PenguinKills

Chapter 204 - We're Leaving

After returning to Fort Hope, Ashton, Carson, and the rest of their City's leadership broke off to resettle the crowd and the people they brought back.

Our talks weren't set to begin right away and they needed time to reorganize their City after what happened.

I was in no rush, mostly because I was not looking forward to round two of diplomacy, and also because I had other things to do anyway.

Other than looking for a Glassblower, I had other tasks to complete in the City no...

Chapter 203 - Back to Fort Hope

~~ AN ~~

Howdy all, 

I thought I should give a little warning for the days I will be taking off for the holiday season. Don't worry, I won't be taking the whole week off, but there will be a stretch that I will be either traveling or spending with family without the time to write, nor do I want to make time. It may or may not be obvious, but Christmas is my favorite Holiday of the year and I do not want to spend it writing instead of how it shoul...

Chapter 202 - Moving Forward

Abigail

"Honey, you need to stop checking that." Jon sighed.

She knew he was right, but she couldn't help herself. The pylon leadership screen was her only way of knowing everything was alright—well, not alright, but it was the only thing she could do.

For weeks, she had the screen pop up whenever she had free time or the worry reared its ugly head. Every time it opened, there was a split second where she prayed with everything she had that his na...

Chapter 201 - Demonic Essence

"Do you need anything?"

"Are you Hungry?"

"Do you want me to make you anything?"

"How's that? Are you comfortable?"

The stream of questions was never-ending and while her concern was endearing, it bordered on annoying.

"No Mom, I don't need anything. I'm not hungry and yes, I'm comfortable." I droned.

For the past two days, she had been fussing over me like I was a newborn baby again. I tried to bear with it to make her feel better but I wasn't sure how muc...

Chapter 200 - Levels Galore

Chris

My body was still racked with pain and every breath made it flare up. I was unsure of the specifics, but it felt like every bone in my ribcage was broken and stabbed into me every time I inhaled. Even the floating one.

Not to be outdone, it felt like my right arm was on fire even though there wasn't even an arm to get feeling from!

Other than the pain, waking up to find an arm missing was a surprise, to say the least. While not totally unexpec...

Chapter 199 - Grandstanding

Gabriel

Gabriel wasn't sure what he was walking out into. He didn't want to be away from his brother for long but something was obviously going down inside the camp.

It wasn't often that people raised their voices and started yelling at each other and he needed to find out the reason why. People were usually more amenable than this.

Walking out of Chris's tent, he picked up on a distinct lack of people. It surprised him as he expected to see a crowd...

Chapter 198 - Crescendo

Gabriel

"Is he getting better?" His mother asked.

His cousin, Ashley, could only shake her head, "I honestly don't know. This is so far beyond regular medicine that I would be guessing. What I can say, though, is it does seem to be doing something."

Gabriel once again cursed his inadequacies. If he had a stronger Law, then maybe his brother would wake up faster. If he knew better Healing enchantments. If he had stronger Ice mana.

Ever...

Chapter 197 - Why this Valley?

Rachel

Everyone stood and observed the icy encasement for a while longer but no one said anything. There was nothing they could do.

Some had tears welling up and falling, others looked downcast at who they thought would lead them for years to come. Rachel herself was upset.

Before the System, she and Christopher weren't the closest in the world but they had spent a decent amount of time together practicing their various skills. Other than watching h...

Chapter 196 - The Heart of Magic

Gabriel

He's alive. He had to be. There's no way that he died.

Gabriel's mind spun. Seeing the explosion nearly made his working thoughts crash. Like a short appeared causing all rational thought to shut down.

Watching Hal sprint off alerted him to something going on and watching Rachel and his mother follow behind, he couldn't stand there alone.

As he ran the same things kept playing in his head. He even pulled up their faction on hi...

Chapter 195 - Stream of Essence

~~ AN ~~
I actually had this chapter done yesterday but decided to release it in a one-two combo with today's. Chapter 196 will be posted shortly following this one for a total of nearly 6k words for y'all to enjoy. While late on my promise to post an extra one, it's better than not doing it at all.

Enjoy!

~~

Rachel

[Field of Flames] sucked mana out of her at an astonishing rate but there was nothing she could do about it. As ...

Chapter 194 - Grim Resolution

I wasn't absolutely certain what I was looking at was what I feared, but even with the slightest off chance it was, I needed to stop it now.

When enough Demons got together and had sufficient power, they could force a convergence. Doing so would link our planet, where the Ritual took place, to a Demonic planet through a permanent portal, like I saw now.

It would let endless hordes of Demons through with virtually no way to stop them. It was like trying to swim upr...

Chapter 193 - Unwinnable Battle

My hammer came swinging down followed by a sickening crunch. The earth shattered from the blow, causing cracks to spiderweb out from the impact.

I didn't pay any attention to the blood seeping into the shattered earth and picked the hammer up to swing yet again. The notification chime in the background signaling the creature's death didn't even register in my head.

The chime had happened so many times my brain filtered it out.

[Momentum of the Avalanche] had reached its peak...

Chapter 192 - Warning Intuition

Rachel

"There he goes," Rachel muttered to herself.

