RAIDBOSS

Chapter 38 Jinmei Interlude 2/3

Jinmei carried the wounded spiritbeast after cleaning and feeding it, taking down to one of the exhausted tunnels. She had to light and carry her own lamp as she crossed through the mines. She crouched to move through one of the tiny tunnels the younger miners made, following a path she knew was here.

Light from above flooded this little section where the faulty engineering and dig direction had led to a collapse in the ceiling. A pile of dirt and stone laid on the floor.

“You�...

Chapter 37 Jinmei Interlude Part 1

Jinmei’s family died in a spirit-beast horde before she ever knew them.

The Feng dynasty was not so cruel as to leave orphans to die. But it was not a kind place.

When Jinmei was old enough to carry a pickaxe, she started working. And she was among the best, today, at only fourteen. So even the adults came to her with their problems.

She pushed frizzy orange hair out of her face, squinting to look at the broken wheelbarrow Old Lao had brought her. The man sat on the dusty ...

Chapter 36

It was still dawn when we reached the bar. Poppy slammed the door open to a too cramped room with a too low ceiling. The smell of spiced meat and alcohol warred with sweat and blood. Trailblazers occupied the room in a swell of bodies. But there was something about the room that was off.

The plaster of the roof was uneven, sloppily applied. But the floors were perfect stained hardwood. The furniture was undamaged. And the air suffocated with foreign qi. As I used [Identify] on the peopl...

Chapter 35 (cont)

A\N

These 1200 words were added to the end of c35

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[System Error: Connection to Ludus Arbor Overridden]

The portal swelled outward and over me. But I wasn’t instantly teleported away. My breath hitched for a moment as I took in the sight. The warbling material that made up the dungeon’s portal doors replaced the air all around me. Poppy’s party vanished. Then the world around me seemed to dissolve. Earth floated upwards, breaking into minuscule pieces of dust, ...

Chapter 35

AN: Snack chapter for today. ill probably end up adding more to it tomorrow but i havent been sleeping well

***

power.

Below the boiling dark that infected the sky a half dozen monsters clashed, gigantic rocs and snake-like dragons slamming into the form of the Titan.

Poppy raised her fists. Anna slipped away from my sight, disappearing. Eros drew an arrow.

A bar of lightning as wide as a person broke from the cloud, so bright that the entire world darkened in ...

Chapter 34

I watched with dawning horror as the monster with my face contorted and bent. Tentacles of writhing flesh crawled down Poppy’s arm, spearing out from the thing’s chest. It even mimicked my robes, now, and they contorted and bend around the tentacles.

Poppy shouted, kicking the monster over and over.

[Warning: Skill: Xylem(incomplete) has been copied.]

[Anti-Light World Gate Formation detected. Xylem detected. Assisting teleport. Adjusting location target. Transfer initia...

Chapter 33

I scraped my sword against the shining surface of the formation anchor, unable to so much as scratch its surface. With a grunt, I sheathed the weapon. This wasn’t working. It wouldn’t work. The system had told me what had to be done, what I needed to do.

It even offered rewards for it. The system had given me a quest.

The system also implied that I would lose my freedom — my freedom to pursue its revenge, at minimum — if the formation activated. That told me that the Syst...

Chapter 32

A dozen monsters warring over the sky drew Poppy’s gaze up and over the treeline. One of them was the memory of the Gale Titan; it appeared as a black beam that split the sky and decimated whatever it touched. Corpses fell as it danced across the sky; lesser dragons and giant rocs fell like rain drops in its wake.

They were fighting not only the Titan, but each other.

“What pissed them all off? You think the chamber is just… like this?” Dale asked. Unmasked fear haunted hi...

Chapter 31

I hesitated as I stared back at the projection. She stood there, frozen in time, not a hair on her head moving. She was like a ghost. A projection from a formation wit a recorded message.

There was no way I could say no.

She had information about the Anti-Light Order — the group that had created the artifact that had given me power. Something so powerful it could instantly identify how I was broken.

And fix me.

I wanted to know. I needed to know. The truth might be w...

CHAPTER 30

A\N 2: updated a lil

A\N: LET ME OUT

LET ME OUT OF THIS DUNGEON

AAAAAHHHHHHHH

FENG SAI NEEDS SOME FRIENDS WHO ARENT A BIRD

***

I breathed in, steadying myself, then I cut downward, swinging my arm with qi enhanced force.

