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Path of Dragons 5 - Chapter 69 - More Swamp Life

“I don’t like it,” Sadie said, her hands clenched into tight fists as she looked back at the town.  “I don’t like this at all.  We’re supposed to be helping people, not…abandoning them.”

Elijah was inclined to agree.  He certainly didn’t support the notion of letting the Immortals – and their enigmatic and unnamed leader – run amok.  But despite that, he’d agreed to their current plan of action. 

Or lack thereof.

“You heard ...

Chapter 547 - A Slaughter of Trolls

A beam of pure destruction cut through the mass of trolls.  Hundreds of them burst into flame, burning to ash in only a moment, while the strongest among them were merely cut in half.  A second later, a whirlwind of ethereal hammers slammed into them, pulverizing the scattered few who’d managed to live through [Eye of Reckoning].  A second later, a gout of fire, corruption, and earth erupted deeper into the troll settlement, destroying everything within a fifty-yard radius.&n...

Path of Dragons 5 - Chapter 68 - Deal with the Devil

“What kind of a problem?” asked Sadie, her tone intense.  “What’s going on?”

“The Immortals.”

“What about them?” Elijah asked before Sadie could cut in.

“They’re taking over,” Atticus responded with a shake of his head.  “They’re multiplying.  I don’t know how, but every day, there seems to be more of them out there.  And they’re not shy about imposing their will on other people, either.  The only reason we’re not co...

Chapter 546 - Blood in the Snow

“Are we certain that it’s stabilized?” asked Zeke, glancing away from the dungeon portal and looking at Sasha.  In addition to leading the academy in the Crimson Tower, she was also the most knowledgeable person when it came to mana, dungeons, and just about everything else that didn’t involve killing. 

The boarkin girl glanced at a sheet of crystal and nodded.  The apparatus looked almost like a tablet, though it was surrounded by enough mana that Zeke knew it wa...

Path of Dragons 5 - Chapter 67 - A Natural Predator

A gentle wind rustled the leaves above, and a cacophony of chirps cascaded across the canopy.  Twinkling motes of ethera danced in the air, casting the forest floor in a slightly blue glow that, in most situations, Elijah would have found quite comforting.  He was distracted, though.  Because for once, he’d found a group of ka’alaki hunters before they’d found him. 

Kurik and the others were around three miles away, tired after an entire day of battle.  Af...

Path of Dragons 5 - Chapter 66 - Connections

Elijah crept forward, his footsteps barely making a sound as he held his hand outstretched.  His fingers trembled slightly as he reached toward the creature.  It cringed away, letting out a pitiful whine, but it didn’t run.  It couldn’t. 

“Shh,” he breathed.  “It’ll be okay.”

The beast clearly didn’t trust him, but that was the inevitable consequence of its experiences.  A large arrow jutted from its shoulder, the head buried deep enou...

Path of Dragons 5 - Chapter 65 - Usefulness

Gwenivere sat at the bar, staring into the tumbler of whiskey in front of her.  It remained untouched, though she wanted nothing more than to take a drink.  After everything she and the rest of the others had been through, she felt that she deserved that much.

Yet, she refused.  Five years of sobriety – forced by circumstances or not – meant too much to her to be discarded just because she was feeling a little down.

It was so frustrating.  By all rights, sh...

Chapter 545 - The Full Weight of the Imperium

Ignatius, the High Abbot of the Radiant Host and the Lord of the Imperium, took a deep breath.  He didn’t see his surroundings, no matter how grand.  Nor did he feel secure in his own power, though in his territory, it was absolute.  Few people in the Eternal Realm could hope to stand up to him, and yet, he felt as weak as a child.  Because he had just been visited by a being so far above him that he might as well have been the most inconsequential insect.

And she ...

Path of Dragons 5 - Chapter 64 - Waterfalls

Sadie sat atop what was left of the ruined wall, her head in her hands as she tried to come to grips with everything.  It didn’t happen often, but every now and then, she found herself overwhelmed by events.  Normally, she pushed those feelings aside, shoving them deep down where nobody could see how much they affected her.  But sometimes, she had to deal with them in the only way she knew how. 

She’d never been a terribly emotional person.  Before Earth had...

Chapter 544 - Perspective

Something smashed into Zeke’s hip, sending him stumbling to the side.  At the same time, another force hit him from the other direction, followed by the Karag Morn, the level ninety-four Knight, finally making his move.  Zeke raised his hammer to block the oncoming strike from the big man’s cudgel, but he was too slow.  It hit him in the chest, knocking him away.  He skidded backwards almost a hundred feet before he came to a stop in a cloud of dust. 

