A/N:
Changed Reina’s gift:
“Reina’s treasure was the strangest. It was a treasure that came in a comet just as bright as Zane’s, which got them curious—and sure enough, it turned out to be an Earth A+-rank. It was something called a ‘Great Sage Seed’—in 30 days, it would bloom into an S-rank treasure called the ’Great Sage Fruit.’ Which was supposed to help Law comprehension a great deal. It was shiny enough.
Only…it d...
2024-06-26 01:30:01 +0000 UTC
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Level up!
Level up!
Level up!
Level up!
Essence Level 255 -> 259
So much essence rushed into Zane at once he felt his Core flexing, expanding with his new capacity. It was a rare thing to feel it—it spoke to how much he’d gained.
He would need every bit he could get.
It was bigger. But still mostly drained. It would’ve been n...
2024-06-25 01:30:01 +0000 UTC
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The super-tornado was picking up speed. And as it moved, it shook the world. Wrestling streams of souls straight out of the ground. Curving the flows of the very atmosphere, sinking sooty clouds, making all the other fiery tornadoes tilt toward it, falling in helpless, erupting in columns of shocking light. Swallowed up by greater fire.
And it burned ever brighter.
The Monster horde stood still. Mesmerized almost by the sight of it.
Then the ground began to rumble. Began to ...
2024-06-24 01:00:04 +0000 UTC
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Lan clenched his teeth. "It's been taken care of."
"How so?" said the Ancestor.
"Ideally she'll die in the dungeon," said Lan. "That remains the most likely possibility. If not I'll simply subdue her—just as I did the last Mistress. Plans have already been set in motion.”
“You're confident in this?"
"Of course." Lan was sure not to hesitate. "There is only one rather large obstacle to eliminate for either to occur. The rest is relatively simple.”
2024-06-23 01:00:03 +0000 UTC
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The staircase spanned half the room. It led into a gloom of bruised purples and swirling blacks. Crackling streamed from deep within, the sounds of eager fire. Cavernous groanings. A relentless heat pounded from inside. There was a smell of brimstone, of charring meat. Ghostly shrieks wafted out, as though slowly tortured…
Reina did not like it one bit. Avery squinted at it. Evan maintained a positive attitude. Zane, meanwhile, was still eager. That fight was good—but it still hadn...
2024-06-22 01:00:03 +0000 UTC
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CLANG-CLANG!
Chain Combustion rocked the air, stringing up blast after blast—laying waste to the shell below. Chunks of heavy steels spewed off the thing, lit up Stormfire blue, little meteor showers racing into the gloom...
The light cleared. Showing gaping craters. Fissures snaking through that smoking slab.
But it held together.
Zane blinked.
That was a little surprising.
It seemed all that stuff—that Law, that essence, that big heft o...
2024-06-21 01:00:04 +0000 UTC
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Sorry folks!
You may have noticed I haven’t been doing as many bonus chapters lately—that’s for the simple reason that they were burning me out pretty quickly. Wish I could keep up the pace, but it is what it is.
Daily chapters are sustainable for me---have been doing them for two years now--but occasionally I seem to get hit by a truck.
Sometimes it’s life getting in the way, like graduation or sickness. Rarer times, like today, my brain is just not cooperatin...
2024-06-20 01:49:11 +0000 UTC
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It wasn't just steel in there, though that was most of it. When they pocketed all the good stuff—enough to fill seven Interspatial Rings—they found stashes of essence treasure left behind too, packed up in crates.
Mostly vials of essence, C- and D-grade. Those he gave to Evan, Reina, and Avery—it would do a lot more for them. And Zane wasn't sure he could ingest anything else today anyway.
After they went through them all, Reina and Avery got into the high Levels 230s,...
2024-06-19 02:22:39 +0000 UTC
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Just up the stairs—
You have entered: Section 3-2
Hall of the Ancients
They stood right outside the door of it—two pale walls. Giving away nothing. You couldn't see much beyond either.
The Mini-Map showed a void beyond. Like its sight was blocked.
Avery marched up to it and squinted at it for a bit.
"Uhh," she said after a little while. "Yeah—that thing's packed full of Monsters. And they defi...
2024-06-18 00:56:14 +0000 UTC
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A/N:
Inserted some upgrades for Bastion Bone last chapter!
//
Avery wondered what they were even doing here. She thought maybe Integration was a way of conscripting tons and tons of people to help 'muck out' the prison. Like a Universe draft. Reina considered it and felt there was a decent chance of it.
They got to talking about what they’d do after this was all over. Avery had pretty much lived out of a skate park before the Change, bumm...
