Kindle Notes & Highlights
And the wings. You can’t forget those wings. They had sprouted from Mendac’s back the moment he stood in his casket, edges contorted in furling tendrils of black smoke.
Like the white ones Bryson has.
Also, amazing description.
He looked up to where a celestial light hovered like a too-close star. Its shape was ever-morphing, edges in constant fluctuation. And despite its brightness, it did nothing to illuminate the void. He glanced below his feet to where a sphere of blackness—a shade so dark no human eye should have been able to detect it—lurked in the depths, making the void seem gray in comparison. These two entities were what pulled at Bryson, barring the lateral protest of his feet.
The Empires?
Heat rushed his energy canals, shooting down his outstretched arm and spilling into his chest, shocking his innards like a shot of the hardest liquor. It fuzzed and then lingered, teasing him with the slightest tickle.
Tahara?
Then the heat morphed into a subtle flame that ignited his eyes, triggering something within. A cavity? A cell?
A Tahara cavity or something?
Only now it had reshaped itself … into wings.
The ones on the cover.
“I think … it’s Tahara.”
Correct, I was. Yoda, I am.
Half Human, Half Corpse
I smell MENDAC THE EVIL
Her mother remained unfazed, hands clasped behind her back as she studied the entity. The shadows dispersed, revealing either a human or a corpse.
I guess not.
This man stood just north of six feet, his hair a kinky mass of graying curls. He was dark-skinned like Adren Director Buredo or King Supido, but that was hard to tell with the gaping holes in his body. Most of his face—the nose, mouth, and left eye—had no skin, exposing muscles, cartilage, and even the bones of some of his jaw. The left eyeball was spherical and black enough to absorb light. Because of this, it didn’t seem to move at all, even though his right eye—the normal one—moved in different directions, surveying its surroundings.
Sounds like Musku or Saikatto but I do not think it is.
Something crawled around it. It beat like any normal heart would, pumping the inky substance throughout the rest of the body. Sinuous muscle surrounded the hole, umber skin eventually growing another few centimeters outward. Another chunk of skin was gone from his obliques and abdomen, exposing more pinkish innards until they disappeared beneath his beltline. “Unfortunate,” Apoleia said, drawing the attention of the half-cadaver-half-human. It turned unnaturally slow, revealing a bloodied hole in the back of its skull—only the blood was, of course, black. He turned back to Olivia. “My name is
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Yeah, I was WRONG.
A single moon. Agnos scanned the entire star-strewn canvas. “Agnos,” said Himitsu. “Tell me we aren’t losing our minds.” He shook his head, jaw rigid. “You’re not.” He didn’t know what to say after that, his mind reeling from the inexplicable events of the past couple of weeks. News of Mendac’s rebirth. Reports of black wings and the ability of flight. Bryson’s awakening accompanied by wings of his own, except glowing with white hot light. Celestial rings that burned around Bryson’s pupils and irises. And now, their moon was gone.
IF YOU WOULD ALL TURN YOUR ATTENTION TO THE PREVIOUSLY YOUNGEST JESTIVAN!
The fox stood. “My name is Atarax, and you can ask me anything.”
Why is Rhyparia murderous? i know why but Still (kingdom)
That night during her fifteenth year of training was unforgettable. She’d lain next to Musku in the grass as he told her a story about the two moons, how one belonged to Kuki Sphaira while the other belonged to the strange blue planet in the Dark Realm’s sky. The smaller one was Kuki Sphaira’s, its purpose unknown. Musku explained theories. A light source was the most obvious, but many scholars also believed it controlled weather patterns or even the tides. Rhyparia’s mind, however, ventured elsewhere. Somewhere far darker.
It does change tides. Sodai has felt your wrath nearly as much as Ulna Malen.
Rhyparia had to simply guess at what Mendac could have done to sprout those wings on his back and put him in her company. She was only certain that his actions couldn’t have come anywhere close to her atrocities.
Yes (in terms of human death, killed fewer than a giant city), but also no.
