"Bao Qian!" the voice of flesh called, heard despite all impediments. "Release your defense, but only for a five count!"
The reply took a moment. Ling Qi could feel his consternation, and she also felt the moment he realized her plan.
It was dizzying, the rush of it. Heat and life and feeling flooded out, torn away by the ...
2024-10-21 19:51:24 +0000 UTC View PostCai Renxiang leaned on the hilt of Cifeng, the scabbard’s cap planted in the hard mountain stone. Looking out over it all the sight of the summit seemed such a small thing, easily drowned in the mountain mist. In the grand politics of the Empire or even the province it was a small thing, the summit finished a month ago. She was praised, but th...
2024-10-20 20:01:52 +0000 UTC View Post"How well do you think you can hold under her pressure?" Ling Qi asked.
To her eyes, their camp, this little bubble reality in the endless expanse of white, was being maintained well. The crushing pressure did not pierce the walls, only frost the now fusing stones. Still, she would rather hear the words from the one performing...
2024-10-17 21:27:24 +0000 UTC View PostAfter the last three months, Ling Qi did not think she could feel relief from sitting down. That she did now just proved how quickly little gripes could pass with cultivation.
The simple camp chair canvas stretched over a wooden frame barely even sank under her weight as she settled into it. She had kept her qi circulating carefu...
2024-10-14 23:36:06 +0000 UTC View PostLing Nuan felt like she could crawl out of her own skin.
“Are you certain you do not wish for your companion to dine with us too?” Ling Qingge asked politely.
“Yeah, this is a family dinner. That guy’s a good friend, but he’s not kin,” Ling Nuan said, a tight hold on the electric impulses traveling through her ...
2024-10-13 19:24:40 +0000 UTC View PostThe scream of the grinding blade tearing across bone echoed shrilly in her ears. Bai Nuying’s head jerked black crimson pouring down her cheek as she reflexively squeezed her eye shut.
It was the most she needed for an opening. Her watery coils flexed, strength against strength, she was weaker than her cousin, but a momentary unstead...
2024-10-10 21:02:14 +0000 UTC View PostStarting soon! Come join us on discord at wednesday-author-qa
2024-10-09 20:01:14 +0000 UTC View Post“Not so easy!”
Sand sprayed up from churning hooves. The sound of panicked drawn-in breath mingled with the startled scream of a horse as its head was yanked to the side by the bit in its mouth, forcing horse and rider into a sharp banking turn to avoid the blazing lances of sunfire that cut across the track in their path.
2024-10-08 18:34:42 +0000 UTC
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Journey and Serpents Eye are coming this week, though Journey will be out tomorrow!
2024-10-07 20:29:08 +0000 UTC View PostHer nerves hummed with it, the jagged riot of currents stark in black and white. The path of the charge, mortality encapsulated in a spark. Countless ways all reaching toward the end, a hundred choices and all but one discarded, irreversible.
Lightning was certainty. The strike did not turn back on itself.
“Hey! Quit ...
2024-10-06 19:21:10 +0000 UTC View PostWinter became spring, and the snow became floodwaters.
But this was only the last verse of her song, and one she had fretted over too much. When focused on the oncoming summit, the peace she hoped for in the future, it was easy to do. But the future did not only include peace.
They were going to war next year. They were going...
2024-10-04 00:05:06 +0000 UTC View PostWinter comes as the frost maiden's train. The clouds are the billow of silk in her stride. The snow falls upon the land and leaves the glittering beauty of white.
The maiden's voice rises, the soft song which tugs at and shakes loose the last crinkling leaves, beauty ephemeral passing as it may only once in each turn...
2024-10-01 00:24:37 +0000 UTC View PostWhere cold wind blows
On the traveler’s road
Where falling snows
All warmth erode
We sing of light, through winter long
'Till the floods ring spring's gong
The last verse of the amusing little folk song drifted out through the open ...
2024-09-26 20:36:40 +0000 UTC View PostCome on down to discord and join us at wednesday-author-qa
2024-09-25 20:11:26 +0000 UTC View PostThe earth vibrated, a deep rumble rising up from the depths far beneath her feet, growing in intensity as it neared the surface. With it came a tide of flame and heat, flaring the pulse of veins that ran under the earth. Pebbles rattled. The pressure in the air grew. Then, flame-flecked water erupted, a pillar of frothing waters that rose many m...
