Chaos usurped the reins and any semblance of the enemy’s team cohesion shattered. They all started acting according to their own plans, following whatever plan they had agreed to in only the vaguest sense.
Wooden arms exploded from the walls, grabbing at a silhouette that was not the green-eyed demon, but one of the stillborns. Flammable liquid sprayed all throughout the hallway, soon blazing forth with green fire. The shapes of three canine beasts rose up from a carpet, only to insta...
2024-03-05 00:50:00 +0000 UTC
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Basically nobody uses them and it's an enormous pain in the ass to keep up with unlocking chapters for these lower tiers due to Patreon's DOGSHIT interface changes. I'm also fairly sure what few members are still in them have just forgotten they're even subbed. For this reason, I am deleting these tiers.
2024-03-02 23:08:39 +0000 UTC
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Yazata very nearly raised her eyebrows at the man’s temerity, but she let it go. It was not her problem. She led the Red Hoods into the Mirzaii Subdistrict, quickly approaching the mansion. They encountered no great resistance on the approach, easily subduing enemy patrols before they could use their glorified consumer-grade communication artifacts. Yazata continually observed the maidens and learned of their behavior as they followed her commands, noting that, unlike most automata, their a...
2024-03-01 02:28:24 +0000 UTC
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As if having predicted exactly how she would feel upon reading the notes, the very next page noted the reason for her unannounced use of this procedure. Zelsys described herself as feeling like she was inside a too-tight glove, like her own skin was too small, as if every iota of her body itched like a healing wound. There was also the matter of her lungs.
Who would’ve thought that rapid mutations had consequences. Rather than wrestle with it for months on end, I’ve come to an a...
2024-02-29 09:13:21 +0000 UTC
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“I want to say this is a formation, but… It does not follow common formation-building rules. You said the spire contains countless formations, and as far as I can tell that is the truth, but the flow of power inside the walls has not been significantly altered. How is this ‘formation’ not interfering with the others?” Zefaris questioned.
“It is more akin to the natural formations created by certain cultivator-beasts than a man-made formation…” Nesgon uttered.
2024-02-27 10:02:09 +0000 UTC
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Initially, Yazata wasn’t particularly fond of these “Red Hoods”. Battle-automata that they were, they mimicked human behavior far too closely without the cognitive capacity to be held accountable. They lacked the token animalism of graft-beasts, and bore no esoteric spark to imply the presence of an eidolon intelligence; they were animated wholly by artifice, and were just as unsettlingly cold as that implied. Faceless things they were, yet at once their steel-silver bodies had the shap...
2024-02-25 22:12:12 +0000 UTC
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By the time the ritual was over, the boy had come out, just in time to witness the shrine guardian lurch upward. Its mouth creaked open, and it drew in every iota of incense smoke in the vicinity. The guardian thumped its staff against its altar, and a seven-spoked wheel of golden flame blazed alight behind it. Another thump, and the wheel turned by a full revolution. The shrine was enveloped in golden light, and the doors slammed shut.
Another thump. Another revolution. Reams of blesse...
2024-02-22 01:10:39 +0000 UTC
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Over and over again, Krahe shamelessly threw filthy, Isotope-laced smoke grenades, skimmed through walls, and simply rendered herself untouchable when the enemy’s numbers and knowledge of their home turf proved superior to her tactical planning.
The slaughter went on like this for several minutes.
There were survivors, ones who reached the ground level before she did. One was in shock, and couldn’t utter anything other than the words: “smoke”, “black armor”, “ghost...
2024-02-19 21:51:40 +0000 UTC
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And so, many of those disciples who had gathered here did leave. Many others remained, observing from beyond the boundary. A small handful walked into the boundary, and disappeared. Two were expelled immediately, one covered in deep wounds and the other seemingly having gone feral.
“Fools. I said those to whom this Truth speaks, but no, they never listen…” Nesgon grumbled as he single handedly overpowered the duo, paralyzing them by striking their pressure points. His shr...
2024-02-13 22:08:29 +0000 UTC
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As she looked down at the two, Krahe decided that she didn’t care to kill them. They barely looked like adults, their eyes lacked any sort of hardened shine. They didn’t belong here… And they reminded her of stupid kids back in Megacity Gamma. Stupid kids that joined gangs, thinking it was a glamorous lifestyle, only to get shot like dogs to protect bastards that actually deserved those bullets.
With a gesture, she raised a slab of smoky jade so that it would entrap the two of the...
