Forty-Six
Blood and spit smacked the stony ground as Kon cleared his mouth. This cultivator had a good jab, keeping Kon at a distance as they circled the small pit. Sneering the cultivator, Henten, stepped forward and threw a straight punch, aiming to keep Kon’s head spinning.
“This has got to be enough to se...
2025-08-22 16:01:41 +0000 UTC View PostForty-Five
“Are you sure about this?” Kon asked as he and Diur stood huddled together. The crush of the crowd threatened to shove them against the wall as the screams of the crowd tried to deafen them. Diur nodded as she shuffled her shoulders uncomfortably in her borrowed robes. Turja had given them ratty robes that h...
2025-08-21 16:01:22 +0000 UTC View PostForty-Four
Before they could move a figure slid out of the shadows and Kon had a monet of deja vu as Turja’s envoy appeared before them. It slunk forward, shoulders slumped to hide its height as hundreds of teeth revealed themselves in the blue light of the lanterns. Its velvety red aura blended into the shadows of the c...
2025-08-20 16:02:08 +0000 UTC View PostForty-Three
“That’s a whole lot of people,” Kon said as they walked off the ship. Him and Diur were side by side, looking over the packed crowds in the large spaceport, thousands of beings shouting in native tongues, overlapping in a way that confused his translator. He caught snatches of conversations as they walked...
2025-08-19 16:01:21 +0000 UTC View PostForty-Two
“Is that a human ship?” Kon asked as he leaned over Benny’s shoulder, his eyes locked on the floating ship that hovered over the planet. Benny pushed him away absent mindedly as he scrolled down a list of menus as the Puca sailed closer to the planet.
“I’m trying to figure out who w...
2025-08-18 16:01:32 +0000 UTC View PostTHREE
“That’s a human warship,” Alice spat as she leaned over Daniur’s shoulder to look at the sensor arrays. Humanity had taken many prizes over the long years, but they had commissioned some ships as well from worlds that paid for protection. This was one of them, an assault cruiser. It was mostly engine and guns...
2025-08-15 17:00:14 +0000 UTC View PostForty-One
“We’ve about drained this place. Time to move on,” Benny said a week later. Diur had just finished her second round of tempering yesterday and was resting in her room as the two of them stood on the edge of the cliff overlooking the sprawling plains of the badlands.
“Already? I don’t feel li...
2025-08-15 16:01:46 +0000 UTC View PostForty
Kon opened the door to the retrofitted bathroom and reeled backward as the astringent smell of cleaning products struck him with the force of a physical blow. A cough bubbled up, intermixing with a sneeze to cause a burst of pain as he made a decidedly weird sound. Diur looked up from the tin bathtub and turned...
2025-08-14 16:01:16 +0000 UTC View PostThirty-Nine
“I still think this is a bad idea,” Diur said as Benny looked on eagerly, looking younger than he ever had as he rubbed his leathery hands together.
“He’ll be fine. Mostly. Maybe.” Benny shrugged a shoulder but Kon was focused on the rune and overlaying it on his skin. Benny had give...
2025-08-13 16:02:04 +0000 UTC View PostThirty-Eight
“How is it I’m the one always covered in gore at the end of this?” Kon asked as he rooted around the chest cavity of the monster. His shoulder was wedged against a bone and the warm organs slithered under his hands, a hot pressure that he was sure he’d be scrubbing out from under his fingernails for da...
2025-08-12 16:01:18 +0000 UTC View PostThirty-Seven
“Think it’ll blow up?” Kon asked as he settled himself down against the hard packed earth. Diur hummed in debate with herself for a second before not responding. Kon suppressed a sigh as he couldn’t get her to bet against him. The cool stock of the rifle pressed against his cheek as he sighted down the...
2025-08-11 16:01:22 +0000 UTC View PostThirty-Six
A/N: Bit of a short one, sorry.
“I’ve already identified which runes in your holopad we knew about and transferred them over to your grimoire. The rest will be up to you. I doubt that you’ll be much interested in trying to figure them out, but we can raid some of the rune libraries on the World-Ship...
2025-08-08 16:01:38 +0000 UTC View PostThirty-Five
“Yes.” The word was so easy to say, it came instantly and without hesitation as Kon stared up at the leathery old man who had hope filled eyes that gleamed with fire. Benny smiled widely as he nodded before turning to look into the distance, across the barren windswept grounds.
“Then there is ...
2025-08-07 16:01:11 +0000 UTC View PostThirty-Four
“Wow. This place is a shithole,” Benny said as he walked down the ramp of the Puca, holding the package over his shoulder. Kon followed right behind, his favorite shotgun in his hands while his mace hung from his hip. He had to suppress a groan as gritty sand flew around, scouring his exposed skin ...
2025-08-06 16:01:41 +0000 UTC View PostThirty-Three
A/N: That's the End of ARC 1. ARC 2 starts tomorrow.
“Wild Bunch have successfully finished their evac. Full rescue on all prisoners, minimal casualties,” Jurgen reported, his face distorting as the Puca pulled ahead of the rest of the rag tag battle group. Benny was pushing the ship hard as they lef...
