Last Updated:
2021-02-21 07:00:23
Previous Chapter
Related Chapters
The Least Common Denominator Interlude XV: Arya II
Overlooking a part of the city, a lone woman stood in satisfaction as she watched Crimson interact with the twins that the girl had been traveling with for a while. She knew that it was dangerous for her to be this close to the girl that she swore to herself she would protect, but with the way that the said girl was acting, she had no choice but to intervene lest she ended up being a victim to this city's resident anti-robbery system."How predictable that you'd get yourself entangled in this mess~"Arya chuckled to herself as she exerted her power on her own body. Not having a functioning heart had been a novel experience, but with almost two years passing ever since she let herself get stabbed by her former charge, it had become second nature to the former Prime to manually circulate the blood inside her body. It was honestly a blessing in disguise, with the practice enablin
The Least Common Denominator XXXVI.I Imaginary Number
Imagination: one of humanity's greatest weapons second only to reasoning and slightly lower against boredom. As one of the two major ingredients for innovation, the ability to visualize and effectively lie to yourself and to reality inside your head is one of the best things a person could ever have in the face of adversity and lack of stuff to do. When combined with boredom, imagination could supply enough stupid ideas that at least one of them would take root and evolve into a semi-decent one. Granted, even if a stupid idea already became somewhat viable, it was still no guarantee that it would inevitably work as soon as you put your all into it. It'll still be up to Lady Luck if it'll work flawlessly, or if you've just wasted a whole afternoon doing fuck all as it goes down in a hopefully hilarious fashion.That was simply the nature of experimentation."I already told you,
The Least Common Denominator XXXVI.II Imaginary Number
A loud bang echoed between us as the rifle discharged a shot as soon as I let go of it. Understandably, I was shocked as fuck as I stood frozen with my ears still ringing. In front of me, Lace looked... unsurprised as she sighed in resignation?Did this happen often even back then?"As I was about to say, don't let go of the trigger rune if you had it charged," the older woman shook her head as she relieved me of my weapon, the muzzle still smoking despite the lack of gunpowder. Curious, but I won't question it anymore. "How did you even not notice that? It was already primed and glowing even before you moved to give it back to me."My jaw remained agape as I felt my mind still rebooting itself from the shock of the explosive shot. Processing Lace's question at the speed of a dial-up connection, I smacked my lips together as my consciousness finall
The Least Common Denominator XXXVI.III Imaginary Number
Cowering against the big flaming bird in front of me-*SCREEECCHHH!!!!*Huh? Did this thing just-*SQUUUAAWWWKKK!!!*Oookay? Apparently, this thing has a lot of things it needed to talk to me about? And it's pretty much-*SCREECH!!!*Oh, joy... Would you just shut up for a sec? I'm not even done with my thoughts before you respond to me...*SQUAAWWKK*I rolled my eyes at the flaming bird's response. It was just common courtesy, y'know?The phoenix visibly shook its head at my thought. I guess it finally got the message?Okay, on top of somehow responding to my thoughts, how am I even understanding this thing? My ears were still working properly, rig
The Least Common Denominator XXXVI.IV Imaginary Number
"O-Oh! O-Of course..."Regaining my composure as the phoenix-turned-woman grabbed my attention, I couldn't help but still admire the form she took for this to even happen."The form I took is simply what you wanted for me to take in the first place, Master; your subconscious deemed this." the phoenix glared at me, this time with an intensity of a woman scorned. "Don't delude yourself into thinking that I willingly wanted to look like this, nor did I even want to change my form at all."Ouch... "Sorry...""Don't be," the phoenix tutted as a ball of flame engulfed her hand in a split-second, revealing what looked to be a clipboard while a pen materialized in a burst of flame on her right hand. "You're not sorry at all. And stop addressing me as 'the phoenix' or 'that creature'. You're more creative than that."
The Least Common Denominator XXXVI.V Imaginary Number
"crimson...."I was dreaming... I knew I was dreaming... The lingering pain of burning flesh... and yet my skin never flaked from the phantom pains..."Crimson...."Instead, my body was engulfed by the sheer sense of overwhelming disappointment; of regret so immense that it threatened to make me spiral into collapse... And yet I didn't mind it.I was used to it, after all."Crimson!"Opening my eyes to the familiar visage of Lace trying to shake me awake, the only thing replaying in my mind was my conversation with Ica; my so-called power made manifest. She had wanted to burn me to a crisp, and yet she didn't. Rather, couldn't. She was a part of me, and I was a part of her, most likely. Our similar appearances were a dead giveaway in that regard.
