Lester Yong & Rosa Fontelera-Yong

CoESC Book 3-10.1: Visitors

Lucille Sybil Kinnock idly fiddled with her shoulder-length silver hair while her chauffeur drove the landcrafter down Rumiga Boulevard. Their destination was the Imperial Provincial Palace of Rumiga, an opulent affair that doubled as the Imperial Territories’ centre of state. It housed the administrative, judicial, and military arm of the Empire, in charge of this slice of land at the Empire’s extreme edge.

Today was the weekly meeting between the governing forces of Rumiga City. A...

CoESC Book 3-9.3: Aftermath

The morning sun hit Yuriko’s eyes the moment she opened them. She winced at the glare, snuggled into her blankets and dislodged Hunter Kitty from his nest between her legs. His claws punctured through the cloth and caught on her pyjamas, his distressed yowls waking her up completely.

“Good morning, silly kitty...” she muttered as she unhooked his claws out of the fabric. Yawning widely, she got up to do her morning ablutions. They had class for today, after more than a week’s br...

CoESC Book 3-9.2: Aftermath

“Brother, I can’t see!” Kiruna complained. She scratched at the woven cloth covering her eyes. “I wanna see!”

“No, Kiru, you need to rest them,” Lukas said tiredly.

Lukas glared at Aengus, one of the few he actually knew from the Council. They shouldn’t have come here. They should have stayed back at home, safe. Aengus returned his look apologetically.

“It’s not bad,” he tried to say.

Lukas swiped his hand in a fierce gesture, along with his glar...

CoESC Book 3-9.1: Aftermath

When Yuriko woke up, the odd pressure was gone. She rubbed the sleep off her eyes, and threw off her blankets only to be greeted by an annoyed yelp.

“Oh, sorry Hunter Cat,” she yawned.

She was back in the shelter with Millie, Maryn, and Ishika. As she rubbed the sleep off her eyes, she recalled what happened after they ran away from the Chaos Lord.

When they arrived at Bellton Hold, they were made to wait an hour before being brought to an officer--from the insignia, an ...

CoESC Book 3-8.3: Raid's End

“Oy, oy, don’t you have any detection Spells?” Charlene poked Kiyo’s side. “Those Chaos Lords escaped the bombardment, you know.”

“One of them was crushed,” Kiyo rolled her eyes. “It’ll take a while for them to regenerate a Corpus. And no, I don’t have any ‘detection Spells’! There’s honestly no such ‘general purpose’ Spell you know. I know how to search for water and minerals but not Wyldlings.”

“Boo!”

“You’re acting quite…er, unl...

CoESC Book 3-8.2: Raid's End

Yuriko’s sword dance Animus circulation pattern had been active from the very beginning and by now, it had consumed more than half of her remaining reserve. Just keeping it up wasn’t a problem, it was when she attacked and parried that incremental Animus was lost.

Her mind raced as soon as she saw the creature, taking a snapshot of the scene. The tunnel here wasn’t big enough for it to properly manoeuvre but it didn’t really need to.

“Take them!” the creature called, a...

CoESC Book 3-8.1: Raid's End

Danazzo Talwen Aralka resisted the urge to glance to his right, where that girl, Yuriko Davar, walked beside him. His squad was a makeshift team composed of nine regular Agaza students with him, a member of the Elite class, as their leader.

He’d lived in Rumiga City for the better part of the last year in preparation for entering the Academy, but his family’s holdings were actually further north, halfway to the border. So he wasn’t quite used to the strength of the Chaos storms in...

CoESC Book 3-7.3: Desperate

Yuriko hurried down the bloodstained tunnel, keeping her paying as much attention to what she could hear. Every now and then, one of the ceiling light panels worked, though that meant islands of light in a river of darkness and shadow.

“How much blood did this guy lose?” she wondered.

She must have run a longstride already. There weren’t any doors on this level, just endless sinuous tunnels that went left, right, up, and down. It wasn’t until she looked behind her that she...

CoESC Book 3-7.2: Desperate

The pressure bearing down on Lukas forced him to his knees. But as bad as it was to him, he knew that it was worse for Kiruna. He forced his head to turn, so he could look at his little sister. She lay on her belly, hands flat beside her head, facing away from  him.

She had stopped trembling.

“Some...body…close…the…door…” he gasped.

Aengus growled from a few paces away.

“Deploy…your Field!” he yelled. “Cover your sister!”

Silvery light ...

