“Of course! I wouldn’t dare,” said Dorian, picking his words like a man changing handholds as he hung on the edge of a cliff. “I know how much your Fruits mean to you. All I ask is that you hear me out. Maybe there’s a path forward that’ll make us both happy.”
“A path that e...
2023-04-07 23:01:28 +0000 UTC View PostThe humble hut before them was made of straw and logs bound tight with thick twine. Its round windows glowed warm orange. A homely smell leaked out the edges of the wood door—a heady mix of cookies and bread, like cheese in a mousetrap. A little garden ringed the hut bursting with flowers too b...
2023-04-05 19:50:34 +0000 UTC View Post“Senna!” said Vinicius. “You’re late, I’m afraid. As per usual.”
“Shut the fuck up,” said the pretty girl with her pretty parasol on her pretty tiger. She pointed it at the Prince like a loaded gun. “Yield.”
“So blunt! So forthright. So predictable.” Vinicius c...
2023-04-03 20:24:49 +0000 UTC View PostHe poked Sun awake. She rubbed her eyes, nearly whacked him with the Jingu Bang, remembered where she was, packed up her condiments and ladles and knives.
“I’m hungry,” she yawned, groggy-grumpy.
“Oh, hush. You’ll have your fill before the day’s out.”
They...
2023-04-02 23:06:08 +0000 UTC View PostThe witching hours wore on. Outside a muted buzz grew into a throbbing howling grating roar as tens of thousands of Locusts took flight at once. Any creature that had any sense took shelter. The cries of the rest were drowned out by the swarm.
[Level-up!]
[Dragonoid: Base Form]
...
2023-04-01 01:40:44 +0000 UTC View PostSo there it was: Dorian, a vampire, a giant rat, and a furious coiling dragon whose powers vastly outstripped them all.
Frankly if this was a normal run Dorian would’ve thrown up his hands. Here all he thought about was how best to escape. As the dragon roared, the vampire shrieked, the r...
2023-03-29 13:14:46 +0000 UTC View PostMeanwhile, on the other side of Hell…
“How are you?”
Houyi knew who it was by the words alone, never mind that warm tone, nearly wispy, like a candle in a breeze.
“I am confined in a prison of Void Iron. In solitary confinement. Reduced to a ghost of mys...
2023-03-28 02:03:05 +0000 UTC View PostIn mortals there is a blissful moment between perception and sensation. Stub the toe and the pain will come—but in the meantime you’re suspended in the in-between. You feel no pain—yet—and so the brain helpfully supplies substitutes. Dawning horror. Fear. And sometimes, as the mo...
2023-03-26 13:54:49 +0000 UTC View PostEntering the Swamp felt like wading into the stomach of some giant serpent. Thick murky juices sloshed at your ankles. Thick boughs blocked out the sun high above. There were paths here—paths that often ended abruptly—some much more well-trodden than others. Glowing mushrooms with leapord-lik...
2023-03-24 16:15:25 +0000 UTC View PostThere were no stars in Hell. There were no celestial bodies. The sky was always the same twilight shade, colored only by gray ghost-streams winding between sagging coal clouds. At a distance it recalled rivers winding through mountain valleys, only flipped upside-down and drained of color.
...
2023-03-19 21:58:50 +0000 UTC View PostKill a creature and most of its worth is lost. Its soul vanishes. Its powers wink out. Its body is often broken, or—in the Taotie’s case—poisoned beyond salvage. But still the most potent remnants of a legendary God were not to be underestimated. As Dorian ate, Sun began to ramble.
...
2023-03-18 02:24:06 +0000 UTC View PostLabyrinth. 9th Circle of Hell.
“But since you insist, for you—just you—I’ve made an exception. Congratulations.”
The last thing Jez saw was the tip of the Javelin. Then the scrying glass, hung like a mirror on the wall of the study, went blank. Its bronze su...
2023-03-14 00:23:57 +0000 UTC View PostBa Serpents, and there were dozens of them. The bulk were demigods. A few huge ones, charging at the front, exuded the auras of Gods.
It was said that there was no creature a full-grown Ba Serpent could not swallow. Glancing left, seeing three giant heads burst into the clearing, Dorian cou...
2023-03-10 16:49:38 +0000 UTC View PostThey tore away so fast they sent gusts of air spiraling through the Forest, whistling a haunting dirge through the bone trees. Dorian bounded by on his sleek new hindlegs. He wound easily between bones, wrapping his tail about them as he slingshotted ahead. He took care not to let his tail’s wi...
2023-03-08 01:39:40 +0000 UTC View PostIt was no coincidence. A Jiangshi in the Bone Forest was unheard of. Jez must’ve tracked him here. But how?
Scrying glass? Or could he read the threads of Fate, tracking Dorian across realms?
Or—a last, most unpleasant thought—was it through blood? Had he someh...