2024-02-10 21:58:06 +0000 UTC
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As for the Hellhounds, they were split. Some were too wounded to partake in “active rest”, while others were not of a cultivator-like inclination, treating their work as just that. Nonetheless, elite soldiers that they were, they had plentiful resources to help them deal with their wounds and their exhaustion.
As for Strake Sodan, he remained interred within his war machine the entire way back and for weeks after, flickering to a fully lucid state for only a few hours each day. It w...
2024-02-10 21:53:33 +0000 UTC
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As the cloud of dust and mist started to clear, Achmed saw it. Utterly unharmed, in fact it looked like the shape had completely bypassed the killzone before the charges had even gone off. An unearthly aura of pitch-black smoke rose from the invader’s armour, as if it was some cursed ghost that had just walked straight through solid stone. Achmed raised his Wing Barrier without even thinking.
Some thirty meters downrange from him, it stopped. Somehow, he felt that it knew tha...
2024-02-07 18:07:17 +0000 UTC
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The Stillborn, 82, surged forward, sprinting past the corner, its buzzing rising to a scream-like fever pitch as it raised its left arm and began firing. With a repeating sequence of whirring charge-up and thumping release, its weapon’s focused shockwaves tore up the water surface with their mere passage.
But the distant footsteps only became quicker, and a sound unsettlingly like the caw of a raven resounded, followed by a sequence of cannon-like, thumping explosions, sound not quite...
2024-02-04 13:12:13 +0000 UTC
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With her exhalation, Viridaimon’s crow-like gas mask released long threads of smoke. Krahe raised her left arm, holding it straight to get a feel for the suit’s stabilization. Then, she dived, just to dial-in any impact Viridaimon might have had upon the Liminal Coil’s functions. The relative time distortion felt a bit weaker, but the dive worked fine otherwise. She began forming a burster in her right hand as she continued further, sending Barzai up ahead.
_______________________...
2024-02-04 13:10:41 +0000 UTC
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Commissioned from ValnikR
2024-02-02 23:17:16 +0000 UTC
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Plates all across the armor slid out of the way, revealing a mixture of vents, heatsinks, and thrusters on the back and legs, inspired by Zero’s G-3 refit. A deluge of bloody Fog erupted from the suit, trailing behind it as Makhus shattered the ground and went soaring skyward.
The taste of blood and the burn of gastric acid filled his mouth.
He didn’t care.
This was the only way he could be good enough.
Pinning the dragon the way Lydia had done was one thi...
2024-01-30 06:17:40 +0000 UTC
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Lucian couldn’t use the Bearstopper Guard here; the force of the Wildfire Kite’s tail was something altogether different from the mere membrane of its wing. Out of desperate resolve, he took up a stance and harnessed a technique his master had gone to great lengths to hammer into him. Knifetongue had also gone to great lengths to hammer into him that he was not to use it unless the alternative was certain death until his training reached the volume where it was written down.
Despite...
2024-01-30 06:09:05 +0000 UTC
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Originally, she had planned to immobilize and interrogate the woman, then maybe give her a chance at survival by turning her over to the church. It would have depended on how she came across during the interrogation, whether she was just a broken person in a bad situation and so on. There was no longer space for such nuance; not with the trafficker obviously lunging for the child in an attempt to take a human shield. A simple skim forward, followed by a left straight punch into the t...
2024-01-28 23:01:15 +0000 UTC
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“Do we get Red Hood support, or are they all needed for the frontal assault?” she asked as she locked the gun-like catalyst to her left arm’s bracer.
“Unfortunately, we shall be on our own in the subterrain,” Casus said.
And so, they were off, riding through the city until they reached a somewhat nearby nook to stash the motorbike in. As they approached their goal, Krahe sent Barzai further and further ahead. Even if it was secret, given its nature, it was not unlikely f...
2024-01-28 22:53:13 +0000 UTC
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As Krahe made her way from Garvesh’s place and turned the corner, she heard a man’s footsteps nearby, just entering the same alleyway from the other end. Rapid, but decisive, not agitated. They were accompanied by a whistled melody. Though she never once glimpsed that stranger, she felt an unsettling sensation wash over her. She walked aimlessly for a short time, looking out for signs of someone following her or laying in ambush, but found no evidence of such a thing, and so continu...
2024-01-24 00:03:20 +0000 UTC
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And so, when he glimpsed the writhing mass of pink lightning that was Senior Lydia’s sword, Lucian ripped both his sword and fingers free, pushing off of the Kite’s wing with his feet. The dragon instinctively tried to toss him off at the sensation of pain, and in so doing, sent him flying right into a tree… And through it. The charred, stone-tough body of an old fir tree was cut in half by the young man’s body, as if his entire body was a blade. Having seen that tree as he flew, Luci...
