Daoist Mystery

Bloodsurge 44 - Convalescence

Jing Fei awoke from the ‘therapy’ braindance gasping for breath. She hugged her body protectively, head darting every which way, searching for a threat, for Katsuo’s crazed eyes—

“Easy, there,” said a doctor standing nearby, wearing a labcoat and holding a clipboard, “that was good. You’re doing great,” she said.

“What the hell is going on?” she asked, voice shaky, “Why did I see those things?”

“You mean the episode? Well, i...

Bloodsurge 43 - Tuesday Night Bender Final Part

“Look, man,” I growled, “All my choom was saying was, your girl looks nice. He was buying her a drink. That’s all. And you know what? It’s because she fucking does look nice, you gonk.”

It was even true. Within thirty seconds of walking into dive bar #3, Jin had started chatting up the first sexy-looking thing in sight—a tall, mostly ‘ganic young woman at least five years older than him, with legs that went for miles and long, luxuriant crimson hair so nicely maintained ...

Bloodsurge 42 - Tuesday Night Bender Part 2

In some random back alley that Jin had chosen on a whim, we corpo students did battle.

If I’d been writing an essay, I might have called it an allegory for the entire North American megacorp geopolitical situation. But here and now, all I could think was that if there had ever been a stupider way that Arasaka and Militech had fought, I hadn’t heard of it.

Darius swung his Gorilla Arm fists at me, praying that any of his hits would hit. None of them did. I just kept sl...

Important Announcement

Hey guys! 

Firstly, I want to thank you guys for subbing to my Patreon. Your support means a lot to me and I’m eternally grateful for the appreciation. 

I hope I don’t come off too corporate with this message. Alright, so basically, I’m in a pretty tense period of my life at the moment and I’m afraid I won’t be able to spend as much of my time writing as I would like. This has unfortunately been the case for a few months now, and I suppose now wou...

Infinite Justice 51 (completed chapter)

Mount Justice
September 27th, 21:34 EDT

“Please be a good one, please be a good one, please be a good one,” I repeated over and over as I walked with M’gann to the mission room.

I wasn’t alone in the hope. I was glad to have missed out on Bwunda and the gorillas they had to face there. Northern India had also been a drag, and all it netted us was a superdog that belonged to Connor. I wasn’t even into pets to that extent.

2025-01-16 20:51:02 +0000 UTC View Post

Infinite Justice Chapter 52

Silver spires stretched toward the sky, gleaming in the light and dominating the horizon, their sheer number and height creating a metallic forest that seemed endless. The streets teemed with lizard-like humanoids, their scaled forms glinting in hues of green, bronze, and gold. Many of them were accompanied by grotesque creatures—genetic aberrations with mismatched limbs, oversized jaws, and unblinking eyes. These twisted beings, clearly bred as pets or beasts of burden, shuffled obediently...

Going on a holiday, paused billing for this month.

I'll still write and occasionally post something. I think getting away from everything will spark my creativity and work flow. Hopefully it will. Thank you, and I sincerely apologize for the lack of productivity in the past few months. Having to juggle increasingly intensive academic work and real work while writing hasn't been easy for me, but it's no excuse. I hope I can use this month to regain your faith and also continue doing what I love the most in the world.

Infinite Justice Backlog

This is everything from chapter 26 to an unfinished chapter 51 (as well as an unfinished Interlude titled Family)

Please don't hesitate to share any feedback (especially criticism, what you didn't like, but also what you did like, to help me better myself as a writer, and give you a better product).

Ghostwater Aftermath - Sha Miara (By Coldbringer)

Warning: this chapter contains light spoilers for the conclusion of the Ghostwater arc. Please be aware.

At the heart of the Ninecloud Continent lay an iridescent landscape of high towers and gleaming gemstone spires, a continent-spanning architecture that had long since outgrown what was commonly understood when men referred to a city.

An unbroken, almost unending landscape of civilization.

From sea’s edge to highest mountaintop, from subterranean termite...

Eternal Star 6

Document six is out. I posted it on Discord, but forgot to do so here as well. We're currently in a highly experimental phase, so certain scenes will be rearranged for better coherence, though it's very unlikely that we will delete entire scenes.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/10FH-h2oQYMJ_yqq3dzzcWdOAK0WiQ3Zx4FmOdnQwx4Q/edit

65 - The Ghost of Ghostwater

Sky roared out a litany of unintelligible words, punching the air with a furiously satisfied expression as Ziel hammered Jingye into the ground. All Lindon could feel, in the meanwhile, was horror.

They should run.

He activated the Soul Cloak, and quickly ran up to snatch Dross within the Eye of the Deep vessel that Jingye had stolen away, running away from the titanic fight as Jingye peeled himself up from the ground and met Ziel’s fury with trident and book in hand. 2024-08-01 13:43:46 +0000 UTC View Post

64 - Book of the Blood Sea Ancestor

Good news, I had a technique that could absolutely perforate any of Jingye’s defences. It wasn’t even close just how effective it was. When it could fire.

Bad news, it required almost thirty seconds of agonizingly slow build-up, it was spiritually loud as fuck to the point that you’d have to be an Iron to miss its charge-up from a hundred meters away, and it left my channels feeling fried to a crisp every time I fired it.

Obviously, the play now would have been...

63 - The Trident of the Sea King

Author note: For the new Patreons that may have missed this post, the chapters up to 65 are on a google doc titled Eternal Star 5. This is where I kept the latest backlogged chapter as advertised on the author notes on the main fic. Apologies for any confusion that I may have caused.

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Not for the first time did Jingye of the Great Arctic bloodline wonder if allying with this shifty human was within his best interest.

It usually never was wise to ally with...

