noct

399. Come

Ike flashed toward Brightbriar, punching toward the man. As he closed in, Brightbriar waved his hand. A door appeared in front of him and opened miliseconds before Ike impacted it, swinging inward to allow him into a new space. Ike stumbled over a shiny steel floor, his punch whooshing through empty air. He kicked off the ground and instantly retreated, only for his shoulders to hit a thick wall instead.

Puppets floated in glass vats of liquid on all sides of him. Human-sized vats holdi...

121. Have You Committed Any Economic War Crimes Today?

The three soldiers landed, dismounting their swords with well-drilled motions. They turned toward Rhys and the others, looking them up and down.

Rhys harrumphed and stepped forward. Before they had the chance to speak, he crossed his arms aggressively and glared at them. “You’re late!”

The leader, a man with a red sash across his chest, stepped forward. “What happened here?”

“We were beset by some bandits! Luckily, we dealt with them, but can you imagine? If they...

398. Last One Standing

Ike absorbed Llewyn. It was shockingly easy. Llewyn himself resisted, but the rest of the fragments didn’t, or maybe they couldn’t. They felt washed out, as if something had been taken from them. Ike twisted his lips, his suspicions proven right. Brightbriar had helped Llewyn acquire his fragments, and in so doing, had made absorbing them meaningless. It was as though everything Brightbriar did to help only sabotaged his ultimate goal.

Maybe that was the punishment. To have his goal...

120. Economic Warfare is Still Warfare

Rhys crouched in the woods, not far from the road. Not just one week had passed, but two. His kitchen was all but set up, now, cauldrons reforged and ready to go, bowls awaiting chips, tongs and forks waiting to be used. A pile of potatoes and tomatoes sat in the garbage pile, the tomatoes carefully reinforced with mana to keep them from spoiling, while the potatoes were stored in the cool dark to keep them from putting out eyes. Everything was ready to go. All they needed were those final in...

397. Clash of the Fragments

Ike and Llewyn slammed into one another. Sparks flew as the Hungry Sword gnawed into Llewyn’s shiny gauntlets. The two of them struggled, both about at the same strength. Their eyes narrowed, and they both flashed into motion. In the space of a breath, they exchanged a dozen blows. Ike, manipulating a heavy two-handed sword, should have struggled to keep up, but his speed was enough to match Llewyn’s fists even with the comparatively greater weight of the Hungry Sword. Llewyn hammered dow...

119. Back to the Beginning

Their trip back was short. Lira descended into the streams, and Rhys and Mouse walked back. They had to pause for an Empire patrol to pass by, but Mouse easily hid their presences, and the patrol passed them without noticing a thing. This time, Rhys paid close attention to her technique. He wasn’t quite sure how she did it, yet, but he was getting closer to understanding. It was something like pulling in all her mana, while at the same time exuding a weak aura that was so regular it simply ...

118. The Most Fun You Can Have Outside of a Library

As both of them had expected, Lira was waiting for them by the time they reached the bridge outside the library. Not only waiting, in fact, but swimming loops in the water and spouting it out her mouth out of utter boredom. As they approached, she flipped over in the water to face them. “Took you long enough. What was a pair of young mages doing all alone in the woods that could’ve taken them so long, I wonder?”

Mouse blushed. She shook her head and waved both hands. “N-not that...

396. Llewyn Returns

“Put some fucking clothes on,” Ike snarled, and kicked the puppet back. Just because Llewyn was a featureless puppet, and not one of the hyper-detailed ones that could pass as human, didn’t mean Ike wanted to see him naked. Llewyn released his face and staggered back, his shoulders swaying further than his body. He wasn’t used to his new body’s top-heaviness and reeled, almost falling over entirely.

Ike swung his legs down and kicked off the wall instead, charging after Llewyn...

395. Cooking up Mana

On and on they went. Ike got increasingly creative with how he lit the puppets on fire, practicing technique after technique so he could take some time and simply refine them. Any technique he could come up with that seemed likely to light them on fire, he tried. Even some that didn’t seem likely to light any puppets up, he still tried, just to waste mana. The puppets combined had a near infinite mana pool, so there was no need to hold back. He went off, practicing techniques on the puppets...

117. Acquiring Resources

It wasn’t far, as the bird flew, to the ruins of Purple Dawn Academy. As mages who barely needed to stop or rest, it was even quicker, though slowed somewhat due to their inability to use the roads. Neither Rhys nor Mouse were much outdoorsy people, and if not for his second childhood with Straw and Bast in the wilderness, Rhys would have been completely useless. Instead, he could handle the absolute basics of navigation, and kept them pointed in the right direction, even as they detoured a...

