Shirtaloon

Book 10 complete, one week off

TL;DR: Book 10 is complete, no chapters next week, book 11 starts the week after.

Chapter 790 (which just dropped for silver-rank patrons) brings book 10 to a close. It's another long one, behind only books nine and one for length. There will be no chapter releases next week while I take a break.

My original intention had been to go straight into book eleven, giving myself a week off using buffer chapters I already had written. I'd built up a stock of them, courte...

Chapter 790: What He Wants For Himself

Gabriel swept his sword in a horizontal arc and a wave of flame washed over the undead. This left the lesser undead falling apart as their flesh turned to ash and their bones to dust, but the greater ones continued unabated. A massive claw from some burrowing monster, grafted to the arm of a messenger, was swung at his head. He vanished, teleporting just a few steps back.

The teleport disorientation was light from a short-range power and he was used to it after years of use, so he didn�...

Chapter 789: Avatar and Demigod

The battle for the wall was being fought in the mouths of the various breaches. The intercession of Gary and his demigod power had given the defenders breathing room to hold breaches long enough for barricades to be put back in place, but they were duct-taping over holes. Sooner or later, there would be nothing left but duct tape and the wall would crumble.

Deep in the city that was now the territory of the undead, an explosion rocked the darkness. Purple light blasted like a spaceship ...

Chapter 788: Dread and Crushing Despair

The reinforcement group made up of Jason, Emir, Constance and team Storm Shredder paused at the massive entrance that led into the former brightheart city. The tunnels and chambers they had passed through to get there had all been abandoned, the undead giving up that territory entirely.

What they had not given up was the city, now a bastion of the undead. They were out there, in the dark, hidden from sight. Far across the chamber, flashing light and faint sound marked the conflict ragin...

Chapter 787: Thinking Like an Adventurer

Miriam and Jason watched as the elemental messengers chased the retreating undead.

“Why have they given up on the natural array chamber?” Miriam wondered. “Just consolidating forces, or do they know about the rituals?”

“The latter,” Jason said. “Knowledge was the one who put the idea in my head of triggering a transformation zone. Gods exist in balance, so I imagine Undeath warning his own forces was fair game.”

"I think we should divert some of our people in...

Chapter 786: Naught But Faith

While the divine ghost fire continued to burn, it was fading in strength. What had once annihilated the lesser undead, swiftly burned through the silvers and strongly impeded the golds was now far less efficacious. Miriam adjusted tactics accordingly, bringing forward the adventurers with wide-area attacks that had been taking the chance to recoup their mana.

Jason was finally able to deploy Gordon’s butterflies effectively, his aura suppressing the undeath energy in areas where the g...

Chapter 785: Twin Flames

The brightheart city had once been a subterranean wonder. Sustaining a population in the hundreds of thousands in an enclosed ecology, far from the air and light, was anything but easy. Even with magic, every choice came with compromise, some easier than others.

Gutting the wall between the citadel and main city chambers had seemed like a painless choice. It offered a useful framework and hundreds of tons of raw material, both ideal for stone-shapers. Turning the wall into homes, shops ...

Chapter 784: Insufficient Vessel

The death chamber side of the wall was an unrecognisable ruin from its days as a vertical stack of buildings. The outer walls had been staved in by the invading undead, exposing the insides the defenders had barricaded. Gary stood between the undead and one such barricade, holding them off while the people on the other side reinforced it. It was a large breach, the interior walls smashed apart, and blocking it off effectively was taking time.

Having trapped himself on the unpleasant sid...

Chapter 783: Fighting Alone

Jason hadn’t yet used the ghost fire power he had gained on the undead. Now he was watching the divinely enhanced version engulf the undead like a wildfire, spreading from the defenders as if they were holy arsonists. Any time a weapon, armour or body part touched an undead, flames crawled onto it as if it had been doused in accelerant. The fire passed from one to the other until the entire battlefield was a white, ethereal inferno. Even as they burned, the undead didn’t react, continuing...

Chapter 782: Sometimes They Do

“A miracle?” Emir asked. “That’s why you met the goddess of death?”

“You think we don’t need one?” Jason asked.

“No, we definitely need one.”

“That’s why I thought I’d go supplier direct.”

“You know, I used to talk about my fancy diamond-rank connections all the time. Knowing you  makes it very hard to be a braggart, Jason.”

