The first thing to go wrong wasn’t subtle. Hector felt the energetic weight hit him as he approached the tall wall bridging the gap between foothill and mountain. It was not quite so overwhelming as what he remembered, but that didn’t make it any more welcoming.
The burgermeister of Toll Burgh, the one who stopped fighting in that city, had a suppression externality. If he were to jud...
2025-07-24 10:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostHector followed the stream down to where it pooled in a deep subterranean pond. He was knee deep in sluggishly moving water before he located a dry ledge he could climb onto. The fact that he’d identified the ledge with his touch sense almost made up for his annoyance at the water.
He’d always heard the claim that when someone lost sight their other senses became stronger. That sounde...
2025-07-23 10:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostThe man eyed Hector. “Go to Toll Burgh. Mayor prevents fighting there.”
Toll Burgh. He remembered that name from the map. When he pulled it out of its carrying case, Hector quickly found the named city. It sat in a narrow ravine between a mountain and a foothill that looked like it had been carved off. The city was about the same distance from Bach as he’d had to travel from Rags to...
2025-07-22 10:00:07 +0000 UTC View Post“How you want fight rest of the bitches?”
“New rule, effective immediately: you can’t call women bitches anymore.”
Hans smirked at the attempt to regulate him. “How you want kill the Azure women?”
“I assume from the name of their group that they all use spears?” Hector watched for the nod, then sighed. “At least no one is going to hit us with a chaos bolt....
2025-07-21 10:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostThe safe house Hans guided Hector to was an apartment above a butcher shop. It entirely lacked furniture. Hans paid the butcher a couple of small coins for meat trimmings that were mostly greasy fat and elastic tendons, then they climbed steep stairs to enter the safe house. Hans tossed the trimmings into a tin bowl, threw in a pinch of salt, added water from a jug, and set the bowl over top of...
2025-07-18 10:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostThere was no one to run from among the ruins of Rags. Hector took his time touring the debris. It looked like a natural disaster leveled the town. Though if he had to guess, Hector would wager that the disaster was more along the line of ‘chaos bolt’ than ‘earthquake’ or ‘tornado’.
The human remains were nothing more than bones picked clean by animals and bleached by the sun. ...
2025-07-17 10:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostLord Zara insisted he change clothes immediately. Hector, way too old to feel uncomfortable in his own body, felt uncomfortable anyway. He could not get a read on the level ten woman he now worked for. She snapped her fingers impatiently, not wanting to waste her time with unnecessary delays. She also gave the impression of being moderately annoyed with him in general. Yet she showed far too mu...
2025-07-16 10:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostA treasure hunt? Hector’s mind went to thoughts of buried pirate treasure and Indiana Jones searching for archaeological relics. How was he becoming mixed up in something like this? It made no sense whatsoever. Maybe Dorian had strangled Hector to death back at the farm and this was all some sort of wild dream caused by synapses misfiring as he died.
Dorian laughed. “I think you broke...
2025-07-15 10:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostHector’s stream of consciousness consisted of every profane word he knew looped together on repeat. This was extremely bad. He glanced at Riley, guilt stabbing into his heart. They were both dead. Guaranteed to grace the inside of elixir bottles. Maybe immediately or maybe after a period of retributive torture.
How had this happened? Did the farmers sell him out?
It really didn’...
2025-07-14 10:00:07 +0000 UTC View Post“Vivian returned to her home world, so we had to split up.” The lie of the breakup came easier to him than the lie of the relationship ever had. It wasn’t nearly so cheesy.
“Oh, I’m sure you were heartbroken.” Maggie pursed her lips as she studied Riley. “Who is your new lady friend? She’s quite pretty.”
“This is Riley.” Hector noticed other people around the n...
2025-07-11 10:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostThree weeks seemed to take forever. Hector had done more cultivation lately than he cared for. He wanted to break free of his routine. There was his trading business he wanted to push forward. He hadn’t conducted his civic duty to fight in the dungeon for a while. And Aes needed boots on the ground – well, bare feet on the ground in his case. There were things to do and he spent all his tim...
2025-07-10 10:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostEsther placed most of the beans into long term storage and set about preserving the cabbage by chopping and freezing it. She hummed happily and insisted on Hector drinking a celebratory glass of apple juice with her. The juice was sour and slightly off. She’d added mundane sugar to conceal some of the unpleasantness, but it didn’t do a great job.
Hector cultivated chaos while watching...
2025-07-09 10:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostHector got incrementally closer to reaching the peak of five in his mind aperture during his session in the dungeon. He didn’t believe the System’s claim that he was there already. Maybe it was just a rounding error, but the System was definitely wrong.
Not that it really mattered. A strengthened mind was a good thing, but it couldn’t compare to the benefits of an enhanced body or i...
2025-07-08 10:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostIt took a few moments for the previous sentence to penetrate his brain. Actually, he wasn’t sure if the words penetrated quite properly. “Darius is being what now?”
“He’s the Dungeon Master.”
There was no way those words meant the same thing on Union Central as they did on Earth. The thought of Darius involved in a role playing game made no sense. Hector cleared his thro...
2025-07-07 10:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostIt took three weeks for Hector to build up enough energy for his trip home. He could have left after two weeks, but he didn’t want to be stingy with his first trip home. The couple weren’t willing to part with any of their crops until he had something to trade, but they let him take as many apples as he could carry. Which led to him creating his transit sphere beside one of the twisted tree...
