Ad Astra

169. The End (IV)

[Galactic Inferno] lay waiting, a coiled whip of qi churning in his gut, growing weightier by the second. He stepped up to greet Jez as any proper host should: open arms, and a pleasant smile. All the better to hide a nasty surprise… 2023-01-12 17:22:50 +0000 UTC View Post

168. The End (III)

There were times, in battle, for thinking. For strategy. For sussing out the strikes of one’s enemies and planning counters. This was the sort of fighting generals taught, the sort of fighting found in textbooks: clean, direct, predictable.

167. The End (II)

A/N: >:( More chapters!! Hopefully soon! Almost there! I am hyped! 

/

Horns blew. All along the walls soldiers readied their Sticks, qi Techniques boiling feverishly at their tips. Thousands of eyes watche...

166. The End (I)

A/N: Back home after a hectic week of traveling! We're coming up to the last few chapters of this book... 

//

Dorian sat cross-legged at the edge of the blackened Sinkhole. His eyes were shut. His breaths were ste...

165. Storm (IV)

It was beautiful and it was terrifying.

There was ash everywhere. Black misshapen forms were lumped about the sands. The walls of the Sinkhole were glazed with a fine layer of soot. It all seemed to pulse with a dangerous gentleness, like ho...

164. Storm (III)

As Dorian walked the main street to the Sinkhole, there was not a soul in sight. Most everyone was grinding in a factory, manning artillery, conscripted into an army, or otherwise holed up. The whole city felt wound up like a clenched fist. The en...

163. Storm (II)

Dorian woke with a start, fully healed and very confused. For a few breaths sat there, still and silent. His mind felt like a clogged throat, choked with thoughts, and he was having no small difficulty swallowing.

Brace yourself. Fa...

Quick Note on Next Chapter + Schedule

The story is nearing the end of Book 2, and though I've not got writer's block, I definitely at least have writer's constipation--and it's been quite annoying to work through. There's a lot of moving parts that I need to tie together neatly. I'd r...

162. Storm (I)

A few hours of sky treading later Dorian was back to the Oasis. The sun was setting, spilling harsh light over a bloody battle.

Not a big battle, nor a devastating one. A small wave of sandwolves, Vordors, and other lesser beasts splattered ...

Interlude V. Calm

A/N: Book 2 is drawing closer and closer to an end… I’m excited! A one-chapter interlude. Then back to main story.

//

Kaya thought about his offer. For a few seconds she squinted at him.

“I know you,” she...

161. Beyond the Sky (XI)

Now that Dorian was infused with Law he was exposed to a new world. It was like he’d been seeing in black-and-white all this time and could now perceive color. Laws of Fire and Darkness threaded the world around him, glorious tapestries suspende...

160. Beyond the Sky (X)

He was this close! How dare that wyrmshit heart of his give out?!

He probed his body, and then realized it wasn’t entirely the organ’s fault.

Huh. It appears I don’t have any blood left in my body… 2022-12-03 01:12:33 +0000 UTC View Post

159. Beyond the Sky (IX)

In the middle of the volcano known as Drakestail Peak, one explosion after another rattled the earth. Rivers of qi were sucked in and blasted out and sucked back in again, like a whirlpool which couldn’t decide which way it wished to flow. At th...

158. Beyond the Sky (XIII)

Out in the frozen tundra, a girl lay flat against snowy ground. Around her was a fresh graveyard, newly made; hours before there had been only bodies. Then snow fell, and fell, and fell, gently and interminably, and piled up around them, slowly bu...

157. Beyond the Sky (XII)

It was a tail. A big black spike-rimmed tail so big it nearly tripled Dorian’s height, coiling around him. Where he sat he couldn’t make out either its end or its beginning. The creature the tail belonged to was hidden from view too, but he di...

156. Beyond the Sky (XI)

This was the part where Dorian magicked some incredible plan out of his behind, turned the tables, and won the day! He was Dorian, for Heavens’ sake, a legend of the Multiverse, a Godking several times over! He’d stared down tougher o...

155. Beyond the Sky (X)

The lack of monsters was starting to grow suspicious. Dorian was nearly relieved when he came across his first.

It wasn’t much, as monsters went—a serpentine form Dorian had no name for. It was like a living chain of obsidian fused toget...

154. Beyond the Sky (IX)

Kaya had been running for so long she didn’t recall when she’d started. Could’ve been a day ago. Maybe two? But she was still brimming with energy, energy leaking out her skin as a pale gold glow. She could run for what felt like forever—u...

153. Beyond the Sky (VIII)

He sprung off a shelf of stone, climbed up a steep rock face, and emerged at the top of the volcano. The lip of the thing was barely thick enough to fit his two feet before it dropped off into the volcano’s molten innards. It stretched into the ...

152. Beyond the Sky (VII)

It was less hot than he’d expected! The outskirts of the Volcano, that was. He pattered along pockmarked rock which should’ve felt scalding, but only left a warm tickle on the soles of his feet.

Hmm… As an experiment he fished...

151. Beyond the Sky (VI)

A/N: Sorry for the late chapter! Half my day yesterday got knocked out by an unforeseen event... this is on me, though. I'll try to write an extra reserve chapter so this sort of thing doesn't interrupt the schedule in future. Sor...

Interlude IV: The Loneliest Man in the Multiverse (III)

A/N: Last interlude chapter…

“No,” said Houyi.

Fate choked. “Pardon?”

Houyi was silent, his stare impassive. It was plain nothing else was coming. He’d given his answer. That was enough.

“Why?...

Interlude IV: The Loneliest Man in the Multiverse (II)

Houyi was a myth in flesh. As Fate was led up the gentle blue slopes, past cozy little hamlets up a gravelly path, he was feeling a smidge unsettled. It wasn’t that there were hymns sung about him (though there were), nor was it their strange an...

Interlude IV: The Loneliest Man in the Multiverse (I)

Edge of the Multiverse

Old Man Fate dipped an oar into the pitch-black depths, and rowed. “Hup!” He gasped, pulled back, and went for another. “Hup!”

It made for a peculiar sight. A Godking, who had enough powe...

150. Beyond the Sky (V)

Core three started off smoothly. A flood of Bloodline and qi rushed in, and his body quickly set to burning it up and stuffing it in. The percentages crept up and up, to Dorian’s mind linear— to 721%… soon 735%… 754%… So far, so good...