noct

193. Brute Force

Ike charged in, fist held high. He punched toward Clarissa, currently the weakest of the trio. Her eyes lit up, and the mana flowed into her body. She charged to meet him, raising a fist to meet his.

He slammed his toe down and pivoted, whirling toward the current weakest puppet instead: th...

38. Welcoming Death

The three—no, four of them, counting the slombie, made bed in the ruined cultist camp that night. Levi snoozed in one of the nicer tents, while Isa dozed and kept an eye on the slombie. Some time around midnight, the sound of crunching and tearing flesh came from Colin’s corner. She didn’t ...

192. Not Getting Away

Purple lightning flashed. Ike vanished.

Llewyn jumped back. He looked around, searching for Ike.

A hand gripped the back of Llewyn’s collar and threw him to the ground. All around Llewyn, puppets flew into the air from the force of him impacting the ground. Clarissa staggered to the...

37. Aftermath

At last, the last cultist fell. Levi crouched, checking their face to be sure, then stood. “Yep, that’s the last of them. Isa, you full?”

Isa gulped noisily. A petrified cultist stood bolt upright in her grasp, stiff as a board and pale as the moon. She discarded the woman, and the cu...

191. Rank 3, Rank 4

Llewyn charged toward Ike. Ike raised his sword and met the man’s clawed hand head-on. In that first strike, his sword shattered. It blew to pieces, the mantis’ claw burst apart.

Farewell. The sword had done him well. Since Silver had forged it, it had been his constant compani...

36. Midnight Massacre

The cavern was broad and tall, tall enough Jon didn’t feel strange pitching a tent in it. Around him, other devotees of the Death Cult erected their tents. Someone cooked dinner over a smokeless magical fire, turning the soup with a big ladle. The room filled with the scent of simmering potatoe...

190. STORM CLAD

A cloud pierced down from the clear sky. All at once, with a sudden vengeance, the storm reformed. It swirled and churned. White clouds darkened, to gray, then black, then purple. They surged together, forcing a horrible form in the sky, piled up high, high, high into the heaven. Lightning flashe...

35. Top of the List

The doors clanged open again. A rope unspooled into the darkness. “Wait long?” Isa asked.

“Just long enough.”

The rope went taut. Isa tightened her grip on it, leaning her weight against the rope to make the job easier. A pale hand gripped the edge of the pit. She reached down...

189. To Wear a Storm

Immense power rushed into him. Before, at lower Ranks, he’d been completely overwhelmed and totally unable to handle it. Now, it felt… not controllable, but handleable. Something he could manipulate. Instinctively, he called out to it, and it answered, moving with his urges. A massive surge o...

34. Corroding Beam

“Go!” Levi threw his hand out.

The green-and-black energy in his palm had grown to a fever pitch. It bubbled and boiled on his palm, barely contained. When he finally gave it permission to escape, it blasted off toward the slime at speed, in one thick bolt of green-black energy. The bol...

188. Petals Fall

The man thrust his hand at Ike. Light blazed out. A brilliant swirl of purple flower petals flew at Ike. Each petal was about the size of a palm, and razor-sharp. It sliced directly through Ike’s armor as if it wasn’t there. Blood flowed, staining the ice pink. Ike healed quickly, but it was ...

33. Foul Feeder

The slime loomed over them, dark and dangerous. Big, fat drops of acid splashed down from above. The Armalgam stood beside Levi, and the Spinal Cord lifted from his hips, swaying like a cobra. Colin fell back. Isa stretched, eyeing the slime up. “I’ll help, this time. You’ll still get plent...

187. Turnabout is Fair Play

Ike and Wisp burst down from the wall. Before the mages’ failed strike, it would have been madness to leave the safety of the barrier to go on the offensive. There were far more Rank 3 mages than the two of them, and the Rank 2s still posed a threat, not to mention Llewyn of unknown Rank. But n...

32. Bowels of the Earth

They continued down the path. More slimes leaped out at them. Some dropped from the ceiling or crawled out of tight crevasses, but Levi quickly smashed all of them. Once, they even faced a smaller foul feeder, but Levi handled it with his usual panache, and Colin healed his wounds afterward. Thei...

186. A Magic Circle

Mana whined, building to a fever pitch. The magic circle glowed ferociously, on the verge of erupting. Bright blue light seared out from the ground, eclipsing the black-robed mages in its brilliance.

“Is there nothing we can do?” Ike asked.

Shopkeep crossed his arms. He shook his ...

31. Slimin' and Grimin'

Levi closed in on the slime, his sword held high. Some of the slimes alerted, turning toward him, but the closest one, a blue slime about mid-thigh-height, didn’t react at all. He slashed through the bulbous thing. It split in two, barely resisting his sword. Its upper half hit the ground and l...

185. A Shopkeep and a Salesman

“Hello! Good afternoon. How’s everyone doing, this fine day?” Llewyn flashed his salesman smile up at them.

Shopkeep, Wisp, and Ike stared down at him, silent.

“I’ll take that for a yes. I’m here to call on a debt you owe me, for several thousand puppets. I sold them to yo...

30. Cutesy Wootsey Slimey Wimey

Monsters charged them immediately inside the doors, horrid wormlike creatures with tubular mouths full of razor-sharp teeth. Levi rushed toward one and slit it open, then whirled.

Too late. Everyone else had already overwhelmed the worms. Dead worms laid on the floor, unable to withstand th...

184. Not This Time

The voice sounded close, but it boomed from the edge of the town. Shopkeep’s head snapped up. Wisp and Ike looked up as well. From his place on the ground, Ike couldn’t see anything special. The voice sounded familiar, though. He jumped up onto the fence and peered a little further. “What i...

29. Enter the Dungeon

Knell and Shaheed turned away, leading them toward carriages that awaited them at the far side of the square. Levi and the others followed Mae and her party into the same carriage. The emo-looking adherents of the Death Cult filled another two or three. Kai slipped in with the remnants, some ragg...

183. A House

Sitting on his doorstep, Ike checked all the skills he’d taken out of the treasury. Most of them were useless skills. Skills for counting, transferring money around, skills of that sort. The kind of skills a town full of traders would find incredibly useful, but which Ike found kind of worthles...

28. I Said What

The old lady looked up. Levi spun around.

A hulking man even larger than Piri with blue-tinged skin stood over them. He had the same build as Piri, and a similar face. He crossed his arms. “I did recommend someone to the cult, but it wasn’t this pipsqueak.”

“Oh?” The old lad...

182. Recovery Efforts

When Wisp and Ike emerged once more from the treasury, burdened with almost more loot than they could carry, they found themselves standing in an entirely different place.

A stone city stood around them. In its center stood a modest castle, but this castle had no walls. Instead, shops and h...

27. Infiltrating the Death Cult

A cold hand grabbed his shoulder. “Wake up.”

Levi startled awake. He drew his knife and lunged, stabbing center-of-mass.

Isa caught him by the wrist. In a flash, he extended his free hand to Levi’s shoulder and forced him back to the bed. The two of them stared at each other, Le...

181. Lightning, Called

White light. A wall of noise. For an infinite second, those were the entirety of Ike’s world.

He held his breath. His whole body screamed in pain. He couldn’t feel his fingertips, except in a dull throb of ache. His Body Reforging Art activated on its own. It drew at the last scraps of ...