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120 - Cultural Tour [Sturmblitz]

“See?! Even a fucking foreigner can tell what a failure you are!” he barked, slamming the pulp open-faced on his desk. The book’s spine broke. “Generations of meticulous breeding and the first one of our clan to reap the fruits in full can’t even use them properly, pathetic. At least your insufferable mongrel of a brother can use his half-baked gifts to their full extent.”

“What happened at the Spirit Grove wasn’t my fault, and you agreed to stop bringing it up! Don’t ...

1 - Nuclear Revenant [Cherno]

Her head toppled from her shoulders.

When her killer picked up her disembodied head and placed it so that she had a good view of the city, saying that he was sorry, that it was for his family… Only then did the reality of her betrayal sink in. He’d been bought by the same scum who had turned her home to radioactive glass.

Krahe. That had been her name.

In the moment her head was severed from her body, a chain of Dead Man Switches embedded in her cybernetics went off. Amo...

Announcement

I intend to begin intermittently posting chapters of Cherno Caster on here as part of  an effort to put some external pressure on myself to do more work on it. They will be made available using the same scheme as Sturmblitz Kunst advance chapters. I will use the tags [Sturmblitz] and [Cherno] in chapter titles to differentiate the two series. Ideally I would like to eventually do a chapter a day for both series, but Sturmlitz Kunst will take priority.

2022-12-06 20:06:25 +0000 UTC View Post

119 - Tensions

Zef snatched up the pendant and the effigy, stating: “I will be able to prolong the time the severance lasts, though not for long. A few days, at most.”

The Black Nail pulsed with eldritch light.

“Each time it does that, it’s the Gem trying to break its restraints,” she commented.

Not entirely sure what to think, Zel asked: “You’ve been mentally processing whatever the Black Rod showed you the entire time since we entered the cathedral chamber, haven’t you?�...

118 - Severance

A/N: Minor edits to 117. Just some wording. Also sorry for the delay, moved a bunch of stuff around.

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Meanwhile, Victor kept spilling the contents of his train of thought unabated: “There’s also our astronomical difference in raw attributes to account for. I’ll need to redesign Midnight Wolf just so it doesn’t bruise me all to hell when it grabs me, then there’s an improved reaction ...

Retribution Engine Vol. 1 Paperback Now Available on Amazon!

Vol. 1 of Retribution Engine is now available in Kindle and Paperback on Amazon. I'll make around $3.70 per sale of either, so if you just want to support me, Patreon is still the better option. This is mainly for those who want a paperback copy.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BNZFV2CP

117 - Severance Preparation Pt. 2

“Alright, I’ll trust you. We need to get started with the Itrian Severance Ritual once you’re done, though,” Zel said.

Zef briefly looked up from her scribbled notes: “Huh? Oh yeah, that. Yeah. That’ll be a good way to try these, good idea.”

Zel backed out of the room slowly and left Zefaris to her devices for the time being, deciding to come check on her once those promised twenty minutes were up. In the meanwhile, she checked on Jorfr - at least she thought to do ...

116 - Severance Preparation

A/N: Small fucky wucky, accidentally reposted 97 without thinking. 

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The redhead’s still-wet hair was done up in a ponytail and he was barely clad in a towel, clutching his clothes to his chest. Zelsys could see several bruises on his lower torso, and what looked like the bruised imprints of two large hands at the sides of his ribcage.

“Which one was it? Tell me please, for your...

115 - Wolfblade Pt. 3

While she had her breakfast, she felt a number of not-quite-friendly eyes upon her back, but none dared approach. Pondering on the state of things as well as her interactions with Fryg and Kyriak only reaffirmed the very intent with which she’d come to Borea. She meant to push things ahead as quickly as she conceivably could rather than risk letting herself be dragged around by the machinations of others. One after the other she would set things into motion before any possible hostile force...

114 - Wolfblade Pt. 2

Around this point, the other retainer returned hauling another huge pitcher, mead sloshing about within. Without being asked, he refilled both of their tankards before setting the pitcher down.

“The Ramdalls do not deserve their post. Honorless curs, the lot of them. Merchants that think honor can be bought, especially their scheming hag of an elder. The Aase… They got desperate, I think.”

