noct

384. Courtesies and Conversations

The four of them were stopped at the entrance to the ball and announced as one: Miss Scarlet’s party. No one looked up as they descended the stairs, no more than yet another noble contingent obligated to attend the king’s balls. Ike scanned from above, but didn’t see Brightbriar anywhere—or, at least, he saw no trace of the face Brightbriar wore around his hometown. Even he had to admit that he wasn’t sure if that was Brightbriar’s true face, or just another puppet’s face that h...

106. Lambs to the Slaughter

“What’s going on over there? Jones? Come out here,” a guard demanded.

Rhys clicked his tongue, tossing the latest body away. The rats swarmed without him prompting, growing used to the flow of these battles, if Rhys’s one-sided assaults could be called battles. He’d managed to lure two more people into the nook, but it seemed like he’d reached the limit of what this guard station was willing to send forth without investigation. He subtly extended his energy, sweeping the cav...

383. To The Ball

“So, is everyone ready?”

“As we’ll ever be.”

“Listen. Brightbriar knows you’re coming. He’s prepared. On the other hand, he rarely shows his face. If we don’t strike today, we’re back to searching for him until his next social event.”

“Really? He used to go out all the time in my hometown.”

“Sure, in some backwater, where no one can threaten him? Besides, do you think that was his real body?”

“He’s taking his real body out now?�...

105. Overthrowing Prison

Rhys pressed a hand on each body, filling them with mana or whatever filthy energy his trash generated, then sat back to wait. There would be rats for the bodies, he knew it. He’d seen it happen often enough, the rats swarming the bodies of deceased prisoners. They ate no better than the prisoners—no, worse, because they got the scraps the prisoners left behind. The beasts were starving, and fresh meat was fresh meat.

They came. Slowly, quietly. First one rat, darting out of the dar...

382. Emperor's Clothes

They left the rubble behind before anyone could seriously start looking for who to blame over the recent destruction of the homes all around them, and followed Scar back to the merchants’ district. Ike headed for the high-end shops, but Scar caught him by the back of the collar and whirled him about. “Not that way.”

“What? Aren’t you rich?”

Scar laughed. “Not that rich. That’s for people who are mage-rich. Dragons and the other deep-pocketed mages who’ve had a fe...

104. It Had Begun

The battle was as swift as it was decisive. In a mere night, the Empress overwhelmed the Academy and flattened everything within. Although it sounded as if she bowled over the Academy and showed off her military might, it wasn’t much of a fight, truth be told. The Sword Saint had been summoned to the border, and the rest of the faculty, powerful mages, and even promising apprentices had beaten a measured retreat not long after the banquet, leaving a husk of a city behind. History would mark...

381. Let's Kill Brightbriar

“It’s not that easy,” Scar said at last, exasperated.

“No? Come on. How hard can it be to find the guy? He’s just a normal guy, who can create a near infinite supply of fake puppet bodies that are all indistinguishable from his actual body,” Ike said, shaking his head.

“Yeah, come on. He’s gotta live somewhere, right? Let’s just go there and kill everything that moves,” Wisp chipped in.

Ike nodded at her. “You’re so smart, Wisp. What a good idea. That...

380. Enough of That Ranged Bullshit

Ike closed in. Accais widened his eyes and jumped back, clearly meaning to flee, but Ike refused to let him. He rushed even faster, charging at the archer. Accais’ ponytail swung past his body as he leaped back, and Ike snatched the ends of his hair out of the air. He yanked hard, tugging Accais toward him. In his other hand, he hammered the Hungry Sword toward Accais’ head with all the strength he could muster.

Accais stumbled toward him. He jabbed his bow up, intercepting the Hung...

379. Silver Arrows

Wind gusted all around Ike. It tore at him with sharp lances, bit past Storm Clad, and sought out every inch of him to cut into him and tear him apart. The wind lifted him off his feet and threw him back. He couldn’t see anything through the raging tornado, but he felt it as he slammed through walls and into the earth, only for the wind to throw him up into the sky and bring him down again. The whole time, he was helpless, little more than a passenger on a ride, a leaf on the wind. He strug...

378. Into the Fold

“Go fold yourself, motherfucker,” Ike snarled.

The archer gave him an unimpressed look. He stood with a perfectly straight back, his shoulders squared. Silver hair was tied back into a high ponytail with nary a hair loose, and it fell straight down his back, while his V-cut bangs likewise framed his face in perfect straightness. Silver robes with a high collar draped him in straight lines down to his ankles, and tight sleeves wrapped around muscular arms. The only part of him that w...

