Bacon Macleod

B5 Chapter 510: Unwanted Gold, Finale

Black carapace lay shattered and broken, the final royal guard reduced to a lowly wretch. Ichor weeped from its wounds, as its health desperately tried to recover the damage. Two of its legs had been torn free, and its right scythe had been snapped in two. 

It still fought with single minded focus, giving its very life to take them down. 

A doomed endeavour — with him and Porkchop working together, a high Silver beast had no hope. It lacked the size and physicality of ...

B5 Chapter 509: Unwanted Gold, pt. 6

Deep beneath the earth, Kaius stood in a chamber full of ghostly lilies and faced down his opponent. 

An armored knight, the mantis watched Kaius, waiting for the slightest hint of an opening. It may have been an insectile beast, but there was a shrewd cunning hiding behind its glistening black eyes. A cold malevolence that was born to fight and die for its queen.

Kaius held his blade in a high ready, melded crystal and steel brandished as a lethal threat. 

Another...

B4 Chapter 508: Unwanted Gold, pt. 5

It was a quiet sound, more of a faint wrapping sensation than anything else. Niles stilled, the leather wrapping of his sword hilt squeaking under his grip. Holding his breath, his heart pounded like a thunderclap. It made it hard to tell if it happened again. Had he imagined it?

Another grinding thud, a feathering resonance he just barely felt with his back pressed against the wall.

There it was again!

His eyes flicked to the nearby delvers. They stood sentinel, bu...

B4 Chapter 507: Unwanted Gold, pt. 4

Kaius peered into the room. A rounded chamber, fifty long strides or more across. The ceiling was far higher than the rest of the catacombs — though its walls were still filled with the same grave-niches he’d seen all throughout the complex. Pillars encircled the space, propping up the ceiling, and dozens of openings littered its sides — leading to tunnels spiralled away into the black.

It almost looked like they might have once been covered in engravings, though they wer...

B4 Chapter 506: Unwanted Gold, pt. 3

Deadacre’s catacombs were barren things. The sewers above were labyrinthine, but there was a method to their madness. Ventral waterways cut through the ground beneath like arteries, while smaller capillaries serviced the needs of every lane and tucked away buildings.

The catacombs couldn’t have been more different. They were three dimensional, like a tangled heap of yarn had been used as a blueprint. Each tunnel was similar — a cramped thing made of a dark brown brick, barely tall...

B4 Chapter 505: Unwanted Gold, pt. 2

Yellow wardlights flickered in the Plucked Hen’s common room. They were well made — mimicked the soft luminance of candle fire in their tone, and a gentle waver. But even quality struggled to hold up to a week of hell. 

Kaius sat at the makeshift round table that had been arranged in the centre of the common room, with his team at his left. The meeting with the city's leadership seemed unending — half an hour and they had yet to come to a consensus about if they should hole u...

Slight additions to chapter 461

RR is getting to the Castellan reveal, and I noticed I never actually mentioned how the Castellan identified him through his blood lol. Added a small section, as seen below

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As his friends joined him, the Castellan crouched down once more. Though this time, it kept its hand on its sword, presumably to maintain whatever skill was protecting them from the arcane mana.

“First, an answer to your earlier question, my lord,” the Castellann said. “Your blood. There are b...

B4 Chapter 504: Unwanted Gold, pt. 1

Kaius sat in the common room of the inn that had been chosen as a command centre. Everyone was there, from the city and guild leadership to the elites. Yet another meeting. They’d taken to having them every morning — a stubborn ritual to herald surviving yet another night of the Tyrant’s attacks.

Seven days. Seven gods-cursed days.

That’s how long it had been. How long they’d been trapped in an endless cycle of fending off maddened beasts. It was doing his damne...

B4 Chapter 503: Ashen City, Finale

Kaius was more than experienced with the many varied ways in which growing stronger could be unpleasant. 

Refinement was up there, though perhaps a little more tolerable than the years of agony it took to merge Rapid Adaptation, and the sensation of having his entire being melt when Brotherhood of Ichor and Animus had changed him. 

The second he accepted the system’s prompt, his Aspects exploded. Every iota of essence that he had fed to his pillars, e...