“You and Mendac aren’t only to become soldiers of the Dark Empire, but a pair. Get used to each other. You will carry out operations in tandem. Become friends and learn that against the force that is the Light Empire, you two will die for each other if need be. This means that Mendac, you—more than anyone else—will help guide her to the epiphany she needs. The epiphany that lurks in the depth of her ethos, waiting for her embrace.”
So the other Jestivan will probably see them working together.
“It’s possible that hadn’t been good enough for him. He may have wanted to give Mendac a personal exit from the world. Or, possibly, he wanted to torture him … anything to make the man suffer.”
Kadlest tricked him. She was the one that probably told him, even as far as to raise Mendac, for herself.
“I have plenty, but what good is asking them now if you’re likely going to answer them in the rest of your explanation?”
Olivia is amazing and so is Lilu.
The image of a flying Mendac continued to haunt him. Nobody had seen it coming. Toono had played the world for a fool.
And Kadlest played Toono for one.
Bry.”
Wait. If Bryson's nickname is Bry and he has a son, would his son L.K. be Bryson?
Olivia’s arms slowly crept around her mother’s torso for an embrace, but the act might as well have been a clap of thunder in its impact. Heads tilted and brows furrowed. Even Titus’s jaw dropped slightly. Olivia reciprocating a hug would have been shocking enough, but to initiate the gesture? To many, a hug was friendly, platonic even. For her, it was intimate. Maybe … just maybe, Apoleia’s assessment was correct.
She's finally gotten past the lessons of avoiding touch.
“I freed Rhyparia against the will of my kingdom, sending her to a place of which the world knows nothing.” She paused, then admitted, “I believe she might have been involved with the moon’s plunge.” “That’s a hefty assumption.”
No.
Pilot Ophala said Yama was likely responsible for King Supido’s death.
T UNO
“What do you know of swordsmanship?” Toshik asked. Simon tilted his head side to side with a frown, as if searching for the right answer. “A little.” “You’re Intelian.”
No, he is faster than you.
T1 and T2. Trial 1 and Trial 2.
Then is Olivia the result?
It took that morning to realize she loathed Mendac.
Kadlest
Then why would she want to ressurect him and be with him?
As Mendac reached Kadlest with an outstretched hand, wings of smoky black curled against his back, she accepted it. He pulled her up and looked her in the eyes, the devil’s touch curling up one side of his lip. “I missed you,” he said. And in that moment, as she felt the emptiness of his presence, the magnitude of her duty filled that void. She had worked with Toono to bring this man back to life with the purpose of torturing him, showing him that the mother-son duo he had abandoned because of disappointment had become a pair that he could not best. Proper retribution for the ghastliness of
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Ohhhhhhhhhh. KADLEST DID NOT OTUSMART HER SON, BUT SHE TOLD HIM THE TRUTH. If she can outsmart one of the smartest beings in Kuki Sphaira, she is one.
The world had decided they deserved the same fate as other races of assassins who had already been eliminated, such as the Adren Assassins.
How specific that you mention Adren…
Kaylee doesn’t make you smart by association,” Toshik said. “It’s not a transmittable disease.”
Disease?
She is older than all of us by at least a couple years.”
Rhyparia is now older than Yama.
“Our relationship began with a lot of sass, mostly from your end.
PERFECT OPENER TO WEDDING VOWS BRYSON THIS IS HILARIOUS
She turned away from Creep, regarding the trio of dimiours. “Rhyparia. What has come of her?” Atarax finally opened his eyes, gaze sliding over to the breakfast area, pointed fox’s ears twitching at the name. “Dead, we believe.” Her stomach dropped, gaze falling slightly, fearing she knew what had caused such an end: complete energy depletion, draining her energy canals and sending her body into a fatal state of shock.
No.
She peered down the hall, oblivious to the humanistic wolf standing off to the side. The Diatia had eyes for only three people: the son and father at the table, and the woman now visible at the bar.
That is because Vuilini knows of the dimiours.
There are plenty of people in need of assassinating … Mendac, Kadlest, Flen, or that girl who everyone thought was Simon’s girlfriend a few years back.” “Illipsia,” Ophala said.
I am pretty sure she is dead. Right?