377. White House

Ike dashed from rooftop to rooftop, closing in on the white house at speed. He sent his aether ahead of him, already scanning it before he grew close. Instantly, he locked on to the signature and stored it away in his mind. The signature retreated when he drew close, but it had underestimated the range of his senses. He already knew it, and there was nothing they could do about it.

And then, abruptly, the signature returned, more powerful than ever. Ike paused, taken aback. Why…? The...

376. Searching for a Tower

Back to the place Scar had led him first. As expected, when Ike twisted the knob (casually breaking the low-Rank lock in the progress), the only thing on the other side was a dusty storeroom. He turned, then leaped up, running across the rooftops toward the center of town.

“Ike, wait—” Scar sighed, then raced after him. “You know people hate it when other people run on the rooftops. It’s such an obnoxious sound, to just suddenly hear someone go tmp-tmp-tmp over the rooftops.�...

375. Make It!

Ike latched onto the door handle and yanked the door wide. The light still poured out. For a split second, hesitation came over him, but he quickly forced it down. Risk-taking was how he got here. They weren’t going to defeat Lord Brightbriar without taking a few risks. He steeled himself, and jumped through the golden light.

He burst out into a cliff, hurtling down into a quarry. Sharp rocks jutted up at him from below. A sheer rock wall dropped away behind him, and the other three ...

103. Cursed Holes

Rhys plunged into the curse power. The curse power was dense enough to become a liquid, but it didn’t support him at all. He sunk straight down into the depths of the well. Curse power poured directly into his body, soaking into every pore and sliding through every vein, coiling into his core. It would have been insidious, but Rhys drank it up like a gamer sucking down toxic energy drinks. More, more. Give me more!

His technique was the same. Compress, compress, compress, ignite. He d...

374. Get Screwed

Energy signatures rushed at them from all directions. Ike turned to the windows, preparing to shatter through them, then paused. He looked at Wisp and Mag.

“What?” Wisp asked.

“Wherever we are, it’s somewhere Brightbriar led us,” Ike said.

“Right, which is where we don’t want to be,” Wisp said, nodding slowly.

Ike nodded, meeting her eyes. “It’s somewhere Brightbriar controls. Somewhere in his stronghold. If we tried to get here, we’d have to figh...

102. The Calm Before The Storm

Rhys was full, but only of food. He still had plenty of room for mana. That, and in the afterglow from that fantastic, cultivation-boosting meal, he wanted to try another round with the curse power-mana transition. His everything had been smoothed, detoxified, strengthened, reinforced, and empowered, and he could still feel some of those subtle and mysterious effects lingering in his body and mana infrastructure. He didn’t know that absorbing a bunch of curse power and turning it into hyper...

373. The Enemy!

Ike charged at Scar. She stared at him, wide-eyed in shock. At the last second, she drew her sword, and their blades clashed. Caught off-guard, Scar staggered backward. “Ike! What are you doing?”

“You know what I’m doing, puppet,” Ike replied. Scar and Vi weren’t friends, and they certainly hadn’t gotten close during the trial. He didn’t know how puppets were made, or how this particular one had been built, but she clearly didn’t have all of Scar’s memories, especial...

101. Dinner Time

The speeches were just as boring as Rhys dreaded they would be. He didn’t even need to sleep any more as a mage, and he still fell asleep a half-dozen times during the ceremonies. Eventually, Bast nudged him awake, and he followed Bast up to the stage to receive second place, which was a silver medal and a small sum of gold. Laurent stood awkwardly beside them to take bronze, refusing to make eye contact with either of them. Whether that was because he’d finally clued on to the Empress’...

100. Banquet Hall

Purple Dawn Academy was as much a maze on the inside as Rhys remembered, if not more so. He ran over the cobbles as fast as he could, but it felt like slow going anyways. The Academy’s ancient roads twisted and turned, doubling back on themselves and winding around to come out at a strange new location. Whenever he turned the wrong way, Az would start smacking his tail against Rhys’s chest in annoyance, and once he figured that out, Rhys had a much easier time getting to the banquet hall....

372. Whip You Into Shape

Scar led them down the hallway. Ike followed, with Wisp close at heel and Mag trailing behind, taking all the shiny things in with big eyes. Both Ike and Wisp had tattered clothes, a stark contrast to Scar’s complete and neat outfit. But then, we’ve been wandering around outside. All we need is a change of clothes and we’re good to go, right? What more can there be? Ike wondered silently. Scar had sure acted like there was a lot to it, but how much could there really be to atte...

