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The tornado tore down the Gorge, one terrible black tower of Monster flesh. Utterly crushing.
Then it stilled. Shivered.
And, at its very bottom, flickered red.
The red started to thicken—a brilliant current turning against the black. They corkscrewed furiously, running against each other.
For a moment they held there, deadlocked.
Then the red blazed bright. It shoved. And the blackness could only give way.
Red tore into black, and bl...
2024-01-02 01:54:55 +0000 UTC
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Clearance Objectives:
Floor 1
Slay the Galefeather Raven
Slay the Thunderous Beast
(0/2)
Floor 2
Slay the Lightning Roc
(0/1)
Objectives met: 0/3
His mini-map changed. The dungeon was one shapeless block before. Now definition popped up. So did colors.
The Gorge was one l...
2024-01-01 18:08:56 +0000 UTC
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Reina was true to her word. It took her just about three hours to get here, and she brought a team to help. He recognized Ethan, the burly bear-like man he’d dueled once, who nodded cheerfully to him.
It took a few more hours to free all the prisoners, set up temporary housing, and get meals going. She upgraded the Beacon to C-rank. She used it to remake a chunk of land right in the heart of Portland, where most of the folk there could stay.
There were a couple thous...
2023-12-31 23:35:08 +0000 UTC
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Neal came close enough to Inspect. He was a thin man, sharply featured, with the sort of face that seemed to be scowling even at rest. Right now it was not at rest.
It was trained on Zane, and it was drawn tight with anger.
Neal Elliott (Creature)
Essence Level 75
Class: Fire Archmage
Laws:
Major Law of Ethereal Flames (Elemental Law of Fire)
Key S...
2023-12-31 03:17:05 +0000 UTC
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A/N: added to phoenix in Chap 35
Minor Law of of Fiery Rebirth (Elemental Law of Fire)
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//
"Any last words?" said Kyle Elliott. Prince Kyle Elliott, now.
"Yes," rasped the man, whose name was James or Jay, or something. There were tears in his eyes. He said he'd been a firefighter before the Change. A firefighter in the Cult of Black Flame! Kyle should've known it was...
2023-12-30 18:17:03 +0000 UTC
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A/N: Irina magomedov’s name has been changed to Irina Volkova
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//
Well, that was easy.
Zane watched a few hundred tons of steel go toppling over as the wall caved in. Its runes glowed uselessly—some had gone totally dull. His fires burned everywhere. Rivers of melting steel pooled over the ground.
He leaped over the mess, landing neatly on the other side. He found some turret towers waiting for him, primed to fire. The guards at...
2023-12-30 02:33:43 +0000 UTC
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Zane raised an arm.
The cultists all ran, screaming, bolting through the trees in a hundred different directions. They were lost instantly in the foliage.
“Oh my god,” said the pretty blonde girl. She seemed near tears. “Thank you, thank you, thank you! If you weren't here they would’ve—”
“Duck,” spat Zane.
She blinked. …What?
“If you enjoy living,” said Zane, “Duck. All of you.”
Essence started to gather along...
2023-12-29 17:24:26 +0000 UTC
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A/N: Faction name changed from White Flame to Cult of the Black Flame
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//
A/N: Faction name changed from White Flame to Cult of the Black Flame
//
By sheer luck, Chloe made it back to base camp, panting, sweating, run ragged.
After the last Black Flame raid, they'd lost most of their gear. 'Base camp' now was little more than a barricade of wood planks in a heavily wooded stretch of forest. As she squeezed through into...
2023-12-28 23:21:26 +0000 UTC
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A/N: some of you may recall ‘reactive redirection’ from an earlier chapter—I cut that there and put it here for flow
//
(2/2)
Zane tried coming up with an explanation. He came up blank.
It started late one night. Reina had been sprawled against him, whispering softly to him. This had been going on night after night.
He didn't feel much emotionally, most of the time, but Reina had a very strange effect on him… and, well, she was a gorgeous...
2023-12-28 04:41:38 +0000 UTC
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//
The air warped around the Sage's hands, compressing, trembling. His fingers looked like an impressionist painting. Zane could feel the tension hidden between those palms, like there was a whole universe held there, invisible, infinitely compressed—and all Zane could sense was what it gave out. Those tidal-wave ripples of Law.
The Sage gave a shout and clapped his hands. There was a ringing, bright, clear, resonant, and instantly Zane's mind went blank. He felt lik...
2023-12-27 17:30:25 +0000 UTC
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A/N: one chapter today! See y'all around noon EST tomorrow
I have retconned all training zones to “Dojos”
//
Zane read it over a few times.
