“This action is inadvisable,” the Heart warned. “Passage through the Beyond is—”

“I didn’t ask if it was advisable,” Noah said sharply. His eyes went narrow. He didn’t need the Heart to start giving him shit now. The last thing he needed was to try and hunt around the Heart Room to figure out how to activate the Lead Researcher’s Passage. “I asked you to show me the passage. I’ll have you know that it is my god given right to kill myself doing stupid shit. I’ve done it when people I love a hell of a lot more than you told me not to — and I’m certainly not going to stop now. But if you want to give me some information on them to improve my chances of survival, I won’t complain.”

“There is little extra information I can give,” the Heart said. “The Great Library’s records—”

“Yes, yes,” Noah said with a sigh. “I know. I have a Researcher key. That means you do what I say, does it not? And I am saying that I have heard the warnings. I acknowledge the risks. But duty permits me no path but the one forward. Show me the Lead Researcher’s Passage.”

The Heart pulsed. A ripple of blue energy rolled through the darkness surrounding Noah. For a moment, he wondered if it was about to turn itself off so it wouldn’t have to cave to his demands.

Then a distant rumble caught his attention. Stone clacked against itself, growing closer at a rapid speed. Lights flashed through the darkness to illuminate a passageway of stones that rose up from the shadows beneath, slotting into each other like a self-assembling puzzle.

The path connected to the platform Noah stood on with a few final clicks. Then it went silent. Faint blue energy hummed around it, winding through the connections between the stones in writhing tongues of energy.

“The connection has been re-established,” the Heart reported with a staticky buzz.

Noah blew out a slow breath. He did one final check of belongings — not that he had much with him. There was only the sack of food slung over his shoulder. His gourd was off with Lee and Moxie had Grim.

He sent a glance back at Prayer, who had watched him warily from the far side of the platform.

“I might be gone a while,” Noah said. “Hold down the fort for me. And tell the Devourer that I said not to kill you. Or to do anything stupid. I’ll be back.”

“Prayer,” Prayer said.

Noah shook his head. Then he turned and stepped onto the pathway, striding along it and into the darkness.

It didn’t take him long to leave the Heart’s platform behind. Shadows quickly swallowed everything but the faint blue coils of magic running through the stones beneath his feet, but they were enough to see by.

Noah let his domain sweep over his surroundings as he continued along the pathway. It soon notified him that he had reached the wall of the room and arrived at a passage that must have been hidden behind the Devourer’s enormous body.

The monster still covered the wall around him, but it had fallen still. Its consciousness was still transferred to the Heart.

He continued past the Devourer’s massive legs and into a passage running through the wall behind it. The stones transformed into solid ground and the magic faded from them, but his domain was still more than enough to guide him forward.

There were no forks or branches in the corridor. It was just a straight path. That, at least, made things simple. Noah followed the curve of the tunnel, accompanied only by the sound of his echoing footsteps rolling through the darkness.

His heart beat faster inside his chest with every step he took. Escape was so close. It was rather ironic. One would have thought that, after waiting upon the Line for countless years, he would have been considerably less bothered by a few months.

But that couldn’t have been farther from the truth. The Line had taught him one thing above all others. Time passed. It always did. Nobody could change that. The only aspect of time that could be controlled was the way it was spent.

Proper preparation was important. Cutting too many corners would result in a house built on rickety foundations. Rushing ahead could end up just wasting even more time. But he’d done just about all he could.

There was only so far he could push his Runes in isolated training. Too much of anything would always result in diminishing returns. True strength only came with combat experience — and by taking power from those who would stand in his way.

Noah’s domain prickled. He couldn’t even see his nose in front of his face, but he didn’t need to. Before him was nothing but a craggy wall. Rubble littered the ground around him as if somebody had given up midway through digging the passage he now stood in.

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He’d reached the end.

But there was more than mere wall before him. Noah could feel it like a tiny patch of frost pressed against his mind.

The Beyond.

Thin slivers of it wormed through the air all around him. The barrier of Beyond between the Citadel and Obsidia was weaker here. Easier to access, like someone had pulled a sheet of cheesecloth apart until he could just barely squint through the holes.

Noah drew in a deep breath and stilled his thundering heart. This was one thing he’d never tried. Breaking free of the Beyond was an entirely separate thing from trying to control its power.

There was a chance this would grow a little dangerously close to drawing its ire. But the Lead Researcher had used this passage at some point. Noah wasn’t going to try to make a rune out of it, so in theory, he was pretty sure it would be fine.

Even still… it might be best to make sure I try to avoid standing out too much to the Beyond.

