thanh.nguyenhoang.1403@gmail.com
Stories
168
Chapters
1,512
Words
3.2 M
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Reading
11 d, 4 h
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The silver dust in the vault freezes into jagged, suspended needles of light. The phantom pain in my chest is no longer an echo; it is a blinding, white-hot physical agony that drives the breath entirely from my lungs. I scramble backward across the ancient stone dais, my bare skin scraping against the cold floor, desperate to put distance between myself and the massive, radiating furnace of the beast. My hands shake so violently I can barely grip the bronze horn-cutting knife I just snatched from my…-
23.3 K • Completed
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“Kill the monster, Linnet. Or you will be stuck in yesterday forever.” Elara’s voice, amplified by the collapsing temporal magic of the King’s vault, rings with the sterile, absolute authority of a master addressing a hound. The white stone ceiling above us splinters. Jagged fissures of white-hot light tear through the pristine architecture, raining chunks of crystallized time onto the mirror-glass floor. The sheer atmospheric pressure in the room drops so violently my eardrums pop. The chronal…
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23.3 K • Completed
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A hundred heavy iron crossbows lock into position, the mechanical clack of their triggers echoing across the glitching, fractured courtyard of the Asterion Labyrinth. “Kill the beast,” Elara commands, her voice stripped of all sisterly warmth, vibrating with the sterile authority of a tyrant. “And bring the Executioner's head to the King.” I do not freeze. The Royal Executioner does not hesitate. I drop into a low crouch, my soft-soled boots finding perfect purchase on the cracked stone. But I…
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23.3 K • Completed
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THAROS The skin over my heart was dead. It was a profound, localized silence in the center of a body that otherwise ran like a furnace. Where the amber battle-rune had pulsed with the heat of my blood just moments ago, there was now only a dense, impenetrable slab of black horn. I could feel the weight of it pulling at the surrounding muscle, a heavy plate of calcified armor that would never again register the brush of wind, the bite of a blade, or the touch of a hand. I had broken the absolute oath of…-
23.4 K • Completed
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MIRA The descent into the beast-fortress’s underbelly was a plunge into the suffocating anatomy of a nightmare. I led the way down the spiral maintenance shafts, the heavy iron key-ring gripped so tightly in my gloved hand that the metal bit through the leather into my palm. Behind me, Tharos Vark descended in complete silence. For a creature weighing over four hundred pounds, his footfalls were terrifyingly precise. He did not stumble on the oil-slicked bronze grating. He merely ducked his massive…
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23.4 K • Completed
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MIRA The iron-tipped bolts of two dozen repeating crossbows leveled directly at my chest, their firing mechanisms drawn taut. The red hazard lamps of the pulmonary sector bathed the lieutenant’s sharp face in the color of fresh blood. He had expected me to flinch. He had expected the giant, broken Orc standing behind me to use me as a human shield, confirming every piece of imperial propaganda the Crown had ever printed. Instead, I took a step forward, closing the distance between the lethal points of…
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23.4 K • Completed
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MIRA The copper skin of the massive war drum was freezing against my spine, but the cold could not pierce the suffocating, absolute terror blooming in my chest. I stared at the empty space in the dim pavilion, my breathing fractured and shallow. My mind, a machine I had meticulously calibrated to store thousands of architectural schematics, load-bearing equations, and ballistic trajectories, was frantically searching its own archives. I tried to pull up the memory of the day the border town fell. I tried…
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23.4 K • Completed
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MIRA The King’s cultured, dispassionate voice faded from the acoustic conduit, leaving behind only the deep, subterranean roar of the fortress’s engine. I stood paralyzed in the dim amber light of the pavilion. The freezing high-altitude wind cut through the roof vents, slicing through the thin linen of my tunic, but the violent shudder that tore through my spine had nothing to do with the cold. I looked at Tharos. He had stepped backward, retreating into the shadows between the massive copper drums.…
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23.4 K • Completed
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The silence was heavier than the iron. The deafening, subterranean roar of the beast-fortress was entirely gone, replaced by the hiss of cooling steam and the sharp, echoing cracks of settling debris. I was buried in absolute darkness, trapped in a jagged pocket of air that smelled of copper blood, scorched ozone, and pulverized mountain granite. I couldn't move. An immense, crushing weight pinned me to the slanted bronze grating. "Tharos," I croaked, my voice a dry, ragged whisper tearing…
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23.4 K • Completed
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The Seventh Bell The fortress changed direction before anyone admitted it was alive. Mira Dain felt the turn through the soles of her boots. A tremor passed beneath the bronze floor of the royal observation deck, too slow for artillery and too deliberate for settling metal. On the horizon, the captured orc stronghold dragged its mountain-sized feet through the valley mud. Towers swayed on the back of the armored beast that carried them. Chains groaned beneath its belly. Every step should have taken it…
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23.4 K • Completed
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