The usually serene yet deadly atmosphere of the Dark City had undergone a significant change in the past two weeks since the successful dethronement of Gunlaug and a short cleanup that followed.
In the daytime it was mostly as usual: quiet and empty, as neither the humans inhabiting its streets nor the monsters lurking in shadows were stupid enough to be seen under an endless assault of the rays of Nameless Sun, ever growing in strength.
The nights, on the other hand, became the opposite of what they used to be: loud, full of action all over the City and also much, much less hopeless than they used to be.
The balance of power had changed.
As for the reason for that change…
A short but loud crackling and a whistle of the air were all indications of danger Effie got before she suddenly dove back and rolled on the ground as the lightning bolt struck right at the place where she just stood a second ago, connecting with the giant grotesque amalgamation of limbs, fangs and disgusting-looking head-like orbs.
The monster wailed as it dropped to the ground momentarily, painful soul-tearing sounds escaping its multiple maws.
Effie growled as she jumped to her feet and threw a sharp glance behind her and shouted, her face twisting.
“Oy, you bird brain! Are you out of your damn mind? You’re planning to fry my ass or what?!”
Kai, who was silent until this point, landed on the roof of the building already knocking [Blood Arrow] in his new cool looking onyx bow and answered flatly.
“Am I at fault now that you decided to show off to the newbies and threw that aforementioned ass into the maw of the damned Nightmare Creature?! You learn all the wrong things from Sunny, I tell you!”
Effie tsk-ed as she spun on her heels and swung her spear, half-severing the neck of the abomination that tried to sneak up on her from behind, already opening her mouth to retort with something rude, perverted or both.
“Guys! I don’t think that it’s the best of times!”
Cassie exclaimed from behind, Quiet Dancer flying around her in a mad dance, while she herself was slipping between her enemies fluidly, a cutlass whistling in her right hand, and a small mountain of corpses left in her wake.
Even though the creatures she was facing were of an Awakened Rank, she actually looked cool.
Especially if one took her Flaw into account.
An arrow whistled once again and then blood and gore flew in all directions as it blew off the head of an Awakened Devil that was silently stalking Cassie and was preparing to lunge and skewer her with his protruding poisonous horn.
Meanwhile the blind seer took a quick step back crouching on her right leg that she put behind a moment ago as she dodged the sharp claws of the humanoid creature threatening to disfigure her pretty face and then shot forward unexpectedly with a wide swing of her sabre, slitting the throat of one creature, and then continued her movement with a quick lunge to the side and disemboweled the other one.
She let out a short sigh and then quickly turned around towards the building where Kai stood.
“Thank you!” she exclaimed warmly with a bright smile on her face.
Kai gave her a short strange look and shouted something in return as he took aim again.
Effie’s eyebrow twitched as she turned around suddenly.
‘The bastard is going to steal my kill!’ she thought with irritation, immediately predicting where he was going to shoot next.
So Effie decided not to pay any attention to those two as she took a step back and then tossed her spear in the air slightly as she changed her grip on it.
She took a sharp breath in and then with a loud shout jumped forward and threw it with all her might at the Fallen Beast that was the central power of the flock they were currently hunting.
The one that was giving them the most trouble in this fight and also the one that was stunned by Kai’s shot a few seconds prior.
At the same moment she heard the bowstring loosing and the other arrow whistling past her.
Her spear connected with the creature’s skull.
The arrow, however, did too.
Her heart stopped for a second as she bit her lip.
From both of their perspectives their strikes got to the Beast at the same time, so it was for Spell to judge whose trophy this disgusting mix of limbs would be.
Finally, after a long second of waiting, Spell whispered into Effie’s ear and she jumped with a laugh and grinned at Kai triumphantly with a slightly raised eyebrow.
He simply rolled his eyes at that and rose up in the air once again, the sounds of battle around them growing quieter, and flew quickly towards the alley, where she knew Nephis and her party were doing their own cleanup.