She would have to be blind and incapacitated not to notice the veritable blizzard of power taking place inside the valley. Even before her magical abilities were enhanced with her bloodline she would have sensed it.

Chris was anything but subtle, but that didn't really matter anymore. The fact that his current display of power nearly matched the collective strength of all the mages here was irksome...

Chapter 191 - Snow in Summer

With a ferocious roar, I slammed into the charging Demons with all I had. With the boost from [Fury] and [Avalanche], even as small as it was at the start, I swung my hammer with over a thousand points of strength behind it.

And that didn't even include the boost from burning my bloodline. My bloodline didn't show up on my status sheet in the form of additional points, it was a more foundational boost, pushing every point of those thousand further than before.

Honestly, my Bloodli...

Chapter 190 - Charge

~~AN~~

Sorry about the no chapter yesterday, my travel plans to get home from Thanksgiving were delayed do to unforeseen weather. Not that the snow was unforeseen, but I thought they were exaggerating how much we would get.

Anywho, I'm back home now so all should proceed smoothly from here, the chapter I missed will be out shortly and I apologize for the delay.

~~

Chris

Shouts and roars followed after giving the order to charge an...

Chapter 189 - of Death

Plans were drawn up, orders were issued, and people stood ready for the signal.

Everyone had their marching orders and there was no more reason to delay. The decision to attack was finalized and everyone's role was clear.

Being the leader of one of the two forces, I stood at the front of the group that was to charge ahead. Our position at the front gave us a clear view of the valley we were about to enter.

The valley was big enough that we couldn't see the Demons we were to ...

No Chapter for Thanksgiving

There isn't going to be a chapter today, but there will be one Sunday to make up for it.

Chapter 188 - The Valley

Chris

"We need to hit them from the West, it gives us the high ground and it will pin them against the opposite valley wall," Ashton said as he ran his finger over his proposed battle plan.

"How will we safely descend the steep wall? I could jump it, but what about the others?" I said in rebuttal.

After a full night of information gathering the scouts came back with everything they found. The Demons were settled into a lush valley betw...

Chapter 187 - Doom and Gloom

Gabriel

While having his legs back was the single best thing to happen since their return, it didn't stop him from complaining about the aching. After setting off from the new city that he didn't even get to explore, they set a grueling pace.

While he was one of the lucky few to be on horseback, that didn't stop the cramps and soreness from riding for so long. They had spent a month traveling only to rest for not even two days before they were off again.<...

Chapter 186 - Threads

With our first meeting concluded, it left time for a few awkward encounters. It was obvious that neither I nor the other City Owner knew how to treat one another.

I didn't care much for throwing my weight around and he didn't seem to want to impose on me either. It made things strange at first but they eased as the hours passed while the trackers were still out.

The group with Hal still hadn't come back by sundown and neither did the other group from the city. It did worry me a ti...

Chapter 185 - It Will Have To Be

The trip back to the busy City was just as quick as the trip there. A few hours later I was right back to where I started, staring ahead at what would be my first diplomatic meeting.

It wasn't that serious as we were fighting a common enemy, but it was technically my first meeting with another City Lord. Tracy didn't count as I knew her from the tutorial and I hadn't actually met their City Lord.

The fact her pylon was leagues away from mine helped matters because even if I did ca...

Chapter 184 - Ritual Circle

Chris

Carson fidgeted at being addressed directly and seemed conflicted on how to respond, "Uh, sir, don't you think you should meet with the City Lord first?"

If we continued at our current pace we would reach the city in an hour but that wasn't what was important right now. I was still uninformed about the details we were dealing with and I wasn't going to trust what I was told wholeheartedly.

I wanted to see what we were dealing with first to ens...

Chapter 183 - Agreement

"That depends on the type of agreement," Austin said while leaning back in his chair. Not enough to prop it up on two legs and be impolite, but enough to show his curiosity on where this was going.

With his enhanced vision, Austin could see a vein on the man's forehead protrude from his antics but that only spurred him on further. Marcus reminded him of Thomas, Christopher's father.

Not to say he was a stick in the mud, but he didn't appreciate the frivolity Austin was showing to ...

Chapter 182 - Twin Cities

Marcus

Relief flooded his system as the gates closed behind him and yet another Water Run was completed without a single death. That accomplishment marked an entire month of no one dying.

Even as excited as he was about everyone making it back, Marcus couldn't help but feel this week's run was different. An inkling of a feeling was telling him that it was easier compared to the last.

His mana was less than half full and his Law still had some juice ...

Chapter 181 - Fighting Bugs

Chris

"Provisions are packed, weapons are ready, spare armor and metal is in wagon 3, is there anything you're forgetting?" Abigail lectured while checking over the list in her hand.

In the two days spent preparing she had been focused on making sure we didn't forget anything. This would technically be our first campaign as a force of our faction and the supply cashe to bring with us was rather large.

It was a lofty label to call 400 of us going off...

Chapter 180 - City Abuzz

Carson

After he was led away from the meeting room, he and his group were made to wait in a sparsely populated room with little decor. They could have done with a bit more seating but they were all used to the wilds at this point. After a few weeks of sleeping on the ground, a lack of seating wasn't a big deal.

After the meeting concluded, Carson assumed the leader would talk it over with however he had as advisors or someone similar. The man didn'...