(Cognosticon here. After leaving you on a cliffhanger last week, I promise this week basically resolves. Not the entire arc, but you won't be left with many cliffhangers.)
The raw power was raging within her body now and Zae Zin Nim felt as though she would explode. All of her spiritual power centers were filled to bursting, ready to overflow into some new form, but her physical bo...
2025-03-10 17:00:10 +0000 UTC View PostKai had only seen a few of the large teleportation techniques during his time on Cloudspire, but he knew they were used to take multiple people across large distances. The swirl of amber energy grew larger, and human-shaped forms began to glow within it, before the qi suddenly folded in on itself and vanished.
It left behind a group of about a dozen cultivators: Yul Wei Ren with his usual...
2025-03-07 18:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostThis would work. It had to, or she would fail everyone.
Zae Zin Nim judged that their success this far was only partially due to their own strength. A significant portion was Nymidria, who had planted and nurtured sources of power for decades as she worked with the Verdant River sect. Now she was burning through all of those in minutes, producing a truly heroic effort that could keep so m...
2025-03-06 18:00:05 +0000 UTC View Post"Oh daughter, you have been so willful."
Even if he hadn't made it explicit, Kai had no doubt that this man must be Zae Zin Nim's father. His hair was the same jet black and he wore the same elegant cloud-patterned robes she had brought to Deadwaste. There was something similar in their sharp chins and even their narrow eyes, though he'd come to love Zae Zin Nim's expressions, whereas her...
2025-03-04 18:00:10 +0000 UTC View Post(Cognosticon here. As a reminder, this week's schedule will be Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday.)
For the first several seconds of the fight, Omilaena saw a chance to end it all: Jackal Thirteen was disoriented and separated from many of his puppets. She put everything she could into her first assault, desperately trying to finish him off before he could regroup.
It wasn't q...
2025-03-03 18:00:14 +0000 UTC View PostFor the first several seconds, it was absolute chaos: Xir Xan Khan unleashing his presence technique, Jackal Thirteen's puppets charging, and patriarchs raining down attacks from every side. A less well-organized trio might have been overwhelmed, but they easily wheeled together, evading or deflecting as necessary even as they counterattacked.
For his part, Kai unleashed all of the Mantic...
2025-02-28 18:00:18 +0000 UTC View PostThe assassins lay dead around Omilaena, needles through their bodies. Though she readjusted her dress and noted with satisfaction that it was untouched, it had been closer than she'd want to admit.
The fighting had been over in several tense seconds. If she'd been slightly slower, she would have received some heavy injuries instead of taken out her opponents. Without all her new abilitie...
2025-02-27 18:00:13 +0000 UTC View PostThe Redtree rebels running into emergencies was far from rare - sometimes, Kai felt like his entire role was pulling them out of problems, half of which they'd created themselves. So he didn't think much about it when they called him to stop another attack on their lines.
Once he arrived in a clearing, surrounded by the group's strongest cultivators, however... clearly, this was nothing l...
2025-02-26 18:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostDue to their overwhelming victory, the enemy wouldn't bother Zae Zin Nim for some time. Due to her precision glaring, her obnoxious allies wouldn't bother her either. Instead she spent all of her time in the empty vault, trying to break through.
In a way, this had been her real blockage from the very beginning. Oh, there had been her deep meridians and countless other barriers, but it had...
2025-02-25 18:00:09 +0000 UTC View PostAll his life, Hul Ping had stood in awe of the Verdant River sect. It wasn't just an organization, it was a fact of life, a force as undeniable as the current of the river itself. Their cultivators were stronger, better funded, simply superior overall. Their highest ranks were unimaginable to someone like him, and the heirs to the sect might as well be higher beings.
And now he was watchi...
2025-02-24 18:00:11 +0000 UTC View PostThe combined assault of the fortress was actually formidable: it had a Sky Soul at its head, with multiple Earth Souls and hundreds of other cultivators behind him. Qi rushed forward in a magical river, shattering against the stones and annihilating everything in the courtyard.
Kai wasn't there, of course. The three of them had leapt clear of the attack, and though the shockwaves of power...
2025-02-21 18:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostOmilaena played it off like it was nothing, but meeting with Nymidria had not been easy. She had needed to spend most of a day scouting the sect headquarters, finding the new weaknesses in their defenses. The guards were in disarray and many barriers were down, which meant both new openings and a lot of chaos that could potentially get in the way.
Their direct communication seeds were all...
2025-02-20 18:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostWith the Krysali deep in the uncharted parts of the Southern Rivers, Kai felt more confident waging a war. The plan meant leaving the ship, but the three of them could actually travel faster via Thunderbird's Wings. Once they had set up all security precautions they could think of, it was just Kai and his wives pushing south toward the enemy.
At least for a while. Before they even reached...
2025-02-19 18:00:14 +0000 UTC View PostAs much as Omilaena wanted to belt out the truth, this was big enough that spreading it wildly could be a problem. Based on the dead cultivators and the way the Krysali were all hustling, she surmised that Zin Nim's position must have been attacked and they needed to retreat. Which was fine, but it meant obnoxious people moving everywhere and privacy was at a premium. Eventually Kai got a flyin...
2025-02-18 18:00:05 +0000 UTC View Post"Just who is this supposed to b-" Xir Xan Khan was cut off by a roar, then Kai fell on him.
Zae Zin Nim leapt to join him, hoping to finally kill the hateful man, but he responded by sending his columns of qi whirling around him. In her weakened state, they managed to knock her back several paces. Soon the two men were locked in combat, tearing at one another, savage monstrous blows match...