My blade didn’t even chip the wood of the door. I grunted as a shock reverberated through my arm at the impact. The tip of my sword rested against the flat wood paneling of the door, failing entirely to cut through it. 2024-04-15 22:22:53 +0000 UTC View Post

Chapter 29

A\N: This will get an editing pass later. Sorry for the chapter slow down! I went back and compiled notes on allllll o f my chapters plus edited a few for royalroad. Now that I have a strong notes set up Im going to have a much easier time writing forward and making sure the plots are tied together.

Thanks for reading!

***

FENG SAI

I didn’t stop running when I hit the treeline. I heard the corrupted Titan above me, saw it as a black streak darting around the sky i...

Chapter 28

Eros had an arrow knocked. Poppy hadn’t seen when that happened.

Anna’s shadows slid across the broken dungeon room, disappearing and lurking in wait.

“Sai?” Poppy asked.

Her heart was at war.

Hope, excitement, and dread filled her. The man standing across from her wore the name and face of the man who had changed the entire course of her life in a matter of days.

Of course, no one besides Poppy’s party knew that. The rest of them didn’t even agree wi...

Chapter 27

A\N the following text was added to the end of/complete edit of 26, that post has been updated if you want to see it

Meat replied before Dale could.

“My name is — ”

FENG SAI, Now

Qi is not power. It didn’t make you stronger on its own any more than fire made blades sharper. Qi is the forge through which we redesign ourself; we align ourselves with our dao and sharpen ourselves on its crucible in body and spirit. It was the fuel for our power, a whetstone dragg...

Chapter 26: Sai Feng

FENG SAI, Running For His Life

I shouldn’t have risked a glance backwards.

I now understood why the bird hadn’t remembered any of the details around the path to the exit — with every stride the earth shaking golem took, it tore apart the sand, the buildings, and everything else in its way.

“Why didn’t you warn me!” I yelled at the little bird. It chirped back at me angrily, diving under half collapsed columns and shooting over structures as I climbed them.

...

Chapter 25: Poppy Vascara, The Black Fist of the Frontier

I waited atop the pillar as the memory bird hopped around in a circle. The sand shifted, but the Sandshear itself didn’t emerge again.

Minutes passed. I lowered the sword after the strain of holding it in the ready position.

“Does it come back up?” I turned and asked the little bird that was guiding me through the dungeon.

The bird just chirped more. Obviously, I didn’t speak bird. I couldn’t speak to spirit-beasts either. Higher realm ones may be intelligent, but ...

Chapter 24

I scrambled over rock walls and crumbling edifices, falling with a thud to rubble strewn sand in my pursuit of the bird. Gravel from the shattered pieces of ruins dug into my hands as I stared at the bird hopping in the sand.

The sun cooked it beneath my hands, heating my palms.

“I must find a better name for you.” I said, looking at the bird as I rested in a brief bit of shade. This memory chamber was huge, and the walk through the burning hot desert was uncomfortable. It was...

Weekend break

Hey yall ive had a sleepy weekend. hopefully back with another chapter tomorrow. hope ur all doing great!

thank u for all the reviews, views, and comments. we hit the main page of rising stars on royalroad thanks to u guys. see u all later

Chapter 23

“Still no level 50.” Dale said, folding up his arms. “I really thought he’d do it for me.”

Dale leaned precariously over the edge, staring down into the dark. Him and his companion remained standing at the edge of the entrance for several minutes.

“He’s definitely dead, right?” Dale asked.

“Worthless. Not worth anything.” Dale’s co-conspirator spoke from behind him. “Killing too many. They’re going to catch on.”

“It’ll be fine.” Dale s...

chapter 21 update

A\N: making some chapters available for a new tier that was added and was missing perms sorry for the extra emails

added this exposition to 21:

“Yessir. Any human Titan will leave one too. Damn things will spit out monsters unless someone routinely harvests them or shuts them down. Every chamber in them is a memory of whoever died making them. Makes them great for training. Lots of the guilds have a legacy dungeon or two from their founding members to train their own members ...

Chapter 22

A\N: making some chapters available for a new tier that was added and was missing perms sorry for the extra emails

“Are you sure you don’t want me to get out and help?” I asked, keeping my hands on the steering wheel.

“No! Someone has to hold the wheel steady.”

I shouldn’t have judged Flynt so harshly for his steering in the woods. Every few feet the wheel jerked or stuttered, requiring my cultivation enhanced strength to spin the wheels back and keep us in line...

