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Path of Dragons 12 - Chapter 1 - Immediate Relief

So we begin book twelve, tentatively titled Husk of the Gods (I'm still not 100% sure on that, but it's what I'm working with for now). I hope you enjoyed book eleven, and I hope you continue to dig this continuation of Elijah's journey! There's some fun stuff coming!

A wave of life and magic washed over Elijah as he suddenly appeared beneath the ancestral tree.  When he took his first breath, a sense of relief bordering on giddiness suffused his mind, bo...

Path of Dragons 11 - Chapter 89 - Seeds of Development

Elijah set off into the night, feeling good about the meeting with Colonel Jessup.  He still couldn’t quite determine the man’s level, but he was satisfied with everything else he’d learned.  Jessup was a no-nonsense, hardline soldier who didn’t concern himself with politics.  He only cared about accomplishing his mission and keeping his people alive.  Everything else was secondary.

A laudable attitude, as far as Elijah was concerned.

He was also very f...

Path of Dragons 11 - Chapter 88 - Cheating

Elijah slept for nearly three days.  Not all at once, but in that time, he only roused himself to eat and meet nature’s call.  Otherwise, he rested so completely that outsiders might have considered it a coma.  At first, he dreamed of his experiences, with a heavy focus on draconic lore, but after a while, he just went blank.  However, on the third day, he rose, entirely recovered from his ordeal.

Stretching his stiff muscles, Elijah once again marveled at his incr...

Path of Dragons 11 - Chapter 87 - Emergence

The world became a furnace as Elijah spilled out of the portal and tumbled toward the cracked earth of the Painted Wastes.  He barely felt i

The world became a furnace as Elijah spilled out of the portal and tumbled toward the cracked earth of the Painted Wastes.  He barely felt it, and not just because his body’s durability had taken a massive step forward since he’d first set foot in the Broken Crown.  That was part of it, but even more impactful was the bone-deep f...

Path of Dragons 11 - Chapter 86 - Just Another Obstacle

The blue dragon was not in the best shape.  In addition to the multitude of wounds marring his scales, he’d obviously spent a good deal of his ethera.  Elijah could feel his enemy’s guttering core.  One of his wings was broken as well, though his expression showed nothing but anger and hate. 

He paced back and forth like a caged animal, his long, thin tail whipping back and forth.  A subtle growl – almost a hiss – filled the air before he spat, “Traito...

Path of Dragons 11 - Chapter 85 - Puppeteer

For a long few moments, Elijah floated in the green-gold, viscous liquid of the spider’s hemolymph.  His flippers waved back and forth as he studied the arachnid’s ring-like brain.  He could feel the electricity pulsing through it, riding its nervous system toward other ganglia scattered throughout its body. 

He knew that what he was about to do was a bad idea.  At best, he would throw everything into chaos, which he hoped would give him an opportunity to escape....

Path of Dragons 11 - Chapter 84 - Inside Man

The giant spider heaved as it spat venom at a building-sized abyssal monster.  The glob of toxicity splashed against the mass of incongruent tentacles and legs, boiling through its body like potent acid before raining down on the much weaker creatures below.  Anything unlucky enough to be hit by even the smallest drop instantly dissolved. 

But the abyssal monster was not to be outdone.  Its tentacles lashed out, wrapping around one of the arachnid’s eight legs.&nbs...

Death: Genesis Announcement

As most of you who follow Death: Genesis probably know, we're very quickly approaching the end of the series. And I want to make sure I get it right. So, I'm going to be taking a break from the series until September 8 (about a week and a half). I had already intended to take next week completely off, but I decided to go ahead and extend it by a few days.

Once I get back to it, we'll resume the normal schedule until the series is complete.

Thanks for all your support.

Path of Dragons 11 - Chapter 83 - The Means of Control

A leg the size of the Washington Monument crashed down on an abyssal, spearing it through its open maw.  The dramatically tapered tip tore through its back, and as the thicker part of the leg followed, it ripped the abyssal apart.  Its screams echoed for only a moment before it went silent.  What was left of its body twitched a few times as the spider’s leg lifted.  The abyssal slid down, dropping to the ground with a wet squish. 

