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Chapter 479 - Roc

The giant bird dove, its enormous claws outstretched.  Each talon was the size of a motorcycle, which meant that Zeke was definitely at a size disadvantage.  Yet, he stood his ground, shoving mana into a skill as he hefted his hammer. 

When the monstrous raptor descended upon him, he swung.

And the momentum of a thousand other swings was loosed upon the creature. 

Although, Zeke didn’t only use [Unleash Momentum].  In addition, he laced the powerfu...

Path of Dragons 3 - Chapter 81 - Rescue

Carmen paced back and forth, keenly aware of the three guards standing near the door.  More importantly, she could feel the cameras pointed at her, and she knew the dangers they represented.  After all, it had only been a day since she’d felt the bite of Seattle’s war machinery. 

Upon reaching the city, she and her companions had been so relieved.  At last, they’d reached civilization, and not a moment too soon.  Their water reserves had run out the day be...

Path of Dragons 3 - Chapter 80 - Freedom

Elijah sat cross-legged on the desert floor, staring at the items arrayed in front of him.  There were three of them, though the most outwardly impressive was Thor’s spear, which was scaled to fit the man’s immense frame, with a haft of carved bone, and a sizable blade that could have doubled as a dwarf’s shortsword.  However, looks could be deceptive, and he was far more interested in the other two items. 

One was a simple necklace made of twine from which dangled ...

Chapter 478 - A Flock of Foes

They fell upon Zeke like feathered piranha, moving quickly enough that he couldn’t even begin to react to each of the bird-men.  He’d started the fight by using [Hell Geyser] to thin the flock a little.  However, they were endless tide, each one durable enough to endure all but the strongest flames.  Zeke met them with Voromir’s latest ability, sending a huge, red projection of the hammer to slam into the surging mass of foes. 

That helped, knocking the first w...

Path of Dragons 3 - Chapter 79 - Control

Roman stood on the balcony, looking out over the city.  In the wake of his campaign of conquest, which had swept through seven city-states over the past year, Easton had changed so much as to be almost unrecognizable.  There was nothing left of its humble origins.  No more hastily-constructed buildings.  No eyesore of a wall made of random debris.  And no more rebels. 

No - the city was a metropolis that blended both old and new, with a loyal population tha...

Path of Dragons 3 - Chapter 78 - Back and Forth

In the Shape of the Guardian, Elijah faced off against the hunter.  He still didn’t know the Viking’s identity, so he grunted, “Who are you?  Why did you attack me?”

“I am Thor Gunderson, the most powerful man in the world, and you are the fuel of my ascension,” the blonde giant spat.  Suddenly, it made perfect sense why the fight had been so difficult.  The last time Elijah had checked, he was number two on the power rankings.

In the past, Elijah h...

Weekly Check-In (4/7/2024)

This was another big week, with a lot going on. So, I'll dive right into it:

Regarding Death: Genesis, I'm happy to say that I should be sending book 8's manuscript off to my publisher in the next couple of weeks. I've been editing lately, and I should finish the book's additional chapter soon-ish. So, that's fun, and I'm excited to get that thing in their hands.

As for the current arc, I'm really enjoying this dungeon run. When I first conceived it, I wasn't sure how it wou...

Path of Dragons 3 - Chapter 77 - The Battle Continues

Even as Elijah felt Guardian’s Renewal mend his broken body, he growled, “You shouldn’t have done that.”

Then, he threw himself at the Viking who’d injured him.  The spear strike had cut right through Iron Scales and Elijah’s dense Constitution, ripping his heart to shreds.  Even Soothe, which was still active, was incapable of healing it before he bled out.  So, without any other choice, he’d used Guardian’s Renewal.  It had worked, though for the se...

Path of Dragons 3 - Chapter 76 - Hunter and Beast

Elijah leaned forward, sniffing the air as he stuck his head through the huge gash in the ship’s hull.  The air inside was musty and, odd as it seemed in the middle of a desert, almost humid.  He knew it was an illusion.  He could feel the colony of snakes inside, and he could intuit that they were the source of the strange feeling.  It was a potent hunting method, waving a moist environment in front of the parched desert denizens, but it wasn’t one Elijah would fall f...

Path of Dragons 3 - Chapter 75 - Got You

Thor yanked his spear from the Voxxian monster’s body, sending a spray of black blood to splatter on his pants.  He frowned, then spat on the creature.  Then, he looked around at the other corpses.  There were five of them, a full three of which were capable of healing.  The other two had been durable, with thick scales and a dearth of Dexterity.  The result was that it had taken Thor many frustrating hours to finish them off. 

But he had won.

As wa...