CoESC Book 3-7.1: Desperate

While the girls near the door recoiled at the boy’s words, Yuriko hurried up to him and pulled him inside. She took a quick glance down the hallway but didn’t see anything, even after she activated Enhanced Senses on her eyes. The absolute darkness of the underground proved a rather effective barrier to her vision. There was a track of blood though, little droplets that the boy left behind.

“What’s happening?” one of the girls who didn’t shy away asked.

“Wyldling inv...

CoESC Book 3-6.3: Maelstrom

Kiyo sat on her desk early that morning, keeping a careful eye on the skyline visible from her window. The storm had begun to landfall and the skies were momentarily clear. There was quite a bit of time yet before it began and she should seek shelter.

Honestly, it was quite unnecessary for her. She was a Jade Circle Master Sorceress and the increased density of ambient Chaos only made her more comfortable. Even now, she could sense the minute increase which made her Spells all the easie...

CoESC Book 3-6.2: Maelstrom

The next few minutes flowed like mud. Krystal could barely keep sight of the monster. One moment, it was standing in the dark, the next, it was charging at them, hands tipped with razor-sharp claws extended to rip into flesh.

Krystal was the one closest to it with Heron just behind her. Animus flooded into her eyes, illuminating the creature’s trail. While she couldn’t see where it was, she could see where it had been.

“Ahhh!”

Her initial panicked scream was still ha...

Surprise!

As thanks for joining us on this journey, we're releasing an extra 5 chapters for all tiers tomorrow, 9:00 PM GMT +8. We'll be going back to our regular release schedule next week but meantime, we hope you enjoy!

- L and R

CoESC Book 3-6.1: Maelstrom

Krystal resisted the urge to tap her foot on the stone hallway, or snap her fingers, or shuffle step while marching. It was just so…uniform and serious, she thought.

She, Mikel, Heron, and Danika, were wearing their Agaza uniform, carrying Plasma Lancets, collapsible spears, side-blades, and an expansion buckler while following behind Master Gethen.

The bowels of the mountain were much more hollow than she expected, with longstrides of hallways and hundreds, or perhaps even thou...

CoESC Book 3-5.3: The Coming Storm

That evening, Yuriko sat in a meditative pose on her bed and continued her experiments. The afternoon had been spent shopping at the Provisioner’s Lane with the Foster twins, who arrived at the gatehouse waiting area a few minutes after she’d completed her quick practise.

The trip there was mostly spent with her deep in thought, while Braden and Orrin nattered between themselves. She left it to Braden to haggle on her behalf, allowing her to pick up several bottles of common spices ...

CoESC Book 3-5.2: The Coming Storm

The next couple of days passed by in a blur. Yuriko’s classes had been cancelled and the students were preparing to weather the coming Chaos Storm.

“It’s expected within five days,” Master Alfein announced when she met them in the classroom. “Classes will resume afterwards. For now, prepare your emergency supplies and make sure you stay indoors as much as possible.”

She passed out pamphlets that gave safety protocols for before, during, and the immediate aftermath of t...

CoESC Book 3-5.1: The Coming Storm

“Who are you?”

The question hung in the still air while everything around her ground to a halt. The dreamscape Yuriko found herself in every time she used her Facet grew still. The rolling hills, the long green grass, even the leaves fluttering in the wind, everything simply froze.

The masculine Golden Silhouette’s grin was still there. Yuriko stared at the golden pupils, stark against the void of his sclera. The masculine form was much more defined than she remembered, thou...

CoESC Book 3-4.3: Progress

Emyr Oona Kinnock strode down the Northwing Hallway of the Kinnock’s ducal palace alone.

He left his room just a couple of minutes ago, right after coming home from the Academy. A messenger crane from his mother had been waiting on his desk, fluttering its paper wings to keep itself barely an inch off the wood. Tapping the crane's head revealed its message: that his mother had summoned him and his elder brother, Kale, to meet with her in the Ward. In five minutes.

He’d splashe...

CoESC Book 3-4.2: Progress

“They’re frightening,” Ella-Mai said to Yuriko after one of Master Alfein’s classes. “My family has a storm shelter under the house with the walls almost completely covered in runescript to bleed away the ambient Chaos.” She shivered. “When it gets too much, mini bolts of lightning would jump from the walls and strike whatever was around.”

“It’s that bad here?” Yuriko asked.

“Worse than what happens after you’ve gone into a secured room,” Ella-Mai grunt...

CoESC Book 3-4.1: Progress

The days passed and the inclement weather worsened. Yuriko spent much of her time training both the Golden Silhouette’s Animus techniques and Master Alfein’s skill cube. She kept training her body in the mornings, except during Sixthdays, the day when she had reserve officer training.