394. Strike the Heart

At last, they reached the center of the city, and still no puppet army. Ike frowned, looking around. All the footprints led here, only to vanish, as if something had swallowed them whole. He looked to Wisp for an answer, but all she had for him was a shrug.

“Teleportation array? Storage space?” Ike grimaced. “They could be literally stuffed in one of Brightbriar’s rings, and that’s absolutely horrifying.”

“Yeah. Or hidden somewhere else. We known Brightbriar likes tu...

116. New Recruits

The sewers spilled out into a river not far from the garbage heap. A few filthy fish splashed around nearby, eating the filth, and algae and bacteria bred in the bank nearby, soaking up those excessive nutrients. Abruptly, a rush of pure water came racing out of the sewer, washing away the bacteria and splashing the algae and fish with clean, fresh water. The fish jolted, reminded, for a moment, of what had once been, when the river ran clean and their world wasn’t a grimy dark puddle, and ...

393. City Center

The path widened as they went. More tunnels spilled out into this one, and more and more boots joined the original sets of boots until the tunnel was wall-to-wall with boot prints. That sinking feeling in Ike’s stomach grew more and more intense. This wasn’t a casual grouping of puppets. It wasn’t a security detail or even a peacekeeping force. This was an army. The kind of army one massed before a war. If Brightbriar meant to flip the table, he had the power to flip it right here. Not ...

115. Long Story Short

Rhys told his tale. He skimmed over some things, like the names of the people he’d broken out, or exactly what he’d done to regain his magic, since he wasn’t sure of Mouse’s allegiance—though he was rapidly leaning toward ‘on his side’—but otherwise told the tale faithfully. The whole time, he kept the water clean for Lira, refusing to let anything break his hundred-meter perimeter. At last, he wrapped up his tale. “And that’s how we ended up in the sewers, and here we are...

392. Secret Tunnel

They plunged into the earth. It wasn’t his first time, or second, or third, so Ike expected the jolt as Wisp caught them with a spider thread. They still weren’t anywhere near the hole’s bottom, though, so she released it, then fired another at the opposite fall, slowing their fall by fits and starts, ensuring they never slammed into any side of the tunnel’s walls by catching opposite sides of the wall every time. Despite Mag’s twittering about wings being superior, he was forced to...

114. The Sewers and What Dwells Within

The stench was worse than he could possibly have imagined. Even to someone who was used to trash, who spent all day scrambling over garbage pits, this was something else, another realm of disgusting olfactory experience entirely. He could feel it soaking into his pores and newly-forged robes, and immediately knew that he wouldn’t be free of the stink until he figured out how to fully absorb and process this reeking mess of filth. It was just that virulent, that unstoppable.

Mouse foll...

391. This is Hostages

Ike gathered all the artisans on the floor. There were only a dozen to start with, and after Wisp’s timely lunch break and Ike’s somewhat reluctant efforts, only about six remained. The floor was full of puppets, half-built and disassembled. Puppets with beyond-perfect faces. Puppets with weapons tucked into every limb. Puppets full of mysterious magics, with enchantments Ike couldn’t possibly comprehend etched into every inch of their porcelain bodies. Puppets with strange crystal eyes...

113. Trash Fics and Hidden Techniques

Mouse scurried off, and Rhys headed off to the second story of the library, toward where she’d indicated the void myths awaited him. He kept his head on a swivel, but remained disappointed. No library cats, tuxedo or otherwise.

Rhys sighed. Az had said he’d leave before the Empire got here. The cat had no reason to go back on his word. Although the Empire clearly kept ‘useful’ books, and a few useless myths, he’d seen repressive regimes in his world, and he wasn’t shocked th...

112. Seeking a Cat and Finding a Mouse

Rhys stared. “Mouse?”

The gray-brown haired girl adjusted her big round glasses and gave him a nervous smile, nodding. He looked her up and down, then realized he sensed mana from her. Instinctively, he jumped back, only to pause and squint. Mouse wasn’t wearing a uniform. Sure, neither had the woman he’d seen enter the upper area, but he was sure the Empire had nobility and everything that came with it, and doubtless an intelligentsia and upper class, which that woman probably ...

390. Warehouse

It wasn’t a long run from the palace to the warehouse, as if Brightbriar were mocking them, or perhaps showing off how little he cared for the king’s efforts to slow or mitigate his puppet-building in any way. Ike saw a window high on the green-roofed warehouse’s wall, and glanced at Wisp, who had resumed spider form for superior aerodynamics mid-run. “Fire a thread for me?”

