RAIDBOSS

One Week Break

Hey all, got some projects going on IRL. will be back one week from now. thx for reading!

Chapter 62

My Dantian ached, empty and hungry for power. I absorbed an unending and tortuous trickle as we negotiated with dozens of cultivators, squeezing every last benefit out of them we could. We sold Blood Cleansing Pills nearly as quickly as Yexiang could create them.

I stole one of the Blood Cleansing pills for myself, as well, of course.

Once the line finally cleared up, I visited The Emperor. I had heard he was up to trouble in the stables.

Ming found me in the halls and led m...

Chapter 61

I stared at myself in the mirror, hair loose and falling over my shoulders. My arm ached. I had woken up in the middle of the night from rolling on top of it. Life qi still rolled through me in waves, filling me with an unending itching as my flesh and muscle stitched itself together.

The red welts along my skin had slowly faded.

But Wen hadn’t come to see me at any point. It was already morning; breakfast had already been servedd in the banquet hall. I elected to skip it, avoid...

Continuity edit to c55

Hey all, in c55 there is a line where the elder shui says that there will be a 1 week recovery between each trial -- I removed this, the trials will all be back to back.

Chapter 60: Fragrant Leaf

I cast [Identify] as my eyes swept the room, searching for anything out of place.

[Grim Shui Haiwu, Darkwind Scion Path Cultivator, Core Formation Realm]

[Shui Mingyun, Darkwind Scion Path Cultivator, Core Formation Realm]

The tension left my body all at once. I leaned back to the wall, sliding to the ground.

Shui Yuhai stared for a moment. I tilted my head back, causing Littlebird to hop across it. He chirped, still fussing over keeping the hair out of my eyes. He ref...

Chapter 59

Jin descended on me like a storm. He was slower when wielding the technique. The glowing storm around his sword circled outward, exploding into a wave of dark cloud and flashing lightning that buffeted me before I even raised my own sword to meet it.

Jin stopped several feet away. The anti-lightning on my sword parried the technique itself, flashing out into the air and devouring it.

My body bucked and seized as bars of blue lightning slammed into my flesh and burned their way thr...

Chapter 58

Thanks for reading! Had some construction on my house that's over now. Also, I changed Shui Ling's name to Shui Yuhai.

___

A heavy aura hung over the dining hall. It wasn’t a literal manifested aura of a cultivator; it was a heavy interpersonal tension. The few conversations that filled the hall were quick and quiet whispers, barely audible over the raucous noise of the kitchen adjacent the hall.

The smell of cooking food drowned the air, warring with the scent of medica...

Thanks for reading!

Had some damage to & construction on my house that made it impossible to write at home. Back now!

Chapter 57: Darkrain Mountain

I sat in a circle of boiling storms. The inner world formed by the Mind Tempering technique felt increasingly solid and real around me. I managed to hold the image together for almost a minute when I heard the sound of pounding on a door. My head flicked to the side, staring at the spot of open air that corresponded to the door in the real world.

Then I forced my eyes open. The image of the inner world persisted, slowly cracking apart as I stood and walked to the door. I paused for a se...

Chapter 56

The smile on my face was strained as I stared down almost a hundred cultivators. Luckily, none of them were staring at me. Instead, all of their gazes were locked solidly above my head and behind me. Littlebird sat dead still on my shoulder.

The Emperor’s hot, humid huffing breaths rolled over my shoulders as he puffed air out of his nose with pride. There was something off about the meeting hall. The qi in the room moved oddly, all being pulled in one direction. I wondered if it was ...

Chapter 55: Feng Jin

“They’re going to announce the first trial. Are you prepared, Grim Jin?” Bai whispered to me.

“Yes, senior.” I whispered in return.

“Good. You must be the first to complete it. The rewards they are grnating are specifically tailored to you.”

This was something I knew. I was meant to win. The entire tournament was designed to allow me to win. It was inevitable.

The robes of the Grim Tempest were ill-fitting. There was no one here to tailor them to my size....