Path of Dragons 3 - Chapter 74 - Leaving Seattle

“Fried squash?” Elijah asked, gazing at the meal with no small degree of appreciation.  “And fried chicken?  Mashed potatoes?  Wow.  Just wow.  Tell me again why we didn’t get married?”

Lucy rolled her eyes, saying, “Because we were barely more than children.”

“Yeah.  I know.  Other than that, though.”

“You disappeared and ran away to Hawaii to play with fish.”

“Oh.  Right.  Not my best decision,” E...

Chapter 477 - The Temple

What felt like an eternity of runes stretched before Zeke’s mind.  Millions of symbols and glyphs, each one representing a concept that, even after countless hours’ worth of examination, he only barely understood.  However, even if he didn’t know them as well as he likely should have, he knew where each one was supposed to go.  More than once, he’d found himself thankful for his path that had, at least in part, originated with runecrafting.  Without it, he would ha...

Path of Dragons 3 - Chapter 73 - Necessary Adjustments

The wind whipped the dust storm into a frenzy, but Miguel just wrapped the cloth more tightly around his face and hunched his shoulders against the furious windstorm.  Using his spear as a walking stick, he followed Miss Teresa, doing his best to keep an eye on everything around him.

There was nothing visible but a thick wall of dust, but he wasn’t going to let that stop him.  After everything he’d seen in his young life, he knew just how quickly the world could turn on hi...

Path of Dragons 3 - Chapter 72 - Trust

“Ah, shit,” Elijah said, rubbing the back of his neck.  He had no idea how he hadn’t recognized her.  In retrospect, he should have.  It wasn’t as if she’d really changed that much since high school.  In fact, she looked remarkably similar, given that it had been nearly ten years and an apocalypse since the last time he’d seen her.  Still, Elijah knew he should have recognized his first serious girlfriend.

“Wow.  That happy to see me, huh?”<...

Chapter 476 - Back into the Jungle

The ratongi tribe was clearly a little short of sapience, and as a result, they reminded Zeke of when he’d first met the kobolds.  Certainly, they were intelligent enough.  They used tools, they created sustainable shelter, and they had a clear social structure to the tribe.  However, they lacked a certain self-awareness that would have vaulted them into the realm of sapience. 

It was a small difference, but the gap between the mere sentience and sapience seemed in...

Path of Dragons 3 - Chapter 71 - The Gardener

Tart flavor burst in Elijah’s mouth as he bit down on one of his grove berries.  Fortunately, he’d resupplied in his most recent trip back to his island, but still, he’d been gone long enough that his stores were running a little low.  That brought to mind the question of his future.  Certainly, he knew he was going to set out for Easton, soon.  The stories he’d heard, which had painted Easton as much more civilized than Seattle, were a great comfort.  If it w...

Path of Dragons 3 - Chapter 70 - Dinner and a Movie

Elijah felt his muscles unkink beneath the blisteringly hot stream of water.  He hadn’t had a proper shower since he’d left Valosta, and even then, the water pressure had left a lot to be desired.  However, the mansion’s water pressure was just fine, and though Elijah had come to judge the inhabitants of Mercer Mesa poorly, he certainly wasn’t above taking advantage of the luxuries they’d amassed. 

Perhaps he could convince Nerthus to increase the temperature in...

Path of Dragons 3 - Chapter 69 - Mercer Mesa

Mercer Mesa loomed above Elijah, soaring to a height of almost a thousand feet.  From afar, he’d estimated that it only reached an elevation of a few hundred feet – which was huge, considering that the surrounding land was almost perfectly flat – but the closer they came to the enormous edifice, the more he realized how mistaken he had been. 

“This used to be Mercer Island, right?” Elijah asked his guide. 

The man grinned broadly, asking, “Ah – a local...

Path of Dragons 3 - Chapter 68 - Buying a Life

The mattress was lumpy.  None of the plumbing worked.  And the whole room somehow managed to smell like bleach and mildew, both at the same time.  On top of that, Elijah could feel every creeping, crawling insect in the walls, and he could hear everything that happened in the next room over.

Yet, for some reason, he’d slept incredibly well, and when it came time for a shower, he just stepped into the bathroom and summoned Healing Rain.  So, as far as he was concern...

Path of Dragons 3 - Chapter 67 - The Lay of the Land

“You’re anonymous,” said the guard, who was wearing all black fatigues that reminded Elijah of S.W.A.T. gear he had seen on television.  The man even had kneepads, elbow guards, and fingerless gloves, which Elijah thought was a little much.  Of course, he was currently wearing a pair of fingerless gloves himself, so he didn’t feel like he had a lot of room to criticize other people’s fashion choices.  At least he had the good sense to keep his hidden, though.  Th...

