They stood there for longer than Ike expected. Fifteen, thirty, forty-five minutes passed, and still no sign of Rufus. Standing at the wall, arms crossed, Ike frowned a little to himself. Had he misread the situation? Maybe Rufus really was too proud to ever come to his door. Or maybe the monster...
2024-12-16 15:00:11 +0000 UTC View PostThe monsters kept coming. Behind Ike and Wisp, the castle’s ordinary spell formations and its cannons boomed out. The spell formations fired webs, catching the monsters in place, and the cannons blasted them away. Ike and Wisp cut down all the monsters they could, but to say they held the line ...
2024-12-15 15:00:14 +0000 UTC View PostIke lifted his hands to his mouth. “Mag!”
Feathers drifted down from overhead. Mag dropped from the sky and landed behind him. “What?”
“Go ask Relin about this round. Ask her what the format is. Get every detail you can out of her. If she won’t talk, go hunt down the femal...
2024-12-14 15:00:09 +0000 UTC View PostIke tensed. Wisp stepped up beside him. Heavy footsteps pounded toward them. Trees crunched, and black smoke billowed into the sky in a column. A second group of fire monsters lurked out of the trees. Like the first set, these monsters had black, charcoal bodies shot through with veins of red-hot...
2024-12-13 15:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostIke leaped out of the round room and ran to the battlements. Fire blazed in the forest. Dark figures streamed through the trees, setting them alight as they passed. Their black, charcoal bodies blazed with flames. Horns pushed through their foreheads. Red-hot cracks blazed through their blackened...
2024-12-12 15:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostIke ran through the woods. He headed toward Scar’s castle first. If she was still fighting, he could offer his aid. She hadn’t asked for any help, so he could only assume she was in fine shape to keep fighting, but he hadn’t actually been monitoring her castle. Hopefully I wasn’t negl...
2024-12-11 15:00:09 +0000 UTC View PostRelin’s fist smashed into Ike’s shoulder. As it struck, Ike activated the skill. His shoulder went limp as her fist hit, and the rest of his body followed. The shockwave from her punch traveled through his body, and the limpness traveled with it. He was only limp where he needed to be to abso...
2024-12-10 15:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostIke and Relin carried huge bags full of caltrops and carefully scattered them across the field. Ike noted the locations where they’d spread their traps carefully. As long as he memorized their locations, he could safely fight in this field, while tricking his opponents into the traps. As lo...
2024-12-09 15:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostIke showed Wisp to the river. She quickly set about making herself at home, testing the various trees’ strength for use as the primary poles of her future web. He watched her work for a while, but when he realized he was useless, he set off back to the castle. For a while, he helped the smiths ...
2024-12-08 15:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostThere was a round room just off the battlements with arrow-slit windows pointing in all directions. Ike had no idea what the purpose of it was, but it was big enough to fit the four of them, and it had a table, so he snatched a tapestry off the wall and splayed it out over the table, back-up, to ...
2024-12-07 15:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostIt had seemed simple to Ike. If he couldn’t cut through the pigwoman, then why bother cutting at all? There was more than one way to skin a cat… or in this case, cook a pig. If he couldn’t butcher her, why not fry her?
Holding his breath, he looked at the pigwoman. She looked rough. H...
2024-12-06 15:00:05 +0000 UTC View Post“Yeah? What do you need?” Wisp asked.
“Listen…” Ike explained his plan to her. At the end, he paused. “And can you get Mag over here? We’re going to need an extra layer of distraction.”
“You going to be good on your own for a bit?”
“I can handle her for thi...
2024-12-05 15:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostIke struck.
His blade flashed upward. A fierce wall of sword energy flew out. All the power he’d gathered surged, pouring into that one strike. It raced toward the spear and cut into its shaft.
The giant pine split in two. It flew upward, both pieces falling apart from one another. ...
2024-12-04 15:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostIke raced toward Wisp’s voice. The boarmen loomed in the forest, each at least as large as the one Ike had dueled. This time, he wasted no time. Ike activated Storm Clad and tightened his grip on the sword. The closest boarman turned toward him, but too slow. Ike leaped into the air. In a flash...
2024-12-03 15:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostThe earth shook. A huge shadow loomed in between the trees. All the other boarmen had been piglets compared to this monstrosity. His form rippled with muscle. His serrated tusks thrust feet from his trembling jowls. Bristles jutted up from his face, and his beady eyes were shot with blood. His no...