Noah drew on the significant amounts of Beyond riddling his mindspace. He shaped his soul, bringing the Beyond out while pulling everything else deeper until he had wrapped himself with the fractalized white energy like it was a cocoon.

He wasn’t sure if the equivalent of putting a cardboard box over his head was going to be enough to trick an interdimensional magical force powerful enough to destroy a group of Rank 7 and 8 mages, but it never hurt to try.

There was nothing left he could think of. Nothing, at least, that Noah was willing to delay his any longer for.

He stepped forward. His eyes closed and he extended his arms.

Noah reached out to the Beyond. Tongues of energy greeted him almost instantly, as if they already knew what he wanted. Noah pressed his hands into the magic. It coiled around his fingertips like smoke. There was a faint vacuuming force within the Beyond.

This wasn’t a new passage. It was one well-worn, a path carved through the Beyond itself that had been walked many times before him. Noah didn’t have to break his way free of the expanse of white again. All he had to do was open the door.

Noah blew out a slow breath.

His eyes opened.

He stepped forward.

And, without so much as a pop, Noah vanished.

***

Renewal dropped into her Cumulo with an exhausted sigh. The cloud monster warped beneath her, more than willing to attempt to eat the goddess if her attention swayed for even an instant, but she was used to it by now.

Her entire body ached. She’d been training with Decras a lot more recently — and the other god certainly loved pushing them both to their absolute limits. Renewal couldn’t even complain. The results spoke for themselves.

She’d advanced more in the past few weeks than she had in millennia of rotting her life away in service of the Order. It only made sense. After all, they hadn’t needed her to be strong. They just needed her to fulfill her duty.

That wasn’t to say that Renewal lived for power. There had been a time when she had. Such desires never truly left a person... but they changed. Renewal sought more than strength, but strength was the path to which nearly every other goal could be achieved.

Nearly every other goal.

The one thing that power could never truly solve was boredom. She tapped her fingers impatiently against her knee.

“You want me to check again?” Decras asked as he sat down beside her, a small smile on his lips. “Do you really think anything has changed since the last time we looked?”

“No,” Renewal said. “But mortal lives flit by so quickly. You never know.”

“Time is still time,” Decras replied. “There are months before the tournament that my little rogue disciplings sent Noah’s group toward. They will be doing nothing but preparing and training. Don’t tell me you haven’t gotten enough of that.”

Renewal grimaced. A furry form butted its head into her leg. She glanced down, and Mascot craned his neck back to look up at her. The little demon of a cat had a glint in his black eyes.

“Mascot agrees with me,” Renewal said. “You know how mortals are. Maybe Noah returned.”

Decras sent a sidelong glance in her direction. “Renewal.”

“What?” Renewal snapped. “He didn’t return to the Line, and your power is still in the gourd, isn’t it?”

“It hasn’t been my power for quite some time,” Decras replied. “Do you really think that crazed mortal could have managed to avoid killing himself for this many months? We both tried to use the connections we have to his mind.”

Renewal’s jaw set. She knew that. They’d tried multiple times to peer into Noah’s mind. To find out where the mortal was. The idea that he’d died fighting Father… it was such a waste. She couldn’t accept it.

But not once had either of them been successful. Their attempts to peer into his soul had found nothing at all. It was as if he’d never even existed.

“Just try,” Renewal said. “Or do you have something better to be doing?”

“I’ll be forever jealous of your ability to have such blind faith in the impossible,” Decras said with a sigh. He pinched his brow with one hand as he snapped the fingers of his other. Power sliced across the dark screen floating before them — but Decras didn’t even bother looking at it. “But faith cannot change what has already happened. Noah Vines is dead. There is nothing at all to see.”

Color bloomed across the screen.

Renewal’s eyes went wide. Mascot let out a content hum at her feet. He coiled his bushy tail around himself and laid his chin down on top of it.

“See?” Decras asked wearily.

“Yes,” Renewal breathed, a delighted grin splitting her features as she leaned forward in her Cumulo. Excitement gripped her chest in a vice as a laugh bubbled up from her lips. “I do.”

“What?” Decras’ attention finally snapped over to the screen. He drew in a sharp breath. “You cannot be serious.”

The two gods gazed upon a man. He stood in a sea of craggy, multi-colored stones, face covered with thick stubble and clothes tattered to the point where they were little more than rags. He bore nothing but an oilcloth bag slung over his shoulder — but the golden flecks of power drifting through his eyes like falling snow made it very clear that this was no beggar.

Noah Vines had returned.