The Least Common Denominator XXXVII.I Sine
Time moves forward. That was the very essence of the world, right? Time and space were the two fundamentals laws of the universe. Movement would not be possible without time moving, nor is it possible without space existing. The two immutable constants of the world...It was always a daydream of mine to utterly break them for my own benefit."How much for this pot?""Two silvers, sir."Oh, how I wished for the ability to control time; to stop it, or even make it slow down in the littlest sense. Such a power was world-breaking, to the point that it was constantly portrayed as the ultimate ability. A literal World that one could access with but a simple thought.Hehe... Get it? it's the World?"What're you giggling about, Crimson?"Sigh
The Least Common Denominator XXXVII.II Sine
"E-Excuse me?"I was taken aback as what I could only describe as the ultimate soccer mom suddenly wedged herself in between myself and the kid I was trying to help. Beside me, Lace visibly scooted a bit to the side as I was left alone to deal with someone that was possibly an irate mother with a mean streak a mile wide.And wouldn't that be a surprise for someone that had to deal with shit like this for a good portion of her life..."You heard me!" the woman leaned closer to my face as she erupted with the intensity of a flowing volcano. "Keep you filthy peasant hands of my son!"I resisted the urge to roll my eyes at the woman that was now cradling her kid like he's the national treasure. Then again- Wait... Did I hear that right?"I'm sorry, ma- err... lady," I unconsciously winced at my
Latest Chapter
- The Least Common Denominator
CV.V Cotangent
I don't even know what's happening anymore..."Huh... That looks far too complex even for you, Crimson," Phillipe snarked at my work. Technically Anne's as well, to be honest. "A square rune with that many parts? I don't think that'll work out in the long run.""You and me both," I rolled my eyes with the sarcasm of an overflowing dam. "Seriously, why are you here?""You're being annoying."I raised an eyebrow at the blunt delivery of his oh-so-important announcement. Giving him the best sarcastic inquisitive eyes I could muster, I let out a scoff as I began whatever this talk was going to end up as.'Right behind you there.'You always are, Ica. "And?"Phillipe smirked at me as if he knew exactly what I was thinking, "You're wasting
- The Least Common Denominator
CV.IV Cotangent
"Let's go crazy..."With a borderline manic whisper, I let my imagination cut loose as my hand moved on its own. Traps within traps, earthen sigils meant to sprout at a moment's notice, the world was my oyster as the goodies slowly accumulated with each stroke of my charcoal.'Don't get too carried away, Master.'I know. I'm not dumb enough to overload the thing before it even came to fruition.And that was the biggest risk to such a massive array as well. With so many moving parts, any wrong line or overlapping rune will pretty much make the whole thing explode. I couldn't stress it enough, even to myself. Do not make this thing more complicated than it already is.'And yet here you are having fun with it.'Don't test me, Ica. Or maybe I'll just assert me being
- The Least Common Denominator
CV.III Cotangent
Fiiiineee... You win, my precious Ica.The stuttering that ensued at the back of my head was like a soothing tune as I looked over my work. The communication arrays were gonna stay, as would the Essence storage runes at strategic parts of the palace grounds. Hmmm.... Wouldn't the communication arrays be two-way anyway? So why even bother with surveillance runes like last time?My hand moved to remove the minor additions I added on the dirt parts of the grounds, leaving me with more space to work with in terms of... well... anything, really. What kind of runes would even work on shaky ground? Dirt couldn't hold anything beyond the basic types of runic arrays. Anything more complex than a three-layered circuit would blow up instantly from the strain. I could maybe run- wait... why not just do that?The charcoal streaked across the outskirts of the pa
- The Least Common Denominator
CV.II Cotangent
*ruummbbllee...*The sound of a sputtering engine echoed from behind me as I drew up yet another set of circles on the board. While I kind of put the general purpose of the massive multi-circuit array at the back of my head, I really should try and solidify that stuff properly before making the main control array, shouldn't I...'Good thing you remembered that, Master.'I grumbled through the dull pain I was feeling at my knees as I focused myself back on the doodle that was supposed to be a defense system for the palace grounds. It was far too small of a circle, now that I thought about it. The size of the drawing did little to help me ascertain the types of circuits that I drew on it in the first place. Squinting even further, it felt as if I was reading my own handwriting from how jumbled and nonsensical it all looked with hindsight.
