Author's Note:
As a reminder, the epilogue will be three Parts long.
--
Can I go back to fighting eldritch abominations?
Rob had read once that fear of public speaking was the #1 phobia in the world. During his time as a PR mouthpiece in Fiend territory, he'd mostly gotten over the initial nervous butterflies, but it still wasn't fun to step onto a podium and present yourself in front of thousands of people. The cr...
Their reunion with Vasco was like a ray of sunlight piercing through dark stormclouds.
Adam, who had been frowning deeper and deeper as they drew closer to the abandoned city, couldn't help but relax into a smile when he saw the Lord of Gama embrace his daughter. The man held her as if afraid she'd disappear, and the elf returned his embrace in kind.
They were probably afraid they'd never see each other again, was Adam's first thought.
"Vasco brought around a hun...
Not sure why it keeps doing this, but I guess every day is a new adventure on Patreon. Updates for Outcast are available for each tier.
Chapter 54 for Tier 3 - https://www.patreon.com/posts/outcast-chapter-104765595
Chapter 53 for Tier 2 - https://www.patreon.com/posts/outcast-chapter-104340017 2024-05-23 05:46:31 +0000 UTC View Post
As it turned out, they didn't need the dimension mages' help in order to return to the divine realms again. The Waymark points that Rob had placed there while fighting Kismet allowed him easy access.
Riardin's Rangers quickly tested a variety of scenarios. Rob teleported to the realms, from the realms, with a Party, and without a Party. Thankfully, there weren't any issues– they could go back and forth as they pleased.
After confirming that Waymark wouldn't strand them in a he...
Author's Note:
Reminder: there was one chapter posted last week that didn't have email notifications sent out for whatever reason. If you missed it, read that chapter before this one.
--
Like an old gate with rusted hinges, Rob's eyes creaked open very, very slowly.
His mind was even slower to comprehend the fact that he was still alive. Rob's brain felt as if it was stuffed full of cotton, his synapses wading through molasses. He simply...
Author's Note:
9000 words. Enjoy!
--
One Day Later
The ocean waves gleamed clear and blue, shimmering like diamonds under the warm midday sun.
Rob sat cross-legged at the edge of a cliff overlooking Elven territory's southwestern tip. He hadn't moved a muscle for hours. A soft breeze caressed his face, rustling the grass as it swept past. His gaze was locked onto the rhythmic motion of the sea, almost lulling him ...
Out of everything that Adam had gained from collaborating with the Grandmaster, he was particularly fond of his ravens. The Puppet's Talent of Communication was much more impressive than he had initially expected, and it wasn't like Adam's expectations had been set low, either.
The advantage that came from having the magical equivalent of cell phones – in a world without instant communication – simply could not be overstated.
Just being able to check up on how Penumbria had ...
Author's Note:
9500 words. Enjoy!
--
MOVE!
Rob willed himself to stand up. No dice. The signals from his brain were being rerouted directly to his nerve endings, flashing his body with pain whenever he so much as twitched a finger.
MOVE! MOVE, GODDAMNIT, MOVE!
The pain wasn't the problem. He'd long since learned how to ignore sensations as routine as excruciating agony. No, the problem was that ignoring hi...
1. So I've just finished writing the most recent Outcast chapter (do me a favor and don't check what time this update was sent out). Pre-editing, which almost always increases the chapter length, it clocked in at 9150 words. It's going to end up long enough that it should realistically be split into two updates, but I'd rather not do that.
To compensate, and to give myself more time to edit (and sleep), I'll need to push back the schedule by a few days. The next round of Patreon updates...
2024-04-25 09:04:03 +0000 UTC View Post"Stop! STOP!"
The terror in Kismet's voice rose higher as death drew nearer. He fled from Rob's grasping hand, but a Purge Divinity-infused fingernail managed to graze him, carving out a scoop of divine essence as if flaying a mortal's skin.
Kismet let out a screech as the Purging energy added to his growing collection of scars. A dozen small holes now dotted the surface of his mana-body, looking like he'd been pockmarked by wasting disease. Each wound represent...
Author's Note:
Shorter update due to illness (my co-author, not me). We're working on getting back to a faster pace as soon as we can.
