Now with Leon in tow, their pace was slower. But little by little, Leon came back to himself and realized the horror was behind him and opened up to Howie and Roxy. It began to feel closer to a backpacking trip in the Georgia woods than an otherworld excursion as Cole listened to the kid tell Roxy and Howie about his favorite manga, his friends, his parents, ...
2025-08-28 00:05:29 +0000 UTC View PostThe soldiers had been born in a Lewis Field. Grown up in it. Presumably they had classes and enhancement metrics of their own, because Cole felt abilities being burned all around him as he pushed forward. But it just wasn’t enough. Bricker had said Earth humans were just built different when it came to Lewis Fields, and Cole was seeing that d...
2025-08-25 17:15:07 +0000 UTC View Post“Cole,” came Nona’s voice. “I’m in place. They’ve got our boy up on the battlement on the north side. He’s got his two guards with him. Their priestess has a communication crystal. The armored one took charge of the fort.
Cole shook his head, angling north. How did she even know what a communication crystal looked l...
2025-08-24 16:28:43 +0000 UTC View PostThe landscape had been marred with craters similar to the one he’d fought Vak in. Cole staked out a good one for them to wait and observe the fort a few hundred meters back from the line. Within the barrier, a new chem paper didn’t show any signs of toxic gasses, so Cole authorized a reprieve from the masks. While they took turns watching the fort,...
2025-08-24 02:01:26 +0000 UTC View Post“Lay down,” said Cole. One-hundred meters east of the underground storage room where the rest of the team waited was the remains of what might have been a cistern or a dug-out grain silo. Now it offered a level firing platform with an angle down into the backside of the trench and the dark opening where Guall waited for word from his assassin. Cole bu...
2025-08-22 17:18:27 +0000 UTC View PostThe sidearm bucked in his hands, held at such an odd angle and completely unsupported. But the soft innards of the demon served to muffle the report of the gun. Mostly. Vak Hissed and screeched, which was even louder, and his long, segmented body tightened as his many, many fingers twisted and curled in agony. The nine-millimeter round must have been ricochetin...
2025-08-21 16:22:39 +0000 UTC View PostNote: The Patreon will be getting daily chapters until we're up to 20 chapters ahead of this Friday's update on Royal Road (Chapter 32). So you can keep reading updates through the weekend.
“She was right in front of me,” said Besson. “She didn’t drop back. Don’t know where she could have gone.”
“She didn’t com...
2025-08-20 23:01:35 +0000 UTC View PostDon't forget, you can join the official discord to hang out and chat with other friends whether you are a paid or free member. The link is: https://discord.gg/9kJnV28rTv
2025-08-19 20:53:00 +0000 UTC View PostThanks to the surge on the Patreon, I've been able to commission the permanent cover for Department of Otherworld Rescue to replace the temporary. It's currently in progress. Thanks for your support, guys!
“Get that fucking gun out of my face,” said Cole, growling under his breath. A glowing match hovered above the powder port on the hand cannon cl...
2025-08-19 16:59:30 +0000 UTC View PostWell, we hit our milestone of 150 members, so over this next week I'll be upping the number of advance chapters with additional updates. Next milestone will be at 350 members! I don't know that we'll ever get there. But if we do, I think it deserves another five chapters.
The rest of the day passed without major incident, and some of the oth...
2025-08-18 21:43:28 +0000 UTC View PostThe old abandoned watchtower on the ridge had a prime position to watch descents from the mountains to the west, and in fact that’s what Cole expected the Vaelians had made it for. The fact the two forces now clashed on the regular just a dozen klicks north had rendered the outpost redundant. The drone map had showed extensive layers of fortifications that ...
2025-08-18 00:28:52 +0000 UTC View PostLoot distributed, Besson volunteered for the first watch. Probably the guy was already done with being forced into tight confines with other people. Cole doubted he’d come back to the bivouac even when his turn at watch was over—which was confirmed when Nutmeg’s wet nose roused Cole for his watch a couple hours later, just in time for his check-...
2025-08-15 20:47:53 +0000 UTC View PostCole turned and ran toward Howie, who was in the process of running towards Cole, lacking as he was in the close-quarters combat department. When he saw the look in his Cole’s eyes, he hesitated, realizing what was coming.
“No!” he shouted, just as Cole grabbed him and burned two charges on a paired Meteoric Leap. As soon as they left th...
2025-08-15 03:29:46 +0000 UTC View PostI'll be taking a break from uploads here and on Royal Road tomorrow, then after Friday's chapter Royal Road is going to be transitioning to a M/W/F upload schedule. Patreon chapters won't follow exactly the same schedule, but I'll be aiming to keep it 12-15 chapters ahead so I'll be making up the difference over the weekend.
Also, welcome all new Patrons! It's honestly staggering how many...
2025-08-13 23:19:56 +0000 UTC View PostThe pit siren blared, and power flooded into Cole. The artificial Lewis Field seeped into his body, awakening the attunement levels he’d built up in Curahee. Suddenly, the pack that had been weighted down with weapons and ammo to the point of being practically unmovable became light enough for him to swing up onto the cargo rack of the skeletonized L-ATV before cla...
2025-08-12 21:15:29 +0000 UTC View PostSo, the launch blitz went on a bit longer than I intended, but when you're on a roll you're on a roll, and I'm managing to stay about 30 chapters ahead of the Patreon, which is about 15 chapters ahead of the Royal Road version, despite two weeks of daily uploads.