2024-01-16 18:49:49 +0000 UTC
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As Lucian hopped back out of the way of the Wildfire Kite’s tail, an opportunistic Kiteling leapt down at him from a tree branch. Lucian had been aware of its presence, but his conscious focus at that moment was squarely on not getting turned into a leaky sack of charred mincemeat by the Kite’s spiked, fiery tail. He defended himself from the Kiteling on pure instinct, feeling the movement of the air and hearing the juvenile dragon. Lucian struck at the creature with a spear-hand uppercut...
2024-01-15 10:03:21 +0000 UTC
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The malformed corpse of Imraal’s cart was still out front, now joined by a trail of dried blood going inside the building. Krahe half-jokingly muttered a prayer to the deceased machine, then went inside, following the blood trail up the stairs to Garvesh’s apartment. From the direction, it was clear a corpse had been dragged out - obviously the baneworm. This guess was confirmed when Krahe entered the bathroom, finding Garvesh still in his pool-sized tub, with the corpse gone.
“Co...
2024-01-14 10:36:19 +0000 UTC
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”I expected you to outright object to the plan. I even prepared two alternatives,” Casus admitted.
“I am an Inquisitor, even if my direct combat capabilities are on the lower end. If I could not stand against odds like these, I would not qualify for my title. I must admit that I am curious - what were these alternatives of yours?”
“The first one… I shan’t say, it is neither relevant nor interesting. As for the second, I intended to enlist the aid of a partic...
2024-01-14 02:35:22 +0000 UTC
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“Just a moment,” Yazata said into the mouthpiece before hanging it up and once more turning the window to a one-way mirror.
“Was that enough information for you to decide on a plan of attack, Aristedes?” she asked, an undercurrent of annoyance in her voice. He couldn’t blame her. He was withholding information from an Inquisitor. That was to be expected from civilians and even witnesses, but not from coworkers, even less so from apostles, and absolutely not from pilgr...
2024-01-12 01:26:42 +0000 UTC
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While Makhus was approaching the dragon, so was she, but rather than charging straight at it, she merely closed the distance while telekinetically drawing Vysaga out of its sheath. As the sword rose out of its sheath on Lydia’s back, its golden dragon-wing crossguard unfurled, previously wrapped closely to the blade. The reason for such an accommodation was made plain by the span of those golden wings, as wide as Lydia’s shoulders, the golden colour of its majority contrasted by silver ta...
2024-01-10 03:44:36 +0000 UTC
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A/N: I'll catch back up to 20 advance chaps on this, don't worry
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Makhus instinctively rested the Fragment Sabre on his shoulder, striding towards the Wildfire Kite alongside his companions as they plugged their ears. He had obtained the blade from a traveling Ankhezian merchant, as it was unique and happened to fit his requirements at the time. Or, more accurately, he had tried to trade for it, but Ezaryl had deci...
2024-01-07 23:52:07 +0000 UTC
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And so, Krahe set off for that place; the ship was not nestled quietly in the corner, but was in fact the largest one. Garvesh’s debtor plied his trade from deep within its bowels, and given the fact none of the crew stopped her as she walked into areas obviously not meant for normal passengers, she wagered that they had been paid off. She arrived at a modified bulkhead with a small vault door embedded in it at roughly chest height, and an intercom to the side. Well, not quite an intercom. ...
2024-01-06 06:08:37 +0000 UTC
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A/N: Expanded the sequence before cutting to the next scene
____________________________________________________________________
Another staccato of thought-flashes followed, far more rapid, showing similar scenes of growth, but no corruption this time. Saints arrived all the same, but passed through without incident after solving small problems. It was obvious what it meant; a juxtaposition of some kind, perhaps even a vision sent from on-high, seeing as she was an apostle after all...
2024-01-05 06:02:08 +0000 UTC
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The snake, after all, was right inside the terrarium behind the bar; it was just hiding, and slithered into view when Krahe expressed her interest in its venom. Its head shape was similar to a horned desert viper, but it had six blue-glowing eyes with hairpin pupils, including three pairs of horns - one for each eye. Its scales were varying shades of creamy and sandy off-white, but they glistened with an eldritch pearlescence that reminded her of the Astral Gulf.
“I’m curious, is th...
2024-01-04 04:44:10 +0000 UTC
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