Lester Yong & Rosa Fontelera-Yong

CoESC Book 17-4.2: Borrowed Knife

Yuriko preferred dessert wine over the dry variety, and she particularly liked the rosé as opposed to either red or white. The addition of a

Yuriko preferred dessert wine over the dry variety, and she particularly liked the rosé as opposed to either red or white. The addition of a hint of Glimmer to the drink didn’t add much to the flavour, and since she was immune to the effects, pretty pointless. It did add a bitter hint to the tas...

CoESC Book 17-4.1: Borrowed Knife

The swish of the longsword was met with an easy parry. The blades were bound, and Yuriko gracefully slid to the side, raised the blade and c

The swish of the longsword was met with an easy parry. The blades were bound, and Yuriko gracefully slid to the side, raised the blade and casually twisted a cut around her opponent’s blade by swiftly crossing her wrists, fast enough to strike at his face. The actor playing the enemy staggered bac...

CoESC Book 17-3.3: A Glimmer of a Dream

“Are you certain?” Yuriko asked Scarlett, who was currently hyperventilating. “Deeper breaths, Scar, come on.”  Scarlett, still half in cost

“Are you certain?” Yuriko asked Scarlett, who was currently hyperventilating. “Deeper breaths, Scar, come on.” 

Scarlett, still half in costume, nodded and attempted to calm herself. Yuriko wasn’t certain it would really help, especially since even slight asphyxiati...

CoESC Book 17-3.2: A Glimmer of a Dream

The battle didn’t last long afterwards. Except for the fact that the Dominator thrall tried something just after the armoured man fled. He s

The battle didn’t last long afterwards. Except for the fact that the Dominator thrall tried something just after the armoured man fled. He stepped up towards her and spoke a word that caused the surrounding energies to resonate. 

“Stop.” 

A simple comma...

CoESC Book 17-3.1: A Glimmer of a Dream

Watching Desire’s healing hymn at work was always fascinating for Yuriko, not least of which was that she couldn’t figure out how to do it herself. Healing her body was ridiculously easy, even with her limited incarnation self. Even if she was limited to a tenth of her Anima reach, she could still change parts of her flesh into Radiance, repair the damage that way, and return back to flesh. She couldn’t do all of herself at once since he...

CoESC Book 17-2.3: Exuberant Affairs

Ericka Stevens barely ducked out of the way as Multiplier shot her with a rifle. “Ack!” She yelped as the bullet defected off something—Regalia’s doing, probably—and grazed her side. The high calibre bullet bounced painfully off her ribs, not quite able to penetrate her bodysuit. Thankfully, she was in her light generation form, and her body wasn’t quite physical or matter, anymore. The bullet, without the bodysuit, would have gone...

CoESC Book 17-2.2: Exuberant Affairs

Yuriko hummed as she watched the faux controller attempt to dominate Scarlett’s mind. Her Mien warded against other attempts at mind control. She wasn’t sure if it would interfere with other sources rather than another Mishala Mien. She could feel the controller’s voice resonate in familiar frequencies. However, it was odd how it resonated from the person’s mind.

Rather, it felt as if it bounced off something first, then came out...

CoESC Book 17-2.1: Exuberant Affairs

Imperium Lieutenant Phillip Keisinger floated lazily just beneath the cirrus clouds. Four longstrides, four thousand paces, above the lightly forested campgrounds meant that everything he could see should have been nothing more than dots on the ground, and the features more akin to a diorama than real life. 

His powered armour, the Azure Dragonfly, kept him nice and warm in the thinner air. Its natural hues mimicked the colour of th...

CoESC Book 17-1.3: A Conflict's Prelude

Scarlett Baxter could barely contain her excitement, and it showed in how her Anima roiled around her before she could contain it back into a thin, protective film. Her Anima colour was the same shade as her hair, which wasn’t particularly benign-looking, considering she wanted to be a hero. 

Childhood dreams, years of watching heroic shows, a vast collection of comic books and graphic novels put the fire in her, but was dampened ...

