After an enjoyable time cultivating and hunting mercenaries, Zae Zin Nim was irritated to be dragged back and forced to help, not just with the Irunian training, but with this strange exercise. All of the Irunian women in the group left to do water-based Physique training. She had thought it was ...
2024-07-23 17:00:04 +0000 UTC View Post"You're sure you want to do this?"
"I'm sure."
Kai stood with Omilaena and Tusquo in one of the innermost chambers of the Irunian government building. Omilaena was in full research mode, with her goggles on and her syringes arranged. She had argued against using Tusquo for the first e...
2024-07-22 17:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostWhen Tusquo took them seriously and began assembling a brigade of Irunians, at first Kai thought he was completely unprepared. He was good at hunting monsters and fighting, not actually training anyone. And yet... that might be his younger self speaking.
The truth was that he'd actually spe...
2024-07-19 17:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostAfter years of training, Tusquo Agyama was a man with a sober awareness of his own limits. He was reasonably adept at the Path of Steel, not the best. Competent in Physique, not extraordinary. One of the more successful attempts to learn a Goralian Class, not a revolution. Well above the average ...
2024-07-18 17:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostZae Zin Nim gave Kai a strange look. "You don't recognize them? I thought you knew every group on Deadwaste."
"Most of the continent borders the Frontier, but not every part." Kai shook his head, still watching the red-caped fighters. "I honestly don't know. Foreign mercenaries, maybe? I'm ...
2024-07-17 17:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostKai had known many Irunians, and Irunian steel had played a major role in his life, but this was his first time actually visiting the country. As they headed southeast his first thought was that it wasn't so different, which was mainly due to the exposure to the Frontier. There was allegedly a st...
2024-07-16 17:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostTechnically these were some of the least important duels of Zae Zin Nim's entire life, yet she found herself filled with tension. Yes, nothing in her life was at stake and the Frontier elites would probably keep training them even if they failed. But if she came back to Deadwaste after gaining so...
2024-07-15 17:00:11 +0000 UTC View PostTechnically Kai was supposed to be thinking about how to kill the immortal slime, but mostly he sat at the edge of the abandoned town and ruminated. It was unusual to run into a monster that so totally resisted brute force - instead of being frustrated, he was more intrigued than anything.
...
2024-07-12 17:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostTheir task in the Earth Union was taking longer than expected, but Kai didn't mind at all. While he tried to figure out the mystery of the blob-like monster he had plenty of time for training, both his normal work and the new Frontier compression exercises. Even after half a month he was still ma...
2024-07-11 17:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostOriginally, Zae Zin Nim hadn't cared about what happened to the Frontier nations at all, and even now she struggled to get excited about Earth Union politics. But over the course of time, as she became more entrenched, she started to think about it differently. Kai was willing to travel across th...
2024-07-10 17:00:22 +0000 UTC View PostWhen Inafay heard they were going to meet at the Adobe Retreat, she had hoped for a quick peaceful resolution and feared extended negotiations. Instead, the challenges had been nothing like she expected.
The Prince of Pebbles had thrown out a list of random demands that ranged from "build a...
2024-07-09 17:00:06 +0000 UTC View Post(Cognosticon here: I fucked up, there are two chapter 307s in my store. Because of that, the second 307 [this one] got skipped. You are meant to read this chapter, then the one posted previously. Since this is my mist...
2024-07-08 21:58:09 +0000 UTC View PostAfter the initial demonstration, the group spent only another week at the outpost before moving down to the Frontier wall and continuing their training. Despite everything he'd seen, Kai was still left with a sense of awe when he saw the enormous defensive wall that encircled the abyss. The eerie...
2024-07-08 17:00:13 +0000 UTC View PostTechnically Kai had been to the Frontier many times in his life and even spoken with the elites there. This time, however, he was coming to actually train with them. It wasn't really the dream he'd had as a young man, just an echo of those aspirations. Even though he'd gained equal or potentially...
2024-07-05 17:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostFinally, all three of them were reunited and moving in the right direction. Kai somewhat resented all the time they'd needed to sneak around and arrange indirect meetings, but that was the price they paid for being weaker than the Brightwind Sect. Hopefully, if they learned all he hoped at the Fr...