Jason let out a wheezing laugh that turned into coughing.

“Help me up?” he asked after the fi...

Chapter 781 reaction

Clearly, a lot of people aren't happy about the developments of chapter 781. I'm not going to talk about the chapter and what is to come because I like to let the story speak for itself. I can't control whether people like where I take it or if they trust me to do so well. I'll just say that I hope those who don't care for the development keep an open mind about where the story goes from here.

The real reason I'm posting this isn't to make my own non-reaction to how the chapter is being...

Chapter 781: Death Knows How to Wait

“Two resurrections aren’t enough?” Jason asked the goddess. “Even as justification for doing something you must want to do anyway?”

“The purpose does not make the sacrifice cheaper,” Death told him. “The sacrifice is judged by what is given up. And what are resurrections to you, Jason Asano? You, who stand at the threshold of true immortality.”

“Oh,” he said as realisation struck. “I get it. If you help, we probably win and I turn into an astral king. Then ...

Chapter 780: Miracles

The wall between the citadel chamber and the death chamber was leaking like a sieve. Gary was moving from breach to breach in a rush now, as were the other teams, yet a half dozen gaps were spilling undead into the chamber. The undead that made it through went for the pillars holding up the citadel as defenders moved to intercept them.

Arabelle Remore was a particular star, draining the magic from the undead. Robbed of the force animating them, they fell inert. The hideous monstrosities...

Chapter 779: Put Up or Shut Up

The first major breach of the wall was on the fifth floor. It began as a minor breach, the wall blasting out in a cloud of stone dust and rubble. Gary's team was the first to respond, with Gary once more moving in to block the gap. That was when he saw one of the creatures responsible for the explosions, little more than a glowing blob on four legs. He threw his hammer, trying to kill the thing before it marched into the hole, but something slammed into place to block his attack. A more power...

Chapter 778: Come Like a Tsunami

The expedition moved forward with extreme wariness. The elemental messengers ranged ahead of them while scouts were left behind to monitor the approach of the undead. Miriam and Jason were atop Onslow’s shell in the middle of the formation.

“I’m surprised that the messengers went along with this,” Miriam said. “This isn’t just mutual defence against the undead but reshaping the reality their tree is in.”

“I’m not sure how much of what I explained they really unde...

Chapter 777: Dubious Alliance

Onslow’s shell was stuffed full of adventurers and brighthearts as the expedition moved through an empty tunnel. The cultists could propel themselves and, even if they couldn’t, Clive wouldn’t allow them on anyway. Clive was on top of the shell, along with Neil, Belinda, Rufus and other non-fliers that couldn’t fit inside. Belinda had conjured a flat surface for them to sit on, atop a frame that held it fast to the sloping lid of the shell.

Neil brushed stone powder from his hai...

Chapter 776: A Little Bit Odd

The silver ranks in the group immediately saw the concern on the faces of Jason and the gold-rankers. Jason stepped right into Clive’s personal space, arresting his attention.

“Clive, how long until you’ve learned enough here that we can try and activate the device without it being so much of a gamble that we may as well not bother?”

“Jason, what is—”

“How long?” Jason snapped as his aura rolled out like a military parade. Normally he masked the authoritari...

Chapter 775: More Urgent With Your Warning

Jason and Lorenn were the last to return to the citadel chamber through the soul realm portal. Everyone left inside was staying for the duration. The portal closed and Jason nodded at Clive.

“Sorry you didn’t get to spend long in the rooms I set up for you,” Jason told Lorenn.

“I’m more interested in putting the plan into action than resting, although you look like you could use it.”

“I’m getting better at tapping into my astral gate, although it still takes ...

Chapter 774: It Happens Because I Want it To

The meeting room in the citadel was more or less rectangular. Jason and Miriam were already waiting when Farrah arrived. She found the two commanders in the middle of a contentious conversation, their voices escalating in volume as they argued.

“…can’t believe you would say that,” Jason said.

“Are you still complaining about this? It was a fair assessment of risk.”

“It was tempting fate!”

“Fate isn’t real.”

“That was what I thought until I...

Revised book 9 audio

Just a heads up that the publisher has gone through and re-edited the book 9 audio files. They've fixed some of the glaring issues that popped up this time, along with some less important changes just to clean things up.

Those changes are now live. Anyone who has the original version can remove that from their device and download the new version if they like.