That�...

Path of Dragons 5 - Chapter 63 - Damage Report

Ramik was frustrated.

After five years of clawing toward prosperity, Ironshore was finally on the verge of turning a profit.  He could see it in his mind’s eye, looming just out of reach.  Once they crossed that ephemeral line, everything would change.  Already, he’d begun to see the effects.  Humans made up almost twenty percent of the populace, and that number was climbing by the day.  More importantly, they brought with them a number of necessary skills, ...

Path of Dragons 5 - Chapter 62 - The Tragedy of War

In a daze, Elijah left the ruins behind.  He still paid attention to his surroundings, but he struggled to pull his thoughts away from contemplation of his recent experiences.  The puzzle itself hadn’t been terribly complex.  However, his ability to solve it had been compromised by external factors – like the fact that he’d been on the verge of death almost from the very beginning.

But now that he was safe, Elijah could look at it more objectively.  And when he...

Path of Dragons 5 - Chapter 61 - Elemental

Elijah ran his fingers along the damp wall, then pressed his thumb and forefinger together.  Because of the algae that covered the stone, they stuck together, though only slightly.  In addition, a slightly musty smell hung in the air, suggesting the presence of rot.  But he wasn’t put off by that.  Instead, he marveled at the sheer amount of life present in the area.  Via One with Nature, he could feel everything – right down to collections of single-cell organism...

Chapter 543 - Forced Confrontation

“It was a trap,” Eveline said in Zeke’s mind as he stared out across the battlefield.  His people were hard-pressed, being attacked from three sides, but they were holding their own.  Or they would have been if it weren’t for four figures dominating the fight. 

They were all knights, wearing bulky sets of shining armor, and they were each over level ninety.  Currently, they were engaged in a match against Talia, Pudge, and Silik, with an entire squad of Inash...

Path of Dragons 5 - Chapter 60 - Ruins

“That’s the biggest damn ingot I’ve ever seen,” Kurik said.  He tore his eyes away from the bar of celestial gold and asked, “Can I touch it?  Just once, so I can tell my clan I actually laid a finger on a bar of celestial gold.”

“Of course you can touch it,” Sadie said.  “You earned it, just like the rest of us.  By rights, it’s as much yours as it is ours.”

“Not me,” Dat said. “I already got mine, bro.”

“That’s not how ...

Chapter 542 - Pursuit

The hammer fell with inevitable finality, crushing a mighty Knight of the Radiant Host into nothing.  Zeke felt a wave of kill energy sweep through him, announcing the Knight’s death.  With that confirmation of his victory, his shoulders sagged and he looked around.  Hundreds of Knights lay dead all around him, each one crushed beneath the weight of his hammer. 

“I almost forgot the smell,” he said aloud.

Eveline asked, “This is far from the worst battl...

Path of Dragons 5 - Chapter 59 - A Viable Choice

Elijah lay on the floor, his breath coming deep and slow, as he came to grips with the previous battle.  In the beginning, he’d thought that his new abilities hadn’t been effective, but as the battle wore on, he’d come to realize that the Engineer was just that powerful.  He didn’t know what the ka’alaki had done to himself – aside from the obvious – but whatever it was, it had made him insanely durable. 

And the firepower he had at his disposal was absolute...

Path of Dragons 5 - Chapter 58 - Mad Scientist

“Tell me,” said the four-legged amalgamation of flesh and metal as he loomed over Sadie.  A huge circular saw whirred to life, its blade glistening with ethera.  “Does your world know the value of technology?  Mine did not.  Does not.  I was mocked.  Derided.  Exiled to the far reaches of my planet, and for what?  Because I wanted to solve our problems through science.  Meanwhile, those idiots fought against one another, and our doom drew eve...

Path of Dragons 5 - Chapter 57 - The Engineer

Electricity arced from one wire to the next, never stopping even for a moment.  Somehow, Dat managed to tiptoe through them, his feet never touching a single wire as he made his way to the console.  Meanwhile, Sadie fended off the veritable horde of spiders that had descended upon her when she’d used Call of the Crusader. 

“Hurry up, Dat!” she shouted, kicking one of the spiders.  She struck it so hard that it actually stung her foot, but the tactic proved succ...

Chapter 541 - Privateers

Tucker took aim and shot an alchemical globe above the enemy ship.  When it was halfway to its destination, it split into ten smaller balls that spread out to cover the whole ship.  Once they were in position, they all exploded, showering the deck – and the sailors upon it – in green mist that he knew would weaken even the strongest members of the crew.  The weaker sailors would be knocked out, while a the least powerful ran the risk of being killed altogether.

“The...

