Hakurai

Chapter 172: The Fourth Quest

“The enemy of my enemy is my… friend?” Darkshot asked with an extreme lack of certainty, raising his eyebrow as he looked around to gauge the others reactions to his words.

“No. Nope. This isn’t that.” Aegis shook his head in response. “Let’s think this out, consider all the facts that we know, and come to an agreed upon conclusion. Figuring out the true nature of whats going on here may be the very challenge of this Extreme III quest in the first place.” Aegis said wh...

Chapter 171: Prison Break Pt.3

A loud, deep bell rang out through the prison halls. It hadn’t been more than a few seconds since Mayiera and Lina had begun sprinting away from the paralyzed Viella before the ringing had begun.

As they made their way down the hallway back towards the corridor with two guards standing watch beyond a barred door, stealth was no longer an option. Lina knew she could shadowstep through the bars, but Mayiera would have to get outside the good ol’ fashioned way.

The moment Lina re...

Chapter 170: Prison Break Pt.2

Lina shadowstepped through the iron bars in front of her and appeared on the other side of them, in the hallway outside of the washing room. From here, she was able to more clearly look up and down the dimly lit hallway and see no immediate guards in her vicinity. She oriented herself as best she could and picked a direction, walking slowly and quietly.

It wasn’t long before she came up to the corridor that she recalled turned off into the multiple hallways with the prisoner's cells l...

Chapter 169: Prison Break Pt.1

The walls of the City of the White Tree’s prison stood directly underneath the center of the tree’s trunk, encircling the prison itself. Guards patrolled its walls, and it had but a single guarded gate to enter from.

Lina and Pyri had climbed atop a stack of the nearest residential buildings to get a better view. They were three stories high, right underneath a nearby, low hanging branch of the tree, and laying prone to avoid being seen as they peered over the nearby prison walls. 2023-04-28 10:00:06 +0000 UTC View Post

Chapter 168: Unwelcome

Hearing the information that Darkshot had gathered gave Aegis confidence as he went out into the City of the White Tree to complete his task. He’d made it up onto the streets of the lower branches easily enough, just as he had before, but the ramps and walkways that led higher up were under increasingly heavy protection.

Aegis made his way up towards the mid-levels of the tree utilizing a windingly rope bridge that was strung between two lengthy branches near their ends. He chose it b...

Chapter 167: Blending In

Darkshot, with his pigeon absent, made his way up to the lower branches of the city and began wandering around. Anytime he neared a group of guards, he found himself reactively tugging on his Seeker’s hood to make sure it remained firmly in place.

“Learn about the city…” Darkshot mumbled to himself as he paused at an intersection near the trunk of the tree, panning his eyes around at the surrounding environment. From what he could see, it didn’t feel all too unlike ...

Chapter 166: Kagil'aktos

“I’m a friend of Iuonok. He sent us here, from Belmiure.” Aegis explained. He remained still, with his hands up, but as silence followed his words he found himself staring at the NPCs with their weapons pointed at him, wondering if raised hands was a universal gesture that carried over into this game world.

“Iuonok is tasked with smuggling the unfortunate ones out of the city, not in.” Kagil’aktos shook his head. “Why would Iuonok send you here?”

“We asked him to...

Chapter 165: The City of the White Tree

Aegis and his party continued onward through the tunnel. It was incredibly narrow at some spots, and wide at others. On multiple occasions Aegis was forced to pull out his pickaxe and work on breaking apart some of the walls to make enough room to allow Snowflake to pass through along with them.

When they reached the section of the tunnel that traveled underneath the magma moat, it was very obvious. The tunnel turned into an oven for a moderately large section and the group was sure to ...

Updated Release Schedule

Hey guys!

I want to start by saying thank you for reading the story up until now and thank you for supporting my writing.

