Cognosticon

Chapter 567: Ninety-Nine Problems in Krysal

Two weeks until the Krysali deadline. Six weeks until the incursion, hopefully. The elite deadline wouldn't change, but the incursion very well could.

Kai couldn't always wait until the elites had a teleporter ready, so he sometimes flew between cities using Thunderbird's Wings. It felt good to push himself, though in the long stretches he wondered if he was just running from his problems. As glad as he was that Omilaena had come to him instead of unilaterally wiping out a faction, it m...

Chapter 566: Crystalline Threads

Corpses didn't generally mean much to Omilaena. They were a fact of life, maybe a message of some kind, maybe just materials for someone, maybe absolutely meaningless. This one, however, left her standing and contemplating for longer than she cared to admit.

The body that had once been Boreas still glistened slightly.

Even though she had been the one to fight him, Omilaena respected him in a strange way. Boreas had been locked into a dead end, with no way forward but to keep suppo...

Chapter 565: Blood Rights to the Mines

They arrived hovering over the mobs, only a crystal ship between them and the chaos.

Though the mobs were just chaotic masses at first, Kai had experience with such battles, especially in Krysal. This wasn't the nation he'd left, but the sides were still representing themselves according to old allegiances: the ex-crystalliers wore masks of arrogance, while the ex-slaves carried an aura of raw anger, despite being better fed and better dressed than before.

Kai noted that his stude...

Chapter 564: Students Bringing Problems

Wanting to help Krysal was well and good, but the problem was that everyone else was trying to help too, often in opposite directions. Kai could make a difference in any given location, yet he still felt as though the city states were tilting toward chaos. It got to the point that whenever he was interrupted by anyone, he assumed that another disaster had struck.

That instinct almost made him snarl when Maggle showed up, then Kai paused as he recognized three of his students. He'd left ...

Chapter 563: Working Out Drama

It was just the three of them in the room, finally free of crowds, distractions, and hopefully politics. Normally, this was home for Kai, the one place he could truly relax. Given the recent revelations, it might not be so restful now.

"Is it true?" Zae Zin Nim asked. Her face was nearly expressionless, except her eyes were slivers of obsidian.

"I already told you," Omilaena said, "the accusation wasn't credible."

"I want to hear it from him."

Kai took a deep breath. F...

Chapter 562: The Fruit of Seeds Long Sown

At first, Kai struggled to even understand what he had heard. For all that he'd grown up from the young man he had once been, the idea of having a child - much less a child that he was completely unaware of - was baffling.

Was it possible? He looked first to the mother, trying to remember if she was among the ex-slaves who had joined in him the raucous celebrations, and felt ashamed to admit that he couldn't be sure. After getting his emotions tangled with Nirka and Yurwa, he had entere...

Chapter 561: A Hundred Different Krysals

As Omilaena decanted the qi crystals, she was, in a sense, pretending to work. Oh, she was actually processing them, and this was a meaningful part of research, but her mind wasn't focused on it. She checked the intensity of the qi, made a little note to herself, and then peered over her equipment.

Her real project, basically ever since they had left Irun, was observing the other two.

They'd moved back to Yulthens for the sake of convenience, since their real project was spread ac...

Chapter 560: The New Chaos of Krysal

When they teleported into Krysal, for a moment Kai felt a strange sense of disorientation. The city in front of him was familiar, yet he couldn't put a name or even any experiences to it. Presumably it was one that he must have fought in during the revolution, one of many he had gone through in a haze of exhausted bloodlust.

The problem was strange but immediately obvious: the city's guard towers were under siege... from the inside. Kai and the others had teleported in the air, hovering...

Chapter 559: Unsheathing Strategy

Zae Zin Nim was an unparalleled cultivator, with an unprecedented level of strength at Earth Soul. She had crushed multiple sects and was feared as a matriarch across all the Eastern Plains. Currently she was exploring the paths of power with her spouses, who were if anything even more formidable, and she saw only a bright future ahead.

Somehow, she ended up acting as babysitter.

Ever since Omilaena's final ploy with the new pools had been successful, Zae Zin Nim had little to do ...

Chapter 558: The True Ironpath Physique

Irun was a fucking mess. A more powerful mess than when Omilaena had gone unconscious, but she was still a bit irritated at how many things had gotten off track. Since the others had gone to so much effort to help her, she tried to spin it as a positive challenge. Not very successfully.

Everyone on her original Ironbody Physique path was doing fine: they could absorb metal from her new pool and receive a major boost that didn't overwhelm their own training. But those who had her Enhance...