She turned around and looked at the party of two dozen people consisting of two of Gemma’s Hunters and a Pathfinder and the rest of the Sleepers who barely ever had the opportunity to hold a weapon in their hands.
Now that this small block of the City was cleared they finally had an opportunity to catch their breath.
Or so they thought…
“What are you doing, you lazy bums?!” Effie’s booming voice attracted all of the attention back to her, the poor souls froze and then gulped synchronously.
“Back to work, all of you!”
Loud grumbles and moans echoed behind her, but she didn’t spare them a moment to listen to their complaints as she turned around and took off, passing over a ruined building with just two powerful jumps and started to catch up to the blind girl, who was running surprisingly fast for her stature and especially so, considering her lack of eyesight.
New features of her prudish Echo were actually useful, as now it not only sharpened her senses significantly, allowing her to join fights without being a burden, but could also help her fly for short distances, thus bypassing obstacles on her way.
Effie also noted that at some point Kai decided to descend closer to the ground and said something to her with a smile.
Cassie nodded gratefully and giggled shortly as he wrapped his left hand around her back and both of them flew up over the buildings.
‘Those two traitors!
How dare everybody leave me behind?!’ she mused dejectedly as she quickened her pace.
‘No matter…’
However, there was no actual need for their rush in the end.
As she crossed onto the last street before entering the alley where the sounds of battle were coming from, the first thing to meet her was a huge flash of light and a weave of heat and then, after a second, a loud thud.
She drifted her gaze towards where the sounds just came and landed it on a scorched — missing half of its left grotesque arm and covered with cuts, gashes, and a sizable hole in its gut — body of a tall Fallen Monster lying on the ground, with Nephis looking at it with a slightly tilted head.
And the creature actually looked monstrous: more than eight feet tall; with an almost human-like head; maw filled with two rows of shark-like sharp teeth; its limbs impossibly long, the only intact arm almost reaching the floor with its sharp claw-like fingers; on its head two massive, curved horns protruded from the sides near the temples and were directed straight forward.
Neither its terrifying appearance, nor its viciousness posed much challenge to the Changing Star, it seemed, as she stood there nonchalantly covered in blood — none of her own — and breathing steadily and shining for them like a lighthouse in this absolute darkness.
She turned around, acknowledging their arrival and gave them a short nod as she threw a short glance at her own cohort.
The overall state of the Sleepers in Nephis’s group was no better than in the two that she and Kai managed, as most of them were people who didn’t possess much combat experience and thus weren’t in the best of physical shapes either.
They were better, however, than the week before and almost unrecognizable in terms of skill and endurance since they formed their parties.
Caster — the famous simp-who-comes-too-fast — was nowhere to be seen to Effie’s shame, as the murderous bastard had his own group to manage.
She tsk-ed, half-expecting him to run here immediately after they separated at the Castle’s gates in the evening.
She wanted to have some fun, either teasing some poor soul — or actually deserving one such as the Han Li heir — or… some other, more physical kind of fun.
She was really pent up these last few months!
How did she even manage to go this long, she wondered.
‘Stupid prudish Doofus…’
She was fairly impressed and deeply irritated at the same time that Sunny had managed to reject her advances this long, as she was perfectly aware that he did in fact find her attractive.
And from the drunken banter one night she managed to find out that he was into older women, too.
So she actually had chances!
Or so she thought…
‘How could I have guessed that older meant ten plus years older?!’ she moaned in disappointment.
It was actually admirable that he was so loyal, she had to admit.
Anyone else would have forgotten about their girlfriend in the situation they found themselves in and given in to the temptation.
Especially in the face of a persistent pervert such as her.
But he was different…
Well, it was sad, but life moved on, she guessed cheerfully, moving lazily towards Nephis.
Her gaze caught a movement from the side, as, slowly and with a short giggle from the blind girl, Kai and Cassie landed near the Princess.
Nephis gave the two a calm look and greeted them curtly.
Effie’s brow twitched slightly, her lips quivering.
She, however, didn’t let herself dwell on the thought that surfaced in her mind for too long and continued to move.
