In the end, it took them a few days to finish off about a dozen Bloodtails. After the first battle, the time was less about actually killing them than finding the remaining ones. Technically they might have saved a little time if they'd gone elsewhere and waited for reports of attack, but with teleportation resources limited, Kai was glad for a last hunt with his wives.
Especially because...
2025-07-22 17:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostBy sheer bad luck, Omilaena was in the worst position, with two Bloodtails immediately menacing her and the third blocking off a direct escape. As their tails lashed out, Kai didn't think about it, he just leapt to defend her.
In midair he threw out another Tyrant's Claw, knocking aside a striking tail, then he collided bodily with another Bloodtail. His momentum threw them both into the ...
2025-07-21 17:00:11 +0000 UTC View PostFlying over Krysal to hunt monsters, with only Zae Zin Nim and Omilaena along with him, gave Kai a jumbled sense of nostalgia. Every element of it felt so familiar - the hunt, his wives, the shores of Krysal - and yet this wasn't a real era of his past. Omilaena had been an uncomfortable ally at the time, they hadn't been honest about their relationships back then, and this Krysal was nothing l...
2025-07-18 17:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostEven though they were in the middle of a hive of information, when Kai sat down opposite Krainuun, the meeting felt surprisingly intimate. The desk was small and simple - it might even have been one of the same ones the administrator had used in the past. Kai's chair was too small, so he loomed a bit, but that just emphasized the expediency of the place.
"I apologize that I couldn't meet ...
2025-07-17 17:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostFor the most part, returning to Deadwaste had not been engaging for Zae Zin Nim. The only ones who really interested her were the elites, and there were internal sect politics getting in the way of that, so she had focused on her own advancement. Easy enough, since she had everything she needed and little to distract her.
Now, however, she had a second exception: acid cultivation.
T...
2025-07-15 17:00:10 +0000 UTC View PostFortunately, Zae Zin Nim's vehicle took them across Yulthens without any further attention, because they easily slipped in among all the other crystal ships. From the air, Kai got another opportunity to look over the new Yulthens, though he wished he could have flown under his own power and really explored it.
Unlike some other parts of Krysal, which were allegedly disasters, all of Yulth...
2025-07-14 17:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostSince the group was moving at normal speeds, Kai had plenty of time to examine them. They were all native Krysali, former miners based on the visible scars, yet they didn't look as welcoming as the previous crowds.
What still puzzled him were their outfits: they resembled the old rags from the mines, yet the fabric itself wasn't the foul hides he remembered. Their apparent ragged edges we...
2025-07-11 17:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostOn the other side of the portal, Kai found himself... back at the coast of Krysal. He hesitated, not wanting to revealing his disorientation, then decided that there was no reason to try to act cool in front of his wives. Neither of them seemed surprised.
"What are we actually doing?" he asked. "What's our next objective?"
"We're skipping out on Irun for now," Omilaena said, withou...
2025-07-10 17:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostAfter all the intense negotiations, Kai wanted some time to decompress, which meant training, spending time with his wives, or talking to someone who wasn't a Frontier elite. Unfortunately, beside the base was a bad place for training and the others had left: Handelrey had pulled Zae Zin Nim aside to discuss some sort of cultivation matter and Omilaena had gone off to talk with Irunian elites t...
2025-07-08 17:00:08 +0000 UTC View Post"Despite occasional squabbling, we all want the same thing: for Deadwaste to survive the incursion." Sheiri spoke evenly, clearly prepared, and though the information was familiar Kai sensed that she was reinforcing the elites' agreement. "Individual nations may fight selfishly, but at the Frontier we stand for all, because there is no other choice. Let me demonstrate a record of an incursion s...
2025-07-07 17:00:09 +0000 UTC View PostNow that Kai was finally here, he felt almost unprepared. From the perspective of raw strength, he had wildly over-prepared, bringing a huge amount of firepower to the table. But when it came to military intelligence and how to actually negotiate with the Frontier elites, he was far ahead of himself.
Zae Zin Nim and Omilaena had both done excellently in their trials, however, both in disp...
2025-07-04 17:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostTechnically she should have been concerned about the upcoming trial, but Zae Zin Nim was more focused on the elite who had attacked her husband so aggressively. That was not an appropriate level of aggression for a test of this sort. Even though this was Deadwaste, such a thing could easily become a vendetta that would lead to many future troubles.
Their wife was clearly more conscious of...
2025-07-03 17:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostKai hadn't heard about "mortal" phase testing before, but since the other elites treated the proposal as a normal one, he decided to act the same. He didn't object as they stepped through a new portal, just kept his wives close. Zae Zin Nim was vaguely hostile in all directions while Omilaena looked more contemplative than he expected.
On the other side of the portal, he felt the change i...
2025-07-01 17:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostDespite everything he had been through, Kai was still nervous to meet the Frontier elites as they walked through the portal. These people were everything he wanted to be, actually giving their lives in order to defend the people of Deadwaste, incursion after incursion. In theory, he had done all of this in order to support them.
Yet he didn't see very many smiling faces in the group.
<... 2025-06-30 17:00:11 +0000 UTC View PostThey could have immediately gotten enmeshed in Krysali politics, but Kai agreed to hold back. For one, his wives were correct that he had a bad track record of getting heavily involved there, and his presence alone would be a disruption. Perhaps more importantly, they'd made contact with the Frontier elites and a delegation was coming to meet with them.
It went unsaid, but Kai knew this m...