- The Least Common Denominator
CV.I Cotangent
Plans upon plans upon plans. I feel like I'm repeating myself whenever I say that I'm obsessed about things going right, and if not, to have plans to be able to properly react to the failure. Fool-proofing something small was easy. Doing it again for something on the scale of a war, however, was a completely different beast. The number of variables at play, hundreds to even thousands of moving parts to look over and take into account. The time, the weather, morale, even individuals that might have other ideas and could stray from the plans put into place... It was so much to think about that hours or even days of pouring over the relevant information wouldn't be enough to take everything into account into one's plans. And even if you think you somehow managed to achieve this impossibility, there will always be something so monumentally out of left field that could just absolutely destroy any and all plans along with its sub plans and
- The Least Common Denominator
Interlude XXXIX: Grigori
GRIGORI⬛⬛⬛*RRRRRUUUMMBBLLEEEE!!!! RRRRUUMMBBLEEEE!!!*"What's wrong, Lord Stone?! Finally getting tired in your old age?!"Grigori grumbled in annoyance as he found himself standing his ground in his self-made fortress. Truth be told, the former Prime expected his fight to be over over ten minutes ago. However, he severely underestimated his enemies' hidden tenacity and downright stubbornness."I'm just getting started, kid!" he boisterously replied. "I'm far from being done!"Still, even as he said those words, Grigori was beginning to feel more tired than he initially expected. His reserves were starting to run dry from the constant back and forth that the combined forces of Lords Breeze and Inferno were throwing at him. And that's not to mention the current
- The Least Common Denominator
CIV.IV Transistor
OLIVIA⬛⬛⬛"So Lord Iron truly took care of the problem?"Olivia held her breath as she found herself taking in the state that the young Num was just found in. Broken, battered, and bleeding all over, Tesla had clearly taken a beating of a lifetime as her head lolled in her unconscious state, her face marred with cuts and bruises as her white hair was stained brown with dried blood."Damn... I guess the ranking in the Prime Thirteen's not a joke, huh...""Lord Iron's the Sixth, after all. Lady Static's the Thirteenth...""Fuck..." Olivia swore under her breath, her teeth gnashing as she watched the Imperials gawk at her fallen friend. "How the hell do I get her out of there safely..."The warrior Den tuned everything out as she focused on the unenviabl
- The Least Common Denominator
CIV.III Transistor
OLIVIA⬛⬛⬛*c..crackle....*The faint sound of electricity seemed to crackle from the distance as Olivia stood in the middle of her self-made carnage. The lack of common sense that she was witnessing honestly made her feel more irritated than amused as she slowly walked towards the panicking commander. Olivia had places to be, and possibly someone to save depending on whether or not Tesla could somehow relay to her that she was okay."No matter," she sighed. "You idiots wouldn't understand, I guess.""No!-"*SLASH!*With a quick step, the commander didn't even stand a chance. His sword fell with an unceremonious clang onto the ground as his head rolled off his neck like a piece of meat. Olivia didn't flinch as the idiot's terrified fa
- The Least Common Denominator
CIV.II Transistor
OLIVIA⬛⬛⬛*CRACKLE! CRACKLE! KRAKATHOOM!*Olivia ran through the streets of Mathema like a woman possessed. Wreaking havoc across every Imperial contingent she came across, lightning followed her path as she relied on Tesla's ever-encompassing presence to deal massive damage on the enemy while despite being outnumbered by at least a hundred to one. She knew that Her Sister would no doubt disapprove of her current tactics, but if it worked, then why bother changing it?"If it ain't broke, don't fix it, right?"*KRAKATHOOM!*"AAHHH!!!!""IT BURNS!"With a smile on her face and blood on her blade, Olivia uttered her Sister's own words out loud as a reminder. Lightning crackled behind her, screams of her fallen enemies saturat