2025-02-17 18:00:13 +0000 UTC View PostHow long had it been since Zae Zin Nim had truly fought another cultivator? She had exterminated some weaker than her, and occasionally challenged herself, but most of her truly serious fights had been against opponents with wild techniques from many sources.
Here, trading blows with Xir Xan Khan, she found herself returning to the movements she had set aside for so long. He wasn't a brut...
2025-02-14 18:00:09 +0000 UTC View PostZae Zin Nim sat alone, and for once she didn't cultivate. Not while her spouses were out risking their lives.
In theory, so much was within their grasp... immortality elixirs and perhaps even the Loam of the Gods. They had been preparing for this attack for weeks, yet she doubted that everything could go according to plan. Omilaena was deep within the enemy fortifications, and Kai was on ...
2025-02-13 18:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostAfter so long preparing, Omilaena was almost insulted that the actual break-in was so easy. She had confirmed with Nymidria, received another set of illusory leaves, and then headed to the barrier. By the time she arrived, the outer wall had been disabled in order to allow the Verdant River sect to counteract the disease infecting the trees. With the barrier down, she slipped through the rest o...
2025-02-12 18:00:10 +0000 UTC View PostThe visit from Omilaena had helped Kai in ways he'd never expected. Yes, she'd helped him take precautions, and yes, he'd enjoyed being with her again, but by the far biggest factor had to do with his public image.
The more survivors he collected, the more they began to treat him as their leader. Not with the reverence of a patriarch, more the fear due a warlord. And one expectation of be...
2025-02-11 18:00:11 +0000 UTC View PostOmilaena was having a good day, despite the screaming and thrashing. Maybe even because of it.
The others wanted fights and challenges, but all she really needed was time to think and enough raw material to work. As lazy as her time spent sitting and thinking might seem to outsiders, it had led to greater advancements than simply training wildly or killing enemies over and over. Yes, not ...
2025-02-10 18:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostCognosticon here, time to talk about scheduling. Depthless Hunger will continue the normal schedule through February, because that's what you've paid for, but I wanted to discuss a potential change.
As a reminder, what I have promised to definitely complete is the Cloudspire arc, which still has many chapters. I would like to do the fifth arc and potentially more, but haven't pledged that...
2025-02-08 18:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostTechnically Kai was "on the run" from some of the most powerful forces in the region, but he found himself surprisingly unconcerned. There was plenty of space to maneuver within the Southern Rivers, he was faster than his opponents, and he could easily evade them by swimming underwater. His monstrous instincts kept him alert enough at night, so he wasn't even worried about ambush.
Truthfu...
2025-02-07 18:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostThere was always the possibility that this was some sort of trap, so Kai double-checked the young man's soul again. No trace of a shroud and just Nascent Foundation strength. Probably the sort of cultivator who was the strongest in his village, but utterly outclassed in a larger sect where even Earth Souls served. Since his life had already been spared, there was no point not hearing him out. 2025-02-06 18:00:04 +0000 UTC View Post
Over several days, Kai established what would be his new "hunting grounds" for the next period. If he went too far south, the forests gave way to a delta that appeared to be prime farmland, and to the west there were increasing numbers of Verdant Sect outposts defending their innermost barriers, then to the north the forests devolved into a swamp. The wedge in between those regions was still a ...
2025-02-05 18:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostEven though Kai wanted to remain with the group, he knew that realistically speaking he would have to leave in order to avoid bringing the Verdant River sect down on them. Given limited time together, they needed to choose their activities carefully. Zae Zin Nim had been insistent about intimate time together, and he wasn't complaining, but Kai actually considered something else a higher priori...
2025-02-04 18:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostInstead of returning to the dryad community, which had become acceptable to her, Zae Zin Nim had no choice but to venture away from the pleasant forests into the swampy region. No more leaf-shaded courtyard, no more hammock, just swampy mud. Thankfully she could fly over it on a sword, but it was still repulsive.
There wasn't much to reward her at the end of the journey, either, at least ...
2025-02-03 18:00:14 +0000 UTC View PostAs soon as Omilaena shattered the vial, the liquid seeped into the tree leaves. Technically it could be washed away for a period of time, but with the dryad village drawing all the liquid in the atmosphere, that wasn't very likely. She watched, just in case something would go wrong, but the disease soon took hold.
With her expertise it would definitely kill even qi-rich trees, and thanks ...
2025-01-31 18:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostWhen the quill pierced the young man, the crowds reacted with shock and horror. Despite all their gasping and commentary, the cultivators weren't stupid: many of them saw the projectile and traced its path to the bottom of the hill.
Where Kai was nowhere to be seen.
He had been sorely tempted to release more quills, potentially devastating the pack of young masters and their guards,...
2025-01-30 18:00:05 +0000 UTC View Post"You will pay for what you did to the Emerald Tree sect!"
Zae Zin Nim struck as soon as she finished shouting, her palm impacting the cultivator's chest. She had to resist the urge to use the Coldfire Palm or any of her other techniques, instead simply executing a normal qi strike against the inner body. It took more discipline than she had expected, as her style had adapted to all that s...
2025-01-29 18:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostIt seemed that Nymidria was still confident in her communication method, because they met with her illusory form instead of in person. When she emerged from the flower, however, the dryad matriarch looked much tenser than before, leaning down in a huddle of boughs instead of presenting her full form.
"Originally I thought we'd need to orchestrate some sort of major distraction," she told ...
2025-01-28 18:00:06 +0000 UTC View Post