Chapter 773: Control the Pot

Jason watched the brightheart population migrate towards the ground level in preparation for moving through his portal. The base of the chamber was little more than rock carved flat for the most part, aside from the roads moving between the pillars and the growth chambers. They, at least, were flagstone paved and lined with garden beds, although the plants had long since died. Outside of the growth chambers, the lack of good air and people to care for them had left the moss, vines and fungus ...

Chapter 772: Everything in My Power

Despite being deep underground, the growth chamber was filled with light. Level after level of stone lattices and catwalks were overgrown with luminescent flora creating a glorious light show. Jason’s soul realm had underground areas with glowing fungus but this place put them to shame. Moss, vines and fungal growth climbed over everything, shedding light in every shade of the rainbow to weave a kaleidoscopic tapestry.

Miniature aqueducts carried water down through the chamber in a co...

Chapter 771: The Impossible

Jason, Clive and Miriam sat in the council chamber with Beaufort and the two brighthearts, Lorenn and Marla. The adventurers explained the Builder invasion, the messenger invasion and the expedition. Some of it Lorenn had already learned from Beaufort, although it was clear his explanation had been coloured differently in certain parts.

Beaufort then took his turn to recount the cult's story. It amounted to invading Cardinas but having no interest in the natural array. Instead, they fou...

Chapter 770: Citadel

The sense of death from the previous chamber vanished the moment the expedition passed through the double doors set into the giant gate. The pervasive elemental influence on the ambient magic snapped back into place so sharply that Jason doubted it was natural. His suspicions were only raised by the elemental power feeling a lot more stable than it had in the shaft. He reached out to Clive through voice chat with an idea.

“Can’t say,” Clive responded. “There are a lot of variabl...

Chapter 769: Echoes of the Dead

While many of the adventurers excelled using familiars, summons and flight powers as platforms from which to battle the messengers, not all fared as well. The most vulnerable were those relying on external flight devices. Some were fine, usually those with the most elaborate and expensive devices. Former Hurricane Princess Zara rode a two-headed pegasus made of sapphires that not only provided transport but added to her combat power.

Zara specialised in wide-area ranged attacks, so havi...

Chapter 768: Humungous Hairy Hands

Jason stepped out of a Shade body that was standing on the expedition’s main defensive platform. Ranged attackers were arrayed along the barricaded edge or firing through holes in the platform itself. Stone-shapers were repairing damage as the platform was attacked from below.

“Tactical Commander,” Jason said through the voice chat’s command channel.

“It’s good that you’re back,” Miriam responded. “Your voice chat grew increasingly unreliable the further you went...

Chapter 767: Of A Mind to Kill You

Beaufort’s body contained far too much metal to fit within his elven frame. When not in his war form, most of it was contained in a dimensional space created by his star seed. In almost every instance, that was a convenience, the star seed even shielding the dimensional space from most interference. Most was not all, however, and every time Beaufort opened the portal within himself to extract the additional material, he felt the elemental energy attempt to seep in and corrupt it. It failed,...

Chapter 766: You Don't Do It Blindly

Jason and Miriam stood surrounded by others at the edge of a platform. Leaning out to look down they saw the seething mass of elemental messengers rising up the shaft.

“How are there this many?” Miriam asked, her voice hollow.

The shaft was thick with elemental messengers, rising like a cloud. In the dark, fiery powers flared and sparked, casting the ocean of winged figures in ominous light and dancing shadows.

“Does this count as a lot?” Jason asked.

She was a...

Chapter 765: Confident Guesses

The expedition’s gold rankers, plus Clive and Jason, were having a strategy meeting before resuming their descent down the shaft.

“Unfortunately,” Miriam said, “Destruction’s involvement doesn’t change anything.”

“Unfortunately?” Gabriel asked.

“Meaning that our plan is so vague,” Jason explained, “that there aren’t enough specifics to change. We’re still heading down and trying to use this device while stopping whatever counter-plans anyone down ...

Chapter 764: Taking the Position of a God

The expedition was waiting on the return of Amos Pensinata and the other gold-rankers that had taken off down the shaft. Jason and his companions sat around a pair of tables playing board games while they waited, discussing advancement to gold-rank. Glow stones floated above each table to light them up while a large privacy screen kept their conversation private. It also saved the rest of the expedition from Neil’s loud complaining when games went badly.

“You’re saying that it’s...