Lester Yong & Rosa Fontelera-Yong

CoESC Book 5-12.2: The Blood Moon

One thought made Yuriko hesitate just before the blood warrior attacked. Her Radiant reserves were full. Damien hadn’t spoken at all since the first time they got here: something had forced him deep into her mind. She could feel him still inside but nothing she did could bring him out.

Was it Damien himself that was suppressed, or her Radiant energy? After all, he used it to speak to her. She didn’t know where it went after being used but it was reasonable to assume that some part o...

CoESC Book 5-12.1: The Blood Moon

“Ah!”

No sooner had the skies turned red, and the ground changed to a bloody cast, that Tiernan suddenly crumpled into a heap, clutching at his belly.

Yuriko whirled and leapt to his side and grabbed his shoulder. She could feel him tremble under her fingers, and his cry choked off into a gurgle. She turned him over on his side, though he tried to curl around into a foetal position. Whitish foam bubbled out of his lips.

“Tiernan!” Yuriko yelled as she shook his shoul...

CoESC Book 5-11.3: Forsaken

“We’ve lost three ordinary sailors, one of our cadet officers, and of course, our bounty,” Lauretta felt bile rising up her throat. “Chief Runeer Davar claims that the bounty is still alive, through resonance techniques, but we’re in a deep layer of the Chaos Sea. It’s not the Abyss, not yet, but I don’t see how anyone could survive in these circumstances…”

Captain Lauretta Mitchell sighed and removed her Animus imprint from the captain’s log, a crystalline cylinder ...

CoESC Book 5-11.2: Forsaken

The landscape remained a monotonous grey and they walked for hours on end with nary a change. Yuriko repressed a yawn, paying half a mind to Reinhardt’s prattling.

The young prince seemed to have a need to fill the silence with his voice, and he’d been talking for hours.

‘I knew I said that I didn’t know him at all, but I didn’t expect him to start talking about his entire life.’ Yuriko sighed.

So far, he’d talked about his childhood in Llioth plane’s royal p...

CoESC Book 5-11.1: Forsaken

Reinhardt was smitten. He knew it as soon as he saw her and even his mind partition technique, something that all royals of Isger must learn, didn’t help. He also knew that his attraction to her wasn’t natural, not completely anyway. It was something he, and his bonded weapon’s animating spirit, Miren, agreed with.

He was the Third Prince of the Isger Republic. The third. He wasn’t even the spare heir, but an extra prince for use in making political alliances. The Coalition was ...

CoESC Book 5-10.3: Hasty Exit

Now that they were no longer in the midst of battle, details that Yuriko ignored came to the surface. The bloodied man, the other male warrior, and the woman warrior wore some sort of hard leather breastplates. They had loose clothing underneath, shirts and trousers that tucked into their calf-high boots. The two they protected, instead wore flamboyant clothes.

The woman, who looked about as old as Yuriko's eldest brother, Marron, wore a flowing dress that was tight above the waist, sho...

CoESC Book 5-10.2: Hasty Exit

Deep within the grey stone, something shifted. Something awoke. Water. Life.

_________

Yuriko woke up a tiny bit earlier than she intended to, feeling a burst of trepidation. Her mind groped in the darkness, feeling for the link to her alarm stones. None of the five had tripped, and their runescript lines just had enough Animus that they would have emptied in a few minutes, thereby setting off the empty alert function that Layla had helped her construct.

She spread her Anima...

CoESC Book 5-10.1: Hasty Exit

“Leaving so soon?” Levain asked while she brushed her short-cropped hair with her long slender fingers.

“I’m afraid so,” Yuriko said easily. “We’ve a long journey ahead, and I’m eager to return.” The two of them had returned to the longhouse next to the main gates and had been met by the woman guard commander.

“Those supplies would barely last you a day.” Levain pointed out.

Yuriko and Tiernan exchanged glances and the cadet officer shook his head. “P...

CoESC Book 5-9.3: The Pure Lands

Yuriko took a swallow of water from her condenser canister, frowning as she noted how little it refilled. Barely a notch, a single mouthful. Her throat felt parched and the air was particularly dry.

“We need supplies,” she muttered to Tiernan who nodded his head like a bird.

“Yes. Water, too,” Tiernan patted his own condenser canteen which was slotted into his belt.

She glanced back the way they came and she could see all the way to the wall, and the gate. The main r...

CoESC Book 5-9.2: The Pure Lands

The town of Euphoril was shaped like a quarter circle, with the walls and entrance at the curve, while near the narrow end, covering it entirely actually, was the ‘root’ of the Holy One. At least, Tiernan assumed that was what he was looking at.

