Ignyres's hand, which had long fingers and flames crackling along its shape, stayed still between Oscar and the Ancient of Fire, the open palm beckoning Oscar to grasp it in a formal welcome. Magma seeped from the volcanoes on Igynres's shoulders. His flames swelled as his strange orbs, the Ancient's eyes, shone brighter like three suns. The idea of rejecting the Ancient of Fire's proposal frightened Oscar, but he slowly clenched his hands and met Ignyres's gaze.
Strangely calm, he aske...
2023-11-25 04:20:35 +0000 UTC
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Oscar assaulted the barrier, all manners of his techniques and spells barraging the dense film of transparent Ein. Erden and Demon joined their attacks, surrounding the font of flowing Ein. Nothing worked. The barrier seemed impervious, nigh impregnable. Desperate, he clung to it, digging his fingers until the nails cracked and bled down his knuckles. Metal screeched as his Golden Drill spun fiercely, scraps of gold peeling off until his artificial arm touched the barrier.
"Don't waste ...
2023-11-24 05:04:27 +0000 UTC
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A few minutes prior.
Oscar's shield blocked most of Aiden's deadly strikes, leaving a few clean, burned cuts on the outlines of his body. For the briefest of moments, he swerved his body, adjusted the position of his limbs, and minimized his exposed areas to dodge the excess of the slashes. But Aiden's swords were unrelenting, and his best efforts still amounted to numerous cuts and burns scattered around his figure. At least the damage was minimal. He had the means to keep fighting.
2023-11-23 01:41:45 +0000 UTC
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Bright wisps of dense fire flared on the many ends of Erden's branched antlers. Like the ripe fruits of a tree, they fell and gathered in the center between the antlers and surged out in radiant solar flames. His opponent, who introduced himself as Borinn, neighed loudly, puffing up his broad chest and kicking his front legs in the air. The two horns of the Equsimus shone, dyeing the red glow of the air away into white. Flames arced and coiled along the spiraling structure of the ivory horns....
2023-11-22 05:53:22 +0000 UTC
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Rosett gripped her hammer and crushed the head of a flame elemental, resisting the searing flames that threatened to burn the skin off her flesh. The living flame staggered for a moment before the flames from its neck burned upward, shaping back into a head. Its regeneration was incredible. Never before had she faced an unrelenting creature such as this one. It retaliated, roaring a wave of fire blazing from its mouth like a dragon's breath.
"This damned flame!" She grimaced. Her heart ...
2023-11-20 23:10:55 +0000 UTC
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'How far does this tunnel go?' Oscar blinked under the cover of his Ein Shroud. A simple layer of Ein protected him from nature's consuming fire. Warily, he looked around, finding no signs of the intruders, the cavern's walls smooth as if something had dug cleanly through. There was no spot or area for an enemy to hide and ambush them, but Oscar remained vigilant, knowing this place was the perfect kill spot to disrupt one's concentration, break their Ein Shroud, and let them drown i...
2023-11-18 16:41:02 +0000 UTC
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The ground turned black, charred by the scalding smoke pluming from the cracks that spread along the bulging hills that stood where there were none before. Magma erupted, imploding the hills into calderas of deep red lakes, and rained down hellfire onto the land. Next to Oscar, Susan acted fast and sent forth a tide of water, aided by the other water users, extinguishing the falling flames. He swooped in with Emily and the other heavy hitters, destroying the smoldering chunks of land before t...
2023-11-17 05:15:29 +0000 UTC
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On the balcony, Oscar decided to remain and gazed out from the edge, gripping the stone ledge. When the two suns poked their smooth, radiant heads over where the lands met the sky, surrounded by streams of clouds, the ground trembled, the rivers shook, and an immense amount of Ein burst out into great auroras. A great shadow rose, the sunlight blocked by its tall reaches, barely hopping over the top in thin arcs of weak light. Oscar stepped back and held his breath, speechless at the legend t...
2023-11-16 01:49:18 +0000 UTC
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Decades ago, before the opening of Ashen Grove and the war, when the four empires still had some relations with each other, the Pavilion welcomed its new students, the generation that eventually grew up to become the pillars of the Blue Ocean Pavilion. Rosett Evergold, the proud daughter of the Evergold Family, entered the Pavilion with the highest expectations. Her looks enthralled the gazes of many boys, becoming the first love in most of their hearts, but she scoffed at their advances and ...
2023-11-15 03:44:19 +0000 UTC
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Passing through the soot-ridden halls of the foundry, Oscar marveled at how everything could fit inside the Excrusier, though it shouldn't be much of a surprise. The Excruiser was a small floating city capable of housing hundreds of thousands of troops, far surpassing the likes of the highest fortress-class airships. This foundry was but a small part. Gol-4 once described his insane idea, which never came onto paper even for the genius, remaining as a figment of his imagination, to lift an en...
