Eric took a deep breath of air smelling of cattle manure, fresh green grass and a thousand blossoming flowers. He couldn’t help grinning with an unexpected surge of contentment, his eyes taking in a modest farm with rows of young chestnut trees growing between long narrow fields of barley and wheat, along with a carefully tended herb garden next to the cabin whose fragrant scents served to delight the nostrils and mask the more earthy scents of the farm.
“Come, Eric. Y...
2025-01-27 04:24:53 +0000 UTC
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“Eric?”
Eric flinched against the blinding headache, the roiling nausea demanding he heave… before blinking open his eyes as a cool compress was pressed against his brow.
He took a gasp of herb-scented air and was surprised to find that after a few wakeful moments relaxing his clenched abdomen… that the pain he felt was gone.
He blinked in surprised bemusement.
“Was it just a nighttime cramp?” he wondered aloud, before catching sight of Agda’s too ...
2025-01-24 04:00:01 +0000 UTC
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Eric’s eyes bolted wide in agonized surprise. He gasped, horrified to find himself feeling such raw AWFUL pain! His eyes stung with salt and glaring light and he could hardly see. Panicked alarm took on the raw bite of terror for a single awful second before he blinked a second time… and was breathless with confusion. And exhaustion. And pain.
What the hell?
“Please stay still!” snapped the woman who was somehow handling him?
He froze. Terrified of nearly two ...
2025-01-20 04:00:01 +0000 UTC
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“Command, I’ve reached the target sight. No trace of the wolves or their master is to be found anywhere!”
“Scout 7, please confirm. Did you say Mord has fled the area?”
“I… shit, Command, all I see are perforated corpses… both human and lupine. I see no survivors… belay that. Survivor found… data base pings target as one Eric Silver, mortally wounded. Shit. This is the asshole that Stephan and the others reported before they… Sir, I think ...
2025-01-17 04:00:21 +0000 UTC
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“You did good, Eric. Where to now?”
Eric grinned as their loping stride turned into a ground eating sprint, Eric shifting inertia, mass, and gravity as suited him best, finding perfect traction along a path only he could see as he ascended invisible steps only his feet could take until he and his familiar were just a dozen yards below the low brownstone buildings that made up most of the stable structures in this corner of the city.
“Thanks, Bunz. I know a single fami...
2025-01-13 04:00:03 +0000 UTC
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One step at a time, Eric finished crossing the pathway between realms, stepping free of the alleyway and leaving behind predator-filled woodlands for equally perilous city ruins. The scents of loam, rotting leaves, clean winter air, spruce and pine was now completely replaced by the foul taint of smoke-filled air smelling of superheated asphalt, burning wood, plastic, insulation, and fouler scents still, all hanging like a thick miasma in the air.
The earlier roars a...
2025-01-10 03:59:01 +0000 UTC
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“So, what do you think, Bun?” Eric quietly asked as they headed back the way they had come, no matter the dozens of household servants and guards gazing their way with newfound respect, even reverence, bowing or curtsying in his wake as his quick walk became a run… and then a ground-eating sprint as he headed back to the passage between realms that Grim had walked twice by his side. It was a path that Eric could now effortlessly find without disturbing the delicate fabric of the ...
2025-01-06 03:59:01 +0000 UTC
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Eric glared thoughtfully at the whimpering wolf in his arms, just seconds away from the portal, the creature only now shaking out of its gaze to glare and snap deadly teeth at Eric, seemingly unfazed by its dangling legs, lowered core body temperature, and perforated organs.
It’s furious howl made it clear that it would settle for nothing less than Eric’s lifeblood when it tried to snap its jaws right around Eric’s—
“Repudio!”
2025-01-03 04:00:01 +0000 UTC
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Eric’s heart pounded as he raced through the ruins of a city filled with fog, flashes of blaster fire, and the howl of monsters. His guts roiled with desperate anxiety as he dashed toward the final fallen soldier whose piteous groans were broadcast for anyone with the reception or hearing to triangulate.
Then he blinked, seeing not the mercenary buried under rubble that he had expected, but a pack of vicious feral wolves tearing through the man’s polymerized carb...
2024-12-30 04:00:08 +0000 UTC
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The sound of buildings collapsing in on themselves was a terrifying cacophony to the ears of desperately fleeing soldiers relying on the crackling reception of damaged augs.
“Sergeant Crisp! We’re hot! Artillery fire in the warehouse district! It’s a coordinated assault! The bait has fled the coup! Repeat, the bait has fled the coup!”
“P-5! What’s your status? P-4 Won’t respond!”
“We were hit by artillery fire while trying to recover the targets!”<...
