Malcolm Tent

A Novel Approach chapter 51

End of the RWBY arc

Wish upon the Stars chapter 779

My peaceful flight didn’t last long. While earthbound predators couldn’t catch me, there were a lot of very dangerous aerial monsters around. Flying too high risked catching the attention of the bigger and more powerful beasts, leviathan shapes with wings that surged above me in the dense clouds.

Obviously I avoided those, but staying low kept bringing me into the territory of annoying local small fries that ruled surprisingly well delineated areas along my path. I was attacked by s...

Shout at the Devil chapter 226

Erskine Ravel, aka Hellboy.

Wish upon the Stars chapter 778

Stepping through the door was an odd sensation. My senses, imbued with Impact as they were, and bolstered by my Perception, were always working in some capacity, even if I offset most of the conscious ones with Focus so I wasn’t listening to flies in another hemisphere every second of the day.

So even though I wasn’t actively trying to sense what was going on around me yet, my subconscious lit up with a tide of completely different stimuli over the course of a single step. Humidity,...

Shout at the Devil chapter 225

Breaching Roarhaven

Wish upon the Stars chapter 777

Saying my goodbyes was pretty sad. I’d grown fond of a lot of the people around here. Still, before I left, I made one last executive decision. I passed out a series of scrolls. Ray, Elena, Bella, Vesper, Chester, Desria, and Cavallo. Eight scrolls, my entire work load for the day.

I’d waffled on giving them over, even called Zeke to check what he thought, but in the end, I decided to do it for a few reasons. First, it would be a way for them to get in contact with me later. Second,...

A Novel Approach chapter 50

Fighting the Leviathan grimm

Wish upon the Stars chapter 776

The first thing I did when I finished Sammael was head out into the woods to test it out. First, I started with my strength. It was hard to check out the specs on it without equipment, but the easiest was was to use the trees. Since the older, larger trees were all C-rank, it was tough to put a dent in the damned things, which made them the perfect metric for my field test.

I didn’t use my staff this time, since I needed to verify what I could do. I took up a position in front of a tr...

Shout at the Devil chapter 224

The last Horcrux is destroyed

Wish upon the Stars chapter 775

I fell into my bed with a thump, twitching and groaning. The rebirth had been mostly just more of the same. The Falls had prepared me perfectly, albeit to a MUCH smaller scale. It was agonizing, drawn out, and now that I was finished, I hurt in ways I’d never even conceived of before. It felt like I had a sunburn on the surface of my soul.

Which, with a bit of flexing of my Eye of Revelation, I could see after having detached it in that temple. The experience showed me exactly where t...

A Novel Approach chapter 49

The big bad shows up

Wish upon the Stars chapter 774

The end of the trials marked the end of my time on Rackham, but not exactly how I expected. I’d figured there would be a few days downtime and then I’d be put on a ship to somewhere. I’d also figured that we would be selecting our prizes for our trial points either in private or once we got wherever we were going.

To my surprise, that both did and didn’t happen. After the trial Bernadette had picked me up, and rather than take me to a shuttle or to some selection room, she’d e...

Shout at the Devil chapter 223

Meeting with Roran

Wish upon the Stars chapter 773

The first step up the cliff was a whole new dimension of agony. The trials had me redefining that word every day now, but this was definitely my new benchmark for pain. More than that though, it took me back. I’d come to terms with my loneliness in the temple, but that didn’t magically make all the pain I’d ever been in go away. I still remembered my suffering when I was younger.

My first step brought me back to some of my earliest memories, seeing my dad on one of his rare visits...

Shout at the Devil chapter 222

Discovering how to help Harry.

Wish upon the Stars chapter 772

I waited the extra two days to finally have my friends use their wishes (minus the five emergency scrolls). Seventy two wishes at twenty five points apiece gave me eighteen hundred up front, not to mention a substantial gain of another sixty two hundred or so from the renown of doing as well as I did in the trial.

I put the eighteen hundred into Fantasy, and twelve hundred of the rest joined it, while three of the other five thousand all ended up in Might, and two ended up in Vitality....

A Novel Approach chapter 48

coming up on the end of the RWBY arc

Wish upon the Stars chapter 771

The next five days did NOT go by quickly. They dragged on. And on. And on. My head was splitting from the constant information overload. Dantalion was rough over a long period of time, and the increased Focus didn’t really help so much as make it worse. More processing power meant more data, which meant more to sift through. Using my mask to offset the soul weight and stack multiple parallels was the easiest way to relieve some of the pain.

Along the way, I stockpiled my wishes as usu...

Shout at the Devil chapter 221

War council.

Wish upon the Stars chapter 770

It always amazed me how stratified the Ascendant world was. I’d stolen from a Count, but a wealthy one. He should have been able to hire some C-rankers to send after me, but the custom of separation between ranks was so thoroughly ingrained in Ascendant culture it probably hadn’t even crossed his mind.

The only force I’d run into that used a C-ranker since I arrived was Bad Millie’s criminal organization, and their C-ranker was honestly pretty mediocre.

A Novel Approach chapter 47

Plans change.

Wish upon the Stars chapter 769

After I finished training with Bella, I headed into the Heart and got some sleep. Specifically, I hit the hot tub, and I deeply enjoyed the effects of the soak, especially when I realized Chess had filled the tub with a high end rejuvenation potion of some sort. Even without Archie pumping extra green into me I felt relaxed and completely at peace as I finished my soak and headed to bed, and I woke up completely refreshed.

Sitting up, I looked out the window, noting that the ...

Shout at the Devil chapter 220

Voldemort returns

Wish upon the Stars chapter 768

I had Bernadette drop me at a clearing a few dozen miles away from the Heart, close to a nearby town. I wasn’t willing to lead anyone else to the place, and the trip passed pretty unremarkably. I was exhausted, but not injured. My soul ached a bit, which wasn’t fun, but Archie was able to cleanse me when I got back. Soul poison that wasn’t damaging was pretty much tailor made for Zagan.

After I finished that, I decided to check on my apprentice, who was in a nearby clea...

Shout at the Devil chapter 219

Interrupting the rebirth ceremony. Lots of company.

Wish upon the Stars chapter 767

It took me about three steps to notice the needles. I’d started with momentum to try to ride my early wind to victory, and they were so sharp and fast I barely even noticed them to start. Of course, my first three steps happened in a split second, so once it caught up to me it all hit me at once.

First was the physical pain, the needle was too thin to actually shut down the joint, but every time I moved I could feel it thrumming inside my flesh. It punched right through Mor...

A Novel Approach chapter 46

NSFW mind the tags.

Wish upon the Stars chapter 766

The next morning I woke up feeling strangely exhilarated. I had another trial today, but after almost a week of sifting through random paperwork and nothing else, the pain didn’t seem so overwhelming a prospect. The first thing I did was get my wishes stockpiled and check in on Elena and Simon.

The kid was looking much better today, and Elena beamed at me as I came into the kitchen. “Mephistopheles! Lovely to see you! You’re heading in to the trial today?”

<...

Shout at the Devil chapter 218

The third task begins.

Wish upon the Stars chapter 765

The next four days passed in a blur. Dantalion, parse the info, then repeat. I actually had to start using Beelzebub to speed up my sorting, because after repeated usage, I’d realized Dantalion actually had one crippling weakness. It produced TOO MUCH data. I had reams and reams of paper stacked to the ceiling from the manor, and honestly, about eighty or ninety percent of it was useless.

I had lists of the types of timber used, the exact dimension of the beams, the variati...