2025-07-04 10:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostHector fled from the sight of the Lord Platinum’s black tower without a second thought. He did not want to be on Tian again. If the fight with Cataclysm hadn’t drained his energy reserves down to a measly ten percent, he would be ditching this world immediately. But if he had to pick a place to dump an angry level ten Ogre… well, Platinum and Cataclysm could entertain one another.
H...
2025-07-03 10:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostHe smashed the Ogre Cataclysm into the ground with a heavy rock across her back. Her head twisted around like her spine didn’t understand the limitations of human anatomy and she tried to bite him. Hector let it happen, then drove his fist deeper into her mouth.
Maybe it had been foolish to believe in his aura after how she shrugged off his cables, but Hector was rewarded for his faith ...
2025-07-02 10:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostThe warden turned his hard gaze to Mila. “The demon dying to the beast would be no great loss, but your strength could fuel an even greater massacre.”
Hector’s Strigoi ally tilted her head as she regarded the man. “I know you are not so foolish as to believe what is held in my flesh can ever compare to the accumulated life energy of the Mother Tree. The only reason I can imagine f...
2025-07-01 10:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostHector spent three days cultivating at that site before moving on. He’d located a muddy pond not far from there and trusted in his body enhancement to let him survive any disease that might lurk in the filthy water. He would have stayed longer to replenish through mental cultivation if not for his mounting hunger.
Undergrowth was beginning to reclaim the trail of destruction from the Og...
2025-06-30 10:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostThe battle ended with Hector down to fifteen percent in his reserves. He didn’t improve that estimate all that much in the single hour Fred allowed for their recovery. Fortunately, he had time to cultivate while riding on the rover. They received a hero’s welcome after reporting their victory, which included another feast and Hector receiving another special invitation from Mila.
As h...
2025-06-27 10:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostThey left at dawn, skipping breakfast this time due to rising nerves. Their last battle had been too close for comfort. Without an Alfar guide, it took half the time to reach the area.
From there, Hector and the Titans slipped into the thick woods.
It took them five minutes to encounter their first monster. The giant spider died before it even knew a threat was present. It had been ...
2025-06-26 10:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostThey remained in hiding for five days before Nestor declared their seclusion over.
“Any longer without food and I won’t be able to fight.”
Hector had raised his reserves to about forty percent, so he didn’t object. His enhanced body could handle much longer without food, but the downside was that his flesh would draw heavily on his cosmic energy in the absence of calories. ...
2025-06-25 10:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostFour percent energy reserves. He was naked, exhausted, and had to keep fighting anyway.
The gorilla died reaching for Hector with its one remaining arm, hate in its eyes. The cougars Nestor cleared out with wild swings of his fists. Then came a frog the size of Hector. It hopped forward fast as a bullet and bowled him over. Then its tongue flicked out, covered in miasmic nastiness, to wra...
2025-06-24 10:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostThe night went quite well. Hector even managed to get a few hours of sleep. His ego had inflated to a dangerous degree, so he endeavored to pop the bubble by listing the many reasons he hadn’t just done something epic.
First, Mila clearly wanted to bang a foreign demon who would be immune to her manipulations. She didn’t have a lot of realistic options for that. The Titans were built ...
2025-06-23 10:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostThey entered through the gate and witnessed the splendor of Breadfruit Village.
Trees dominated, both breadfruit and coconut, swaying with large fruit between wattle and daub houses. The palisade extended around approximately half of the large village’s perimeter. Most of the village real estate existed atop a peninsula stretching onto a large lake. The lake front property was defended ...
2025-06-20 10:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostHunter guided Misfit Squad on a winding trail just barely wide enough for Fred to pass. The Alfar man had grown taciturn after parting with the other survivors of his village. Fred kept quiet as well, other than to give occasional orders for Hector or one of the Titans to scout something out.
They stopped for lunch and Hunter accepted a tin of meatloaf and vacuum sealed fruit slices only ...
2025-06-19 10:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostTheir chosen path made for quick travel. The undergrowth strangling the area had turned halfway to dust, creating crunchy organic gravel between leafless tree skeletons. To either side plentiful plant life bloomed. As they covered ground, Hector couldn’t help but think of his father.
Thinking about how close he’d come to unleashing an Ogre on Earth. Despite the stab of longing to see ...
2025-06-18 10:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostHector almost glanced about like an idiot to spot their observer. It penetrated his brain in time that Cleo whispered so that they could keep their awareness secret from the unknown watcher. He nodded to her and glanced at the water bladder. Only a tenth full so far.
“A monster would have attacked already,” he muttered, trusting her enhanced senses to hear.
“I’m not eager to...
2025-06-17 10:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostNo one spoke of the Sage’s death. They didn’t know him well enough to grieve his loss. More than that, the fact that a level six Arahant with a Sage insight strongly suited to combat died in the first battle was an uncomfortable reminder of their own mortality. Though, Hector reflected, the mad swordsman had brought his fate on himself by charging into the worst of it. Death by miasma poiso...
2025-06-16 10:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostHis first cable strike landed on the forehead of an ibex. The monster didn’t slow even momentarily from the impact, though it lost an eye. H
His first cable strike landed on the forehead of an ibex. The monster didn’t slow even momentarily from the impact, though it lost an eye. Hector didn’t see if any of his other cables did any good because that first beast was on him. He seized ...
2025-06-13 10:00:06 +0000 UTC View Post