Not long into the first day, Hector began to worry that the Jinn might abandon him on this primitive world. The ‘city’ he’d been led to was a sprawling mess of adobe buildings topped with wooden shingles. The dirt streets were littered with human and animal waste. A tannery’s stink made h...
2025-04-04 10:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostThe grand culmination of the ritual lasted for less than a minute. Its steady drain on Hector’s cosmic energy reserves ended before he was fully emptied. The Arahant around him ran dry first. Theirs had been the greater contribution by far. Illusory energy empowered the ritual, his assistance o...
2025-04-03 10:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostThey lingered for two days by the rift on Earth to make sure the danger had passed. It made no appreciable difference to Hector. Once he’d entered War Barge Kevin, he’d effectively left the planet. There was no communication off the barge except through Kevin himself.
On the barge, thin...
2025-04-02 10:00:09 +0000 UTC View PostA/N:
Many (most?) of you will have already seen this interlude on RoyalRoad. It is supposed to come between volume 1 & 2, but a lot of readers complained that they were tired of reading about an untalented nobody. So I brought forward this interlude to entice them to keep reading. ...
2025-04-01 10:05:03 +0000 UTC View PostThe television continued to stream clips of the miraculous events that unfolded over the Atlantic Ocean and Evelyn continued to watch. This fell in line with the very best glimpses she had seen. The death toll of the monster attack in this timeline was only a handful of Navy pilots.
Her sou...
2025-04-01 10:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostIn spite of their alliance, Kevin refused to relax his guard within the transit sphere of the Lord General. He’d fought the man for too long for even thirty years of cooperation to ease his paranoia. Perhaps he would be more at ease if it was just his life on the line. Eight hundred Jinn served...
2025-03-31 10:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostThomas Killian stared into the cameras, dripping from his armpits as the hosts and other guest experts talked through the situation. On the monitors, he could see the images that would be displayed to the audience alongside the talking heads. There was an immense orange-red tear in the center of ...
2025-03-28 10:00:09 +0000 UTC View PostHector stared at the vial as if it held all the secrets to the universe.
“Drink it already,” Caroline sighed.
He ignored the sage. Why not? He’d just argued with a lord and been rewarded for it. In a single day, he’d interacted with two Arahant sages, a Jinn war barge, and a X...
2025-03-27 10:00:07 +0000 UTC View Post“You can release my companion, Master Gavin.”
Hector thudded back down onto his seat, which collapsed sideways under the sudden load, sending him onto the canvas flooring. He looked at the feet of the Xian who had accosted him and swallowed. What had he been thinking? And this woman was...
2025-03-26 10:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostWhat he’d thought to be just a random field proved to be a staging ground. A large ship of gray metal hovered overhead, defying gravity. “Is that a war barge?”
Conflagration snorted. “That’s Gunboat Kelly. She doesn’t even rate a schism beam.”
The portal to another world...
2025-03-25 10:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostBecause most of their adoring public were reading questions they’d written down, the seat switch performed by Vivian wasn’t addressed right away. There were questions addressed to Malachi from females of all ages about what he looked for when considering a partner. Malachi answered every vari...
2025-03-24 10:00:11 +0000 UTC View PostHector flared his aura to block a tentacle trying to wrap around his head. Much like he’d done with the dirty cops, the squid monster wanted to smash his skull in. Failing that, it wanted to twist his head off or suffocate him.
A sword of cartoon proportions sliced the creature in half. 2025-03-21 10:00:11 +0000 UTC View Post
Hector sat upright in his chair, subtly flexing biceps that were shown to good effect by the form-fitting t-shirt he’d been given. With the fresh cut and hair dyed to no longer be gray, he looked remarkably better than two days prior. He’s survived his first battle with the monsters by sticki...
2025-03-20 10:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostEveryone startled back from the young woman who appeared in their midst. She had auburn hair with a purple highlight streaking down from above her left brow. The delicate dusting of freckles across her nose and cheeks and her startlingly blue eyes combined to make her almost a live-action anime c...
2025-03-19 10:58:36 +0000 UTC View Post“Your powers don’t seem very impressive is all I’m saying,” Greg continued.
“Again, I agree wholeheartedly that I personally am not very powerful. That does not generalize to the Xian as a species. My people are the most powerful warriors.”
The man shook his head in disbel...
