Even with time being a precious and limited commodity in a battle, Sen couldn’t help but notice that his strike had been more effective than he could have hoped. From just below the elbow, the devil’s left arm was simply gone. It also appeared that the lingering energy of Heavens’ ...
2024-01-22 14:07:18 +0000 UTC View PostDespite the monumental amount of death Sen had just dished out, he knew they weren’t done yet. If he had been dealing with the same kinds of numbers they had to face when they’d approached the ruins, they’d have a largely clear path. With the horde concentrated in this spot, though, he’d ...
2024-01-21 01:23:54 +0000 UTC View PostOne of the truths that Master Feng had imparted to Sen through their countless hours of sparring was very simple to state. Seize the momentum. Of course, Master Feng hadn’t ever said those words to Sen. He had shown Sen, over and over again. The person who seizes the momentum of the battle stan...
2024-01-20 06:42:18 +0000 UTC View PostIt turned out that Glimmer of Night could not teach them how to do it. It wasn’t for a lack of trying, either. The spider had very patiently described his exact process for doing whatever it was he had done to the cores. It just hadn’t taken Sen very long to figure out that Glimmer of Night w...
2024-01-19 09:52:28 +0000 UTC View PostOkay, so I'm sure some of you have noticed my output has been a little sporadic the last few days. I've been getting hammered by migraines this week. I'm sure it has something to do with the terrible weather, but migraines and writing don't mix. Even after the migraine is gone, you're not really ...
2024-01-18 22:45:28 +0000 UTC View PostSen didn’t actually care about eating, he just wanted to give himself a little while to think things through. The formation had only ever been a fallback plan, but Sen was certain that the original plan of signaling Laughing River also wasn’t going to work either. There was a decent chance th...
2024-01-17 09:10:45 +0000 UTC View PostSen so very badly wanted to ask the monk a mountain of questions, but he realized that it was ultimately a distraction. As interested as he was, and as much as he might want to come back and visit once those long-lost inhabitants came back, talking about it with the monk now would simply delay th...
2024-01-15 07:55:35 +0000 UTC View PostNot even bothering to open his eyes, Sen disengaged his hands from the fox woman’s backside and stood up. He hadn’t particularly missed this kind of behavior during the long years he’d spent ascending that mountain that seemingly had no peak. He found himself oddly wistful for those quiet c...
2024-01-14 06:45:32 +0000 UTC View PostSen sat at a table and sipped tea while Brother Khu muttered under his breath and searched through chest after chest that he pulled out of a closet that could never have held them. He considered offering to help the old monk, but Sen suspected that there were probably things in the chests or the ...
2024-01-13 18:02:10 +0000 UTC View PostGlimmer of Night had followed along behind the Cluster Slayer, who he liked, and the other one, who he didn’t care about. He had been quite uncertain about the Cluster Slayer at first. He had only followed them into the ruins out of a sense of obligation that ran so deep in his kind that it mig...
2024-01-13 04:38:48 +0000 UTC View PostGlowering out at the empty city, Sen let his spiritual sense wash outwards. It was powerful enough that, while he knew he couldn’t cover the entire city, it should cover most of it. Sen froze in place. He had expected to get the usual flood of information about everything alive in the area. Ins...
2024-01-12 08:13:39 +0000 UTC View PostThings were quiet when they set out the next… Sen pondered about the right word. It still looked like morning, but he suspected it was going to look like morning all of the time for the foreseeable future. Since there wasn’t much to be done about it, he set the concern aside. He’d just call...
2024-01-11 05:25:14 +0000 UTC View PostOkay, so my little corner of the world is bracing for what will be a fairly extreme and extended cold period. Normally, this wouldn't be an issue, but it's a bit of a confluence of events for me. I've been living in the same tiny apartment for several years now. Like most people, I accumulate stu...
2024-01-10 14:35:31 +0000 UTC View PostMisty Peak’s head tilted to one side like Sen had started leaning and she was trying to keep him in sight properly.
“What do you mean we’re stuck in a mandala?”
Sen considered a couple of approaches to explaining, but their effectiveness depended a lot on her knowing something...
2024-01-09 12:06:31 +0000 UTC View Post“As pets go, it’s really creepy,” said Misty Peak.
Sen gave her a level look. “It’s not a pet.”
“It acts like a pet. It follows you around all the time.”
“By that logic, you’re my pet. Should I be scratching you behind the ears?”
The look of ...
