“Are we ready?” asked Dat, glancing back at Elijah and Sadie, who were nestled between two huge boulders. The pair of edifices were at least forty feet tall and almost as wide, with smaller rocks forming a wall that stretched around in a rough semi-circle until they merged with the steep slope of the mountain. Originally, there h...
2024-12-23 16:00:12 +0000 UTC View Post“The last time I jumped into a pit, things didn’t go so well,” Zeke said, peering over the edge of the pit in question. The hole in the ground was a few hundred feet across, and the lip was lined with jagged, black crystal. Even with his enormous endurance, those sharp shards of glass-like material were capable of cutting throu...
2024-12-23 14:00:13 +0000 UTC View PostThe cave was entirely desolate, and when Elijah looked back, he saw that there was no evidence of the door through which they’d arrived in the Primal Realm. However, he was more concerned about the cold. To him, it was only mildly uncomfortable, feeling like it was a touch above freezing. But the others were far more affected...
2024-12-22 16:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostElijah’s head was still reeling a day later, but Sadie had made it clear that she wasn’t interested in addressing the romantic moment they’d shared the night before. They’d only kissed a little before remembering where they were and heading back inside, but even that was enough to twist Elijah’s insides into knots. Making i...
2024-12-21 16:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostElijah stepped into the maze, looking both directions before picking one. The others followed close on his heels, though they seemed far more anxious than he felt. It wasn’t surprising, either. To them, the notion of traveling through the endless twisting halls was a daunting prospect. But to Elijah, it felt like a casu...
2024-12-20 16:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostZeke leaped high into the air, intent on ending the fight before it had a chance to truly begin. However, when he swung Voromir in a sledgehammer strike that should have caved the Warden’s chest in, he found nothing but air. He passed through the knight-like creature’s torso like it was nothing, and he hit the ground only a momen...
2024-12-20 14:00:15 +0000 UTC View PostThere were more of them.
A lot more.
And Elijah knew why. The Primal Realm had been open for a couple of days by that point, and it had wasted no time in disgorging hordes of undead. As the group slowly traveled through the city, making their way to the third and final shrine, they encountered thousands of zombies, ...
2024-12-19 16:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostZeke slotted the final piece into the item, then held it up before him. It blazed with ethereal light, dispersing the fog directly in front of him. Instantly, his mind cleared, and he remembered where he was, what he was doing, and why.
“The Lantern of Clarity,” said Eveline. “Another myth made real.”
...
2024-12-19 14:00:13 +0000 UTC View PostUnder Guise of the Unseen, Elijah swam forward, passing through a dense clump of kelp until he saw his goal. His heart jumped into his throat as he beheld a once-magnificent clam. There was nothing else nearby. No fish. No other sea life. Just an enormous clam the size of a small SUV.
It was obvious that...
2024-12-18 16:10:01 +0000 UTC View PostThough he endeavored to hide it, even Elijah was a little surprised at how much damage he had done with Incinerate. The ability itself didn’t sound terribly impressive – especially next to more complex spells with flowery names – but he couldn’t deny its effectiveness.
On the surface, killing one monster – no matter h...
2024-12-18 16:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostSadie swung her sword, hacking an abomination in half at the waist. It had taken two strikes – the hulking monsters were incredibly durable, even with Dat’s curses decreasing their Constitutions – but she’d managed it all the same. That was primarily due to her spell, Blessed Blade, which was an evolution of the generic Warri...
2024-12-17 16:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostZeke peered at the steps, studying the fog billowing down from their summit. It was only fifteen feet above him, but it felt like an insurmountable distance. That was because he could feel the mist invading his thoughts. Already, he found it difficult to think, and he suspected that if he fully immersed himself in the fog, it w...
2024-12-17 14:00:15 +0000 UTC View Post“It is abominable, don’t you think?” said Gideon, leaning against the railing and staring out at the gentle waves.
The ferry was incapable of moving quickly – only a couple of miles an hour – so the trip to the island where the Tin Hau Temple was located would take a little while. Elongating that journey was the fact ...
2024-12-16 16:00:09 +0000 UTC View PostOften, people referred to the demon realm as Hell. Zeke had done so more times than he could count, and he considered himself a decent authority on the subject. However, after taking ten steps past the gate, he started to reevaluate his word choices. Because if anything ever qualified for that label, the environment on the othe...
2024-12-16 14:00:16 +0000 UTC View Post“Just a second, bro,” Dat said, already striding forward. As he did so, Elijah studied the dock and its surroundings. Vaguely, he sensed that something was off about the whole scene, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on exactly what was wrong.
“Where is he going?” asked Gideon. “What is he doing? ...
2024-12-15 16:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostElijah stepped through the gate and found nothing waiting. For a moment, he was extremely confused until Dat spoke up. “Hey, bro,” he said. “We got tired of waiting out in the open, so we moved across the street.”
