Lester Yong & Rosa Fontelera-Yong

CoESC Book 9-4.1: Dangerous Calm

Shen knuckled his back as he straightened up. The Sowing was upon them and they had a couple more weeks to finish so that they would get the optimum yield come harvest. He had tilled this field his whole life, as a child and, after he grew up without access to the potent powers of Animus, forty years later he was still on the field, growing barley and rice. Another field next to the current one contained sugar cane, but all of that paled in comparison to the cacao tree orchards, which were he...

CoESC Book 9-3.3: Progress

After nearly a week of travelling and training, Yuriko noticed that Heron’s Anima reach had exceeded the First Growth stage. Ten inches from his skin. The azure light was quite catchy, although if seen during the day, was sometimes hard to see. It was actually the colour of the clear skies during the day, and if he stood skylined, his expanded Anima blended in completely.

Unlike Gwendith’s Anima, Heron was able to compress it and use it as armour. Going further, he was able to coat ...

CoESC Book 9-3.2: Progress

“Isn’t it strange that the Chaos Lords are holed up in the Fysalli rather than fighting us in the open Chaos Sea?” Riley remarked as he sighted down his new Plasma Caster. His target was a particularly horrific Behemoth, an amalgamation of flesh and steel, shaped like an orb covered in metal spikes. In the midst of the creature’s body was a singular eye with a triangular pupil.

The Behemoth spun as it fended off plasma bolts and energy techniques. It was merely one of the hundre...

CoESC Book 9-3.1: Progress

Yuriko got Heron a few barrels of water to cleanse the filth off his body. The black sticky mass was magnitudes more than what she expelled back then, and even compared to Gwendith’s, it was at least half again as much.

‘It’s either because he’s much bigger, or more likely, the further along he is on the Imperial Path, the more had to be cleansed.’ Yuriko frowned at the thought, and posed the question to Damien, who, thankfully, was awake.

Both are correct. Dami...

CoESC Book 9-2.3: Cogs of the War Machine

‘Loot and plunder!’ Fri’Avgi yelled enthusiastically while Yuriko rolled her eyes.

‘And where will we loot and plunder?’

‘The enemies!’ came the eager cry.

‘There aren’t any here,’ Yuriko replied, and she felt the disappointment in the little spirit, who she wasn’t sure was really a little girl. Fri’Avgi said she wasn’t one, or a little boy either, just…herself. Yuriko was hesitant to refer to the spirit as an “it”. Well, she...

CoESC Book 9-2.2: Cogs of the War Machine

It took just a bit longer than two days to reach the oasis village. Or rather, a couple of stone carved dwellings around a well that only held a ThiRen of water, a hundred Ren. That was barely enough to slake the thirst of eighty people and a dozen horses. Not nearly enough, but then again, Yuriko could transform a mote of distilled Chaos into several dozen Ren of water so that wasn’t the real issue.

No, the problem was a matter of rations and supplies. The place was a waystation for ...

CoESC Book 9-2.1: Cogs of the War Machine

The once fortified Fysalli, Witton Hold, was once again the centre of Imperial activity. Little remained of the rubble and ruin that Witton had been turned into after the disastrous attack by the Chaos Courts more than a year ago, and in its place were once again layers of protective Waypoints, quays, and a toughened fortress of smooth stone.

Unlike the previous example, the one that had exploded from the Chaos Lords’ secret weapon, this fortress encompassed the entirety of the land f...

CoESC Book 9-1.3: Broken

Saki left the next morning, after a brief, yet poignant goodbye to Yuriko. Her Shadow Guard had actually spent that time clinging to her while sniffling, all the while commiserating that her young mistress wouldn’t have protection and had spilt a hundred and one worries, most of which included mundane matters such as her privacy while bathing, finding the right tea for breakfast, and other such things.

Yuriko humoured the older woman, patting her on the back and returning the hugs. Sa...

CoESC Book 9-1.2: Broken

The bodies of the dead nameless were scattered at the bottom of the cliff. Several were burned, showing little but charred bones and a few were in pieces that sat on muddy puddles. There were still bits of ice lingering, however, and they didn’t show any sign of melting. Yuriko thought that they wouldn’t until a few days later, but that was merely a hunch.

The rest of the bodies were cut up, stabbed into, or crushed. She looked up but couldn’t really catch sight of anyone. Perhaps...

