It was well past midnight by the time the festivities ended.
Cass found herself on the edge of a Spire, the city of Velillia below her, Alyx’s mother’s workshop behind her. Alyx at her side.
The two of them stared down at the city.
Salos had left to stalk Kohen. Kelstor was in the dragon’s lair in the palace, catching up with his mother and siblings.
It was just the two of them and the night and the wind.
Alyx played with the end of her sword’s pommel, re...
2025-06-09 22:00:10 +0000 UTC
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Kohen led Cass to the banquet hall. Music played loudly. At the head table, the duchess’s dragon overlooked the room. On either side sat the dragonlings and their knights. Or Cass assumed it was the dragonlings and their knights.
On the matron’s right was undoubtedly Ahryn and Emenes, Ahryn dressed in a suit of shimmering silver to match Emenes’s silver scales. He wore a large circular broach—or maybe it was supposed to be a mask?—with a swirling design over its face, over his...
2025-06-07 22:00:05 +0000 UTC
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Kohen’s mouth slammed shut. His body froze in place.
Silence enveloped the courtyard.
Is there any way that was anything else? she asked.
Maybe it’s the scalpel? Salos suggested, his words drowning in unease.
Right, Cass said. That was possible. Sure, it was already stashed in her Bag, but maybe that was enough. She fumbled through her Bag for it. Take this to the far side of the atrium.
Sure. Salos took it in his ...
2025-06-04 22:00:04 +0000 UTC
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“Why do you have that?”
His voice jolted Cass out of her internal discussions with Salos.
Her bed was not the only one in the infirmary, and she was not the only occupant.
Kohen sat on the bed beside her. He stared at the soul scalpel in her hands.
“You should not have that,” he said.
“You know what this is?” Cass asked, waving it at him.
“Obviously,” he snapped.
Cass glanced at Salos. Did that mean this was common? His little cat shou...
2025-06-02 22:00:05 +0000 UTC
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Congratulations on reaching the Gate, by the way, Salos said.
Oh, right. With everything else, she’d just about forgotten. It was a blatant topic change, but Cass ran with it.
Level 27, Cass said as she pulled up her stats window.
[Str - 20 Dex - 64 End - 50
Wll - 90 Ala - 81 Res - 61
Frt - 20 Per - 40 Vit - 37
Free Points: 41]
She had come a long way today. Hell, had this all been one day?
How normal are fo...
2025-05-31 22:00:09 +0000 UTC
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Cass gasped as she regained consciousness.
CASS! Salos’s relief hit her like a wave, rolling over her and pulling her under. He could barely breathe and neither could she. Are you alright? What happened? You fainted out of nowhere!
She lay on a narrow bed with bleach white sheets. The air smelled of lime and citrus. Salos sat on her lap, his big, gold eyes staring up at her with concern.
I got a visit from another god, Cass said, briefly explaini...
2025-05-28 22:00:05 +0000 UTC
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Cass rubbed her forehead. She sat on a glass floor. The color was simultaneously burnt orange and midnight purple and entirely unfathomable to her tiny mortal mind.
Looking at it made her headache worse.
Unfortunately, the entire room was made of the stuff. Floor, walls, ceiling, all of it was the orange-purple-unknowable color.
In front of her was a table with two chairs. They were probably wood, but the entire scene flickered every couple of seconds, and they might have be...
2025-05-26 22:00:05 +0000 UTC
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Cass and company were held at the scene for entirely too long. All Cass wanted to do was pass out. Her little campfire wasn’t refilling her Focus nearly fast enough to keep track of everything happening around her now that the adrenaline in her system was gone and everything hurt.
She was covered in cuts from paladin blades and lightning burns from Kohen’s attacks. Blisters covered her hands and the exposed sections of her arms. Her armor was missing large sections and all her cloth...
2025-05-24 22:00:05 +0000 UTC
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Cass felt them long before she saw them. The air alerted her first. A large party of people stormed down the corridors of the Hall of Fortitude. Most humanoid, several draconic.
But it was more than just Atmospheric Sense declaring their approach.
Cass knew how many there were, exactly: 19 distinct souls. All much more powerful than Cass or Alyx. Each with a distinct flavor. Or was it a scent? A color?
She didn’t have the words to explain it. It was like trying to explain ...
2025-05-21 22:00:06 +0000 UTC
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Cass sagged as the fainted Kohen released her. She didn’t have the energy to catch Ahryn, and he fell off his brother’s shoulder to the ground beside him.
Was that it?
Had she stopped him?
Carefully, she retracted Soul Guard, drawing it back around herself. Kohen did not stir. She Identified him with trepidation.
