akasoindustries

Jorfr Hulson, Sagaborne

232 - Matters of Perspective [Sturmblitz]

It had been a hard-fought battle for Zhumei Karmesin, a constant uphill battle, but she had, after all, set herself up for just such a battle when she not only permitted Zelsys Newman to recover, but supplied her aid in the reforging of Carnifex Fulguris. She certainly hadn't expected Newman to grow so aggressively, but there was no undoing it now; not by any means which she would abide by. Karmesin wasn't even sure any known methods of crippling another's cultivation would work on Newman.&nb...

231 - Red Duel: Versus Re-Reprise Pt. FINAL [Sturmblitz]

Zelsys had a response; one born from every facet of her seclusion training put into practice all at once. Donning the Mantle to respond to one of Red's stratagems was, at this point, no longer new. A vast and terrible deluge of Metallum followed, all of Carnifex's Fangs screeching and splitting apart. Like slag flying from a mass of red-hot steel on the anvil, copies of each segment split from them and swirled around Zelsys. With each swing, it was as though Carnifex Fulguris multiplied, but ...

62 - Femme Fatale Facade [Cherno]

Casus just about stepped forward to valiantly slay the evildoer, and Krahe was of the same mind in terms of final result, but she also knew not to reject intel freely offered, least of all by one who thought truth would buy him a ticket to safety. She held her arm out in from of him, prompting a wide-eyed look from the surgeon, followed by a lick of his lips as he ogled her arm as if it were the most tantalizing display of carnal imagery conceivable by mankind.

"A path to where the Silb...

230 - Red Duel: Versus Re-Reprise Pt. 5 [Sturmblitz]

At that moment, just before she released her technique, Karmesin felt the overpowering sensation that she would be torn limb from limb at any moment, much like one would feel when facing down a predatory beast ready to pounce.

Thus, for the first time in a very long while, Karmesin acted on pure instinct and set the beam loose. A screaming ray of northlight ripped forth towards her foe, carving a swath through the earth and turning the air around its edges to chittering plasma not throu...

229 - Red Duel: Versus Re-Reprise Pt. 4 [Sturmblitz]

While the Five True Fang Ripper ran a feverish, screaming track around Red's seclusion orb, Zelsys loaded the first of Ingvald's spitzer-nosed hi-pen shells into Thundercannon, building up a great and terrible Fulguric charge both within and without. This was of course slowed somewhat by the need to fuel the ripper.

Nonetheless, the charge built, and she had a fairly substantial one already built in her Retributive Battery. She wound her braids around her left arm, her Thundergods bitin...

61 - Stealth, For Once [Cherno]

The place was being evacuated. Krahe hoped it to be mere coincidence, but then, her mind went back to the odds. Back to the smokery. The diminutive, red-cloaked figure which seemed to have unsettled every was probably a Red Hood, or at least the only thing that Krahe could think of that might be a Red Hood.

Finally the two men neared the elevator, coming into view. Both were well-built and dressed in workers' clothes, one even having a flat cap on his head. Both were also baneworms, but...

60 - The Ol' Corpse Elevator Pt. 2 [Cherno]

Krahe summoned another cigarette. This had to be her sixth or seventh just today, and yet somehow, the smell of smoke didn't linger about her. Arrha smoke was pleasant, as far as smoke could be, but it still soaked into smokers' clothes, hair, very being. He supposed it made sense for a mage whose natural affinity included Smoke and whose Purge Remnants were also smoke.

"I can only hope we're not walking into an ambush."

"It has only been a few hours. They may not yet even know I ...

59 - The Ol' Corpse Elevator [Cherno]

"Not a time for smalltalk," Krahe shushed him, getting a ring of keys off of the dead man's belt. One of them fit into the elevator's panel, but there was already a key in there, to he disappointment. "Lazy fuckers couldn't even bother with basic security protocol... C'mon, help me hoist these guys into the lift."

"Why?"

"I'll set a construct to start the lift after a delay while we scale the stairs. When the lift comes up all the attention will be on it and we'll get a hair-thin ...

228 - Red Duel: Versus Re-Reprise Pt. 3 [Sturmblitz]

It took several of these terribly demanding swings to exterminate the veritable construct-army, but now Zelsys had the constructs' slightly-delayed detonations to worry about. As thousands of northlight arrows came raining down, she didn't stop swinging, instead changing her swing pattern and adjusting Carnifex into a spiraling, parasol-like formation overhead. She exhaled great gusts of swirling Fog that were caught up in the motion, forming a solid cover off of whose surface Red's arrows si...