2024-06-17 00:36:15 +0000 UTC
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A/N:
Changed Super Savage Body -> Asura Body!
//
There was a thick splotch of yellow on the mini-map on the other side of the island. It was a field of glowing soft-blue essence when they arrived, the colors of the wards. The System colors.
They set foot in the region and a notification popped up.
System has detected Internal Tampering
Participants have been subjected to unfair challenges
2024-06-16 00:32:26 +0000 UTC
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Excited to announce Book 2's up on Amazon! It's been professionally edited and covers everything from the start of VGI up until just before the opening of the Superdungeon/the Minotaur fight. If you're up for it, a rating to support the launch is much appreciated!
Regularly scheduled chapter will come out later today, as usual.
//
Zane's become a regional powerhouse. Now he’ll see how he stacks up against the best in the world.
He’s off to an elit...
2024-06-15 15:57:24 +0000 UTC
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His Chains dropped heavy to the ground. Bare. Stretching on and on behind him. His thick breaths fogged the air. His heart hammered hot in his chest.
It would have to be a sprint from start to finish. With how much he had left… he had just one go at this.
He burned the last of his Bloodline. The last of his essence. When he roared, a flickering gray Titan-Rhino roared with him. His body ran so hot he felt like it might melt at any moment—
He stomped. And dashed for...
2024-06-14 23:57:26 +0000 UTC
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A/N:
Retconned out a line — Avery can't cast an entire army of simulacra
//
Everything whited out. Went to static. Raw energy swallowing physical, releasing their shapes…
Slowly colors filtered back. Sound trickled into the ruins…
Level up!
Level up!
Essence Level 247 -> 249
Skill up!
Stormfire Smash III -> IV
2024-06-14 00:23:55 +0000 UTC
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A/N:
Retconned out a line--Avery can't cast an army of simulacra, too much
//
They got within a few dozen feet of the beach when Avery let out a yelp.
“Hey wait!” She ran up, grabbed the back of Zane’s shirt, tried to drag him to a halt, heaving with all her strength.
Zane did not feel this. He took another step. She yelped again and face-planted.
“Oww…”
He stopped, blinked back at her as she sat there, rubbin...
2024-06-13 00:23:44 +0000 UTC
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The world erupted in frost. Thick patches of it raced across the waters, crackled across the air, gathering on nothing. Fat air bubbles rumbled up from below.
A Monster erupted. Broke the surface, howling a ghastly battle cry.
It was what Zane had seen earlier. A long coiling shape. A chunky serpent body with a wormlike head. It seethed clouds of frost. And as it towered over them, rising farther and farther, it dripped a smoking white slime all over the decks, a ghostly ect...
2024-06-12 01:13:43 +0000 UTC
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To get to the final section—and to the second floor after that—they first needed to get past the Lake. And all the mists swirling all over it.
It went maybe a few dozen miles, Avery concluded, after squinting at it and running around a bit and squinting some more. A clutch of bridges linked one end to another, with a fat leafy island in the middle. Pretty simple.
The bridges themselves were almost unreasonably thick. Good quality spirit steel. Little rust to them—thoug...
2024-06-11 01:27:17 +0000 UTC
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A/N: No chapter 6/8! Will be back 6/9
//
Val Arandor met his father in the Evergreen Grove, situated on the highest bough of the World Tree. The floors were thick wood branches, clustered tight. The ceilings a spray of silver and lush green. Sunlight streamed through in clean shafts. Light birdsong warbled throughout.
It was a cheery scene. But Lan Arandor seemed anything but.
“Father!” said Val, grinning as he strode in. “Why the glum face...
2024-06-08 02:02:34 +0000 UTC
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Zane drank. And beads of Bloodline trickled down his throat one by one.
They slid through—scaldingly hot, startlingly dense, impossibly heavy for something so small. Something between liquid and solid. Teeming with godly power.
It drops slowly through his mouth, his throat, his belly… landed. And made its presence known.
BOOM.
The essence unloaded into him—he felt the rush of it as it swept into his Core, that furnace inside him always chur...
2024-06-07 01:48:00 +0000 UTC
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Skill unlocked!
Titan Rhinoceros Bloodline Manifestation
Burning Bloodline calls the souls of the ancients to the wielder’s aid. When the wielder fights, their lineage fights with them. Sharply boosting Bloodline powers for a short duration. Scales with Bloodline amount.
Zane felt it instantly even without moving. His body felt strangely light, hundreds of tons of steel going weightless at once. Each muscle fiber, each str...
