akasoindustries

189 - Mirror Mirror

Exhaling, raising her gun, and leaning back at the same time, Zefaris set loose a gunshot aimed perfectly at Sigma’s stomach. Or, at least, that was it on the surface. It was no surprise to her that the golem deftly stepped aside just as the bla...

188 - Destabilized Intelligence

"They spread what they knew to the masses and even built dedicated dungeons specifically to give aspiring cultivators the opportunity to face appropriately perilous challenges in exchange for appropriately helpful rewards…”

It pointed to...

187 - Cognitive Pressure

Zefaris thought of everything she’d experienced as a soldier, even the early parts - she thought of why she chose the path of a professional soldier, years before the war had started. She’d wanted to see all the new wonders of technology, want...

186 - Sigma

There were at least a dozen Locust Nobles here, some still clutching their ill-maintained firearms whilst others had more traditional melee weapons, like swords and polearms.

Two-thirds or so had the expected mutations - plating, mandibles, ...

185 - Stone Exterminator

Wherever she looked she saw corpses or pieces of them, and yet she also saw more locusts than she had bullets. Some were wading over their fallen brethren, whilst others struggled to move after having had limbs ripped out of their sockets.

�...

184 - Strange Machinations

She flipped it up into the air, murmuring “Homunculus Eye…” as she traced its path. When the coin reached the apex of its flight it stopped dead for just a split-second longer than it shoul...

183 - Spirit of Invention

Without stealth to keep up or worry for the loss of a single bullet, she pulled Pentacle and ventilated the locust where it stood. Its outlandish cannon-arm-thing burst on contact, spilling its vile contents all over its owner as the bug was slamm...

182 - Bunkerbusting

The thought of using her war-knife came to mind, but its reach really wouldn’t be much of an advantage compared to the strength enhancement of the bayonet. Pentacle was out of the question too, seeing as she didn’t have the ammo to blast throu...

181 - More Than a Soldier

She took a hushed breath and scuttled towards the warrior, changing her grip on the bayonet to the upright orientation. A small hop onto its back gave her all the clearance she needed to bury her fingers in its eyes and her bayonet in its back, st...

180 - Re: Trench

Three crunches in a row. One when it penetrated the boxer from the back, one when it came out the front, and one when it punched through the winged one’s front. Her wings began buzzing like a motor as she struggled to lift off, but Strolvath rai...

179 - Beware the old soldier.

While the arena was visually unremarkable, he knew he had the advantage. It was circular with a domed ceiling, and every little sound seemed to echo a dozen times before it faded out. A smile upturned the corners of his mouth at that gift, fully a...

178 - The Failsafe

The floor did, indeed, begin to rise, but it was slow. It would take far longer to even remotely threaten her, unless it suddenly shot up all at once when the countdown hit zero. Somehow, she didn’t feel like that would happen.

Nevertheles...

177 - The Countdown Trap

Straying from this line of questioning, Zelsys requested the dungeon core to, “Show me the map projection with my location highlit, please.”

A smaller version of the dungeon map showed up in the glyph projection’s upper half, ...

176 - Scraps of Knowledge

Pillar after pillar, the gap became smaller, and word after word, the Sister’s spiel became more frantic. She visibly grasped for every thread of forbidden knowledge she possessed, trying to decide which revelations she had time to expose.

175 - Spiteful Revelator

Its tremendous mass shifted in her hand, the center of mass subtly moving along with her intentions. All the while, she knew exactly where every piece of the cleaver was as if it were a part of her own body. The overwhelming force of the Sister’...

174 - Mind Games

A/N: Seems Patreon's dumbshit bot thinks I'm promoting a raffle, so I'll just go out of my way to say I'm not.

__________________________________________________________________________________

Instead, Zelsys just kept dodging out of ...

173 - Slayer's Pledge

“Why am I not surprised?” Zel sighed inwardly, turning her attention back to her opponent. She wouldn’t just end it now, that just wouldn’t do. It wouldn’t be fair. She’d wait until the Sister could move again and do it proper...

172 - The Living Storm's Fury

The distance between them was considerable, but it was close enough.

“My turn...” she said, holding up her war-knife and burning her full lung capacity to fuel Stormsurge as she slowly approached the Sister. It would be ...

171 - Clash of Wills

The Sister swiped her sword to follow. Zel jumped over it and grabbed hold of her left arm by one of the red plates that protected her elbow. Pain shot through her leg when the Sister’s vice-grip tightened around it, the Locust Noble letting out...

170 - Always kill a traitor before an enemy.

The chamber was plain as can be, save for the different shape. Even the exit door opposite the entryway was triangular. Her attention quickly returned to the black-red swordswoman, though she intentionally meandered around the room before slowly r...

169 - Synchronicity

From the floor in front of said wall protruded three altars, one taller in the center that gripped her sword and two to the side, each bearing a basin with a hole in the bottom. The central pillar had a proximity activation glyph, at the center of...

168 - Heatshock

Simultaneously, she fired off a burst each into the other Warriors’ faces, their eyes burned from their sockets and their shrunken brains exposed when their skulls were ablated. Freeing her arm from viscera once more, Zel jumped down to the grou...

167 - Thundercannon

She’d already worked the bolt, but the giant thing’s swing interrupted her just as the empty shell clattered to the ground. Her immediate opponent had been nicked by her gun, its exoskeleton missing a small piece and showing cracks on the left...

166 - Dead Simple

“It stops the heart,” Zel admitted, raising her hand as she made a few small arcs jump between her fingers. “But it sure doesn’t stop it restarting.”

At that, the Sister looked taken aback, raising an eyebrow.

“Storm-Soul C...

165 - The Sister

After the second one vanished, the glyph finally showed an utterly mundane personal profile of the sort that the Tablet showed. It looked much nicer and everything was worded with archaic, flowery verbiage, but the functionality was all the same.<...

Locust Drone Concept Art

A design sketch of the basic locust drone. Created as a reference for the bigger illustration that will come later.

164 - Cursed Crossroad

A/N: I'm taking a short break, two days short. I'm having some issues with my fucked up immune system and the meds need time to work. This means no chapters on 16th and 17th, but posting resumes as normal afterwards.

________________________...

163 - Second Extermination

The fifth shot felled three more drones, their corpses taking place as further obstacles for those behind them.

Had she any other firearm, Zefaris might’ve considered trying to use the terrain to her advantage as a choke point, that she mi...

162 - Draw Against the Reaper

A decision was made, a plan formed - Zefaris had no choice but to bet everything on the mere possibility of Pentacle’s presence at the end of the other path. Fully leveraging her Fog-breathing and even the superhuman strength in her right arm, s...

161 - Headpiercer Pitch

Whereas the drones were dead-eyed, twitching, and animalistic, their bulky superior had a glint of sentience in its eyes. It wasn’t quite human, but it could think. It clearly understood at least rudimentary tactics. The weight of seal-bottles i...