“You got it, boss.” White thread flew from his shoulder, and Ike jumped. Wisp gripped him and her t...

389. Battle?

“Shall we?”

“Why should we?” Brightbriar remained as composed as ever, in the wreckage of the ballroom, surrounded by shattered puppets and the remains of what had been a party. In the corner where live music had been playing, the cellist peered out from behind his instrument, then vanished once more when he saw the combatants hadn’t left yet. Casually, Brightbriar drew a chair from one of the tables at the edge of the dance floor, turned it to face Ike, and sat in it. “I am...

111. Grand Strategy

The mages looked amongst one another. At last, Korii stepped forward. “We await your orders, s… Rhys.”

Rhys nodded, deeply pleased. Nothing quite like basking in the real-life playout of a trashy trope, the overly servile underling who struggled not to call the main character ‘sir.’ Not that he had main character energy—no, that was Bast—but even so, what a nice feeling. Trash like him only got to experience this kind of setup once in a blue moon, and if he thought about i...

110. New Hideout

As it turned out, the sun was low in the sky, but not yet setting, when they reached their destination, the time somewhere between afternoon and evening. They smelled it well before they reached it, even the coreless mages’ noses wrinkling in disgust. Rhys breathed deep, sucking down the sweet, sweet airborne impurities that came with it. This was going to be a gold mine, for sure.

Filthy water flowed down the barren land where once a burbling brook had flowed. A heap appeared through...

388. King Killers

The king drew his sword. It shone, bright gold, laden with diamonds down the spine. He swung it awkwardly, clearly unused to wielding it, a quality that transferred to the puppets. Ike frowned. If the king was no combat master, why keep his skills in the puppet?

Scintillating gold beams shot from the sword and seared through the air, so hot that the air itself burned with their passing. Ike ducked, barely dodging one of the beams as it closed in on his head. Wisp yelped and turned tiny,...

387. Beat Him Up

The nobles whirled, instantly unleashing attacks at Ike. Although their faces remained impassive, now no more than flat masks unable to show emotion, their attacks were all unique, the techniques the bodies they inhabited had learned during life bursting out from them. Ike grimaced. That meant they were dead, minced up and squeezed into these pitiful puppet forms. Nothing could save them anymore, except for the sweet release of death.

Good thing he was handing that out today.

Ike ...

109. Break Out

Tall stone walls blocked their path, with mages mounted atop them pointing powerful spells their direction. At the far end of the prison compound, double doors led out into the world beyond. Rhys led the charge, fending off the long-range blasts of magic wherever he could, and dodging them where he couldn’t. The other re-cored mages joined him in defending the coreless, and swords flashed as they parried bright bolts of light. A few more guards reluctantly charged them, uninterested in losi...

386. Spiders and Flies

A circle of nobles surrounded Brightbriar, all of them tittering and hanging on to his every word, giving him the undivided attention of sycophants. Ike reached their circle and found them an impenetrable barrier of shifting skirts and jostling shoulders. He grunted in frustration and lifted his hand to forcibly shove them apart.

“Now, now. Let’s make some room for our young friend, hmm?” Brightbriar suggested, and the group split, a few glancing at Ike as if they’d only just no...

108. Pitiful Heavens

Rhys charged directly at the Warden, drawing his sword as he closed in. The Warden whirled his sword. The two of them clashed. The Warden parried his strike and instantly forced him back, his strength overwhelming Rhys’s easily. Rhys hopped back, meaning to get some distance, but the other mages were behind him, and if the Warden got past him, the newly-raised Tier 1s stood no chance, let alone the mages still without cores. The Warden gripped his black blade in both hands and struck down a...

385. Alone in this Room

Ike stared at Brightbriar. This was it. This was everything. The end, or maybe the beginning. The obstacle before him, that he had to clear before he could become. His hand clenched, and his eyes narrowed.

Brightbriar gazed across the room, a neutral smile on his face, bored eyes barely taking in any faces. He passed over the present faces without taking any particular notice of Ike. Beside him, Rosamund tugged his hand, asking for his help to descend the stairs with her floofy...

107. Trash to Trash

Rhys grabbed a clump of energy that still hadn’t merged into the trash star. There were a few lumps like that, all of them the energy he’d drawn out of the guards. The energy clung to itself, taking a little longer to merge into the trash star than ordinary trash did. The energy passed through his hand and into the woman’s hand, but he didn’t release it yet. He kept dragging, pulling it through her body into the place where her core had been. She scrunched her face in pain and bit her...