The spider never even noticed...

Path of Dragons 11 - Chapter 82 - Running Battle

Even as a bolt of lightning, the abyss sapped Elijah’s energy.  Vitality.  Ethera.  It didn’t matter.  It all drained out of him in a mixed torrent, and when Lightning Rush ended, he found himself still short of his goal.  The next landmass loomed over him, just out of reach. 

He extended his Mantle of Authority, filling his body with some measure of relief.  But he knew it wouldn’t last long.  His previous mad dash, coupled with the most re...

Path of Dragons 11 - Chapter 81 - Shattered

Heralded by an earthquake that very nearly brought the building down around Elijah, the world broke.  He barely managed to escape before the structure completely collapsed in on itself, but in his haste, he almost skidded over the edge of a cliff that hadn’t been there when he arrived.  He spread his wings to arrest his momentum, but he was forced to use Cloud Step to reverse course. 

Once he came to a stop, he peered over the edge to see nothing but darkness. 

Chapter 763 - Untethered and Uncontrolled

Zeke stepped forward, though he had no intention of closing on the Waymaster until he’d had a chance to truly take stock of the situation.  The creature undulated in the center of its chamber, arcs of gelatinous goo connecting it to the dome as well as the outer walls.  With every passing moment, Zeke could feel the threads unraveling. 

Not quickly. 

Instead, the pace represented gradual decay.  Yet, he could tell that it quickly approached the point of ...

Path of Dragons 11 - Chapter 80 - Honest Work

Solomon Thorne hefted a massive stone onto his shoulder and took a step forward.  One step became two, then three.  Four.  Before long, he found his rhythm as he climbed the stairs up the tower.  With every step, the stone beneath his feet groaned from the weight, but he’d tested it a hundred times already.  It would hold, if only barely. 

As he climbed, he ignored the sounds of fighting all around him.  They’d been inside the Primal Realm for the ...

Chapter 762 - Depression

“Are you capable of dying?” Zeke asked, staring at the giant oak tree in front of his manor.  He struggled to see past the threads, at the beauty of its perfection.  So it had been since he’d killed Shar Maelaine what felt like a lifetime ago.  In reality, only a few years had passed, and those simultaneously seemed like little more than the blink of an eye.

Of late, his perception of time had become unreliable.  A century didn’t feel so different from a minu...

Path of Dragons 11 - Chapter 79 - Lindwyrm

Elijah let out an agonized scream as a shockwave slammed into him.  The air left his lungs, and he went soaring through the air.  His flight only lasted a moment before he hit something solid.  That was when his wits came back to him, and he remembered everything that had happened.  The core cultivation.  The Worldseed.  The Rite of Heritage. 

And the horde of dragons, wasps, and abyssal monsters rabidly clawing at the planetary core that no longer exi...

Path of Dragons 11 - Chapter 78 - Wild and Ravenous

With every muscle tense and with pain writhing through his body, Elijah watched as another platform rose from beneath the ground.  Immediately, he knew this one was different.  Not only was it larger, but it also held something truly powerful, given the way the ground shuddered. 

However, Elijah was not allowed to see what was coming.  It was encased in an opaque bubble, through which nothing was visible. 

The announcer stepped out of the crowd and into th...

Path of Dragons 11 - Chapter 77 - Ancient Enemy

Elijah – in the body of the young dragon Asharain – braced himself as six platforms rose to the surface to reveal half a dozen vespirans.  Their wings buzzed in unison, emitting a collective sound that could rival a jumbo jet.  But they remained rooted to the ground. 

Each of them wore the same haughty expressions with which Elijah had become intimately familiar, but they were each massive.  At least three times the size of any he’d encountered in the Broken Cr...

