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162 - VS. Crescent Jezail Pt. 1 [Cherno]

A/N: This will NOT be a long fight, or even a direct fight at all. It will be resolved in the first half of the next chapter.

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"I'm sure you can guess," Eutropia said with a wry smile. "I can't say who contacted me personally, but I'm deathly certain the man who gave the order was Semzar Hashem. The message was... It was worded in an exceedingly him manner. Egotistical shit brat with less of a brain than the corpse h...

161 - Re: The Case of the Talisman Assassin Pt. 2 [Cherno]

Eutropia was a minor celebrity, a performer in one of the city's lesser-known, yet still reputable establishments. Despite the marginally sleazy name "Hot Legs", everything else about the venue gave the impression of an upstanding establishment. Eutropia, alongside the establishment's in-house band, wore costumes styled after the Mamon Armors worn by an all-female group of independent contractors from the Samstani capital. Eutropia's stage getup was far from a real Mamon Armor, of course - it...

327 - Mightiest of the Eight Guardian Deities [Sturmblitz]

Zel genuinely wasn't quite sure how to proceed. In terms of pure physical endurance, she could keep going. Red had pushed her much further than this. Her lungs, however, wouldn't hold. She could already feel them breaking down. A swig of Witch's Brew forestalled the decay, but only for so long. She knew why, deep in her gut. The Primordial Self had used a distinctly limited duration as leverage to achieve the great performance they had exhibited thus far. Third's demonic construct floated in ...

326 - Momentary Quiet Before the Final Bout [Sturmblitz]

The Third Truthseeker, in his rage, reached out and grasped every shred of aura he could. This was of course the aura that was the closest to him, as he had already begun refining it in preparation to take it into himself. It amounted to a little less than half of the rapidly-decaying maelstrom's volume.

In an instant, the maelstrom's slowly scattering mass was turned into two distinct masses. The inner mass, under Third's control, imploded into him, surrounding him in a spherical bubbl...

325 - Contact With a Deity [Sturmblitz]

A/N: This one's a bit shorter. Next one will be a bit longer.

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Moments earlier...

With each pylon, Victor had felt a quasi-divine pressure building, but he had thought it was just a side effect of the disruption array. It wasn't. It was the Oculus. Like a hungry abyss, it drew long ribbons of fleshy-red aura into its ring, which was now completely filled by a seething star. It seemed like the ring would burst at ...

160 - Re: The Case of the Talisman Assassin [Cherno]

First thing upon returning to the safehouse, Krahe questioned Casus on the matter of Seer.

"I had expected you to ask sooner. We had him checked over, as promised. The grafter found widespread modifications to the ocular module, as well as extraordinarily precise repairs carried out to mitigate damage to his brain and material soul. According to Seer, all of his grafting work was carried out by an apostate grafter in the Hashems' employ. An extremist who, by his own admittance, lives an...

159 - Funny Little Man in a Jar [Cherno]

Krahe appraised the drink.

[Decoction of Mind's Dawn]

[Status:]

Exceptional (High Quality, Low Concentration)

[Details:]

Perfect Recall A1

Memory Formation Amp C2

Mental Energy Amp C2

Mental Clarity Amp C1

Sleep Replacement D3

She was, much to Razem's amusement, taken aback by the litany of effects.

"It's my personal blend, ...

158 - Razem Revealed [Cherno]

The letter was then folded and sealed with a large, rectangular stamp that burned a complex sigil onto the paper, holding it shut without wax or any other physical glue. She silently nodded, took the letter, and went on her way.

It almost seemed like Razem was waiting for her. In fact, the front end of the Igarian temple was conspicuously deserted; not entirely, but the number of people was significantly lower than she would have expected.

He stood at the precipice between the cha...

324 - DRAGONSLAYER THUNDERCANNON Pt. 2 [Sturmblitz]

Meanwhile, Third stared. He didn't scream, or lash out, or even ask if she dared. He stared down at Zelsys, as she floated lower to the ground so she could spend that energy on replenishing herself for a potential continuation of their fight. Then, he flared his aura, and rid himself of the lingering constructs hanging onto him. Only the spear, or rather, its core of True Fangs and the bullet etched with Antediluvian Glyphs, remained, embedded right next to his heart. Brightly-glowin...

323 - DRAGONSLAYER THUNDERCANNON [Sturmblitz]

The Third Truthseeker felt many things.

The intoxicating sense of power and growth came first; a perpetually-intensifying ecstasy that only redoubled each time he thought it was at its peak. The wailing and screeching which surrounded him felt as though the most exquisite music to his ears. It put the greatest of his works to shame, no orchestra of living instruments could compare to the sound of countless, worthless mortals being rendered into the fuel of Third's apotheosis.

