DarkTechnomancer

Fates Parallel Chapter 566 - Riot

All it took was one spark. One person to step over the line and push too far. Once it happened, the fighting spread like a wildfire. There was no thought or organization to it, just raw emotion beyond what the brothers and sisters of Qin could keep contained.

It was always a danger with cultivators. Though they had a reputation for being cold and heartless, that was a mask they wore to ke...

Fates Parallel Chapter 565 - Vent

Doubt, suspicion, uncertainty. A wedge had been driven into the army besieging Kucheon, and Gao Yuanjun wasn’t sure where he landed. On one hand, the elders were right to be suspicious of the Fox Princess—or perhaps it made more sense to call her Fox Empress. It was impossible to know if any prisoner returned was truly free of her influence.

But executing them? It rankled. Those were ...

Fates Parallel Chapter 564 - Ploy

Everyone had their own reason to fight. Duty, loyalty, ambition, insatiable bloodlust—it was hardly an exaggeration to say that there were as many reasons as there were soldiers in the war. Those reasons mattered. They did not need to be the same, but they at least had to be compatible.

Yang Qiu cared little for the defense of Jiaguo as a nation, beyond the fact that it was a haven for ...

Fates Parallel Chapter 563 - Parole

There was no such thing as a war without bloodshed. There could be more or less violent wars, bloodier battles, or territories subverted by political guile. The Fox Princess had infamously taken Kucheon almost single-handedly, relying entirely on her bewitching gaze—but even she had needed to murder key figures in order to fully secure her reign. In the fighting between Qin and Jiaguo, there ...

Fates Parallel Chapter 562 - Convivial

The war had been going well ever since Bu Dong Rushan’s fall. Qin’s army took repeated losses and grew more and more aggressive in their deployment of xiantian threats. The front became a never-ending game of cat and mouse, as each side maneuvered their xiantian-level fighters to prevent either side from gaining complete dominance.

This meant, for the most part, that the actual fighti...

Fates Parallel Chapter 561 - Revenge

“Elder Qian Shi, when you assured me that Bu Dong Rushan’s defense was invincible, I believe we may have gotten our definitions mixed up. You see, I had assumed that meant that he wouldn’t be slain by a child who has lived less than three decades.”

Yan De was fuming. He had a reputation for his temper, which his so-called peers liked to mock him for, but they did not...

Fates Parallel Chapter 560 - Unstoppable

Jiaguo’s forces had been struggling after earning their first victory. They focused on mobile strike forces and quick skirmishes, but the semi-circle of Qin’s armies ensured that they were always outnumbered. They’d had some limited success by deploying multiple attacks at once, some of which were feints and distractions, but Qin didn’t hesitate to send elites or even xiantians to drive...

Fates Parallel Chapter 559 - Immovable

After that first engagement, neither side had been able to gain any decisive victories. There had been fighting, and even Gao Yuanjun’s unit had seen some action, but Jiaguo wasn’t willing to commit to any major engagements, while Qin’s forces could not pursue their retreats. Qin took more losses than Jiaguo did, but they were fairly minor and it was far from enough to overcome their supe...

Fates Parallel Chapter 558 - Engagement

It happened almost exactly as he predicted. The Goryeon forces made their camp inside their infamous magical shields, while the empire sought to project as much force as possible by encircling the city as near to the shield as they could without being in range of artillery spells. And there, they made their first mistake.

Perhaps. It was not Gao Yuanjun’s place to judge, but if it were,...

Fates Parallel Chapter 557 - Enemy

Cultivators marched shoulder to shoulder, an army unlike any the world had seen. Fifteen thousand in number—which didn’t sound like much in the scale of armies. Until you stood in the center of it, soldiers crowding the road all the way into the horizons ahead and behind. Of course, the Heavenly Empire was capable of fielding hundreds of thousands—even millions, but those were mortal sold...

Fates Parallel Chapter 556 - Mobilization

One of Yoshika’s earliest lessons in the old academy was that Qin’s cultivators could move deceptively fast. For a long distance march, nobody could match Yamato’s armies, but in a sprint? Qin would win every time.

It would still be at least a day before they arrived at Kucheon, and they weren’t necessarily going to break into an all out assault the moment they arrived, but Yoshik...

Fates Parallel Chapter 555 - Danger

Anger came in many forms. Lee Narae’s anger burned hot and burst out in a vicious flash that died just as quickly. For Yoshika’s other disciple, Seong Haeun, it was a layer of cutting barbs and opportunistic jabs. An Eui’s anger was swift, brutal, and violent. But Yan Yue? Her anger was saccharine. A sickly sweet venom that went undetected until it was already far too late.

At least...

Fates Parallel Chapter 554 - Parley

War was not fast. The campaign in Yamato had taken nearly a year, and that was rather brief as such things went. Armies moved slowly, held back by the need for supply trains and only able to keep the pace of its slowest member when on the march. Qin was a huge nation, and it had taken Yoshika and her allies months to travel through even a third of it. For entire armies to march though, levying ...

Fates Parallel Chapter 553 - Perspective

Mingxia wasn’t sure what to make of her new liege. Contrary to what one might expect, Kucheon hadn’t always been obsessed with the city’s founder. She could remember a time when there was much debate about Seong Heiran and whether she was worth the hero worship she received. But that was a long time ago, and ultimately her adherents had won the struggle. Only Mingxia was old enough to rem...

Fates Parallel Chapter 552 - Heritage

Kucheon was an odd city, even setting aside the way they all fawned over the memory of Seong Heiran. It had originally been a Qin settlement, and the people and architecture represented that. Aside from their own local mage college, Kucheon’s buildings weren’t as tall as they were in most Goryeon cities. There were also fewer half-spirits. They were still the majority, but it was closer to ...

