Cognosticon

Chapter 288: Old Enemies, New Friends

Before the worst revelation, Zae Zin Nim had been shocked for a moment when Omilaena had grabbed her. The other woman's touch had been so forceful, yet it didn't seem like she was reverting to her old self. Her hands had felt tense yet confident, touching her only because it was urgently necessary. And then she had explained, which washed away that petty discomfort.

Now they fled the buil...

Chapter 287: The Meeting of Continental Powers

During the several months Omilaena had been in the capital, she'd been contacted by the Council of Elders only twice. Both times surreptitiously, via elves traveling to the library on real business and quietly asking questions about the demonic movements. They were no longer depending on her as a major source of information, which suited her just fine because she had higher personal priorities....

Chapter 286: Facing Down the Savage Heart

Kai had been concerned about finding the right timing, but he got an opportunity almost immediately after leaving the city. Krugbash was traveling off on his own, hunting some sort of sacred beast. Time to finally pay his dues and eliminate a problem in the same stroke.

"Alright." Kai turned back to the demon beside him and braced himself. "Make it realistic."

"You bet!" Gorutiel cr...

Chapter 285: Intersections in Traeton

"Where are all the transcriptions?" Troulon asked.

"Western office," Omilaena told him. "Why are the manuscripts I wanted being held by random merchants?"

"The Great Library can't continue without support from them. Did you organize the section on mana?"

"Better than you had it before. Who are these merchants funding the library and taking books? They never gave a shit about i...

Chapter 284: Yoni and Lingam

During his month of training, Kai had expected that the politics would be the hard part and actually awakening the Savage Heart would be easy. To his surprise, it was the first time he truly faltered in this wilderness. The Savage Creed members urged him to smoke strange plants, saying that he would have dreams of his "spirit beast," or to go meditate in caves to find clarity.

None of it ...

Chapter 283: Hunting Moon Scorpions

Kai's muscles screamed as he forced his hand upward, gripping the next protruding rock. The climb should have been easy, but the beast hides wrapped around his limbs choked off his spiritual strength. Chakra, qi, and even mana were useless to him as he struggled up the side of the Death Bluff.

Even though he was used to working his body hard, when he finally reached over the top and pulle...

Chapter 282: Deep Study of Dual Cultivation

Libraries had never been Zae Zin Nim's natural habitat. Of course the Brightwind Sect had a huge archive, including many techniques in addition to histories, volumes of poetry, and family records. But those were for scribes and junior members, not her. When she needed something, someone of less importance would go fetch it for her.

Thus when she'd found out that she'd be primarily confine...

Chapter 281: Meeting the Savage Creed Elders

Now that he had a target, Kai made much faster progress. There wasn't much in this wilderness that could stop him outside of other people, since the greatest challenge seemed to be actually tracking the sacred beasts. A few like the golden bull were obvious, but others were quick and subtle. Over the next week he saw another Savage Creed user, but she didn't let him get close.

As he trave...

Chapter 280: Chasing Down the Savage Creed

When Kai left the capital to head into the eastern wilderness, he was glad for multiple reasons. "Civilization" no longer felt so safe now that he'd met the demons on the prowl, he was impatient to move forward, and he was getting restless anyway. He wasn't built to sit around inns, not when he could be hunting through open fields.

His only concern was that he had to leave Zae Zin Nim and...

Chapter 279: Demonic Terms of Entry

Even though they were standing in the halls of demonic power, most of the demons had left. What remained wasn't even a symbol, it was just an empty shell: the demons' rule over the Commonwealth had always been based on their personal overwhelming strength. The grand hall felt surreal as Kai walked through it to talk to his allies.

"This could be worse," Omilaena said as soon as he arrived...

Chapter 278: Prey and Not Prey

Kai's instincts blazed and he nearly attacked in the moment he was isolated, but he restrained himself. He understood how the demons might think him weak, since half his strength was invisible to them. A straight brawl was hopeless, however, even with Zae Zin Nim and Omilaena at his side. Somehow he had to navigate these demonic politics.

The leader sighed and leaned his head onto one han...

Chapter 277: Demons and Their Prey

"Troulon." Omilaena regarded him with an icy expression. "I'm surprised you aren't dead."

"Demonic rule has actually been quite beneficial for me." The man called Troulon readjusted the cuff on one of his sleeves, as if Kai touching it had been distasteful. "But we aren't here to discuss my life. The question is why, after being banned from the Great Library, you decide to return."

...

Chapter 276: The Insane First Crest

After a week of travel Kai was beginning to wonder when they'd reach Traeton, but Omilaena just kept saying that he'd know. The Commonwealth looked basically the same so far, if a bit wealthier with even fewer wild spaces, so he wasn't sure what she meant.

Then he saw Traeton, and he knew.

It was actually in the evening, when the sun was setting and visibility continually declining....

Chapter 275: Forward is the Easiest Direction

Technically there were still multiple deadlines looming over them. The demons were plotting war, Zae Zin Nim's father was hunting for her, and the monster incursion was less than five years away. Technically he needed to push as hard as he could to try to gain the strength to stand up against the unfathomably powerful warriors he'd seen at the Frontier.

But it was a long way to the capita...

Chapter 274: The End of Intelligence Operations

For a time Kai's world was a blur of pain and shock. When his own teeth had bitten his foot he hadn't expected it to hurt so much, but it was as if he'd bitten his own soul. Only force of will kept him from crying out. He was barely able to focus enough to grab his boot and wobble upright. Maybe he was leaving blood behind him, but he couldn't be sure.

Somehow he had summoned the diamond ...