62 - The Sacred Orca

The arms of the infernal clock slowly scraped on by, agonizingly laggard millisecond by millisecond. 

Tick. Tock. As Yerin’s inexorable, unavoidable, unstoppable fist came for my face, millimeter by millimeter, I reflected on every bad decision I had made over the past half hour. Tick. Tock. 

No, I wasn’t reflecting on every mistake I had made across my entire life, even if I had the relative time to do all that and more, including the sillier mista...

61 - Leaving The Spirit Well

Twenty two days into our occupation of the Spir

60 - We Don't Talk About Bruno

Dross’ spiritual form felt far brighter in Lindon’s spiritual perception than it had before. The two weeks that Sky had predicted had passed. Now, all that was left for Dross to do in order to continue his development was to devour the Sylvan Dreamseeds.

Sky, Yerin and Mercy stood around a script circle that Sky had etched, penning in a bunch of different Dreamseeds of varying degrees of advancement. Lindon stood opposite to them, Little Blue chiming sadly in his ear. He could tell ...

59 - Lord of the Dawnwing Sect

The days passed like minutes for Orthos. This had been his reality for at least two centuries now. Sometimes, he would blink and wonder where all the days had gone.

It only felt like yesterday that Lindon had been an Iron barely capable of handling Orthos’ power. Now he was almost at Orthos’ own level. 

It had only been a year.

It had felt more like a week. A week where a bunch of children had suddenly infested his life, dragging him along a wild and deadly ride thr...

58 - The Deadly Laser

Mercy missed sleep.

Aunt Charity always said that there was no substitute for true rest, even if you were a Lady capable of going without it for days or weeks at a time.

Still, it wasn’t something that Mercy would allow herself to have. Not while she was training with her newfound friends.

Friends.

The thought warmed her heart as she pulled back her bowstring and loosed the String of Shadows arrow on a distant school of Silverfang Carp swimming above the tab...

57 - Not Alone

Two days passed, and my schedule remained more

56 - Advancement

Ekerinatoth of the Gold Bloodline wore a backpack as she swam through the depths of Ghostwater’s ocean.

The clan hadn’t seen fit to replace her void key, and she knew that it would take a very special achievement on her part to gain a new one. More than likely, it would be Sophara who gave her a replacement. 

Once disgraced, it was extremely difficult to regain one’s former position. Especially if the Monarch himself had laid witness to that disgrace. His own displeasur...

55 - Battle for the Spirit Well

As I tracked the time, Yerin had been gone for

54 - Life Well

Yerin was more bruise than healthy flesh. Lacerations covered her body—but somehow not her robes—and her focus was beginning to waver.

The Sword Sage’s insights had finally been of use to her. Not enough to push her Endless Sword up a stage, but she sensed that she was getting closer and closer to it, to that last bit before she could push to Truegold. What sort of insights would an advancement give her, combined with the Dream Well water? It was that promise that had her fighting...

53 - Spirit Well

Relief filled Lindon’s soul and body as the Spi

52 - Battle Royale

The worst case scenario slapped me in the face

51 - Dream Well

Palutin of the Eastern Wastes rode on the back of his giant rabbit pal, Marigold. She was an enormous specimen, taller than a man even on all fours. She ducked and weaved through the foliage while Palutin clutched a handful of her rust red back-fur, grinning like a loon as the wind whipped him. He looked over his shoulder at his other pal, Dolph, strapped on his back. A wide band of transparent Forged water madra covered his midsection, keeping the rest of him moisturized at all times. Being ...

50 - Ghostwater

By the time Bai Rou and Renfei had finished briefing Lindon and his group on their Ghostwater mission—another frightening reminder of Sky’s prescience—, the door to their private little room opened with a violent kick, and a bright presence blazed in his spiritual perception.

A totally bald-shaven and eyebrow-less Sky walked in, wearing the Skysworn apprentice outer robes—white and green—but not the inner robes, exposing his chest, as well as the enormous scar he...

49 - Highgold

Sky had been deliriously whispering in his sleep for three days straight. His madra churned on its own volition as he breathed a pattern of cycling, taking rasping, slow inhalations. It was a wonder he could still breathe, considering the hole in his chest.

It had healed after Mercy had exhausted her supply of medicine on him, but it had healed… wrong. The twisted divot of a grievous wound turned his chest into the eye of a grotesque vortex of skin and muscle, and out from it...

48 - Things Fall Apart

Chiara kicked my ass six ways from Sunday again. I was shivering by the time I was done with her, though the chill of her techniques did help prevent bruises from forming. Cycling madra took the edge off and eventually, I ended up fully recovering. 

During it all, I had teased out a third technique of hers, which I affectionately dubbed Ice Rink. She would Forge a flat plane of ice on the ground that extended away from her in about a twenty metre radius. 

Needless to say...

47 - Skysworn Tryouts

We went to the hospital to fetch Lindon, squeezing past the crowd once more, which only seemed to have thickened since we were last here.

This time, he wasn’t in his hospital room, but what looked to be a training room. It had handle bars on the side of the room, and long mirrors as well as small weights on a rack elsewhere. Probably a physical therapy room. Near to Lindon, leaned up against the wall, was the Death Scythe, which now had a leather strap on it in the middle, likely for ...

46 - The Bleeding Phoenix

Contrary to his every expectation this last year, things had gone so well for Lindon.

By fighting at roughly half his capacity, he managed to lull Jai Long into a state of underestimation. The Truegold hadn’t immediately gone for his throat, instead aiming for punishing blows, giving Lindon room to activate all the best constructs that he could.

In a pregnant moment of upset, three things had happened to Jai Long almost at the same time. Lindon had opened a wound o...