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Path of Dragons 5 - Chapter 11 - Playing a Role

Elijah stood in the doorway, staring ahead at a mass of human misery.  Dozens of people lay on the ground, being tended to by a harried man wearing a sparkly robe.  He rushed from one person to the next, barely stopping long enough to cast a spell before moving on. 

It was clear that the man was the only Healer around.  What was less clear was why he’d chosen to wear a sparkly robe that would’ve made most sequined dresses look mundane by comparison.  He also...

Path of Dragons 5 - Chapter 10 - Scars

When Elijah returned to the market, he found an odd combination of chaos and business as usual.  Clearly, the elites of the world – which, for all that many of them had come unprepared, was precisely who’d been invited to participate in the Trial of Primacy – were accustomed to death, and in a way that few people had experienced before Earth’s transformation.  Most had assuredly seen loved ones die horrible deaths, and more than a few had witnessed whole cities being destroy...

Path of Dragons 5 - Chapter 9 - Immortals

Elijah slipped the crystalline leaf into his Ghoul-Hide Satchel and shook his head.  The guide hadn’t been particularly informative, merely confirming what Dat had already told him.  However, it had given him a little more insight into how everything was meant to work.

The ten challenges were not permanent obstacles.  Instead, they would periodically repopulate, giving everyone the opportunity to earn their places.  So, while it was comforting to know that he would...

Chapter 517 - Tension

Zeke was tense.

Under the silvery light of the full moon, the city was eerily deserted.  Every footfall echoed heavily in the empty streets, bouncing from one building to the next, with little to obscure its path.  Behind him, the army followed silently, clearly feeling the same trepidation that enveloped Zeke’s mind. 

“Where did they all go?” he wondered inwardly. 

“I think you know,” Eveline answered.

Indeed, he had his suspicions, thoug...

Path of Dragons 5 - Chapter 8 - Nexus Town

Sadie Song stood stiffly, her back against the wall as she scanned her surroundings.  The so-called Nexus Town was not what she had expected, and the people who’d steadily trickled into the settlement were disappointments as well.  Many of them were ragged, clearly having been unprepared for the dangers represented by the Trial of Primacy. 

“Did they think this would be easy?” she asked, not bothering to glance at the man by her side.  Fortunately, she and Dat ...

Chapter 516 - War of the Dead

Zeke emerged from the castle just in time to avoid being buried beneath a pile of black rubble.  Even as it collapsed behind him, he was nudged forward by the powerful shockwave created by the enchantment breaking.  His stumble took him down the steps and into the plaza abutting the castle. 

Or, in retrospect, what was left of the building.

He straightened to his feet and glanced backward at the ruins.  “One day, I’m going to end a fight, and everything won...

Path of Dragons 5 - Chapter 7 - Escort

Elijah ran his hand along the frieze, feeling the subtle rise and fall of the surface of the eroded sculpture.  It belonged to one of the few standing structures he’d seen over the past two days, and it was surprisingly intact.  That wasn’t to say that it hadn’t borne the effects of the passage of time.  It had.  However, due to some unknown reason, the temple – as he’d decided to think of it – was mostly unbroken.

The frieze itself was a different story....

Path of Dragons 5 - Chapter 6 - Class

Miguel tried to dodge the oncoming attack, but he was too slow.  Always too slow.  The voxxian monster’s claw ripped into his side, glancing off his ribs and showering his surroundings in blood and bits of his flesh.  His breastplate had offered no protection, largely because half of it had already been destroyed, leaving a large opening for the voxx to attack. 

And it had.

Repeatedly.

As a result, his entire left side looked like minced meat with a gen...

Path of Dragons 5 - Chapter 5 - Answers

Elijah crouched, his claws digging into the bark as he balanced atop a tree branch.  Far below, he saw a lone hunter.  The creature was much like the others he’d already fought – four arms, chalky skin, and with a pseudo-reptilian face – but it had the distinction of being alone.  Elijah had been following it for some time after he’d stumbled upon another site of battle, though this one wasn’t between the hunters and the Trial-takers.  Instead, the group of nativ...

Chapter 515 - Glee

Zeke surged ahead, but the tide of zombies shifted around him, flowing to the side and avoiding his measured swing.  Then, they attacked from the flanks and from behind, their sharp claws and teeth scratching against his metallic body.  Then, even as he tried to turn, the first few leaped onto his back.  Reaching up, he snatched at an arm, but when he pulled, the limb came free.  Its owner cackled in glee – a first for zombies, as far as Zeke had heard – and bit down.&...