Chapter 273: Infiltrating the Obelisk Facility

They'd made plans to wake him at the appropriate time, but Kai woke in the darkness, strangely alert. It wasn't yet time for their attack, so he had a moment to reflect.

Ideally he would have wanted another week to practice with his stealth skill, or a whole month to find better monster essence. Hell, while he was at it he wanted a decade to become strong enough to fight everyone in his p...

Chapter 272: Consuming for a Heist

Over the next day they rushed out of the city while Omilaena explained what she'd discovered. Kai didn't understand the details of the reagents and materials she'd used to come to her conclusion, which she threw out excessively in her haste, but the basic idea was clear enough: she'd found where the demons were manufacturing their anti-glamour obelisks.

"And this shipment is the big one,"...

Chapter 271: Claw Against Claw

The match technically continued, but Kai was still trapped in that first moment, trying to understand what he had witnessed. There was no question that the man's arm had transformed into a monstrous limb and for just a moment Kai was convinced that he'd met someone like him. Gradually he accepted that this power was based in chakra, and yet...

"Kai, sit down." Zae Zin Nim tugged at his si...

Chapter 270: Investigations Great and Small

"It's been difficult." The elven couple sat morosely, the man with an arm wrapped around his wife but fearful himself. "A lot our family has moved west to Crescilor," she continued, "but we have our roots here. And we can't just abandon our shop..."

They had finally found some elves willing to talk in the next city, so all three of them stood in the small shop. These two weren't fighters ...

Chapter 269: The Citizens of the Commonwealth

Kai knew that he didn't have much experience as a world traveler, so he thought he might be ignorant, but he couldn't help but compare the Commonwealth of Traebor to the Krysal city states. A week into their explorations, he was beginning to see how he was both right and wrong.

Both were nations dominated by pure personal interest, without much of a sense of patriotism. On the other hand,...

Chapter 268: Through the Coiled Empire

Once the elves left them, Kai was again stranded in a completely unknown foreign land. He couldn't have called the Elven Wilds home, but the wastes were at least familiar. Now they were allegedly in the northern part of the the Coiled Empire, which was a riot of colors. Trees with red and purple foliage seemed common, almost like it would have been for autumn at home, but there seemed to be no ...

Chapter 267: The Disaster at the Elven School

Elven healers eventually reached Ceryyn and tried to help her, but she was absolutely adamant that she wouldn't rest until she'd spoken with them. Eventually the Bludshard elves managed to get her to lie down and tended to her mangled arm, which soothed her enough to explain in calmer terms. Kai stood with the other two, anxiety building during the wait.

"They hit our school," Ceryyn said...

Chapter 266: Hunting New Opportunities

Kai wasn't ultimately clear on the fundamental limits on the elven hunt, other than it had something to do with migration patterns. Based on information the women gathered, the event seemed to peter out as the valuable hunts ended. So even if they hadn't been impatient to move on, there was no reason to delay.

He no longer returned to the pavilion and instead ventured further out into the...

Chapter 265: The Great Unicorn Hunt

After so long training and preparing, not to mention battling the Thunderbird, the unicorn hunt was a bit disappointing. Most of Kai's competitors weren't that much stronger than him, and their grace over the desert wasn't more than he could manage with his new abilities. Despite all the preparations he and Omilaena had made, he probably didn't need to go all out.

The unicorns, though... ...

Chapter 264: A Different Sort of Earth Soul

In theory, all Zae Zin Nim needed to do was advance to Earth Soul and attain her full potential. But in theory, so many aspects of her life should have been simple. The chosen daughter of a powerful sect should never have been cursed, forced to flee to Deadwaste, and taken on such a strange path.

Yet that path had brought her here. It was the path of her cultivation, ultimately the one sh...

Chapter 263: Choices, Limits, and Thresholds

At first Kai felt nothing but disorientation. All of his senses seemed to be missing... except for one. He could still feel the hunger surging within him, as ravenous as always. And yet it was part of him, and it wasn't mindless even if it was always hungry. When he reached out to it, he saw a new piece of his own soul.

<

Thunderbird (???)

>

So he had done it. Thos...

Chapter 262: One Final Gambit, One Final Hunt

Kai's first clash with the Thunderbird after his training very nearly ended the entire hunt: the monster assumed he was still sluggish in the air and attacked with too much confidence. He wasn't going to hold anything back, not against an opponent like this, so he began with Baleful Breath at nearly point blank range.

That should have been enough, but the Thunderbird was just a notch fast...

Chapter 261: Hunting Pegasi

(Cognosticon here. Yesterday I was scheduling the next sets of chapters and I screwed up, clicking "post" instead of "schedule" on one chapter. I deleted it immediately, but patrons would have received the email notification. I wish I could blame Patreon somehow, but I just made an error. Apologies.)

After several days of hunting, Kai realized that the pegasi were two things: beautiful an...

Chapter 260: Consuming Another Sort of Wings

Over the course of his life Kai had lost count of the number of times he'd fallen unconscious and woken up injured, so he wasn't surprised to feel pain in darkness. This time felt a little different, though. As he put together that he hadn't been killed by the Thunderbird, he also felt something soft under his head.

When he finally wrenched his eyes open, he was staring up at Omilaena. Hi...

Chapter 259: Thunderous Plans and Schemes

Their first attempt failed, of course, because even Omilaena wasn't used to fighting a monster so insanely fast. On their second attempt she had planned a trap that launched a metal spear into the air to intercept its path, but the Thunderbird managed to change directions with unnatural agility. After that it began turning a broad circle, drawing up an unnatural storm that covered the area in f...