“You survived?” Ep’Nanorschi’s typical self-serving humour was gone from her voice. “How?”
Nyxil blinked. Her gaze tracked the former marketplace that was on the verge of becoming a battlefield. Even when she’d faced down hundreds of thousands on the day of her sacrifice, the gazes had been hungry. These high creeds were ready to tear her apart.
As she considered what ...
2025-11-05 12:40:35 +0000 UTC View PostNyxil sat at the edge of the arid mountain of crumbled black stone. A solar flare carved away at the former tomb, and she was left to wait.
Upon the pharaoh’s death, the ocean of cursed blood sunk into the earth. Its task done, it no longer remained. The air was dry, and Nyxil’s skin cracked with each inferno that washed over her. Maybe she should have found cover… but her exhaustio...
2025-10-23 08:09:07 +0000 UTC View PostThe spatial tear snaps shut in an instant, returning space to a single sheet of undisturbed fabric. The Titan is not so lucky.
When you live entirely on one plane of existence, then you rely on that plane to remain in existence. Even if I cannot truly harm this hyena with my fangs or scales, I can hit it where no creature can avoid. I can strike the ground it stands.
Just so long as...
2025-10-20 13:38:29 +0000 UTC View PostNyxil’s song rang out across the lifeless dunes, joined by the echo of her tongue. She hated using the Fleshsmith’s ritual. Unfortunately, it was the only one that had a chance of making use of the sacrifice she had before her.
As the indistinct lyrics rolled along her tongue and left her lips, they changed. Instead of going by memory, she altered the tone and pronunciation into a rhy...
2025-10-17 17:59:35 +0000 UTC View PostPlumes of smoke burst out from a thousand criss-crossing cracks as they formed along the ceiling. First, tremors shook the earth. Then, the black stone crumbled all around her.
Nyxil leapt away from a slab of rock as it slid free of the ceiling. Not a second passed before she was dodging another. Then again. All around her, the tomb was falling apart. Massive blocks fell from above, eithe...
2025-10-14 12:43:08 +0000 UTC View PostTar floats skyward. Countless great pillars pierce through the patchy, shattered remains of false night. Wherever the viscous liquid touches those not-ceiling fragments, the creatures within — invisible even to my own sight — snap at it, removing it from existence.
The rest of the tar pushes upward unabated. As it reaches higher altitudes, it slows. The dark fluid towers flow outwards...
2025-10-13 02:26:55 +0000 UTC View PostNyxil’s astral claws raked through the dam of curses like they were soapy bubbles. She hardly even felt them burst. For so long they had been denied their rightful punishment — suppressed whenever they would have expressed themselves — that they hardly even needed her touch to cascade.
She was the catalyst. As soon as the dam was broken, there was no stopping the damage thousands of...
2025-10-10 13:08:24 +0000 UTC View PostNyxil abandoned her weapon. Both halves of her skulk shroud clung desperately to her as her wings flung her backwards and her tentacles snapped free.
There was no time to think. No time to process whether it mattered or not that she’d exposed her mutations. All she could do was desperately heave herself out of the way of the second solar flare. Tentacles pulled her up the scaly wall. He...
2025-10-07 13:58:05 +0000 UTC View Post“Interlopers.” The insectoid’s voice rang through the hall without echo. An undertone of clicking mandibles clung to Nyxil’s ears. She felt a permeating sense of foreignness. The being’s words were graspable, but they were not the language she knew. It was a tongue that should not exist. “You dare perturb our slumber?”
The being straightened in its throne. Lifting its head, ...
2025-10-04 13:10:10 +0000 UTC View PostMy resolve to topple this impossible beast is welcomed with a mouthful of tar.
I never expected it to be easy, so I’m not surprised my fangs failed to pierce flesh, but for a bite to the neck to be so ineffective only reinforces just how fierce a Titan is. If I have any hope to overcome this, I must be willing to expend all of myself. And more.
A clawed paw swats at me. Unwilling ...
