《Path of Pandora – My Worldbuilding System》Horned Mask (3/3)
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Bang, bang, bang!
The forest echoed from the violent attack. The tiny birds used their feathers to cover their offspring, so their scared chirps wouldn’t attract danger’s attention.
Unbeknownst to the forest creatures, they did not matter to the cause of such loud offense. The half-masked goblin only saw one man as its prey: Hachiro Tanuki, who has tried his best to evade or block every attack. His stamina diminished by the minute, and with every second, he could feel his legs get weaker on him.
“What am I missing?” The sentence echoed endlessly in his head, giving him both a headache and some more energy to keep on fighting.
He made sure to circle back around and end up by the Gaia Core, next to his stockpile of carved wooden spears. The goblin didn’t notice that, as her wrath blinded her of all things that were not the boy.
She raised her staff again, hit the ground, the horn on her mask lit up with a red light and a horn appeared beside her head, that flew straight at Tanuki.
Bang!
The shield was nearing its limit. The explosion blew Tanuki back against the Gaia Core. His back went numb from the impact, then returned with burning pain.
But at that exact moment, when breath escaped his lungs and his body experienced a staggering shock, something dawned upon him. It was a eureka so powerful, all other feelings seemed to bow and step aside to give way to her majesty, as she blessed Tanuki with her sacred knowledge.
“I get it!” Tanuki muttered without a voice. “I know how to defeat her!”
His body fell to the ground as if it was already a corpse. Still, Tanuki mustered all his remaining energy and stood back up again.
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The goblin summoned another attack and sent it flying towards Tanuki. It was aimed to stop him if he were to run away and try to escape, but going against all odds, Tanuki decided to charge her head-on.
Taken aback, she changed the course of her next attack, which Tanuki countered by revealing two spears behind his back. He threw one at the goblin, which she precisely shattered into pieces. Swiftly, she turned back to face the boy, hit the ground with her staff, and summoned another attack, which she would’ve shot at Tanuki, but…
The other spear was missing from his hand.
The goblin quickly looked around, but the spear was missing. Then, she heard something with a whistling sound descend upon her.
As she looked up at the night sky, outlines of the spear appeared above her, descending at a fast pace. Tanuki didn’t throw the second spear directly at her, but instead, he threw it into the air, so it would strike her from above.
The goblin aimed her staff at the descending spear and shot a horn at it, bursting the weapon into a rain of wooden barbs.
Once she looked back, Tanuki was only a few feet away from reaching her. He bore a vengeful frown and as he raised his fist into the air, the goblin knew what he wanted to do. She hit her staff against the ground, summoned another attack, then raised her hands to block Tanuki’s attack while shooting the horn at him.
At that moment, of that night, where only a few stars were on the night sky, one outshined the rest, one’s rose above all others. A soul proved to another, that indeed, it had what it took to survive in this world.
The goblin remained unharmed. She lowered her hands and saw that Tanuki lay on the ground a few feet away. Blood leaked out of his nose and his body twitched painfully. He was a hairbreadth away from falling unconscious.
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The goblin’s face displayed a mixture of emotions. She was both angry and wanted the destruction of the boy, while she was also satisfied with her work and sadistically joyful of the boy’s fall.
She took a deep breath, hit her staff against the ground, the horn glowed on her mask, and then…
Bzzz!
The horn hummed with dim electricity, before fading away. The goblin aimed her staff at the boy, but nothing flew towards him. She tried to do it again, repeating the same steps as before, but nothing happened.
She was confused at first, but that strange humming noise made it immediately clear what was going on. She gasped nervously before looking at the staff, which had its top half missing.
“Are you looking for this?”
Tanuki raised his hand, revealing the top half of her staff. An even angrier frown grew on the goblin’s face, which Tanuki answered with a gloating smile. Putting his weak arms against the ground, he slowly stood up.
“I guess magic works much like electricity. Like a damn Tv, really! You need a power source, that being a mask. Then, you need a conductor for electricity, a wire, that being the staff. Then finally, it reaches the Tv and generates an image. I guess you could say that this image is the horn you summon, but I’m not sure. I still have much to learn about magic, heh!”
The goblin reached below her wool cape. Tanuki raised an eyebrow, then slowly began to approach the monster.
“Now, I don’t plan on killing you, but I’m also not afraid to do so. If you value your life, I suggest you surrender.”
Suddenly, the goblin pulled out a sharp stone from below her cape. It was shaped like a large wolf tooth, sharp enough to cut flesh.
“You cannot defeat me with that, you kno––“
“Glory to Soup, Daughter of the Blue Minotaur!”
“Huh? What are you talking about?”
Before he could’ve got an answer, the goblin launched the sharp stone into her throat and cut a large deep wound.
“Wait!” Tanuki yelled, but it was already too late.
He rushed to the goblin but was struck by her one last time, getting his right arm scratched. She tried to run and get as far away as possible, but after only a few meters, she collapsed. As her eyes turned grey, she used her last remaining energy to mutter the words:
“Glory… to… Soup…”
Tanuki wanted to rush after her, he wanted to save the little monster, the first intelligent being he has encountered. Even if it was impossible to save her, he wanted to try something, anything, in hopes of a miracle.
Ultimately, Tanuki was too powerless to help her. He collapsed and fell unconscious just beside the goblin’s corpse, which shortly after began to disappear.
.
