Chiara stood before the Overseer, its limbless body sprawled across the silvery floor of the Moon Palace’s chamber.
All around them was black, its Eclipse still active, making every wave except its own incapable of propagation.
Alas, those waves were no longer his… but hers.
She commanded all the Dark Stars—its vast number and her own—drawing them into a thick black mantle as her gaze lingered on the prompt before her.
Cognitive Mirage – 16.5...
2025-10-23 23:00:04 +0000 UTC
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The lowest level of the inverted pyramid—the heart of the Azcoyatl’s imperial palace, the Moon Temple—lay in silence.
At its centre ran a vast hollow shaft, a deliberate opening that pierced straight through the structure, from foundation to peak, leaving a perfect line of sight to the heavens. From here, the sky could be seen directly, though the first light of dawn had yet to fully climb over the horizon, leaving only a muted glow above.
The chamber itself was lavish, its ...
2025-10-21 23:00:10 +0000 UTC
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What makes us who we are?
Is thought just the echo of matter, or something beyond it?
What is… consciousness?
These were questions Lukas had asked himself once, perhaps more than once, as he wandered the world in search of a path, a meaning to his life. Yet the grounding weight of reality and the fleeting nature of existence had taught him instead to treasure the present, to value it for what it was, and to keep moving forward—at peace with nev...
2025-10-19 23:00:08 +0000 UTC
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“Wait—hold up, isn’t that…?”
“Yeah. Alonso, right? The Spanish guy? Damn, he looks cool in that fur coat.”
“Where even is this? Some kind of ancient city?”
“Looks like South American ruins. Aztec? Maya? Hard to tell.”
“Yeah, if the Mayas built pyramids out of black glass with floating stairs, sure.”
“…Wait. Are those people chained up? Holy shit—”
“Oh my god. That’s brutal…”
“At this point anything from The ...
2025-10-16 23:00:03 +0000 UTC
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The waves synced to his rhythm.
Light bent and fractured, pulled into the flow of his path like a river dragged by its own current.
And his sword—ripped the tide.
The arc carved clean, his domain forcing open the path, polarity shattering, the Overseer’s waves unable to pierce a medium already rewritten under his will, fueled by the sparks tearing out of him.
For the first time, the Overseer’s gaze shifted. For the first time, confidence faltered. For the first t...
2025-10-14 23:00:08 +0000 UTC
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It began.
The field slammed down, pressure from the sky itself grinding into the obsidian crown of the Sun Pyramid.
The Overseer’s EM domain clawed at him—trying to rip the swords from his hands, to dig into his mind and tear it apart from within.
It was crushing. Overwhelming. Like the whole world wanted him broken.
Was this their true power? The strength of the six tails?
Such a difference from the Wardens—
Yet—
Al...
2025-10-12 23:00:04 +0000 UTC
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Ashes drifted on the wind, the ghost of fires long smothered.
The air still reeked of iron, though no bodies lay sprawled in the streets—only blackened stains, patches of blood baked dry into stone, as if the city itself had been wounded.
The silence was the loudest thing. A city that once roared with markets, chants, drums, and prayers now whispered only in fear. Doors barred, shutters drawn. Mothers pressed shaking hands over children’s mouths. Men sat with blades they would...
2025-10-09 23:00:13 +0000 UTC
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Alonso exhaled as he lowered his swords, sweat dripping down his brow as he finally opened his eyes after hours of training.
It had been five days since he began pushing toward the Third Fusion State. Progress was steady—just not as smooth as he had hoped.
He sat down near the trunk of a pine tree, caught one of his water containers as it floated toward him, and drained it in one long pull.
The second phase of the microcapacitor system had been a breakthrough. Not only had...
2025-10-07 23:00:08 +0000 UTC
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Alonso’s swords flashed as the ‘real’ strikes lit the stars, while those ‘that could have been’—but were not realised—turned into lightless celestial bodies orbiting the true: the planets.
He moved with them, merging blade and feint into one, every motion reinforced by the careful positioning of his body. It was not just where the strike passed, but the position that birthed it—the twist of the wrist, the bend of the elbow, the alignment of the feet. All the small moveme...
2025-10-05 23:00:04 +0000 UTC
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The old nodes from the Standard States were gone—extinguished, forgotten—but in their place a new lattice flickered awake.
Not muscle alone, not mind alone, but a framework woven from both. His nerves pulsed with a clarity that was not purely reflex but not purely thought, an in-between state where intent and motion blurred. Every tendon, every muscle fibre felt tied to thought itself, and every thought was coloured by the language of the body.
It was as if the Pillar had take...