227 - Red Duel: Versus Re-Reprise Pt. 2 [Sturmblitz]

Just as she had gradually and carefully purified an ignition core in her battle against Von Wickten's Entomodragon form, Zelsys did the same here. Trying to exert power through her own body was meaningless, she felt it just from how this antediluvian power crushed down upon her. However, the Conqueror's Mantle in itself was not an external exertion of power. It was a set of strengthening techniques which added up to vastly magnify Zel's ability to project power, primarily through forming a sh...

226 - Red Duel: Versus Re-Reprise [Sturmblitz]

Before emerging from seclusion, Zel took a few moments to double-check that the new Fog Storage bangle from Ingvald was safely attached to her belt, and that his new shells were securely on her belt. She hadn't dared actually fire them down here, after the horrifying output they demonstrated during the test-fire on the surface.

The shells and projectiles of course weren't the only factor by far, but even with Atrine-enriched powder, they somehow produced around two-and-a-half times as m...

58 - SLAUGHTERHOUSE 9 [Cherno]

A/N: I forgot a whole environmental desc. paragraph near the end. Fixed.

_______________________________________________________________________
"Touché."

The old, water-eroded brickwork crumbled like tofu-dreg faux-crete under Casus' blows. They had to pry the door away from the wall and awkwardly squeeze past, with the lock sturdy enough that the whole thing hanged off it. Before long they hit the unfinished tram tunnel, the air stale from lack of active ventilation. Stale.....

225 - Seclusion Training: Fang Ripper [Sturmblitz]

Her efforts in supplanting swordlight had also progressed to a point she was satisfied with. She had started with manipulating individual Fangs into projectile forms by causing their sawteeth to straighten out and grow to a spearlike length. Then, she would spin the resultant Fang Spear, bringing it to a white-hot glow before throwing it with a whipping motion. The False Fang Spear embedded so deeply into the ice that she just left it to disintegrate rather than try to call it back, gouts of ...

224 - Seclusion Training: Uncoiling Scolopendra [Sturmblitz]

At this time, Zelsys made the decision to clean up her techniques list somewhat, collapsing Beast-butchering Arts and Formless Butchery into the single category of "Butchering Arts", for simplicity's sake. Geheimnis would remain as a category for more esoteric and non-combative techniques.

Despite all these changes, despite having returned to the peak of her strength and surpassed it by far, Zelsys was down here, in seclusion, frustrated.

The reason was simple: Even now, she could...

57 - Demon Core Conception [Cherno][+Artwork]

Her own knowledge had combined with Chernobog's Mystic Wisdom into an idea that the Boon illustrated by dredging up a single memory: A photograph of a half-sphere, within whose middle a smaller sphere sat. The other half of the larger sphere sat off to the side right next to a screwdriver.

Chernobog's blessing had received a question, and answered as one would expect a dark god's knowledge to answer: "Demon Core."

Perhaps most grim of all, nowhere did the idea of an explosion come...

56 - The Wound-like Grin, Again [Cherno]

Firminus had indeed tossed the sample, but before then, he had stored some of it away inside his right hand; among other tools, it contained several dozen hidden syringes, all within his abnormally spacious Kenoma Pocket. He entered that woman’s saliva into one of his machines, a device of mechanical sophistication and thaumaturgic brutishness. It used a complex mechanism to bombard a sample with a wide and overwhelming variety of basic appraisal magic, both breaking apart any appraisal int...

55 - Grafter Pt. 2 [Cherno]

“Hashem? You’re going after the Hashems now? What, am I to help you prepare to go into battle with a… A Dregsteamer belt and an idealistic anathemist?!” the grafter scolded, gesturing towards Krahe as if she were a barely-working hoverbike that would be used in a doomed bank robbery. Despite his scolding, though, the grafter continued in his work, pulling and replacing a total of seven muscle-bundles. “Alright, I untangled the powerline and secured it as best I could. I replaced the...

223 - Breakthrough [Sturmblitz] [+Internet Outage Update]

A/N: I still don't have a proper internet connection.

I was supposed to have a new router installed by now, but no, ISP has to be a piece of shit and just conveniently "forget" about my order.

The outage may go on for a week or even two. The mongrels at my ISP have been dragging their feet in getting my new internet connection handled, claiming to have "an issue in our system" etc etc. They even said they would get back to me to resolve the issue around 1pm. It is 6pm as of me wri...

54 - Grafter [Cherno] [+Internet Outage Update]

A/N: I still don't have a proper internet connection.

I was supposed to have a new router installed by now, but no, ISP has to be a piece of shit and just conveniently "forget" about my order.