.
.
[ Wave Cleared ]
[ Beginners’ Trial (2/3): Completed ]
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Of Men and Dragons, Book 2
Jack, S'haar, and all their family are back. After crashing his ship on an underdeveloped world, Jack found friends and family among the terrifying cat-lizard natives of the world, but now mere survival is no longer enough. They must carve out a new home for themselves in the landscape of the now rapidly changing world. Raiders, politics, and even nature threaten their happiness and their lives while they struggle to deal with the nightmares and traumas of yesterday. They'll need to depend on each other more than ever if they hope for their new home to have any kind of future. In case you missed it, here's book one. ATTENTION: This is soft sci-fi rather than hard sci-fi, hence why I chose that tag. For those of you unfamiliar with the distinction, here's what Wikipedia had to say. 1. It explores the "soft" sciences, and especially the social sciences (for example, anthropology, sociology, or psychology), rather than engineering or the "hard" sciences (for example, physics, astronomy, or chemistry). 2. It is not scientifically accurate or plausible; the opposite of hard science fiction. Soft science fiction of either type is often more concerned with character and speculative societies, rather than speculative science or engineering. The term first appeared in the late 1970s and is attributed to Australian literary scholar Peter Nicholls.
8 226Ebony Chitin - Eclipse
Richard Adams is something of a talented alchemist. One of the few magical professions that have anything to do with some kind of science. Everything was going swimmingly, until the 'cold night' incident happened. With it being determined as his fault, that such a thing happened. He was promptly exiled until he could return to Eclipse with a new 'discovery' for his field. What he didn't expect; was that he'd run into a strange humanoid monster that could seemingly heal any life threatening wound in a matter of seconds. Certainly this would be what he needs to become a master alchemist. The first step on a multi series journey. Please excuse the earliest chapters and their poor grammer. Ebony Chitin follows Richard Adams, and Mimi on their Journey to understand each other and the world around them. Due the the exploratory nature of such a claim, it will cover many different topics. This was my first attempt at actually writing a story, and because of that I will not edit it. I'd suggest reading the second part as it comes out as most of the things within this book will be recapped. Though if it becomes popular I hope it might inspire some of you readers to write your own stories. Cover Art by Rose Dragon
8 140UnderWorld Mafia System
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8 205The Merchant of the Golden Triangle
(This is a complete rewrite of The Wandering Merchant, which is discontinued.) A world governed by a never-ending Narrative, with each person with a Role to play and progress through Levels that beget Feats from their deeds. Throughout time immemorial, these had provided the means to build great civilizations, legendary exploits, and even opposing Gods, championed by great men and women throughout history that spans millennia and the forgotten beyond. This is one of its stories. A young [Trader] of his family-owned company with above-average wealth and influence left the continent of Libertalia behind because of great danger and competition from the many companies that rule its city-states. Armed with the knowledge that he had gained from his father's vault after the tragedy of losing him, he sets sail to the Golden Triangle of the world with his ambition to one day attain wealth and influence in Yhril, the Human Continent, to challenge the people that had wronged him.
8 201Tesla Stone and the World of Smoke and Mirrors
R0Q-T357-Alpha (callsign: Rock) is a "Core Child," an irredeemably-crippled test tube baby modified and repurposed by an advanced U.S. military project to serve as the CPU for two-thirds of America's orbital defense systems. Though no one outside of the Pentagon has ever heard of him, he protected his homeland from three ICBMs, a Pacific theatre invasion fleet, and one rogue asteroid. Now, after twenty-seven years of distinguished service from "birth," he is being honorably discharged into civilian life. The only problem is that "civilian life" isn't exactly livable for a glorified brain in a jar. How does a couple pounds of grey matter surrounded by five tons of life support systems and enough co-processing enhancements to take over the planet enjoy an early retirement when he's surrounded by overzealous politicians, corporate spies, and foreign agents after military secrets? The real world isn't that forgiving.
8 254The WereLionesses Mate
She was running out of breath, but that didn't matter, all that mattered was getting away from him and proving him wrong. Branches scraped her face and her arms, her body burning hot; but cold from her sweat as the wind blew over her skin. Her pants soaked from running through the streams, her shirt ripped to shreds around her stomach from very low hanging branches. Her hair, a tumbling fiery mess of tangles, and waves slipping through the ponytail she had quickly fastened trying to tame her wild hair. Running and crawling on the ground through the forest floor, trying to get back to the camp grounds so Whhooossshhhh! All of a sudden a giant gust of wind flew past her nearly lifting her off the ground and throwing her into a tree. Where in the world did that wind come from? She thought, but she kept running like it had never happened. She jumped over a fallen log, ignoring the fact that she almost fell in the process. She zoomed past all the trees and sprinted over the roots coming out of the ground. She rounded another tree coming to a sudden halt at seeing him standing there with a drink in his hand laughing and joking. She stood there wondering how in the world he could have beaten her here; He looked at her then, He looked, well, handsome, his faced was clean shaven and his button up shirt was all unbuttoned minus the three at the bottom. She could still visibly see his bronze chest and the top of his ripped-hard abs. He walked over to her and smiled, showing all of his teeth, the smile reaching his eyes. His eyes were dark and stormy, their color was usually a nice honey brown but now his eyes looked mid-night black. They looked like they could kill a man at eighty paces, but could sweep a woman off her feet at the same time.
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