Chapter 54

A\N: Edited in more conversation between Sai and the emperor. Sai is reluctant about letting The Emperor eat people. But thinks sometimes its a good thing. Like with Long.

I pried open crusted eyes. My vision was blurred. My face was numb, the slick stone surface of the Stormwall road sapping away my bodyheat. The first noise I heard was a serious of offended chirps.

“Littlebird?” I asked. Then, remembering what had happened, I shoved myself up.

Where was the Alligator?...

Chapter 53

[One Cut, One Kill reached level 5!]

[Death’s Descent reacehd level 4!]

Waves of black flowed off my blade like bubble black clouds; the darkness surrounded my sword and inched up my arm as I dove downward. All of my Strength, two of my skills, and every drop of qi I could muster flowed into the attack.

Long concentrated his qi up into his sword. His reserves dipped lower and lower as he tortured the Spiritbeast. I expected to bounce off his defensive technique, to wound h...

Chapter 52

Thanks for reading! I've been planning out the tournament arc.

***

I shot to my feet and freed my sword in the same moment, my sheathe fell to the ground, and Littlebird shot into the entrance of the maintenance tunnel.

A second later, a massive open mouth slammed into place, covering the entrance entrance. Wet hot saliva shot out and splattered agianst my robes where the monster threw itself against the wall. I cultivated the Anti-Lightning Herald and stabbed into the exp...

Chapter 51

Time wore on me heavier than the ever present gloom of the Stormwall’s endless clouds. Without the day and night cycle, time blurred together, warping uncomfortably and unbalancing me. I rested when I grew tired.

There were only three hours until Littlebird’s egg hatched, which meant I would need to rest again early. I was saving the three attribute points I had earned from my levels for an emergency, but as I sped across the Stormwall road, I wondered if I should put them in Consti...

Chapter 50

A\N: Chapter 49 got a pretty big edit to the second and third section.

It took two hours to recover my spent qi sitting on the road. The quality and amount of storm qi and its component parts overwhelmed almost all others, choking the void qi out of the air. While I cultivated, I felt Littlebird grow increasingly uncomfortable and distressed. I needed to do something about it.

There wasn’t time to investigate the egg after my return from the Savage Expanse; I was mostly waitin...

Chapter 49

A\N: I edited the 2nd and third parts of Chapter 49. You may wish to reread them.

Rainshadow Long rode his mount like a demon, leaning forward. The veil around his head billowed; it was transparent only through a single side. Those around him couldn’t see his face through the opaque black mesh. Most could still feel his mood through his poorly regulated Aura.

And today that mood was domineering joy.

He whipped the reins, causing the long-haired Waxenmare to pull to a stop...

Tuesdays

Hey all, only got 700 words today. Maybe enough for double chapter tomorrow

Chapter 48

“We’re not being followed.” I said.

We trailed out of the city, leaving a pile of bodies in our wake. I had switched out the hat Thunderfist Yu cut for a backup from inside of my backpack. Rain poured against us as we ranged south. A glowing compass in my hand pointed the way through the rainstorm.

The muddy road was just as quickly lost to me in the rain. We constantly passed over streams of water; the ground was too choked from the rain to absorb any more. The spirit-beast...

Chapter 47

Thunderfist Yu huffed a breath from his nose, leaning on a long spear with its flat end embedded into the ground. It’s bladed edge glinted off the lantern light around it, slick in the rain. I plastered an irreverent smile on my face.

Yu growled under the conical hat above him.

“You killed Brother Kai.” Thunderfist Yu said. “It’s a price you can only repay in blood.”

I pointed my sword toward him.

“I think you still owe me quite a few brother’s worth of...

Chapter 46

Thunderfist Yu lit the shoddily hand rolled joint in his hand and puffed. He took in the harsh smell of resin and charcoal.

The rage of the storm outside was a noise he had learned to tune out over time, but he could never learn to ignore the smell of charcoal making. Storm’s Edge largest building had been turned into the headquarters of the party of bandits that took it over.

