Chapters
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The crowd slowly settled to safer ledges and broken seats under his light. Even the Daimaō came down on his cloud in a crooked glide, beard pulled loose on one side, expression caught between humiliation and delight. He raised his fist. “Go, Temujin!” the demon king cried. Ryūei broke free and the aura dispersed. She panted and felt her wrist. “To hell with your silly self aggrandizement, filth. You're a normal puke born under a normal sky. You don't even deserve to bear a…-
56.5 K • Ongoing
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Several slow clouds came and went. The bracket wheel burned and turned and sent ashes fluttering down. Temujin’s name appeared again. With renewed zeal, he stood, beat his palm, and said, “Alright, bring it on!” As he walked, the voices of his new ‘friends’ cheered him on. This drew a complicated, but grateful warmth to his fists. There surged a sound different from the roar that had greeted Qinglong. This was a warmer noise, uglier for being warm. Temujin recognized it as the…
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56.5 K • Ongoing
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The lei tai was simple from above and severe from within: a broad circle of bone-white square stone tiles, smoothed enough to be uncanny, and inlaid with eight equidistant bronze trigrams. Beyond it, nothing but red dirt and a moat of smoking black water in the pit below, then the tiers of demons ascending into the mountain’s throat. Four prayer-pillars stood at the cardinal points, wound with iron sutra chains. At the north wall, looming over the ring from a niche of red lacquer and soot, stood the…
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56.5 K • Ongoing
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Mali brought her flag down. “And that will settle the first rounds! Now it’s time for a much-needed food break!” Enekai and Yulaan ran towards the food court, a hundred paces away from the pavilion and arena. The bronze champion hyperventilated around Yulaan and calmed when Enekai rushed along. Sesame shook both fists after them. “I’ll tie your tails into knots if you spend all my money stuffing your goddamn maws again, monkeyfucks!” Temujin felt cooler than the other side of…
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56.5 K • Ongoing
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February 2056 MARIE Aurore walked the Quai de Valmy along the Canal Saint-Martin in the grey-blue light before the cafes opened. The plane trees were bare and black against the zinc rooftops, and the canal water sat flat and green-grey between its stone banks, and the cold was the kind of cold that did not bite but settled into clothing and stayed. Her breath came in small clouds that dissolved before they reached the iron railing at the water's edge. She wore a black double-breasted coat with brass…
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2.7 K • Ongoing
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“Nine!” He awoke. “And—!” Pink smoke struck him in the face. It had the taste of sugar, copper, and Sesame’s sweet sweat. He sat up before he understood that sitting up should have been impossible. His ribs no longer ground together. His throat opened. The crushed place under the sternum filled with warmth. His torn cheek sealed. His lungs drank air and found room for it. He stood. Sesame stood at the rail with one hand stretched toward him, her whole arm…
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56.5 K • Ongoing
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Temujin and Enekai’s respective matches were so quick that the young man had forgotten what happened in them by the time the trumpets sounded. Those were long crooked horns blown by red-faced tengu clinging upside down to the rafters. The doors at the end of the hall opened with a groan. Beyond them, a staircase climbed into a vast chamber lit by fire the color of burning emeralds. Emeralds! What a tease. The gathered fighters moved. The main arena waited beyond the temple: a circular lei tai…
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56.5 K • Ongoing
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The Xaxalpa family home was the type any passing driver would not have found extraordinary. Two stories of a Cape Cod house, a manicured front yard, a picket fence as a border, and of course the raven-haired Saiyan girl in the backyard. Sol Yulaan had been out there since midnight, standing over a block of Devilmite Blackstone with a pick-hammer, shaping a skull. Devilmite didn't yield to much. A Gosamyrian noble could fire a star-busting chi wave at a Devilmite wall and knock off a chip no bigger than…
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34.1 K • Ongoing
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The mountain ranges beyond the arena answered. Peaks shook. Loose ridges lifted from their roots and hung in the air. Storm clouds gathered with unnatural speed, churning above the broken roof, then were blown apart by the first pulse of her power. The empty pit where the black water had been split wider, revealing old bones embedded in the stone below. The Daimaō’s cloud bucked. He grabbed the armrest of nothing and failed to stay dignified as he and three shrieking demon babes lifted from the…
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56.5 K • Ongoing
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The arena snapped sideways. He hit the stone on his shoulder and rolled through pain bright enough to have color. Before he could find his knees, a second blow struck the ribs. A third landed under the sternum. A fourth slapped his guard aside and cracked across the cheek. He came up on one elbow. She kicked him down. He gasped and looked up at her. She stood. He had, at the last panicked moment, seen her move and braced himself. “For you,” she said, “I start with twenty…
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56.5 K • Ongoing
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