He barely had time to sightsee, since he could barely keep pace with Miss Davar’s ground eating stride. The woman–girl really, but he couldn’t wrap his mind around the fact that she was not only younger than he–was at least two level...

CoESC Book 5-9.1: The Pure Lands

Yuriko blinked in confusion. A mountain just appeared out of thin air, and from the looks of it, she wasn’t even sure how high it was. Clouds obscured the slope near the summit, and for all she knew, it could reach all the way to the sky’s boundary.

No, the bigger issue was how in Chaos did it obscure itself until she and Tiernan were practically at its foothills?

From how flat the plains were, she should have seen it from dozens of leagues away. The two of them had only been ...

CoESC Book 5-8.3: What Lies Beneath

“We don’t have to go that way,” Tiernan insisted. “The Horizon’s that way.”

The silhouette they saw was nearly three hundred paces away, but according to his reckoning, heading in a straight line towards the Horizon would bypass the shadowy thing by more than fifty paces. They could circle around to make sure they weren’t spotted, too.

But Yuriko was curious. Who lived in this grey plane? Or Waypoint. Hmm, she wasn’t sure, really. Her experience with the things was...

Holiday Break!

Just a quick reminder to everyone that we'll be going on our holiday break beginning next week!

It won't be a complete silence, but chapter posting will be at 3 per week from the weeks of December 20, 2021 to January 10, 2022. Regular posting schedule resumes on January 17, 2022. This will give us enough time to recuperate and get the next storylines sorted out.

We hope everyone gets to have a restful holiday season!

- L & R

CoESC Book 5-8.2: What Lies Beneath

The shape of her core had changed.

Yuriko grimaced. How?

Well, it was pretty obvious, now that she thought about it. The Radiant energy and the copious amount of Chaos she absorbed. No doubt Fri’Avgi had something to do with it too, and the most obvious culprit was Damien.

She almost reached out to talk to him but froze. The skies, the wind, and the earth were watching. Maybe if he spoke again, whatever it was that pressed down on her would redouble its efforts. She still ...

CoESC Book 5-8.1: What Lies Beneath

The next thing Yuriko knew was that the wall she had been leaning on suddenly blew inwards. Splinters slammed into her skin, some pierced while most of the others bounced off. Even the ones that penetrated were literally only skin deep, as her condensed Anima lay just under it.

As easy as breathing, and just as subconsciously, her Anima flexed and expelled the wood. But that was but the start of the problem. A ferocious wind, Chaos flows, tore into the Ebon Horizon’s side. It widened ...

CoESC Book 5-7.3: Chase

“Dive into the Chaos Sea!” Captain Lauretta Mitchell yelled, even though she knew that Marcus Sommel, her First Mate and Pilot, didn’t need her prodding. His judgement was as sound as hers, and often enough, his hunches had led them out of trouble that she’d waltzed them into.

“Aye, ma’am!” Marcus replied, voice as steady as a rock.

The Xylarchy ship, the spear-shaped one, flew towards their starboard flank, the tip empowered by focused Chaos. She was sure it would r...

CoESC Book 5-7.2: Chase

Yuriko looked down at the body at her feet. It was more or less human, if she could consider someone that had thick bark for skin and resinous sap for blood as someone still human anyway.

Riley and Jonir had rushed off the ship towards the opposite side of the small island, where the sailors had reported disturbance of the Waypoint’s barrier. There was a brief glimpse of a spear shaped ship, which was more than enough to warrant an investigation. As for why it didn’t just fly over t...

CoESC Book 5-7.1: Chase

For a moment, Yuriko thought that the gigantic Chaos Dweller would be done in by the Plasma Carronade. It was within the firing angle of the left side of the ship after all. And the thing moved sluggishly, though each step of its thick, chitinous legs ate up nearly a dozen paces.

Whoosh!

Boom!

The left side Carronade fired a scintillating bolt of superheated plasma, which reached the monster in the blink of an eye and splashed its payload onto its carapace....

Happy anniversary!

When we started this journey we weren't really sure what we were doing. Honest truth. There were lots of hiccups and even now, our life offline does interfere at times with the plans we have for this series.

It has been an entire year and, before we continue with the usual run of posts, we would just like to say...

CoESC Book 5-6.3: Here Be Pirates

The feel of the Plasma Caster in her hand was both familiar and strange. It’s been several weeks, more than a Season, now that she thought about it, and two planes ago. Yuriko’s hand trembled as she sighted down the barrel, barely remembering her Da’s instruction.

Breathe in and out. Slowly, and again, until her heartbeat settled.

Minute fluctuations of the hand would cause a divergent path, making her plasma bolt miss. It wasn’t that apparent at close range, but over a di...

