After a series of increasingly personal and weird questions strangely supported by the feeling of the best bath I’d ever had, Nievtala’s conversation with me drew to a close. I couldn’t think of any questions that I had for her right at that moment, but though she’d assured me that I might never find myself in this sp...
2025-01-31 04:00:07 +0000 UTC View Post“You ask a good question.” Nievtala said, her form shifting without moving like a physical body. Once she laid on the “ground”, she continued speaking. “I cannot give much in the way of specifics, given that I am prohibited from revealing as much. However, generally, I can confirm a fear and thought you have already...
2025-01-30 04:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostAs I opened my eyes, my evolution complete, I rolled my shoulders and disregarded the sounds of excitement from my surroundings while I thought back on the conversation and revelations I’d just had.
The same moment I’d named her as Nievtala, the Administrator shifted from a formless presence to a towering godd...
2025-01-29 04:00:06 +0000 UTC View Post[Leiyalt Alniyh POV]
The High Lord of the Alniyh House strode through the halls of the Synod’s Consortium, the masses falling back from his presence. Perhaps the sizzling Skyr on his shoulder added to his presence, but his Bound served to prove his power and influence. After all, no other was allowed their Bound withi...
2025-01-28 04:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostI walked through the city, giving quick commands to whoever I saw to gather near the wall where we’d first entered the city. It was a testament to my wholly solidified authority that, as I walked, my journey came across fewer and fewer keelish, though Brutus sending another of the guards forward to give the same command hel...
2025-01-26 02:24:05 +0000 UTC View PostAs it turned out, Joral merely wanted some measure of assistance with adjusting the resting places for the herds, and to ensure that they weren’t anywhere that I didn’t want them to be. Before long, I’d conferred with Sybil and determined that, in truth, I didn’t care about the urban planning of a city. I wanted to be...
2025-01-25 04:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostThough I easily could have led the swarm in subjugating this next of ants, I left it to Solia and Hala and anyone else that wanted to. Before long, the damned things were flooding out of the hole that the Shandise’s absence uncovered, numbering hundreds of massive angry creatures. With the Wave and Voltaic Wolfstags’ help...
2025-01-24 04:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostThe city of Nievtala is both more majestic and disappointing than I’d hoped. Its tall parapets have obviously been reinforced over the existing walls that remained from the ruins, and they’re staffed by Saharliard of every caste and age. As a side note, I find it to be especially interesting to speak with the ...
2025-01-23 04:00:02 +0000 UTC View PostI stood tall, looking for whatever I could see. The sounds came from the center of the city, below the tower. Before my disbelieving eyes, the tower cracked, groaned, and fell, stones dropping from at least 100 feet up and smashing into the unforgiving ground below. The one standing structure was demolished, and the guilty pa...
2025-01-22 04:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostDays passed, blending into painful weeks of slow journeying. The only consolation, other than my firm belief that we were continuously approaching our final destination, was that the shadow beasts grew less and less common the further north we progressed. We refused to make the mistake of not preparing sufficient materials fo...
2025-01-21 04:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostWe quickly learned that few of the shadow monsters were quite so desperate, or perhaps foolhardy, as to charge into the light of the fires at night. For three days, we passed through the Shadow Plains, as I thought of them, and we continued to run into more and more of them as we moved. Some seemed lethargic and imperious, ot...
2025-01-18 04:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostConfirmation of the ancient foe came when some of our hunters followed the thickfeathers’ migration north at the end of summer. From far off, they saw the scaly beasts attempting to cow and domesticate the thickfeathers, “to little success” they’d boasted. Their pride, our pride, I suppose, has never known...
2025-01-17 04:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostAN: There's a new epigraph in chapter 288 that's kinda ish related to this chapter. I wrote it today when inspiration struck, so it's there now!
With bated breath, the vast majority of the swarm waited for true night to fall. The suns dipped behind the Shandise to our west long before true darkness descended over the la...
2025-01-16 04:00:03 +0000 UTC View Post“I don’t imagine you simply left the creature to die for no reason.” I said, tilting my head to look at the contorted body.
“Of course not.” Vefir’s tone was slightly offended. “After I began to heal it, though, I quickly realized that there was something more than just the wounds to its flesh. The magic o...
2025-01-15 04:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostThe lands left behind after the fall of the Saharliard were quickly reclaimed, though not by their destroyers. Instead, the empire itself turned feral and demanded freedom from its would-be rulers. It quickly became apparent that the lands were more trouble than they were worth, and only the most pigheaded and det...
2025-01-14 04:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostI continue to send these letters, though I know you are no longer here and your mother can’t bear to read them. Perhaps, sending them is a way for me to feel that you will still be waiting at the docks whenever I return.