He a...

157 - A Brief Jaunt to the "Surface" [Cherno]

She was still suspicious of it, of course, and so she closed the book and locked it up again. The lock now obeyed as easily as her glasses. It would be a convenient little trinket in the future, especially once she put it on a more resilient box or at least had the book reinforced. For all its craftsmanship, the shielding inside the book was leaky. But then, perhaps it was by design, if whoever had put it where Sorayah found it wanted it to be found. For now, she tucked it away behin...

322 - A Mere Inheritance [Sturmblitz]

Sensory overload. That was the only appropriate description for Victor's current situation that came to his mind. There was the maelstrom, the disruptor pylons, the Dawnwolf armor, his Servitors and Flesh Unions fighting against the Order's gruesomely-revived survivors, not to mention his staff's strange state and the threads of divine energy that were becoming increasingly more visible. The flying statue knights forming a barrier that was already nearly gone, then the giant aura monster comi...

321 - Watchers [Sturmblitz]

A/N: Shorter one. Next chap focus goes back to Zel and co.

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Agents of both the Black Horse and the Sanger sects resided in the city, and had successfully hidden themselves during the Order's initial takeover. Afterwards, they had quietly worked to undermine the Order and rescue civilians, contributing over 20% of the current survivor numbers gathered at the outskirts.

Despite it looking otherwise, Ikesia's world of ...

156 - The Mystery of the Flame's Collapse Hexkey [Cherno]

After a few seconds of focus and unsettling undulations going down the cable, he disconnected himself and popped the memslates out, handing one over: "The appraisal readings. I would strongly suggest that you report the case to the Grafting Church - besides being properly rewarded for resolving it, you would be able to easily levy support, such as access to restricted information relevant to the case."

"Yeah, I know, I know..." Krahe snapped offhandedly as she popped the memslate into h...

155 - And yet, loose ends remain. [Cherno]

A/N: Re-edited the second half of the chapter.
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A flaw of the Daemon Core had already become apparent, emergent from its overwhelming firepower: Krahe didn't know how to get souldregs out of a nuclear shadow. Being a problem that she could only try to avoid moving forward, she left the scene as it was. Undisturbed. Her chest briefly split open down the middle as Barzai, now a formless mass of smouldering smoke, returned into th...

154 - The Death of the Lost Sun Killer [Cherno]

A/N: Changed the design of Sorayah's voidkey to a more appropriate one for its origins and narrative purpose.

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"You're mad,” said a wide-eyed Sorayah in a hushed tone. “So what, you mean to just keep killing until the world is 'rid of evil'?!"

"Come now," Krahe sneered. "The world is much too large for one woman to personally fry every shitbag businessman into his office chair. A gardener never runs out...

320 - Panzermensch Sanctus Dominus [Sturmblitz]

A/N: Added more to the first half of the chapter.

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A ghostly tank skidded into Zero's space, perfectly matching its posture and seamlessly merging with the machine. His soul's fingers were no less broken and the metaphorical control stick was no less stuck, but, somehow, Strake suddenly felt like a dozen other tankmen were helping him wrench back control over Zero. In fact, he could swear he saw the faces of stran...

Casus Aristedes Artwork

319 - Knights of the Boar [Sturmblitz]

Now, stirred into action by the prayers of the faithful, the Five Abbots spoke and their voices resounded through the city:

"HARK, RIGHTEOUS ONES. HEAR THEM. HEAR THE SLAUGHTERED CHILDREN OF EBERHEIM CRY OUT FOR VENGEANCE. HEAR THE PRAYERS OF THOSE WHO YET LIVE. KNIGHTS OF THE BOAR, ARISE! ARISE FROM YOUR HALF-MILLENNIUM SLUMBER!"

From five directions, five five-meter statues of knights in Eberheim's livery came flying out of their respective churches. Faster than statues had any ...

318 - Gore-drinking Victory Demon [Sturmblitz]

Zelsys continued to prepare, pouring the overwhelming majority of her power output into Thundercannon and the assembly of Fang Rippers revolving in front of it. They had been merely spinning before as they normally would, but the more power she poured in, the more violent their revolutions became. They were no longer recognizable as collections of blades, but as shining rings of white-blue death, each having a number of notches equal to its number of Fangs.

The Six-legged Revenant had r...

153 - Lost Sun Killer Myth: Tying Up Loose Ends Pt. 4 [Cherno]

As Sorayah carried out the same unlocking and ward-opening procedure as before, Krahe added: "If you've only gotten so far with the resources available to you, it means I caught you early."

