akasoindustries

189 - Breaking-in Pt. 3

A/N: Yeah, most of this chapter is also NSFW. The SFW part is separated off at the end.

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These facts; those of dehydration and exhaustion; did little to nothing to stifle the previous night’s still-burning embers. If anything, Zel’s total lack of modesty in this private setting only combined with her teasing nature to fan the flame all over again.

Zef retreated to the bedroom, deciding this...

188 - Breaking-in Pt. 2

A/N: This chapter is pretty much all lewd.

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When she pressed on her lover’s stomach a little harder, outward slid the entire turgid length of flesh it had been transformed into, leaving both of them in a brief state of shock. In moments, it inflated with blood to a size most men would boast about, yet in context with Zel’s body, its size was perfectly proportionate. This wasn’t what she had exp...

187 - Polishing/Breaking-in

A/N: Chapter steers towards NSFW near the end, though it's clearly separated.

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The whole purpose of this exercise was to help flesh out a combat style decisively not designed with nonlethal sparring in mind, though it was surprisingly effective against opponents considerably larger than the user, perhaps because it had been born in the dungeon’s Warrior-bug filled halls and faux-trenches. Unfortuna...

186 - Training/Sparring

Afterwards, Zelsys immediately asked for directions to the aforementioned indoor gym, with Ozmir happily giving them and noting that it was specifically geared towards resistance training with a smaller area for striking targets, as truly high-grade targets were simply too large and heavy to get indoors.

“There’s also uh, an unfinished project that was supposed to show that modern technology is compatible with our doctrine, kind of a modern version of moving automaton dummies. It wa...

Zelsys Training Arc Design Update Previz Sketch

The arm proportions are getting fixed.

185 - On the Operation of a Sect

A/N: There won't be a chapter tomorrow, for two reasons. First, my sleep pattern's been getting progressively more FUCKED lately (I'm talking sleep at 8-9am) so I'll be taking today to reset that. Second, I have artwork cooking for Zel's training arc design update, and I want to give the artist a bit of time.

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She remembered what the old craftsman had said about them, how iconic they were in Kargaria...

184 - The Walking Way of the Despot of Self

“Hold on, did you-” he began, the realization obvious in his face as he slid into a wheezing, pained laugh. “You fell for the trap trying to get into the so-called Eternal Vault, didn’t you?”

“Hey, at least it gave me an excuse to finally have something made specifically for me,” she chuckled back to him, already grasping the scroll’s spools to open it up. “So what about it?”

“Don’t expect any of us will get it just by skimming the thing over, but what the ...

183 - Translation

“I knew the one you put in looked different…” Zef squinted, to which Makhus nodded.

“Aye, I uh…” he began, looking off to the side as he built an explanation in his head. “Look, I asked the Krishorn heiress if she knew someone who could do glyph tattoos on the down-low and she just out-and-out asked if I’d gotten my hands on an Iron Rider belt. Gave me this thing-” he pulled the cartridge out of the belt and gestured with it, ”-and told me the originals wouldn’t wo...

182 - Cheesecake

Activating the storage glyph caused it to pose a query in Old Ikesian, which Zel fixed by pressing her own Tablet up against it and mentally ordering it to perform a system update and language change. She hadn’t actually expected it to just work, but surprisingly, it did, with the storage glyph’s ornate rearranging to a layout more akin to her Tablet’s. It held an extensive wardrobe of archaic robes and trousers, prompting Zel to remark, “Did he just wear the same thing every d-Y’kn...

181 - Leather

Such was the morose mood of the old man, until a pair of women walked into his establishment.

One an Ikesian, hale and hearty, of fair hair and possessing a single piercing Homunculus Eye. She wore strong, practical soldier’s boots under her sundress, these and the obvious gun on her hip bulging the fabric overtly betraying that she was no civilian.

The other was a barefoot, half-naked - no, make that three-quarters naked - monstrosity of a woman. The mishmash of visible traits ...

180 - Breaching the Eternal Vault

In relief to her frustration, this seal responded to her far more readily than those before, even though it still took several lungfuls of aether gathered and released at once to break it. Upon disintegration, it revealed a glyph inlaid into stone using silver, tarnishing and erosion already taking hold within seconds of her removing the seal.

It lit up and the gate opened, and with a sense of urgency, she stepped through. Travel by this gate was much like travel by those within the Dun...

179 - Flagrant Lack of Caution

Books and scrolls sat neatly lined up each in their own separate compartments on the shelves, running the gamut in terms of materials, age, size, and style. From wooden sticks and frayed parchment, to ornamented gold and pristine, doubtlessly enchanted vellum, and much the same went for the books - crack-cowered, barely bound journals stood alongside great tomes bound in perfectly preserved, dyed, gold-inlaid leather.

Zelsys even cautiously took a few in hand, those that looked sturdy e...

178 - Unearthed

Zel’s gaze jumped to the other side of the room, skimming over the two other doors.

They, too, were sealed off, though each only by one seal.

“Doesn’t smell like sealed-off antiquity,” she muttered as she stepped in, looking around. Besides the writing desk, there was to be seen an L-shaped counter in the right-hand corner, covered in elaborately decorated, archaic alchemy equipment, and equipped with a sink, though the fuel gem embedded in the wall above its spout had lon...

177 - Ozmir

“So it is,” Zel nodded, making no qualms about picking up the plate and cutting off a piece. It was equal parts opulently sweet, spicy, and creamy, almost bordering on culinary kitsch, and certainly not what she would’ve expected of a cultivator sect’s cooking.

