akasoindustries

41 - Heaven Pierce Her

The Primordial Self stepped forward, its form melding into Zelsys. In the span of seconds, her facial features grew harsher and her musculature more defined. All restrictions lifted, the body had begun to produce a glut of Bestia, the essence of pure animalism, a composite of Rubedo and many others. Temporary mutagenic reactions took hold and anatomy reverted to a form from tens of millennia past, from an age of mankind where the weakest hunter had no choice but to be stronger than the vast m...

40 - Re: Descendant of the Tundrastriders

Red continued, to Zel’s great amusement, by copying her: “However… It seems that we are at an impasse. You cannot truly harm me, and exhausted as I am, I cannot strike you down either.”

Stomping footsteps could be heard approaching, and obviously making it up on the spot, Red gestured to the snow-pale figure which stomped through the entryway: ”Fortunate it is then, that I am not your executioner!”

_______________________________________________________________________...

39 - Seven Steps to Petrichor

The smell of iron filled her nose and the taste of it her mouth, mixed with the acidity of her own stomach. The Iron Pills were needed as a catalyst, to help repair and reinforce her right arm and to shore up the tremendous Metallum cost for what she intended to do next.

With the two of them separated for at least a little while longer, she found herself watching and listening; Von Wickten either knew that taking potshots at her wouldn’t help, or he didn’t care to try taking that op...

38 - Sin-soaked Entomodragon

A/N: Edited the reason why Zel loses grip as it didn't make sense for her bicep to outright fail in this context. 

_________________________________________________________________________________________________
Zel found herself sent flying backwards, forced to springboard off of a wall, rolling forwards just in time to glimpse the gruesome unfurling of an immense body, rapid growth enveloping the host body. It was a form that towered at nearly twice her own height, a morpholo...

37 - Theft of the Eye

A/N: Made a small addition to the chapter at the point just after the Locust Queen summons flying swords.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
There was something wrong about his eyes; no longer were they lizard-like, but instead patterned. And his hair, his hair looked wrong as well, being a bit stiffer than it rightly should be, the strands perhaps twice or thrice as thick as was natural. Even his scales looked off somehow, ...

36 - Innermost Sanctum

Nowhere in her heart did she intend to actually sit through the auction, even if she was quite confident that Von Wickten was none the wiser as to her intentions with him; the off-chance that he had caught on and that he might try to escape was not an acceptable risk.

“Ah, however… I would truly prefer to see the knight captain right now,” she hissed through a false smile again, placing her hand on the crone’s shoulder just as she turned to leave. She squeezed j...

35 - The Meat Market

A/N: Next chapter will be out Wednesday, on the 13th.

________________________________________________________________________________

Anticipating Zef’s cautious demeanor, Zel willed her Tablet to send a message:

“I’ve resolved the issue. Red is no longer hostile. Do not engage.”

A mighty grumble issued from Zel’s stomach the moment she stood up, prompting her to store the empty bottle away and retrieve two others; a larger and smaller one, ...

34 - Promise of Murder

Red struggled to her feet at last, the Subcore’s glimmering form returning to the palm of her hand, absent its octagonal casing. A hideous grimace gripped her features and the cosmic waters underfoot stirred, but before she could go through with whatever she had planned, the waters’ surface gave out under them; they fell into the very waters they had been standing on. Reality rushed back in, and they found themselves back on that dirt road, neither the signs of their battle nor Zel’s co...

33 - Clinging Onto Scraps of the Past

IDOLATRY TRIGRAM

SUBCORE EMBODIMENT

CRIMSON COMMAND: RECREATION OF PAST SELF

“MAKE A SOUND IN THE EAST, THEN STRIKE IN THE WEST”

Following her gut, Zel glanced down at the statue’s base, only for a sudden alarm to shoot through her as she felt the mantis’ presence suddenly appear behind herself. It was unmistakable, the strange feeling of a Fog-walker in her immediate vicinity; one who could fu...

32 - The Only Thing I Know For Real

Zel made little effort to hide her accusation, grinning at the Lady in Red.

