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Chapter 70. The Battle of Jade Dragon City (III)

The demons’ march was a natural disaster. They rolled down the winding mountain paths, toppling trees, torching the plains, scaring clouds of crows and ravens and rocs to flight, whipping up stampedes of stags and boars, bears, sending the lesser serpents rustling through the underbrush. The ground they passed was leveled, pocked with craters, heaped high with ash and crushed bone; thigh-bones and skull-bones of all sizes, some still flecked with charred meat, lay strewn carelessly about. L...

Twinned Destinies 69. Battle of Jade Dragon City (II)

It felt like half the City was in the Guard. The other half was shut up behind windows pasted over with steel plate, or wood boards, or stuffed high with stones and sealed with bits of wastepaper—whatever they could find. It wouldn’t stop a volley of demon Hellfire, but then again very little in the Lower City could. Ruyi hoped it made them feel safe, at least.

The streets were empty. There weren’t even Guards anymore—some were stacked on the walls or on watchtowers, but the bul...

Chapter 68. The Battle of Jade Dragon City (I)

It was afternoon, and the sun looked to Chen Qin like one shiny bronze coin falling slowly out of the sky. It cast the training field in red, gave the sweaty tunics and sweaty hair-buns and sweaty trousers a bloodied look. But none of these folk had faced true battle—unless you counted whatever street scrapping they’d done before joining the Guard, and Chen didn’t.

He smiled as he addressed them, though they stank of salted fish, a stink which only got worse the sweatier they got....

Twinned Destinies 67. Headquarters (VI)

Ruyi found herself sitting there awkwardly, with nothing to do. So she fetched one of the yearly Alchemy reviews off a nearby bookshelf and pretended to browse it, even though she’d already read it and had it memorized, and honestly far preferred reading it in her head to reading it on the page; she could flip through it so much faster. And pages got messy. And she could just annotate in her head, anytime she liked, no need to haul around pens and clips and whatever else. Things were messy,...

Twinned Destinies Chapter 66. Headquarters (V)

If her absence from the dinner in her honor that night caused any problems, Mother didn’t mention it. It was late when Mother visited, nearly midnight, and Ruyi was alright by then, still a little red-eyed, mostly just angry at herself and sad. She was angry for letting what he said matter to her. She was sad because she knew by now she couldn’t help it. It was always the case with her; once she loved someone it was very hard to unlove them.

When she was small she was too dumb to kn...

Twinned Destinies Chapter 65. Headquarters (IV)

It was still dark when she woke. She fumbled her way off the bed, threw open the closet, realized she couldn’t see anything, flickered on the qi lamp on her nightstand. It was a simple enough room, sparsely populated, but everything from the sofa to the bed looked expensive in an understated way. The air was cool and clear, though she still felt the wetness of it on her skin. Outside she heard the murmuring of water.

They’d given her robes, expensive-looking light blue ones. How nic...

Twinned Destinies Chapter 64. Headquarters (III)

The fog parted like curtains on a stage, and Ruyi’s breath caught in her throat.

They stood on the banks of a lake. It had to be a lake, since there were no oceans this deep in the province, but it could’ve fooled her—it stretched on and on with seemingly no end, fading into the murky white distance. It wasn’t very deep; the water went up to maybe her hip. Its surface was like one great slab of glass, clear down to its bottom. Clumps of eelgrasses waved gently at the bottom, sil...

Twinned Destinies Chapter 63. Headquarters (II)

It looked like any other carriage on the inside. No wings or engines or anything. All that was different was they had dispensers with paper bags built into the walls, and these steel handlebars jutting out of the ceiling. Ruyi wasn’t sure what they were for until the carriage jolted into motion and she went facefirst into the seats on the other side.

She picked herself up, not really hurt, just embarrassed, and quite glad nobody else was in the carriage with her. Her stomach jumped an...

Twinned Destinies 62. Headquarters (I)

Factory 17 was a giant steel box. Four sheets of metal with chunks ripped out for windows, plus a sheet to seal up the ceiling, welded together overnight, with a rash of chimneys dotting the top. Like its sixteen siblings it’d been thrown up in a flash—they’d burned down an abandoned building near the seaward edge of the Lower City, swept away the ashes, and up the Factory came.

When Ruyi swept through the gaping warehouse doors the guards posted there saluted her. They pretended ...

Twinned Destinies 61. Invasion (IV)

Ruyi waited until the third knock to answer the door.

Tingting must’ve known she’d be here. She still looked stunned. For a moment they just stared, taking each other in.

Tingting wore a white hanfu tinged blue at the edges, loose at the wrists and ankles, tied snug around her slim waist with a thin gold sash. It left bare her shoulders and her neck and the curve of her collarbones, and her skin was flushed from the cold. She was really, really pretty.