She charged, his whip cracked, and so began the story of the most pestilent duo in the history of Empires.
Does it mean that they killed many beforehand or will kill more…
While it may not have been the same scale as what was happening in Saido, it was still of vital importance.
This is the second time Sodai had become a town of my creation.
As fleeting as the interaction had been, he couldn’t forget the innkeeper—a boy the same age as Bryson at the time—who had told him the real story of Ataway Kawi and Leon Suadade. The first two citizens of Yinyon to enter the Adrenian military, rising to the ranks of major and corporal before being discovered in intimate acts by a superior, sparking the climax of the Fifth of Five’s epic tale.
Third.
Bryson counted six towers, including the one on which he and Naipa stood.
The number of islands.
“So, these Cavities are the source of Light Energy—Tahara—in the world?” Naipa continued to stare into the waterfall of light that crashed from the sphere’s base to the roof. His words seemed only a distraction she wished to avoid. Eventually, feeling his unrelenting stare, she looked his way. He noticed the hems of her robes and her feet had fused with the liquid light. “Think of the world as a human body,” she said. “A human has five cavities within them, each of which creates one of two energies. Intel or Dev Energy from the Knowledge Cavity in the brain’s right half. Passion or Still from
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Each of the powers, and cavities, are also the islands, I think.
Here, in the Light Empire, directly in front of us, it leaks only Tahara.” She paused before adding, “The world’s source of Mulawi is in the Judgment Cavity of the Dark Empire.” “Is that why it’s bigger than the rest,” he said. “Or are my eyes deceiving me?” “They’re not, but it’s still nowhere near its proper size or radiance. While the other five burn in all their glory, this cavity is only a piece of its grander self.” “Where’s the rest of it?” he asked. “Lost in the bowels of the world, apparently.” “And nobody can find it?” She shook her head. “I believe the empress and emperor tried
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The Warpfinate contains a lot of Tahara?
“My name is Tonitrua, once known as the Queen of Thunder. I ruled the Light Knowledge Kingdom before Known History began. That was a much different time, when only ten people known as the Originators harnessed abilities. We acquired those abilities via Essences that lived in our kingdoms. My Essence had resided in the Valley of Thunder, or what you call Thunder Alley in present day. He went by Intelius, and he was the metaphysical form of Intel Currents. Billions of them clustered in that one area of the world. When he wasn’t a brilliant shower of lightning, he took the form of a man when I
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That was what I thought.
Three women made fools. Illipsia, Homina, and Tazama stood in the antechamber to King Storshae’s living quarters.
So Illipsia is not dead.
Three women made fools.
The repetition of this line is very impactful.
toddler king
Like, it makes sense within context but…
Intelius?” Exasperated with the repetition, he forced out a breath. “Yes. She called him my mark, like I’m an assassin or something.”
If this turns into a destruction of all magic like mine-
Mendac’s wings behaved oppositely, their smoky tendrils snaking toward the Mulanyx, slipping inside the stone with ease. Sometimes, the stone responded itself by stretching and meeting his wings halfway. If Emperor Mialo’s advice was correct, that meant Mendac knew who he was and not just accepted it, but embraced it.
So Bryson embraces his light.
And if this world ever needed saving, he’d bet his last arm on those two being there.
Last arm- I can't- HAHAHAHA
Just for experimentation, Agnos swung his fist at the floor in a hammer-strike motion. Rather than splintering wood, however, he might have splintered bone. He opened his mouth and released a soundless scream, toppling over on his side and squeezing at his wrist, clenching and unclenching his fist. “Agnos, are you dense?” Evelyn asked. “Bored,” he wheezed, writhing on the floor.
Both dense and bored, I think.
In Yinyon under orders from Poicus, he had fallen in love with a woman with hair of violet.
There are only two families with purple hair.
Soraku Fuuna.
Exactly.
“Have humans ever tried ingesting an umbra fairy?” She held his gaze, studying him. “A few, yes. I remember learning in my Cynnish History class about a man named Preloz Henye, who was alive in the 900’s.
I thought it could be him, because they talked about decay and he is decaying.