2024-09-23 23:34:36 +0000 UTC View PostThe upper palace wasn’t a quiet place, but compared to the unending roaring noise of the lower palace, it was almost serene. The whipping wind that howled through the naturally formed entry arches of the cavernous hall and the trickle of falling waters down the sculpture-like limestone formations, which tumbled like tapestries of stone down th...
2024-09-22 21:39:59 +0000 UTC View PostGood news this time! I will be moving on the 30th of September going into the 1st of October. So there will be no Fan Q&A on the second while I settle in.
2024-09-20 19:35:40 +0000 UTC View PostThe air was cool, crisp, and dry out away from the lakeside, brisk with the promise of oncoming winter snows. There were many small paths now snaking out into the farmlands and pastures. Closer to the center of the settlement, there was gravel, but most were simply packed earth, cut and leveled, the barest beginnings of drainage paths planned at...
2024-09-19 22:32:05 +0000 UTC View PostStarting shortly! Come on down to join us on discord at wednesday-author-qa.
2024-09-18 20:07:41 +0000 UTC View PostAN: And now 409 has been fixed and edited too, should be the last hiccup.
The journey south was much longer than she had grown used to. When she soared in the air, she forgot things like the twists and turns roads followed to pass between the mountains. She forgot that when traveling with mortals and low cultivators...
2024-09-17 00:17:20 +0000 UTC View PostHey there everyone, thank you very much for your patience and a special thanks to everyone who had a kind word. The day I called hiatus a close family member who had been struggling with alcohol had a major relapse. I won't trouble with the details, but they are now set to get off to long term rehab. Still not feeling good, but the situation is...
2024-09-12 15:52:48 +0000 UTC View PostThere's been a severe personal emergency in my family, and I will need a few at least a few days to resolve it. Updates will be on hold likely for the remainder of the week.
2024-09-10 01:52:31 +0000 UTC View PostAN: There was an error in the last post before that unpleasant business, the rest of the chapter has been added here where it was missing.
Cai Renxiang considered her for a long moment. Ling Qi heard distant snarling again, wordless and incoherent. Her liege set her cup down.
"Very well. An insigh...
2024-09-09 20:39:48 +0000 UTC View PostThe hallowed halls dedicated to martial cultivation dated all the way back to the first White Serpent Queen, who constructed them in the wake of her victory, it was said, so that no member of the white serpent would ever be without venerable Yao’s teachings. So that no member of the White Serpent would ever be unable to personally crush the se...
2024-09-05 18:58:22 +0000 UTC View PostStarting soon! Patrons come on down to discord and join us at wednesday-author-qa
2024-09-04 20:05:52 +0000 UTC View Post“So, what words do you have for me, to risk such rudeness?” Gu Xiulan asked, a harsh note in her voice. She had captured a cup of spiced wine from a passing server. It was a good vintage, tingling hotly all the way down. They had reached the west side of the hall, past the columns and nearer to the heavy wall hangings, enough to be out of th...
2024-09-02 17:58:07 +0000 UTC View PostLing Nuan drew in a sharp, copper scented breath, the metallic taste of her own blood sharp on her tongue, Her heel slid back a hair, foot pivoting for a better stance as he lunged forward, right fist lashing out from her tight front guard.
Her opponent's ham sized fist was still overextended, trailing blood from the cut it’s passage...
2024-09-01 20:31:43 +0000 UTC View Post"Liming has been restless. It was quiescent during the summit, but as months have gone by, its temperament has only grown worse," Cai Renxiang said. "I suspect I will not be able to advance beyond the sixth stage of the green realm without finding a solution."
The crimson and yellow fabric splayed across her chest, the beastly eyes of ...
2024-08-29 22:52:19 +0000 UTC View PostThere was quite a bit of fanfare in White Cloud Town for Cai Renxiang’s visit, something that had happened regularly for the better part of two years. She knew that Cai Renxiang had been in and out more than once without a peep from the town’s government. The most reaction they had received had been when they had needed to use the governor's...
2024-08-26 19:44:04 +0000 UTC View PostIt was such a heady time to be alive!
Astronomer Wu, strode the through halls of the observatory, with a nearly untoward amount of pep in his step, as he had since the Summit had come to a close and restored his optimism that all of that traitor awfulness was behind them and a new era of astronomical research was at hand.
...
2024-08-25 20:59:26 +0000 UTC View Post