Your sister remains among the Veratocracy, and I doubt...
2025-01-11 06:54:26 +0000 UTC View PostGoing through the pass was uneventful, though the hunters continued to report new creatures spotted throughout the day. Something like a wolfstag without horns but small and orange was a favorite of the Sik’Tal, and those who managed to lay eye on one considered it to be a lucky sign. After the little wolves’ designation ...
2025-01-10 03:48:19 +0000 UTC View PostI finally gave up on any more sleep about the same time the suns rose. Many of the Kha’Tal rose and tended to the myriad tasks that I’d forgotten needed to be done, such as tending to the young in the herds, discarding any refuse acquired through the night, and deliberately creating enough noise near the other members of ...
2025-01-09 04:24:28 +0000 UTC View PostContrary to any of my expectations, the excited Arwa who’d left returned despondent. She curled up at my feet and quietly whimpered as the dozens of wolfstags, new and old alike, gathered around her. Before, a mere nine Voltaic Wolfstags resided within my swarm, but now more than three dozen surrounded me while the Wave Wol...
2025-01-08 04:41:00 +0000 UTC View PostThe ants made for a crunchy, but somehow still slimy meal. I couldn’t say why it was that the texture of a giant ant wasn’t to my liking, but it wasn’t. Fortunately enough, plenty of the rest of the swarm were happy and willing to eat whatever was put in front of them. A couple of the unprepared found a chunk of chitin ...
2025-01-07 03:50:34 +0000 UTC View Post[Joral POV]
These mountains smelled like possibility to Joral. Whenever he talked like that to any of the rest of the swarm, they couldn’t understand him, but since he was alone right now, he allowed himself to indulge in the strange thoughts. There was so much here that nobody knew anything about, and Joral could fee...
2025-01-04 18:59:12 +0000 UTC View PostA/N: I couldn't help myself with that title, haha
I didn’t allow myself to express the frustration I felt as I demanded that the flighty child take me to her father. Sybil immediately understood my intent when I glanced at her and so she turned to continue directing the swarm in my absence. Her competence and trust ma...
2025-01-03 04:35:13 +0000 UTC View PostWe will allow their tyranny no longer! That they dare to call us subhuman or half is an affront to Huldtar and Narsha’at alike! Let us spill their blood and burn their bones! I will be the first to offer my life and my arm, now join me!
-From the final address of Noonbright Teikho...
2025-01-02 04:18:37 +0000 UTC View Post“Stop!” Sybil cried out, blood trailing from her nostrils. I cursed as I jogged towards her and disregarded the aches and pains that coursed through my body with every step. [Spear of the Many] drew enough magical power from my “true believers” that the single time I’d pushed even a little harder with the disorienti...
2025-01-01 07:14:47 +0000 UTC View PostThe vibrating dirt underfoot grew still as I stopped drawing from my sonilphon. Pulsating waves flowing freely from my palms ceased, and I “watched” them fade into the depths of the earth. My latest experiment to use [Destructive Wave] in a less destructive wave was interesting, if seemingly useless. Per the [Skill], I co...
2024-12-31 07:05:02 +0000 UTC View PostAs she stood before me, Shemira shifted from one foot to the other nervously. Nearly a year ago, when I was young and inexperienced and confused, I’d seen her as an unflappable, confident leader. As the weeks of conflict then months of companionship passed, I saw that while Shemira presented a confident front, she so freque...
2024-12-28 02:17:38 +0000 UTC View PostWhen we passed through the Shandise to the so-called Shadow Plains, I was obligated to ask my guides why such a well-lit land was called as much.
“There is a somewhat notable forest in places here,” I’d said as I looked over the Plains from the foothills of the Shandise. I wat...
2024-12-27 04:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostThe talking rat scampered off and my swarm scattered to find prey. By my command, the hunters would range much further away in their search for prey. Though I wanted to participate in the hunt myself, I refused to indulge. Instead, I spoke with the Alphas who remained. The elites, the khatif, and the most motivated of my swar...
2024-12-26 05:55:28 +0000 UTC View PostHey! Happy holidays! I'll be spending a lot of time with family for a variety of holidays this week, so I can't guarantee that I'll be regular with chapter updates. Thank you so much for reading!
You must come and see. The mustelids can’t make a decision at this point, much less the rodentia. 2024-12-24 05:12:20 +0000 UTC View Post
[Djallma POV]
Though he’d long been her personal mentor, Djallma felt the subtle emotion Salmar’s command carried. He was not happy. She schooled her face and posture, and though much of her wanted to fall in step and rush to the elderly man’s side, Djallma made sure to follow the usual ways. A quiet word here, a ...
2024-12-21 04:58:03 +0000 UTC View Post