Using PTM after practising the sword dances, she refrained from using Recovery. As a result, the heat and cold generated by it permeated her body throughout most of the morning, receding only by the ti...

CoESC Book 3-3.3: Seeking Improvement

Tock tock tock.

“Come in.”

Yuriko pushed the door open to Master Alfein’s office, revealing a smallish room that was mostly bare except for a desk and three armchairs: one behind where the cat-eyed instructor sat, and two facing together in front of it. The window behind the desk was mostly dominated by broad leaves that were slowly turning red. A brown-spotted bird landed on a branch and started chirping.

“Good afternoon, ma’am,” Yuriko said after a mom...

CoESC Book 3-3.2: Seeking Improvement

The innkeeper brought over Yuriko and Krystal’s afternoon tea set the next minute, balancing a tray carrying the pot, the tiered cake stand, and their place settings over his shoulder.

“This is our famous Sunset Mellow Tea,” Barnaby said gaily. “A mix of Zarek Mountain tea and kaf roots plus plum flower blossoms grown right here in the inn. Please enjoy it with our delectable tea sandwiches, scones, and tarts.”

He bowed with a flourish, somehow keeping everything balance...

CoESC Book 3-3.1: Seeking Improvement

“One, two! One, two! Keep it up, keep it up! Raise those knees, keep those backs straight!”

Thud, thud, thud, thud!

Yuriko followed the cadence easily, jogging in formation along with the rest of the cadets in her group. There were a hundred cadets to a cohort, each divided into groups of ten--a single squad. The entire Elite class of Sharom was grouped in one squad and they were running two abreast, following behind another squad--the one of Aneurin’s Elite. The ra...

[Jade] And that's a wrap!

We are now all caught up again. :)

Thank you so much for your patience and understanding and we hope you continue watching Yuri's (and everyone else's, too!) story unfold.

- L and R

CoESC Book 3-2.3: A Hunt Begins

Ashley Sommer Gin hummed as she strode down the dirt path between fields. Large, wide steps, with her legs stretched out as far as they would go. Her back was heavy with her family’s supply pack. Planting day was still several weeks away, but the fields had to be tended and made ready, especially after the beating it took during the Wyldling Wave.

“Da-da-ta-ta-tan! Da-tan, da-tan!” the melody was from a music box her mum had bought from down south, beyond their nearest neighbour H...

CoESC Book 3-2.2: A Hunt Begins

Yuriko ensconced herself in her room with her heart still racing. She’d nearly run from Aneurin’s Asmund Hall to the Golden Willow. Heron and the twins weren’t the only ones who tried asking her to the cotillion. Nearly a dozen boys and an odd girl met her by the entrance. She excused herself and pushed past them before they could more than open their mouths. It was a bit rude, she felt, and she mentally apologised for her actions but that didn’t stop her from hurrying away.

She...

CoESC Book 3-2.1: A Hunt Begins

The Seeker of Delights waited behind a veil. She watched the human speak with her master, watched them dither over the meerest detail. All the while, her heart pounded with a furious rhythm, and a hunger gnawed at the edge of her mind.

Losing her Corpus to a whelp, at the cusp of victory, stung. It stung so badly that the lashing of the storms against her Anima were but pinpricks in comparison. Still, staring at the chains that bound her were anything but unpleasant. Her new body was…...

CoESC Book 3-1.3: Unwelcome Thoughts

Swish!

Yuriko ducked and avoided a wooden ball that would have hit the back of her head. With a quick twist of her waist, she evaded the next one, and with a sweep of her arm, parried the third with her palm. She dashed forward on the narrow beam that was less than the width of her foot as easily as if she were on solid ground. Two more balls flew her way, one would strike her if she took another step forward, while the other would hit if she stayed still.

She saw the tra...

CoESC Book 3-1.2: Unwelcome Thoughts

‘Who are you?’ Yuriko thought furiously. She directed it to, well, her mind since she didn’t really know how else to address the voice. Given the fact that it had responded to her thoughts, maybe she didn’t really need to direct it anywhere.

She waited in silence while Master Alfein’s voice chattered in the background. She focused so hard on listening for the voice that she didn’t hear her adviser call her attention until something made Yuriko jerk her head sideways.

<...

Heads up for the week

Hello, everyone!

Between getting vaccinated and participating in an unexpected vaccination drive in our neighbourhood, the past week has taken a bit of a toll on us and our schedule. For this week, there will be a slight delay in the Jade posting. The chapters will be completed tomorrow morning GMT +8.

Thanks so much for your support and if you have any comments or feedback, do feel free to add it to the chapters or send us a message!

- L and R