Unfortunately, for the sake of my sanity I am deciding to alter the chapter release schedule. Right now I don't have the time I'd like to have to enable me to start doing major edits to the earlier parts of the story as I am only able to work on new chapters, and since I started the story a very long time ago, there is a lot of things I want to change in the ...

Chapter 164: Wasteland

Before them, over the cliff below and beyond a great stretch of flat pale land stood the City of the White Tree. It was aptly named for the gigantic, glowing white tree that was visible to Aegis and his companions despite its great distance from them, at least two kilometers out from where they stood.

The tree, however, did not grow up from the ground of the cavern, but rather it was hanging off of the cavern’s ceiling, upside down, and its leaves and branches reached out in all direc...

Chapter 163: Bridge

Aegis and his party stepped forward into the tunnel leading out of the Ruins of Belmiure. Much like the tunnel they’d used to enter the cavern, the road was paved with broken obsidian blocks under their feet from wall to wall. It was odd for Aegis to hear the sound of Snowflake’s talons tapping on the stone, but not being able to see him walking beside him due to Pyri’s invisibility spell.

The tunnel didn’t go on for long before it opened up into a new wide cavern, and the road ...

Chapter 162: Seekers

With Iuomok’s guidance, Aegis and his party were led through the dark streets of Belmiure until eventually arriving at an old abandoned graveyard. It was a wide field of loose Soilrock with black obsidian headstones protruding out of the ground intermittently. The field itself was surrounded by a worn down, cracked and crumbling stone wall that could, in its current state, be easily stepped over in multiple locations.

Dark grey moss and other strange tangling weeds grew up through the...

Chapter 161: The Curse

Aegis reappeared in the game world at the ruined town square of Belmiure with the glowing old tree at its center. Around the tree he and his party had set up a campfire and tents, as well as some makeshift stone block chairs to sit on around the fire. However, as he’d appeared, Rakkan and Lina were in the process of packing up the tents while Snowflake sat watching, Darkwing sitting atop his saddle. All of them were level 130, with the exception of Darkwing sitting at level 115 and Snowflak...

Chapter 160: In Motion

“My guys have checked Kordas and the surrounding towns, there’s no sign of them anywhere.” Artaphernes said to Quinn and Christoph. The three were standing around inside Quinn’s office within the Night Hunter’s guild hall. “How’d they get by you? It was your best members, right?” He turned to Christoph.

“They don’t have any PvP experience. It’s hard to get any on this island.” Christoph scoffed back at him.

“That used to be a good thing.” Quinn sighed.<...

Chapter 159: The First Domino

Savika sat in the Rene town hall at the large round table with a small sewing kit laid out in front of her. She was quietly working away on a new craft by herself, with several rolls of variously colored fabrics set about on the table in front of her as well. Her eyebrows were scrunched up as she focused intensely on what she was sewing presently, very carefully threading the needle through the fabric.

Leaning up against the wall behind her stood Celestian, like a statue with his spear ...

Chapter 158: Visitors

1 Week Later…

Anazia, with her hood up, found herself standing outside of the Military Command Barracks within the city of Kordas. It was nestled near the surrounding walls of the castle of Kordas, with a large wide staircase inviting players and NPCs alike inside. It was the very same building utilized for the leadership intermediate quest that Aegis had visited some time ago.

As Anazia ascended the staircase to enter the building, she saw other playe...

Chapter 157: On the Surface

“Got him pretty easily. The Plashrim were very cooperative.” Herilon spoke to Quinn as he approached her in the Night Hunter’s guild hall.

“Where is he now?” Quinn asked him. Quinn was pacing in her office in front of a desk, while a Lizardfolk NPC sat in the chair behind it filling out paperwork for her. The office was simple, adorned with the Night Hunter banner on the walls and a dark purple carpet. Bookshelves sat flanking the banners on each of the four walls of the squar...

Small Break This Week

Hi everyone, I hope you had enjoyable holidays!