Fates Parallel Chapter 551 - Kucheon

Nobody truly knew what it meant for an empire like Qin to go to war. Officially, they never had before—with border disputes and skirmishes largely being the business of the sects, rather than the empire itself.

The empire did not have centuries of history fighting over territory with Yamato. That was the Great Austere Mountain sect, who controlled most of Qin’s southern ...

Fates Parallel Chapter 550 - Cabinet

Yue’s hands were shaking as the angry princesses cut off the connection to Jiaguo’s reflecting pool. It was just as well that they’d been communicating over such a long distance, as she doubted she’d have been able to contain herself. The princesses would have surely noticed her ulterior motives—probably had, though perhaps not the full extent of it.

Jia certainly did. ...

Character Redesigns - Heian and Iseul Grow Up

Here they are! The last of the smols, no longer so smol now that they've had a chance to grow up. Of course, they're still children by human standards, but spirits and elementals age a bit differently.

I really love Heian's new design. Tsuu did an amazing job of representing her weird sort of liminal state between ethereal and physical, and gave her a more mature look while still staying ...

Fates Parallel Chapter 549 - Notice

Foreign intelligence was always a murky subject. Information from spies and informants couldn’t always be trusted, and Qin had always been highly secretive. The mighty empire took up over half the continent, and had limited communication with the outside. That had been changing, ever so slowly, since the founding of the original Grand Academy, and that change accelerated when Yoshika establis...

Fates Parallel Chapter 548 - Mature

Lee Narae kicked her feet idly as she stared up at the clear skies above. She was lounging on some sort of plush cross between a chair and a bed that only someone absurdly wealthy could have come up with, much less placed outside in a courtyard. What would happen if it rained? There weren’t any enchantments to protect it, so they probably needed servants to move all the furniture inside. Mayb...

Fates Parallel Chapter 547 - Affection

Eunae felt a bit ridiculous standing nervously outside her own house. Dae was right—she had no excuses. It was trivial for her to travel back to Jiaguo through her soul realm, even without Yue’s curious back door. Yue herself had to travel back the old-fashioned way, since her previous method only worked one way and required the support of Jiaguo’s teleportation circle. For Yoshika, howev...

Character Redesigns - Lee Narae and Seong Haeun Grow Up

Time, that cruel mistress, comes for us all. Yoshika's little disciples aren't so little anymore. Tsuu did a lovely job, as always, and they each take after their sisters in their own way.

To be honest, these have been done for a while and were already shared on discord and uploaded to the album. I just forgot to share them here. Oops.

Tsuu is currently working on another pair of si...

Fates Parallel Chapter 546 - Legacy

With Eunae’s ascension and its aftermath successfully handled—for certain definitions of success—the newly expanded Jiaguo empire quickly settled into its new status quo. The sudden annexation of Goryeo did have a few knock-on effects, however. For instance, Hyeong Daesung suddenly found himself cleared of all charges—after all, the states that he had committed treason against and in se...

Fates Parallel Chapter 545 - Shade

Eunae watched with trepidation as Heian prepared a small magical circle on one of the few surfaces in Misun’s lab not dominated by the enormous prototype mana-amplifier.

“Heian, sweetheart, are you sure this is safe?”

“Uh huh! Even if Auntie Misun hadn’t made the ring safe to use, the broken soul inside is too weak to do anything to you or me—or even Misun.”

Misu...

Fates Parallel Chapter 544 - Deconstruction

In the wake of the Yeong clan’s chastisement, none of the other high nobles were willing to oppose Eunae as the new queen. The Kim were already allies, and Yi Gong had to tread carefully now that Yue had revealed how much they knew about his corruption. On the Seok clan’s side, Sun Jaehwa argued fervently in favor of Yoshika.

It was a little strange to see. Eui had made her peace with...

Fates Parallel Chapter 543 - Coup

The high council of Goryeo was an assembly of representatives from each of the so-called high noble clans. Historically, the high nobles each claimed ancestry to a particular great spirit, though most didn’t model themselves after their ancestors to quite the degree that the Seong did. For the Seong clan, this was of course the Kumiho, the nine-tailed fox spirit. Of the remaining three clans,...

Announcement - Volume 6 ebook and print now available!

Book 6 is now out on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited!

As always, it would be a huge help if you could go and rate or review it on Amazon. There's no purchase necessary, and every little bit helps.

Ebook, paperback, and hardcover editions are already available, and this is a big book. Fair warning,...

Fates Parallel Chapter 542 - Resolute

Mercifully, Yue’s plight didn’t last long. After a few moments, Seong Eunae emerged from Yoshika’s inner sanctum, prompting the spirit fox to release Yue and pester the princess instead. Yue sighed in relief and brushed herself off.

“Thanks for the rescue, Princess Seong. Though I’m rather curious how you ended up here.”

Eunae covered her mouth with a sleeve and giggled,...

Fates Parallel Chapter 541 - Aperture

Yue was doing her level best not to panic. Jia had vanished abruptly, which wasn’t necessarily cause for concern—she just did that sometimes—but shortly afterwards Yue received a visit from a rather distressed Pan Jiaying, who informed her that Li Meili had also disappeared without warning. That certainly warranted concern, but it became a full-blown emergency when Ashikaga ...

Fates Parallel Chapter 540 - Crown

A brilliantly shining plume of rainbow-colored fire burst forth from each of Yoshika’s bodies, devouring the destructive bolt of energy and coalescing into the bestial form of a six-tailed fox. The fox snarled up at the raging storm above before bounding into the air towards it. Another bolt of energy lanced out at the fox, but it caught the lightning impossibly between its teeth and shattere...