Chapter 119 Four Runes

Lee Seng tossed and turned throughout the entire night. He would glance at his phone, getting more irritated with each time he checked the time.

11:53pm

12:24am

12:59am

1:35am

2:00am

He slammed his phone down onto the nightstand a little to hard and heard Manny stirring. He was exhausted yet he couldn't find sleep. He listened to Manny chuckle and mutter something like he was whispering into someone's ears.

'Ugh.' Lee Seng groaned. He flipped the sheets over his head. His mind kept thinking about runes. He had spent much of his time trying to not think about Nikolai ever since Ritsuka brought him up and had heart-achingly remembered a bit too much in the process of it all. Three runes popped up in his head as he tried to sleep for the night.

He, thankfully, didn't hear Nikolai talking to him in his head. He didn't need another memory to remind him of someone close he had lost to the cruel world they lived in. The three runes flashed in his head, again and Lee Seng's patience was running thin. He pulled off the sheets and stood up to walk his desk. He flicked the desk lamp light on and temporarily blinded himself. He closed his eyes and quietly pulled the chair out and sat.

He let his eyes adjust to the light and pulled his tablet up. He unlocked it and moved to a drawing app and sighed. He started to draw the three runes. The first one was two diamonds that overlapped at the bottom. Where one diamond ended, the other started slightly above the bottom of the first one. Two lines diagonally came out from the top-half of the diagonal, followed by the same replication on the bottom of the second diamond.

Lee Seng moved on and drew the second rune. This one was more simple. A circle with a crescent beneath the circle. The circle had three distinct dot marks. The last rune flashed in his mind. He didn't really know the names to the first two runes, but he knew the third one.

"High Enchantment." He whispered. He knew this rune was complicated in Dark Matter energy. Every well-known enchanter always said not to draw this rune unless you had training and ample amounts of Dark Matter energy. He drew an X, followed by a ribbon that looked like a lowercase cursive L. He drew a triangle pointing left, on the left side, and a triangle pointing right, on the right side. He boxed it and looked at the three runes.

'Thankfully I remembered to not draw runes on paper. It would've literally taken the energy from me and around me if I did.' Lee Seng sighed. He stared at the three runes. He only knew the last rune because it was one of the enchantment runes he was comfortable writing and his bow had it. The other two runes were foreign to him.

He began to pull up a web browser to look up the runes online, but stopped when he heard something odd.

Clank. Clank. Clank.

Something was moving in the room. He turned to look over at Manny, who was dead asleep. Manny smacked his lips and shuffled in his spot and continued to sleep.

Clank. Clank. Clank.

'It's coming from my side of the room, isn't it?' Lee Seng shook his head. Goosebumps started to spread across his arms and he slowly wiped them out of habit. Curiosity and a slight chill appeared before Lee Seng. He took a deep breath and shut his tablet off and turned to face his room. The noises of rattling grew louder as he took slow steps over to his bed.

'It's coming from underneath the bed.' He noticed. 'Dammit.' He contemplated about ignoring it and just being the good Asian guy who ignored the, potentially, scary horror noise tropes, but the rattling wouldn't stop.

"Fine," he quietly hissed. He dropped himself to lie down, following the length of the bed. The rattling suddenly stopped and Lee Seng awkwardly scoffed.

'I swear if I get scared, I'm waking up the entire building.' Lee Seng thought. He reached his hand into the barely lit underside of his bed and grabbed at nothing. He grabbed at nothing for awhile and just as he was about to stop, something slid at him. Lee Seng rolled away as the thing slid towards him. He moved his upper body upwards and scooted his butt backwards as he watched his sheathe katana slide out.

'Oh my... GEEEEZ!' Lee Seng screamed in his head. His panicked breathing and hissing were the only noise he let out. He dared not to turn away from the bed because he feared something else would come out. The sword and sheathe rattled and Lee Seng tried to calm himself down.

"Right... This. I don't remember where this even went." Lee Seng whispered. He grabbed the blade and took a couple of breaths before unsheathing the blade. It was still gold and a silvery white like he remembered. The katana didn't have any markings on it from what he could see. He sheathed the blade and stood up.

The three runes burned in his mind again. It was more intense this time. Lee Seng sighed and shook his head.

"Please don't make me go back there." Lee Seng whispered. "I just got back." He childishly began to stomp his feet. The runes were all he could see in his head and he shut his eyes and shook his head. "No...! Not now, please!" The runes kept flashing and the katana began to shake. Lee seng groaned and sighed. He opened his eyes and turned around.

"Fine!" He shouted a little bit too loud. He realized his frustration and anger had literally made him shout and he turned to look at Manny. "How can he sleep through my noise?" Lee Seng shook his head as he remembered Manny was always a deep sleeper. "He could sleep through a tornado."

Lee Seng took a deep sigh and turned back to look at his bed. The katana rattled in his hand and he looked down and nodded.

"I'm going." Lee Seng whispered. He started to take steps forward and began to think about blinking into Limbo. He had gotten something to recite for coming back, but he didn't know if saying the opposite would work. "I walk among the kingdoms. I wish to enter the land of souls." The sound of air ripping around him swirled around him. With one step, he moved and the world around him turned to look... dead. He turned to look at Manny's bed and saw no one there.

'Did I really blink back into Limbo?' He asked himself. There was no light in the room. Lee Seng moved over to the door and opened it. He found himself entering a huge room. It resembled the gym at the Academy. The gym didn't resemble the raised small arena rings. It was flat and looked deserted. Dust and dirt were all around the floor as lights flickered above him.

"Why am I here?" Lee Seng asked. He narrowed his eyes and looked around. "No Crow nor a Fedora Hat Man to bother me." Lee Seng moved into the room, leaving the door behind him. The katana continued to rattle and Lee Seng glanced at it, coming to a stop. He pulled the sword and studied it. There wasn't a single mark or anything.

He moved to look at the sheathe and noticed nothing in particular.

'If there's something written on the sheathe, it's inside of the sheathe and I can't get to that.' Lee Seng shrugged. He began to sheathe the katana, when the katana suddenly ripped out of his grip and flew deeper into the gym. The katana rattled and bounced on the floor, sliding towards the middle of the room.

Lee Seng moved to follow it, watching the blade. It had gone still and the eerie silence was starting to get to him. Goosebumps and fear started to take over. Each step felt like it was getting harder and harder to walk. The sword shot up and Lee Seng could feel the burning presence of something else with him.

The sword started to be etched with the runes Lee Seng drew. Lee Seng watched as the blade was etched with, not three, but four runic markings. The four runes were equally spread apart on the blade. The top was the high enchantment rune followed by the crescent shape with the circle and then the two overlapping diamonds.

Where the handle and blade met, a golden-silver circle was etched. In an instant the sword dropped and Lee Seng felt the odd presence flee the space. He scrambled over to the blade and picked it up. He glanced from the top of the blade and worked his way down. Each rune was drawn in black that somehow faded easily into the blade like it wasn't there. It wasn't until he got to the bottom that he noticed the fourth rune.

"Why does this... look like my Soul orb?" Lee Seng saw silver and gold etchings on the gold and silver blade. This rune was the only one that used the blades colors in reverse. It had uncanny similarities to his Soul orb. "What does this mean? Why did the runes appear in my head and keep me awake? Why did I have to come into the Limbo?"