2023-03-03 14:30:00 +0000 UTC View Post“Hmm….” Sun licked her lips. “Intriguing!”
“Ever had fried Greatslug cocoons?”said Dorian. “Dip them in heartfire sauce and it’s like a symphony in your mouth.”
Sun’s stomach growled, and she grinned. “Well, my belly certainly likes the idea. Buut...
2023-02-27 22:43:48 +0000 UTC View PostA/N: Another chapter ** UPDATE: Monday! I'll make an effort to get back to the usual Monday/Friday schedule. Sorry for the disruptions!
//
Fate nodded.
Then one last thought struck Dorian. He frowned. “Say,” he said. “How did you ...
2023-02-24 02:09:32 +0000 UTC View PostDorian floated in a blank void. It was a purgatory of the mind he knew all too well. He sighed. Any moment now all would go dark, and that’d be that! The end, for the last time.
He wasn’t mad about wasn’t how dumb it all was. He’d died in utterly humiliating fashion a hundred times!...
2023-02-19 22:46:07 +0000 UTC View PostA/N: Another chapter coming tomorrow probably!
//
“Follow me!” Sun set off at a brisk pace. Dorian tried to follow and ate a face full of soot for his trouble. He groaned, trying to flop his way to a halfway upright stance, but basic motor skills still eluded him....
2023-02-18 13:32:45 +0000 UTC View PostA/N: Sorry for the late upload! I owe y'all another chapter. I'm on it. Will get two more uploaded before the end of this week!
//
As Demigods, demons were still infants. Primal, more feeling than sense. But a rush of pure aggression animating a body dripping with tar...
2023-02-15 16:02:11 +0000 UTC View Post“If we are to survive, no more lies.” Dorian stared deep in her eyes. Her pupils seemed no color and every color at once; greenish, blueish, purplish, shifting like an optical illusion in the dim light. “Lie to me all you like once we’re outside. But if I’m to get us out of here alive I...
2023-02-08 23:59:46 +0000 UTC View PostPatreon-only bonus chapter!
The obvious answer was to kill her.
He found himself settling on it as she neared. He wasn’t sure what she was, but she wanted the eggs. So did he. What else was there to know? When it came to treasures as valuable as these, conflicts of ...
2023-02-06 00:50:15 +0000 UTC View PostHours passed. Steadily his Embryonic Essence ticked upward—past the 70% marker, then the 80%, then the 90%… his Bloodline Essence, too, crept closer and closer to 1.0. The Base Form.
He burned with the egg’s vital qi. And his new body emerged.
A scaly tail emerged, thick and pow...
2023-02-04 18:12:16 +0000 UTC View PostThe egg was big as a man, splotches of onyx staining its rust-red shell, glowing like a dark moon. Thick tufts of qi steamed off it, wreathing it in a soft halo. In that moment it was the most gorgeous thing Dorian had ever seen.
He felt a tug of Bloodline so strong he lost it. He was so fa...
2023-02-02 12:23:16 +0000 UTC View PostDorian knew he was going mad. He laughed, he whooped, he howled. It seemed only fitting, since the world had gone mad too. In one fell swoop his a speedrun went upside down. One moment he was in a desert, the next in Hell. One moment he was a peak Godking, the next—whatever the hells this was!<...
2023-01-30 02:07:46 +0000 UTC View PostA/N: Book 3, Chapter 1!
//
Molten Plains, 9th Circle of Hell
Dorian flopped about, gasping, feeling like a slab of meat left too long on the grill. Beneath him lay a vast stretch of molten coal veined with fissures, shifting uneasily atop ...
2023-01-27 16:28:34 +0000 UTC View PostOne plain arrow flew through the void, slow and heavy, like a battleship cruising inky seas. Its aim was true as it traced an arc through the Multiverse…
***
“Again.”
Dorian rushed at his brother, teeth bared, smiling wide as a jackal. The storm began. Feint jab. Feint jab...
2023-01-20 16:42:37 +0000 UTC View PostHis smile slipped off his face.
Tied up in the middle of some shit Lower Realm? Put down like some common hound? This was how he’d go out?!
And Houyi, too—how in the Nine Hells had he let this happen?! The evidence was plainly laid out. Yet Dorian could still not get a fi...
2023-01-16 22:17:03 +0000 UTC View PostThere was a slash like no other, a slash to end the world.
The world was reduced to two dimensions. Sound lost meaning. Dorian’s vision turned black-and-white. All else was static: static on his tongue, his skin, crackling across his skull.
Before his eyes, one piercing whi...
2023-01-15 20:45:29 +0000 UTC View PostHow annoying.
If he threw out another Technique he risked getting it ripped from him, turned on him.
If he tried close combat—frankly he didn’t fancy his chances against that sword in close quarters.
So what’ll it be? [Galactic Inferno]? He scratched his ...
2023-01-14 12:02:07 +0000 UTC View Post