2024-12-02 15:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostThe members of the Old Guard ran to the ramparts. They stood in a sharp line, waiting for something. Relin stepped out in front of them, hands behind her back. She looked them over. “You all know what to expect. Prepare yourselves for death, and fight with everything you have!”
Ike clea...
2024-12-01 15:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostWisp cleared her throat. She looked down at the crowd gathered outside the gates, deliberately not looking at Ike. “What happens if I don’t bring the boss out?”
“We’ll leave. And you wouldn’t want to miss out on us. We’re the most powerful mercenaries in this whole region. If ...
2024-11-30 15:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostThe third castle, like the second, was still rising when he arrived. He gazed up at it, hands on his hips. Was it Rufus, or was it Vi? Either way, he had to be on his guard. Compared to Scar, he trusted them far less, and likewise, they trusted him less. They might attack as soon as see him. He d...
2024-11-29 15:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostThe second castle wasn’t far, when he was running at the top of his speed. He didn’t bother activating Lightning Dash, but it didn’t matter. Now that he was Rank 3, his ordinary speed already cut the distance between the two castles down to almost nothing. He reached the castle’s gates be...
2024-11-28 15:00:04 +0000 UTC View Post“Good morning. How’s it going?” Ike greeted the final two members of Relin’s troupe. By elimination, these two had to be Mars and Nett, though he had no idea which was which, just from looking at them. One was a tall woman and the other was a short man, and at a glance, he couldn’t gues...
2024-11-27 15:00:06 +0000 UTC View Post“So… how do you guys work?” Ike asked.
Fflyn blinked. “What?”
“You’re part of this trial, right? Like that young man I had a conversation with in the dinner trial. What are you? How do you work? Are you a spirit, like, I don’t know, a mountain spirit of some sort? Some...
2024-11-26 15:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostSunlight beamed down. Ike blinked it away, supremely unused to bright sunlight after so long in the centipede caves. He stepped out onto rough-hewn stone. The blocks were worn down the center of the path, where hundreds of people had walked before him. There were little flattened pits here and th...
2024-11-25 15:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostColin stood over Levi. He grabbed at the pieces, lost. “Levi. Levi!”
The familiar sensation of blood and life leaking out of him came over Levi. He tried to smile, but couldn’t. It’s alright. I’ve done it before, he tried to say, but his lips wouldn’t move.
Darkne...
2024-11-24 17:00:11 +0000 UTC View PostThe sharp object surged toward them. It filled up the entire cavern, its sharp tip centered on the cave, but if they stood still, it would crush them as it passed anyways.
Wisp’s arm tightened around Ike. She ran up the wall and threw them both into the first cave she came to. The object ...
2024-11-24 15:00:02 +0000 UTC View PostKai stared at Levi. Levi stared at Kai.
“…So, are you betraying Vox, or are we both fighting him together?” Levi asked.
Kai thought for a moment, then nodded. “Let’s take him out.”
“Oh, really?”
“I don’t like you, but he’s delusional.”
“You ...
2024-11-23 20:06:28 +0000 UTC View PostIke clenched the skill tight. Bright light swirled around his fist, and the skill poured into his body, warm and right. He drew it into his core and circulated his aether, unable to entirely quash his nervousness. The last thing he needed was to get bloated right here, in the middle of a...
2024-11-23 15:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostLevi slashed open the giant’s jugular. Blood blasted off, so fiercely pressurized that even Levi, fully braced between the Spinal Cord and Handy, flew off. He tumbled across the ground, pushed along by the firehose of blood. Levi rolled with it rather than fighting it. When the force petered ou...
2024-11-22 17:00:14 +0000 UTC View PostWisp plunged. Ike waited, his sword at the ready. Shawn’s weight clung to her. He’d always been on the inside before, but from the outside, it was far clearer than he’d expected. Her expression grew strained, and her muscles and tendons stood out on her body as she struggled to hold Shawn...
2024-11-22 15:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostMag reached the centipede grubs first. He transformed into his beast form in midair and swooped the grubs, snatching up fistfuls in his claws and flapping back up into the air. Seconds later, Wisp struck. She tossed webs left and right as she landed, the silk blanketing the squirming grubs and bi...
2024-11-21 15:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostHand-over-Handy, unhooking the Spinal Cord just to hook it in higher, Levi crawled up the giant’s back. Down below, Kai slashed at its feet. He darted in and dealt a heavy blow to its pinky, one clearly meant to sever the appendage. At the last second, the giant flinched back, and his blow just...
2024-11-20 17:00:18 +0000 UTC View Post