There was chaos in the throne room after the prince’s rather decisive to, in effect, claim the throne. Guards and servants were summoned. The guards took the queen away in chains, cursing her unfilial child all the way. The servants were tasked with taking away Chan Yu Ming’s hysterical siste...
2023-09-19 08:23:55 +0000 UTC View PostSen lounged on the throne, feeling both bored and uncomfortable. While security around the royal palace was probably very tight for any malicious mortal trying to find a way in, it had been stupidly easily for him to infiltrate the place. It had also been absurdly easy for him to subdue the vario...
2023-09-18 18:44:32 +0000 UTC View PostSen stood outside in the small courtyard of the house that was theoretically his. He mostly thought of it as Lo Meifeng’s house. It wasn’t a home he’d have chosen. It was just a place to sleep and work while he was stuck in capital. He intended to give it to Lo Meifeng when he left. She see...
2023-09-17 21:11:05 +0000 UTC View PostA murderous headache was pounding in time with the increasing pace of Choi Zhi Peng’s heart rate. He did his best to maintain a calm façade, but the headache had been a constant companion ever since that bastard Tong Guanting had shown up and murdered nearly everyone. In doing that, Tong Guant...
2023-09-17 04:36:11 +0000 UTC View Post“You should be able to move freely in the city again,” said Sen, “Although, I recommend being a little cautious. There are a few Shadow Eagle Talon Syndicate members floating around. If they’re smart, they’ll pack up and go or work very hard to find something else to do. But people aren...
2023-09-16 05:23:54 +0000 UTC View PostThis chapter wasn't part of the original game plan. I'd intended to leave a lot of this in the background, but I get the impression that people think I came out of left field in the last chapter. I generally try to play fair and make sure all the clues are there for a reveal, but I think I ma...
2023-09-15 03:06:39 +0000 UTC View PostThe first few moments of screaming were so loud that Sen suspected that anything made of glass or fine pottery in the immediate area probably broke. Even at a bit of distance, the sound hurt Sen’s ears. He was just glad that there weren’t many people living nearby. Bit by bit the screaming re...
2023-09-14 05:05:03 +0000 UTC View PostFor all that Tong Guanting was doing to keep that one building out of mind for everyone, Sen didn’t believe for a moment that it wouldn’t be defended. In fact, he expected heavy resistance. That meant that he needed to either needed to work very quickly or very quietly once he got inside. Oth...
2023-09-14 01:36:25 +0000 UTC View Post“I’m just saying that you could have sent a message,” said Lo Meifeng.
Sen held his tongue for three seconds, making sure he wasn’t about to make things worse, before he answered. “And what should I have said in the message?”
“That you hadn’t been kidnapped. That you w...
2023-09-13 06:40:10 +0000 UTC View PostSen made sure that he kept a neutral expression as he walked through the Golden Phoenix sect compound. He didn’t imagine for one minute that anyone in the place was ignorant of how he’d spent his time there. Still, he thought sauntering around was bad form. Plus, it seemed likely to ...
2023-09-13 01:20:48 +0000 UTC View PostIt took every last bit of Sen’s considerable self-control not to burst into laughter at what followed those words. Every last one of the cultivators who had originally approached Sen were staring at him with expressions that ranged from simply aghast to, in the case of the leader, furious and a...
2023-09-12 07:32:45 +0000 UTC View Post“Did you do something?” demanded the prince.
Sen squinted at the man. The prince was agitated, frightened, and gesturing wildly. Sen had never the man like that before. What he couldn’t understand was what could have possibly left the usually calm and collected man in such a state. No...
2023-09-12 00:18:17 +0000 UTC View PostTong Guanting hadn’t felt this kind of rage of centuries. It was one thing to, however unwillingly, accept that demands put on him by other nascent soul cultivators. That was a matter of mutual survival if nothing else. He had seen nascent soul cultivators battle once, nearly a thousand years b...
2023-09-11 04:03:30 +0000 UTC View PostSen considered the wreckage of what had once been a gambling den run by the Shadow Eagle Talon Syndicate. In the wake of his interrogation of, Sen thought back, he hadn’t bothered to get her name. He reminded himself that he really needed to do a better job of covering the essentials when he wa...
2023-09-10 19:49:17 +0000 UTC View PostTwo days, several healing elixirs, and a lot of sleep later, Sen felt more like himself again. Shi Ping seemed horrified at even the possibility that a nascent soul cultivator might attack them, while Falling Leaf seemed ready to storm out of the inn to find someone to kill. Sen told them both to...
2023-09-09 19:59:54 +0000 UTC View Post“You not going to pass out again, are you?” asked Lo Meifeng in an extra-dry tone.