2025-08-05 16:01:31 +0000 UTC View PostThirty-Two
Kon had never run with mag boots on, each step slapping hard to the ground, sending reverberations through his knees. Holding himself vertically was a strain on his body, but the lighter than average gravity and his own growing strength kept him moving forward with ease. Benny ranged ahead of them, acting for al...
2025-08-04 16:01:55 +0000 UTC View PostTWO
Alice slipped to the side, allowing the Lupine’s axe to pass by her to embed itself in the metal floor of the space station. A howl of frustration assaulted her ears as the pup voiced his frustration. Alice’s second axe ended the yowling before it could truly grate on her nerves. Blood sprayed to coat the ceiling a...
2025-08-03 19:32:06 +0000 UTC View PostThirty-One
They ran over the charred remnants of the defenders, the crunch of their carbonized bones felt through his boots. Kon focused on keeping up with Benny, the old man running in a zig zag, low to the ground, as fewer and fewer defensive positions fired on them. The remaining Knights fired with lethal purpose, each ...
2025-08-01 16:02:07 +0000 UTC View PostThirty
“Entering engagement zone,” Knight Jurgen’s voice came through the speaker in Kon’s ear. The other man sounded nearly bored, not seconds from breaching a goblin point defense kill zone. Jurgen’s squad had the unenviable task of taking out the AA guns on the asteroid. Their ship, a fast corvette that ...
2025-07-31 16:01:47 +0000 UTC View PostTwenty-Nine
“Exiting,” Benny said quietly. The constant thrum of the engines dying was the first change, followed by the many screens lighting up as they came free of the lane. Diur’s hands danced over the controls, shielding them and then bringing up the stealth capabilities. Kon was only a split second behind...
2025-07-30 16:01:34 +0000 UTC View PostTwenty-Eight
Knight Draconis Jurgen’s face snapped into being on the small holograph emitter, floating above the table as he looked them over. The man’s strong jawline was bunched as he gritted his teeth as he looked over at Benny, but it quickly relaxed as a mask of professionalism drowned out his personal dista...
2025-07-29 16:01:29 +0000 UTC View PostTwenty-Seven
“A battle aura already?” Benny asked with a single raised eyebrow as Diur and Kon sat in front of him. The E-Grade rift treasure sat to the side like an abandoned toy, a lumpy geode of glimmering stone, light passing through it to cast a rainbow across the table. Kon sipped on his drink as he stared at the...
2025-07-28 16:01:40 +0000 UTC View PostTwenty-Six
Thick, sloughing pale skin rolled off the creature as it came shambling free of the cave, wobbling with every step as its skin dragged across the ground. A bulbous eye sat in the middle of its head, segmented into dozens of glistening pupils that spun around wildly. A curved beak jutted out from its head, pitted...
2025-07-25 16:01:47 +0000 UTC View PostTwenty-Five
The E-Grade rift rippled in front of them as they stood shoulder to shoulder, ready to finish their time on the station. The last week had been spent with Diur in meditation in her room, using an array that Benny had stored to burn through the E-Grade cores from the slimes they’d acquired. As the trip neared ...
2025-07-24 16:01:31 +0000 UTC View PostTwenty-Four
Kon sat on the floor of his room with a pile of F-Grade cores around him, everything they’d acquired from the harvested monsters in the facility. He’d also managed to snag several of the E-Grade cores, keeping them slightly off to the side as he started to breathe as he had been taught, slipping into a medi...
2025-07-23 16:01:39 +0000 UTC View PostTwenty-Three
All three of them sat around the small table as Benny tapped a bare finger on the cover of his own notebook. His brow was crinkled even further than normal as he thought through what he wanted to say. Kon kept his tongue still, waiting for Benny to finish thinking. Diur had her own head buried in a holopad, sc...
2025-07-22 16:01:21 +0000 UTC View PostTwenty-Two
A/N: Space, at least in Earth's position, is roughly Negative 455 degrees Fahrenheit
The explosion ripped through the hall, pulverizing them in a concussive blast that threatened to throw them to the ground before the screaming wind slammed them back against the bulkhead. A howling gale that snatche...
2025-07-21 16:02:05 +0000 UTC View PostTwenty-One
“I hate being right,” Kon said drily as they stared at the monsters crawling along the edge of the facility. Oozing masses of gelatinous slime, everywhere they moved they left a trail of corrosive slime behind, slowly sizzling as it ate through the metal of the facility.
“You thought we’d be ...
2025-07-18 16:01:33 +0000 UTC View PostSince we're dipping our toes back into cultivation here is a set of terms/levels and whatnot that Kon already has been introduced too or been explained to him by someone at sometime. There are NO spoilers here, this information is in the text either directly or indirectly.
Knights
Rift Energy F-A scale. The higher the letter, the de...
2025-07-18 04:21:56 +0000 UTC View PostTwenty
They stared down at the hole that Kon had been dragged into. The last hour had been spent harvesting the insects they had killed and retreating to the Puca to replenish their supplies. They’d spent only a few minutes replacing the small air canisters in their helmets before venturing back out into the dea...
2025-07-17 16:01:17 +0000 UTC View Post