2025-03-18 10:22:42 +0000 UTC View PostThe dreams were done. That hit hard. Almost as hard as the way they ended. He remembered being enclosed in the metal capsule, emptying his soul reserves into the engine. The way he had cultivated chaos at unprecedented rates, spurred onward by the steady suction of the Dream Engine. He’d felt h...
2025-03-17 10:26:08 +0000 UTC View PostWhen her steely resolve began to fade, Zara Shaocheth went to visit the memorial of her youngest son. Corey’s remains stayed on the world now known as Union Central after the failed attack. She knew burying body and core ultimately did nothing to ease the loss of a child, but she still fixated ...
2025-03-15 14:03:39 +0000 UTC View PostThe Lord Platinum dragged him out of the temporary holding cell of the strange Jinn facility. Volithur did nothing to protect himself and collapsed face first into the metal grating that served as the floor. “Do you want to be tortured for real?”
Volithur didn’t respond. He felt that ...
2025-03-14 10:32:14 +0000 UTC View PostHe healed.
It happened in spite of his own desires. Charred skin renewed. Boiled eyes reformed. Eardrums regrew. It took time. Weeks, maybe months. The only thing that didn’t restore were his amputated limbs. Both hands and both feet had been taken by the Lord General.
At first they...
2025-03-13 10:23:25 +0000 UTC View PostRosa snapped a photo of the cops beating the dockworker’s union representative. Titles for her article spun through her head. ‘Corporate Friendly Police Negotiate with Heavy Hand’, ‘Thugs in Uniform Go Too Far’, ‘Long Arm of the Law Strikes Again’. This was exactly what she needed t...
2025-03-12 10:25:34 +0000 UTC View PostTwo weeks of hell.
Constantly drinking. Constantly paranoid. Constantly second-guessing himself.
If things went poorly, he would not only die, he would witness the execution of Khana and Darius before receiving his own death. Xian did not mess around when it came to vengeance. The alc...
2025-03-11 10:28:54 +0000 UTC View PostHe got no farther than his skull. Even that was only around ninety percent infused to the peak of the eighth level. For some reason, Volithur expected his progress to be similar to when he’d first used the cold forged method. That obviously could not be the case. Body enhancement to level eight...
2025-03-10 10:37:17 +0000 UTC View PostVolithur collected the items on the packing list from the warehouse, rushing because he’d slept in after hosting Darius’s second birthday party the day before. Corey and Rolanda had joined them with their daughter Erin. The adults imbibed much wine while the children played. There had even be...
2025-03-08 11:37:36 +0000 UTC View PostHector watched as the assessor studied the case of silverware. His mother had loved the stuff. He never used it himself. Who wanted cutlery you had to periodically polish? Apparently, the answer to that was antique collectors on other worlds.
“I don’t recognize the make of this and I’...
2025-03-08 11:18:33 +0000 UTC View PostIt took months for Volithur to hear about the outcome of his chat with the Jinn. During that time, he became a father to baby Darius. The addition to their little family changed everything. Constantly exhausted, tragically short on funds, and woefully ignorant of the art of parenting, they found ...
2025-03-08 11:17:54 +0000 UTC View PostHector’s soul sat at full capacity. A sliver more energy and he’d advance to level five. Unless he decided to delay his trip by a month, he should not do that. Though maybe he should. Volithur’s first journeys, some of which were exciting in a bad way, were done at level six. Trying the sam...
2025-03-08 11:17:18 +0000 UTC View PostAfter rounds of congratulations, Rolanda and Corey explained that they had only known for a few weeks. It was still too early for them to make official announcements, but they’d told people close to them. Corey, ever the generous soul, wanted Rolanda to be able to tell friends from her childhoo...
2025-03-07 11:43:24 +0000 UTC View PostVolithur stared up at the monument through watery eyes. The figures depicted were no one he knew. Possibly the statues weren’t based on any particular people. But the upright men and women and children stood defiantly among a desolate landscape. A large plaque titled the monument as ‘Our Dear...
2025-03-07 11:41:26 +0000 UTC View PostHector checked the balance of the joint account and clapped his hands in celebration. The funds from his retirement account were deposited. He would owe a ten percent tax penalty for performing an early withdrawal, but that wasn’t his problem. The important thing was that Jen had access to the ...
2025-03-07 11:40:58 +0000 UTC View Post“The first rule of travel is caution. Do not use a transit sphere if you don’t have abundant free energy in your soul. Forming one is the least expensive part of travel. It is the transition between normal space and chaos that drains you. If you are unable to hold the barrier as you transitio...
2025-03-07 11:25:35 +0000 UTC View Post