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Matabar. Chapter 104 - Home

“Wake up, young… man. Or would you rather be addressed as ‘citizen of mixed heritage?’ I believe that’s the legal term for half-bloods these days, following the letter of the law.”

Ardan opened his eyes. He did so without much trouble, and just as little desire. He would have gladly slept a few more… Actually, how many…

“It’s early morning,” the same person informed him. “You’ve been lying here on your back for exactly twenty-four hours, Corporal.”

Matabar. Chapter 103 - "Let's talk"

Double chapter released today (yeap, once again). Don't miss the previous chapter.

“It’s funny how things turn out, isn’t it, Speaker?” Indgar ostentatiously twirled an amulet between his knotted, massive fingers — they were thicker, in fact, than the arms of certain adolescent girls.

Ardan distinctly recalled managing to deprive Indgar of that hand during their previous encounter, and yet somehow, it was back in...

Matabar. Chapter 102 - "Shall we have a little chat?"

Double chapter released today (yeap, once again). Don't miss the next chapter.

Ardan slammed his staff against the floor, forming a Water Shroud around himself before he dove to the side. The Selkado fighter’s orange vortex of energy scorched the walls with flame and acid, causing the brickwork to drip down in a steaming, hissing, sputtering slurry.

Ardi’s Water Shroud whirled those acidic flames around in a...

Matabar. Chapter 101 - The New Song

A new song by Tess is attached to this chapter, fully voiced and produced. Don't miss it!
The first song, titled "The Cat," is attached to the post containing Chapter 42.

Only now, after meeting both the Ragman and the Dandy, did Ardan notice the subtle similarity between these two individuals. And no, it wasn’t about their looks, since one resembled an otter, and the other a mixture of a cat and a fox. Nor was it about their clothing, as Belsky dres...

Matabar. Chapter 100 - "You need to be faster"

“You need to be faster, Ard! Faster!”

Aversky slammed his staff against the stone floor of the training ground. Almost instantly — faster than even a revolver’s discharge — his spell rocketed out. Ardi was certain that, if science had the means to measure the speed of thought, the spell cast by this Grand Magister of military magic would have barely lagged behind it.

His seal was black, the color of Aversky’s Star, with a mere two contours and four arrays — three sta...

Matabar. Chapter 99 - A few thoughts

“I’m not so sure that this is a good idea, Magister.”

“Do you have a better one, Milar?”

“Not at the moment.” The captain, for what felt like the hundredth time, grimly reread the invitation.

They were sitting in an Eltir café. It wasn’t the same one Milar had first brought Ardan to several months ago, but a different one near the Dawn Garden.

From the café’s windows — which looked no different than the ones at its sister establishment from the ou...

Matabar. Chapter 98 - Weeping Woman

Double chapter released today (yeap, once again). Don't miss the previous chapter.

Ardan didn’t know what the inside of a real castle was supposed to look like. His great-grandfather’s stories had depicted them in various ways, but always with a hint of scorn. Aror had described castles from the point of view of those who’d seized them.

He’d spoken of how dwarven phalanxes would march to storm barbicans, while their Stone...

Matabar. Chapter 97 - Tears

Double chapter released today (yeap, once again). Don't miss the next chapter.

Step by step, they drew closer to the top of the building. The rasping echo of heavy, exhausted footsteps scraped against the rough walls, where the paint was veined with cracks that looked like scars left there by some invisible, flesh-hungry paw with menacing claws.

How had the tenants and staff of the Castle Tower failed to notice them? The reason w...

Matabar. Chapter 96 - The Castle Tower

Double chapter released today. Don't miss the previous chapter.

Ardan opened the trunk and pulled out a valise made of worn, cracked leather and fitted with brass clamps — some blackened in places — and two little horn-like clasps that locked together in a tight, snapping embrace.

Ardi had to put in a fair bit of effort to pry them apart. Inside, he found two pairs of spectacles that were somewhat reminiscent of the ones Anvar had worn. He put on one ...