“Since when could you talk and not break stealth?”
“New evolution,” Dat answered. ...
2024-12-14 16:00:09 +0000 UTC View PostElijah let Shape of Thorn fall away, and he stood statue-still in the center of the circle. Even the blood – of which there was quite a lot – had disappeared, leaving the tiles entirely pristine.
The old man stepped into the circle.
When he was ten feet away, he stopped and studied Elijah. His eyes settled...
2024-12-13 16:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostAs Zeke flew backwards, he regretted many of his life decisions. Before he could get too far into the many mistakes in his life, he hit a solid wall that surprisingly did not crumble. It did rattle his bones, though – a testament to how hard he’d been hit. As he fell to the ground with a crash, and a moment later, his hand ...
2024-12-13 14:00:13 +0000 UTC View PostElijah stood on a cliff, staring in awe at the complex across the bridge. From an aesthetic standpoint, it was almost identical to the Man Mo Temple he’d seen from without. However, it was much, much larger, looking more like a grand fortress than a modest temple in the middle of a city.
The bridge itself was made of wh...
2024-12-12 16:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostAs Zeke fell into the Pit, he regretted his life decisions.
It wasn’t difficult to see why, either. The Pit was less of a hole in the ground and more like the maw of some gargantuan creature. Teeth as large as buildings jutted from the edges, while something wet and squishy awaited down below. But at the moment, Zeke wa...
2024-12-12 14:00:15 +0000 UTC View PostIt felt like a thousand eyes were following Elijah’s every move.
It was not an unreasonable sensation, especially given the setting. In fact, there was a good chance that he’d underestimated the threat. He’d stopped counting the number of zombies in the area at around five hundred, and he knew he’d only scratched ...
2024-12-11 16:10:01 +0000 UTC View Post“Do you think I should do it?” Miguel asked, walking next to Nerthus as the spryggent made his rounds. Fat drops of rain fell upon the young man’s shoulders, washing away the sweat of his most recent bout of training. It was cold, but he could ignore that so he could experience the rain’s rejuvenating properties. The sp...
2024-12-11 16:00:05 +0000 UTC View Post“I do not like him,” said Song Tianwei. For a long moment, he stared at the door, through which Elijah had just exited before adding, “He is…impertinent.”
“He’s not that bad,” Sadie said, glad that the meeting was over. Only she and her grandfather remained in the conference room. All the others – ...
2024-12-10 16:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostZeke slammed his hammer into the demonic creature, exploding one of its heads. That seemed to be the right one, because the monster went limp a second later. After that, silence reigned across the battlefield. He looked around at the results of the last hour’s worth of fighting, and a shiver went up his spine.
“When d...
2024-12-10 14:00:13 +0000 UTC View PostElijah could move pretty quickly, even on foot. Part of that was due to his high attributes, but he also had Lupine Reflexes speeding him along as well. The upgrade to Essence of the Wolf hadn’t gained anything in terms of raw speed, but the attributes he’d gained over the past couple of months definitely affected his pace. In ad...
2024-12-09 16:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostMixik betrayed him the second they entered the city, proclaiming loudly that Zeke was an interloper. The only silver lining to that dark cloud – as represented by an angry mob of demons – was that Zeke had expected it. So had Eveline, which she wasn’t shy about reminding him.
“You can’t trust demons, Ezekiel. Ho...
2024-12-09 14:00:12 +0000 UTC View PostSometimes, it was easy to forget that, no matter what else happened, no matter how many evolutions he went through, Elijah was always a Druid first. It took precedence over his class, and from it, everything else stemmed. It was a key distinction, and one that Elijah knew he shouldn’t allow himself to forget. Never was it cle...
2024-12-08 16:00:04 +0000 UTC View Post“Stay here,” Benedict commanded, glancing back at his horde of imps. He’d lost count of how many he’d summoned over the previous month, and getting an accurate count was almost impossible due to the little minions’ inability to stand still for more than a millisecond. However, he did know that there were at least a few doze...
2024-12-07 16:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostThe moment Elijah left the metro behind, he realized that he’d just jumped out of the proverbial frying pan and into the fire. There were tens of thousands of zombies around, and more than a few were the augmented version he’d just killed with Incinerate. Thankfully, they didn’t immediately react to his arrival, so he had enoug...
2024-12-06 16:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostThe demon pushed back his hood, revealing a face that looked almost elven in its sharp symmetry. However, it was marred by a wicked scar that stretched from his eyebrow, down his cheek, and to the corner of his mouth. In addition, the demon’s elven appearance was further sullied by the presence of small, curved horns – maybe an i...
2024-12-06 14:00:09 +0000 UTC View Post