2024-07-04 17:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostThe entire time they were on the Waterborn ship, Omilaena had to resist letting any of her amusement slip out. Zae Zin Nim was practically petrified by a little flirting and the politics of the bedroom. It was fortunate her time on Rosemount had been so focused, because she would have been horrif...
2024-07-03 17:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostAfter spending a few weeks on the Waterborn ship, Zae Zin Nim was beginning to understand the politics of the Water Union. She wished she didn't.
As far as she could tell, the basic principle of the Water Union was that everyone was having extramarital relationships with everyone else. They...
2024-07-02 17:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostTechnically Kai could have been traveling faster, but he couldn't feel any guilt over taking a little more time. What was the point of training so much if he couldn't build a life with friends? Just spending time with Inafay again had been a pleasure, and Orotaisin had proved interesting in a lai...
2024-07-01 17:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostFor the first entire week after arriving on Deadwaste, Zae Zin Nim had followed absolutely all operational security. She had worn old rags, avoided drawing attention to herself, switched from qi to mana, and even avoided flying. If the Brightwind sect was monitoring the coast, which she doubted, ...
2024-06-28 17:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostKai was accustomed to fate punishing him thoroughly every time he made a mistake, so he was still a bit stunned that everything had been resolved so quickly. Once Inafay vouched for him, none of the others attacked, and after he explained what had happened they even seemed to understand.
"T...
2024-06-27 17:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostKai had been in confrontations with authorities multiple times in his life, but this one might be unique. So many times his actions had been limited, or the authorities had enough strength to threaten him. Now, back on Deadwaste, they couldn't actually stop him and he didn't need to go through th...
2024-06-26 17:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostFor his entire life, Aniogun had wanted nothing more than to compete in the Hundred Zephyr Rings. He didn't think that he'd win, even though he'd dreamed of it. Usually over five hundred young men and women competed, so getting just one of the rings would have been an accomplishment.
Especi...
2024-06-25 17:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostWhen Kai finally landed on Deadwaste, the lamia ship left him alone and he suddenly realized that he wasn't back home at all.
To the civilizations on Rosemount or Cloudspire, Deadwaste was a backwater that they just thought about as a brown smudge on the edge of the map, a bunch of undistin...
2024-06-24 17:00:07 +0000 UTC View Post
(Cognosticon here. I wanted to split the voyage chapters into short ones, both to give a sense of more time passing and to emphasize that the characters are split up, but I didn't want to stiff readers. So you're getting three chapters at once today.
Back to Deadwaste for a short arc that I...
2024-06-21 17:00:10 +0000 UTC View PostAfter such a grueling battle, and confrontations with many of the most powerful beings in Rosemount, it felt surreal to go shopping. Kai wasn't familiar with the elven capital, so he needed others to guide him around the stores they needed. The activity was far from trivial: if his plan worked, t...
2024-06-20 17:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostEven though theoretically she was safe now, Zae Zin Nim couldn't relax in the elven city. The time away from the Brightwind sect, just with her close allies, had made her forget how Cloudspire politics could be. They had killed three of the cultivators, but her father still had more Earth Souls. ...
2024-06-19 17:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostHalf the city had gone dark by the time they finally broke free of it. One second Kai was running between dead energy lines, then they disappeared into the final buildings and he was free. There were entrance plazas to the north of the city as well, but there were no armies here to fight over the...
2024-06-18 17:00:07 +0000 UTC View Post<
Name: Matiavel the Destroyer
Total Power: 1860
Pureflame Demon: Diamond Rank (1000)
Demonic Cultivation: Earth Soul (445)
Physique: C-3 (315)
Soul Level: 10 (100)
>
Heartbeats passed, agonizingly slowly, as Kai stared at the overwhelming str...
2024-06-17 17:00:16 +0000 UTC View PostIt was as if Zae Zin Nim had awakened again. Fear gave way to a savage joy as she fought alongside Kai and she pushed herself to greater heights, channeling all that she had learned and cultivated against her father's sect. They wanted to take her back like some errant little girl, but she wasn't...
2024-06-14 17:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostDespite the amount of time that had passed, despite how far she had advanced, when Zae Zin Nim saw her father's cultivators she shivered. All six of them had reached the Earth Soul stage and they were important pillars of the sect. She even recognized one of them, an older man who had always been...
2024-06-13 17:00:04 +0000 UTC View Post