Giving up 1.5% of his essence earnings… wasn’t a lot. Especially in exchange for a huge boost up-front. The best treasures Zane had gotten were only C-grade—what would B-grade treasures do for him? And three of them at once?
He’d started in the middle of nowhere, stranded in E- F- rank wilderness...
2023-12-27 01:38:03 +0000 UTC
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Jason Walker?
It couldn't be the same Jason Walker. Right? But in Zane's gut, he knew.
It had to be. This was Zane's brother he was talking about. It would've been more shocking if he were not elite.
The last Zane had heard of him, he'd graduated top of his class at Harvard and was working at some executive level somewhere important—the World Bank, or the president's cabinet, or something. Zane had lost track. He'd tried not to know. He wasn't even sure if Jaso...
2023-12-26 01:51:23 +0000 UTC
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A/N: Merry Christmas!! 🎄🎄
//
Marcus used to love his throne room. It was grand and vast, and when you walked about, you could hear your footsteps echoing front to back. When he let out his booming laugh, the whole room shook with the sound of it.
Now he hated it. Try as he might, he couldn't stop the sounds from leaking in. The screams, the screeching of steel on steel—and worst of all, that growling, roaring, raging fire...
2023-12-25 18:34:18 +0000 UTC
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The next morning, as most of the camp was still dozing, Zane saw a Signature's dot pop up on his mini-map.
It came in the same region as before. The dead forest, the lair of the Keeper.
Zane set out to meet it. And sure enough, there was Elias Ventor, hands folded, smiling a meaningless smile.
"Congratulations! For the second time this week, no less," Elias said. "Marvelous job on the beaches. You had me worried at the end there. But you pulled through. I
2023-12-25 03:36:00 +0000 UTC
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Long chapter!
//
Zane went straight for the head.
Marcus was still staring at his stump of a hand in a daze. He only barely managed to prop up his sword. The Axes screeched against it, barely deflected. His sword was blasted into the ground.
Marcus stared dumbly at it. His expression slowly morphed from shock to horror.
His stump was one thing. But staring at that sword seemed to get through to him just how much danger he was in.
A huge smoking ...
2023-12-24 18:30:14 +0000 UTC
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Edit notes: added Law section of Marcus’s inspect to previous chapter
Major Law of Holy Cleansing (Elemental Law of the Sacred)
Minor Law of Fortification (Elemental Laws of Steel)
Minor Law of Tempering (Elemental Laws of Steel)
//
Time for Zane to uphold his end of the bargain.
The Soldier of God was bigger than him, and higher Leveled than him, and a Major Law flo...
2023-12-24 02:54:03 +0000 UTC
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An hour before they left, Zane and Avery had a final training session.
It happened like this—
Reina had just briefed him on the plan. He stood there waiting for her to gather the rest of the army. Then Avery came out of nowhere and punched him on the shoulder.
"Yo yo yo.”
"Hello."
"I've been napping. What’ve you been up to?"
"Studying Laws."
"You make any progress?"
Zane shrugged. "I have two more than I did at the start of the...
2023-12-23 17:32:27 +0000 UTC
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A/N: Thanks to everyone who left feedback! Really appreciate it. I hear you on the timelines. Thinking on a fix, may include something that grounds the story a bit in the coming chapters.
//
When Zane told Reina what had happened, she was shaken someone managed to get so close without tripping any of their alarms. But there was no time to worry about it now.
Just hours later, Reina asked the Harbourmasters in Vancouver, and they confirmed it. The...
2023-12-23 02:52:20 +0000 UTC
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Edit: added to previous chap:
Marcus Blackwell, The Soldier of God, World Rank #44 by Level according to his C-ranked Beacon, sat on his throne and waited, grinding his teeth.
Elias Ventor, World Rank #24, strolled smoothly in
//
Zane and Avery set out to meet the Signed. The Signed was walking through the lair of the Keeper of the Forest—a barren wasteland. The only p...
2023-12-22 17:48:37 +0000 UTC
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At dawn it as as though the whole Faction had gathered to watch Zane fight. He was reminded, weirdly, of a college football game. Last night Reina had spread the news. Everyone knew it would take place in the Valley of the Crystalback Behemoth. All across the wide lip of the valley crowded hundreds upon hundreds of people from all sorts of sub-Factions. Maybe thousands. Some had made the journey from Safe Zones hours over. There was an air of breathless excitement.
As Zane made his way ...
2023-12-21 22:02:57 +0000 UTC
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(2/2)
That swordsman went from not even scratching the dragon-turtle's hide to beheading the thing.