2024-06-06 01:23:49 +0000 UTC
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Evan was padding up a few dozen paces behind Zane, picking off the Imps whizzing above.
The heavy-duty stuff was all up to Zane.
He remembered the last time he found these Wardens. They had ambushed, cornered him and his friends—he had to throw himself at them. Right in the midst of them. And all those fists crashed down on him…
He frowned.
He had fought like a cornered beast back then. Let himself go wild. It was how he could unleash the most damage. B...
2024-06-05 01:11:57 +0000 UTC
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“Let me take them,” said Zane. He felt as confident as he’d ever been. Reina put a hand on him, looked to him, a little hesitant, just thinking.
Then—“Alright.” She nodded.
He wanted to just charge up. Rush in, and show them the powers in his hands. That was his most basic instinct, at least.
But he wasn't sure what lay deeper inside—there was a whole horde of fatter red dots in there, out of sight… He looked to Reina. He could tell she had something in mind....
2024-06-04 01:24:22 +0000 UTC
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Been a while since I did one of these...
This is installation #3 of the Monthly Q&A series! Here’s your chance to ask questions about the story, or to give any feedback you might have. Questions patrons have asked before include "Is there a pinnacle law at the top of the law pyramid?" or "does Zane eventually get some kind of spirit beast pet?" or "How many chapters do you think this book will take?"
I'll come back to this post tomorrow and answer as best I can without spoil...
2024-06-03 03:25:17 +0000 UTC
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There was a statue of a Dwarf God up front. With a beard so long you could hardly see his face. Or body. One long knotty beard with gleaming rings and coins woven through it—they looked expensive, all precious metal. And they were scaled up to size too. Zane wondered why the things dwarves built were so big when they were so small.
Anyway.
Right behind that statue lay the site of the treasure. A well. It was made of a polished, deep-black stone, the kind that sucked in lig...
2024-06-03 01:52:52 +0000 UTC
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A silence. It stretched on and on. The Scout kept watching the High Priest's expression, but it betrayed nothing. Like staring at a cliff face.
“…Your holiness?” said the Scout nervously.
“How many know about this?” said Lan Arandor sharply.
At this point, the Scout had the sinking feeling he might be in some trouble.
“Just the Scouting department…” he blurted.
Lan’s gaze sharpened. He went quiet again, thinking.
Another interm...
2024-06-02 02:53:33 +0000 UTC
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Everyone knew Zane Walker could take a hell of a punch. Reporters had been saying since his fight with Eze—you had to kill him. And even then, he wouldn’t stay down.
Still—Reina couldn’t help but let out a gasp when he got hit. Four times, one after another.
Two sledgehammers clocked him in the face—each with enough force to annihilate any living creature on Earth.
A third caved in his belly. A fourth, his back. The sounds—those brutal crunches—were sicke...
2024-06-01 01:13:17 +0000 UTC
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KILL ZANE WALKER.
When Zane felt this it came as a relief, weirdly.
He had been a little tense this whole time. When he saw the creatures start rounding on him, the first thing he started thinking about how he would handle them all at once. If eight of them went for him, but two went for Reina and Avery and Evan… his heart sank. He wasn't sure he could wade through all that.
But now he knew they were just coming for him. Just him.
He had ...
2024-05-31 01:32:05 +0000 UTC
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Zane smashed. And this time the tunnel shook.
Cracks rushed up the wall, spread partway up the ceiling, shaking loose big gouts of dust.
It was so simple. So nice. That feeling of his fist breaking stone, of all that dense matter shivering, then cracking, then giving way all at once…
He wound back again, and this time he put some Stormfire into it. Then unleashed.
It was like setting off several tons of TNT underground. BOOM-BOOM-BOOM!
<...
2024-05-30 01:13:56 +0000 UTC
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This process was playing out on other planets too.
The Thousand Seas tribe was another one of the Nine Great Factions. Most of its planets were, appropriately, dominated by seas, with little islands peppered here and there. Some of their planets were little more than big globes of water. Massive cities floated atop them, built over on massive rafts. Some sat on ships the size of continents. Moving cities that could lift off of one planet, sail across the vast expanse of space to another...
2024-05-29 00:42:11 +0000 UTC
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A/N:
Spending some more time outlining + brainstorming to make sure I get the Superdungeon arc right, so just a heads up--no chapter on 5/27! Will resume 5/28
//
Three days until the opening of the First Gate
Observatory
Azure Flame Faction
Scout Haelin took a drag of pipe. He sat on a pale hunk of stone just outside the Observatory proper, thinking about what was to co...
2024-05-26 22:58:55 +0000 UTC
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