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164 - The Lighthouse

With the First Arm she dragged him out through the half-open door, pulling him by the foot straight onto Emberthorn’s blazing edge. Her blade left all of its quills inside the man when she ripped it out, so it was perhaps a mercy that he was dea...

163 - Second Arm of the Fierce Deity

The rocketball ripped through the air, trailing blue sparks long after its smoke exhaust faded. It splattered upon the reinforced glass, but the surfeit of fiery wrath it carried still managed to permeate the pane, washing over the man at the othe...

162 - Visage of the Fierce Deity

...But then again, she wouldn’t need to walk all the way over there to carry out her judgment, even if she knew it would be an all-too-easy death for human detritus of this sort. The just-waking city was terribly noisy, especially with those hor...

161 - Take Up the Sword, Common Man

Before anyone could call out, before the first hammerblow could be struck, the executioner’s upper body turned into a fine mist and a projectile smashed into a building behind him. The thunderous report of a high-caliber firearm soon followed, i...

160 - Steel Winged Warrior

Not so much as slowing down, Strake met one of the golem’s punches with a right-handed one of his own, grabbing it by the edges of the plate on its chest before firing a pilebunker into it at maximum kinetic dispersion. Even though he didn’t h...

159 - Man and Machine

Fourth gear. It was not a matter of speed, but overall output. An ultracompact tank could achieve these speeds even in second gear, but it was left without the extra output to fight. Strake knew the importance of fuel conservation, and it didn’t...

158 - Re: Bloody Zero

V3 was developed, but never built, as far as he was aware. Numerous small iterations on the V3 design later - well after the the production First-models were already stomping off the assembly line - Zero was conceived as a possible high-performanc...

157 - Scrying

A eunuch entered his throne room at precisely the moment he was expected, kowtowed as was expected, and calmly looked up at the Emperor.

“Your Divinity, I come bearing grim news…”  he said. “We’ve lost six seers in the scrying...

Ch. 154 Companion Art Standalone

156 - Remake Thyself

More vomiting.

It seemed an endless deluge of hemolymph, a yellow trail dripping from her mouth and down her chest, streaked by the sporadic rivulet of red, mixing in with chunks of necrosing tissue or the odd dead parasite.

She stumbl...

155 - Memory of Change

Its fetters burst and dissolved under the strain of Red’s soul swelling from the surfeit of Azoth-Aether compound, until the Queen’s maddening influence had faded altogether. It was through this freedom that she had chosen to contact the Emper...

154 - Back in Red

Maintaining his calm demeanor, Tian looked to the soldier and nodded, “I did as I said I would. General Cao Hu is presently not able to attend to his duties, so Ms. Red will step in for him. You would do well to remember that in the general’s ...

153 - Big Shot

A/N: I'm expanding advance chapters to 10.

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It momentarily chattered as mandibles, and where they met in the middle, its shape interlocked and held toget...

152 - Before the Execution

“...The new occupation was initially none other than Cao Hu and his goons swooping in right after the attack, using it as an excuse to raid the homes of several known pro-Ikesian activists, after which point he took over in the mayor’s stead, ...

151 - Plan of Attack

Sodan approached the suit, looking it over, tracing his fingers over its plating, looking in what few seams it had, even sniffing it. Without so much as getting a peek inside, he looked up at the mechanic and, eyes narrowed, asked: “You almost h...

150 - Bloody Zero

Portions of the walls and ceiling were stone, but larger portions still were scrap metal. Despite the workshop’s spacious entryway, the amount of various machining tools and parts made it feel cramped - not to mention a variety of blueprints and...

149 - Burgess

There came an explosion that shook the ground and sent shrapnel flying skyward. Alcerys wondered how exactly Strake had made the suit move without a person inside, but she both wished not to risk asking such questions and thought she had a good en...

148 - Steel Commander

The noise from the other room stopped, and without a word, the Recluse began drawing lines and directions on the outstretched map whilst Sodan derided the Brass-eye Drunkard without cease.

“If you truly live in fear and pain, and if you tr...

147 - Brass-eyed Drunkard

Trinkets were scattered all over the place, with a frankensteined-together aetherwave terminal taking up much of what she presumed to be the Recluse’s room, the door sitting wide open. Her nostrils filled with the smell of oil, stale air, metal ...

146 - The Recluse

...And yet, he waited for them in one of the tunnel’s side alcoves wearing a battered, old-model Ikesian chest plate and carrying a gun, the idiot. The weaselly-looking young man double-took at the sight of them, nearly jumping before he caught ...

145 - Guerilla Warfare

Hidden within one of Rigport’s many tidal caves, illuminated from above by the light of the moon, and using a small Ignis burner to cook food without fire, Alcerys and Strake hid.

Alcerys now knew why Estoras had been so insistent on her p...

144 - Gunshot to the Head of Subservience

A short while later, Zelsys was the new owner of a monstrous bike and the tools to keep it running - paid for in three thousand gelt and several pieces of dungeon jewelry.

“Now I’ve just got to give it a test drive,” she said, turning ...

143 - Steel Steed

A/N: Having another flareup, so unfortunately no chapter tomorrow. 

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Zelsys dug deep into the recesses of her mind, hoping that some facet of her kn...

142 - Of Three Manly Smiths

After a short while he settled into flipping between some half-dozen entries, then frowned and looked up.

“I- Hm… Do you mind providing specifics? If you can tell me exactly what you want I’ll have an easier time finding it.”

D...

141 - On the Health Risks of Business Negotiations

Soon, similar vendors gave way to weapons again, though as they plunged deeper into this “nice” part of town, so did the vendors become oriented towards clientele of greater means. Instead of a generic firearm salesman, they saw a gunsmith off...

140 - Snake-oil

Despite his reluctance to leave his post due to the difficulty of traversing even a short stretch of the Living Storm’s territory, he had no choice now.

The mud was shifting, trenches collapsing, old puddles of Rubedo being absorbed altoge...

139 - Tremor

It was the ground under, shuddering in a decisively unnatural way. Before she could focus to hone in on the source of it, the Moneychanger rose from her seat and performed a series of quick gestures involving all four arms, rumbling an otherworldl...

138 - Immortal Beast

“Right, the matter of what I am, as you doubtlessly wish to know - I am what Kargarians call an Immortal Beast. Their folk myths - and, as I’ve found, those of many other cultures - state that an animal which lives for a certain length of time...

137 - The Moneychanger

The shape of its head was somewhere between a lizard and a human, four horns poking from its skull and two pairs of disparate eyes staring ‘twixt the bars. The lower pair was where one would expect a person’s eyes to be, they were even shaped ...

136 - Speak of Iron

A laugh rang out from him, “Because I am! I thoroughly appraise each and every item you see upon these shelves, and sometimes, something with a will of its own comes through. They don't like being on shelves. They demand new own...