Well, as was evident from the ongoing events, the source of the change in the atmosphere in the City was quite simple — it was undergoing a serious cleanup.
Now that most of the Sleepers had no reason to hide behind the protection of the Castle — as the disaster was about to reach them wherever they were and as they needed as many Soul Shards and body parts of strong Nightmare Creatures as they could get for the upcoming siege — they were forced to split their army into small groups led by a few experienced hunters to both acquire the aforementioned resources and to train as many people as they could.
And that was basically all they were doing these past two weeks: fighting, eating, training, sometimes sleeping and so on.
Sunny, on the other hand, barely left the Castle for more than a week since he had arranged himself a workshop there either creating new Memories, discussing the tools they would need to build with Artisans, planning the siege or working on a… secret project of his.
Effie hadn’t actually seen him for the last three — or was it four — days at all.
And from what she knew from the talks, the crazy guy hadn’t slept even once.
Jeez… He was diligent.
“Yo, Princess,” Effie said with a grin on her face as she looked Nephis over with interest.
“You look even more radiant than usual. What’s your secret? Beauty sleep? Special diet? Or secret skincare techniques?” she said as she extended her hand to get a feel of her cheeks but was interrupted with a hard slap.
“Ouch. How rude!”
Nephis just rolled her eyes at that and gave a few commands for her subordinates to start butchering the monster bodies, taking all the necessary resources and especially Soul Shards.
Hunts these days usually ended up with half the Shards going to cultivate the newbies’ strength and the other half going back to the Castle, where they would be converted into tools to use in the siege that was just around the corner.
Though, most of the Ascended ones ended up being used as the power source for Memories, as the finishing blow to the Fallen creatures usually ended up being delivered by someone experienced and with an already saturated — or pretty close to it at least — Core.
“I actually mean it, though,” Effie said more quietly this time as she looked around briefly to make sure no one was in their vicinity.
“You have been growing much stronger these past few days: in fire, strength, speed and endurance. Are you… you know close to it?”
And she got stronger indeed.
In the time it took them to clear one City block, Nephis would clear three, singlehandedly slaying several Fallen Nightmare Creatures in the process.
Considering that her group mostly consisted of the newbies and had just two other experienced hunters to cover her back, that spoke loudly of her personal prowess.
Changing Star gave her a weird look with a slightly raised eyebrow as if asking ‘that’s the best time you decided to ask that, really?’ Effie, however, was aware that there probably wouldn’t be any other time, as either all of them would be too busy to banter or she would be in the presence of her assassin-slash-simp and they would have to keep their mouths shut.
And of course he would be!
Effie moaned, internally.
He was actually the only one besides Nephis who made some progress in his path to Awakening.
A significant one at that — now he could slowly circulate his essence through his body, strengthen himself and even his ability too in times of need and now was quickly catching up to Princess.
Effie, on the other hand, had only just gotten a feeling of her Core and the essence contained inside it.
Kai’s source of that enlightenment, though…
She looked shortly to the side, forcing herself not to grin, but then decided not to bring that up until they were back in the Waking World and shook her head, shifting her glance back at Neph.
Changing Star exhaled tiredly under all of the attention, a corner of her lips tugging slightly and then finally proceeded to answer.
“I think I am. Actually, I believe that I was ready for more than half a month already, though I always decided against pushing the last step, as there was neither an opportunity, nor was I absolutely sure how. Now that I actually got a feeling…” she drawled thoughtfully as she dismissed her flames and clenched and unclenched her fist several times.
“I think I subconsciously already started to change my Core and am now just a step or two away from Awakening it properly.”
Effie’s eyebrows rose slightly in surprise.
‘Well, that explains such an explosive growth of strength.’ Actually, what did she expect — both Princess and Doofus were actually kind of geniuses…
Yeah, she was jealous of others’ achievements and so what?!
Sue her!
“Now, Sunny’s explanation of essence circulation makes a lot of sense. Honestly, the first time I heard it, I thought that he was spewing nonsense,” she chuckled, her eyes growing distant a bit.