“In that case, you might want to know that that door,” he pointed with his own fork, having sat back down, “has been sealed up since before I joined, some two and a one-third centuries back. It uh… It also happens...

176 - Break the Seal

Why? What could be so grand a thing to seal away? Surely it was just the office of the previous sect leader, sealed away so that nobody but the next leader could enter it.

Surely the sect couldn’t have lost access to the vast bulk of its secret knowledge in the wake of some internal power struggle, surely. Why Zel’s mind strayed in that particular direction, she knew not, and did not have the spare focus to mull over.

Her very being threatened to pull apart at the seams, the f...

175 - Reaching Into Ages Past

A/N: Still dealing with family stuff. No chapter tomorrow.

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“And none of you brought it up even once because…” Zel trailed off.

“...They’re about as difficult to find as pre-war cultivators nowadays,” the blonde began explaining, simultaneously continuing to write more runes, though at a much slower pace. “They were one of our most powerful and overtly visible tools early in the w...

174 - Chipping Away

Grasping in the recesses of her mind, trying to grab for the right gesture, she found nothing.

Nothing, and yet everything.

Zelsys emptied her mind, allowing her gaze to wander as she calmed herself and slipped into a far slower than usual mode of engine breathing.

Her first prod at the seal was simple, as she mustered a battering ram of willful intent and smashed it against the bulwark wordlessly invoking her authority over the sect the same way she had done when commanding...

173 - To Walk Ever Onward

“We could go there, even tomorrow if you wanted,” Zel suggested.

Zef didn’t respond for a little while, and then with a sigh denied, “I think I’d rather not. Don’t have much reason to go back there, even if it’s somehow all untouched. Ma and pa did their best, don’t have anything to hold against them, just… Don’t have a whole lot to pull me back either.”

The blonde looked up at her lover, briefly opening her other eye for no purpose other than proper eye cont...

172 - Horizonward

Beauteous vistas to make the soul sing.

Vistas that had perhaps once been beautiful, yet now laid ripped apart, littered by uncountable wrecked war machines, abandoned fortifications, and who knew how many corpses. So many war machines. Standing unmoving, steel sentinels watching over the fields.

Watching.

Waiting.

“It has been months since the commander left. It matters not. I will defend the homeland on my own,” they must’ve thought.

Destruction ...

Alcerys Finished Artwork

171 - A Long Fall

He cursed them, even as the serpent caught up and entangled him, losing its tubular shape and forming an impermeable ball of flames and spikes, crushing and squeezing and smothering the now-falling general.

Alcerys and Red were now left to deal with the aftermath of the latter’s strange conjuring magic, all of the impurity left behind reshaping itself into a purulent monstrosity whose sole instinct was to lash out at those who would cut short the suffering of its original victim.

Alcerys First Render Pass

170 - Armor of Curses

A/N: I'll have to take care of an elderly family member over the weekend, so no chapters Sat-Sun.

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A deluge of smoke and ash escaped from every-which orifice and the very pores of his skin, and as he spoke his proclamation, his hand shot out to point first at Alcerys, then at the Red Mantis.

A moment later the general’s body was enveloped in this tenebrous substance, horrendous fleshly noises...

169 - Give Me Your Head

Alcerys used the time afforded to her in this moment to regain her bearings and adjust her positioning relative to the general.

“If you would see me punished, then do it,” howled the general. “Force your truth upon me! Beat a confession out of my broken husk!”

“Fine,” spat the Charred Judge, raising her left hand, touching the tip of her thumb to her little finger in a gesture of prayer, and the First Arm’s beastly claws followed suit. The Eye’s own righteous fury ...

168 - Heartless Madness

Separating the Eye from her sword, she pulled out her gun and took a shot at the rotten immortal, swiftly walking towards him. Another, then another, working the lever by spinning the whole gun. As she walked she gathered a mass of Ignis within Emberthorn, waiting until she counted out her last bullet, gesturing with it still in hand to set loose a strike from the First Arm, detonating the Second Arm well before it would’ve hit Cao.

The shaped charge bloomed outward instantaneously wi...

Alcerys Color Flats

Charring effects will be applied throughout the rendering process.

167 - Flying Sword

“Unlike my Inquisitorial ex-colleagues, I have no law, no restriction, no line in the sand, there is nothing the Statehood can do to stop me from carrying out my divinely-appointed duty,” Alcerys continued, diverting some attention towards the Woman in Red, who seemed conspicuously uninterested in interfering. She even gestured that she wouldn’t involve herself. The woman’s bright-red, claw-like nails stood out almost as much as the brief flash of gold and red inside her sleeve.

166 - Cao Hu

A/N: I'm taking the weekend off, meaning there will not be chapters tomorrow and overmorrow - Sunday and Monday.

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“Before I let you on your way, I will share with you something my countrymen would rather see buried - Pateiria is not nearly as united in matters pertaining to Ikesia as you might think. There are quite a few who think the Emperor no longer possesses the Mandate of Heaven, that his mis...

Alcerys Previz Sketch

This early version lacks the correct quills on Emberthorn's back edge.

165 - Tian Meng

Another salvo rang out. Alcerys walked through it, even as the power of the Halo waned and a bullet ripped past her face. The appearance of invincibility did as much as the real thing against the common footsoldier.

She could do naught but smile to herself, knowing that even Pateirians recognized the words, the cadence, the meaning behind the incantation she had stolen from the Estoras family. It worked, after all, effectively evoking the mental imagery of what she was trying to do - th...