Path of Dragons 5 - Chapter 56 - Taking Hits

Sadie slammed into the wall, her pauldron crumpling as the impact sent a web of cracks spreading across the concrete surface.  But the armor – as well as Bulwark of the Faithful – did its job, preventing her bones from shattering.  It was a good thing, too, because if she’d been stunned, even for a moment, she would have had her head taken off by the scything claws of the latest monster.  As it was, she narrowly managed to duck beneath the corroded blade, whi...

Chapter 540 - A Wild Dungeon Appears

Zeke cracked his knuckles as he looked at the freestanding arch.  The interior was filled with gray fog, through which he could see nothing.  That wasn’t surprising, given what he was looking at.  He turned to Pudge and asked, “When did it pop up?”

“Yesterday,” Zeke’s demonic bearkin companion answered.  Pudge had been a big part of the previous battles, stepping in when the kobold legion was on the verge of being overwhelmed by powerful foes they couldn�...

Path of Dragons 5 - Chapter 55 - Scrambling

Elijah was on fire, and he regretted ever volunteering to lead the horde of robotic insects away.  He dove aside as a roach-bot descend upon him from above – who knew they were capable of flight? – and rolled across the muddy ground to put out the flames ruining his scaled back.  He never stopped moving before he sprang to his feet, grabbed a handful of mud, and vaulted himself to even greater speeds. 

He vacated the area just in time to avoid another pillar of flame ...

Path of Dragons 5 - Chapter 54 - Beetle Power

The noise was deafening.

Hundreds of metal creatures, all clanking together as they chased Elijah away from the facility, created a cacophony of sound that Sadie would never forget.  It was overwhelming, especially when she knew what it represented.  If he made one simple mistake, if he tripped or had overestimated his own speed, they would devour him. 

Which was why she’d argued so vehemently against the plan.  It was too dangerous.  Too many things cou...

Trial of Primacy Arc

So, those who frequent my Discord probably know that I've come up on a bit of an issue with the current book. As far as I'm concerned, it's a good problem to have, but it does force me to make some choices, and soon. So, let me explain.

Basically, we're at about the 40-50% mark with the Trial of Primacy arc as outlined. That means that if I keep going the way I'm going, following the outline, this arc is going to be somewhere around 225-300k words (depending on how elaborate I want t...

Path of Dragons 5 - Chapter 53 - A Little Attention Goes a Long Way

“Here’s how I see it,” said Elijah.  As he spoke, he pointed to a rough diagram he’d scratched into the mud.  It had begun to rain, so the lines he’d drawn had started to fill with water, but everything was still visible.  “Three wasps patrol the area here.  They’re evenly spaced, so they’ve got the whole facility covered.”

“That’s what I saw, too,” Dat said.  Kurik agreed.  The three of them had spent the past three days scouting th...

Chapter 539 - Pursuit

Abby blazed across the sky as a streak of sunlight, and if she’d had a heart, it would have been beating out of control.  Of all the people she might have expected to meet in battle, Talia Nightingale was not one of them.  They had been separated upon ascension, and though Abby had often thought of the girl – and her undead curse – she’d resigned herself to never seeing Talia again.

Which was probably for the best, given what the girl thought of her. 

Abby h...

Path of Dragons 5 - Chapter 52 - Rising Tensions

The tree was twisted, with gnarly branches and lacking any leaves.  To most casual observers, it would have seemed dead.  But as Elijah laid his hand on the trunk, feeling the rough bark beneath his fingers, he couldn’t deny the sense of vitality it exuded.  It was alive, and in the truest sense of the word.  Its existence was clearly characterized by struggle – against its environment, against circumstances, and against its very nature – and defying all odds, it was...

Chapter 538 - Unforgiveable

The Inashi fell upon the Radiant Host’s support personnel in what seemed to be an indiscriminate campaign of slaughter. However, their targets had been well-chosen, and their strikes were surgical, intentional, and most of all, effective. So, when Adara led her own contingent of former Knights of Adontis in a charge, she and her people were met with little resistance. They slashed through the soldiers who’d been tasked with guarding the higher-ups, crashing through them with ease. 2024-07-22 13:00:13 +0000 UTC View Post

Path of Dragons 5 - Chapter 51 - Trying

Benedict was trying.

He truly was.  Throughout his time in the Trial, he’d done everything possible to mind his own business and leave everyone else alone.  And for the most part, he’d succeeded.  Certainly, he’d sacrificed a few people so he could summon another Malicious Guard, but they’d practically begged him to kill them.  Not in so many words, but he’d seen the way they looked at him.  He’d heard the way they spoke of him.  And he could te...