“What are your terms?”
Melmarc remained on top of Ariadne. He had his hand on the small of her back but his eyes on Naymond.
“Death works.” His voice was still.
Beside Naymond, his mother’s expression cracked.
Well, that’s something, Naymond thought. But he wasn’t new to this. Not everybody that had...
2025-05-28 23:57:03 +0000 UTC View PostLightning filled the room. It charged the air like an overzealous heat storm. No crackling signs of electricity showed yet. There were no streaks or anything. Then the air grew cold, chilling. Deoti and David Swan breathed, mist leaving their nostrils with each breath.
Swan frowned, noticing it.
Deoti stood in place, waited for him.<...
2025-05-28 09:08:15 +0000 UTC View PostDeoti made shushing sounds, hand held firmly over David Swan's mouth.
You’re not trying to kill him, she reminded herself.
Naymond said that they needed information about the Romanians. Melmarc’s mother, Madness’ wife, agreed. They had many different options, methods they could draw these pieces of information out of h...
2025-05-27 08:15:22 +0000 UTC View PostSitting quietly on the ottoman in Zen’s room, Aiden stared out the only window present. He was lost in thought, slightly confused.
He had seen what he had seen. He had been sure of it. He’d missed the face, seeing it only for a fraction of a second. Even then, it had been barely a fraction of a second. But he could not mistake the face...
2025-05-26 23:18:01 +0000 UTC View PostDear, free members,
I have wracked my brain and have come to the conclusion that I have no idea what would interest you. So, this is a post created specifically for you all.
Currently, my story, Rise of The Living Enchantment, has risen to 25 chapters ahead of royal road and will continue to rise. Th...
2025-05-26 13:12:09 +0000 UTC View PostAiden didn’t have the answer to Fjord’s question. At least not the right one. He had an answer, but he wasn’t so socially inept that he was willing to give it. Well… in all fairness, he had almost given it. His brain had only saved him a moment sooner.
Was Fjord really important to the team?
Aiden had spent too many years in ...
2025-05-26 12:52:46 +0000 UTC View Post“A riposte, a parry, a block. All different things.”
The sun was not yet out in the sky. First light in Trackback was a lot brighter. Anyone who hadn’t been to the city before would think it was midday.
When Aiden had woken up, he had spoken first with the innkeeper. He had found her, to his surprise, sitting quietly on one of ...
2025-05-26 01:48:36 +0000 UTC View Post[You have used Class skill Double Edged]
His sword swung viciously, striking the gnarled ghoul in front of him. Drax felt his mana spill out of him as the skill took effect. The sword seemed to double, another, a soft green light to the eyes, flashing out behind him to cleave the second ghoul.
Spinning into the swing...
2025-05-25 14:56:07 +0000 UTC View Post“Two silver coins,” the merchant said. He was a mouse of a man, small with a pinched face. He wore a long, seamless garb with flower designs and a strip of brown cloth wrapped around his head. It wasn’t a turban, not quite, but it was close enough.
“Two silver is a steep price for a map,” Aiden muttered to himself.
His voic...
2025-05-25 04:26:59 +0000 UTC View PostZen didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he shook his head, as if dispelling a headache. He frowned lightly. Signs of the discomfort he felt in the earlier days of the skill, from what Aiden remembered. By the time they’d become full teammates in the Order, such things only existed in the stories he had told Aiden.
Everyone waited patie...
2025-05-24 11:50:20 +0000 UTC View PostAiden let himself be occupied by the bow resting on his lap. He studied the intricate shapes and colors, even if it only had the one color.
Aiden let himself be occupied by the bow resting on his lap. He studied the intricate shapes and colors, even if it only had the one color. As for the shapes, they were nothing but thin scars that mark...
2025-05-24 02:46:14 +0000 UTC View PostThwack!
Everyone heard the sound in the distance. It was dark and Feira most likely couldn’t see much of what had happened, but she would know.
Aiden intentionally didn’t look at her. He had given his all into that singular shot. As for her bet? He hadn’t been hesitant to take it because he knew Zen well enough. Feira ...
2025-05-23 10:47:27 +0000 UTC View PostFeira sat quietly with a frown on her face. Beside her, Zen was doing his best impression of trying not to laugh.
“You’ve got to admit,” her brother said. “It’s actually quite funny.”
“It’s not,” she grumbled, pouting just a little and hating it.
Zen turned, lying on his back. He stared up at the clouds above....
2025-05-22 23:57:56 +0000 UTC View PostThe woman stood at least six feet and five inches tall… give or take. It could’ve easily been seven inches instead of five, though.
Instead of a gambeson like her companions, she wore strips of leather. Her upper body was left bare, save for the brown leather that was wrapped around her breasts. Aiden guessed that it didn’t just conc...
2025-05-22 11:20:46 +0000 UTC View PostAiden moved through the trees, sidestepping the focused rays of light that slipped through the canopy above. He moved cautiously, feet carrying him in a rhythm as the Order had taught him. He kept himself crouched low, his center of gravity adjusted.
His head bobbed to the side. An arrow missed him by an inch. He tilted slightly to the sid...
