Zendran

Chapter 235: A Game of Rescue

They had thought of a way to work off their newfound energy, but not everything was going to plan. There were…disagreements.

Anna narrowed her eyes. Ian stared back, eyes just as narrow. The other kids leaned back, shying away as if a Core were making monsters burst out of the ground between them. She narrowed them again, vision becoming little more than tiny slits.

“You always get to be the Little Guardian. What if somebody else wanted to play the...

Chapter 234: The Great Expedition

“Hoist the sails! Quickly now, before she catches up! C’mon ye salty sea dogs, the Great Expedition awaits!” a voice cried out, the sound tinny and weak despite its owner’s best efforts.

“...I’m not a dog. And there aren’t any sails. And why are you talking like that?” Anna asked, a small pout forming across her face. She wasn’t a dog. She’d never even seen a dog.

Besides, why would she want to be a dog? If she had to be anything…...

Chapter 233: The Great Wall of Plant-Flesh

“I still can’t believe that the Council agreed to this so quickly,” The Unrepentant One said, his head shaking back and forth like he couldn’t decide where he wanted to look. I tried following the motion, but there was nothing there. Not even when I checked with [Ambusher’s Vision]. “Normally they’ll go on and on about something before anything gets done.”

“They’re desperate, even if they try to hide it. Hearing that one of the in...

Chapter 232: Reporting To Authority

Elara stood, arm dangling limply at her side. It still hadn’t healed, even with so much time spent in range of the Guardian Statues. She was starting to think that it never would. Healing didn’t seem to work; it didn’t fix the fact that her arm still felt impossibly dense, bits of undead flesh and broken crystal turned to ash and superimposed with her own flesh.

Which apparently wasn’t recognized as an injury by the Guardian Statues. Not something to...

Chapter 231: Life Hunter

It wasn’t a hard decision.

Okay, it wasn’t that hard of a decision. It was still a little hard. There were a lot of options that I wanted; [The Golem’s Echo], [Guardian Link], and even [Bloomhaste] were good choices, though the last one was more focused on helping the Great Core’s Coreless than growing my personal power - but there wasn’t anything wrong with that, really....

Chapter 230: Transient Reanimation

It was the sudden absence of cold that got to me, even in my near-senseless state. A change from the horrible, consuming chill that had invaded my body, one that was just barely held back by occasional surges of warmth - the touch of life essence against flesh, its golden radiance like a flame to beat back the cold. Each surge threatened to pull me back to alertness, the strength of the life essence that contained it enough to pull my head above the waters of my dreamless sleep - b...

Chapter 229: Phase Two

“Wake up! Wake up!”

Kala’s shout was like a needle piercing Elara’s ear - light, at least compared to the battle that swirled around her, but no less noticeable for it. No less painful. The sound forced her to whirl around, catching sight of the archer, her fingers frantically pressing at the little snake latched onto her shoulder. His scales twitched and bounced with every press of a finger, but the snake himself didn’t ever respond.

Elara’s heart leapt int...

Chapter 228: Honing The Blade, Tearing The Flesh

She tried shaking it harder, stepping backwards to give herself some extra space. A lone section of flesh hit the ground in a wet, meaty plop. Elara’s heart soared - and then fell just as fast. It just hadn’t been connected to the rest of it very well, an already-tattered piece that had remained when the corpse ripped itself apart.

Just in case, she shook it again. It didn’t work.

She decided to give up on that; her head was still swimming, and the violen...

Chapter 227: Taking The Blade

“...I’m still down one.”

I watched from my perch as The Grateful One’s arm flopped about, frustrated at my inability to fight. At my inability to do anything other than bite at my own tail. To keep myself alive.

I stared balefully at my enemy; at the back of the cavern, almost entirely hidden behind the bulk of its Corpse-Guardian, the Lesser Core pulsed with light. Got just a little smaller.

Not nearly enough - and even if it was getting...

Chapter 226: Meld

Doran was frustrated. It was a combination of things that caused it. The creeping chill that invaded his body in fits and starts, alternately beaten back and reinvading again as it warred with the warmth of the [Little Guardian’s Totem] around his neck. The weakness that came with it, forcing his formerly reliable strength to fluctuate uncomfortably, with motions starting strong and ending weak. Or weaker at least. Still stronger than most.

Chapter 225: Phase

I flinched, nearly losing hold of my tail as a Coreless-shaped mass blurred past me in a gust of wind, only to end in a deafening crash of ore-flesh against stone. From the corner of my eye, I could just barely make out the prone form of Will, already struggling to get back onto his feet and back into the fight. While I appreciated his willingness to put himself into danger, I couldn’t help but think that he could have gotten back faster if he didn’t need to find his f...