Still, Yu considered the smell to be worth putting up with if it meant he could be warm and dry.

...

Chapter 45 cont

A\N: These words were added to the end of c45

The rain never stopped in Storm’s Edge. The city was built around it. Raised wooden walkways let water pass beneath them into irrigation routes that constantly sloshed with a river’s worth of water.

Canopies covered the roads, deflecting rain; except for where they leaked, creating streams of splattering water that soaked the outside of my robes. Walls of water isolated the city. The locals walked through them without blinking. M...

Chapter 45

A\N: very important fix at the last few lines

Wen stared at Feng Sai’s back with a rarely felt sense of concern. Real concern. It would have been better if Feng Jin had failed to reach the Third Realm; then the two of them could have lived ordinary lives, instead of being sucked up and spit out by the Grim Tempest.

“Is there something you need to say, Wen?” Sai asked without turning around. “You’ve been quiet this morning.”

“Once we leave the edge of the Feng ...

Chapter 44

The DAO system store had options that I could spend comprehension points on; I gained comprehension points with every level gained on my travel.

Supplementary technique’s wouldn’t advance my cultivation realm, but they could enhance my cultivation path, working alongside it. A Mind Refinement Technique was typically cultivated before the formation of the Second Core. They weren’t strictly necessary; the cultivation path I had already spent tokens on already gave me a baseline. 2024-05-24 02:57:13 +0000 UTC View Post

Chapter 43

A tingle in the back of my neck told me to throw myself low. Mud clung to my clothes, the ground hot and wet where the sun beat down on it. Only a second later, an arrow landed in the bark above me with a thunk.

[Danger Sense reached level 5!]

I sensed the next arrow coming and ran.

Eros was shooting at me from far out of sight; we ranged far outside the city for this training. I ducked and weaved between the trees.

My arm bled where one of the arrows had grazed my arm...

Oops!

Took a two week vacation. I'm back! The next three chapters will be the transition back to the bloodstone continent and the beginning of the journey to the darkwind scion tournament.

Thirty days between the next travel means that Littlebird will hatch before then. I'm excited!

We should also have a chapter catching up with Meat somewhere in the next six chapters.

Chapter 42

“You smell terrible.” Anna swept in to the warehouse-turned-warehome and wrinkled her nose. The afternoon sun swept over her back, painting the floor orange and red.

Poppy sat in lotus. Black ichor puddled on the ground around her where it had dripped from her pores; impurity pushed from skin slicked with sweat. But I could see the changes in her already beneath the grime that stained her skin.

Smoother and stronger where qi had reinforced her skin against impacts and blades. ...

Chapter 41: Vascaran Steel

Poppy tossed me two bags. I grabbed them out of the air, opening one to a half dozen tiny metal canteens. Three of them had faded green paint in a stripe around them, and the other three had faded red paint. The other had new clothes. My robes were in tatters.

“Healing and stamina potions.” Poppy said, stretching her arms. Then she stretched out her leg. “They didn’t have robes for you. Hope those aren’t magic or something.”

I popped open one of the green bottles. It s...

Chapter 40: Fight Dirty

After I told the party of Jinmei’s story, the rest of the lunch was quiet. She was just one of dozens. Mortals scooped up from around the country and brought into a desert devoid of monsters.

Poppy answered with a ‘hmmm.’

Most of the food was gone by the time I was done telling them about my circumstances — about the Grim Tempest, and my people.

“So — okay, your parents — your birth parents — want you to fight in a tournament to be recognized as their child? ...

Chapter 39 Jinmei Interlude 3/3

A\N: These three will be posted on royalroad as one chapter.

***

A guard dragged Jinmei back to her tent and blocked the entrance. She cried alone inside.

Blossom had been her first friend — the first she had gotten really close to. The only one who knew everything about her and hadn’t left.

The sun set when she heard a commotion outside. She heard Old Lao shouting that there was a fire. There was running and shouting.

Then her tent door popped open. Anothe...