I can't keep this pace forever, though, so this week we'll transitioning to 3 chapters a week so I can catch my breath a little...
2025-08-11 03:57:45 +0000 UTC View Post“You’re shitting me,” said Roxy. “Nona? Asked to join our team? You told her to fuck off, right?”
Two nights before the op, he’d gotten the four of them together at a dive in Fredericksburg with outdoor seating and broached the subject of taking one more member.
“I agree with Roxy,” said Howie.
Cole looked over at B...
2025-08-10 18:02:44 +0000 UTC View PostNow, with the run of the base, Cole went looking for the Kicker who had requested his support. He found a familiar face on the way.
“Hey, hey!” said the enormous gunner, Deadlight, clapping him on the shoulders. Even without a Lewis Field, the man was two-seventy pounds of corn-fed Midwestern stock. “Glad to see you survived and my midni...
2025-08-10 03:41:46 +0000 UTC View Post“Who can hear you talkin’ like we can’t,” said Bjorn.
Cole looked down. “I just didn’t know we hosted otherworlders.”
Jeff clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Believe it or not, there’s about one hundred and twenty otherworld refugees resettled in the DC area. Mainly defectors who helped us extract kids in exchange for asylum from...
2025-08-09 16:09:12 +0000 UTC View Post“I’ve already got a ticket booked for Georgia to pick up your truck and drive it back to Fredericksburg. For the meantime, I’ve secured you a rental vehicle. Do you have an idea of whether you’d prefer to live on the compound or out in town? And if so, house or apartment?”
One other perk of passing through the crucible of Curahee was also the...
2025-08-08 04:07:36 +0000 UTC View PostThis time, no one interrupted his downtime until Roxy knocked on his door at 0800 hours, ready for chow. She still had on gym shorts, and now a faded Guns and Roses t-shirt—seemingly an endless supply of old band merch stocked the girl’s closet. Ravenous after eating nothing but flavorless meal bars, Motrin, and GI instant coffee for the previ...
2025-08-05 16:11:30 +0000 UTC View PostDespite his mental fatigue and physical exhaustion, now that he was out of hell and back in the real world, he needed something, anything, to push off the crash he knew was coming, and aquatic flagellation in a scalding hot shower was not enough. Everything he’d pushed back, everything he’d stowed and stuffed down over the last three day...
2025-08-05 04:05:52 +0000 UTC View PostThe transition this time wasn’t as jarring or sickening, which Cole attributed to his increased resilience propping him up.
The swirling field of blue around him dissipated, leaving the pit in the bottom of the portal complex back at the DOR compound. Cole trudged forward, feeling lessened under the artificial Lewis Field of the compound. He waved o...
2025-08-04 03:11:47 +0000 UTC View PostThanks everyone who has been reading along so far! I hope you're enjoying the story. We've caught up to the launch blitz deficit on Royal Road, but I'm going to try and keep the momentum going as long as I can keep the backlog far enough ahead to stay about 95% consistent between the Patreon and Royal Road versions. Right now, DOR is half-way up the main rising stars list, and I know we can get...
2025-08-02 16:22:12 +0000 UTC View PostCole dropped and started to low-crawl his way through the tunnel, pushing his pack ahead of him. There was barely enough clearance for his torso and kit in the claustrophobic space. “This shit is why I wasn’t a submariner,” he muttered up at Roxy’s ass.
“No kidding,” she whispered back, “fuck thaaawoah!” 2025-08-01 19:52:59 +0000 UTC View Post
Cole barely managed to duck, feeling Ram-head’s pole-axe skim across the top of his high-cut helmet. Undeterred, the armored giant shield-slammed him right in the front plate, sending him rolling across the ground. The man looked worse for wear, stained and sullied armor sprouting orange fungal growths in several places, snaked with the blue, veiny fibers that ...
2025-08-01 16:21:27 +0000 UTC View PostThey closed and barred the sally port behind them before pushing open the double doors to the courtyard. Rows of old, infested trees swayed in the wind and rain. Now out of the close quarters, Cole loosened his sling and raised his otherworld rifle, scanning for threats. The inner wall between the Kickers and the keep was beyond the orchard at t...
2025-08-01 03:55:09 +0000 UTC View PostThe lift platform had been built on a rise with a steep drop of about twenty feet down to the floor of the mountain terrace. Cole reduced his fall speed and slid down the side of the rise ahead of the rest of the group to range ahead, eyes and ears peeled for any hint of trouble. For several hours, they picked their way across the steep terrain until finally their...
2025-07-30 21:08:25 +0000 UTC View PostWhen Besson didn’t join them at dawn, Cole had Howie take him out to the forest where he’d spoken to the K9. They left the gate along with the flux of traffic from the field workers and lumberjacks. Most of them stared at the pair of Kickers that towered head and shoulders above the crowd, but Cole brushed them off. It seemed even humans born native to ...
2025-07-30 20:45:38 +0000 UTC View PostLudwig left not long after his long-winded story and bare-bones description of what was in store up the mountain. Being the baron of humanity’s last dying gasp still included plenty of chores and petty dispute-solving. Cole knew he was far from the first pilgrim Ludwig had seen, and he wouldn’t be the last.
“Howie, go let Besson know it’s saf...
2025-07-29 23:39:09 +0000 UTC View Post