Tsaimath

Chapter 911

Listening to Luna proudly tell me about her exploits during the night felt like a knife, stabbing deeply into my gut. How could I tell her that I had watched the whole thing and had done nothing, how could I tell her that I had set it all up in the first place? Wouldn’t that shatter her pride, ...

Chapter 910

Waking up was not a fun experience. After the declaration of Hestia, Lady Hecate kept me in Her realm for an undefined amount of time, it had felt like days, talking to me. Most of the talks were fascinating, debating possible uses of Mind Magic with a strangely mixed focus on possibility and eth...

Chapter 909

After the battle, I pointedly waited a few more hours, so I returned at just the same time as usual. There wasn’t any real reaction to my return, everyone was far too focused on the joy of having survived battle or they had already crashed and gone to sleep and thus unable to react either. Gran...

Chapter 908

Watching the patrol spot the incoming Undead and start to panic was strangely disconcerting. I had set this in motion, knowing full well that they would get into trouble and likely panic but watching it happen didn’t feel right. A part of me wanted to immediately jump in and help, while another...

Interlude: Survivors 503

When the first of the Undead managed to push itself far enough through the thorny brambles Luna had conjured, there was a moment of hesitation. It was one thing to throw stones at the Undead or launch arrows their way, it was a completely different thing to step up and bodily bash an opponent tha...

Interlude: Survivors 502

Movement, and lots of it. Movement, where there should be no movement, enough to be easily visible in the dim light of the full moon. There was no question about it, nor did any of the five people out for patrol truly wonder about what they were seeing. There, in the darkness, were humanoid figur...

Chapter 907

Having a plan come together was deeply satisfying. It wasn’t just the satisfaction of solving a problem, there was a sense of achievement that went deeper. I was changing things in the world, I was altering the course of history, if only in a fairly minor sense, and knowing that made me proud. ...

Chapter 906

Working on my program to control a Shattered over a fairly long time took more effort than I had initially anticipated. It wasn’t just a question of putting down tasks, one after the other, I also had to anticipate circumstances and estimate distances, numbers and everything. It was quite akin ...

Chapter 905

With more experimentation came more data, allowing me to rapidly advance my understanding of this particular subdiscipline of Mind Magic. It also granted me multiple skill points, namely five in Mind Magic, surprising me greatly as the skill reached fifty-seven, making it my highest skill, while ...

Chapter 904

Watching the Shattered tear into the Undead was quite interesting. I hadn’t really considered how two serious brutes would fight, neither of them showed any obvious pain, nor did it look like their rapidly accumulating injuries were slowing them down, beyond the purely physical stuff. Once the ...

Chapter 903

With an idea of how to motivate the people here, I now had to turn that idea into a workable plan, before turning that plan into reality. Given that my idea was fairly simple, the plan was similarly simple, I only needed to make sure the tools I had at hand could do what I needed.

The first...

Chapter 902

There was something deeply amusing about the expressions some people made when they stumbled across my lessons for Luna. At least some of the lessons, somehow the magical lessons barely drew a raised eyebrow, nor did the martial arts training Lia or I occasionally put her through. Those were thin...

Chapter 901

After experiencing the sewage treatment plant and its slimy inhabitant, we focused on less exciting things. Mainly, training the two students I had promised to help while studying the findings of their research. Sadly, we either had a lacking sample size in regards to the research or there simply...

Chapter 900

Something had to be wrong with the world, there was no other explanation for the strongest individual enemy we faced thus far to be a literal pile of shit. Once the slime was completely frozen, thanks to the expanded surface area it had gained by trying to squeeze through the fence, it could be s...

Chapter 899

My attacks on the massive slime were enough to get its attention, and not in a good way. Where before, I had been forced to dodge a missile every so often, now almost a dozen pseudopods were throwing shit at me, some of them literally flinging parts of the slime in my direction. Those parts didn�...

Chapter 898

For a moment, I considered charging into the pool room. There were easily a dozen pseudopods coming out of the treatment pool, all of them long enough to reach every corner, nook and cranny of the room, they could even get to the struts directly under the roof, making it so nothing could escape t...

Chapter 897

Some questions simply shouldn’t be asked, just because they dared the multiverse to answer them. Sadly, I doubted I’d ever internalise that message, I’d always ask the question and search for the answer, even if that resulted in less-than-optimal situations.

Like the one we found us i...

Chapter 896

Somehow, I should have seen this coming.

Just getting a direction, alongside a rough estimation of distance was far too easy. No, instead of venturing into the city, or at least along its border, the vector we were following only cut through part of the outer city before sending us off, int...

Interlude: Survivors 405 - Stayin' Alive

It was a fucking mess. While his mother would cuff him over the head for swearing, there was simply no other way to describe it than with a healthy amount of f-bombs and related swear words. It had only been two weeks, and life at the farm had taken a serious turn for the worse. Who would have th...

Chapter 895

Once again, I sat quietly on my throne, the familiar setting helping a great deal with my mentality. There had to be a way to communicate with the Grandmother directly, allowing us to exchange words and concepts, not just the brief moment during which I managed to pull the Zevarra Agha into this ...

Chapter 894

It was with a savage grin that I watched Sonja send yet another arrow into the distance, striking down one of the Undead in the city. Her bow remained crap, nothing more than a branch, slightly bent and strung with a bit of simple string, but the combination of archery and magic made it work. And...

Chapter 893

It was fascinating just how invested people could become if they saw what was possible. It only took a few days to have Sonja and Lars show fairly impressive results, with Sonja almost naturally falling into an archer or scout role, and Lars easily acting as a tank and frontline, utilising his ne...

Chapter 892

It didn’t take long for Sonja to make her decision. In fact, after I made the offer, she didn’t even leave the room, she only talked for a few moments with the boy I had thrown into the Astral River earlier before sitting in the corner, thinking for a few minutes before returning to me with a...

Chapter 891

Maybe there was something to be said about brute force. For some reason, maybe because it had been a bit of a sink-or-swim situation, the boy I had originally thrown into the Astral River had attained the best connection with his element. The difference wasn’t major, nothing that was overly obv...

Chapter 890

If I was to be honest with myself, I could have left Lia to catch some more sleep. But, sadly for her, I was not that nice, not today, not after getting woken up far too early. Instead, I made sure to wake Lia just as I woke Luna, who I wanted to have with me while teaching these people the found...

Chapter 889

For some people, sleeping until noon was supposed to be the height of decadence, a lifestyle only the idle or seriously wealthy could afford. For others, it was simply the norm, brought about by the rigours of working shifts and scheduling, forcing them to be awake, and hopefully aware, while oth...

Interlude: Survivors 501

• AN: Changed my mind...

It sounded so easy when said in the light of the sun or while far away from the horrors of the night. Just sneak in, throw a few rocks at different zombie groups and run, not too fast, not too slow, just keeping them interested and throwing more r...

Chapter 888

Right after entering the living area of these people, I made a mental, executive decision and spoke up.

“Before we start speaking, I would make you an offer and hope that you do not refuse,” I began, the confined space of the building concentrating the scent of unwashed humans to the po...

Chapter 887

Pacing, as so often, was quite important. We didn’t want to move quickly, didn’t want to suggest we were in a hurry or truly cared about meeting these people. But at the same time, we needed to cross the distance and I didn’t want to give them too much time to think about the circumstances,...

Chapter 886

We were in the middle of smashing through another small group of Undead and Shattered, with Luna doing most of the smashing when I noticed movement up ahead. Deliberate, fairly swift movement, not the slow plodding of Undead just ambling around, repeating those strange patterns ingrained in them....