The demons’ march was a natural disaster. They rolled down the winding mountain paths, toppling trees, torching the plains, scaring clouds of crows and ravens and rocs to flight, whipping up stampedes of stags and boars, bears, sending the lesser serpents rustling through the underbrush. The ground they passed was leveled, ...
2023-10-06 16:30:01 +0000 UTC View PostIt felt like half the City was in the Guard. The other half was shut up behind windows pasted over with steel plate, or wood boards, or stuffed high with stones and sealed with bits of wastepaper—whatever they could find. It wouldn’t stop a volley of demon Hellfire, but then again very little in the Lower City could. Ruyi...
2023-10-05 16:30:01 +0000 UTC View PostIt was afternoon, and the sun looked to Chen Qin like one shiny bronze coin falling slowly out of the sky. It cast the training field in red, gave the sweaty tunics and sweaty hair-buns and sweaty trousers a bloodied look. But none of these folk had faced true battle—unless you counted whatever street scrapping they’d don...
2023-10-04 16:30:01 +0000 UTC View PostRuyi found herself sitting there awkwardly, with nothing to do. So she fetched one of the yearly Alchemy reviews off a nearby bookshelf and pretended to browse it, even though she’d already read it and had it memorized, and honestly far preferred reading it in her head to reading it on the page; she could flip through it so...
2023-10-03 16:30:01 +0000 UTC View PostIf her absence from the dinner in her honor that night caused any problems, Mother didn’t mention it. It was late when Mother visited, nearly midnight, and Ruyi was alright by then, still a little red-eyed, mostly just angry at herself and sad. She was angry for letting what he said matter to her. She was sad because she kn...
2023-10-02 16:30:01 +0000 UTC View PostIt was still dark when she woke. She fumbled her way off the bed, threw open the closet, realized she couldn’t see anything, flickered on the qi lamp on her nightstand. It was a simple enough room, sparsely populated, but everything from the sofa to the bed looked expensive in an understated way. The air was cool and clear,...
2023-09-30 16:30:01 +0000 UTC View PostThe fog parted like curtains on a stage, and Ruyi’s breath caught in her throat.
They stood on the banks of a lake. It had to be a lake, since there were no oceans this deep in the province, but it could’ve fooled her—it stretched on and on with seemingly no end, fading into the murky white distance. It wasn’t v...
2023-09-29 16:30:02 +0000 UTC View PostIt looked like any other carriage on the inside. No wings or engines or anything. All that was different was they had dispensers with paper bags built into the walls, and these steel handlebars jutting out of the ceiling. Ruyi wasn’t sure what they were for until the carriage jolted into motion and she went facefirst into t...
2023-09-28 16:30:01 +0000 UTC View PostFactory 17 was a giant steel box. Four sheets of metal with chunks ripped out for windows, plus a sheet to seal up the ceiling, welded together overnight, with a rash of chimneys dotting the top. Like its sixteen siblings it’d been thrown up in a flash—they’d burned down an abandoned building near the seaward edge of th...
2023-09-27 16:25:26 +0000 UTC View PostRuyi waited until the third knock to answer the door.
Tingting must’ve known she’d be here. She still looked stunned. For a moment they just stared, taking each other in.
Tingting wore a white hanfu tinged blue at the edges, loose at the wrists and ankles, tied snug around her slim waist with a thin g...
2023-09-26 16:30:01 +0000 UTC View PostThey faced off, she in Demonform, circling, growling, licking her lips, and him grinning back at her, keeping the tip of his spear between them.
“I can’t get over how big you are,” he muttered.
She opened her mouth to make a crude joke but all that came out was a growl. When she fought Mother she felt like f...
2023-09-25 16:30:01 +0000 UTC View PostThe next day Ruyi got a letter with a royal seal. The paper smelled of Tingting. For a moment she let herself hope.
Then she read the letter.
It was short. It apologized for ‘the unfortunate incident that happened yesterday,’ due to a ‘lapse of judgment.’ It claimed Tingting embarrassed herself, and asked ...
2023-09-24 16:30:02 +0000 UTC View PostThe Blood Showers, as the Post had taken to calling them, didn’t stop. Mother’s stay at the Li Clan was extended from a week, to weeks, to months. The Li Clan simply didn’t have members to cover all of Dragonspire Province. Some Shards, nestled in some remote region of the Mountains, worsened to infestations; M...
2023-09-23 16:30:01 +0000 UTC View PostA/N: for last chapter, edited her internal thoughts as she hesitates + other small fixes.
slightly changed the moment when she stands over Chen and has her realization-- ty for your suggestions!
didn’t change anything too major, mostly cuts
//
They didn’t bother following her, but ...
2023-09-22 16:30:02 +0000 UTC View PostShe burst out onto the main road. She didn’t risk demonforming—she didn’t need to. She was still so fast she nearly kept pace with the stars as they fell. She tracked them until they vanished over the treeline. They peeked between the crisscrossing branches, winking at her, daring her.
She chased them up the trees...
2023-09-21 13:44:02 +0000 UTC View PostShe felt a prickling at the back of her neck. The hair on her skin stood up. Her arm felt like it was burning as Mother spirited her back to the manor.