--
Despite his missing limb and many wounds, Adam only allowed himself a short hour of rest before readying the Communications Raven that the Grandmaster had gifted him. "I hope Valeria has good news for us, but I wouldn't count on it," he confessed to Tenver and Solara. "Our situation is rather dire right now."...
2024-04-16 03:57:15 +0000 UTC View PostToo close. Too, too close.
Vul'to ignored the sounds of battle resuming around him. The Soul Guardian permitted himself a moment to just...sit there and breathe. After what had transpired, he sorely needed it.
We should be dead. The thought came to him with frightening lucidity. Vul'to wished he could claim that he'd masterfully protected his Party from Kismet's attack, activating defensive Skills the instant he saw everyone in peril, but that would be a l...
Kismet unleashed a veritable supernova of destruction. The surrounding air ruptured with condensed mana, instantly expanding to three times the size of a Living Bomb explosion. It was magic that could have ended cities, all-powerful and supreme, an encapsulation of the gods' superiority over lesser forms of life.
Rob cast ten Rampages in one-tenth of a second and barreled straight through. He exited out of the opposite side with a moderate sunburn.
Thanks for the tan! PURGE ...
Author's Note:
8400~ words. Enjoy!
--
Despite having reached impossible heights for a Combat Class user, Rob didn't quite embody what was expected of a Berserker.
Sure, the trademarks were all there. Reckless assaults, rampant self-endangerment, adrenaline-fueled battle highs...yet he also employed too much strategy. Nowhere could that be seen more in how he utilized Rampage. It was a Skill designed to facilitate continued aggre...
Adam dashed uphill. Inked blood overclocked his body, turning his steps into a violent charge towards the Empire soldiers. They called out to him, ordering him to stop and surrender, but he ignored their pleas. There was no time left for words.
Yet there was time for thoughts – albeit few. His Ink heightened his rate of thinking, letting him perceive the battlefield almost as if it was moving in slow-motion.
'We're tired and outnumbered,' Adam thought. A cold...
Over a dozen pairs of eyes turned to stare at him.
Rob went still as his brain caught up with reality, sluggishly confirming that, yes, he really had found everyone. Keira. Orn'tol. Malika. Zamira. Vul'to. Meyneth. Faelynn. All seven of them, standing alongside Seneschal Sylpeiros and a group of Fiend dimension mages.
No one said a word. Rob felt like a deer frozen in the headlights. The feeling seemed mutual – at least with the mages, who were at a complete loss for how to re...
The sound of wheels on cobblestone was insufficient to drown out Adam’s wayward thoughts. It couldn’t have been longer than ten minutes, yet some ten minutes are longer than others. Inside that silent, dark carriage, alone with nothing but his fears to keep him company, his mind began to wander.
Eric kept trying to convince me that he wasn’t at fault, even during the very last moment... Adam had to let out a bitter laugh at that. It was too absurd of an excuse not to.
Two Days Later
Rob breathed deep, taking in the familiar, comforting air of Fiend territory.
He was sitting on the rooftop ledge of a tall building in Acrastor City, his legs leisurely dangling over its side. The noonday sun was at its peak, illuminating the splendor of civilization below with gentle rays of warmth. Nothing about Acrastor City had changed since his last visit, but if anything, that just gave him a newfound appreciation for the feeling o...
"Thank you for coming here today." Keira leaned forward in her chair, her eyes glinting with steel. "To start – you must swear an oath to secrecy. Nothing said in this room will leave this room."
The Soul Surgeon named Hauz easily met her gaze. He didn't seem the least bit surprised over having been asked to greet Riardin's Rangers in a clandestine location. Slowly, the Fiend swept his eyes across their Party, grimacing faintly as he noted several major absences.
"You...
Solara’s luck was a pendulum that swung between two extremes.
As a child, her homeland had been massacred by the Duke of Dread. She’d witnessed countless of her kind slaughtered, their bodies desecrated, as Green Isle was burnt down to nothing but ashes. Why, Solara had thought at the time, must I be subjected to this injustice? Why couldn’t I have been born at a different time? Be born anywhere else but Greenisle?