Vaisom Noble? (lvl 33)
She didn’t love the question mark, but it no longer screamed he was a demon, so she’d take...
2025-05-19 22:00:06 +0000 UTC
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Cass kicked at him. She didn’t have the Focus or raw electricity left for skills; it was just whatever her Strength could do.
It did nothing to slow the advance of his phantom hand toward her.
It did nothing to stop the phantom hand from piercing her chest.
Cass screamed.
The hand burrowed into her flesh. It burned where it touched her, like lightning tearing through flesh. It burrowed until it found her core, her soul.
It squeezed.
The pressure was unbea...
2025-05-17 22:00:06 +0000 UTC
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Energy surged through Cass. It was different from a level up, which almost felt like energy washing over her from above. This surged out from her chest, rushing out over her arms and legs and coating her in something warm.
She staggered to her feet, her entire body buzzing. But strangely, she didn’t feel like that was a problem anymore. It was only a touch more notable than the room being a little cold.
The dragonling was still trying—failing—to hurt Kohen. Her horns thrashe...
2025-05-14 22:00:05 +0000 UTC
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Cass breathed with relief as the paladin captain staggered under Alyx’s blade and slumped to the ground with a crash of metal on glass.
As he collapsed, the air burst, no longer contained within a small subsection of the temple, the pressure inside and outside equalizing with an outward rush. The seal had broken. She was finally free.
But so was Kohen.
He knelt over the goddess’s manifestation, his hands tearing into her body and pulling away ectoplasmic globs of flesh.<...
2025-05-12 22:00:06 +0000 UTC
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Alyx's conscience surfaced as she was torn off Kelstor’s back by the paladin captain.
Warning: Too many Concepts. One may only possess 3 Concepts. Please fuse Concepts until you possess 3 or fewer. Refusing to do so may result in Breakage.
He slammed her against Kelstor’s side, his sword stabbing through her chest and into Kelstor’s flank.
Pain consumed her. His blade burned her insides. Its edge sliced through soft organ...
2025-05-10 23:00:05 +0000 UTC
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For personal reasons, today's chapter is going to be a few hours late. Expect it in the next two.
Sorry for the delay.
2025-05-10 22:08:03 +0000 UTC
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Alyx found herself in a garden. The sun overhead hung low on the horizon in a sky painted soft pinks. Flowers filled the beds, their petals a riot of color, their scent sweet in the air. Somewhere nearby was the soft music of birds and the calming whisper of a fountain.
Before her, the garden stopped abruptly, the color flattening into an empty void the color of the sky.
In it, he stood.
“Kelstor!” Alyx ran to the very edge of the garden. Could she step out any further? ...
2025-05-07 22:00:07 +0000 UTC
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Cass watched in horror as Ahryn’s soul exploded.
One moment, it had been obviously damaged, all but turned inside out. The next, its edges surged until there wasn’t so much a singular core in his chest but instead, his entire body glowed with the silver light of his soul.
His energy radiated off him in waves, surging with every skill he used. And with every surge expelled, the weaker the silver of his body became—the less remained of his soul.
But she could move.
2025-05-05 22:00:05 +0000 UTC
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Ahryn’s heartbeat was the loudest thing in the room. The paladin captain stood in front of Emenie. His sword was raised.
And he couldn’t do a thing. The very air held him in place. Like it had turned to stone. Like the weight of an entire continent pressed down on his shoulders.
Focus: 4/126
Health: 3/112
He could do nothing.
Once again, he could do nothing.
He wasn’t seven anymore, but he might as well ...
2025-05-03 22:00:09 +0000 UTC
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The dragon fire pressed against Cass’s control. It bucked and rolled with an indomitable will, rebuking Elemental Manipulation.
Stamina: 56/141
Focus: 38/549
Health: 70/134
The heat was a force unto itself, scalding her skin and devouring her Stamina. Blisters rose along her palms, but she couldn’t break. The dragonlings whimpered behind her.
Cass shoved the flames to either side, forcing Focus ...
2025-04-30 22:00:21 +0000 UTC
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Alyx carried her momentum into the captain, darting around his side and slashing while he blocked another blade of Cass’s lightning. Her sword bit at the plate, breaching the metal with a spray of blood.
She activated Resonating Blade, and the cut duplicated itself under his armor. Blood dripped between the overlapping plates and down his armor.
The demon pushed itself back to its feet, leaping at the nearest paladin, its lightning sword jammed into the man’s chest. The paladi...
2025-04-28 22:00:10 +0000 UTC
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Alyx charged across the cathedral, aura trailing from her blade, her eyes fixed on the paladin captain. He blocked a sword swing of the demon with a thick metal shield.