371. It'll Be A While

Scar let out a breath. “Phew. So that’s why you’re here.”

“Yeah.”

“We were worried about Rosamund and the prince, too—and yes, you’re right, he is seeking a political marriage, half through charming the king, half through pressuring him with the threat of a puppet army—but we were merely afraid of him conquering this region and leaving nowhere safe. You’re telling me this might actually be the final step in his grand plan to resurrect the greater being?” 2025-04-23 14:00:12 +0000 UTC View Post

99. Vital Tomatoes

Rhys passed out the second he returned to his room. This wasn’t a sleep like the sleep he’d had the past few days, a sleep for pleasure or for ordinary exhaustion, but a deep, all-consuming sleep. He surrendered to it and didn’t wake up until late into the next day, and still felt groggy and exhausted afterward. Sitting up, he stretched, frowning a bit, but it only took him a short while to realize what it was.

He drew out his tomatoes to confirm it, scanning them with his mana. A...

370. Explaining Everything

Across the city to a nondescript door in a back alley. Scar opened it, revealing a dusty backroom. Ike went to step inside, but before he could, Scar closed it again, whispered something he couldn’t make out, and opened it again. This time, it opened to a sumptuous lounge, full of overstuffed furniture and heavy drapes. Light struggled to filter through closed windows, but only succeeded at lighting the dust motes floating on the air.

“What the…” Ike muttered, staring into the r...

98. Tsunami and a Pebble

Rhys was a pebble, and the mana he’d unleashed was a tsunami, looming over him. He could sense the wave of power rushing toward him, see it closing in with every passing second. It hadn’t hit yet, but it would, and he knew it would absolutely sweep him away.

He’d known this would unlock a vast wave of mana, but this exceeded all his expectations. Whether it was forging his core or forging his body, building up energy and structures inside his core to reach the next tier or using h...

369. Options

“I still think I should’ve eaten him.”

“I still think you’re a glutton.”

“That’s got nothing to do with the tactical decision to eat him or not.”

“Look, if he actually has backers with political power in this city, we just kicked a hornet’s nest. We’re way better off intimidating one coward into silence than fighting all his backers when they inevitably figure out we’re the ones who ate—killed him.”

“Yeah, but you aren’t considering so...

97. Powering Up

The banquet wasn’t the next day, but the day after. Rhys checked, but the market was mostly quiet, with only a few stalls bothering to open at all. With no reason to bother making his chips and plenty of gold in his pocket, he was free to focus on absorbing trash.

Trash star after trash star. He had to turn to the rats to get more second-tier impurities, then seek out the campus rats through his Straw-hunting rat friend to get even more. The rat still didn’t have any information on ...

368. Dark Magic

They clashed. In the blink of an eye, Ike and Arkoz exchanged a dozen blows. Arkoz was fast, but Ike was faster, and Ike was armed to boot. The black energy on Arkoz’s hands emitted a cold, dangerous aura, something that Ike instinctively feared, but it didn’t matter how scary it was when it couldn’t land on him. The black energy reinforced Arkoz’s hands, and he clearly expected it to fend off the Hungry Sword, but the Hungry Sword’s scales scraped up the dark energy and bit at Arko...

96. The Tournament is Over

The tournament was over, but not the festivities. There was a festival in the afternoon and a banquet in the near future. As one of the finalists, Rhys received an invitation to the banquet, but he was more interested in the festival. While the Tier 3 battles went on, Rhys ran down to the trash heap. The rats and raccoon overseer were all busy growing and storing potatoes, and the rest of his setup was still in working order. He quickly fried up a series of chips—his cut was getting better,...

367. Who's Your Daddy?

Ike walked into the alley alone, no one anywhere near him. He wandered along, looking around like he was some kind of tourist who’d just happened to wander into a random dark alley. A singular figure lurked at the other end of the alley, leaning against the wall.

Som looked up as Ike entered and smirked. “Well, well, well, look who it is.”

Yeah, like you weren’t lurking here for the last half hour, ya fuckin’ creep, Ike thought, but managed to restrain himself. ...

95. Vs Bast

Rhys wracked his brain, but came up with nothing. Beating Bast wasn’t even on the menu; avoiding getting the shit beaten out of him was the best he could dream of. Even then, there was little he could do to prevent or put off that beating. It was the finals of the tournament. He couldn’t just say no or back out. Laurent would probably kill him if he backed out or surrendered immediately after the quite frankly humiliating way Rhys had beaten him. Hell, he would probably kill his opponent ...