“Hi,”...

Twinned Destinies 60. Invasion (III)

They faced off, she in Demonform, circling, growling, licking her lips, and him grinning back at her, keeping the tip of his spear between them.

“I can’t get over how big you are,” he muttered.

She opened her mouth to make a crude joke but all that came out was a growl. When she fought Mother she felt like fighting a mountain; she had no clue how she could beat her, she didn’t even know where to start. It wasn’t a size thing, it was a matter of presence. Resistance seeme...

Twinned Destinies 59. Invasion (II)

The next day Ruyi got a letter with a royal seal. The paper smelled of Tingting. For a moment she let herself hope.

Then she read the letter.

It was short. It apologized for ‘the unfortunate incident that happened yesterday,’ due to a ‘lapse of judgment.’ It claimed Tingting embarrassed herself, and asked Ruyi to pretend it never happened.

It ended by saying she’d ‘ferry your proposal to Father.’

That morning a gardener was watering the blossoms when he w...

Twinned Destinies 58. Invasion (I)

The Blood Showers, as the Post had taken to calling them, didn’t stop. Mother’s stay at the Li Clan was extended from a week, to weeks, to months. The Li Clan simply didn’t have members to cover all of Dragonspire Province. Some Shards, nestled in some remote region of the Mountains, worsened to infestations; Mother described how one had landed in a nest of Thunder Eagles. That had led to the birth of a fleet of Feral demons, with a Core leader; she’d had to go put that one d...

Twinned Destinies 57. Changing the World (V)

A/N: for last chapter, edited her internal thoughts as she hesitates + other small fixes.

slightly changed the moment when she stands over Chen and has her realization-- ty for your suggestions!

didn’t change anything too major, mostly cuts

//

They didn’t bother following her, but she kept running anyways. She couldn’t seem to stop. The trees blurred past; she didn’t know where she was going, she just felt she had to get away.

The grounds...

Twinned Destinies Chapter 56. Changing the World (IV)

She burst out onto the main road. She didn’t risk demonforming—she didn’t need to. She was still so fast she nearly kept pace with the stars as they fell. She tracked them until they vanished over the treeline. They peeked between the crisscrossing branches, winking at her, daring her.

She chased them up the trees, leaping branch to branch, keeping them in sight until they went over the city wall.

But they wouldn’t escape her that easy. She crouched, heaved in a breath, an...

Twinned Destinies 55. Changing The World (III)

She felt a prickling at the back of her neck. The hair on her skin stood up. Her arm felt like it was burning as Mother spirited her back to the manor.

She saw why. The eyes were coming to her. A scattering drifting over the faint outline of the Middle Wall, strangely silent, trailing wisps of red. Her blood boiled hotter.

“What’s going on?” she murmured.

“I don’t know,” said Mother. “But until I find out, you’re staying where I can see you.”

Twinned Destinies 54. Changing the World (II)

After the fall of the Cult, splinter groups popped up in the Lower City. Some were like that brat Tai Kong’s, the Red Scarf Knights, a bunch of miscreant hooligan boys who got together, drank, trained Martial Arts, and nursed fantasies of overthrowing the world order.

Then there was the People’s Army, a more respectable effort in Ruyi’s humble opinion, and with a larger membership—a group of peaceful protesters who were fighting for seats on the Emperor’s council. The dukes ea...

Twinned Destinies 53. Changing the World (I)

Ruyi lunged. Eyes glowing red, mouth frothing mist, claws trailing long lines of frost. She descended upon Mother like a tumbling avalanche.

But her claws caught only voidsand, a small tundra crackling into being where they’d sunk in.

She whirled, snarling—

CRACK!

She went over yowling.

“That’s enough,” said Mother.

Ruyi clutched at her nose, eyes stinging with tears. The same nose Mother had thwacked for the ninth time in a row.

It...

Twinned Destinies 52. Honorary (II)

“I came to say congratulations,” said Tingting.

“Ah,” said Ruyi, and she smiled. It was a trick she’d picked up from Jin. She could be melting inside but she still made her face make the shapes, pulled up the muscles of the upper cheeks, tightened the muscles around her eyes to make the little crinkles, the ones that gave all smiles a glimmer of truth. She’d practiced in front of a mirror for hours until she could get it just right.

For too long her feelings were writt...

Twinned Destinies 51: Honorary

2 years later…

Yuyu Zhu staked out her spot in the upper decks of the auditorium three hours before the awards ceremony began.

It was the finale of the Rising Phoenix Conference, the annual three-day extravaganza the Alchemist’s Guild put on. Alchemists from all over the Dynasty pooled to share their findings, mingle in cocktail banquets, and vote on matters of import. It all led up to the most important event of all—the Rising Phoenix Award, given out to th...