Matabar. Chapter 95 - Personal History

Double chapter released today. Don't miss the next chapter.

Milar’s old “Derks” roared and growled, racing along the streets and avenues of the New City. It was one of dozens — hundreds, really — of cars humming over thoroughfares so wide that, by comparison, they looked like water striders scuttling across the surface of a frozen river. A river of asphalt, where instead of reeds swaying in the wind, there was an endless forest of lampposts, traffic...

Matabar. Chapter 94 - Special Demonstration

Ardi arrived at the classroom for his practical Star Engineering course (thankfully, the schedule he’d received at the start of the month was still valid) right at the appointed time. And yet, to his surprise, the doors were locked. As far as he could remember, Convel had never once been late for-

“You owe me a biscuit and some lingonberry juice, dear.”

Ardi turned around. Behind him, coming from the direction of the elevators, were Boris and Elena. Given that there...

Matabar. Chapter 93 - Another good talk

The wind brushed against his muzzle while fresh snow crunched beneath his paws. The air squeaked around his ears, tickling his hide, and his nose caught the faintest, most elusive notes of his prey’s scent. The mountain goat was searching for water.

The young hunter had been following its trail for the last three hours. He’d stalked it slowly and carefully, hiding among cliffs and crags, bundling himself into the snow, and doing his utmost to keep from meeting the fearful gaze of th...

Matabar. Chapter 92 - A cup of tea and a stuffed bear

The shutters wobbled ever so slightly. The glass shook beneath a rainbow sheen, like a soap bubble moments from popping. The wind howled as though it were being strangled by invisible claws reaching out from the black belly of the sky.

By now, Ardi had grown used to the almost indistinguishable seasons of spring and autumn in the Metropolis. Both came cloaked in a damp, piercing cold. Their differences were only in the leaves — if you cared to look for them. And since there were hardl...

Matabar. Chapter 91 - Something that matters

Ardan reacted first. He visualized the Ice Barrage seal and slammed his staff against the fake grass. Ildar followed only a moment later, a complex, cumbersome seal lighting up along his short wand as Ildar ran its tip along the trunk of a tree.

A moment passed, then another… and nothing happened. All three — Ildar, Ardan, and Senior Magister Paarlax — stood in silence, watching one another, their gazes shifting to their respective weapons, then back to their opponen...

Matabar. Chapter 90 - The Wolf of Blazing Darkness

From the author: Make sure you don't miss the previous chapter, which was released ahead of schedule.

For a moment, a pregnant pause filled the office. Ildar — just as stout as Ardi remembered him to be from the Pnevs’ celebration, though the faint outline of his once-imposing build still showed — shifted his worried, puzzled gaze from Senior Magister Paarlax to Ardan and back again.

The Senior Magister himself seemed intent on competing with a season...

Matabar. Chapter 89 - The Theory

BONUS CHAPTER RELEASE

Ardi glanced at his watch. It was ten to six. He sighed and, holding onto his hat, surveyed the street with a dispassionate gaze. The Old Park seemed like an odd blending of every architectural style found across the Metropolis.

In equal measure, you might come across red-brick buildings straight out of the Factory District, the kind of snug yet faceless boxes reminiscent of Tend and Tendari. Occasionally — though rarely — hulking high-...

Matabar. Chapter 88 - Ragman

This time, the ride didn’t last long. They passed along Niewa Avenue, which was teeming and churning with the vigor of early spring. Vivid shop windows seemed to be competing with each other in splendor, and the people, in step with the boisterous stalls, boutiques, cafés, and restaurants, were strolling about in their fresh new outfits.

Ardi, who’d rolled the window down to let in the air, was trying to catch a whiff of that crisp breeze drifting in from the northeast. It was no s...

Matabar. Chapter 87 - Notice

Ardan tapped his pencil against a sheet of paper. In front of him was the diagram of a creature from the Dead Lands that almost seemed to be staring at him reproachfully. It was an enormous cat, standing a meter and a half at the shoulders, with leathery wings attached in the same way as a butterfly’s, plus a reptilian tail. The beast inhabited areas near bodies of water, hunting mostly Maw-like creatures and other, loosely speaking, smaller nasties that had been created during the War of t...