2025-06-27 17:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostTechnically Omilaena was watching the fight, but she was also thinking over her past. Unusually contemplative for her, basically just flicking the bean while other people were fighting for their lives. Put that way, she decided that she was fine with it and indulged.
Going to Deadwaste was usually considered an act of desperation, the last refuge of failures. Her first visit had almost se...
2025-06-26 17:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostCognosticon here, coming on your break day for a quick announcement. I expected a drop in support after the Cloudspire arc finished, but it was larger than expected. I've been doing this for a long time now and I don't really expect a reversal, so I'm focusing on two things:
1) Preparing for the big publisher release.
2) Thanking patrons who are supporting this story.
...
2025-06-25 17:05:01 +0000 UTC View PostYears ago, going to Deadwaste had been a horrible decision tantamount to throwing herself off the edge of the world. Now, as she returned yet again, Zae Zin Nim reflected that it was becoming commonplace. Not only was it a normal trip, it was returning to her husband's home, something she might expect to do many times in the years to come.
That no longer disturbed her, for all that there ...
2025-06-24 17:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostOther than the one fight, their trip back to Deadwaste proceeded smoothly. The trainees really did seem to interact as Kai had hoped: they had forged strong bonds through their common struggles, thus gaining the allies he'd had so few of. On the other hand, they viewed him at more of a remove as a benefactor, which he supposed was appropriate. Even though they were of roughly the same generatio...
2025-06-23 17:00:11 +0000 UTC View PostEven though Kai still thought it was bizarre that sex could be training, somehow, he wasn't going to complain about everything he'd learned in dual cultivation. It was a wonderful fusion of two different aspects of his life with his wives, and it wasn't so awkward once he got used to it.
This session left him lying with Zae Zin Nim cuddling against his chest as they both caught their brea...
2025-06-20 17:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostIn the end, they didn't spend much time at all on Darkmist Island. Kai spent two days training the Deadwaste volunteers, or rather evaluating each and then helping them gather the materials they would need in the future. Combined with all their treasures from Cloudspire, the group's fears of not being able to advance on Deadwaste seemed assuaged.
Several days out from the island, Kai was ...
2025-06-19 17:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostKai hadn't realized how much he was accustomed to traveling with just his wives until he had to deal with other people. It wasn't just that the others didn't have spatial items to make packing easy, it was all kinds of irritating inefficiencies. They didn't get their things together, milled around aimlessly, didn't know where to go, and generally wasted time instead of boarding the Clanless. 2025-06-17 17:00:06 +0000 UTC View Post
Nothing on Darkmist Island felt real. Honestly, the sense of unreality had started when Kai took them all away on his strange new ship, but Juray had been completely adrift ever since they landed in this mysterious place.
Most obviously, the place was a paradise of energy, from mana to chakra to qi. It constantly left her paranoid, thinking that it had to be some kind of trap because it w...
2025-06-16 17:00:09 +0000 UTC View PostOmilaena sat with her arms folded, glaring at her materials through her goggles, willing them to cooperate.
Now that she had extra-spatial storage space, she could accumulate all kinds of junk, which meant she had a whole collection of pharmaceuticals from across Deadwaste, Rosemount, and Cloudspire. There were connections between them, some obvious, some obscure, and some annoyingly teas...
2025-06-13 17:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostAs he blinked awake, Kai realized first that he was in the main cabin of the Clanless, then that they were still passing over the ocean. He'd taken multiple trips over the ocean at this point, from the relaxed journey after their honeymoon to the mad rush through the Blood Current. Most recently, he'd desperately flown the Clanless back to Cloudspire, hoping his wives were still alive.
No...
2025-06-12 17:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostThe courtiers of the Brightwind Sect had been on high alert ever since they heard the news, spiking ever higher when the errant daughter returned. Had she been Zae Clen Ban, half of them would no doubt have been dead already. His daughter seemed less violent, yet no softer, and they realized with growing horror that she was truly indifferent to every enticement or threat they could offer.
(Cognosticon here. For the first time ever, Patreon is withholding all funds. For now I'm going to assume it's a random hang-up, but I hope it doesn't persist another week.)
As they delved into the deeper vaults, the three of them remained together, less because they needed security than because it was fun to explore together. Zae Zin Nim had stories about the materials and Omilaena never...
2025-06-09 17:00:28 +0000 UTC View PostWhen Kai got the grand vault open, he'd of course intended to contact Zae Zin Nim to learn more, but he'd expected to enter quickly. Just standing near the opened door he could feel the intense qi radiating from within, so he needed to stand guard just in case any cultivators got too greedy. Instead, the timeline stretched out further as Omilaena entered first to test for poisons or other traps...
2025-06-06 17:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostOf course Omilaena actually did the things she was supposed to do, but at soon as she had done what she judged to be the optimal minimum, she went off to track down Zin Nim.
Not out of any sense of concern, really, mostly being nosy. Or perhaps, since they were married, she was allowed this level of stalking. Omilaena amused herself with that thought while she pursued the other woman thro...
2025-06-05 17:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostKai realized in the middle of the fight that he'd gotten another rival, even though he wasn't sure exactly how. The scion of the Redstorm Sect seemed to have it out for him, treating their fight as if it was a personal duel instead of just part of an overall strategy.
Both of them using flight techniques meant that they crashed against one another in the sky, arcing around to connect agai...
2025-06-03 17:00:06 +0000 UTC View Post