Sen gave her a death glare from where he lay sprawled out on the floor. “Just give me a minute. That wasn’t as easy as I made it look.”
“You didn’t make it look that easy.”
“Exac...
2023-09-09 03:17:31 +0000 UTC View PostSen was vaguely aware that this situation would have sent him into a panic not so long ago. Before Emperor’s Bay and before the beast tide he’d faced in that abandoned town, the idea of careening toward a wall at high speed would have seemed like an insurmountable obstacle. Now, having passed...
2023-09-08 17:51:58 +0000 UTC View Post“You don’t have to do this,” said Sen.
Lo Meifeng shook her head. “I realize that, by and large, you’ve done most of your fighting alone. That’s probably skewed your perspective a bit. Helping you fight is actually what I’m supposed to be doing.”
“There’s just thre...
2023-09-07 23:02:06 +0000 UTC View PostThe instructions that Monsell had given them to find the forger took them deep into the bowels of the station and well away from the publicly accessible areas. Not that it proved much of a challenge for Kalan to get them past the minor obstacles they faced. Most of it simply involved waiting for ...
2023-09-07 12:55:26 +0000 UTC View PostFor all that Sen was braced for near-immediate retaliation from the Shadow Eagle Talon Syndicate, it didn’t happen. In fact, as near as he could tell, every cultivator in the city that he didn’t know personally was doing their level best to stay at least half a mile away from him. Sen didn’...
2023-09-06 19:38:26 +0000 UTC View Post“So,” said Sen, “how do you feel about helping me burn a criminal organization to the ground?”
Lo Meifeng gave him a narrow-eyed look. “What did you do?”
“I told the Foggy Falcon Toe Club to get out of the city or else.”
Lo Meifeng closed her eyes and took three ...
2023-09-05 22:41:14 +0000 UTC View PostSen resisted the urge to roll his eyes, and darted into a narrow space between buildings. It wasn’t even really wide enough to qualify as an alley, but it was big enough for him to fit and wrap himself up in shadows. Then, he climbed the wall, and rolled over the edge of the roof. He waited the...
2023-09-05 18:53:42 +0000 UTC View Post“So, let me get this straight. He just went to the park, sat on a rock, and, since he wasn’t busy or anything, decided to advance his cultivation. Just like that. Oh, and, incidentally, he also fended off and then killed four other cultivators while advancing.”
“Yes,” sai...
2023-09-05 14:54:27 +0000 UTC View PostKalan made his way back to the cutter and did his best to put his many frustrations under wraps. For all his suspicions about Cera’s possible status as some kind of spy or agent, she had actually done the things he asked her to do. Even if she really was an agent, the fact that she hadn’t mad...
2023-09-04 19:50:17 +0000 UTC View PostSen made an unhappy noise as he jumped down off the rock. It seemed like he was always surrounded by corpses of one kind or another. He knew that cultivators lived violent lives, but he couldn’t help but wonder if these kinds of things happened to other cultivators as often as they seemed to ha...
2023-09-04 16:27:28 +0000 UTC View PostThe other thing that Sen spent his time on was something that he’d been neglecting at least partially on purpose. He’d return to the park each afternoon and sit on large rock by small pond. Sen suspected the pond was artificial, but he decided that didn’t bother him. The spot was shaded and...
2023-09-03 18:33:08 +0000 UTC View PostFor the next few weeks, Sen found that his life took on a disquietingly calm quality. He wasn’t attacked or even accosted by anyone. However, the pile of scrolls and letters he’d been ignoring were replaced by newer versions of the same ones. He’d consulted with the prince on what to do abo...
2023-09-03 04:47:59 +0000 UTC View Post“You did what?” asked the horrified prince.
Sen didn’t think that the prince was actually asking him, since Lo Meifeng had reacted in exactly the same way the evening before. On the one hand, he understood their reactions. Core formation cultivators didn’t usually stare dow...
2023-09-02 06:17:27 +0000 UTC View PostSen and Falling Leaf descended the stairs into the common area. While it wasn’t quite as empty as it had been when the prince had been there and the employees weren’t kowtowing, the common area was silent. The people who were there were hurriedly finishing meal or drinks and exiting. The caus...
2023-09-01 13:31:39 +0000 UTC View PostThe prince summoned a servant to lead back out to the gate. Sen was pretty sure he could have found his own way, but he supposed that the prince and his guards weren’t comfortable having a stranger wandering around the building. Sen knew that he wouldn’t want strangers roaming his ho...
2023-08-31 19:53:16 +0000 UTC View Post