Emiliana noticed one of the rifts twitching. It began moving slowly closer, and the others followed. She supposed she could be jumping to conclusions about what these rifts were. She had no real evidence that they were hostile, but her mother’s cynicism was telling her that if they were friendly, they would not be hiding themselves from everyone else. And after everything she’d been through, she was not about to take chances with the lives of her family.
Emiliana locked eyes with Ramira as she waited for the right moment, keeping the rifts in her peripheral vision. The distance had to be perfect. And when it was, Emiliana leapt out from behind her sister, claws-first.
And at the center of the nearest rift, she found blood.
Chapter One Hundred Twenty-One: ‘Thy boiling will...’
Click to display entire chapter at once -- (mobile link)
Marcos hardly had time to understand what was going on. He’d noticed Shenado and Chergoa giving each other strange looks, and then Shenado gave him a private and incredibly vague warning that something was about to happen, but then Emiliana was suddenly slashing at thin air and apparently tearing bloody chunks out of it.
Shenado grabbed his shoulder, and he felt the undead vigor burn through him. This wasn’t his first experience with it, as he’d been practicing periodically, but it was certainly the first time he’d had to actually use it.
He wasn’t sure what to do. He merely watched as Chergoa bolted over to Emiliana, who was already spinning around to kick a second invisible opponent.
However, when he saw a spiked block of bluish-white metal crash into her and slam her against the far wall, Marcos didn’t require any more information. His mother’s training took hold, and he reached for the firearm that Emiliana had discreetly given him after Luzo.
A dark serial novel. Set in a modern fantasy world called Eleg. Mature language. Updates every night at midnight PST by ~400 words.
And Zeff was just there sleeping while his family is in danger, and where is Axiolis to wake up Zeff?
ReplyDeleteThe word "unconscious" was used, not asleep.
ReplyDeleteHe's been unconscious for how many days, and don't you think for all those years he'd been a servant I think he should get used to it, and reduce the time of the side effect of the pan-mode.
ReplyDeleteExactly how many days do you think have passed for you to say this...? And do you know if undergoing emergence (3 times!) while in hyper state can alter the resting period...? Do you know if having a psychological shift in the way you view the world, as Zeff has, can affect the recuperation...?
ReplyDeleteOsmium user?
ReplyDeleteCould be zinc or cadmium.
ReplyDeleteWell, I remember Melchor waking up a few days after his fight and the kidnapping of the Elroy's children.
ReplyDeleteMelchor is also ALOT stronger than Zeff.
ReplyDeleteWait....
ReplyDeleteWhy is there no Next Page!?
Oh God... I caught up....
NOOOOOOOOoooooo......
In addition to what Devin said, Melchor is also more skilled than Zeff and has mastered the second level hyper state. All that, and he still needed rest.
ReplyDeleteNot everyone is the same.
This is the first I heard that 2nd level of hyper state.
ReplyDeleteWell, if Zeff is still unconscious, too bad for him since he might lose another family member in this attack, since both Emiliana and Marcos are both new to it, and this is their first time fighting against an experience group of Servants.
Level one is pan-forma for mass types, pan-moc for wave types and pan-wzrost for collision types, and then pan-rozum is level two for all servants.
ReplyDeleteMind posting the pages for reference?
ReplyDeleteWho are already making mistakes... The Cloaked Crew are both overconfident and misinformed: the moment Emelia started acting oddly, they should have pondered the odds that she might be seeing them and found a way to take her out... like they did the guy in the kitchen. As it was, she got the drop on at least two of them by attacking first. :)
ReplyDeleteAnd, they're probably underestimating the experience of all the kids in the same way that Hector was underestimated. Not good, particularly as these are siblings trained to fight individually or as a group -- powers or not. :/
True, but remember that Emiliana is the only one who can actually see their attackers right now (until Ibai gets around to convincing the other aberrations to stop cloaking). So we have two kids with guns here, and invisible opponents. Kinda hard to hit something you can't see. And Ramira actually can still die from a stray bullet.
ReplyDeleteYou don't need to see the guy/gal to work out where, e.g. the pillars of ¿chrome? are coming from. And, Emelia has a mouth, hands and a Servant with which to pass information.
ReplyDeleteAlso, now that it's known that they are under attack, people will no doubt come up with their own ways to spot problems... even if that means using baby powder. ;)
I like the baby powder idea. ^^
ReplyDeleteAs long as no one lights it up, anyway.
Just worried about Ramira, I guess. Gun shots aren't all that dangerous for a servant, but Ramira is just a fragile normal human amongst a bunch of super powered servants. The servant abilities are certainly more dangerous, but shots at invisible targets in the general chaos of battle seem really hard to control.
Baby powder doesn't burn. It's made of talc, which is fully oxidized.
ReplyDeletePan-rozum is the second level, which is what the higher tiered characters use. Zeff, as a materialization user, was using pan-forma (if I remember correctly), which is the initial state for them.