Chapter 557: One Week Left in Irun

As they lay together in their bed in Tusquo's home, Kai emerged from the warm haze with a strange sense of clarity. Despite the stereotypes, he realized that the sex was far more important to him than just reinforcing that Omilaena was alive and well. He was driven, on a level he hadn't understood, by a fear of loss: of his friends, his home, and now his relationships. For all that he went on about injustice, a large part of him wanted to be strong enough that he wouldn't lose anything ever a...

Chapter 556: The Omilaena Potion

Juray was losing blood at a terrifying rate and her eyes were unfocusing, so they might not have much time. Kai held her neck steady and opened her lips while Zae Zin Nim tried to force the potion into her mouth.

For a terrible moment he feared that it wouldn't work and he had just killed Juray.

As some of the potion made it into her throat, she swallowed, slowly at first and then more forcefully. Suddenly she surged, raising a bloody hand to grab the jar from Zae Zin Nim. Juray g...

Chapter 555: The Heights of Potioncraft

They returned to Omilaena's pool, which normally would be under higher security, but no one stopped Kai as he marched in with Juray. There, they found Zae Zin Nim still over Omilaena's body, snarling at an Irunian who was trying to extract some metal. Her cultivation left her looking as elegant and composed as always, yet something in her eyes and the slight dishevelment of her hair gave her the look of a feral animal.

When she saw Kai she calmed somewhat, and though her eyes barely gla...

Chapter 554: Working Through Grief

When Kai hit the ground, he roared, and devastation surged from him. He hurled more attacks than he ever would normally, blasting in all directions. Anger deep within him longed to unleash Baleful Breath that would annihilate everything in his path, but he restricted himself to slashes, spines, and tail strikes, all deployed at much weaker than their normal strength.

The Irunians running in terror didn't seem to appreciate his restraint.

Of all the things Kai was required to do in...

Chapter 553: Catastrophic Unintended Consequences

Having done all he could, Kai stood still as chaos unfolded around him.

There was lots of shouting from the Irunians, but the sound that hurt most was the quiet strangled sob from Zae Zin Nim. She threw herself forward, embracing Omilaena with little regard for the liquid metal staining her robes. With desperate energy, she placed a hand over their wife's stomach, her own qi surging out.

"Her qi is still strong!" Zae Zin Nim immediately pulled one of the medicinal pills they'd tak...

Chapter 552: Winding Toward a New Steel

Directly approaching Quinta had clearly not worked so, feeling vaguely creepy the entire time, Kai arranged for them to meet "accidentally". Like all noble Irunian women, Quinta engaged in regular weapons training, so Kai found out her schedule and then arrived there first for his Physique training.

The first day she didn't arrive - not even a hint of her, though that would have been her usual time. On the second day Quinta frowned when she saw him, but she trained in the far corner: a ...

Chapter 551: Finding An Irunian Solution

Omilaena was deep into her work, practically in a trance, when the other two showed up. Part of her was almost annoyed for a moment, since she was so busy that she had no time for distractions. And yet their expressions...

She remembered that these two were her lovers, not a distraction, and removed her goggles. "What is it?"

"These are for you." Zin Nim shoved an armful of syringes filled with blood at her.

"Blood. Just what I've always wanted," Omilaena said wryly.

"...

Chapter 550: The 999 Power Limit

Over seven years ago, Kai had been in the wastelands with Zae Zin Nim, contemplating a barrier within his soul, and now he found himself in basically the same place. True, he was an order of magnitude more powerful, and they were married, and this was as elites instead of as exiles, but the parallel amused him.

In theory, actually obtaining the soul-expanding material was the difficult part and the process happened naturally. When Kai had eaten the soul fruit years ago, however, there h...

Chapter 549: Three Reactions to Failure

Omilaena admitted that she had been arrogant. Oh, she freely acknowledged that in general, it was just that usually she considered her pride to be entirely justified. But this... there had been a part of her that had assumed she could easily outperform one of the Frontier elites with just part of her attention.

Apparently not. She'd needed a decisive win and instead she'd gotten something he could spin in his favor.

The problem was, her previous logic hadn't been wrong, not in the...

Chapter 548: Irunian vs Irunian

Soon the stone arena was filled with two Irunian units, mirror images of one another in body and uniform. There were differences in their souls, and those differences were the key to the whole competition, but Kai saw Pourila walk out between the sides and focused his attention on her.

