Epsilon Twilight

Schedule Update

Hi there,

So, we are back! I can't say I have exactly rested that much as I've been writing every single day, but it did good for my mind to be able to write without worrying about publishing deadlines.

Having said so, for the time being I will publish 3 chapters a week instead of 4. This is not only to offset the frenzy of the Writa...

33. Alike

Her reality was crumbling with every step. Life threatened to pour out of the gates. Every fiber of her being fought to keep everything in place.

Aloe stopped moving at some point. She couldn't remember when. The place was an unknown one and held no significance, a random yet beautiful park. Without thinking, she sat down on a bench even i...

32. Ready

The couple of druids reached Asina in a matter of minutes, and whilst Xochipilli was trying to hide it, he was suffering from their mad dash. Whilst it was completely possible to run faster than sound as a cultivator, that didn't mean it was easy for the body, especially during long distances and sustained sprints. But Mother Nature's rhythm was...

31. Softly

Power. Power overwhelming. There was no feeling more tearing than that of untapped and raw power trying to claw its way into freedom. By definition, power was corruption, but most forgot many of its other capabilities. Power, by itself, was a living and breathing entity. And unfortunately, even if it wasn't, others also wanted that power to come...

30. Faith

Three individuals of diverse backgrounds soared through the skies in a compact aircraft. It was a technological marvel that heavily relied on the creations of Evolution, and only a handful of individuals on the whole planet even knew of that vital art's existence. But it mattered not that secret or that unknown for individuals as they had a simp...

29. Voyage

Serviceable even to someone who wasn't her mother, Gunseidhr brought an assortment of refreshments and pastries to the couple who sat before the coffee table.

"I have avoided asking this so far," Xochipilli said over his tea, it was ter'nar's. "But why are you here? Especially after this long?"

"I… have always been searching for yo...

Break

Hello there,

The Writathon is complete now, so I am going to take a little break. I cannot say how long it will be, but at minimum a week. I will be dropping chapters here and there on Patreon over the break to make it be the 20 promised chapters, but that will be all until my actual return.

-Epsilon Twilight

28. Nature

Going down the tree was way more straightforward than going upward. Quite literally at that. It was a straight line.

The druid simply let himself fall from one of the branches – so his fall would be straight and he wouldn't impact against the World Tree's trunk – and descended at high speeds assisted by gravity. His body was so confide...

27. Discovery

Time was an… ephemeral thing. Ever-present yet invisible. A potent force so subtle that some failed to notice it. But for Xochipilli, time had another meaning. It wasn't a force, but a fact. It could damage, yes, but most importantly, it made things grow. Mature. Progress.

His cape wavered like a flag alongside his long mane as he stood ...

26. Resurrected

"You have to trust me!" The woman shouted to such degrees that the blood vessels in her neck threatened to pop out. "I have died!"

"We want to believe you, sister…" A man covered in shadows sighed. "But we see you alive and breathing in front of us."

"Because I have resurrected!"

"Yes…" He pinched the bridge of his nose. "Y...

25. Gates

"So our people will be free?" It was Xochipilli's uncle who asked the question.

"Indeed," the Mother of Plants nodded. "I have personally talked with the calipha, and this mass kidnapping is not an act of the state, but a nefarious organization. Any illegally enslaved Tecolatans will be freed, but as for your return home… I have no answe...

24. Should

"Tell me, did you know it was me when you saw me?" Aloe spoke softly yet with incredible violence at the old lady feeding the birds before her.

"What are you talking about, dearie?" The old lady with wizened eyes responded slowly, each word a monumental effort.

"Rani," the Mother of Plants instantly cut the charade, too tired to cont...

23. Thinking

• Content warning for sexual assault. Discretion is advised.

***

The message was clear to Aloe. Mother was one of them. She did not know what to be more saddened from, that Aya was dead or that message. Of course she was bound to be dead, she lived more than she had originally expected after hearing Naila's a...

22. Better

"There is not much more to tell, I am afraid," the Calipha continued with her tale. "There is one last 'secret', but I am reticent to call it so as it was as public as my position as the Calipha. Yes, I am finally going to talk about my relationship with my dear Vizier."

Her tone was slow and composed as before, but the truth was, she had ...

21. Secrets

It was clear that Loyata could not rule itself, but it took a while before it became a Sultanate. First, the Emirates came. Considering that there were revolts here and there and a strong hand was needed to put Loyata in check, I put any martial-aligned sultanzade that was not an emir already in power. Loyata was colossal in size, but most areas...