2023-11-12 22:14:22 +0000 UTC
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Second by second, minute by minute, the time ticked down. The armies came in droves, surpassing his paltry numbers like a tide crashing onto the sandy shore. Fatigue wracked his weary body as his muscles groaned in exhaustion. Oscar focused entirely on the enemy before him, casting aside the ever-increasing numbness of his failing stamina. The damage he suffered from fighting the three-headed hybrid had healed. However, from the depths of his bones, a faint, dull pain pulsed, coming straight ...
2023-11-12 01:03:17 +0000 UTC
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Oscar returned to the survivors in silence, some slowly backing away from the terrifying presence that contained all of his anger, sorrow, and hatred. Behind the helmet, tears still flowed without pause, dripping from the edges of the dark metal onto his shirt. No one, not even Fred and Emily, his two closest friends, approached him, looking worried yet hesitant to move. He said nothing to them and mounted Erden, leaving without a word.
The rest followed in silent compliance. Oscar led ...
2023-11-11 02:50:42 +0000 UTC
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When was the last time he had a moment of peace? The past few days in the wastelands of Orbis felt like several years had gone by. The embers from the firepit rose and mingled with the stars above, flickering until vanishing into the night. A clear starry sky welcomed his gaze, but he turned away, twisting a branch into half and tossing the pieces to fuel the fires. A low sigh escaped his cracked lips. He leaned his head against a stone and watched the two children, Renn and Gloria, fast asle...
2023-11-10 05:26:22 +0000 UTC
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Putting on his helmet, Oscar watched the flames burning behind him, slowly but surely reducing any traces of the foul beings that lurked within into nothing more, forever to stay as a memory. Seeing his work done, he flew up the shaft and destroyed the cellar door, returning to the basement. For good measure, his Shattering Wave destroyed the entrance and sent down a rush of rubble to fill in the shaft. It was done. Now, his attention turned to the outside world.
What had become of the ...
2023-11-09 00:11:53 +0000 UTC
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Sirsi tapped certain spots on the door, Ein glowing on her fingers, and a loud click of a latch loosening sounded out once she removed her hand. A series of other clicks and metal-grinding noises reverberated from the door, and it smoothly opened, retreating into the walls to create an open passage inside. A sudden bright light flickered from within. Sirsi dusted off her fingers with a blow from her lips and leaped inside, Oscar sprinting not to let her out of his sight, ever careful of her s...
2023-11-07 03:08:34 +0000 UTC
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The moment their smiles stretched from end to end, they opened their mouths, gaping wide to an unsettling oval shape. The frog's head puckered its lips, and Oscar dodged the incoming attack, a long green tongue, about as thick as his arm, stuck into the ground. The tongue wriggled and rolled back into the frog's mouth, which croaked loudly and shot out again, this time at Sirsi. The saliva-ridden tongue stuck out and pulled back so fast that Oscar thought the frog had a hundred tongues shooti...
2023-11-05 22:37:30 +0000 UTC
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What were they? Oscar's eyes slowly widened, and he sent out a flare, engulfing them in bright flames that drove away the darkness and lit up the corridor. Part of him wished he had never come here. The foul creatures seemed undisturbed by the fires, steam hissing from the drool leaking out of their mouths. The heads looked like an odd fusion of a wolf and a human. One ear was a human's ear, whilst the other was long and furred like a wolf's. Fangs extended from their lips, but rows of human-...
2023-11-05 19:58:33 +0000 UTC
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"Not me, and not the Voltens. This horde has nothing to do with Reis. My hands are clean of it." Sirsi shrugged. "The New Dawn has other areas of interest besides Reis for the sake of creating stronger and better humans."
"Fusing elements into people?" Oscar recalled the young Quinn from the Burning Valley, an elemental human created from ash and dirt.
"Oh? You know about it?" Sirsi eyed him. "Elements is one route that is researched. The cause of all of the mayhem yesterday is th...
2023-11-04 18:38:30 +0000 UTC
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Amid the crackles of lightning and the sea of beasts above, Oscar floated silently, ever careful of his surroundings, relying on Erden's extra vision and senses to make out the way. The fresh scent of blood came from the carcasses of beasts strung along the path west, painting a red carpet on the rubble for him to follow. Despite having fifty percent of his power, Demon had no issues culling down all the beasts without a single peep or sound alerting the hordes above.
He wondered how fa...
2023-11-03 04:26:02 +0000 UTC
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"What happened?" Oscar blinked. The hectic storms, the bloody massacre of beasts and humans, and the fleets were gone, replaced by darkness. Everything was deathly still as the air choked him, a stifling mess of dust and dirt exiting his pained lungs in dry coughs. Soon, the pain spread over his body, or rather, he had begun to regain his senses, starting with his touch. It was like someone had driven a hammer to pound on all of his bones, the most unpleasant of lingering agony that refused t...
