nrsearcy

Path of Dragons 6 - Chapter 86 - Monsters

For the first time in his life, Lamar Sims felt inferior. 

It wasn’t some great revelation that he’d lived a charmed life.  As a child, he’d separated himself from his peers by virtue of immense athletic ability.  All he had to do was keep his nose clean, train when he was told to train, and play the game he loved to the best of his ability.  And he did, even going above and beyond with his work ethic, which had netted him a scholarship to an elite college foot...

Chapter 587 - Beware

The zombies were old.  Very, very old.  Most of them were barely more than skeletons, with dried bits of flesh clinging to their bones, and they all wore elaborate armor, clothing, and jewelry.  For a while, as Zeke plowed through them, he found himself wondering where they’d all come from.  Back in Darukar, the hordes of zombies were explicable by the fact that Micayne had converted much of the city.  However, the castle of the Vile Reech was long-abandoned. <...

Path of Dragons 6 - Chapter 85 - Strides

Miguel leaped from the branch, bringing his weapon down in a vicious hack that should have split Birk in two.  Instead, the huge man shifted only slightly, and Miguel’s attack found only air.  He thudded into the loamy turf, immediately launching himself forward into a roll that ended with him on his feet and sprinting away. 

Birk followed, his feet slamming into the ground with the inevitable gait of a man who knew he didn’t need to rush.  It reminded Miguel of ...

Chapter 586 - Escalation

Zeke’s hammer slammed into the necromantic vessel’s malformed head.  It snapped to the side, the sound of breaking bones an tearing flesh announcing the attack’s effectiveness.  He didn’t stop there, though.  Planting his feet on the thing’s shoulder, he cocked Voromir back, then embraced [Unleash Momentum].  The result ripped the thing’s monstrous head off, sending it flying away to slam into one of the walls.  The edifice crumbled beneath the immense for...

Path of Dragons 6 - Chapter 84 - A Call to Action

“I’m not going back out there,” announced one woman, her voice rising above the din of conversation. 

“Have you seen those things out there?” someone else asked.

“I saw something flying through the air that was bigger than a cargo jet.”

“It’s suicide!”

On and on it went, with hundreds of people all trying to talk at once.  On the bright side, there seemed to be more survivors than Elijah had expected, but the relatively small group was jus...

Path of Dragons 6 - Chapter 83 - The Carrot and the Stick

Yloa released his underling, letting the pitiful creature fall to the floor.  He had given them so much.  He had sacrificed everything for the future of Ka’arath, and yet, none of them were grateful.  They spat in his face, naming him tyrant.  Dictator.  Villain.  He was all of those things and more, but most of all, he was their savior.  Without him, no one on his planet would have survived.

So, when the system had announced that it was giving them ...

Path of Dragons 6 - Chapter 82 - Mad Dash

Elijah was very tempted to simply grab his friends, shift into Shape of the Sky, and use Lightning Rush.  But he knew that wouldn’t work.  For all his advancement, he knew he couldn’t carry them all for very long – maybe a few miles at most.  No sooner had that thought crossed his mind than the entire forest was cast into shadow as something the size of a cargo jet passed overhead. 

No - flying wasn’t an option. 

Instead, he shifted into Shape of T...

Chapter 585 - Wrath

Zeke’s stomach tightened into a knot.

“What’s wrong?” demanded Eveline.

“Pudge,” he grunted, already embracing [Titan].  “He’s in trouble.”

Without hesitation, he summoned a gate and told Talia, “Get the army.”

“How many?” she asked.

“All of them,” he stated.  “The second they’ve assembled, I expect them to attack.  Get Sasha, too.  Tell her that Pudge is in danger.  Tell her not to hold back.”

Th...

Path of Dragons 6 - Chapter 81 - The Tenth Challenge

After Dat failed to adequately describe what he saw, Elijah shifted back into his human form and retrieved a mirror from his Ghoul-Hide Satchel.  Then, he activated Shape of Thorn and, once his transformation was complete, took a look for himself.  The mirror was only eight-inches tall and about half as wide, but it was large enough for him to get an idea why Dat couldn’t give him a good description.

The first thing that came to Elijah’s mind was the root raptors he’d en...

Chapter 584 - Pudge's Task

“Are you sure you can do this?” asked Zeke.

Pudge didn’t immediately answer, but instead stared ahead at the castle in the distance.  It was miles away, but even then, he could smell the necromantic power wafting off of it. Finally, he said, “I’m the only one who can.”

“The Inashi –”

“They’re not good enough,” Pudge cut in.  Normally, he wouldn’t have interrupted anyone, much less Zeke.  But the fact that they’d had the same convers...