“I guess it’s really more of a ‘feeling-thingy’ how he put it, as without feeling and understanding one’s own essence there is little chance of controlling it properly…” she frowned shortly and then chuckled once again, her eyes glittering in the pale light of the luminous Memories her cohort members used.
“Or you can just go with Sunny’s way and destroy your old Dormant Core and create a new Awakened one…”
Effie actually laughed at that.
Yeah, Doofus was crazy like that.
Cassie giggled quietly too, though her expression twisted slightly.
Kai remained silent the whole time, however, the frown on his face still present.
The guy was pushing himself like crazy these past few days, she mused.
She did too, but not that fanatically, of course.
Maybe she should try?
Being a madwoman she meant…
She laughed, bringing the attention of everyone around her.
“You know, guys. Before, I thought that being not right in the head was a downside to a person’s character,” she said as everyone’s eyes turned to her with interest.
Kai smiled warmly, his gaze a bit distant.
“But now, after meeting our Doofus and considering the lives we lead… I started to think that it’s actually a huge boon!” she grinned as everyone chuckled at that, agreeing.
“Eh… If only I had a drink that would make a good toast…”
Nephis frowned and gave her a disapproving look.
“There is not a drop of alcohol left in all the City, anymore…” she drawled with a slightly raised eyebrow.
“Do you happen to know whose fault that is?”
Effie snorted and narrowed her eyes, meeting Changing Star’s gaze.
“Guys, is my memory faulty or was there a situation two weeks ago when one silver-headed — totally not drunk, by the way — girl climbed on S–”
The air grew hotter suddenly, as Nephis inclined her head, sparks dancing in her eyes, her lips lifted as she met her gaze and took a step forward.
“Go on,” she said innocently, her voice flat.
“Continue that sentence…”
Effie decided that her continuous existence was worth more than one embarrassing joke and shook her head as she took a step back.
“Nothing. And absolutely nothing!” she shouted, her smile becoming a bit strained.
“Actually, I’m absolutely sure that I dreamed the whole situation in the first place. Hehe, funny, isn’t it?”
Nephis gave her a dubious look for a second before nodding silently and turning around to give the command to the other unit that had just arrived from the other street.
Effie let out a sigh of relief as she faced her other two companions, who were engrossed in their own quiet conversation until now.
Cassie felt her movement and met her gaze with a mischievous smile on her face and said quietly: “She actually did…”
Effie had to force herself not to laugh for all the City to hear as she perceived the mighty Changing Star’s back straining a bit and a bit of pink — almost imperceptible in this lighting if you didn’t know where to look — touching the tips of her ears.
***
Quiet steps echoed in a spacious room, almost devoid of any light, first rays of sunlight finding their way through the half-open window, shadows dancing slowly as the pale young man circled around the center of it, waving his hands methodically over what seemed like an empty air.
He stopped for a second as a long yawn escaped him before he could stop it.
Sunny was very, very tired.
It had already become a common occurrence for him, but since his successful regicide two weeks ago — and the party that followed it — Sunny hadn’t managed to allocate himself even an hour of sleep.
Even his Awakened body could barely continue to move like that and it was becoming a torture of its own…
As for every other matter, besides his apparent lack of sleep… Well, everything was going pretty smoothly, as much as it could in their circumstances.
That little revolution of theirs was carefully and meticulously prepared even before his arrival at the Forgotten Shore.
He and Jet worked out an initial plan in the first week following the police station incident and his apparent regression, and it was reworked a bit after he approached and gained the allegiance of Seishan three months ago.
After that it was only a matter of undermining Gunlaug’s authority and slowly gaining allies, without ever showing their hand.
Which wouldn’t have been an easy thing in itself, so they decided to approach the operation from a different angle.
Instead of running around to gain allies, they decided to make the Bright Lord an enemy of every single person first.
He was loathed even before that, of course, but was there ever anyone vocal enough to stand up to him?