The outage may go on for a week or even two. The mongrels at my ISP have been dragging their feet in getting my new internet connection handled, claiming to have "an issue in our system" etc etc. They even said they would get back to me to resolve the issue around 1pm. It is 6pm as of me wri...

internet outage notice

I won't have proper internet for a couple days due to work on the wires being . I managed to schedule a few chapters ahead of time on rr/sh but not on here before the outage took effect.

I will attempt to compensate for these days of no advance chapters once my internet is back up. 

222 - The Difference Between Righteous and Idealist Cultivators [Sturmblitz]

In this time, Zefaris quietly took several photographs; from Ingvald inspecting Carnifex Fulguris, to him feverishly sketching it both as a weapon and as a spirit. She managed to catch a moment where he rubbed out a swath of charcoal in anger at his own failure to capture the true thickness of Fulguris’ thighs.

Gradually, the Fey Mood’s hold over Ingvald loosened. His obsession had been satisfied to the fullest conceivable extent, and with the power of the Forgemother having been ex...

The Real Names of the Three Soldiers [Sturmblitz]

I'm curious what you all think the real names of the Three Soldiers were before their encounter with Zelsys. Or rather, the real names of Makhus and Zefaris, since Sigmund didn't change his name. Just comment your opinions below.

53 - Dead Night Tigers [Cherno]

“Washed-up former legend that runs a pawnshop and metes out aid to the new generation…” she uttered as they walked, summoning a fresh cigarette and lighting it, taking a drag. With a long sigh on the exhalation, she turned her eyes skyward. “Talk about cliché. Just need some rain and a gang war a couple streets away and I’ll feel at home.”

“You keep smoking, but Arrha is not addictive, and you should be perfectly rested at the moment. Why, then?”

“Neither is cof...

221 - Further Consequences of the Hulson-Ramdall Blood Feud Pt. 2 [Sturmblitz]

“There should be no problem with you using the Aase’s refinement methods to develop your own. It’s mostly about the water,” Torhild shrugged. “We can’t very well keep our techniques secret, and if a foreigner manages to learn some of our techniques, then that speaks to their skill and worthiness, be it through reverse-engineering an enemy’s techniques or by befriending a Borean. The water, however, is a resource unique to Borea, you understand. It is akin to the vast reserves of...

220 - Further Consequences of the Hulson-Ramdall Blood Feud [Sturmblitz]

Over the course of these celebrations, in the small amount of time she got to herself, Zel also learned that Thundercannon’s spirit could be made to manifest unassisted. However, he took a significant amount of energy and barely had a solid form, remaining semi-immaterial just like Death’s Lieutenant. In fact, it only sunk in now that Carnifex Fulguris was undoubtedly an exception among exceptions as a weapon whose spirit had not just self-awareness, but a fully physical body. Thundercann...

52 - Twin Serpents [Cherno]

“Give me something that will best support skirmish combat. I don’t see myself going head-to-head with an overwhelming enemy,” Krahe said.

Garvesh reached for the display case, but Casus stopped him.

“Ah ah ah- Come now. We are not regular customers.”

“I’ve got a stolen Silversword prototype on display, d’you think I would-”

“A last-generation stolen prototype. Every recruit signed to the Silversword Agency who reaches the signing bo...

51 - The Forming Toroid Pt. 2 [Cherno]

Casus’ gaze instantaneously magnetized to her wrist, and he soon asked: “May I appraise it?”

“Feel free,” she placed her hand on the counter.

As it had done before, the Banisher’s third eye opened and shone with a blue light. He furrowed his brow as if trying to read something blurry, only for his eyes to go wide.

“Oh. Oh that is very good,” he said with a nod of approval, looking up to meet Garvesh’s waiting gaze, then looking back to Krahe. “An artifact...

50 - The Forming Toroid [Cherno]

Slipping the bangle onto her wrist, she channeled Thauma into it as instructed, pushing in more and more until it suddenly shut her out. With resonant buzzing and thrumming, the bangle floated from her wrist and began to revolve around it, casting concentrated rays of light every-which-way. Those which struck her carved gouges into her wards, causing them to give off short-lived, phantom smoke. Its ominous, jade-green light suddenly turned an iridescent black like the surface of an at-sea oil...

219 - Supreme Law of Gold and Ebony [Sturmblitz]

Shen could indeed sense no spirit from the weapon, and yet, it already emitted a fearsome sword qi. He felt as though he might be struck, or cut, or run through at any moment. This was of course due to the fact Xiān Dì was holding it, but the fact the blade could resonate so strongly without a blade spirit spoke volumes to its quality. An unsettled feeling in his stomach told Shen the reason behind all this. There was no other possible reason for Xiān Dì to take such action. It was the Vi...