Matabar. Chapter 86 - The Last Illusion

FROM THE AUTHOR:
IT'S BONUS CHAPTER (2 chapters at the same time) RELEASE MAKE SURE YOU DON'T MISS THE PREVIOUS CHAPTER

Ardan froze in place. Before him, scraping the ceiling with its horns, stood another product of Star Alchemy and the biological experiments of the Tazidahian Brotherhood. Its eyes glimmered, drunk on the scent of blood.

After he’d gained full access to the Grand’s library because of what had happened at Baliero, Ardan had spent some...

Matabar. Chapter 85 - Make your bet

FROM THE AUTHOR:
2 chapters will be released tonight, so make sure you do not miss Chapter 86.

The old man held out his hand, and cards rained down from the ceiling. They fluttered on ethereal wings, like graceful swallows, and settled into a neat stack upon his hand. Anvar blew on them and, with swift, precise motions reminiscent of a cat swiping at a moth, scattered the cards.

He dealt two to himself and two to Ardi.

Milar didn’t so much as twi...

Matabar. Chapter 84 - Table of cards

When Ardi and Milar approached the construction fence that separated the “abandoned warehouse” from the rest of the street, the first thing they noticed was the complete absence of any entrance. They hesitated…

“Put them on,” the captain commanded.

Ardan nodded in confirmation. The two partners simultaneously slipped on their glasses, and at once, a wrought-iron enclosure with a small gate appeared right in the middle of the plain, hastily nailed-together wooden barrier....

Matabar. Chapter 83 - An invitation

Milar drove as if a pack of starving demons and chimeras was chasing them. He cut across traffic, sliding through even the narrowest gaps between trucks, cars, and trams while running red lights, each time narrowly avoiding getting T-boned by someone coming from a side street.

Meanwhile, the few traffic wardens at the more complicated intersections behind them hadn’t even glanced at the black car. Apparently, Tess hadn’t been exaggerating when she’d said that, in the Metropolis, y...

Matabar. Chapter 82 - Distress Signal

FROM THE AUTHOR:
BONUS CHAPTER RELEASE

The young hunter was lying upon the dense, brown fur of his biggest friend. Guta, breathing softly, was exhaling in short huffs that made his black lips curl amusingly each time the bear breathed out a warm gust of air. Ardi pressed his back against Guta. The little hunter’s lower left paw (unlike other beasts, his limbs weren’t front and hind legs, but upper and lower ones) was resting on Shali. The lynx was curled...

Matabar. Chapter 81 - Dinner

Ardan tugged awkwardly at the front of his jacket. It actually fit him fairly well, but he still felt… off. It was almost as if it had been tailored for someone else. It seemed a bit too fancy to him, even by Baliero’s standards. And yet, he had no real choice; even after the Black House finished sewing his new “official” suit, with the way his clothes wore out so quickly on the job, he’d never be able to keep up.

People passing by eyed the mage standing beneath a solitary str...

Matabar. Chapter 80 - Overindulgence

Ardan watched the sun that was barely tinted with the first blush of dawn tenderly caress the fiery hair scattered across the pillow. Little rays of light, reflecting off the cheap, flawed glass, spread out in wide, shimmering pools along her cheeks, then trickled down in a faint rainbow toward her small, upturned nose.

Tess, still asleep, was comically cocooned in the blanket, pulling it up around her ears and framing her face with the cover. She was breathing softly, curled into a bal...

Matabar. Chapter 79 - 'They spoke no words'

Ardan, with Arkar at his side, leaped and dodged over the civilians sprawled across the floor, squealing and screaming in panic, and bolted out onto the street. Something incredible was happening on the narrow sidewalk, where a thin curb formed a frail barrier between the tiny roadway and the pedestrians.

The werewolf, who had assumed his Wanderer-like form (he was thankfully not much taller than an average human like this), had grabbed the hood of a “Derks” that had screec...