《Mortem Comedenti(Death Eater)》Chapter 28: Duel of Strength (II)
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Kenan debated taking the orc's soul at that moment. However, he thought that the strength of Roshu being added to his own outweighed getting a quick pick me up. Noctis looked around quickly. The ring of fire still surrounded them. The white wolf was nowhere to be seen and Rufus stood idly with his limp and hurt arm.
“Kenan!” Rufus yelled suddenly. Noctis' attention snapped. The orc, who was still stabbed through the chest, roared back to life. All the blood caked on him glowed in a bright red as suddenly it seeped back into him. Cracks formed all around the skin as they too glowed in a dull red. His eyes widened as they suddenly turned solid red. Roshu grabbed both the sword and Kenan, and as one pulled both out. Then he held Noctis by his skull.
“Convictions are forged by strength!” The orc said as he threw Kenan at Rufus. Who tried to catch him, but they ended up tumbling on the ground. The two looked at each other. Both were wary, mana deprived, and beaten. Things were not looking good.
They stood quickly. Roshu still, snarling and waiting. “Listen kid. Go and find your uncle.” He seemed sober now, if not a bit buzzed.
“No.” Kenan said simply.
“Look. I don’t have a family. You got a sister to save.”
“And parents to avenge.” Kenan grasped his sword hard. “I would rather die.” He answered an unasked question.
“Fine.” Rufus said. A large flask appeared in his hands, then he proceeded to chug it all.. “Rioght.” He stood at the ready. Kenan too got into his combat stance. In his blade, Nattura roared in anticipation. Noctis crouched, getting ready for a sprint.
“Get ready. Kenan Noctis of the Sorrowful Night for the final tide. In which we decide who’s blade beheads which head.” Roshu roared
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All three rushed to meet. Kenan jumped over an ax swing as Rufus kicked the back on the orc's knee. The tag team didn’t need words to work together seamlessly. One directed, or took an attack while the other tried to do damage. In one large ax swoop Roshu made the two get distance. "Fine.” He said. He took two hands on both sides of the double headed ax and pulled. Splitting the weapon in half, down the middle. “This is more fair.” Now he wielded two large axes.
Just as the three were about to re-engage. A blur of white flew across Kenan’s field of vision. The female wolf had decided to join the battle. It jumped, grabbed onto Roshu’s shoulder. It got flung towards Kenan, but it took a large chunk of flesh with it. The wolf stood, shaking its fur from the mud. It looked at Kenan. Knowing what it’s mate’s last vestiges of strength had done for Noctis. It growled in anticipation, and bristled it’s fur. “Weird cat.” Rufus said groggily.
They slowly approached this time. Circling and probing. Noctis felt the wolf's next action, and followed to do the same. Sprinting, each took a side. On the left, the wolf slipped under a swing while turning and clamping down on Roshu's wrist. While on the other side. Kenan glided the ax down, making fit in the ground. In the first sword strike he slightly cut the wrist, not much damage. Then Rufus came from behind and wrapped his hands around the orc’s giant and thick neck. Seeing another moment, Kenan reversed the blade, and with the blunt side brought it down to the orcs fingers while activating the last whispers of mana in his system. Between the grip of the ax and the momentum of the blade. The orc’s fingers crushed and sorted at odd angles.
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Now it was Roshu’s turn as he yelled in a mix of rage and pain. He flung the wolf by shaking his arm wildly. It left a chunk of flesh missing. Then he batted it away with the flat side of his ax. Afterwards he dropped his other one while swinging with his good arm at Kenan. Who jumped back. He dropped the other ax too. With his left he reached behind and grabbed Rufus. Lifted him, and smashed him on the ground. Then stomped on him with a crushing heel. Blood spurted out of Rufus. To add salt to the wound, The orc kicked the old-drunk fumbling 20 yards away.