2024-01-08 15:24:10 +0000 UTC View PostSen didn’t bother to stand as he pulled a healing elixir from a storage ring and downed it. He just lay there for most of a minute, basking in the magnificent absence of people talking at him. Knowing it couldn’t last, though, he pushed himself back up into a sitting position. Misty Peak and ...
2024-01-08 01:09:18 +0000 UTC View PostAll throughout Sen’s training, Master Feng had instilled in him the need for control. He’d striven for it at first because he trusted Master Feng. Then, he’d gone out into the world and witnessed firsthand the destruction that uncontrolled techniques could unleash. He’d even been the caus...
2024-01-06 20:52:46 +0000 UTC View PostSen’s pushed his qinggong technique hard. He wanted to cover the ground between him and the ruins as fast as possible. Ideally, he wanted to be moving fast enough to simply run around any beasts or spirits that might be a little slow to go after Laughing River’s illusionary army. Even so, he ...
2024-01-06 09:06:19 +0000 UTC View PostSen spent most of the evening and the night in something that wasn’t quite a cultivation trance, but came exceedingly close. He didn’t want to think because that risked him getting caught up in a spiral of what-if contemplations that would do him little good. The absence of good information a...
2024-01-06 06:15:29 +0000 UTC View PostSen spent the entire afternoon and early evening making ever finer adjustments to the formation. He reassured himself several times that he was simply being thorough and not avoiding the galehouse and its current occupants. No, he thought, definitely not avoiding them. Just ...
2024-01-05 03:19:54 +0000 UTC View PostSen stuck around just long enough for Misty Peak to return with Li Yi Nuo. The woman from the sect was bound at the wrists with something that looked like ordinary rope, but Sen assumed was something wholly different. Li Yi Nuo was no body cultivator like him, but she was a relatively advanced co...
2024-01-03 05:20:15 +0000 UTC View Post“Why is that monster just sitting around out there?” demanded Misty Peak.
Sen steadfastly refused to engage in anything like conversation or banter with either her or Laughing River until he’d had at least one cup of tea. The fight with the fire eagle had been brief but not without co...
2024-01-03 01:31:16 +0000 UTC View PostConfusion. He felt confusion. Even as he sat outside the strange stone cave and kept vigil, he didn’t know what to think or how to feel. The day had been too strange, too uncertain, and he had carried that uncertainty in his heart. The matriarch had tasked him to watch the Cluster Slayer, the g...
2024-01-01 20:58:23 +0000 UTC View PostOkay, so I got answers about this faster than I expected. The audiobook for Volume 1 starts recording tomorrow! Still no firm date about when it's going to come out, but with recording getting started, the answer is probably sooner than later. The narrator is Adam Verner (barring some ca...
2024-01-01 19:10:38 +0000 UTC View PostSo, every once in a while, I like to update you guys on things that are not strictly writing-related. So, that's what this will be.
Since some of the people on the livestream asked about it, I talked with my publisher about how Volume 1 is doing in terms of sales. The general consensus is t...
2024-01-01 14:12:55 +0000 UTC View PostSen was deeply relieved when Misty Peak, after throwing a few more verbal jabs at him, departed to go try to convince her grandfather to let her join Sen in the ruins. For his part, Sen thought it was a fool’s errand but a very useful fool’s errand. It served double-duty by getting the fox wo...
2024-01-01 12:26:39 +0000 UTC View Post“This is boring,” complained Misty Peak for the fifth time.
Sen ignored her while he finished adjusting the formation flag’s position. The work would have gone much faster if he hadn’t had her tagging along and doing her level best to get him to do anything except ...
2023-12-31 04:49:58 +0000 UTC View PostSen opened his eyes and turned to look at the thing that Misty Peak was pointing at a little more urgently. He’d sensed it a while back and, perhaps foolishly, assumed that it would get out of his way. After all, he’d left thousands of that thing’s kin dead on the slopes of Mt. Solace. Stan...
2023-12-29 18:56:44 +0000 UTC View PostAfter he finished coughing and wheezing, Sen threw the fox a death glare.
“Why would you even ask me that?”
The fox arched an eyebrow at Sen. “My amusement.”
Sen opened his mouth to say something with acid in it, paused, and then nodded. “Yeah, I guess that was a stupi...
2023-12-28 20:19:02 +0000 UTC View PostAfter feeling disgruntled for a minute or two, Sen realized that suppressing the glow wasn’t really any different than his passive cultivation. It was just one more thing he needed to do and then push into the background of his thoughts. With yet another core advancement and, maybe not an advan...
2023-12-28 09:06:41 +0000 UTC View Post