Noah let his mindspace fall away. He found his consciousness back in his body on the grassy plain that he and Lee had landed. The demon in question laid a few feet away from him, hands behind her head as she stared up at the stars overhead.

  The night was peaceful. They had no company but for the wind coiling past them. Not even clouds had taken up residence in the sky, leaving it clear but for the shimmering stars looking down from above.

  “I’m bored,” Lee said. She turned her head to look over at him. “And hungry. Did you finish making your new rune?”

  “So I did,” Noah replied. He glanced at the bag by his side. It had been moved. Not by much, but something told him that its load had been lightened by approximately the weight of all the remaining jerky he’d had.

  “Are you going to test it?” Lee asked. “On a monster?”

  “Do you just want me to kill something so you can eat it?”

  “Yes,” Lee replied. “You didn’t answer the question.”

  Noah bit back a laugh. He stretched his arms over his head, then pushed himself to his feet. His soul shifted slightly within him. It was changing, though not by an enormous amount. World Tremor was a Flawless rune, but it was still a Rank 5.

  Compared to everything he’d done in recent times, this advancement wasn’t really that big of a shakeup when it came to the actual size of his soul. Whether it would prove to be a powerful boon to his fighting abilities or not still had to be determined.

  I don’t get the feeling we’re going to get any good sleep in tonight anyway. Might as well do something productive. And hey, if I kill a monster and get some energy, that’ll be as good as a night’s rest anyway.

  “Sure,” Noah said. “Let’s go kill something. Do you have a target sniffed out yet? A real enemy will be a better test than just using the rune on nothing at all. Honestly, I already miss the Citadel. The training room there… it’s incredible. You’d love it.”

  “Is there stretching?” Lee asked as she rose to her feet beside Noah. “You’re looking stiff.”

  He cleared his throat. “We can deal with that later. I’m sure they’ve got appropriate facilities for everything there. The Citadel is massive. There isn’t really a good way to describe it until you see it for yourself. So, target? Any monsters in the area?”

  “Yeah. I think some people are fighting something pretty close. Maybe a few minutes by your sword,” Lee replied casually. She scratched at the back of her neck. “I don’t think they’re having a very good time of things.”

  Noah blinked. He grabbed his sword from its sheath and tossed it to the ground in a smooth motion. “What? How do you know?”

  “I smell blood. It’s human.”

  “Seriously? You should have said that sooner,” Noah said as he stepped onto the sword. He never would have claimed that he was a saint who went out of his way to protect everyone he could, but sitting back and doing nothing while people died was a bit much. “Come on! There’s no reason to let people just get killed for no reason. How strong are they and the monster they’re up against?”

  “Dunno. Probably around Rank 6 for the monster. It smells pretty strong,” Lee replied as she stepped on behind Noah and pointed off to their right. “That way.”

  The flying sword shot to life the instant she found her footing. Noah and Lee cut through the air, wind whipping past them as they headed toward the direction that Lee had indicated.

  “What else do you know?” Noah called over the wind. “How big is the fight?”

  “Two people and the monster,” Lee said. “None of them are dead yet. I think. I can smell their magic. Either they or the monster is an earth user. There’s a lot of fresh dirt mixed in with the blood.”

  “I don’t suppose you can somehow smell why they’re fighting?” Noah asked. “Is it just some people hunting monsters or something?”

  “It’s a nose, not a prophecy-teller,” Lee replied. “How am I supposed to know why they’re fighting? You can’t smell that!”

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  “You shouldn’t be able to smell like ninety-five percent of what you can smell,” Noah countered. “Are we still going in the right direction?”

  “Yeah,” Lee replied. She pointed just to their left, at a hill rising over what seemed to be a valley. A sparse forest of grey-leaved trees dotted its surface. “Just past that. We’re close. Get ready.”

  I sure hope we’re not about to swing in and steal someone’s kill on accident. I really don’t need to be making more enemies right now.

  The top of the hill shot by beneath them, and Noah no longer needed Lee’s nose to point him in the direction of the fight. Massive trees littered the ground around the valley, torn from their spot in the ground and strewn like children’s toys.