There were, of course, but those who did usually ended up fading from existence unexpectedly.
He was too powerful.
Too unreachable.
And simply undefeatable.
He knew of everything and controlled everything perfectly.
At least in the eyes of the masses.
So it was a logical solution to first shatter that image of an all-powerful and infallible tyrant that he fancied showing.
So the first few weeks after getting back to the City, Sunny spent destroying the standing of Gunlaug’s other lieutenants and their groups, especially the Guards — as the majority of those were just scum undeserving to breathe the air as normal human beings — and the Hunters, but on an admittedly lesser scale.
The reasons for that were simple: first — by destroying the reputations of other faction leaders they would also be cutting off the competition for the position of authority and humbling them; and second — well… incompetence of the Lord’s vassals shows the incompetence of the Lord himself too.
Tessai, already having a dreadful reputation to begin with, was a very easy target: organize a skirmish with his own people here and there; add some… substances to his drinks and food that would cause some uncontrollable behavior, which would in turn lead him to vandalize some property or beat up some innocent bystanders; make the murderous bunch that were most of his underlings behave even more inappropriately; record his voice onto a modified [Extraordinary Rock] and let it spew some traitorous thoughts with his voice here and there….
And more than that he left one small enchanted item in his room that — after continuous exposure — gave him a huge boost of confidence.
A confidence that quickly turned into an arrogance, even more pronounced than it was before.
And as Gunlaug failed to put him in his place after a while — several times even in public — that gave… some ideas to the masses.
Gemma’s subordinates mostly weren’t that despicable — though there were a few exceptions like Andel — so he and Seishan didn’t put nearly as much effort into them.
Besides, his forces were much more competent.
And they would need as many of those in the upcoming battle as they could.
However, to gain some allegiances in the Castle, he made some effort in getting rid of some scum personally.
As Artisans held an important place in his plans, he decided to undermine only those that would be a direct threat and even then only in a way that wouldn’t warrant an execution.
At some point he even wanted to approach Gunlaug’s other lieutenant — Kido, however, he decided against that in the end, as she was basically a wild card to him, and even worse — she was ambitious as the last round showed.
The core of their plan, however, was in making Gunlaug more unstable himself.
Make him appear weaker, less refined, more chaotic.
And was there an easier way to make a person go insane other than not letting them sleep for a while?
That’s right… he and Nightmare were quite busy these few months!
After a few experiments with a copy of the [Devil’s Smile]’s enchantment Seishan’s Handmaidens became busy too…
And as Gunlaug’s other lieutenants’ power was slowly diminishing, Seishan’s, on the other hand, skyrocketed, and before the short battle to overthrow the Lord, she was already in control of most of the Castle’s affairs and had her people everywhere; she was the one to decide which rumors should circulate and which should die; what the Lord should know and she was the one to direct the way he should react; and many, many other things.
Thus along with a few more manipulations and contingencies they made, the Throne War — if it could be even called that — ended up being both short and almost bloodless.
Especially if it was compared to the one that happened in his previous life…
Now — a bit more than two weeks after the event — they had a slightly less than nine hundred human lives to manage and thus everyone was busy.
The most prominent fighters in the City organized their own cohorts — of twenty to twenty-five people in each, with twenty-seven cohorts in total — to both procure resources: meat, monster body parts and primarily — Soul Shards; and to give some valuable experience to those who were willing to fight.
Artisans and those who thought themselves hopeless in fights were building tools, weapons, siege machines and other things that would be useful in fights.
Some were undergoing courses of first aid and learning how to take the wounded out of the battlefield.
He himself was very busy too, as was evident by his state: he had to plan; dedicate some time to help Artisans with their ongoing project of creating a telescoping ramp, as well as giving some general lessons in runic sorcecery — which wasn’t his main strength admittedly, but was the only form he could actually teach; weave tons of Memories — primarily those with Soul Protecting enchantments; finish and tune the Domain Canceler; run around the City some nights to catch some old shadows in his Lantern that he had not caught yet; manage his Shadows that were also in the fields day and night; and finally finish the extremely infuriating and beyond stupidly dangerous contingency of his that his gut was telling him he would be forced to use.