Zel glanced to the retainer again in hopes of elaboration.

Life-saver that he wa...

113 - Wolfblade

He dropped into a huge, appropriately overbuilt chair, his retainers flanking him to either side. Zel took the hint, seating herself in turn and kicking her feet up on the table. A brief chuckle emerged from the man-bear, resembling the rumble of distant thunder more than a human sound.

“Good. Now we can talk. I will not keep you in the dark - Jorfr called in a blood-price with me. The boy I remember was hopeless, but he did save my hide once. Pure luck on his part… But a blood-pric...

112 - Lifting Heavy Pt. 2

Arcs of blue slithered about her, metallized muscles writhed beneath her skin and creaked with effort, the heretofore subtle silver lines under her skin now shone bright milky-white and covered every inch of exposed flesh.

Kyriak grasped the largest boulder’s cold-iron handles, and with a distinctly bear-like scream, he forced it off the ground and above his head before slamming it back down and emitting another, even louder howl of sheer physical struggle. Seeing this and not being o...

111 - Lifting Heavy

“When you see one of the druids or clan elders lifting, you know what it looks like; they use magic, sure, but if you know what they are doing, it is straightforward. For her? It has to be half a dozen different things all working in concert and all immensely demanding in precision, and that is just what she plainly admitted to in those books, imagine what sort of bizarre tricks she keeps to herself. You have seen how she moves, it almost looks like a spiritwalker in a permanent trance.”<...

110 - Gymnasium/Family Dirt Pt. 2

It was plain that Fryg was just waiting for a response to bounce off of, so Zel at least tried to steer the crone.

“The Jorfr I know is not mediocre in any aspect. If he truly was as mediocre as you describe when he left, his growth should have been abundantly clear upon his return,” Zel said.

“I will admit that I was pleasantly surprised. I was fully prepared to forgive his viking trip, considering that whatever he has done in the course of becoming as he is now will likely...

109 - Gymnasium/Family Dirt

A number of eyes fell upon her, and though she felt some curiosity as to her appearance, Zelsys could tell that most of the onlookers were more curious about how much the weird-looking foreigner could lift. It was a gut feeling, but she also overheard an exchange along those lines between two strongfat men with bulging mead guts.

She started with a boulder of roughly half a meter in diameter, finding that it was no heavier than she would expect any other boulder of this size to be. Lift...

108 - Arrival Pt. 4

The day passed. After a brief exchange with a few other members of the Hulson clan, Zel and Zef were assigned a room together. Victor was assigned the room next to theirs, both being on the second floor of the longhouse. The sheer size of the structure was closer to a sect building than a home, with a long central hall where several throne-like chairs were arrayed at the head of a great table. Something about the architecture of this place tickled a deeply-buried part of Zel’s memory, feeli...

Flu

Hello!

It appears that I've caught a flu of some sort. Body pain, headache, fever, urge to vomit, etc.

As much as I would like if it were otherwise, I can't write shit while suffering from a flu.

So... Yeah. No chapters for a bit. Hopefully just a couple days.

107 - Arrival Pt. 3

“Other one,” the northman, sat on one of the ledges, calmly pointed with his thumb whilst whipping himself with a bundle of evergreen branches. By contrast Victor, who stood just inside the pool with the water going up to his thighs, froze in place like a scared animal. It took Zelsys considerable effort not to not look at him, but the clarity of her peripheral vision more than sufficed to carve the flesh-maul between the redhead’s legs into her mind’s eye. She gave a light nod of tha...

106 - Arrival Pt. 2

A/N: I feel like shit, need to take another day off. Next chapter on Tuesday, Nov. 15th.

The blood which they’d bled took on a life of its own as they spoke the words in turn, forming an interlinking knotwork pattern joining their hands. It began boiling for a moment, only to burn away in a flash and leave its pattern on their skin, which faded seconds later. The crone let go, pulling a hollowed-out fang from some hidden pocket. From within the fang she scooped some sharp-smelling pou...

105 - Arrival

Oasis City: the great capital of Borea, a self-keeping secret by virtue of its location. North-East to the northernmost point of the Ankhezian Imperium’s original borders, just barely within range of the Suncage Grid’s solar wrath when it had been at its full capacity. Its crescent shape was contoured around one side of a kilometers-wide, oval-shaped geothermal lake, taking up one third of its coastline. A jungle of megaflora and megafauna alike dominated the rest of the great Boiling Lak...