“To level such baseless accusations at me is courting death. But then…” the horned advisor rebuked. Her tone betrayed no offense taken, only anticipation. Despite the distortion her voice was familiar, but it also lacked an expected Pateirian accent. She reached up to her mask, pulling it from her face, revealing that the mask’s horns were, in truth, her own. A moment later, the mask was gone, having van...

31 - Death of the Dragon

Soon they crested the edge of the cliff, and a sprawling cavern awaited them below, its sheer scale best compared to Arches itself; talagmites and stalactites the size of buildings framed the vista as though immense teeth. The cavern’s vast sprawl was dominated by the corpse of a tremendous dragon, or at least the uppermost third of it; matte-black scales, each the size of a building and overlaying the next, shrouded the immense creature as a suit of armor, many of them missing like the til...

30 - Panopticon

A/N: Slightly adjusted things for better flow. This amounts to just continuing the scene from last chapter for a bit longer.

______________________________________________________________________________

“It’s a passive process, I’ve found,” Zel chuckled. She nearly walked off towards her Sturmgandr, but caught herself just in time to glance back at the two other captives who very clearly weren’t nearly as eager as Victor to go and butcher a gang of traffickers. Sheathin...

29 - Stolen Steel

Unfortunately, even an average Dragon Knight wasn’t the type to be put down by two relatively minor injuries, a wide plume of flame blasting out of his helmet, the blast swinging his visor open and forcing Victor to back away. It was obviously not meant to strike but to give the knight some space, though Zel left that remark for later.

“Rrrrgh… Dragon Arts: Tail!” the knight invoked. A long, muscular, but quite thin tail erupted from the end of his spine, emerging from the space...

28 - An Old Grudge Put to Rest

A/N: Next chapter needs a bit more time, so it'll be out on Monday.

______________________________________________________________________________

“I…” he began, only to suddenly twist his sword free whilst delivering such a sudden and forceful kick that it sent Zelsys sliding backwards. The Dragon Knight drew in a deep breath, his stance suddenly shifting from typical low guard to a high stance taught solely to disciples of the Black Horse Family’s Founding Branch. “......

27 - Ghost Battalion

Zel pulled the Broken Butcher from its sheath, her countenance shifting from relaxed, to wild-eyed and wreathed in lightning in the span of only three breaths. Her braids came alive with the lightning-wrought beastly heads at their tips, blades as their tongues.

Zef, meanwhile, continued firing into the treeline as if nothing had changed, alternating between eye-beams and gunshots, but her left eye began emitting a long, whipping trail of pale blue and bone-white, her movements flickeri...

26 - The Red Sun Rises Over Bloodstained Peaks

Zelsys had decided to subvert the laid-out path in order to ambush Vic’s captors, instead going through the forest itself. As the trio rode through the woods, it quickly became apparent that the forest’s entirety was somehow bewitched. Zel’s instincts constantly gnawed at her, insisting that something was wrong here, her sense of direction occasionally going haywire, while Zefaris had no such issues. Where Zel’s resistance to illusions was derived from instincts, Zef saw through them ...

25 - The Serpent Squirming in the Trap

“Just following orders,” the Dragon Knight parroted emotionlessly, taking one of the rib-racks off of the fire, sticking it in a tarnished military mess tin, and tossing it over to Victor such that it landed right next to him. Vic glanced at the meat, then up at the knight, allowing his distrust to bleed through.

“It’s not poisoned, doesn’t need to be. Any foodborne paralytic I could use is worthless compared to my own venom. Look, see?” Burgghusen pleaded, walking over, tak...

24 - The Operation Begins

A/N: Next chapter will be delayed by a day, i.e 18th June

_______________________________________________________________________________

The invitation was, in reality, just a hand-drawn map with some directions written down, including guidelines to getting through four consecutive illusory corridors in the forest and a passphrase so they would let her in. Zel burned all of these, including the map itself, into memory, and made a mnemonic recording for good measure. The invitatio...