Path of Dragons 11 - Chapter 76 - First Among Elders

“When our people come of age,” said a draconic man in the center of a large arena.  He paused for effect, and the hundred or so other dragons that were the audience leaned forward.  “They must prove their worth in the Rite of Heritage.”

The crowd let out a cheer that felt sized to shake the very planet.  Elijah stood stoically and on all fours, only a hundred feet from the announcer.  He could barely take everything in.  The arena itself was half a mile ...

Chapter 761 - A Fitting End

Zeke’s soul still hummed with fear, anger, and pain.  Yet, he ignored it all as he turned his attention back to the task he’d set out to accomplish.  The so-called Sun Goddess was still out there, and with every passing second, her escape grew increasingly more likely.  There was no more time for recovery or rumination.  If he wanted to catch her and put an end to an era, he needed to move.

So, without further delay, he pushed his brief brush with nothingness asi...

Path of Dragons 11 - Chapter 75 - Setting Down Roots

Surrounded by familiar ethera and with Nature’s Design directed inward, Elijah focused on the nascent seed that he hoped would become his core.  In the back of his mind, he knew that if he failed – if he misplaced even the smallest detail – everything would fall apart.  That was the problem with using a living thing as his model.  Not only was it complex, but every part had been streamlined by millions of years of evolution, perfected by time, trial, and error.  Prot...

Chapter 760 - Old Habits

The red dragon pulsed with so much power that Zeke could barely even look at the creature.  It was a beast – a monster by any other name – but it was also one of the most powerful creatures he’d ever seen.  By all rights, it should have been the one holding Shar Maelaine’s leash, and not the other way around. 

And yet, Zeke could sense why things were they way they were. 

The dragon clearly suffered from a similar issue to the Waymaster.  Its besti...

Path of Dragons 11 - Chapter 74 - Alive but not Living

The Worldseed pulsed with so much power that, even with his Mantle of Authority protecting him, Elijah felt his hand disintegrating as it drew closer.  To counter it, he’d shifted into his human form so he could use all three of his healing spells.  Blessing of the Grove came first, bathing him in powerfully rejuvenating rain as a blazing sunflower grew at his feet.  The petals were made of fire, while the disc at the center looked like a miniature, white-hot sun. 

Path of Dragons 11 - Chapter 73 - Blistered

Elijah could only get to within a few hundred feet before his healing could no longer keep up with the damage being done to his body.  To counter that, he shifted into the Shape of Spores, and oddly enough, in that bestial form, he felt as if he better belonged with the rabid creatures clawing at the Worldseed’s outer shell. 

But he knew he was on the clock.

He descended among them, his body remaking itself with every passing moment as his massive regeneration outpaced...

Path of Dragons 11 - Chapter 72 - The Worldseed

The landmass at the end of the chain appeared out of the now-ubiquitous haze so quickly that he only had a few moments to slow his descent before he slammed into the uneven terrain.  A shockwave of force erupted through his legs, not stopping until it had bypassed his knees, leaving only pain in its wake.

He countered it with a surge of Wild Resurgence, eliciting a wave of relief. 

If Elijah was honest, he still found it strange that he could just shrug off the effects o...

Chapter 759 - The Scalpel and the Club

Zeke reached out with his will, intending to unravel Shar Maelaine where she sat on her throne.  However, he was shocked to find his efforts blocked by some unseen force.  It only took him a moment to recognize that she was using the negative threads against him.  Somehow, she’d managed to wrangle them under her control.

“How?” he demanded.

“Your ignorance knows no bounds,” she spat.  “You think you are the only one to attain a little power?  I...

Path of Dragons 11 - Chapter 71 - Ignored

Elijah grappled with an abyssal.  Its tentacles wrapped around his arms and legs as it snapped at him with multiple mouths.  At the same time, the creature screamed incoherently, its massive, tree-trunk legs planted firmly in the ground. 

It pushed.

Elijah pushed back. 

And he found his strength wanting.  Even in the Shape of Spores, and with Heart of the Tempest flared while Savage Strength flooded his body with power, he skidded backward a few more...