Just how tired he was…
And so yeah, everyone was preparing, and giving their very best.
Well, almost everyone…
A quiet murmur sounded from behind him, redirecting his attention to the source of his annoyance.
On his relatively small desk, with a long yawn, the head of a black-haired petite young woman slowly rose, fluttering her eyes open and then stared at him with an owlish expression, a sleep mark reddening on her forehead.
She was Aiko, his manager and one of the contacts in the City prior to their revolution.
And now… kind of a freeloader.
She blinked a few times and looked around slowly, registering her surroundings as she mumbled something and stretched lazily.
“Morning, Boss!” she greeted him cheerfully, as he stared at her with an unreadable expression, eyes blank with deep black circles and bags underneath them.
If one were to put him and Jet side-by-side now, they would probably confuse them for human-panda-hybrid siblings or something.
Sunny sighed and sent her his greetings with a nod.
“Morning…” he grumbled and turned back to work.
There were just a few touches left before he could freeze that project for a bit and take a short rest.
He was running on fumes for too long as it was.
As he continued to work, the shameless woman slowly stood up and took a precious box of tea leaves — a rarity in this City that cost a fortune!
— given to him by Seishan, from his drawer, dropped a few generous pinches of them unceremoniously into his cup — the one she had procured earlier — and went towards the small stove to boil some water.
Sunny ground his teeth as he weaved his hand a little too fast and almost messed up the enchantment he had been tweaking for the past two weeks.
Damnation, he definitely needed rest!
“Say, Boss…” Aiko drawled as she took a seat behind the desk again and leaned forward on her elbows, taking a sip of — very expensive and totally wrongly brewed!
— tea, her eyelids fluttering.
“What do you think about… giving me a raise?”
He stopped and slowly looked up at her with a deadpan and unblinking expression on his face for a straight ten seconds and then inhaled loudly, clenching his teeth.
The nerve of that woman!
“Aiko, my sweet, greedy friend, don’t you think you’re becoming a tiny bit insolent?” his hoarse voice echoed through the chambers, as his eyelid ticked a bit.
“These days, you’re doing barely anything, but laze around, distract and annoy me…”
She actually looked offended at that.
“What do you mean I don’t do anything?! I actually am one of the busiest people inside this Castle! Always doing some of your errands, ehh… coordinating the work with other groups or… emm… do some other things?” His empty tired eyes didn’t look impressed, though.
She shook her head suddenly and shouted.
“Anyways! Am I not the reason you gained valuable allies inside the Castle? Artisans? A few useful contacts that you later recruited? Doesn’t that count as a worthy achievement?”
His eyebrow twitched at that as his smile wobbled a bit.
He shifted his gaze to the side and muttered: “Can you believe that, really?”
“If I remember correctly, I paid upfront for that, by slitting a throat or five of guys who gave you trouble and with fifty Soul Shards on top of that.” He massaged his brows tiredly.
“…which in turn increased your net profits too.”
He directed his gaze at her again, guessing correctly that she was already preparing an argument for that and then sighed.
“Fine! No raise, but I’ll give you a bonus, I guess…”
He was very greedy, especially after [Shapeless Thief] came into his possession, but right now he was too tired and decided to value his mental health more.
‘What a sly strategy…’ he mused, knowing full well that this incarnation of avarice planned for exactly this outcome and was waiting for the moment when he could barely stand on his two feet.
She raised her hand and mouthed a ‘Yes!’ when she thought he wasn’t looking and then proceeded to negotiate.
“One hundred Soul Shards sounds like a reasonable bonus for my services,” she said shamelessly, her tone completely serious.
Sunny choked on air as he looked at her, dumbfounded.
Did she think he grows Shards on trees or what?
Well, he did possess a few wondrous fruits that could give you fragments when consumed, but they were gone for a long while already!