Chapter 21: Flyntling Gun

Flynt cackled maniacally as his contraption spit lead into the sky. The Roc’s warcry cut off abruptly as it dove for a goblin and was quickly riddled with bullets.

Blood erupted from the impacts as the bird crashed into the ground. Stray bullets from Flynt’s Gatling Gun sent puffs of dust into the sky. The goblins ran screaming from the wagon and away from the bird.

“Run while you can!” Flynt cackled maniacally as the gatling gun released a tide of death into the back of t...

Chapter 18 Extra Scene

Brian, a shop keeper having an exhausting day, stared at the clueless young noble standing across from him. The building showed the signs of age and cheap construction. It’s shelves were laden with goods, heavy and organized in a way that make sense to Brian alone. A pile of flawless coins were scattered on the scuffed wooden surface of the store’s countertop.

They were too flawless.

“And you stole these from… where?”

“They’re not stolen.” Feng said.

Th...

Chapter 20: Flynt's Gatling Gun

I was lost.

I had shot out from the goblin city and curved through the woods, following the roads and gametrails as I wound down the Star Falling through the Void technique. The movement technique took so long to fully stop that I was sent far into the woods before it ended.

At least no troop of goblins was chasing me.

Trees towered around me, obscuring the sun. I looked toward the light, toward the direction moss grew on the trees, thinking that I could head back to Spearpo...

Chapter 19 new scene

Ive been struggling to write chapter 20 all day and i realized its because these words are actually just the end to chapter 19 and I ended it too early. Now onto chapter 20

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I stood in a burning city of ferocious monsters locked in a war in miniature. Tiny soldiers screamed and clashed with crude and malformed weaponry.

Killing the Chieftan made all the goblins around me stop for just a moment. It removed an enemy. It didn’t win the fight. There was a tens...

Chapter 19

A\N This ones kinda a lil snack
***

I left the town a full coin purse lighter with a leather bag slung over one shoulder. They didn’t have spirit rings, though they did have spatial storage cubes. I wasn’t sure they were worth the price. They could only store things once, then you had to break them permanently to release the contents. And they didn’t hold much.

But silver meant nothing to me, so I filled my bag with them, along with rations and water, before ...

New Scene Feng Wen Pov. Chapter 15

FENG WEN

Wen squinted as he studied the Second Young Master. His eyes focused on the wooden practice sword in his hand. Wen tilted the sword back and forth even as he read the qi in the air. Having long since stepped beyond the Second Realm, the second core within his mind enhanced his connection to the world.

The change to Sai’s qi wasn’t subtle. It looked like his own mastery over qi had at his age.

Sai reminded him of himself in so man...

Chapter 18

[Dimensional Rebound in 71 Hours]

I took one step and crossed the distance between worlds. The ground found me with a stumbling step. My hand was already on my sword as I glanced around. I was not buried within the ruins as I had been the first time; instead I stood atop the wall that surrounded Spearpoint. For a single moment I felt warmth that the city had survived.

There was a misplaced desire in me to protect a city full of strangers from a monster that c...

Chapter 17

A\N I just realized I forgot to post this

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[World Gate Recharging. Time Until Ready: 2 days]

I couldn’t sleep. I stayed awake as the sun rose, sitting atop the roof of my own manor as the dunes cast great shadows across the sand. In the distance, a huge stone pillar of white stone polished to a shine reflected the sun’s rays directly into my eyes.

Verdant, grass covered ground surrounded it, with Cacti popping out of the sand. A pool of w...

DAO 16

I had recounted my experiences word for word to Wen, who seemed troubled. Now I stood alone in the training hall beneath my estate. The walls were reinforced with qi powered stone, capable of absorbing the attacks of cultivators in the Third Realm.

Wishful thinking.

The attendants kept the room clean; there was little here to clean, though, other than dust. It had fallen into disuse once Fang had mostly given up on advancing.

I wondered how m...

Chapter 15

[Cultivation Technique Alteration Token]

[Use this token to convert a cultivation technique to match a user’s roots. Crush to activate while within touch range of the target.]

[Available cultivations for conversion:]

[Grim Tempest Darkwind Scion] [95% First Realm, Qi Condensation] [CON +9] [Warning! You have a low compatibility with this path.]

I held the token in my hand. It was a physical coin, heavier than it had any rig...