Path of Dragons 6 - Chapter 80 - A Thorny Choice

Elijah couldn’t stop grinning, and for a variety of reasons.  The first was the most obvious – they were finished.  The Trial was done.  Sure, they still had to decide whether they wanted to embark on a quest to slay the Lightning Emperor – which seemed like an issue that was well above his paygrade.  He was all for fighting for truth, justice, and all that, but going up against Yloa seemed a lot like a suicide mission.  Someone else could worry about Transcende...

Path of Dragons 6 - Chapter 79 - Scope

Sadie leveled her sword at the old ta’alaki.  He didn’t even twitch, though the balls of arcane power continued to crackle as they swirled above him. 

“We do not have time for this,” he sighed.

“What do you want?” Elijah asked, stepping forward to stand next to Sadie.  He gripped his staff with white knuckles as fear flowed through him.  Because he felt that the ta’alaki was entirely unrestrained.  The power circulating through the First Mage...

Path of Dragons 6 - Chapter 78 - Familiarity

Running his hand along the banister, Elijah remarked, “This is not what I expected.”

The interior of the tower, which had opened after Kurik had solved the puzzle of the last rune, reminded Elijah of a Gilded Age smoking room – the ones with leather, rich wood, and the sort of subdued opulence characteristic of the truly rich.  Of course, that was just the general atmosphere.  The details were obviously alien and very different. 

There was wood, but it was bon...

Chapter 583 - Unfinished Business

“They have evacuated all military personnel up to here,” said Adara, pointing to a line cutting across the territory of the Imperium.  She had insinuated herself into the army in the months since the run of dungeons she’d conquered with Zeke.  At first, he’d thought that they’d accepted her primarily because of the relationship she shared with him, but he’d quickly discovered the error of that line of thinking.  The kobolds recognized her expertise, and they’d beg...

Path of Dragons 6 - Chapter 77 - Bearing the Weight of Sacrifice

Once upon a time, Ron had thought of himself as steady and unflappable in a crisis.  After all, he’d completed his residency in the emergency room, where urgent situations were the defining characteristic of his job.  He’d parlayed that cool-headed nature into survival after the world had changed.  It was the only reason he or Nancy had survived, and dozens of other people in their community owed him their lives.

Yet, as he looked at the swirling mass of darkness – ...

Chapter 582 - The Vile Reach

Talia smelled salt on the wind.

She had long since lost track of how far she’d traveled.  To her, the only thing that mattered was the next sign.  A bone here.  A hunk of necrotic flesh there.  Sometimes, there were miles between each clue, slowing her search to a crawl.  When she was forced to cover so much ground, it didn’t matter how fast she could run. 

But still, she continued, never stopping even for a moment.  She didn’t rest, and fo...

Path of Dragons 6 - Chapter 76 - The Gravity of the Situation

The moment Kurik laid eyes on the complex pattern of runes, he knew which specialization he wanted to choose.  Which was a good thing, because during the battle through the campus of the Academy Arcana, he’d finally managed to reach level one hundred.  Since then, the choice had hovered in the back of his mind, waiting to be made.  As the others inspected the runes, looking for a way to activate the mechanism, he settled in at the edge of the room and looked at his options: 2024-10-06 15:00:06 +0000 UTC View Post

Path of Dragons 6 - Chapter 75 - Runes

Like the library itself, the site of the first rune was made of engraved crystal.  However, instead of a mostly clean design featuring straight lines and sharp edges, the new building was all curves and fin-like protrusions.  As Elijah looked upon the glittering structure, he couldn’t help but feel a sense of awe.  On Earth, there were plenty of predominantly glass buildings, and many of them were artistically impressive.  None of them were surrounded by the same aura of...

Path of Dragons 6 - Chapter 74 - A Lack of Distraction

Elijah had made a lot of progress.

Or at least that was what he told himself after spending hours entirely immobile in the most uncomfortable position he could have imagined.  After he’d given up on getting out of it without leaving the library, he’d turned his attention to the cultivation of his Soul.  He’d been working on it for a while, mapping and planning for when he found appropriately dense ethera to fuel the final push.  However, the draining of...

Chapter 581 - The Problem with People

Westport fell with a whimper.

There were pockets of intense fighting, but as had happened so many other times, the ability to plant an entire army within the city was a game changer.  So, in a way, Zeke understood why the gnomes had attacked him.  His very presence – assuming that they knew about his ability to summon gates, which was almost certain – represented an immense security risk.  So, of course they’d chosen to neutralize him.

The only issue with that...