ReplyDeleteA question I've wanted to ask others, if Karkash learned and used pan-rozum (in about 50 years) the same way Harper does, would he be able to flash around like Harper and Rayen can? Would he, in essence, be a "light wielder" with the added benefit of being able to magnetically move certain metals?
ReplyDeleteAh... so that's why I didn't read anything about rozum being a level above the three, since it just said that it's the hardest and it can be use by all kind of users, but it doesn't say about anything it being the level 2 of pan-mode.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, Harper can use pan-forma, right?
ReplyDeleteI wonder why he didn't use it back then. It would be easier to control it than pan-rozum.
Thinking of pan-rozum as being above the others is supported by the story. Every high to top tier servant we've seen has only used rozum. We've only seen moc and forma used by younger (but still skilled) ones. It's quite heavily implied that a servant would first learn one of the easier pans, and then move on to rozum. When we say "second level," we only mean it's the state that normally (unless corrected by the story) after the others. Would the second level of a video game not come after the first and be more difficult? It's the same idea.
ReplyDeleteI'd wondered this a couple times. Harper most likely can use forma, but I dont think it would have saved him. He was outnumbered, disabled, and had enemies with a counter-ability and destruction. He needed pure offensive power right there.
ReplyDeleteMy condolences...
ReplyDeleteOh, he's a pan-moc user, and too bad he thought of using the double-edged sword rather than go with the safest way.
ReplyDeleteAgain, we don't know the benfits of pan-moc are, but there must be a reason the most powerful servants we've seen choose to use pan-rozum than the simpler hyper states.
ReplyDeleteI remember Harper being the strongest servant during those fight, so I think even if he use the pan-moc he could still kill his enemies, without going amok and attacking your allies.
ReplyDelete"Unconsciousness is just sleeping with conviction"
ReplyDeleteI don't know what it can do to when Harper use it, but I'm pretty sure it would be easier to control than pan-rozum, and more powerful than his enemies during those times.
ReplyDeleteI'm just saying it because even without using the pan-mode he could still beat out the shit of all those servants, the reason he couldn't because of the Queen, he's worrying about her.
ReplyDeleteIt's here I'll reiterate, "he was outnumbered, disabled, and had enemies with a counter-ability and Destruction." To ignore this is to ignore the very reason he needed to use a hyper state.
ReplyDeleteTo be semi-exact, 3 to 4 times older and proportionally stronger.
ReplyDelete1st level are the ability based states, Moc, Forma and Zwrozt (Or however its spelled). 2nd level is Pan-Rozum, which is by far the hardest to use.
ReplyDeleteBesides, they were more worried about being noticed by hearing than by whatever the hell Em was using to spot them.
ReplyDeleteThe thing was that Pan-moc only increases power, and they had already demonstrated a way to deal with more power than they had. By using light strikes, he was able to bring in something they didn't know how to deal with, guaranteed to end the fight before they figured it out.
ReplyDeleteWzrost. Polish for "growth."
ReplyDeleteOn what page was the details of pan-moc revealed?
ReplyDeleteWell, I don't know anything about pan-moc, but what I know is that it's more powerful than a normal power of a servant, and weren't you and some of the others here don't know too, whether pan-rozum was the 2nd level of pan-mode?
ReplyDeleteAll it says was that it's the hardest to use, and any user can use it, too.
It doesn't say anything about it being a level above the three.
I've already explained the thought of pan-rozum being level 2 more than once, as have others. I see no reason to further repeat myself when you haven't refuted the explanation.
ReplyDeleteHere, unlike with the rozum=level 2 state thought, we have nothing to support this idea. You say you know pan-moc is more powerful than a servant's normal state. In that case, would you also say wrozt is more powerful than a normal state, even though what's been said about it doesn't show combat capabilities?
Mind you, the question is not whether it powerful, the question is whether it's powerful enough to have gotten Harper out of that predicament. I'm inclined say no, simply because the story had Harper not use it. However, again, nothing is known about the state. Even theories can't be made up about it. The only time we know of a servant using pan-moc was Dimas against the Blackburns. And guess what? He didn't display any changes. All his feats in that fight were also things he'd pulled off before.
I can't seem to find it, sorry. I might have just inferred from Dimas's behavior in it and the fact that the name translates to "master power".
ReplyDeleteHmm.
ReplyDeleteAny idea how to pronounce it?
ReplyDeleteI think "Vzrost". I know Polish pronounces Ws as Vs and Cs as Ss, I pretty sure there's at least one more but I don't think it applies to this word. My knowledge of Polish pronunciation comes pretty much exclusively for the bits of it in the Iron Druid Chronicles.
ReplyDeleteWell, I'm having trouble with the lack of vocals though... I haven't got the faintest idea how to chain the letters "wzr" without breaking my tongue.
ReplyDeletehttps://pl.wiktionary.org/wiki/wzrost
Sounds kind of like "viz(e)rost" to me.
You are right about moc.
https://pl.wiktionary.org/wiki/moc
See IPA and example (direct link https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7f/Pl-moc.ogg )
I wonder if Mr Frost speaks Polish or just used the magic of google fu.