2023-11-02 03:53:16 +0000 UTC
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What was it? Oscar stayed put in the mess of the battle, peering beyond the scope of his tiny section of the battlefield to the others. Behind him, his soldiers acted fast and shouted to protect him, rushing past him and throwing their bodies and spells against the enemy. It was the same as usual, the same skirmishes that came in wave after wave, the enemy's strategy ineffective like tides on a cliff. His forces, currently split into multiple platoons, met against the enemy, with no ground ga...
2023-10-31 21:42:09 +0000 UTC
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After a few hours, he finally put Celestina's worry to rest and showed that his artificial arm was functioning well enough not to be a bother. If she reacted in this big of a reaction, then he surely had to keep this a secret from Avril, knowing how his wife would react more severely to his lost arm. Luckily, Elder Saul was working on the elixir, so he only needed to wait for the years to go by. With Celestina's long inquiry put to rest, they moved on to the appointment. The Pavilion Master b...
2023-10-30 04:10:36 +0000 UTC
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The sand landed on his face, pinching wherever it met his exposed skin, the scent of old blood and salt contained within each grain. Oscar shook his artificial arm, beating it against the air, satisfied at the sight of zero sand dropping from within, meaning nothing, not even the tiniest grains of sand, entered his artificial arm. A fine piece of craftsmanship, Oscar lamented in silence. If only Gol-4 was alive to witness the wonders he recreated for the old one's sake.
Readying himself...
2023-10-28 05:29:16 +0000 UTC
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Oscar, with his access to the Abyss Prison granted by his master, fanned the flames of the furnace until they blazed out in roaring streams. Inside the forge room of the depths, the heat emanating from the furnace rippled across the layers of ash and soot, breaking their fragile gatherings apart into their baser specks. Oscar leaned his right shoulder, confused for a moment before realizing he once again tried to use his missing arm. His involuntary actions alarmed him. A useless movement cou...
2023-10-26 23:07:14 +0000 UTC
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Leaving behind Fred, Emily, and the others, Oscar and Erden floated upward to the shocked gasps of the crowds, their cheers rising higher as they waved their hands at his retreating figure. The temporary command center was put up in the ruined castle. Half of it was toppled over in a mess of rubble, the tip of a spire sticking out like a sore thumb, charred black from presumably intense flames. Old soldiers were already at work, moving the rubble away one brick at a time, a menial task design...
2023-10-25 17:59:06 +0000 UTC
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Facing the daunting hand of the powerful Greater Marshal Exalt, Oscar could see no way out, the pressure from the encroaching fingers constricting him like a rat caught by a snake. Cuts scraped across his clothes and bare skin. The hand was far away, yet the horrifying Ein around it reached farther out, and he would be consumed by the storms soon, only an inch away. Unable to move and speak, he watched powerlessly as the storms converged, forming a gigantic hand resembling the hand of Xures, ...
2023-10-24 23:32:36 +0000 UTC
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Alphos, the First Wind and foremost swordsman of his generation, swung his sword, countless winds slicing across the pouring rain, leaving great gaps where the air fell silent, nothing being able to pass inside. As the empowered wind slashes came within a foot, Gavir defended swiftly, using the long shaft of his spear as a shield to repel each strike, darkness writhing like worms along the surface. It had been several minutes since the beginning of the battle, and he gained zero ground.
2023-10-23 20:27:20 +0000 UTC
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Right when Oscar rallied his army, the sky quaked with a thunderous roar, arcs of lightning illuminating the dark clouds that formed overhead, deafened only by the shouting behind him. From his friends directly behind him to the crew inside the airships, everyone let loose their Ein and joined their voices together in a powerful display. The dark clouds welcomed his army with a wash of rain. As the rain battered his shoulders and clicked erratically on his helmet, Oscar kept his gaze straight...
2023-10-21 20:08:15 +0000 UTC
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Several hours later, even the illusory world of clouds dimmed to the passing of time. As they fought on and on, Oscar understood more of their strength and abilities. Krowe, the shielder, focused on great defense, was able to endure Oscar's heavy blows for a good duration. The Meld power laid in the beast anima inside the shield, constantly swallowing air until it reached a critical point and unleashed it all in a destructive blow. The swordsman Alphos was the main offense, his swordsmanship ...
2023-10-21 15:18:57 +0000 UTC
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As the arrows from several Knight Exalts arced downward, Oscar raised his shield, a powerful Ripple Shroud altering the course of the hostile spells. A dangerous Ein of a fearsome individual piqued his interest, coming from the other side of the battle, where he noticed Gavir leading his men onward. With the timely aid, Phillip should be safe for now. But Oscar was not relieved. He was rather irked and frustrated that Gavir's words came true like a prophecy because two new presences mad...
2023-10-19 23:14:21 +0000 UTC
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