2025-05-21 22:48:30 +0000 UTC View PostThe sewers of Dentis weren’t so bad. It smelled of piss and shit, as all sewers tend to but not much else. You could tell what age demographic of people occupied a place by the smell of their sewers. The same could be said about the level demographic as well.
If it smelled too deeply and too terribly, you knew that tthe children were of ...
2025-05-21 11:42:15 +0000 UTC View PostAiden stood his ground, tired and fatigued. The pain remained in his chest, unwilling to leave. His hand clutched at it, grabbed a handful of the fabric of what was left of his coat—as if he could somehow take hold of his own heart.
Around him, the muffled sound of the battle was slowly sliding back into place. Sound was given greater li...
2025-05-20 23:09:58 +0000 UTC View PostA streak of lightning grazed Ebube and his eyes widened a moment before an annoying buzz went up his spine. It felt like being electrocuted as a child. It didn’t necessarily hurt, but it was enough to give a slight spasm.
In front of him, Aiden was already face to face with the still staggering guard that he was fighting. In an impressiv...
2025-05-20 04:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostReaching level fifty had granted Ebube an interesting enough manifesting skill. King Oyedi had said that his manifesting skill had been gained in a different manner from what was common—a special manner.
Apparently, people struggled to get into level fifty, with men and women spending their entire lives stuck at level forty-nine. Those t...
2025-05-20 01:23:24 +0000 UTC View PostThe night air was stale. It didn’t blow into an evening breeze and it didn’t slither like a snake crawling over your body in the middle of the night while you slept in the forest hiding from enemies.
Valdan hated nights like this, when the tension seepped into the atmosphere. Back where he grew up, there was an old woman, a beggar, who...
2025-05-17 17:24:10 +0000 UTC View PostThe sun was low in the sky. Midday had come as quickly as it tended to and was now on the decline. Evening gazed in from around the corner, peeking, waiting, an ever-patient herald to the usurper that was the night.
Aiden turned his head skyward, allowed himself to bask in the soft touch of the evening sun. He rode his jepat in slow stride...
2025-05-16 04:45:32 +0000 UTC View PostThere was a long moment of silence. It settled on Aiden and Ted like an itchy blanket, asking for something to be done. Anything.
But there was nothing to be done.
Aiden stood and waited, the orange glow of the burning trees around them still illuminating the night, casting the world with their flickering existence in a chaos of ligh...
2025-05-15 03:54:36 +0000 UTC View PostFor a moment, Ariadne couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Melmarc was a [Faker]. How had he stopped Anji’s charge?
Anji was a B-class [Juggernaut]. It made no sense that Melmarc had been able to stop his charge, even if he had copied his skill in that last moment.
Anji was a [Juggernaut] that Naymond had invited into the house ...
2025-05-14 12:58:22 +0000 UTC View PostDavid Swan came awake with groggy eyes and heavy lids. He felt as if he was waking up from a very deep sleep but couldn’t remember sleeping.
He frowned at the discomfort. Moving his arms, he tried to stretch but they didn’t obey him. It took him only a moment to realize that his arms were not being disobedient, they were simply being r...
2025-05-11 23:39:44 +0000 UTC View PostThis was bullshit.
Melmarc stood with a whisper of a frown on his lips. He stood right next to a cab door as he closed it.
“Are you sure you won’t be needing me to take you back?” the cab driver asked.
Leaning down at the passenger window, he gave the man a kind smile. The man was on the older side. He wore a fro...
2025-05-10 11:50:32 +0000 UTC View PostSwanda froze so suddenly that Theresa felt it even without looking at him. Still, she turned.
“Are you expecting someone?” she asked, but the look of terror on his face told her that he was not.
Swanda shook his head very slowly. “Are you?”
“No,” she answered.
The moment the word left her lips, Swanda was alre...
2025-05-07 20:23:28 +0000 UTC View PostThe entire process of letting Naymond go had been very simple. Alfa had a key, with it she opened the [Sage]’s cell. Naymond had given a great big stretch as if being unshackled from a bed after years in confinement.
As great and big a stretch as it was, it felt subdued.
Melmarc had expected Naymond to do more. Maybe a great big ya...
2025-05-06 10:42:18 +0000 UTC View PostA starry night and a beautiful forest were always a part of a camper’s dream. There was often very little that could usurp such beauty in their minds. Very little.
Drax stared at the sky above and just couldn’t bring himself to smile at it. As beautiful as the Nastild sky looked, he couldn’t bring himself to appreciate it. He couldn...
2025-05-03 18:44:58 +0000 UTC View PostTed sat in the darkness, doing his best to ignore how uncomfortable the ground beneath him was. Not too long ago, he had been lying down, eyes closed, thinking. The path beyond the threshold was right in front of him—all he had to do was grab it.
He was almost there. He could feel it. Then again, he had been feeling it ever since Fjord h...
2025-04-24 23:18:01 +0000 UTC View Post“Please, I beg of you, if I have offended you in any way, I am sorry. Truly and deeply sorry.”
Ted was on his knees, pleading, like a man begging for his life.
“I have sinned and fallen short,” he pleaded. “I know this. No one knows this more than me. So, please don’t do this to me, Aida.”
Aiden sighed and rolled ...
2025-04-24 00:17:22 +0000 UTC View Post