CoESC Book 17-1.2: A Conflict's Prelude

There were two people standing next to the struts: a young man about her age and a younger woman, a girl, really, about shoulder height to him. There was a third just exiting the roof access. Scarlett. 

Yuriko landed next to her friend gently. Scarlett was in costume, though it still had that temporary look that was common with new, hasty heroes. She sported a thick, bronze coloured trench coat, heavy combat boots, and wore a domino...

CoESC Book 17-1.1: A Conflict's Prelude

Her sandalled feet slammed against the dirt road while sticker weeds slashed against her calves as she ran. Her white sundress’ hem was torn

Her sandalled feet slammed against the dirt road while sticker weeds slashed against her calves as she ran. Her white sundress’ hem was torn, and her legs were scuffed with dirt. There were a few scratches that were stained with blood too, but she paid them no mind. 

It was well withi...

CoESC Book 16-23.3: Once More, Into the Breach

The arid wasteland of the Place Between made Colonel William Richter’s mouth dry as cotton. He resisted the urge to swallow, as well as the instinct to reach for his personal flask. There was no need for it yet, unless everything had gone to the Abyss. He marched towards his battalion’s bivouac, though the doughty men and women under his command had barely finished the site, and probably were looking forward to a bit of rest. 

U...

CoESC Book 16-23.2: Once More, Into the Breach

A thousand sunblades converged against the Layer Guardian, each aimed at the same spot. The blades couldn’t pierce the reinforced bronze shell, and Yuriko thought it was definitely not mundane metal.

Was it an Ennoia? Or was it truly bronze reinforced by an Ennoia?

The latter was just as likely as the former, but if it was an Ennoia, then she could attempt to glean insights from it. If it was a powerful material, on the other han...

CoESC Book 16-23.1: Once More, Into the Breach

To Yuriko’s Enhanced and Chaos Sight, the Layer Guardian was covered in varied exotic energies. Ennoia energies, mostly, and applications of Truth. She was unsure what kind of Truth the guardian held, but she was somewhat eager to find out. She could see Fire, or more likely, Heat. Perhaps it was even Thermal, or Temperature, or some variant thereof, and if it was, then it was similar to Gwendith’s Ennoia, for all her lover used the opposi...

Update: Jade Tier

Jade has been the most affected by everything that's been going on and we deeply apologise for this.

For the meantime, in addition to the steady 3 chapters weekly, any additional chapters that get completed will be immediately released to this tier as soon as they're ready, and will be completely exclusive to Jade until we have reconciled the releases.

-L&R

General Update

Hi everyone!

Well, we're...generally catching up. Generally.

There have been a lot of shifts and recalibrating going on offline that directly impacted how we've been able to manage the releases, most especially the ones released to Jade.

For now, we'll be releasing steady streams of three posts weekly. It's not our ideal scenario but it's the one that is most achievable right now.

Meantime, fingers crossed we get our fo...

CoESC Book 16-22.3: A Curtain, Parted

There was a loud, low thrum that came from the lava creature. It had not finished shaping itself, but the sound that felt too low to be heard by humans filled the caldera. The slopes somehow amplified and concentrated the sound, and it manifested as a constant wave that pushed everything away from the centre.

Yuriko could both hear and feel the low roar, but she doubted that Carina, Ryoko, and Saki could. Devotee winced and held out a ha...

CoESC Book 16-22.2: A Curtain, Parted

Yuriko blinked as the convoy rumbled closer and closer. She thought they would be hostile, but in all probability, they couldn’t see her and the others due to the Elemental fog. Fifty paces away, she felt the lead truck jostle as whoever was driving it spotted her. The headlights blinked as the driver flashed them, then they rumbled to a stop some twenty paces away. 

Yuriko called for the others to gather beside her while the door...