104 - The Rainbow Passage

“A revenant of a sort,” Jorfr finally said, prompting Zel to gesture to him in agreement. The Borean gave a smirk, adding: “Do not tell anyone I said that… And do not repeat it either. I only now realized what a grave insult that comparison is to our good king. The blood loss must have fogged my mind.”

Some time passed in silence as they waited for the Blackwall Gate and rested.

In the middle of doing the splits to ensure her hip wouldn’t get stuck as it had done once ...

103 - On the Precipice

In the next instant, her full attention turned to ascertaining the state of her comrades. Zefaris was already halfway down the stairs when Zel passed them, but she stopped dead when she saw the cathedral’s door slowly closing.

“Go back to the top. Keep the doors open, just to be sure,” Zel said, based purely on a gut feeling. The blonde glanced back and in a flicker of her form she was gone, scaling the great stairs as she hurled herself forward in time by split-second increments ...

"Sturmblitz Kunst Vol. 2: The Conqueror of Borea" Cover

We're coming up on the next volume transition, so here's the new cover art. 

102 - The Wingless Dragon's Flight

Baiting him in his enraged state was easy - too easy, in fact. His next move proved her gut feeling right, when he deftly stopped his own momentum using jets of curseflame, as if mocking her need to use someone else’s servitor to move in a way he could under his own strength. His tail suddenly formed a shield in front of him, coming from his left. It was only large enough to cover most of his torso, leaving his right arm plain to see and allowing him to peer over its edge. A flash of yellow...

101 - Comet Plan

Midnight Wolf didn’t just react to her - there was no latency, no reaction delay. It was as if Midnight Wolf was part of her body, reacting to her intentions as readily as her own limbs. She met him in another head-on clash in order to get an opening on him; she intended to finish him off by ripping his armor open with another Thunderclap Sting before forming a single projectile from the blades held by her braids, shrouding it in crimson lightning. She meant to propel it into him by firing ...

100 - Second King's Mystic Wisdom

By some accursed miracle, his might in his current state equaled hers. The only reason that sword in his hand hadn’t exploded, in her mind, had to be up to the armor and the purple flame enshrouding the blade. It was a nice sword, but not nearly possessed of the natural durability to withstand the strain it was put under every time she smashed one of her blades into it.

Despite every advantage she had on him, despite effectively having six additional, weaker limbs, he kept up. Even wh...

99 - Spindle Release

With her left hand, she took a blade from one of her braids and threw it at Adalbert. Then another, and another; though he managed to dodge two, the third hit him head-on.  It smashed into him with enough force to dent his armor, exploding into a million tiny pieces and causing numerous chips of brittle bone to come off of him. At first her attacks had little apparent effect, dents and gouges which they inflicted being mended quite quickly, but that changed when she ran through the pig-i...

98 - Re: Storm-conqueror's Mantle

That thing didn’t move like an animal. It propelled itself forward upon blasts of flame that issued from the ends of its limbs with each bound, constantly snarling and howling as it spewed a seemingly boundless deluge of bonefire. Such festering, explosive anger spilled forth from the devilbone wolf as to drown out Von Wickten’s own aura of hatred as the servitor circled him. It bombarded him with a constant, blinding outpour of flame, yet never made the mistake of blindl...

97 - Midnight Wolf, the Hellhound Fury

A/N: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uTdp8sXFcU

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Meanwhile hidden behind the stairway, Victor saw an opportunity, having spent this whole time preparing. He couldn’t help glancing between Jorfr and Von Wickten, drawing on both of them to rile himself up whilst simultaneously pulling in as much Ignis as he co...

96 - Hate Beyond Hate Pt. 2

Adalbert’s howling blast of curseflame broke through his shield, shattered the haft of his hammer, and ripped through his side, carrying on and blazing a trail of scorched flowers until it smashed into the cave wall. Its force threw Jorfr back a good twenty meters, trailing blood and viscera from the fist-sized hole in the right side of his chest.

Turning back to face Zel once more, Von Wickten opened and closed his hand a few times and with some degree of surprise evident to his voic...