“Rufus!” Kenan yelled. He couldn’t do anything for him right now, besides kill this orc. He engaged quickly. Slipping or jumping over the one weapon foe. The wolf jumped back in too. Both started a dance. Kenan wanted to use Salpirkos again, but he lacked the mana to do so, and he wasn’t sure could even do it again. Maybe, it was a one time thing. Who knows.
Right now he was fighting an uphill battle. Pain surged everywhere. The two large wolf bites, an injured arm, lacerations on his stomach, and a dozen of other surface wounds were starting to take its toll, and he no longer had energy to block the pain. Yet he grit his teeth and pushed on. The wolf jumped at the orcs neck without warning. Roshu twisted and shot his ax up, connecting and flinging the beast away. It tumbled on the ground, whimpering on its way.
Quickly Kenan thanked the sacrifice as he sprinted through the legs of Roshu. He activated Mana Blade for a quick moment and cut right where he placed the wound on the hamstring earlier. This time, it dug deep. The orc bellowed in pain and shifted to one knee. However, with his good leg he pushed off of it to face his foe. In anger he simply threw his ax at Kenan. Who barely caught it. What he certainly caught also was the large green fist heading towards his head.
In a large bang it connected. The world immediately became fuzzy. Focus eluded him and pain wracked him. Roshu grabbed him. Brought him face to face. Yelled a animistic roar. Then, as if a doll, smashed Noctis on the ground multiple times. Each time he did so, Kenan lost more rational thought and something would break inside. Then the green-blood threw him. Kenan tumbled and rolled in pain. He lifted his head. To see Rufus’s body in front of him. Brokenly he moved one of his hands forward, and the other, which still clutched the sword. He tried to pull himself up. Yet pain, mana deprivation, concussion, muscle failure, and a fleeting conscience prevented him. Instead he just moved forward a bit. Unsure of what he was doing. He somehow flipped himself. His head on Rufus’s stomach. Kenan looked towards the face of the dead man. Then to the air. The clouds shifted, to the faces of Tyris and Ava. Kenan smiled.
He was upset that he couldn’t save Lucy personally. However, he had weakened Roshu to the point where Doco would be able to take care of him. Also, at least he was part of the saving, and took part in the avenging. Things could’ve been worse. “I’m sorry.” He said. Unsure who it was meant to go to. Mostly, to Rufus.
Kenan Noctis of the sorrowful night closed his eyes. Then died.
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Sword System Academia
2/17 NOTICE: I'm putting this on hiatus, possibly permanently. I didn't want to spam with an "update chapter", so hopefully here and in the story blurb will get enough eyeballs. There are a couple reasons for ending SSA for now. 1) I wrote the next chapter but wasn't happy with it. I've been less and less satisfied with SSA's quality the more I thought about it. Part of the reason is... 2) I am seriously thinking about trying to publish some novels to help pay the bills, since I don't have my other source of income anymore. I have never asked for anything from SSA readers, no money, not even a review or rating. SSA is written for fun to amuse myself, primarily, and I would kind of feel bad actually charging someone money for something as unserious as that. I don't think it is good enough to ask anything in return. To use an analogy from music, SSA is more like a jam session with a bunch of friends. You're just chiling and having fun playing some music. I mean, if you are Mozart or even Eminem, your jam session is good enough to sell, but for an amateur beginner like myself, haha, no. If I want to publish something, I feel like I need to go the proper route of practice and rehearsals, which might be more similar to a classical concert performance. With SSA, I work from worldbuilding notes and a loose outline, but what you are essentially getting is the first draft with lots of so-called pantsing. Pushing out a web novel like this also means it is very difficult to go back and improve things without breaking everything else downstream. I wanted to try this "jamming" approach, as it was a good way to teach me about another aspect of writing, but to move forward, I think I need to hone my "classical" techniques, which emphasize rewriting, or at least, revising outlines. 