  Huge waves of stone had immortalized themselves in the ground in frozen, undulating patterns that had torn through the ground all throughout the valley. They came in a circular pattern, expanding from a raised plateau near the center of the valley about the size of a small arena.

  Two lightly armored people stood upon it, squared off against a huge, furry monster around three stories tall. But it wasn’t just any monster. Noah’s eyes narrowed.

  It was a monkey.

  To be more accurate, a massive gorilla. Thick plates of jagged stone jutted out from the huge beast’s elbows and ran in raised spikes along its back. Its chest was devoid of hair and instead covered by a thick layer of leathery skin that had knotted and dried up near its breast area from repeated impact, as if two drums had been built right into its very body. The monster’s arms hung low, far too long for its body, to scrape against the ground.

  “There it is!” Lee yelled, somewhat unhelpfully.

  The massive monkey raised its hands, clenching them into fists and beating them against its hardened chest with a roar that was loud enough to cut through the entire valley. Magic cracked. The ground at its feet exploded into a ten-foot tall ring of churning rock that rolled out from the monkey in every direction.

  One of the two armored figures thrust their hands forward. A dome of shimmering yellow light ignited around the two humans, shielding them an instant before a wave of stone crashed down.

  The stone crashed against the shimmering shield with a loud boom. Magic sputtered. For a moment, it looked like the golden dome was about to give out. But it held firm — and the wave crashed past. It slammed into one of the other massive rings rising up around the plateau, shattering against it with a resonating boom.

  Noah’s lips thinned.

  That’s quite some magical power. This is like the Hellreaver’s bigger, uglier cousin. One that specced into rocks instead of fire. I wonder if it’s a Great Monster.

  Well. We’re already here. Might as well see how my new rune does against it.

  “Here we go!” Noah yelled. “Get ready!”

  Noah leaned forward, and the flying sword jerked downward. He, along with Lee, hurtled down toward the plateau in a streak of motion. Neither the monster nor the two humans seemed to notice their approach until it was far too late.

  Let’s try just a bit first. I want a good baseline of what this Rune is capable of.

  The monkey’s head snapped around just moments before Noah had arrived at the plateau. Its huge yellow eyes widened an instant before Noah and Lee both leapt off the flying sword in unison, both hurtling straight for its head with all the speed that they’d picked up from the flight.

  They slammed into it as one.

  Noah unleashed World Tremor through his legs, sending the power of the rune tearing out from him and into the towering monster’s face. White cracks cut into the air, but something felt a bit… off. As if the Rune hadn’t properly activated.

  There was no time to wonder why. The fleshy ground beneath Noah bucked as a violent tremor ripped through the monkey’s body. It pitched back, letting out a trembling cry as it fell.

  Noah and Lee both kept sprinting, not even stopping as they leapt into the air once again, launching themselves to safety.

  A resounding crash rolled through the valley moments before the two of them landed just before the armored duo that had been fighting the monkey. Noah spun just in time to find that the monkey had caught itself with one hand.

  It was clearly dazed and disoriented, but the attack hadn’t even close to taken it out.

  What was that about? It isn’t an issue with the Rune. It’s Flawless. Did I just use it wrong somehow?

  “Who are you?” one of the figures asked. Though their features were concealed by armor, they had a distinctly feminine voice.

  “Nobody important. Just a traveler,” Noah replied. “You mind if we butt in? Looked like you were having some trouble.”

  “It’s all yours,” the other person said, likely a man by his voice. He sounded exhausted, but his eyes hadn’t left the monster. “We can use all the help we can get. I didn’t expect that damn thing to be so powerful. The reports underestimated it. We should have brought a full battalion.”

  “You know anything about it?” Noah asked, turning back to the massive monkey as it started to push itself unsteadily back to its feet.

  “It uses earth magic. High Rank 5 by my best guess, but it’s a unique monster. Unnamed,” the man said. “Can you deal with it? I’ve got to protect my apprentice, but I’ve got your back.”

  Rank 5? Huh. This should be interesting.

  “Yeah,” Noah said. He drew on his new rune and let a small grin play across his lips as the monkey pushed back to its feet and let out a challenging roar, its sickly yellow eyes affixing on Noah as fury carved across its features.

  All right, World Tremor. Let’s see what you’re really capable of.

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