(03-28-2025, 04:20 AM)Norgarth Wrote: Beware of Chicken
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/...-110277503
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/39408/...-a-fun-guy
In other original English xianxia news, Threads of Destiny 439-Green 8 (Irish International 170).
Yrsillar Wrote:"If Baroness Ling has arrived, then begin the second stage of the operation! Shrink containment, achieve reduction, and prioritize prevention of crown burning." Unlike hers, Xia Lin's voice crackled and buzzed artificially, carried on the power of a simple amplification talisman. "Follow the procedures from your drills."
Ling Qi observed the soldiers snapping into action. To her eyes, they were not well polished, but she could tell they had been drilled. The tiny draw on her qi grew as they began to advance among the fires.
Her technique drew harm which they would have taken unto herself. While she could be a foundation to lean on, however, she was not the final arbiter of their lives. The pain of their choices was their own to suffer. Such was the technique she had put together from her own self and fragments of Kohatu's memories of absolute persistence.
"Where did this fire come from?" she asked. This time, she spoke just to Zhengui and Xia Lin.
"One of the groups testing and laying the groundwork to begin mining caused a deviation in the earth veins," Xia Lin's voice replied in her ear despite the distance.
"Gui warned Miss Chaser, and she brought the people, but we did not arrive before the flame-air went boom!"
"It is not so bad if it stays like this. I, Zhen, see that this place is much overgrown. A little burning is not bad."
She watched as the soldiers moved in, coordinating with each other. She spotted Xia Lin's shining armor among them where the conflagration was at its worst, calmly issuing orders. Heat and prickling needles washed over her here and there, but overall, the men were not growing sloppy under the aegis of her technique.
The small hurts of red realms fighting through peer spirits could hardly dent the qi cycling through her channels. The technique was flawed still in this initial state, but it was a foundation to build on how best to protect.
Like the roots she meditated over, she could not save every sprout and trunk. With her will, though, she could support and keep alive many who might otherwise perish in the pursuit of the distant dream which they now pursued.
A dream even she could not yet see in full.
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/21188/...39-green-8