20. Caliphate

Ydaz marched to war at my order. In these handful of months, we had recruited and trained many more soldiers. Whilst there was a limit to how many standing soldiers the country could maintain at any given time, I intended to blitz through Loyata's defenses. I would not be satisfied with any outcome short of utterly violating them.

Ah, I wa...

19. Pregnant

It took a month for things to start to feel normal. Or rather, real. If I had been older, I could have acclimated to the change faster, but I was barely sixteen and I had the biggest country of Khaffat under my control. As faulty as Aaliyah-al-Ydaz had been, she had instated me with a sense of duty to the nation. There was a pride a ruler should...

18. Conquest

The Loyatan armies were routed after the death of all the Grandmaster Assassins. They were their commanders and generals, so I had effectively wiped their chain of command. As we were only a handful of sultanzade – tired ones at that – on the battlefield, we did not chase them. Instead, I made my siblings carry the body of our dead mother. M...

17. Vizier

After having left Xochipilli in the care of their assigned maid, Aloe nearly felt whole again. Perhaps whole was a misnomer, too much of a superlative, but she felt solid enough to function. That was more than could be said about most of her life.

But she had the feeling that no matter how whole she was, what was expecting her at the hands...

16. Oblivion

What followed was a half-hour spew from Nesrine's mouth, and Aloe failed to understand even a fraction of it, not even a sliver. The engineer talked too fast, and her concepts were too complicated that Aloe just remained there static on the sofa nodding from time to time. It wasn't until Nesrine stopped talking from sheer exhaustion that she sto...

15. Revolution

There were many plants in her repertoire, but Aloe knew that she shouldn't show them all. Some had the opportunity to cause calamities like the Slowtide, but there were others that she outright didn't want to reveal out of principle like the Aloe Veritas.

Could it revolutionize the world? Maybe. That plant kept surprising her after two cen...

14. Applications

The words rang in her mind like the screeching breaks of a train. Aya Ayad the spouse of our Calipha. Aloe felt her vision turn blurry. Black. Red.

So that's why you didn't want to continue the story, huh? Aloe laughed to herself as she deciphered Naila's intentions. Her arms were trembling from rage, a boiling r...

13. Engineer

As always – as dangerous as that expression could be – Naila had kept her word. After removing herself from her office, Aloe spent some time with Xochipilli and the maid that 'babysat' him. Instead of training Nurture or Evolution like he would have done when alone, he had chosen to make the mature maid teach him about the language. Perhaps ...

12. Exchange

"So there you have it, Aloe. The death of Aaliyah-al-Ydaz and my ascension." Naila finalized her narration with those words.

"There is a lot more to explain." The druid added.

"Of course," the cultivator took a sip out of her teacup. "But what you wanted to hear was about the death of my mother, did you not?"

"I… yes," Aloe g...

11. Descendant

There are many reasons why I have said that the oppressive aura felt 'red', but the main reason was the light on the eyes of the assassins. As someone who had been in the thick of it at the start of the confrontation, no one was able to detect where the assassins had been. Maybe some sultanzade and Aaliyah-al-Ydaz were aware of the presence of a...

10. Red

No, I cannot overstate enough how crazy that image drove us. You must understand, this is Aaliyah-al-Ydaz we are talking about. We knew the most how mighty she was, and there were only two ways that she could have been hurt this badly.

Yes, 'badly' is a subjective term. But seeing her skin scratched was nearly cataclysmic.

Those two ...

9. Bled

Did you like my present? Oh, well, at least you accepted it. I felt your conscience would rest easier knowing there was someone babysitting your protégé.

Anyhow, where was I yesterday? Ah yes, I was talking about how Aaliyah-al-Ydaz did not like at all to be left in the dark. There was a plan written by the hand of the assassins and she ...

8. Sleep

True to her word, Naila had sent a servant to meet them in the palace gardens. He was an old man wearing a suit of the highest quality, though the flaps of his jacket were a bit absurd. The servant's black coat had a series of elongated tassel-like flaps with balls of Cottonpull at the end that raised the ends of the patches of cloth and hung ar...

7. Protégé

Before probably committing her worst decision ever – beyond not fleeing when she could or remaining in a chasm for two centuries – Aloe brought Xochipilli to a restaurant as the child had something to eat as he had been surviving on a handful of pastries for the whole day.

The locale was nothing to write about as she was relatively low...

6. Empty

"Hmm, the tea has grown cold," Naila commented after filling her cup again. "Time really flies when reminiscing the past, huh?"

Aloe frowned. "What time is it? It's hard to guess it in this enclosed room."

"A bit past lunchtime."

The druid's frown intensified. "How do you know it?"

"There," the calipha pointed at a device...