She saw why. The eyes were coming to her. A scattering drifting over the faint outline of the Middle Wall, strangely silent, trailing wisps of red. Her blood bo...
2023-09-20 16:37:09 +0000 UTC View PostAfter the fall of the Cult, splinter groups popped up in the Lower City. Some were like that brat Tai Kong’s, the Red Scarf Knights, a bunch of miscreant hooligan boys who got together, drank, trained Martial Arts, and nursed fantasies of overthrowing the world order.
Then there was the People’s Army, a more respect...
2023-09-19 16:30:00 +0000 UTC View PostRuyi lunged. Eyes glowing red, mouth frothing mist, claws trailing long lines of frost. She descended upon Mother like a tumbling avalanche.
But her claws caught only voidsand, a small tundra crackling into being where they’d sunk in.
She whirled, snarling—
CRACK!
She went over yowling. 2023-09-18 16:34:00 +0000 UTC View Post
“I came to say congratulations,” said Tingting.
“Ah,” said Ruyi, and she smiled. It was a trick she’d picked up from Jin. She could be melting inside but she still made her face make the shapes, pulled up the muscles of the upper cheeks, tightened the muscles around her eyes to make the little crinkles, the on...
2023-09-17 16:30:01 +0000 UTC View Post2 years later…
Yuyu Zhu staked out her spot in the upper decks of the auditorium three hours before the awards ceremony began.
It was the finale of the Rising Phoenix Conference, the annual three-day extravaganza the Alchemist’s Guild put on. Alchemists from all over the Dynasty pooled to shar...
2023-09-16 16:27:01 +0000 UTC View PostMother cleared out one of the basement libraries and bolted nethersteel pads to the walls and the grounds. It was to be a training room, just for Ruyi. It was modeled after what they used for the Emperor’s highest-security dungeons; it was built to withstand the stress of a Demon King.
Here Ruyi could throw around dem...
2023-09-15 16:30:01 +0000 UTC View PostThe sliding bamboo doors which framed the courtyard were qi-proofed with the highest grade arrays. They had to be, to withstand the training Mother and Jin often did here. The courtyard itself was mostly a voidsand pit the size of a small park, with training dummies, targets, sandbags, and weaponry stacked on racks to either ...
2023-09-14 16:30:01 +0000 UTC View PostThe world seemed unreal. The colors, how bright they were, the stunning green of the fluttering grasses, a little green ocean swirling with the winds—they’d stuck her in some dungeon near the servants’ quarters, she realized, somewhere she hadn’t known existed. She followed Mother on the long trek back, the shadows of...
2023-09-13 16:30:01 +0000 UTC View PostA day later, Jin brought her dinner. Raw fish and blood broth. She didn’t touch it.
He didn’t leave, either. He sat there watching her for a little while, like he was observing some feral animal. She ignored him.
“Mother and I had a talk,” he said. “I think… I think I understand better now.”
He...
2023-09-12 16:30:01 +0000 UTC View PostA/N:
To those who gave feedback the first chapter of the new thing, thank you! Following y'alls feedback I'll be banking a few chapters before I release them here. May be extensively revising, may be trying another premise; not sure yet. Think I'll spend Sundays as tinkering days. I won't put anything u...
2023-09-11 16:30:02 +0000 UTC View PostA/N:
This is meant to be a lighthearted popcorn-y story, working title: Solo System Cultivation
It'll be fairly tropey.
May be throwing these up 1/week on Sundays, maybe twice a week once the Twinned backlog gets beefy enough
Please enjoy this (temporary) Chapter 1!
Basic...
2023-09-10 16:30:01 +0000 UTC View PostWith each stroke a body fell. Her arm did not stop moving, and when she solved a demon it ceased moving—not so much as a twitch as it returned to the soil. It was clear where the Butcher was heading.
“Here she comes…” breathed Cassius. “Ready?”
“Cassius,” said Dricus, swallowing. Cassius could smel...
2023-09-09 16:30:01 +0000 UTC View PostA/N: think I will try devoting Sundays to doing 1x a week of a more conventional popcorn litRPG cultivation story and try a 6x Twinned, 1x other thing schedule. Or possibly a 5x Twinned 2x other thing (weekdays/weekends split) once I get Twinned's Dragon Tier backlog up to ~25 chapters
Working (generic)...
2023-09-08 16:30:01 +0000 UTC View PostShe drank, and her soul sang.
The world was made of brighter, bolder colors. Her body felt light, floating, and her chest throbbed with warmth.
Then she felt four white-hot points sink into her side.
Enraged, she let loose the carcass, spun, slashed, but her enemy spun with her—a giant serpent-demon, she s...
2023-09-07 16:30:00 +0000 UTC View PostShe was drowning, but drowning had an end.
Her mind had cracked wide open. Feelings ran through her like water through a sieve, fierce and white hot.
She was slipping. She clung on as best she could. Her body wouldn’t listen. Nothing listened—only she did, and she heard a high ringing note of pain, echoing, ec...
2023-09-06 16:30:01 +0000 UTC View Post