23 - Von Burgghusen

A/N: Sorry for the delay. I had only meant to do some polishing but actually wrote quite a bit before I noticed the time.

__________________________________________________________________________________

Vic rifled through both of their things before leaving, this act having been made easier in the veteran’s case: His Bonefire had calcified the man’s body and clothes, but his less-than-flammable possessions were untouched… Including his prosthetics. Besides two disembodied ...

Victor Khestun Post-Arches Design (MINOR SPOILERS)

22 - Couldn't Leave Well Enough Alone

“Of course.”

It clicked in his head. Even if drawing Viriditas directly from plants was a high-level technique, it was still one of the most easily accessible essentia in its distilled form. They would try something with the most common manifestation of Viridimancy: Brambly vines to incapacitate and bind. Was that other one also a caster, or just meat? Mulling over what to do, Vic sat there with his legs crossed. They had already proven that they could keep up with him, and...

21 - Red Sun Beneath the Eastern Horizon

He went running again later, same as the previous days, taking along a few of the ribs from his dinner in Fog Storage. The idea of carrying bones openly on his person was repellant to him; plus, the act of breaking down and absorbing them was time-consuming enough that he didn’t even consider doing it in the middle of a fight to be an option. Vic spent some more time than usual at the broken obelisk, forming variations of the same projectiles he’d come up with yesterday, shooting them at ...

20 - The Spirit of Invention (Creative Plagiarism by Any Other Name)

He had chosen to wear no underlayer, as he had enough understanding of Fog-infused clothing to know that there was no real point. Certain baseline enchantments were universal even on mass-produced Fog-infused clothing, such as those which were supplied to Ikesian soldiers whose superhuman attribute ratings and high-level training qualified them for the rank of Captain. Among these were the garment’s ability to clean and mend itself by feeding off of both ambient and the wearer’s own Pneum...

19 - New Skin

The Teacher opened it up with one hand, scanning the foreword. A moment later, the pamphlet emitted a wisp of Fog as its magickal text began to unravel beneath the Teacher’s gaze. Victor could see the gears turning behind his eyes for a moment, before the Teacher looked off to the side towards the main building, then back at Victor.

“...I think Duma will want to speak with you,”  he said, returning the pamphlet. “Take this with you. Don’t worry about hurrying back, you’...

18 - Self-Actualization

Most of the clothes with which he’d come to Arches were now long gone - he’d sold them to keep himself fed when the shortages were particularly bad.

So it was that he dressed himself in his normal clothes, heading to the markets, spending a chunk of the money Zel had given him to buy fresh fish, yoghurt, cheese, a rack of ribs, and a good amount of animal bones on their own. Victor’s distaste for the very idea of eating bones had not magically vanished or even decreased overnight,...

17 - Re: Karmesin

A/N: This chapter contains art that has already been posted, this is for posterity because this is how it will be posted on the public release.

__________________________________________________________________________________
Victor looked up at the strange hood-sleeve-thing behind the counter, then at a pair of long, armored boots. His knowledge of fashion screamed and thrashed as he pulled it apart and conceived of an outfit akin to what Zelsys was wearing, a set of clothing that ...

16 - Quelling Foolhardiness by Appealing to Vanity

Zel drew in deep breath as she ceased Engine Breathing, uttering into the knight captain’s ear with a long exhalation of Fog: “Good.”

Rising to her feet, she rolled her shoulders and basked in the divided mixture of cheers and jeers that poured down on her alongside a downpour of small-denomination coinage. Even now, she turned her attention to her opponent as he struggled to get up.

Another deep breath, this time spent to efficiently synthesize Fulgur and funnel it into the...

15 - Dragonslaying by Any Other Name

A paragraph from the second book ran through Victor’s head as he watched the display unfold.

“...Among the least appreciated, yet most potent abilities available to Storm-soul Cultivators is the ability to rectify internal imbalances, replicating the natural role of the Thundergods upon which their cultivation method relies, merely within the human being rather than a storm cloud. If a Storm-soul Cultivator develops this branch of their path, it becomes nearly impossible for any...