The demon’s lightning blade snapped back, darting around the other side. The captain’s sword parried it wide, swinging down and across the demon’s chest.
The two moved at incredible speeds, the Strength in their strikes obvious in the ringing of their clashes.
Copper Crescent Captain (lvl...
2025-04-26 22:00:06 +0000 UTC
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Cass released the breath caught in her throat as she watched Kohen eviscerate the paladin attacking Ahryn. The boy stumbled back as Kohen rammed his sword through the man’s chest again and again, his phantom hand shooting out and crushing the soul within to a fine powder, before dropping the lifeless body to the ground and lunging at the next nearest paladin.
It worked.
For now, at least, Kohen was too busy protecting Ahryn and punishing the boy’s attackers to devour souls. Wh...
2025-04-23 22:00:11 +0000 UTC
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Ahryn watched the fight, his heart in his stomach.
He had wanted to help. He had thought this was his chance to help.
Kohen was always helping him. Miss Cass’s encouragement had been unexpected, but all the more dear for it. Emenie was his daily strength.
He just wanted to help.
Focus: 14/126
Health: 22/112
Just the barest trickle of resources left. Sure, he’d helped Miss Cass a little, but he was sure she...
2025-04-21 22:00:08 +0000 UTC
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Up close, Cass could see Kohen under the mutations of the demonic energies. The set of his jaw under the pulsing flesh. The sharpness in the eyes, unmitigated even by the hungry madness. The color of his hair, even streaked with white as it was.
Kohen snarled something. It was unmistakably a complete sentence, but it was in neither English nor Jothi. It was a fast, clipped language, dripping with disdain.
His lightning blade flashed around, twisting to slice at her.
Cass lea...
2025-04-19 22:00:09 +0000 UTC
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The cathedral was chaos. Kohen and the dragon ripped through paladins like tissue paper, the screams of paladins ringing through the air.
Cass had made a promise. Now, the question was, how did she keep it? How did she avoid killing Alyx and Ahryn’s brother?
They couldn’t just ignore him. Releasing the seal on the hall while the demon was on the loose meant letting it into the city. And she couldn’t do that.
Was there another option?
It was the paladin captain’...
2025-04-16 22:00:10 +0000 UTC
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Pellen knelt over her spell array in the storeroom. The sound of dragon roars rumbled through the wall in front of her. Sir Marco remained at his post by the room’s one door.
“I’ll have it ready to send you in just a moment,” Pellen said, her eyes tracing the chalk lines for signs of degradation. For places she might have gotten it wrong to begin with.
She prayed they were right. It was too late for Lady Alyx if she’d gotten them wrong. Lady Alyx was already on the ot...
2025-04-14 22:00:08 +0000 UTC
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Alyx paced the storeroom as Pellen triple-checked the runes of her teleportation array.
They were as close to the seal space as they could go. Cass was in the space on the other side of the back wall.
Marco leaned up against the room’s only door. It was open just a crack to let the guardsman watch the hall.
“Okay,” Pellen said as she pushed herself back to her feet, brushing chalk dust from her hands. “The array is ready. But, um, are you sure you want to do this?...
2025-04-12 22:00:05 +0000 UTC
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How did the blade go through that time? Cass asked.
Behind her, she could hear gasping as Salos’s claws dug into the lightning-stunned lvl-29. Abyss if I know. The kid said I should stab him. I stabbed him.
Cass pulled the blade free as the man’s heart exploded from the blood freezing and expanding within. “What did you do?”
Ahryn stood a little straighter. “Debuffed his Fortitude.”
The kid’s an afflictionist?
Is t...
2025-04-09 22:00:07 +0000 UTC
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Cass Sprinted across the room.
She had a choice here.
1. Fight alongside the dragon to find an opportunity to one-shot the demon.
2. Sneak around behind the paladin lines and attempt an assassination on the captain.
3. Run to Ahryn’s side.
1 or 2 could end this fight. But could she really succeed at either? If she were more like Salos, an assassin with overwhelming single target attacks, then maybe one of those would have been the right answer.
But sh...
2025-04-07 22:00:11 +0000 UTC
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Salos, Fairy Fire the demon! Cass said.
The purple flames around her went out, reappearing around the demon.
Every eye fell on it.
The fleeing paladins faltered, all turning and hesitantly approaching. The ones that had already been running to their captain’s aid ran faster, the whisper of Fairy Fire egging them on.
They all barely avoided the rush of the dragon. He slammed into the demon, his head striking the demon like a hammer, driving the creatu...
2025-04-05 22:00:04 +0000 UTC
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