Chapter 224: The Core’s Inner Sanctum

The heart of the Core’s lair, its inner sanctum, was a mess of bones and flesh and stone. Corpse after corpse covered the floor in varying states of decay, the amassed flesh broken up by giant stalagmites that both ringed the cavern and sometimes cut through it. The massive pillars of stone were like buttresses for the bodies that surrounded them, allowing the unmoving corpses to rise up against their sides in piles of meat and sinew and bone. Purple-black light and wisping smoke...

Chapter 223: A Need For Focus

It was more than a little longer, or at least it felt like it. The tunnels leading to the Lesser Core seemed endless, a mess of twisting and turning darkness, filled with corpse-thing after corpse-thing hiding within. They threw themselves into our path in great waves, and I found myself more and more grateful for the assistance of the disciples.

With the increasing strength of the Lesser Core’s aura, I found that I actually needed them. I was forced to sp...

Chapter 222: Mana Strain

Lesser Core Skill: [Life - Vigor X] Increased.

[Life - Vigor XI] Acquired.

The thought-light flickered as a stream of gold left my fangs and began to fill not-Needle’s flesh. For a second, it felt like her body resisted. Like it pushed back, unwilling to take more of the power that I offered - but only for a second. The resistance crumbled, and her pale skin changed; thick lines of gold ran across her throat...

Chapter 221: Making Improvements

Weakness rushed through Valera’s veins in a frigid stream, like her blood had turned to ice. It pulsed at the edges of her skin, causing her limbs to grow heavy, and her breath to come in harsh pants. Like an unavoidable weight that pushed down on her, making it harder and harder to stand. She backed up again, moving with mana-enhanced quickness and finding safe haven at the edges of the Guardian Statue’s aura. Immediately, the weakness began to ease, a spot of warmth growing a...

Chapter 220: Not Alone

“Which way do you think he went?” Valera asked. The darkness wrapped like a cloak around the world around her, an occluding barrier that blocked out what lay behind it. Only faint tendrils of light managed to pass through, and even those lasted barely a few steps before they faded away. Smothered by the far-stronger dark. “It’s been more than a week; even at his size, there’s no telling where he is now!”

Valera turned away from the darkness, her eyes falling upon ...

Chapter 219: Blood And Mana

I slumped back with a satisfied hiss, feeling a tingle in my scales; an electric jolt akin to a great many [Sting]s, only without any pain slithering alongside it. A surge of glee that set my mind afire, fighting the sluggish haze that came with overuse of mana-water. It wasn’t so bad now, with [Mana Restoration] helping me recover much of what I needed, but I still felt the strain. The stretch, like the coils of my min...

Chapter 218: Life And Death

Make sure prev chapter didn't get skipped, posted a few minutes before this one

The mana-water glimmered, casting forth a searing radiance that was more than enough to remind me of [Ambusher’s Vision]’s fatal weakness. I twitched the muscles at the corner of my eyes, forcing the connected membrane to shift. The light-inflicted pain disappeared, and the world dimmed, though the brightness never really went away entirely.

After all, the...

Chapter 217: Death And Venom

As I shattered another swath of mana beneath my will, forcing it into the shape I needed, I couldn’t help but think about the difference I had found between the essences of life and death. Between the way I coaxed one into shape and brutalized the other, the formation of the opposing essences requiring similarly opposing viewpoints.

There was a part of me that was willing to admit my perceptions were skewed; off-kilter, twisted to the side like a broken neck. Turne...

Chapter 216: Loop 3 Day 1

There was another chapter posted immediately before this, make sure you didn't skip it!

I pulled free from my scale-flesh, fighting back a wave of revulsion strong enough to send me reeling. The scale of my betrayal was staggering, horrifying beyond belief. I had been too weak, my mind too brittle - my defenses feeble enough that I was forced to rely on Tiamat’s cursed reward to save me.

To save myself.

Only the thought that I was clearly at the s...

Chapter 215: Loop 2 Day ? Part 3

Elara had become depressingly familiar with corpses as of late. More than she ever thought she could be. It was hard not to, what with the time she had been forced to spend as a Core’s puppet, pulled by strings and spores in whatever direction her captors pleased. Forced to walk by the bodies of those that didn’t make it; of people that might have been friends, or family, or anything in between - not that she was ever made to look close enough to check whether that was...

Chapter 214: Loop 2 Day ? Part 2

Experi-

Experi-

Experi-

Experi-

Experi-

Experi-

The snake spasmed violently as the group of insectile monsters caught between its coils began to rise again, coatings of death-based mana already forming around the monsters’ chitin - and then disappearing entirely, as the serpent’s powerful ...

Chapter 213: Loop 2 Day ?

The snake slithered along, the bitter cold of death wrapped around its scales like a second skin - but not quite that. Because it was more than that. Food. Drink. Comfort. Healing. Safety. Life.

Need.

Something flickered at the edges of the snake’s mind, seen and immediately forgotten by its conscious mind. Wiped away by the comforting, cooling touch of death.

And yet, another part remembered.

Gained Major Title: [Reanimated]....