CoESC Book 16-22.1: A Curtain, Parted

It took the better part of three hours by the time they circled back to the same spot where they entered the biome. Yuriko left most of the fighting to her companions while she cleaned up the rear. Invisible Edge was a handy weapon that she continued to hone. She’d discovered a couple of esoteric uses, but she knew, down to her Radiant bones, that she was barely scratching the surface. 

Bladeless Sword was but the first iteration ...

CoESC Book 16-21.3: Flow

The biome was bigger than the others before. Why, the diameter of the caldera was more than three leagues wide! They emerged on a ridge, roughly five hundred paces above the bottom of the caldera. She saw the pool of lava in the middle and the portal to the next layer. When she activated her Enhanced Sight, she couldn’t see the details from the Elemental Fog. It was actually much thicker here than the rest of the biomes.

There was a cl...

CoESC Book 16-21.2: Flow

The next day, Yuriko and her companions hurried through the biomes instead of spending time hunting. She was eager to reach the end of the first layer and delve into the second, and even more so, she was eager to face the Gate Guardian. Or Guardians, if they were lucky.

Or not.

Carina’s information and background research told them that the guardians were meant to be challenges and weren’t impassable walls. How much of a challe...

CoESC Book 16-21.1: Flow

“Desire.”

Yuriko’s voice was as warm as she felt, especially since the Chaos Lord had wrapped her in a tight hug. The girl who looked so much like her old classmate, except all grown up, that she sometimes choked up on the memory. That girl died at the hands of a monster that had been hunting her, after all. 

“Master,” Desire purred. The Chaos Lord was still shorter than Yuriko, but looked and felt a bit more robust....

CoESC Book 16-20.3: New Routines

There. 

She found the correct frequency to cut away at his invulnerable skin, at least for long enough to send in another Edge. She sent the nullifying Edge at the same point; it did strip away that aspect, though she didn’t follow up with an actual Edge. She wasn’t ready to kill him quite yet, and she didn’t know if she actually would. Murderer and terrorist he may be, but he hadn’t offended her…yet. 

Despite h...

Posting Update

Hi everyone!

So, we're not at 100% yet but we're working our way there.

This week was meant to be fully back to regular programming but it just didn't happen despite our best efforts. Fear not though: it's just a bit of a slow down but not a break. We'll be releasing the chapters steadily throughout the week.

Thank you so much for being patient with us and being so supportive.

-L&R

CoESC Book 16-20.2: New Routines

“AIEEEEEEE!!!!” Zach screeched as Yuriko blinked in momentary confusion.

The car flipped over and over as they bounced off the bridge. Her perception was wide enough that she knew they would land in a wheat field, though what was there now was nothing more than weedlings. She could feel the Homelander lunging towards the car, and she guessed what he was thinking. 

Surely now, they wouldn’t attempt to escape. Surely now, ...

CoESC Book 16-20.1: New Routines

Since they didn’t have to go through the runaround, Yuriko and Zach’s trip home should take half the time. They just needed to take the interstate rather than the out-of-the-way country roads. Her friend was disquieted and jumpy. He dropped his car keys the first time he tried to open the door, and fumbled the second time. It was only when he took a couple of minutes to breathe did he manage to open the door, but then, he kept trembling an...

CoESC Book 16-19.3: Cops and Robbers

Not all of the people in the convention hall wore costumes, and Yuriko wasn’t entirely sure that those who wore costumes were capes. She was sure some were Altered Humans, but that was more gut instinct than anything else. The fact that Graham Lowe, an Altered Human healer who’d been missing for weeks now, and had come into dubious contact with other surviving Lunites, also weighed things in that favour. She just wasn’t sure if this was ...

CoESC Book 16-19.2: Cops and Robbers

There were expeditions every year, though the ones that actually deserved the name only occurred once a decade or so. Those ‘Expeditions’ tried to delve as deeply as they could, but really, the record for anyone reaching the ninth layer and delving beyond Shangria was mostly hidden or unreliable. Many records state that the last successful delve happened a century ago, while others said it was as recent as the past five years. Ever...