Lester Yong & Rosa Fontelera-Yong

CoESC Book 11-6.2: Eyes Turned

Yuriko jolted awake with her heartbeat racing faster than when she was in active combat. Worse, actually, as she had meticulous control over her body when she was in battle. A sense of foreboding settled down on her strongly enough that she almost summoned Fri’Avgi to hand and called for Eli’Theria.

The bedsheets were crumpled with sweat, and she blinked when she saw Desire had snuck in again. The Chaos Lord startled awake when Yuriko sat up and cooed, “Master?”

“A…a d...

CoESC Book 11-6.1: Eyes Turned

The underground city of Synkrasia was almost completely lifeless. The mortals who accompanied that young Ancient had long since left after receiving a messenger from the surface. The portal hub was active, however, and let out a parade of Warforged drones.

The metallic constructs marched towards the mineshaft, and though the Watcher expected them to strike at the rocks to bring out the ore, they did not.

Instead, they spaced themselves out in a strange uneven pattern and were teth...

CoESC Book 11-5.3: Hidden Allies

The Silver Tiger’s Ritual Chamber had not existed before the naval battle. It had once been one of the storage spaces and was practically a box. Now, several runescript lines had been etched around the chamber and connected to the Chaos ship’s powerful Animus Engines and there were dozens of crystal screens hooked up to the bridge.

Mum was settled on a rather comfortable divan chair, on her belly, half naked, while Da kneaded her back with aromatic oils. Even while they were up to t...

CoESC Book 11-5.2: Hidden Allies

“It’s a distraction,” Devotee of Radiant Fire said

“What is?” Yuriko asked, slightly confused.

“The Forge.” When Yuriko didn’t say anything else, Devotee continued. “The Waypoints and the Court. They’re just distractions. The…duke’s assets are important, both as a personal thing and as strategic points, but his stratagem has proceeded to the point wherein they are disposable.”

“You mean there’s no point in the siege?” Yuriko blurted out.

CoESC Book 11-5.1: Hidden Allies

Zeyn Strider grumbled under his breath as the team escaped. The backpack he carried contained nearly a hundred Jin of supplies but felt like they weighed less than ten Jin. The things belonged to the 29th Pia’Vasi, and had been lent out to raider teams like them. He wished he could keep it, really, but they were tagged by tracking runescript lines that had been incorporated into the spatial expansion. Disable that and it would disable everything that made this thing special. Not that he kne...

CoESC Book 11-4.3: Cutting Through

You need to eliminate all of his incarnations. Damien said while the Weaver kept his distance.

The Oathsworn continued to attack her while she absently repulsed his efforts. Not that she wasn’t paying attention to him. She wasn’t that foolish. Instead, she only devoted half of her consciousness threads to the fight, which was more than enough focus, while the rest of her mind thought of many different things.

‘Are incarnations all that common?’ Yuriko asked.

CoESC Book 11-4.2: Cutting Through

Miya Mishala leaned back against her seat, sighing in both annoyance and exhaustion. The Silver Tiger was a luxury yacht but it wasn’t unarmed. Aside from the forward Plasma Carronades, and the smaller arms at the sides, the Tiger also had a “tiger cub” system that basically mounted a small calibre Plasma Carronade onto a hovering chassis controlled by a pilot. Though the controller was safely within the Tiger rather than inside the fighter. An Animus tether was extracted and woven from...

CoESC Book 11-4.1: Cutting Through

“There must be a limit to how many times the Chaos Marchionesses could keep this up,” Yuriko muttered.

Eli’Theria had returned to the Silver Tiger and the fires of battle had somewhat died down. It couldn’t stop completely otherwise the Chaos dwellers could build up their defenses further. The Planar Suppression Formation kept the pressure up on the enemy, not allowing them to retreat into their fortress. The Formation, should it be brought up against the Fysalli’s Veil, would...

CoESC Book 11-3.3: Progress

“That isn’t right…” Yuriko complained. “They should stay dead.”

She glared out into the field of battle, finding nearly every last opponent she killed to be back in action. Not that it was easy to distinguish the squidships apart. Their hulls, or skin, could shift hues after all.