2025-10-02 08:21:24 +0000 UTC View Post“So Ly͚sy͚rã struck her own cult members?” Val’Manis, the Everseeing Eye champion, said. “Why? I can understand her taking out the competition, but not this.”
Nyxil lingered outside the chamber with the Bodytwister corpses. The light of her sceptre encapsulated the puddle of blood and her immediate surroundings, but the darkness always seemed to creep closer whenever she was...
2025-09-29 14:12:54 +0000 UTC View PostDespite the major racket of what was almost an entire wall of stone scraping along stone, the embalmed crocodile remained unmoving. Its eyelids sealed.
Nyxil let out a low breath of relief. One that was mimicked by the Everseeing Eye champion.
Neither of them dared to take a step — Su’Baar still unsure why they had grown so visibly tense — and maybe that was for the best, as o...
2025-09-28 12:50:29 +0000 UTC View PostNyxil coughed, waving away dust from her face as her wings reluctantly hid themselves beneath her robe. Su’Baar slumped over his tank, crying over its damaged barrel. The thick metal had buckled near the base; the machine moved around absolutely fine, yet it wouldn’t be firing anytime soon.
As the dust settled, their new ceiling became obvious. Where the stone had shattered along the ...
2025-09-26 13:25:33 +0000 UTC View PostI whip my body out of the path of a huge claw only for wind to crash against my side and the ocean of gravel to rise into my ventral scales. The impact tears me out of my flow. My head is torn from a distortion, and I’m thrown skyward.
Disorientation consumes my mind for only a moment before I see the hyena’s immense fangs racing in to tear me head from tail. I curl. My tail slips thr...
2025-09-24 07:00:46 +0000 UTC View PostNyxil didn’t know what was more terrifying: the massive boulder falling down on her, or Lysyra’s seeming omniscience.
The girl had known where they were. Not only that, she knew the exact moment Nyxil and Su’Baar decided it was a trap. If she hadn’t seen the Bodytwister’s champion disappear from existence before her very eyes, she might have tossed it up to some form of invisibi...
2025-09-22 11:45:57 +0000 UTC View Post“Going somewhere?” Nyxil grouched as she caught up to Su’Baar and his machine.
He glanced back at her, hand rubbing the dented metal at his side. “Not particularly.”
“You left me to deal with both embalmed.”
“Not intentionally.” He raised his arms defensively. “Buddy got hurt. Besides, you got out fine.” He diverts his attention to the walls. “Good thin...
2025-09-21 08:55:57 +0000 UTC View PostNyxil’s blade pierced the large embalmed’s head, yet it did nothing to the creature. The insectoid didn’t so much as flinch.
Its longsword swung at her. Too close to properly manoeuvre, she had to abandon her weapon and dodge to the side. The heavy mass of copper missed her, but the embalmed was quick to adjust its swing into a low arc at her legs. Nyxil flipped over it. Her hands t...
2025-09-19 14:15:09 +0000 UTC View PostThe Other Side feels foreign.
By all means, I’ve spent more time here than back on the surface, yet… it is no longer so familiar. The endless ocean of churning gravel is isolating. Not any more than it used to be, but somehow the sensation is more present than ever.
There is no turning back. Despite the sparsity of landmarks, its lack of sapient presence is exactly what I want.<...
2025-09-17 13:06:23 +0000 UTC View PostWax coated chitin slid across jagged stone with more familiarity than the embalmed had for anything else. It twisted around a narrow corner and jerked to a stop. Both antennas pressed against the wall.
Two sets of footsteps.
Intruders.
They moved quick; a speed the embalmed would need to match. It threw itself back into motion, rushing through the servant passages that wove be...
2025-09-15 14:02:06 +0000 UTC View PostNyxil ran around the corner, intending to catch up quick so that Su’Baar didn’t grow suspicious. One foot squelched in the confines of her shoe, while the other left a thin layer of goop behind with each step.