2024-12-27 04:00:06 +0000 UTC
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“So, how long are we going to wait for this asshole to show?”
Cool eyes regarded the young woman cracking her neck, sensual features at odds with the feral gleam in her eye as her hands flashed with the glint of sickles before she was hidden in gloom, until only her mercury irises remained.
The powerfully built man fully kitted in high tech chrome-plated armor looked out the jagged hole that had been smashed into the building that conveniently gave a perfect bird’s eye view ...
2024-12-23 04:00:01 +0000 UTC
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Eric glared at the sobbing contender holding on to life by a thread and Eric's mastery over blood.
“Alright, quit crying! Just tell me where my friends are!”
“The cluster of half ruined warehouses by the pier. I’ll ping it on your interface map.”
Eric blanched, horrified to find that this other man actually had the power to bypass all his defenses and place a marker on his own internal map!
What the fuck were 500+ defenses for? That was utter BULLSHI...
2024-12-20 04:00:01 +0000 UTC
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A/N - Intimate moments in the early part of the chapter.
By the time Eric came back to himself, his arms were filled with sweetness. He was humbled by just how strikingly beautiful the fey, sensual beauty wrapped up in his arms truly was. Natasha’s features were flawless, exquisite. She looked as innocent as any college freshman, and not like a centuries or millenia old titan who had been hiding her strength her on Earth, playing a long game of one sort or another… just as ...
2024-12-16 04:00:02 +0000 UTC
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A/N - A nice long chapter today! - Heads up, there IS a romance scene at chapter's end. Separated by ***. As always, I try to keep the descriptors tasteful, but 'wrestling' is definitely involved. Even if you skip, you still get to enjoy 7000+ words :) - Enjoy your weekend!
A bemused Eric soon found himself flowing through a crowd of elegantly dressed men and women wearing attire quite similar to the glorious spectacle of tailored finery tha...
2024-12-13 04:01:00 +0000 UTC
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Eric took a deep breath of crisp autumn air complemented by the rustling oak trees along the boulevard as he stepped out of the Grand, noting that the theater crowds had lessened just a bit, though there were still carriages aplenty, and in direct contrast to the actual New York he had read up on, it hardly smelled like horse shit at all. One would hardly think that city squares had once been piled high in horse manure, and that farmers could freely cart away as much as they desired for their...
2024-12-09 04:00:03 +0000 UTC
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2927 Effective Strength MODIFIED by Rank II Wrath (Burst of Strength)
You have successfully RUPTURED 2000 Strength-equivalent City Ward Infused by 1 Rank of Pristine Permanence!
Congratulations! You have SUCCESSFULLY Breached a Silver-Tier Ward!
Primal Locus: New York City acknowledges your worth as a Contender and has ACCEPTED your challenge!
The huntress roared with laughter as a handful of spectators and trader...
2024-12-06 04:02:01 +0000 UTC
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“Reason for visiting New York?”
“Trading beast hides!” The guttural voice of an actual ogre resonated through the long line of both tired and excited looking travelers who had walked what remained of the I-95 up from Philadelphia, Baltimore, and other locations safely in the White-Tier arterial zones that had already been claimed and colonized by various factions.
The young huntress who had been patiently waiting for her turn to enter the grand walled city before he...
2024-12-02 04:00:02 +0000 UTC
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Caliban froze amidst the sharp clatter of crystalline keyboards and hurried conversations, the sense of panicked urgency in the Blue Corp command center having only heightened when wonders following unexpected peril were replaced by yet more unexpected developments.
“Caliban?”
Caliban blinked, collecting his racing thoughts as he peered into his cousins’ thoughtful gaze. “Lord Caerulus?”
This earned a tired sigh. “Don’t be coy, cousin. You’ve read the ...
2024-11-29 04:00:02 +0000 UTC
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“Piercing Strike. That’s all it was.” Ron crossed his arms and snorted. “He took out the eye. Just like our Sammy did with the ankylosaurus that will net us a good haul… especially if it’s the last one anyone’s allowed to hunt here without paying whatever fee that asshole below is going to require, since this is now ‘his territory.”
Sammy blinked, surprised at the heat in the normally cool-headed Ronny’s voice, though he did dip his head at the dust cloud over...
2024-11-25 04:00:01 +0000 UTC
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Author's Note - Showing a new POV - Eric does make an appearance, and we get to see him from an outsider's perspective. - Also, we're just a hair under 10,000 words today! So please enjoy :D.
Sammy couldn’t wipe the smile of her freckled face as she and her companions crept through the waist-high grass to the forest of giant ferns, just ahead. Her heart swelled with excitement as the eerie and oddly comforting cries, hoots and lonely trumpet-like calls of ...