Twinned Destinies 50. Training With Mother (II)

Mother cleared out one of the basement libraries and bolted nethersteel pads to the walls and the grounds. It was to be a training room, just for Ruyi. It was modeled after what they used for the Emperor’s highest-security dungeons; it was built to withstand the stress of a Demon King.

Here Ruyi could throw around demon essence as she wished. In preparation for their normal practice she started demonforming.

The second time was almost as hard as the first. When Mother found her ...

Twinned Destinies 49. Training With Mother

The sliding bamboo doors which framed the courtyard were qi-proofed with the highest grade arrays. They had to be, to withstand the training Mother and Jin often did here. The courtyard itself was mostly a voidsand pit the size of a small park, with training dummies, targets, sandbags, and weaponry stacked on racks to either side.

Ruyi stood barefoot, facing Mother, on the voidsand. Voidsand was extremely energy-absorptive and heavy to boot; it even took in all light. It was a sea of no...

Twinned Destinies 48. Aftermath (III)

The world seemed unreal. The colors, how bright they were, the stunning green of the fluttering grasses, a little green ocean swirling with the winds—they’d stuck her in some dungeon near the servants’ quarters, she realized, somewhere she hadn’t known existed. She followed Mother on the long trek back, the shadows of the pines flickering over them. Mother seemed like she wanted to say something; she kept looking over, then looking away; she didn’t seem to know what to say. Ruyi had...

Twinned Destinies 47. Aftermath (II)

A day later, Jin brought her dinner. Raw fish and blood broth. She didn’t touch it.

He didn’t leave, either. He sat there watching her for a little while, like he was observing some feral animal. She ignored him.

“Mother and I had a talk,” he said. “I think… I think I understand better now.”

He was silent, expecting her to say something, but she gave him nothing.

He struggled on awkwardly. “I shouldn’t have blamed you for dealing with the cult. Just l...

Twinned Destinies 46. Aftermath

A/N:

To those who gave feedback the first chapter of the new thing, thank you! Following y'alls feedback I'll be banking a few chapters before I release them here. May be extensively revising, may be trying another premise; not sure yet. Think I'll spend Sundays as tinkering days. I won't put anything up here unless I've got 10k words or so ready to go.

It'll be a tropey litRPG, so I don't expect it to appeal to most of Twinned's target audience--when you see it c...

Solo System Cultivation Chapter 1 (Test)

A/N:

This is meant to be a lighthearted popcorn-y story, working title: Solo System Cultivation

It'll be fairly tropey.

May be throwing these up 1/week on Sundays, maybe twice a week once the Twinned backlog gets beefy enough

Please enjoy this (temporary) Chapter 1!

Basic Concept: MC is the only one with a system in a vast xianxia world, goes around exploring, leveling skills and power thru his System cheat, and hopefully making ...

Twinned Destinies 45. Sacrifice (IV)

With each stroke a body fell. Her arm did not stop moving, and when she solved a demon it ceased moving—not so much as a twitch as it returned to the soil. It was clear where the Butcher was heading.

“Here she comes…” breathed Cassius. “Ready?”

“Cassius,” said Dricus, swallowing. Cassius could smell his fear as it leaked from him, the gross salty tang of his sweat trickling down his ears. “Perhaps… perhaps we ought to listen to the Lord. He knows.”

“H...

Twinned Destinies 44. Sacrifice (III)

A/N: think I will try devoting Sundays to doing 1x a week of a more conventional popcorn litRPG cultivation story and try a 6x Twinned, 1x other thing schedule. Or possibly a 5x Twinned 2x other thing (weekdays/weekends split) once I get Twinned's Dragon Tier backlog up to ~25 chapters

Working (generic) title: Solo System Cultivation

Basic premise is MC is the only one with a system in a cultivation world--the 'system' is really an AI chip powered by the Dao of Fa...

Twinned Destinies 43. Sacrifice (II)

She drank, and her soul sang.

The world was made of brighter, bolder colors. Her body felt light, floating, and her chest throbbed with warmth.

Then she felt four white-hot points sink into her side.

Enraged, she let loose the carcass, spun, slashed, but her enemy spun with her—a giant serpent-demon, she saw now. She slammed over on her side but she only drove its fangs in deeper; she yowled. She couldn’t shrug it off but she had it crushed against the ground. She struck...

Twinned Destinies 42. Sacrifice

She was drowning, but drowning had an end.

Her mind had cracked wide open. Feelings ran through her like water through a sieve, fierce and white hot.

She was slipping. She clung on as best she could. Her body wouldn’t listen. Nothing listened—only she did, and she heard a high ringing note of pain, echoing, echoing. She couldn’t remember who she was. She couldn’t remember very much of anything. She wasn’t thinking, just biting down. The white-haired lady was her enemy. R...