The residue was concerning. While Ta’Stralanov’r’s armband still kept her body coated in that thin film that fooled the senses, it did nothing for what she left behind. At...
2025-09-13 09:10:12 +0000 UTC View PostLy͚sy͚rã.
A third evolution.
Harbinger prospectives at their second were already rare enough considering how short of a time they had between their naming ceremony and the Trials, but she had reached her third evolution? That was obscene. It should be impossible. Not to mention the lack of the Bodytwister’s prefix ‘Ep’.
The Scriptures did not have a prefix path for t...
2025-09-11 07:05:19 +0000 UTC View PostSapients scatter in terror. No matter the settlement, chaos reins below; disturbed both before my appearance, and reaching a fervour after.
I cannot hear them, but my desire for silence isn’t welcomed. The inescapable screech of wind rushing over my scales no matter how slow I seem to move is vexing. Never before has it felt that way. Now, I wish air was solid enough to sink my fangs in...
2025-09-09 09:30:57 +0000 UTC View PostNatural laws hate being thwarted.
Each time Ossuul bent her spine and legs to contort to the shape of the tunnel, the default way of things came snapping down on her, determined to kick her unnatural form back out of existence. At first, it pushes her back into form. Kind enough to give her the benefit of doubt and not shatter her spine for opposing it. Only when Nyxil tried to hold her t...
2025-09-05 06:04:55 +0000 UTC View PostIn the tight corridor, there wasn’t much space to dodge. Somehow, Nyxil managed.
The stone door slammed against the opposite wall before careening down the path she came. Each time it struck, rock fragments scattered. When it finally came to a screeching halt, the thick block clogged the tunnel. Oddly enough, her acidic mould had penetrated the entire way through and rose from the othe...
The pyramid was massive.
That was obvious from the outside, but as she walked through the dark tunnel, Nyxil was surprised she couldn’t even hear any other participants. There had been eight wide entrance halls on her side alone. It was hard to believe that these tunnels didn’t connect in some places… and harder to think none of the thousands had reached the first level yet.
I...
2025-08-30 13:37:25 +0000 UTC View PostOrten peeked through the crack in the wall. He was four floors up, but that meant nothing to some of the beasts that rose from Kalma’s pit. If they could climb a hundred kilometres of vertical wall, the piddly dozen metres that separated him would not stop their voracious rampage.
He was fine for now, so long as they didn’t notice him.
Curse his brother! If he hadn’t gone and ...
2025-08-28 07:37:03 +0000 UTC View PostNyxil breathed, letting the hymn fade and the reverberation of her second voice dissipate.
The battle had been a great teaching experience. So many times she had to hold back her instincts to lash out with her tentacles or pivot through the air with her wings. As her first serious fight without being able to rely on her mutations — at least not the noticeable ones — it had been diffic...
2025-08-25 06:08:57 +0000 UTC View PostGrifvoi didn’t know what he expected when he’d heard one of the least likely people of his old ward had made a name of herself in the first section of the Trial. Of all those he’d shared a dorm with, the cursed girl was the last he’d have picked to have risen above the rest. He’d honestly forgotten her name until Anzolorus briefed him about her.
Nỷx̱il.
It was a major s...
2025-08-22 18:00:33 +0000 UTC View PostNyxil immediately disregarded the acolyte behind her. Whatever he’d done to sneak behind her, it had taken so much out of him that he now lay unconscious. She didn’t know how he’d gotten there, but it wasn’t something she should worry about right now.
The seven Scriptures before her were much more pressing.
Amongst those around Grfvoi, only he was at the second evolution. Ba...
2025-08-20 16:10:21 +0000 UTC View PostNyxil landed on her feet.
The same could not be said for the teens around her.
With her heart thrumming, she took in the landscape around them before anyone else even realised they had solid earth beneath them. Her first thought was that Ep’Nanorschi had tossed them into a Dark Star. It was an obscene, alien sight. After only a few seconds, she discarded the assumption; there was ...
2025-08-20 06:42:24 +0000 UTC View Post