2024-11-22 04:00:04 +0000 UTC
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Eric groaned and shook his head as he rested in the waist high grass while a small pod of triceratops munched on giant ferns a half mile away. Knowing they posed no real threat to him, he reviewed his character sheet one final time, lost between wonder and dismay.
He had done it, achieving breakthroughs that were absolutely beyond the pale.
He had six crucial attributes above 1000, Strength and Vitality had just broken new records, and his Quickness now exceeded 1700 which ...
2024-11-18 04:00:03 +0000 UTC
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Nikita hissed is surprise.
Caliban glanced up from the three monitors he was studying, typing frantically on his keyboard, doing his best to put out a dozen metaphoric fires while both assuring multiple administrative factions of Blue Corp’s continued neutral status and the many mutually beneficial economic opportunities that awaited smooth relations, in addition to juggling the handful off exquisitely choice territories his surprisingly talented and outrageously deadly busines...
2024-11-15 04:00:01 +0000 UTC
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Lilly’s howl was equal parts fury, agony, and bitter triumph.
Her body, and she feared her very soul, were blazing with a shocking degree of Hyperion radiation, or had been in the instant she had forced herself through the portal between worlds, anchored and warded so heavily against the one clan Malice truly feared. Yet no others. Everyone else seemed to be utterly beneath that creature’s contempt.
Which had made it so laughably easy for Lilly, a revenant rabbit with t...
2024-11-11 04:00:02 +0000 UTC
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Eric jolted to his feet with a wheezing gasp. “Bunz!? Elly!?”
He toppled, momentarily dizzy, before stabilizing himself on feet more stable and sturdy than he could possibly have dreamed, less than a year ago.
For all that he could now sense the faintest tingle of plaque. Just a hairsbreadth away from the Pristine state he had been so close to, yet could now feel the acute lack of. An odd disconnect as if he was almost, but not quite, perfect. An itch he couldn’t quit...
2024-11-08 04:00:03 +0000 UTC
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The pale-eyed Hunter so at home with the shadows coolly regarded the portal before him. Bright with scenes of a panicked half-elf spurting his lifeblood upon the killing fields of an ascending territory, just as his tools struck his prey.
The air had been alive with alien ululating cries, desperate curses, panic, and blood.
Whiffs of air sharp with the scents of a slaughterhouse and a confectionery stand had caressed the Hunter’s nostrils as he did a final check of his tr...
2024-11-04 04:00:02 +0000 UTC
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It was only minutes after Eric had darted out the cloud castle as fast as he could sprint, still filled with the sweet sense of satisfaction that came from a successfully pulled heist... in this case claiming countless confectionery treasures before anyone could say no, that Eric realized what should have been obvious from the start.
If his quest-offering dragon had needed to shield any mention of her friend in blood-warded calligraphy… then what was to prevent the conversation...
2024-11-01 04:00:08 +0000 UTC
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A/N - I'm releasing a longer chapter today, around 7K. Please enjoy :)
A bemused Eric easily kept pace with the sinuously flowing drakes who seemed to swim through the clouds more like sea serpents or dolphins than birds of prey drifting upon air currents. If anything, the trio looked impressed that Eric could so readily keep up his pace with them, after turning down their offer to actually let him ride them with a polite chuckle.
“This boy can actually keep up. ...
2024-10-28 04:04:39 +0000 UTC
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Caliban rubbed his temples, leaning back in his seat with a sigh.
“What news?” asked the tense woman beside him, presently typing furiously away at a virtual keyboard as she gazed upon the monitor before her, one of a handful now being used by anxious-looking elves wearing Blue Corp uniforms in the Alutopaze reinforced bunker they were all busily working from.
Caliban’s eye caught sight of Nikita’s holographic display, the same display on all of their monitors, pres...
2024-10-25 03:59:01 +0000 UTC
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Eric crashed to his knees with a sob, trembling with horror and exhaustion and the sheer shock of having survived the most perilous battle he had ever endured while receiving absolutely nothing for his efforts, only losing. Losing his innocence, forced to accept that he damn well knew who his father was… or had been. Losing the chance to rescue Rising Sun Corp and countless thousands of souls he would have dearly loved to save by the one unique path open to him. Because he was simult...
2024-10-21 04:00:05 +0000 UTC
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Elonia’s eyes were haunted as she gazed to the south, where titanic flashes of light interspersed with awful fares of glooming darkness. The entire band of students desperately huddled within the floating force dome visibly shuddered when the air rang with screams that penetrated their skulls, no matter how desperately they held their ears.
“What is that god-awful noise??” Jack hissed, blinking back tears of blood.
“I fear our world has become the battlegrounds for ...
2024-10-18 04:00:03 +0000 UTC
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