The Behemoths were more easily distinguishable and she saw those killed, like the three-headed snake thing, back up. Thankfully, or perhaps unfortunately, they didn’t reconstruct right where...

CoESC Book 11-3.2: Progress

The flames and smoke were well within Mikel’s Ennoia of Embers, something he touched upon during his long convalescence. Enlightenment had come to him as he whiled away the long hours with only Krystal or a book for company.

He’d long wondered what the use for the Cypher Heritage in a nation that used Plasma Casters and Lancets, which essentially shot bolts of flame, at the enemy. He couldn’t control plasma with his Heritage’s Facets, at least, not without heavy investment into ...

CoESC Book 11-3.1: Progress

Krystal’s eyes had adjusted to the pre-dawn light, but even so, the shadows across the groves could easily trick her senses enough to cause a stumble. If she stepped on the dried twigs or leaves, the rustling and crackling could alert the sentries. Even if she knew that most Haveenians and Kadracki had swarm foddering bad hearing, there were a few who were focused on such things.

If she were alone, her Facet techniques would have made sure that no sound went further than her hand coul...

CoESC Book 11-2.3: Stress Test

With Sadeen taking over Eli’Theria’s control, Yuriko was free to survey the battlefield. Previously, she only had time to glance towards the centre every now and then. Now, as she recovered her breath, she noted the warships’ dance of battle.

A bone-deep weariness came over her as the repercussions of her battle, her Radiant Anima Refinement, and the simple fact that she was piloting a Colossus far beyond her in strength, drained her Will. It wasn’t a matter of Animus reserves, ...

CoESC Book 11-2.2: Stress Test

With her Animakinesis, Yuriko reached for the once-captive sailors. Those that perished from exposure, she could do nothing about. But the ones who were starting to change, and the ones who were resisting with all their might, those she could still help. She brought them towards one of the merchant ships that still had an intact Protective Sphere, bypassed it, and deposited the sailors on deck.

“Bring them to the healers,” she commanded. The sailors on deck, still a bit shocked from...

CoESC Book 11-2.1: Stress Test

As soon as the conference ended, Yuriko and her Mum returned aboard Eli’Theria. Thoughts swirled in Yuriko’s mind, though foremost to that was finally meeting the Legion Vagaris’ leadership. Well, her second meeting, she thought, not quite recalling the first. Or was that while she was unconscious after the events in Shillogu Woods?

Her emotions were all aflutter considering that Vagaris had always been her dream placement. She remembered how, a couple of years before her Atavism ...

CoESC Book 11-1.3: Sortie

The shuttle from the Green Swan stopped when it was about a hundred paces from the Silver Tiger. Tribunus Maruko Haru Manuella of the Legion Vagaris bit her lips as she felt a Domain encompassing them. It was a familiar feeling, but she was certain she’d never felt it before. She’d only been in Vagaris for the past twenty years and was Tribunus for ten of those.

Legate Segawa had been in Vagaris for sixty years and had become Legate for forty, almost as soon as he ascended to Knight...

CoESC Book 11-1.2: Sortie

Kato’s freshly inlaid Knight-level Animus technique activated almost as fast as he could think. He breathed out Animus, condensed liquid Animus that only stayed that way because of his Will. The technique demanded he release the pressure, however, and it burst into a cloud of gaseous then photonic Animus that quickly mobilised to his need.

The cloud of Animus surrounded his body and arrayed itself in a crystalline pattern. They reflected the light away from Kato, though that essential...

Mid-book Break!

Things are starting to come together and falling apart all at once--in the series that is. Meantime, we're queuing up the next chapters and planning out the next events for Chronicles.

We're taking a break from 21 to 25 August (just in time to get ourselves ready for the coming school year, too!) and will resume posting on 28 August.

See you in Book 11!

- L&R

CoESC Book 11-1.1: Sortie

Kato Mishala Davar was miserable at the moment. Eastern Rumiga had always been colder than the west, and now in the midst of the Season of Earth, the life-giving rains that he appreciated while he was warm indoors had turned him into a soggy mess. It would have been alright if he could actually move, but now, he dared not.

The fall of Rumiga City had been weeks ago, brought down by the Agminis Legion’s Legate. Scuttlebutt was that an important artefact had been corrupted, which could ...