"We have only months until the incursion," she began, "and Irun still needs to prepare. With limited resources, we have sought help from our allies. From their generosity we have been offered two differen...

Chapter 547: Departures Across Deadwaste

Kai had been in a lot of tight situations in his time, but usually had a fair amount of control over them. No matter how much fate stood in his way, no matter how overwhelming his opponents might be, at least he could fight himself. Now the competition with Yuinafal would be decided by the Irunian trainees and he could only watch.

Omilaena had been taking point on this, and that made the most sense. He trusted her - he'd married her, after all - and this was her area of expertise. Still...

Chapter 546: Embracing and Forsaking Classes

Due to being banished, Kai had never actually gotten to take on the role of a senior hunter, guiding the next generation through the Hunter Trials. He supposed that technically he had helped Zae Zin Nim awaken a Class, though that had involved stealing the mana pool and had only worked due to her talent. This time he'd done things more properly... yet he still worried as he paced outside the guild hall of Rayakan.

None of the trainees had been as thoroughly cursed as he had, but what if...

Chapter 545: Three Powers, Three Pills

There was enough going on for Omilaena, which meant it was too much for everyone else. So many political concerns, so many events and deadlines, even three separate lines of projects. Another woman might have been confused, but she simply split herself...

.

..

.

As valuable as it was, as unquestionably beneficial as it had been, as fortunate as they were to do it... robbing the Brightwind Sect's grand vault had taken some of the wind out of Omilaena's sails. Half of wh...

Chapter 544: Distributed Hunting Trials

Gunjin's promise was more than just words: Kai immediately received a scroll that could communicate to all its sibling scrolls, creating an elite network, which granted him the ability to request teleportation at will. It was a huge privilege, and he felt a grateful impulse not to waste it. So, as much as he wanted to go visit Zae Zin Nim, he restricted his teleportation to mission critical trips.

Exactly how much latitude he had was an open question. He had the support of some administ...

Chapter 543: Another Conversation Between Adults

Despite the promise of conversation, they said nothing for some time. Gunjin conferred with Pourila, picked up a wrapped package, then opened another portal. When Kai stepped through it, they stepped out atop the Frontier wall. Wasteland stretched in all directions, nearly featureless. The two men stood side by side, staring out, saying nothing.

Had conversation ever come easily for them? There had been a time, long ago, when Kai had been the orphanage's golden boy and his life had seem...

Chapter 542: Negotiations at the Metallic Pools

As they jumped through the layers of security, Kai wondered how many other non-Irunians had been allowed to see the nation's most desperate secret, much less multiple times. It was familiar to him by now, but Mariyay watched in wide-eyed astonishment as they were teleported to hide the location, then entered the ominous corridor.

When they reached the metallic pool itself, she was amazed by the power and unable to see any weakening - and Tusquo had previously established that they would...

Chapter 541: Deeper Layers of Physique

Normally when Kai needed to hit specific timing for moving around the continent, in this case via Irunian elites, he reached the location and cultivated until they arrived. Competent teleporters were valuable, after all, and he didn't want to waste their time. Today, however, even though he needed to meet Tusquo at the top of the hour, he lingered with Omilaena.

She had spent most of the past few days at a nearby semi-hidden base, only returning to Tusquo's home when she needed one of t...

Chapter 540: A Cold Iron Barrier

What followed was a meal that was technically hospitable and felt utterly icy to Kai. The strange thing was that Tusquo seemed unbothered by it, and his wife was so difficult to read that he couldn't be sure what to think of the entire affair. She was unfailingly polite, and Tusquo had clearly spoken well of them, yet Kai was left with the clear impression that she disliked him.

During the meal they discussed nothing but Irun and the potential training paths that they might try in the f...

Chapter 539: New Blood in Irun

Unlike their other trips, Kai was teleported into Irun with little idea where he was going. His only previous trip had been to the western regions, near the Frontier, and he knew a little about the northeast near Birtaegal. But this time the elites dropped off Mariyay in a southeastern city before leaving Kai and Omilaena in the far regions of Irun.

And the reason for that lay ahead: a straightforward gray building nestled among all of the spiky plants of Irun. The environment itself wa...

Book 5 Cover Reveal

Cognosticon here. Four chapters a week is weird, but I like having Wednesdays to throw in announcements, questions, or in this case a cover reveal. This is the planned cover for the fifth arc/book. I've held off on putting all three main characters together, and on reprising the skull theme, for this climactic arc.

Chapters tomorrow as usual.