Unfortunately my holidays left me unable to work on my story the past week, and as a result I have not been able to edit and write out the next arc of the story as much as I would like. It ties in heavily to the rest of Book II and I want to make sure I get it right, so I will need to break my 100 chapter upload streak for a small reprieve, to give myself more time to flesh out this next arc and build up the backlog once more.

I ap...

Chapter 156: Belmiure

“First order of business.” Aegis stepped forward in front of his party, then turned to face them as they all stood attentive. “We’ll check out the enemies in this ruined city. We’re searching for good grinding spots.” Aegis explained and got a few nods. “But we’ll search together, and attentively. There’s a chance other high level players are in these parts of the Underrealm, as there are other ways to get down here on this side of the Red River.”

“Got it.” Darks...

Chapter 155: Obsidian

Aegis lost track of time as he fought with Lina in the Reltrak Forest that afternoon. Though, calling it fighting was being generous - it was primarily just Lina teleporting around Aegis and punching him. Despite the difference in skill, though, his viewership held steady - they were just as invested in watching him improve his PvP skills as he was.

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“We’re coming up on hour number 6. Anyon...

Chapter 154: Skill Gap

“So, it’s called lure baiting.” Eli shouted to Jillian from his bedroom. Jillian was in the process of cleaning their upstairs hallway while Eli was in the middle of working out using dumbbells in his bedroom.

“That’s appropriate.” Jillain replied.

“Yeah, turns out it's easy to counter, there’s some cheap ingredient mixtures you can splash on yourself to remove lure effects. I’ll make them when we log back in.” Eli continued between his reps. “Did you find ou...

Chapter 153: Out of the Fire...

“What happened?” Eli asked as he watched Jillian’s Simbox open up.

“One of the elementals shot at Derrick and Snowflake. I couldn’t stop it with cinderbolts, so…” She shrugged.

“Damn.” Eli leaned his head back, frustrated. He hit his wrist implant to bring up his contacts list on his phone where it showed Derrick was still within a Simbox simulation. “Should be okay, though. I hope.” Eli said after closing the interface and pacing and the room.

“Are y...

Chapter 152: Reality Check

Before Aegis had time to even blink, the white cloaked individual had moved 12 meters and was right in front of his shield.

“You might want to brace this.” He said mockingly with a big mischievous grin. Up close, his facial features were somewhat visible. Aegis saw he looked young and handsome with tan skin and short blue hair, and curled down dark red bunny ears folded under the hood of his cloak.

Aegis’ eyes went wide and he thrust his shield forward to brace the attack, a...

Chapter 151: The Red River

“Are you sure we’re going the right way?” Darkshot asked as Aegis lead the others through the giant mushrooms of Reltrak Forest. They were deep into the wilderness now, far from any of the cavern walls. The light green fog that was usually settled above the mossy cavern floor was absent, however.

“Yup, should be around here somewhere.” Aegis replied as he looked down at the Underrealm map. He was holding it in his hands while walking in front of the others, Snowflake strutting...

Chapter 150: Intermission

“Let’s walk and talk, we’ve gotta visit the storehouse.” Aegis said to Chax before looking worriedly towards his party members. He walked forward through the streets of Rene towards the townsquare, and the others followed behind him. “What’s the problem, exactly?”

“It started two weeks after you left. Yuki, Ruffily, and Amlie all headed off to do their class quests. Yuki for her advanced, and Ruffily and Amlie for their intermediates.” Chax explained.

“Oh, are ...

Chapter 149: Shoulders

After turning in all of the guard emblems to Ulaipu, Aegis and his party sorted out their inventories before spreading out in Pakro'Vielle to explore the shops. Mainly though, it was Aegis who was busiest. He stopped by each and every one of the crafting buildings to turn in the quests, and for the most part, each quest rewarded him with a new proficiency.

You have unlocked the Woodcutting Proficiency: [Underrealm Stalk]
2023-04-02 10:00:02 +0000 UTC View Post