CoESC Book 5-6.2: Here Be Pirates

Chaos seeped through the cracks in the Protective Sphere, like smoke drifting from the flame. Or perhaps more like fog rolling in from the river. Yuriko didn’t know what to do.

The sailors exposed to the greenish clouds paled and they staggered away from their stations, causing the cracks to widen instead of close. The sphere’s cracks obscured the outside, but there was barely anything to see this high up anyway.

“Return to stations!” Svitlanna screamed even as she ran tow...

CoESC Book 5-6.1: Here Be Pirates

While the Ebon Horizon looked much like a sailing ship, but without the sails, masts, and rudders, the three Chaos ships a couple of longstrides ahead couldn’t be more different. Even to each other.

One was shaped like a metal disk, with structures at the top, while the bottom glowed with Animus. Another looked nothing more than a floating island, and only the railings and the crew made it clear it was a vessel. The last looked like a wedge, the tip of a spear. Disc, island, and spear...

CoESC Book 5-5.3: Changes

Yuriko expected the Chaos Channel to be situated near or even inside a city or town, but the one they emerged from was empty. There didn’t look to be any roads or settlements within easy sight, which she felt was quite strange. Unless nobody lived in this plane.

“Are there any towns or villages here?” she asked one of the sailors nearby, a young man often called by his fellows Lammie.

Lammie scrubbed his close-cropped hair with his fingers, glanced at her face but quickly av...

CoESC Book 5-5.2: Changes

‘The streams of Chaos are really colourful,’ Yuriko thought as she stood on the upper deck of the Ebon Horizon. Days of being cooped up in her room, with little to do other than meditate, had taken its toll on her mind.

She wanted to move, to train her sword skills. She wanted to spar. Although, now that she thought about it, the majority of the past year had been filled with life and death battles. With the devilbeasts, and later with the Vizugmonians and Tiathans.

The mere t...

CoESC Book 5-5.1: Changes

The Imperial Palace in Realmheart wasn’t so much a single structure or even a city block. No, it was an entire city by itself, spanning seventeen leagues at its widest. Sadeen once thought that the shape of the city was strange, especially when viewed from an airship. It wasn’t circular, square, rectangular, or any of the basic shapes often seen with other towns, villages, and cities in the Empire.

The Palace was an odd-looking blob with none of the streets going straight. It curved...

CoESC Book 5-4.3: Return to the Sea

“Your Excellency, a human by the name of Yuriko Mishala Davar seeks an audience.”

Gonir looked up from his canvas, a large piece as wide as he was tall. He had just finished the preliminary sketches and was beginning to mix a set of paints. His planned piece would showcase his time in Lucenti City, a view of the marketplace with the Palace of Light in the background.

Three Adaviren Trees featured prominently and of course, his residence there. Gonir had struggled to detail as ...

CoESC Book 5-4.2: Return to the Sea

Lauretta Mitchell slumped into her chair once the girl left. No, the monster pretending to be a girl, left. She shouldn’t have played games but she couldn’t help herself.

“Caught up with you, huh?” Marcus smirked though he didn’t avert his eyes from the view port.

“Look who’s talking.”

“Yeah, you’ll need to take over.”

“I’m not sitting on a puddle of your piss,” Lauretta yelped.

“Well, take over from your post then!”

“Righ...

CoESC Book 5-4.1: Return to the Sea

“Realmheart?”

The Captain and her officer were already on their way to the stern, towards the ship’s command center, she thought. Before she could follow, she was distracted by the crewmembers climbing back up the ladder while carrying packs, bedrolls, and other gear.

Yuriko intercepted the sailor holding her stuff and retrieved it from him.

“Thank you,” she said quickly.

The man blushed and averted his eyes, mumbling something incoherent. His reaction remind...

CoESC Book 5-3.3: Ebon Horizon

When Yuriko woke up, her aunt and Riley were already up. Layla cooked breakfast, the rather familiar Imperial Ration Stew. This time, the woman added a packet of spices and the scent made her mouth water.

‘This is the way to eat ration bars,’ Yuriko decided.

It was a wonder since the things took any flavour packet easily. She’d tried using spice packets on other foods and it never quite tasted as good as when she used it on ration bar stew.

The sun was already halfway ...

CoESC Book 5-3.2: Ebon Horizon

In a numb haze, Yuriko walked towards the wounded. Out of habit, she used her Enhanced Sight and surveyed the field. The air smelled of ashes, burning meat, and charred clothing. There were other unpleasant smells, too, that she did her best to ignore.

She wasn’t sure how many she killed, personally. A quick survey had the bodies numbering at a hundred or so, those she could see anyway. Most of them had been used as nothing more than a distraction while the Sorcerer cast his spells. W...