Chapter 475 - The Moving Mountain

The mountain moved.

“I think you underestimate me,” Zeke said, staring at the massive tortoise.  It was the size of a city, and despite the fact that the ground shook with its every step, it was dozens of miles away.  Aloud, he asked, “How big do you think that thing is?”

“At least a mile across,” Talia answered.  “Perhaps more.  Perspective is difficult to gauge from this distance.”

For his part, Zeke expected that Talia’s estimate was ...

Path of Dragons 3 - Chapter 66 - Seattle

Elijah slithered forward, staying low to the ground.  It wasn’t strictly necessary.  Guise of the Unseen was more than sufficient to keep him hidden.  Yet, he felt that it helped relieve the burden on the ability.  Perhaps it did, but Elijah chose not to play with proverbial fire.  After all, he’d been doing things the same way since the very beginning, and he didn’t see any reason to try to fix something that wasn’t broken.

Regardless, neither of the Vo...

Path of Dragons 3 - Chapter 65 - Fighting Against Nature

With a wet squelch, Thor yanked a monstrous leach from his side, then crushed it in his grip.  It was both satisfying and grotesque, the way the thing’s insides – and the blood it had sucked from him – oozed between his fingers.  He tossed the pest aside, where its remains were immediately set upon by the biting fish that were so prevalent within the mire.  How anything managed to survive the swamp was a mystery.

Only a couple of days after he’d entered the swamp,...

Chapter 474 - The Ancient Forest

Zeke plummeted through the air, a brief moment of panic suffusing his mind.  However, after only a couple of seconds, he realized that he had nothing to worry about.  Not because his momentum was arrested.  No – he still fell at a truly frightening speed.  However, he’d fallen from great heights before, and he knew that hitting the ground would do little more than annoy him. 

But Talia wasn’t nearly as durable as he was.

Yet, when Zeke glanced up, he...

Weekly Check-In (3/31/2024)

So, I kind of made a mistake. I'll go ahead and get that out of the way first, then we'll get into the week's goings on. I scheduled today's chapters weeks ago, and as a result, I added the little note at the beginning of the second chapter a while back. However, as I announced on my Discord yesterday, I've decided not to end the two-a-day chapters just yet. Instead, I'm going to keep them going for at least another two weeks. I fully intend to make that last until the end of the month, but w...

Path of Dragons 3 - Chapter 64 - Battlefield

A summer wind skated across the plain, rustling the sparse vegetation before tousling Elijah’s hair. He sighed, propping his forearms on his knees as he stared at the dancing flame of his campfire. Nearby, he could feel various skittering insects as well as a few lizards who fed on them. In turn, he knew there was a nearby snake waiting to ambush any lizard who happened to cross its path. Above, a hawk screeched, ready to swoop in and capture the snake.

And somewhere, something...

Path of Dragons 3 - Chapter 63 - The Librarian

“Why sunlight?” asked K’hana, leaning against the lighthouse wall. The other elves were there as well, all wearing somber expressions. They had conquered the tower, but through little in the way of their own efforts. As such, they clearly felt it was a hollow victory. Sure, they’d gained some experience and a few items apiece, but their time in the tower had shown them that they weren’t ready for such a challenge.

Elijah understood it, too. It was easy to look at the concept o...

Path of Dragons 3 - Chapter 62 - Bane

A chilling scream echoed across the town, sending a tremor up Carmen’s spine. She shoved the hastily constructed spear into Miguel’s hands, saying, “Stay in the back. Don’t try to save anyone.”

“I know, mom,” he said in an obvious attempt to appear courageous. Carmen could see his knuckles whiten as he gripped the spear haft far more tightly than normal. But just because he was frightened, that didn’t mean he wasn’t brave. If anything, the fact that he was ready to mee...

Path of Dragons 3 - Chapter 61 - Cleansing the Unnatural

Four vampire brides glided across the tiles, screeching with fury. Meanwhile, a fifth had fallen to the floor, where she screamed in agony as she raked her long nails across her beautiful, pale face. And finally, Lothgal looked on like a child who’d just gotten the Christmas gift he’d wanted all along.

Targeting one of the other vampire women, Elijah once again cast Nature’s Rebuke. However, when he did, he felt something slice through his mind, slamming the door shut on his ether...

Path of Dragons 3 - Chapter 60 - The Slow Clap

A slight breeze flowed through the opulently decorated hall, fluttering the tapestries decorating the walls. Elijah only had to look at the end of the corridor to see the open window which was the culprit. Could he have entered through that opening? Or was it only there for ambiance? He had no idea, but it highlighted the fact that towers were far more complex than he’d first expected.

His first time through one, he’d thought the experience was fairly linear, but each subsequent run...