B4 Chapter 502: Ashen City, pt. 2

The devastation Kaius had witnessed at the eastern gate followed him as Kenva led their team further into the city.

Oh, it wasn’t as severe. Most of the structures by the wall had been leveled — leaving little more than rubble and foundations. Blocks away, the buildings still largely stood, but not unscathed. The ubiquitous smog of fire and ash hung like a funerary shroud over Deadacre.

It hid little to his Truesight. Terraced houses, once the proud homes of the worki...

B4 Chapter 501: Ashen City, pt. 1 

As the searing heat of Ianmus’s spell faded, Kaius looked down at the corpse of the nightscale as he sucked in heaving breaths.

Ianmus’s voice sounded in his ear.

“Forsaken hells, at least it's dead. We’ll leave you to it — it’s a madhouse up here.”

“Thanks for the help,” he replied, still watching the dead beast.

It hadn’t been his most dangerous fight, not by far, but it had been strenuous and stressful all the same. Fighting without his spells ha...

B4 Chapter 500: Nightscale, Finale

Porkchop roared as the nightscale broke into the open square. Bulwark’s Challenge hit the creature like a physical blow, yanking at its head so it had eyes only for the demon-faced creature of orichalchum that stood sentinel.

Mana whirled through his body, and flesh simmered and popped. Handspan by handspan, Porkchop swelled in size and might as the ghost of antlers sprouted just behind the horns of his helm. Normally, he was just over a stride taller than Kaius at t...

B4 Chapter 499: Nightscale, pt. 4

Being chased by a lizard the size of a house had a certain way of hurrying his thinking. 

Bent low over his brother’s gore-splattered back, Kaius did his best to ignore the constant roars just a few strides behind him.

It was just a tad harder to put the intermittent snaps out of mind. Thank the gods the nightscale didn’t seem to have any ranged capabilities beyond the breath attack he assumed it couldn’t easily use while sprinting.

They’d succ...

B4 Chapter 498: Nightscale, pt. 3

It was so nice to cut loose; to feel that marrow deep thrill as his world collapsed to just him and his target. 

The nightscale was a vicious creature, no doubt about it. Nothing that large should be able to turn invisible — it was patently ridiculous. Yet now that he had ripped a person-sized hole in its back, the high Silver creature abandoned that stealth. The ever present shimmer that tried and failed to hide from his Truesight vanished with a faint...

B4 Chapter 497: Nightscale, pt. 2

Kaius swung for the nightscale’s side with all his might, the burning aura of his Investiture prickling against his skin like a god’s spite made manifest.

Unenhanced, A Father’s Gift was a sublime weapon that had been tempered in godly waters. Backed by his Investiture, he felt like he could cut through adamantine. A shame the cost was so high, he’d have to be sparing with its use yet.

This fight was still going to be tough, Kaius had no doubt ab...

B4 Chapter 496: Nightscale, pt. 1

His prosthetic sucked. Not enough traction. Even putting a boot on it, the simple fact he wasn’t getting physical feedback from his footing led to him making constant, slight adjustments.

It was a considerable problem when the stones beneath his feet had been painted a consistent, slick ruby. 

Thank the gods he’d lost his leg now, not a year ago. He had the dexterity to manage the impediment. That didn’t mean he had to like it — just another month or...

B4 Chapter 495: Defending the Wall, Finale

A deep blue bird flashed past a window, appearing in view for only a fraction of a second. It likely thought itself safe — blocks away, and obscured by buildings. Hells, the only reason she could see it in the first place was that the front half of the building they flew past had been crushed by a boulder some beast had lobbed into the city earlier in the night.

It was enough; Kenva snapped to the movement immediately.

Gotcha.

That flock had been a right pain — ...

B4 Chapter 494: Defending the Wall, pt. 3

Kaius watched another man die. It had barely taken an instant. One moment, the man was fifty longstrides down the line from him, just another face holding a spear.

The next a hawk with a wingspan as large as a man’s slammed into his chest. He’d just...fallen; screamed his way down from the wall until he’d hit the street with a wet crack.

Kaius swallowed, driving the image of the man's flattened skull from his mind. He hadn’t been able to do anything. He could ...