CoESC Book 10-23.3: Alliances

As a Chaos Duke went, the One Who Watches was poorly understood even amongst his peers. Not that he had many nearby. It was well known that the Eternal Empire of the Righteous Order had only two Knights Imperious, but it was also understood that because of the Imperial Path, those two were more than a match for five other warriors of the same level.

The Watcher wasn’t strong for a Chaos Duke, but he was unmatched in the capability to survive. How else could he have lingered in the vic...

CoESC Book 10-23.2: Alliances

The Silver Tiger’s training rooms did include a space to work on Yuriko’s Sorcery. It was a reinforced chamber that funnelled the outside Chaos into it, allowing for easier Shaping, while also keeping the area close to planar stability. After all, Sorcery became Shaping in the Chaos Sea, and the differences were painfully obvious. For one thing, ambient Chaos within a plane was remarkably inert, though only in comparison to Tidelands, Chaos Channels, and the Sea.

Out here, the Chaos...

CoESC Book 10-23.1: Alliances

As Yuriko wandered aboard the Silver Tiger, she soon realised that many of the areas previously restricted to her were now open. She found herself in a dimly-lit room, filled with cosy booths, upbeat music, and a bar on one side. She saw Miya and Kiyo on the barstool, sipping a brightly-coloured drink, while nodding in time with the rhythm.

Those already inside glanced at her when she entered, but soon returned to their own leisure. Kiyo waved beckoning while Miya simply sniffed. The pu...

CoESC Book 10-22.3: Hasty Travels

“How long did the Silver Tiger wait for you?” Yuriko asked as Eli’Theria docked inside the Chaos ship.

“To my reckoning, half a year,” Sadeen answered idly.

Piloting Eli’Theria was similar enough to her experience in the Koinos Colossus back in Realmheart with a few major differences. The first being that it was actually her Mum controlling the Colossus, while she made use of Eli’Theria’s Amplifiers to project her Anima to more than a hundredfold her reach. The fee...

CoESC Book 10-22.2: Hasty Travels

Douglas Hart couldn’t help but gape when Yuriko and her incredibly hot mum flew into the giant automaton. Well, he wasn’t sure if it still qualified as an automaton when clearly, it had a spirit. Was it alive? Nothing in Karcellia even came close to the technology of this wondrous place.

He winced when he remembered the fortification room and the commensurate pain and suffering he had to go through the past couple of weeks, not to mention Darren turned out to be a Darla. That had be...

CoESC Book 10-22.1: Hasty Travels

The Orb of Authority sat on Yuriko’s lap while she was in a seated meditation pose on top of her bed. The return to the residential block had been lengthy but uneventful, and it was only when they arrived that she realised that the trial had taken more time than she thought. It could not have been more than a couple of hours in the Chaos lake, but when they returned, three days had already passed.

Her Mum had returned triumphantly, carrying a large cuboid that turned out to be the Cha...

CoESC Book 10-21.3: Loose Ends

Self-reflection was not something Yuriko was used to doing. Even when she had weeks of idleness back in Karcellia, she had always been active, always a creature of habit. She’d gone through her training, her meditation and all that, without really considering if the path she trod was the right one, or if there was a better one she could simply take rather than pushing on.

Virgil’s words and his demonstration of skill had her wondering why she had strayed so far from her original int...

CoESC Book 10-21.2: Loose Ends

The tunnel was at least twice as wide as before. Yuriko and Virgil examined the results of her Trinity test, and it was much stronger than she expected. Aside from the widened tunnel, the impact point had turned into a large cavern. The reaction had eaten through the ambient Chaos as well as the earth, stone, and metal. The resulting dust had ignited, and subsequently exploded, from Radiant energy.

She had not been able to observe every reaction within the Trinity runescript and the Rad...

CoESC Book 10-21.1: Loose Ends

It’s merely a weak reflection of the real thing. Damien suddenly said while Yuriko’s thoughts lingered on the Imperial Path’s advantages.

‘What do you mean?’

Your father mentioned the ability to transform his Animus into Boreal…or maybe Zephyrial energies and back into Animus. That’s part of what the Transformation Stage allows Ancients, except it's not just those measly two Transformations. Your body to Radiant, as well as turning your entirety into Ani...