2025-10-03 00:00:04 +0000 UTC
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Alonso stood, legs crossed, wearing a lighter leather shirt and pants, beneath a thick canopy of pine-like trees on the southern reaches of the Ajnal territory where it bordered the wilds, more than 50 miles from the nearest village.
The breeze was soft as it caressed him, and the temperature reminded him of Melbourne in early autumn, when summer had just begun to fade.
Yet as serene as the environment was, his mind was razor-focused.
The way to reset the States was straight...
2025-10-01 00:00:05 +0000 UTC
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“Using the coordinates of each stroke and calculating the median value of each of the entries, from one to seven, then matching those against the coordinates of the six ruins we’ve already found—after correcting for what they considered the zero reference… the position of a seventh ruin becomes clear,” Chiara explained.
“And let me guess—it’s in the North,” Lukas said, pointing.
Chiara nodded. “Yes. Deep in Xok’al territory.”
“Well, at this point mo...
2025-09-29 00:00:08 +0000 UTC
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Chiara magnetized the gates.
They scraped the floor in a shearing grind, as though they hadn’t moved in decades.
Stepping through, they sent EM waves towards the Xayen lighting system. It flared awake at once, flooding the small room in clean, steady light.
The place was plain. Almost bare. No ornate engravings, no intricate devices like the others had held. Just an old wooden chair, a dusty desk, and scattered scrolls—some neatly wrapped, others half-written—an odd co...
2025-09-26 00:00:04 +0000 UTC
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The pub in Barcelona grew silent as the scene on the big screen unfolded.
Some forgot to blink, jaws half-open, beers frozen halfway to lips as the commentator’s voice carried over the replay.
Minutes stretched as the feed rolled on—every frame replayed in slow motion, every movement etched in detail. The titanic shot that carved into the wyvern. Alonso, battered but relentless, darting mid-air, shards screaming past him harmlessly, his speed and precision defying belief. And ...
2025-09-24 00:00:09 +0000 UTC
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A sphere of darkness swallowed the floating platform and the air around it, sunlight bent aside, a false night cast across the mountains below.
Alonso stared, eyes wide with awe.
Light was gone—and more than that, his waves refused to move through the dome at all. It was as if the space itself had been erased. Lukas and Chiara had briefed him about it—the Azcoyatl’s domain-type skill, a zone where no EM wave but the wielder’s could propagate.
But seeing it firsthand...
2025-09-22 00:00:08 +0000 UTC
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As Alonso flew over the southern border of Ajnal territory, he felt the terrain shift beneath him—greener now, with smaller, denser trees, and most of all, the restless herds of dinosaurs. Herbivores with bulky, spike-lined bodies grazed on the undergrowth, while predators lingered nearby, patient and watchful for the right moment.
It had been a while since he last hunted one. On the northern border, most of the food had been shipped from the centre, cooked and served neatly by the ba...
2025-09-19 00:00:05 +0000 UTC
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Ayu walked forward through the shallow marshes toward a crevice easy to miss.
Not the prettiest place to be walking barefoot, but it could be worse.
Her ears filtered every sound, her nose pulled in the scents, each one clear in her mind—what it was, where it came from, guided only by the feel of it.
She stopped at the cave mouth and glanced back, her gaze piercing the lush vegetation and locking several miles away.
Lukas and Chiara were there. Their eyesight wasn’...
2025-09-17 00:00:05 +0000 UTC
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He felt it as his boots pressed into the ground, the smell of iron, dirt, and smoke burning in his nostrils. Despite the strain, despite the pain, he felt it.
The space around him shifted—trailing along the field he created. His body had become a finely tuned magnetic source, not merely influencing but commanding the space itself. Everything conductive bent to his will. Which meant…
They no longer had the means to counter him.
He pressed forward, accelerating in...
2025-09-15 00:00:07 +0000 UTC
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Vectors spun into being, one after another. Arcs and lines etched across space, sketches of present and future overlapping.
And within that lattice, he moved.
A boot cracked stone, dust spitting upward as he twisted past a rotating shard that ripped the air apart. It smashed into the corridor wall behind him, a thunderclap of rock and dirt blasting outward.
He slashed low, his blade whispering toward a Warden’s thigh. The creature stepped back, falling for the feint.
2025-09-12 00:00:06 +0000 UTC
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“So it’s a bottleneck?” Alonso asked as he stared at the holographic diagram of his nervous and musculoskeletal system.
Several nodes along the virtual body pulsed rhythmically, with faint filaments of energy webbing out from each. They flickered in soft hues of blue and violet, indicating stress points where the neural energy flow choked and stuttered.
“I’ve run a ton of simulations,” Houston replied. “Fifty by fifty grid around each equilibrium point. I tried gradi...
2025-09-10 00:00:11 +0000 UTC
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Images burst into his mind.