3) While I intend to try to make $$$, my actual current goal is to "get gud". I've spent a lot of time recently trying to understand the self-publishing industry, and I'm pretty sure I can make some money by using short-term strategies with my current amateur skill level. But I've seen too many authors come and go/burnout, and really, the only way that I think I can enjoy writing and still make money on a long-term basis is to become a better writer. And the next step for me, which I haven't done much before, is to spend more time on rewriting and outlines. That is pretty much antithetical to the way SSA is developing. I've always been kind of 20/80 plotting/pantsing, but I want to spend a lot more time outlining before I even start writing. SSA jam sessions don't really fit my goal anymore. If you're curious about what's next, read on... Among other regrets, I regret not finishing SSA. It's the first story I've dropped, but then again, it's the first web novel I've attempted, so I suppose that's not a surprise. I don't think traditional web novel formats suit me that well. The whole SSA story I had loosely planned (beyond a first book or major arc) is way too large as well. Big story = good for neverending webnovel with Patreons, bad for penniless and fickle writer like me. I am currently outlining a complete trilogy to another story in great detail. I want the story to end concisely, and I also want the chance to really spend a lot of time on the full outline to spot pacing problems, character issues, lost themes, and so on. I'll still share this story on RR. What I intend to do is finish book 1, flash-publish the whole thing here for a few weeks, then publish on the big Zon. Repeat for books 2 and 3. The upcoming story will be about crafting heroes. The backdrop is an isekai-like setting, where elves will summon humans to their world as heroes, but the whole hero crafting business is still in its infancy. The elven mage researchers are figuring out how to imbue heroes with power, while the heroes are trying to figure out how to use the powers that they gain. Humans are the best hero templates because they are blank and have no intrinsic magic. Or at least that what the elves thought. The human MC has his own secrets... There will be some similarities with litrpgs, but I would call it more a progression fantasy or gamelit story. For example, the stats are very low, at least initially. Say we have a stat called Str. Going from Str = 1 to Str = 2 is a huge deal. Also, going from Dex = 0 to Dex = 1 is an even bigger deal. I guess you could call it a "low-stat litrpg", haha. Also, the heroes won't be gaining stats simply by killing things or leveling up. You can't increase stats arbitrarily, either. There will be rules to how stats can increase, and how they work with each other. The elven mages will be figuring out these rules in order to craft stronger and stronger heroes. Some inspiration will be from cultivation magic systems, but there won't be overt cultivation, at least for now. A theme I really want to explore is the idea of interactions. That includes things like hero crafter vs hero, tactics vs strategy, skill synergies, racial interactions (dwarves, elves, etc), and son. Yeah, so hero crafting. I'm super excited about this project and venturing into publishing. If you want to check out the upcoming story, you can follow my RR author profile to see when it drops here. Finally... THANK YOU TO EVERYONE! I'm very sorry that SSA is stopping, but I hope at least some of you will find the next story at least as enjoyable, if not more. Thanks to all the readers who gave SSA a shot. Big hug or solid fistbump to all of you, whichever you prefer! I hope this message is not a downer but an upper, because I am psyched!! -purlcray -------------- BLURB: Talen, youngest Master of the Koroi, makes his way to the Empire's capital to salvage his clan's fate. But the bustling city has few opportunities for the traditionalist. For the old sword clans are fading. With the rise of alchemy, gold can purchase strength that ordinarily took years of training to cultivate. Sword artists, once rare and accomplished, are quickly growing in number, especially among the wealthy noble class. Even with such alchemy, though, no one has advanced to the rank of Grandmaster in countless years. Talen's true dream is to walk the path of a sword artist to the very end while fulfilling his clan duties. And then the Swordgeists return, fabled founders of all sword arts, gods who had touched the world long ago and vanished. These myths turned into reality warn of a coming threat. Alongside this warning, they issue an invitation to the Sword System Academy, a path to power beyond the mortal realm. But first, they will hold an entrance exam... Story notes:Sword System Academia blends elements of western and asian fantasy such as xianxia and litrpg. I took parts from different genres I enjoyed and twisted them into my own creation. There will be an explicit system, both of the litrpg kind and the hard(ish) magic kind, but it is embedded within an academic structure that will develop over the course of the story. This is my attempt to design a unique type of system, the System Academia.
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