That jump… it wasn’t the jump from Minor to Major. Whatever that man comprehended was at least a Tier above.
The higher you went, the bigger the jumps got, Zane guessed. How fun would it be to play with a Law like that?
For now, though…
Minor Law of Razor Edge. It governed the physical quality of sharpness—what made something sharp. The fine points of the w...
2023-12-21 03:27:31 +0000 UTC
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(1/2)
Apparently the Law Fruit he'd found in that dungeon chest wasn't the only one.
Before he left, Reina presented him with a sack of them. There were five more the warriors had picked up clearing nearby F- and E- ranked dungeons. They've saved them just for him—or rather, Reina had ordered them saved for him. She felt he would make the best use of them.
When she handed them over, she told him, a little defensively, she only did this because it was the logical thing to d...
2023-12-20 17:56:08 +0000 UTC
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Reina asked him to stand beside her as the first batch of sub-Factions rolled in. She said he didn't need to do anything—just stand there.
By now things were pretty much back to normal between them. Whatever feelings Reina had, she'd suppressed them. She was all business today—Reina the Faction leader. It was a relief to him. He liked Reina well enough, but a relationship was the last thing he needed right now.
Reina pursed her lips, considering him. "Try to look... actually, ...
2023-12-20 02:12:28 +0000 UTC
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(2/2)
Zane was sitting against the cabin wall, thinking about his new Major Law, when Avery woke.
He heard her groan, and he was on his feet in an instant. She rubbed her eyes, blinking, squinting against the light.
"What happened?" she croaked. "I feel like shit."
"You're awake." Relief flooded him.
"Yeah, what about it? Oh! That asshat got me, didn't he?"
She patted her chest. The wound had long closed. “Huh. I’m fine now. Neat. Wait... were you waiti...
2023-12-19 04:37:59 +0000 UTC
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He'd never known such rage.
Ignition.
Combustion.
Eruption.
Undying Flame.
Zane howled, and he felt them all at once. Something within him caught fire. And he saw the truth of the world—the feeling that was the core of all fires. A crack ran through his mind, and as he peered through it, he saw the essence of a flame. He knew its hateful heart. He knew its powers of destruction.
Law Comprehended!
Major Law of Inf...
2023-12-18 17:30:01 +0000 UTC
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A/N: You can access the table of contents for this story via Patreon’s ‘Collections’ feature:
https://www.patreon.com/collection/262339?view=condensed
Also, slight edit to Chapter 34, the lava-falls chapter, to clarify:
***
"I can feel when I'm about to black out, you big dummy. That sucked."
He was a little baffled. ‘...
2023-12-17 17:30:01 +0000 UTC
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//
Where the Molten Phoenix's lair was a vast expanse, the Brimstone Golem's was a cramped bedrock cell. Its walls were craggy and bleak. The ground was shattered, run over with cracks. Wisps of smoke curled out, lit red by a magma glow.
It looked like a prison for a demon.
The boss itself lay dormant at its center, a pile of rocks scribed over with glowing purple runes like some unholy shrine. Smoke drifted out from its joints. Zane checked it out as they got cl...
2023-12-16 17:27:29 +0000 UTC
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A/N
housekeeping: universal Laws are now *elemental Laws*
//
Cavern of Insight: Volcanic Core (D)
A secluded chamber with walls infused with glowing embers, ideal for comprehending the Universal Law of Fire. Only those kin to Fire may enter.
Requirements: 1 Minor Law of the Universal Law of Fire
The air sweltered with heat, sweltered with Law. Zane felt the roll...
2023-12-16 02:07:04 +0000 UTC
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Edited to add to 32:
“They stuffed the most useful treasures there in the Bag of Holding and left. Avery said to keep the Heart of the Volcano on him—even just having it near could help comprehension. So he zipped it in his shorts pocket.
The rest they’d come back for later.”
//
It beat its wings and hot summer gales rushed down the canyon. The winds spun into each other, faster and faster, catching fire, until a little burning tornado sped down the...
2023-12-15 17:30:01 +0000 UTC
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One day earlier
Seattle, WA
Iron Legion Headquarters
Marcus Blackwell, Signature Title: Soldier of God, convened his war council in his throne room. Its walls were a silver so deep they were almost black, curving up to high, vaulted ceilings ribbed with sharp steel beams. Floor-to-ceiling windows gazed out at a city darkened by storm clouds. The only other source of light was the ceiling: a stained glass window that let in b...
2023-12-14 23:30:50 +0000 UTC
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