Vast black monoliths piercing the clouds, surfaces alive with flowing lines of light.
Floating bridges that swayed like ribbons in the air, magnetized paths where thousands in shimmering garments glided soundlessly.
Great towers pulsed with resonance, nodes beating like colossal hearts, their rhythm echoing across the city.
Figures stood on platforms of light, manipulating sparks with bare hands, weaving lightning into blades and armor.
<...
2025-09-08 00:00:08 +0000 UTC
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One by one, every head in the chamber bowed after standing straight. Even Alonso and Lukas inclined theirs, though Ayu hesitated for half a breath before following suit.
The Empress’s eyes swept the chamber, sharp and unhurried, pausing at Alonso. A faint smile curved her lips, a nod following with the weight of a crown behind it.
She sat, and only then did the others take their seats.
The Empress leaned back on her chair, fingers resting lightly on the serpent-headed armr...
2025-09-05 00:00:10 +0000 UTC
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Leonie stood reviewing the schematics this ‘human’ civilization inside The Tower had shared with them. After aiding them in some hunts and other tasks, they had been entrusted with a method—a structured path for advancing both physical strength and Pillar capability, each developing along distinct lines.
Parts of it resembled the frameworks the Super AI, CASI, had suggested, yet this was undeniably a superior version. The flaws in stability that had capped proficiency were absent ...
2025-09-03 00:00:10 +0000 UTC
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Shanaya rolled up her sleeves, brushing her hair behind one ear as she opened the spice drawer. “Okay, I was thinking baingan bharta, aloo gobi, and maybe lachha paratha—but only if you help.”
“I’m helping,” Arjun said.
She turned—and paused.
The counter in front of him was already a blur of motion. His hands moved in short, perfect arcs, the knife gliding with impossible precision. Eggplants diced. Cauliflower florets trimmed. Onions...
2025-09-01 00:00:11 +0000 UTC
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“Mister Rathore, welcome back, and… thank you for your service to mankind,” the man said, bowing respectfully. “You can call me, James.”
Arjun remained silent.
“I’m sure you have many questions, and we’ll answer what we can. For now, please use this device,” James continued, producing a small object from his pocket—something resembling a storage disc, but thinner and with no visible USB input.
Arjun accepted it, careful not to break it.
The moment h...
2025-08-29 00:00:05 +0000 UTC
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The battlefield froze for a moment as the skull of the Warden was lifted high, blood dripping from its severed neck onto the shoulders of the black-haired man that held it.
The gazes of the Sun Bearers widened. Jaws dropped. The Xok’al hesitated—unison in their stillness, as if the swarm itself was unsure how to proceed. Mei, watching from above the platform, Camila, and even the Azcoyatl Priests accompanying them stood motionless.
There was a lingering silence, just a single ...
2025-08-27 00:00:05 +0000 UTC
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Arjun stood, EM barrel rifle held tight as he crouched on the narrow crevice, hidden from view beneath his camo cloak.
He watched Alonso finish off the Warden he just shot, and the other was practically done for by the Ajnal General. They had completed the mission, successfu—
But then, it all changed.
Before he knew it, the air vibrated—
A shot struck General K’in in the head, killing him instantly.
What…?
His eyes widened as he scanned the...
2025-08-25 00:00:06 +0000 UTC
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Alonso narrowed his eyes, posture steady atop the wall, as he locked his full attention on the clash unfolding below.
General K’in moved like lightning made flesh—each step crackled with coiled energy, each swing of his twin blades trailed incandescent sparks. His mastery of Heart of Sparks was the best Alonso had ever witnessed, as it flowed perfectly through both armor and weapon alike.
But the Warden was a monster of a different kind.
Its four upper limbs carved throu...
2025-08-22 00:00:14 +0000 UTC
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Alonso had to admit—the platform felt like something straight out of a sci-fi film or book.
He gazed at the landscape far below, their craft floating more than six kilometers above the ground. The platform’s underside was layered with camouflage mesh, and the whole thing was masked against both visual and EM-based detection.
It even used wind drag to its advantage, converting it through embedded disk systems. And the power? That came purely from the EM control of those onboard...
2025-08-20 00:00:04 +0000 UTC
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Santi sat forward on the edge of his chair, jaw clenched tight, fingers curled so hard around the wooden armrest that it threatened to splinter under his grip.
The feed on the big screen had ended minutes ago, yet the weight pressing on his chest refused to lift.
His daughter—his Ayu—was covered in blood, half her body torn open, deep wounds all over her arms, legs, ribs, and neck. Injuries that would’ve knocked any other fighter out cold, that would’ve left even seasoned ...
2025-08-18 00:00:07 +0000 UTC
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