Two weeks until the Krysali deadline. Six weeks until the incursion, hopefully. The elite deadline wouldn't change, but the incursion very well could.
Kai couldn't always wait until the elites had a teleporter ready, so he sometimes flew bet...
2025-09-11 17:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostCorpses didn't generally mean much to Omilaena. They were a fact of life, maybe a message of some kind, maybe just materials for someone, maybe absolutely meaningless. This one, however, left her standing and contemplating for longer than she care...
2025-09-09 17:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostThey arrived hovering over the mobs, only a crystal ship between them and the chaos.
Though the mobs were just chaotic masses at first, Kai had experience with such battles, especially in Krysal. This wasn't the nation he'd left, but the sid...
2025-09-08 17:00:09 +0000 UTC View PostWanting to help Krysal was well and good, but the problem was that everyone else was trying to help too, often in opposite directions. Kai could make a difference in any given location, yet he still felt as though the city states were tilting towa...
2025-09-05 17:00:28 +0000 UTC View PostIt was just the three of them in the room, finally free of crowds, distractions, and hopefully politics. Normally, this was home for Kai, the one place he could truly relax. Given the recent revelations, it might not be so restful now.
"Is i...
2025-09-04 17:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostAt first, Kai struggled to even understand what he had heard. For all that he'd grown up from the young man he had once been, the idea of having a child - much less a child that he was completely unaware of - was baffling.
Was it possible? H...
2025-09-02 17:00:12 +0000 UTC View PostAs Omilaena decanted the qi crystals, she was, in a sense, pretending to work. Oh, she was actually processing them, and this was a meaningful part of research, but her mind wasn't focused on it. She checked the intensity of the qi, made a little ...
2025-09-01 17:00:16 +0000 UTC View PostWhen they teleported into Krysal, for a moment Kai felt a strange sense of disorientation. The city in front of him was familiar, yet he couldn't put a name or even any experiences to it. Presumably it was one that he must have fought in during th...
2025-08-29 17:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostZae Zin Nim was an unparalleled cultivator, with an unprecedented level of strength at Earth Soul. She had crushed multiple sects and was feared as a matriarch across all the Eastern Plains. Currently she was exploring the paths of power with her ...
2025-08-28 17:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostIrun was a fucking mess. A more powerful mess than when Omilaena had gone unconscious, but she was still a bit irritated at how many things had gotten off track. Since the others had gone to so much effort to help her, she tried to spin it as a po...
2025-08-26 17:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostAs they lay together in their bed in Tusquo's home, Kai emerged from the warm haze with a strange sense of clarity. Despite the stereotypes, he realized that the sex was far more important to him than just reinforcing that Omilaena was alive and w...
2025-08-25 17:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostJuray was losing blood at a terrifying rate and her eyes were unfocusing, so they might not have much time. Kai held her neck steady and opened her lips while Zae Zin Nim tried to force the potion into her mouth.
For a terrible moment he fea...
2025-08-22 17:00:10 +0000 UTC View PostThey returned to Omilaena's pool, which normally would be under higher security, but no one stopped Kai as he marched in with Juray. There, they found Zae Zin Nim still over Omilaena's body, snarling at an Irunian who was trying to extract some me...
2025-08-21 17:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostWhen Kai hit the ground, he roared, and devastation surged from him. He hurled more attacks than he ever would normally, blasting in all directions. Anger deep within him longed to unleash Baleful Breath that would annihilate everything in his pat...
2025-08-19 17:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostHaving done all he could, Kai stood still as chaos unfolded around him.
There was lots of shouting from the Irunians, but the sound that hurt most was the quiet strangled sob from Zae Zin Nim. She threw herself forward, embracing Omilaena wi...
2025-08-18 17:00:34 +0000 UTC View PostDirectly approaching Quinta had clearly not worked so, feeling vaguely creepy the entire time, Kai arranged for them to meet "accidentally". Like all noble Irunian women, Quinta engaged in regular weapons training, so Kai found out her schedule an...
2025-08-15 17:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostOmilaena was deep into her work, practically in a trance, when the other two showed up. Part of her was almost annoyed for a moment, since she was so busy that she had no time for distractions. And yet their expressions...
She remembered tha...
2025-08-14 17:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostOver seven years ago, Kai had been in the wastelands with Zae Zin Nim, contemplating a barrier within his soul, and now he found himself in basically the same place. True, he was an order of magnitude more powerful, and they were married, and this...
2025-08-12 17:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostOmilaena admitted that she had been arrogant. Oh, she freely acknowledged that in general, it was just that usually she considered her pride to be entirely justified. But this... there had been a part of her that had assumed she could easily outpe...
2025-08-11 17:00:10 +0000 UTC View PostSoon the stone arena was filled with two Irunian units, mirror images of one another in body and uniform. There were differences in their souls, and those differences were the key to the whole competition, but Kai saw Pourila walk out between the ...
2025-08-08 17:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostKai had been in a lot of tight situations in his time, but usually had a fair amount of control over them. No matter how much fate stood in his way, no matter how overwhelming his opponents might be, at least he could fight himself. Now the compet...
2025-08-07 17:00:09 +0000 UTC View PostDue to being banished, Kai had never actually gotten to take on the role of a senior hunter, guiding the next generation through the Hunter Trials. He supposed that technically he had helped Zae Zin Nim awaken a Class, though that had involved ste...
2025-08-05 17:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostThere was enough going on for Omilaena, which meant it was too much for everyone else. So many political concerns, so many events and deadlines, even three separate lines of projects. Another woman might have been confused, but she simply split he...
2025-08-04 17:00:10 +0000 UTC View PostGunjin's promise was more than just words: Kai immediately received a scroll that could communicate to all its sibling scrolls, creating an elite network, which granted him the ability to request teleportation at will. It was a huge privilege, and...
2025-08-01 17:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostDespite the promise of conversation, they said nothing for some time. Gunjin conferred with Pourila, picked up a wrapped package, then opened another portal. When Kai stepped through it, they stepped out atop the Frontier wall. Wasteland stretched...
2025-07-31 17:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostAs they jumped through the layers of security, Kai wondered how many other non-Irunians had been allowed to see the nation's most desperate secret, much less multiple times. It was familiar to him by now, but Mariyay watched in wide-eyed astonishm...
2025-07-29 17:00:09 +0000 UTC View PostNormally when Kai needed to hit specific timing for moving around the continent, in this case via Irunian elites, he reached the location and cultivated until they arrived. Competent teleporters were valuable, after all, and he didn't want to wast...
2025-07-28 17:00:11 +0000 UTC View PostWhat followed was a meal that was technically hospitable and felt utterly icy to Kai. The strange thing was that Tusquo seemed unbothered by it, and his wife was so difficult to read that he couldn't be sure what to think of the entire affair. She...
2025-07-25 17:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostUnlike their other trips, Kai was teleported into Irun with little idea where he was going. His only previous trip had been to the western regions, near the Frontier, and he knew a little about the northeast near Birtaegal. But this time the elite...
2025-07-24 17:00:08 +0000 UTC View Post
Cognosticon here. Four chapters a week is weird, but I like having Wednesdays to throw in announcements, questions, or in this case a cover reveal. This is the planned cover for the fifth arc/book. I've held off on putting all three main character...
2025-07-23 17:00:07 +0000 UTC View Post