CoESC Book 9-1.1: Broken

Beneath the eponymously named Zarek Mountains, the great Avos slowly traversed its territory. The dirt and stone of the mountains, so jagged and dry, were its shell. The great spine of the Rumiga plane spanned north to south, and top to bottom. The plane wasn’t just wide and long, but also tall and deep. Deeper than comparable frontier planes with lesser foundations. Zarek was understandably proud of his home. Pride and arrogance, a hallmark of the young. And the Avos was much younger than ...

CoESC Fan Art!

Here's where we consolidate all the fan art we've received for Chronicles of the Exalted Sun Child.

The name of the sender is in the caption, and we'll keep updating the artwork here whenever they come in. ^_^

Thank you so much for sending these in!

- L&R

CoESC Book 8-23.3: Hope for a New Name

“You two were in that room for a week,” Amiri said in a flat, slightly hostile tone when Sadeen exited the suite with her husband. She flashed the redhead a smirk and Amiri scowled.

“Why Miss Cypher! How nice to see you after so long,” Sadeen said mockingly.

The other woman just glared then rolled her eyes. She sniffed and wrinkled her nose, but Sadeen had cleansed their suite, and they were freshly bathed.

“A week? Really?”

A glance back at her husband sho...

Posting Break Reminder

Just a reminder that there will be a posting break next week, January 2-6 2023!

Posting will resume the week after. Happy New Year!

- L&R

CoESC Book 8-23.2: Hope for a New Name

“Hide me,” She Who Whispers into the Light said. To the rays that illuminated the hallway within the fortress city of Siderious. Well, her tiny homunculus said it. Her main body hovered beyond the walls, concealed from sight by the very light that made seeing possible.

The tiny Whisperer wove the strands of light, wrested from the ambient Chaos, as a cloak around her form even as she pushed herself upright. The hallway seemed large, gigantic even, but that was only because the homun...

CoESC Book 8-23.1: Hope for a New Name

“I wanted to challenge you alone, anyway,” the Wielder of Divine Flame said while she crossed her arms under her prodigious bosom. Her maul, Burning Embers, hovered beside her. “Not that Weaver’s provided much help,” she added.

“That’s cold, even for you,” one of Weaver’s incarnations, the one with the sad face, gasped. He’d been bisected near the waist, and Radiant flames slowly consumed his torso while his lower half had already disintegrated. That kind of wound on...

CoESC Book 8-22.3: Discovery

Ever since Yuriko began to practice the Ender’s Waltz, her control over her sunshards had reached a sublime level. Before, she could manually control the sunshards but her level of finesse was rather low. Now, she could impart a set of instructions that the shards would follow, and in truth, she did that for static defences.

As would be expected though, doing that meant the weapons had a lack of flexibility. As long as they were within her Anima reach though, she could quickly send a ...

CoESC Book 8-22.2: Discovery

Asami was nervous the entire time they waited to launch the ambush. Miss Saki Mishala had come with a warning that was thankfully early enough to capitalise on. Her Wind Whisper and Wind Scour techniques, honed by long use as well as dozens of flashes of insight during last Season’s battles, had just expanded enough to encompass most of the ex-guardsmen.

She could feel her Facet at the edge of advancing. She wouldn’t be able to reach Knighthood yet, of that there was little doubt. H...

CoESC Book 8-22.1: Discovery

The Wyldhounds sniffed the air and circled around the craters. The Wielder of Divine Flames stared thoughtfully at the glassed sand. The edges of the crater actually had obsidian. She crouched down next to it and touched the volcanic glass with her finger. She sliced her fingertip open, running it across the edge, and bluish blood seeped out, letting a single drop fall to the sand before the wound closed by itself.

The village was deserted, but that was only to be expected. It was in an...

Posting Break

There will be a posting break from January 2-6, 2023.

Posting will resume the week after. Thank you!

- L&R

CoESC Book 8-21.3: Consolidation

Radiant energy filled the grains of sand, each one heated to such an extreme point that they should have liquified and then boiled off, but they didn’t. The substance remained solid, and firmly in Yuriko’s control, which incidentally gave her another method of attack. It was rather crude and brutal compared to using swords or shards, but it was one that she could spread out into a fine mist, a sand storm, that melted through anything not protected by potent Animus.

Of course, it had...

CoESC Book 8-21.2: Consolidation

The Weaver of the Warp and Weft of the World transitioned into the plane through the Chaos Channel. Well, one of him did. Of the other three incarnations he had, one was still in the Telurian Court, another was in the Asheron Court, and the third was in Baratrum, the fortress built upon the Chaos Rift.