Path of Dragons 5 - Chapter 4 - Hunters and Hunted

Elijah clutched his staff in a white-knuckled grip as he tried to make sense of what he saw.  Dozens of people – most of which were human – stood with their backs against a natural edifice composed of loose dirt held together by massive roots.  It was around thirty feet tall, and the top was dominated by a huge tree with red-flecked leaves.  At first glance, it was an intriguing specimen that differed greatly from its surroundings.

He had no time to appreciate it, tho...

Chapter 514 - Complicated

Zeke plunged his hand through the undead monstrosity’s skull, wrapped his fingers around the squishiest parts of its brain, and yanked it free.  It came without issue, though there were some discolored and wriggling bits that he could only call worms that came with the handful of grey matter.  He tossed it aside in disgust, then kicked the hulking creature free.  It fell, limp and lifeless, to join all the others he’d slain. 

Over the past two hours, he’d slaug...

Weekly Check-In (6/9/24)

Whew.

This was a busy week for me! I've been working up a storm as I try to get ahead of the publishing schedule, and I've finally managed to build up a little breathing room. Which is a good thing, because in September, I'm going to do another ACCELERATED MONTH (for Path of Dragons)! This time, I'm shooting for three chapters a day, but to do that, I've got to build quite a backlog before then. I've made some headway, and I think I'm on track. But I'll be keeping my nose to the gr...

Path of Dragons 5 - Chapter 3 - Bearings

Elijah closed his eyes and tilted his head toward the sky, basking in the sunlight as he focused on One with Nature.  He could feel everything for almost a hundred yards, and he was both awed and disturbed at the results.  There were hundreds of the blue-and-white skinned, four-armed creatures all around him, yet most were underground.  The ones that weren’t seemed to be in some sort of hibernation, their breathing rapid as they twitched with every passing second. 

Path of Dragons 5 - Chapter 2 - Native Dangers

Screams of agony and fear echoed off the walls of the ruined buildings, accompanied by the thudding sound of Grod’s heavy boots hitting the remnants of the flagstone street.  The big ogre had already disappeared around a corner, heedlessly charging into danger. 

Elijah and Venka were far more cautious. 

“He always does this,” the hill goblin breathed.  “I think he forgets he’s not a Warrior.”

“Really?” Elijah asked.

“Jeweler, belie...

Path of Dragons 5 - Chapter 1 - Prejudice

As the title suggests, this is the beginning of the fifth book. Hope you all enjoy it!

Elijah only knew peace.

He didn’t know how long it lasted.  Nor was he in any condition to question it.  Instead, he basked in the quiet.  For the longest time, he’d been forced to acclimate to a cascade of stimuli – from his enhanced senses to the input from One with Nature – and he hadn’t realized how much that tidal wave of information had weighed on his shou...

Chapter 513 - The Fallen, Far and Fast

Zeke barreled through the horde of zombies, completely obliterating quite a few of them on his way through the enormous gates.  However, when he entered into the headquarters, he was confronted with a dozen large undead, each one brimming with enough mana that he didn’t need [Inspect] to tell him that they were just as high of a level as him.  Still, he used the identification skill:

Reaper – Level 85

The creatures were not zombies.  In...

Path of Dragons 4 - Chapter 85 - The Best of the Best

Sadie Song stared at the Branch, waiting for the seconds to tick away until she could enter the Trial of Primacy.  Even though everything pointed to it being the right choice, she still felt guilty about her choice to attend.  There was a niggling thought in the back of her mind that she should have simply gone home.  After all, with the corrupted forces of the Primal Realm having been quarantined, the survivors of Hong Kong would have a perfect opportunity to solidify their gr...

Chapter 512 - More than Meets the Eye

Mindless undead barreled forward, heedless of their own safety.  Many were cut down by Zeke’s army, but some were far too powerful to easily fall.  It was a striking state of affairs, knowing that some of them had once been pillars of El’kireth.  Now, they were feral zombies, incapable of thinking for themselves.  Instead, they only knew aggression and whatever dictates their master had passed onto them. 

Still, they were strong – far more powerful, in fac...

Path of Dragons 4 - Chapter 84 - Masterpiece

Elijah stood in front of the tree, unsure about his plan.  In his head, it all made sense, but now that he was looking at the thing, he doubted it.  Not the viability of the intended product – he felt certain he could do something worthwhile – but rather, his doubts centered on whether or not he had the right to destroy something so vibrant.  He wasn’t so deluded that he equated killing a tree to murdering a person, but there were notes of that line of thinking in his min...