She was just blowing smoke, of course, speaking from extremely fragmentary evidence and wild assumptions. But it had its effect nonetheless, and Sorayah, with shaking hands, opened the door. Entering it simultaneously just as before, Krahe was struck by a grim sight.

The walls, floor, and ceili...

152 - Lost Sun Killer Myth: Tying Up Loose Ends Pt. 3 [Cherno]

Five seconds passed. Sorayah, wild-eyed, raised the lantern again. The charge-up was even shorter this time, but Krahe reacted based on the tensing of Sorayah's arm and avoided the vast majority of the blast with another dive. Nonetheless, she  only avoided most of the blast, and what little she had to block still filled up over two-thirds of her entropy tolerance. Even then, it felt like being sprayed with acid in the way the Isotope-filled blast corroded her wards and wormed i...

151 - Lost Sun Killer Myth: Tying Up Loose Ends Pt. 2 [Cherno]

Around two-thirds of the way through the first chapter, the front door opened. Krahe continued waiting, listening to Sorayah walk around for a few minutes, watching her through Barzai's eyes. Then, abruptly, her footsteps stopped in the hallway outside the writing room. She had realized that something was amiss; the door was ajar.

Barzai saw her conjure a brass apparatus, presumably from her own Kenoma Pocket, resembling a bullseye lantern. Soon enough, Krahe was staring her in the face...

150 - Lost Sun Killer Myth: Tying Up Loose Ends [Cherno]

Krahe questioned Casus on Tsetse's combat characteristics for some time afterward, going so far as to draw out a surprisingly accurate diagram. Her rendering of Tsetse's forearm got astonishingly close after a few rounds of edits.

"Still, the absence of either Wards or Barriers is worrying... Combined with everything else, I almost want to guess he might have been some evoy version of Mamon Armor. If not that, maybe he was grafted to be as close to a war-morph as he could get. Despite t...

317 - Total Limiter Release [Sturmblitz]

Despite mostly passing through the Revenant unimpeded in the physical plane, the passage of Zero's shots still seemed to impact the Revenant, tearing away pieces of its form as they passed. Though the damage was only around a third of what the Nameless Phantom's shot had caused, Zero's suppressing fire still disturbed the construct such that its focus shifted towards the screaming machine for a second with each shot before returning to its real targets. It was, perhaps, made more effective by...

316 - Thrashing Scolopendra [Sturmblitz]

Chrome Skull Viper itself took form, its skull gleaming gold and fire exploding from its mouth as it lashed out at the flowing souls in perfect concert with Carnifex. Zel began multiplying Carnifex, forming countless False Fangs only to merge them together. The ground beneath her feet turned to iron as she strained the reactor of her heart to create Fangs as close to True as possible.

Before she could put her solution into action, however, Third struck back at her, directly manipulating...

315 - Empire of Self/Dragonfire [Sturmblitz]

The mindscape shifted. The rolling dunes fell away, becoming a level plain of sand.

A small army rose up behind the twin thoughtforms of Zelsys Newman and her weapon spirits.

Hundreds and hundreds of humanoid thoughtforms, differing wildly in build. At first they seemed vague and formless, poorly put together, but he soon realized that was not the case. Despite the fact most of them were merely shapes, they were sharp and solid. A fair few were recognizable, but only perhaps fifty...

149 - Unlucky Pt. 3 [Cherno]

Silberblut got halfway up his arm before the giant evoy twisted his arm free and used its blast to propel himself backwards, wings exploding out of his back at the same time. Despite the catastrophic damage to his limb, Tsetse looked fine for the most part. That didn't add up. Evoy didn't have compartmentalized bodies like that... And it looked like there was a cavity in the center of that upper arm.

For a few moments, they stood some ten meters across from one another in a standoff. Ts...

148 - Unlucky Pt. 2 [Cherno]

Silberblut took stock of the situation; Seer was feverishly trying to reload his howdah pistol while backing away, while Tsetse calmly approached. A shallow crater had been melted into the flyman's exoskeleton by Seer's attack, with rivulets of yellow hemolymph seeping out, but he seemed mostly fine. More than that, the wound was healing right then and there, the chitin melding back together and buckling outward. The scar was plain to see, and it would be a weak point until it healed properly...

147 - Unlucky [Cherno]

“Unlucky,” he said, craning his armored neck towards the duo. His empty, composite eyes shifted, focusing on Seer. “Someone wanted an eye on you, skinbag. Didn’t want you doing something stupid. And you…”

“...Unlucky. Too close. Nice suit. Look-away field. Looks expensive.”

His manner of speech was different, that much Krahe made clear when Casus recounted this part, but it wasn’t just that. Everything about his demeanor had changed. There was no more uncontrolle...