The pendulum swung the other way shortly t...
2024-03-06 08:00:01 +0000 UTC View PostLoud, alarmed voices resounded across the divine realms, each looking for a sacrificial lamb to excuse their own shortsightedness. Kismet did not join them. He merely sat back in a contemplative silence, observing the unfolding disaster that hubris, negligence, and simple bad luck had wrought.
"Iram!" Like an incensed gorebeast, Fames stomped closer to his quarry. "You oversaw the Human's integration into this world! Care to explain how he's broken one of the primary tenets of...
Keira staggered, nearly collapsing as she was inundated by more EXP than she'd ever felt before.
Reached Level 85!
5 Stat Points Gained!
Savage Warrior Level Increased! 84 → 85
Reached Level 86!
5 Stat Points Gained!
Savage Warrior Level Increased! 85 → 86
Reached Level 87!
...
It continued on until Level 93, where the...
2024-02-26 05:08:28 +0000 UTC View PostIf before the pouring rain had seemed to avoid Valente, now it chose to avoid the street entirely, like a curtain rising to honor Aspreay's challenge. A set of four near-translucent walls had spawned around the Lord and the Hangman, so elegant that they almost felt as if they did not exist at all.
Until that moment, not a single thing today had shocked Adam. Not Eric's betrayal, nor the Dark Captain's appearance. Even his own death at the hands of the Emperor was something he'd account...
Author's Note:
8600 words. Enjoy!
--
The world was...buzzing.
Rob felt acutely aware of every inch of his body. His pounding heart, his tingling skin, his uneven breaths, his burning soul. Like he'd been electrified with unbridled fury. The sensation was so vivid and intense that it almost hurt.
Yet rather than turn away, he harnessed it. Rob pushed more and more kindling into the blazing inferno of his anger, let...
Author's Note:
7200 words. Enjoy!
--
In another reality within the Deadlands, beleaguered soldiers nursed their wounded and grieved their dead, although they scarcely had time to do either. Empty bottles were scattered across the ground; the last gasp of their restorative supplies. Using HP and MP Potions, the alliance's Combat Class users had managed to patch themselves up to a standard that was...adequate.
They knew it wouldn't...
Author's Note:
One of these chapters is short, so we decided to release both in one update.
--
Chapter 38
What?
The word caught in Adam’s throat. He couldn’t speak, his body frozen as he stared transfixed at Eric. Are you...serious? Did you really...again? It wasn’t all just in my head?
I was right?
Eric’s Curse flashed in his mind. ‘The subject of this me...
2024-02-10 03:24:34 +0000 UTC View PostThe first and second times that Rob visited the gods, everything had been shrouded in an endless fog, making it impossible to see past ten feet in front of him. However, that was before he'd raised Almighty Resistance to Level 4. While some errant, hazy wisps were still obscuring his vision, the fog had now largely dispersed. He could finally view the divine realms in all of their splendor and glory.
For whatever that was worth. Rob turned in a slow circle as he examined the unblemishe...
Doing some last-minute editing that ended up adding a bunch of words because I have a problem. Just wanted to let everyone know, as I've seen some people stay up late waiting for chapter updates. Don't do that! Only authors are allowed to wreck their sleep schedules.
2024-02-05 05:32:28 +0000 UTC View Post??? Minutes Prior
--
Null Skill 'A Dialogue' Has Been Updated!
Name: A Dialogue
Prerequisite:
Description: The Dragon Queen attacked your allies.
Cooldown:
Rob's eyes snapped out in a flash.
"What?" It was less of a word and more of a noise expressing the sudden panic and terror gripping his heart. "She – what?"
Description: The Dragon Queen attacked your allies. A betrayal...
Only Adam and Eric would be allowed to meet with the Emperor. A topic of this importance, his adviser informed them, necessitated the utmost privacy. It was dubious enough to raise an eyebrow, but not dubious enough for Adam to raise his banners and march home...not that he could have, anyhow.
Retreat had stopped being an option the moment he usurped one of the Emperor’s lords.
A set of double-doors stood before them, as ornate as they were ominous. They were all that separated ...
2024-01-28 06:53:01 +0000 UTC View Post