destroying literally everything around us. You might be overestimating how much I fear you.”

“No,” the Devourer said. It hesitated for a second before speaking again, its countless legs clicking against the ground in a thunderous drum roll. “I am not. You are foreign to me. I do not understand the magic you wield. It has not been researched. But you cannot kill me. Not without destroying this place.”

Noah’s brow furrowed in confusion. “What are you on about?”

The Devourer’s eyes stared at Noah for several long seconds. Then, slowly, it retraced, lowering itself to the ground to get about as close to eye level with him as was physically possible for a creature of its size.

“I am the Heart of the Citadel… and I have come to bargain.”