His fourth and last incarnation accompanied the Wielder of Divine Flames, and a troop of the nameless. He stepped on top of the waves, the air within the plane pulled at him, drawing Chao...

CoESC Book 8-21.1: Consolidation

The ocean water was both cold and warm. Qatir’s tentacles enjoyed both. Burn marks and other scars dotted its leathery skin, coloured green now but it could change to suit its moods. Several weeks had passed since the Primordial Spawn returned to this plane, though it had a brief foray last year.

In truth, time rolled differently for it, where every passing moment in the Abyss stretched out to infinity, only to snap back and then centuries passed in the blink of an eye. Delgora, the P...

CoESC Book 8-20.3: Crossing the Desert

“The palm fruits could feed us for a couple of days,” Yuriko muttered as she surveyed the rest of the village. She saw a few of the liberated captives…refugees now, she supposed, milling around the crop gardens. Most of those plots contained brown and wilted vegetables. A waste and a pity.

Worry gnawed at her tummy and every bit of food she ate reminded her that there would be less the next time. Heron and Gwendith ate much more than the others, owing to their use of Body Forging,...

CoESC Book 8-20.2: Crossing the Desert

“A mirage.”

The sole surviving Adept who pledged to Yuriko, Dominic Hurin, spoke up. Yuriko judged him to be about twice her age, though being an Adept, it might only be that he had advanced at that age and was much older. Or, since Spirit Binding was an entirely different Anima training system, his ageing might not have stopped at all. The dark-haired man frowned as he looked towards their destination, and nodded.

“It’s definitely not there,” Dominic repeated. “I’m ...

Posting Break Reminder

Reminding everyone that we'll be taking a scheduled break next week, December 12-16, 2022, and on January 2-6, 2023.

Posting will resume next week. An advanced Happy Christmas to those who celebrate it and we'll see you again then!

- L&R

CoESC Book 8-20.1: Crossing the Desert

Master Crow the Binding Chain was dead. Lawrence Tang of the Haveenian Security Office, its Director-in-Fact, stared at the missive in disbelief.

A Master-level Spirit Binder, dead, just like that? Who?

The message didn’t come through letters befitting its urgent and important status. Instead, the twinned spirit stone was the one to bring the message. Twin spirits were rare in nature, though they could be manufactured with some effort. Great effort, really, and just as great a c...

CoESC Book 8-19.3: Unusual Allies

“Ah!” Yuriko yelped as her condensed Anima buckled and cracked.

As the empowered chains penetrated, she saw her outer Animus reserves start to dwindle. She watched speechlessly for a moment as the metal sucked her Animus into itself and then discarded it away from her body.

Fortunately, it was still within her perception range so she was able to recapture it with a little effort. The chainman leered at her, grinning bloody as he swiped at the corner of his mouth.

“I’...

CoESC Book 8-19.2: Unusual Allies

Kassy froze for a long moment when she heard the Verdanians begin the attack.

‘It hasn’t been ten minutes yet!’ she thought furiously, but then, it didn’t matter much. All that happened was that they would draw more attention away from the family.

Her nose twitched as she caught her partner’s scent. Roland was a wolf-kin, of the A’sungit tribe, and he was almost as good at sneaking around as she was. He was in his wolf form at the moment but could shift to his hybrid w...

CoESC Book 8-19.1: Unusual Allies

The last time Yuriko fought on the same battlefield with another beastkin was in the Bella plane, and the last time she encountered a feline beastkin, except for dear Masa, was against them. Lion, tiger, and cat. Kassy seemed different from the three tribes before though, considering she was fully capable of shifting from humanoid to full beast, and the feline features weren’t quite the same as the Kutin clan’s.

Idle thoughts really had no place on a battlefield except that she coul...

CoESC Book 8-18.3: Instincts

By dusk, Yuriko had reunited with her friends. Gwendith had two of the Federation warriors subdued, with their wrists bound together with ice. They’d settled next to a ridge, roughly a league away from the convoy. Heron and the twins were keeping watch, their eyes aglow with Enhanced Senses.

“Bad luck,” Sheamus said as soon as she arrived, his hand busy whittling a stick, “to think that these yokels would dare. I mean, they aren’t wrong, but still…”

Yuriko shrugged. ...