Path of Dragons 6 - Chapter 73 - Laid Out

“He looks so pitiful,” Sadie said.  “Are you sure we can’t –”

“There’s an ethereal cage around him,” Dat said.  “If any of us try to breach it, we’ll end up just like him.”

“I know.  I just want to put him into a more…dignified position.”

“I ‘an ‘ear ‘ou,” Elijah muttered, though his speech was rendered almost unintelligible by two factors.  First, he couldn’t actually move his mouth, making hard consonants very d...

Chapter 580 - The Ally of my Enemy is my Enemy

The floor shook as Zeke stepped forward. 

“You will halt!” screamed the gnomish leader.

Zeke paid him no mind.  Instead, he embraced [Eye of Recknoing].  A beam of pure destruction erupted from his forehead, and a second later, tore through a hastily erected shield before completely obliterating the gnome.  When [Eye of Reckoning] winked out, there was nothing left. 

Not even ash.

For a long few seconds, silence reigned, and Zeke took that ...

Path of Dragons 6 - Chapter 72 - The Library

“This is eerie,” Elijah remarked, craning his neck this way and that as he beheld the state of the campus.  He’d spent most of a decade of his life in college – getting a doctorate took a lot of time – so the academy felt extremely familiar.  And yet, it was also alien in the most obvious of ways. 

For one, the structure of the buildings was unfamiliar, with things like doors and windows in all the wrong places.  In some ways, the style was reminiscent of t...

Path of Dragons 6 - Chapter 71 - Practice Makes Perfect

“We could just not do it,” suggested Kurik in his typically gruff manner.  “Ain’t that an option?”

“No,” Dat, Ron, and Sadie said in unison, all having heard the same suggestion a couple of times before.  For his part, Elijah remained silent, and for the first time, actually considered the dwarf’s idea.  Given what they’d already seen, it was unlikely that anyone else would conquer the challenge of the Ethereum.  Without false modesty, Elijah could ...

Path of Dragons 6 - Chapter 70 - Boomstick

Alright, so the double chapters are done for now. I intend to do another accelerated release month in March, so keep on the lookout for that. In the meantime, I'll be going back to the 2-chapter Wednesdays (at least until we're 75 chapters ahead of Royal Road). I hope you all enjoyed all the extra content, and I look forward to seeing what you all think about the upcoming end of book 6 in the next couple of weeks. Thanks for your support!

2024-10-01 15:00:14 +0000 UTC View Post

Chapter 579 - On Whose Authority

Zeke just stared at the odd-looking gnome, processing what he’d just heard.  Then, he burst out into laughter. 

In his mind, Eveline said, “Ezekiel…”

“This is a serious matter!” seethed the gnome. 

After a moment, Zeke cut his laughter off.  Then, he asked, “I’m sorry.  I just thought you were joking.”

“Do you think we gather the entire Circle of Mages on a whim, boy?  Of course we aren’t joking!” growled the gnome....

Path of Dragons 6 - Chapter 69 - Academy Arcana

Elijah was content.

Part of it was the setting, which was a stretch of ancient forest that radiated vitality and history.  It reminded him of the Redwood Forest back in California, though with far larger trees and alien wildlife.  In any case, the region left him feeling satisfied in a way he couldn’t quite articulate. 

More impactful on his mood was Sadie’s demeanor.  Since progressing to the next step of cultivation of her Mind, she’d been an entirely d...

Path of Dragons 6 - Chapter 68 - The Footfalls of Giants

Kurik slammed the blade of his hatchet into the wraith’s skull, and the thing’s head exploded from the impact.  He paid it no mind.  Instead, he moved on to the next creature that had been subjected to one of his traps, dispatching it in the same manner.  Then, he found the next.  And the next after that.  Over and over, he slaughtered the helpless things like the pests they were.

Before he’d come to the Trial of Primacy, he might’ve felt sorry for such ...

Chapter 578 - Westport

“They’re staring at me,” Adara said, her eyes flicking one and another as they strolled, hand-in-hand, down the street.

“It’s because you’re wearing armor,” Zeke said.  For his part, he’d chosen a simple white shirt and a pair of trousers, with a pair of sturdy boots on his feet.  It was a variation of his normal attire, though he’d made sure that it was all of the highest quality.  Even then, he felt a little underdressed – like walking into a fancy p...

Path of Dragons 6 - Chapter 67 - Justice

Elijah’s advice was useless.

He went on and on about facets and partitions, as if any of that made sense to Sadie.  He might as well have gone on another of his soliloquies on nature, for all the good it did.  Normally, she could appreciate that side of him – even through the disgusting cloud of sin he usually wore – but since she’d taken her specialization, his presence had become unbearable.

And yet, he was the only person who could help her.  He was the o...