Path of Dragons 4 - Chapter 83 - Final Preparations

Elijah awoke to the sensation of something nibbling on his toe.  At first, he barely even noticed it, but then consciousness fully took hold, and he jerked his foot away.  The moment he moved, the fish darted away, frightened by the sudden motion.  Elijah blinked his eyes open, and his memories came flooding back. 

At some point, seawater had come rushing back into the cave, so he found himself floating just above the cave’s floor.  The last phase of pushing h...

Path of Dragons 4 - Chapter 82 - Path of Dragons

Elijah lay on the cold floor, overcome with emotion as the memory of what he’d just seen – of what he had just experienced – engulfed his thoughts. 

“It truly is overwhelming, is it not?” came a voice from above.  Elijah recognized it as coming from his patron – the beautiful woman who’d greeted him before he’d been thrust into another life.  “I sill remember when I saw it.  Tens of thousands of years, and that memory is still as fresh as it was whe...

Chapter 511 - Marshalling Forces

Zeke sat at the head of the long, sturdy table, his head pounding as he listened to everyone argue.  As silent as Silik usually was, he thought nothing of using his immense size to bully the newcomers into submitting to his plan of attack.  However, the undead were undeterred by the physicality he could bring to bear, and they refused to back down from the kobold general.  Instead, they insisted on attacking the expansionist forces their own way.  And given that it was the...

Path of Dragons 4 - Chapter 81 - Whelp

Elijah crouched on the tree limb, using his long tail for balance as he watched the creature down below.  At the most basic level, it looked a little like a rhinoceros, though with scales instead of a thick, leathery hide.  It also had seven horns jutting from its densely armored head and a series of spikes flowing down its spine. 

So, perhaps it was more like a dinosaur than a rhino. 

Either way, it didn’t matter.  The creature was precisely what he’d...

Weekly Check-In (6/2/2024)

So, this was a really good week. For one, did we hit some pretty awesome numbers - notably, Path of Dragons passing 4 million views on Royal Road (we're also approaching 2 thousand Favorites, which is a huge number, so if you haven't favorited it yet, do so now!). For another, I got some big news concerning the upcoming audiobook for the story. With that in mind, let's get into it!

Path of Dragons now has a narrator! Eric Jason Martin has been cast to narrate the story for Audible, ...

Chapter 510 - One Path Among Many

Things were different.

Zeke knew that the moment he stepped into the common areas of the tower.  But nothing made it clearer than when he decided to visit the Pillar at the center of the Residential District.  Normally, the area was teeming with kobolds, beastkin, or the humans he’d taken in during his conquest of Adontis.  But now, the wide streets were nearly empty, save for a few stragglers. 

“They’re exploring their paths,” Eveline pointed out. ...

Path of Dragons 4 - Chapter 80 - The Path Less Traveled

Elijah couldn’t speak.

Instead, his breath caught in his chest as he stared at the woman in front of him.  She was gorgeous, though that was the least impactful characteristic on display.  Power, closely controlled, swirled around her, nearly overwhelming Elijah, body, mind, and soul.  Even his core went quiet, almost as if it sensed a much greater power and was trying to make itself smaller so it could avoid notice. 

Golden hair – and he was close enough t...

Path of Dragons 4 - Chapter 79 - Over the Edge

“I’m never drinking again,” Elijah muttered to himself as he lay in his bed of moss.  Massaging his temples, he refused to open his eyes.  He’d made that mistake once already, and even the gentle light from the glowing flowers on the ceiling was enough to send spikes through his hungover brain.  Taking a deep breath, he used Soothe, but even that was only marginally effective.  So, he cast Nature’s Bloom, and, at last, his roiling stomach and the pounding pain be...

Path of Dragons 4 - Chapter 78 - On the Horizon

“You know we can’t just babysit him, right?”

Elijah glanced at Carmen, unsure of how to respond.  One thing that had almost immediately become clear after Earth had been touched by the World Tree was that leveling was weird.  Some things that seemed like they should have given multiple levels barely gave a trickle of experience, while other actions resulted in a flood of progress.  He was aware that there were whole classes dedicated to charting the most efficient l...

Chapter 509 - Catching Up

Zeke stumbled through the gate, and after a brief moment of nothingness, appeared next to the green pillar of light that dominated the Cradle of Life.  He took a deep breath, drinking in the vitality as he continued to use [Hand of Divinity].  It wasn’t that much more effective outside the dungeon than within, but it was still enough of a difference that Zeke couldn’t ignore it. 

Casting his mind into his spatial storage, he saw the Seed of Life and Death next to the ...