All lost in the hard battle against Gunlaug’s booze collection.
“You’re pushing it…” he said slowly, his voice dropping a tone or two.
“Not this much and not before the battle where a Corrupted abomination might cook all of our asses with a snap of her fingers,” he scowled as he looked at her unashamed expression.
“One Ascended Memory of a Second Tier that you can sell in the Waking World for a fair price.”
Aiko tutted and shook her head disappointedly.
“No can do,” she said as she stood up, taking a sip and showing him three outstretched fingers.
“Three Memories or I’m out.”
He almost laughed in exhilaration.
Was this ridiculous woman conjured by his overworked mind?
“You barely do anything anyways! Might as well find a new assistant. For half a price, probably. You know there was one very competent handmaiden. Was it Felise? Anyways, I think Seishan and I can come to terms ab–”
Aiko’s eyes grew wide, her expression stricken with horror and indignation.
“That bitch?! And you would exchange me — someone who actually knows her work — for… a mere three Ascended Memories? Are you that petty, Boss?”
Well, he did know what to answer to that.
“Oh, but I am petty. Not prettier than you, it seemed. So two Ascended Memories: one now, and one — after we’re back in the Waking World. Take that or there will be some… restructuring in our organization,” he said with a toothy grin and extended a hand.
She looked hesitant for a second and then took his hand immediately.
He chuckled as he transferred to her a shield Memory with a soul-protecting enchantment that he was actually planning to give her anyways.
He rolled his eyes slightly and then barked an order.
“Now get out of my sight and back to work! I want all progress reports before noon.”
He shouted, making her jump slightly and drop an expensive cup on the ground.
Thankfully his Freaky shadow reacted quickly and caught it into its soft embrace.
He gave her a look as she was already running out of the room.
“Sorry, Boss; thank you, Boss; will be done, Boss!” she rambled and then the next moment he was already alone.
Sunny sighed tiredly and shook his head.
“What an infuriating woman…” he thought, starting to wave his hands carefully over the empty air.
His seven gloved fingers were moving slowly and methodically, sometimes shifting old essence strings to the side or reattaching them or sometimes weaving new ones in.
‘There are a few things left to finish and then I can finally catch a couple of hours of sleep before the meetings.’ he thought with satisfaction as he looked at the stabilizing tapestry.
Suddenly — to his irritation — someone knocked on his door three times.
He cursed loudly as he stopped right before weaving the string in a totally wrong place, before the door opened slowly and another infuriating woman walked in.
“Good morning, Sunny. I see you’re as busy as ever,” she said with a nervous — in her barely decipherable way — smile.
“Hey, Neph…” he greeted awkwardly in return, directing his gaze to her.
She looked a bit battered with dried and fresh blood all over her clothes and face, looking pretty tired too, however her gaze held none of it.
“So you’ve finally decided, eh?” he asked as he raised his eyebrow at her with a chuckle, dismissing his ongoing project.
She looked at him for a second, no particular emotion surfacing in her gaze before she took a short breath in and then nodded curtly.
“Yes. I think that it’s finally time… for me to Awaken.”
Hello, everyone!
Another new chap is here for you all.
This one might be bit boring, I might admit.
Still hope that you enjoyed it, though) You can still expect the next one to be out by Friday, hopefully I can make it in time, if not then you would sadly have to wait till Monday.
If I calculated everything right (and I rarely do, when it comes to both chapter length and count, sadly), then there is only seven chapters left before the FS arc finale.
And then the real shit begins!
So hopefully we’ll finish this too prolonged prologue before the month’s end on a somewhat of nice number of 30 chapters and before we go over 200k+ words.
Would like to hear your opinions about this chap in particular and the story as a whole so far.
Is pacing okay; should I improve prose somewhere; what chapter/scene/dialog/etc you liked the most; what I should improve or maybe some irritating things I need to take notice of?
Your thoughts are always appreciated, so you are always welcome in comments.
And that is it.
Thank you all for reading and see you guys soon.
Bye!