Don’t know if it’s just me, but INGSVLD looks quite consternated in the second panel. Almost has that crazed “oh boy I’ve always wanted to do this but I know I’ll die in the first round” look to him.
And now the chase takes them to a tournament, where many who seek to have their hearts’ desire granted through martial prowess shall behold the Rising King, in all her glory.
Quality products, at wholesale prices! Get your fools while the getting’s cheap, my lovelies, for every one must go!
Supposedly they’re being replaced as others wander off or die. The number is said to remain about constant, only we know that it’s exact: 108 burning stars.
We all have the tendency to anthropomorphize the gods and anything else we don’t understand or want to relate to.
Unless you are unlucky enough to have the literal version, most people’s “private devils” are the same concept.
Only Millgrum the Vast had both the size and temerity to employ an actual shoulder angel. (And ended up with quite the pierced ear when he ignored sage advice.)
Holding a grudge is an act of feeling strong hatred, and refraining from acting upon it. If an immortal were to pursue a grudge for such a time, it would seem only logical. To hold one, though?
That whole statement doesn’t make sense logically: Maya holds the grudge, the girl says that immortals and hungry ghosts don’t and Maya doesn’t seem like either? So duh?
It would make more sense if she said that _only_ immortals and hungry ghosts can hold a grudge for so long.
Good point. Also, how does this kid get to be making sweeping statements about what can or can’t happen in the First City, where the dead are forbidden to beg because otherwise they’d be even more annoying?
I think that the word ‘Immortal’ is being used not as an adjective, but as a proper noun. That is, they’re talking about the *very specific concept* of the Taoist Immortal and not about undying beings in general. Taoist Immortals are all about attaining eternity by casting off worldly tethers and karmic bonds and it makes sense to describe them as ‘bad at holding grudges’.
“Any man…”. If a woman were to ascend to the top [level]. would the fight go on? There IS a considerable amount of Ego at work here. Presidential level!
(pricks her finger and points out -whose- blood was never clearly stated. Then dies.)
This is just the advertisement, with a big asterisk leading to “terms and conditions apply.” Pretty sure Solomon David has spawned enough generations of legal theorists to sort out any clever little loopholes like that.
Solomon refuses to have daughters, after having lost two when he was a humbler man. What if a woman should ascend to succeed, and ask to be adopted? The Keeper of the Word Diamond would not open himself to such a possibility.
Is the neck-thingie the fish person to the left is wearing some sort of breathing device for someone with gills? If so, that’s a nice touch.
(She probably has a name but if so I have failed to remember it.)
Yes, didn’t Solomon David mention at the beginning of the current book that he had been ruling his Celestial Empire for ten thousand years? Compared to how long the age of the gods and the period of the angels preserving Throne lasted, the time of the philosopher kings, the great war and the rule of the Seven seem barely an eye blink.
Yeah, Abbadon says on Tumblr that he doesn’t have a firm timeline. He says the calendar they use in Throne is counting from the beginning of the war, and that the year is probably 18-something or 1920 “cool-sounding.” But he also recently said that all the narrators are liars, so…
I think that unless the Demiurges themselves have registered in books or whatever when some events happened, much can be heard from oral – that means how long the events happened become blurry and some tellers can exagerate the years.
Of course some (if not all) can lie too
Zoss and the Old Guard are all proof that you don’t need a Key to wield the fires of creation. He alone killed the angels without a single key, and was born a man. A strong enough Will coupled with a deep enough Want are all that is truly necessary.
Royalty, after all, is simply a continuous cutting motion.
I notice that Pree Layla’s hair has grown out over the past year. It does that in those humans who insist on having a living scalp on their heads, the fools.
As any soldier will tell you, War changes its participants. Over a long enough timeline, your countrymen seem like strangers, and your enemies seem the closest things to friends.
When I was yet more foolish, I hypothesized that hate was the perfect evolutionary lifeform.
I saw the way it spread from host to host, the way it could live for an arbitrarily long lifetime, with no food or water, and I though it must be immortal.
How the hell do y’all have time to draw and color all this with such insane detail? Once you get to a certain skill level is it that you can just draw stuff one time?
The Hegemonic Prince of Moths; Savala Thun, Grand Duke of the Night District, Guild Master of the Opaline, Blood Royal of House Thun, First Facet of the Ma’grēti Dynasty and Sovereign of the Endless Dream
“Listen ! What you’re about to face is VASTLY more important than, your Ego, your Enemy, or your Quest for REVENGE. You have embarked on a Sacred Mission. You’ve been Chosen to defend the Realm of Earth – in a Tournament called Mortal Kombat.
…The Essence of Mortal Kombat is not about Death – but Life.
Mortal men and women Defending your own World ! One of YOU THREE will decide the outcome of the Tournament. The Fate of Billions will depend upon you ! Ha Ha Ha ! – Sorry.”
– Lord Raiden, God of Lightning, Protector of the Realm of Earth
I salute the return of Big Baby! And who is that guy with a book for a head in panel 2?!!! This is like the Star Wars cantina scene, and I couldn’t be more pleased 🙂
I also find Ingsvld to be a fascinating character – and one of the most mysterious. My thought go round and round. If I were there in Throne, I’d be asking them. “WHOM – or WHAT are you ? HOW did you and your peeps come into being… and WHY….? What’s it like being such as yourself ? And so on….! I already assume Xe always feels bookish.
Oh yeah – and are you at related to the Pyramid Headed Character seen in “The War of the Teacups” ?
Maybe they are Golem-like creatures? Dunno, if something like rocks could get some spark of life in them, why couldn’t a book or a body made of clay or wax?
A Tourney of Might with a reward beyond comprehension. I never have come upon a fantastical festivity of bloodshed in all the years of lonesome travel!
Monkey would have sorted all this out about two chapters ago. He fought another Heaven long ago, and he’s got that sea-dragon staff. And he can grow to the size of a kaiju among many other attributes. He’s immortal from better peaches than Om knew, and he can call upon a whole Monkey Army if need be. With Pigsy and Sandy at his side, with the Monk Tripitaka counseling restraint, the Great Sage Equal To Heaven would have seized Zoss’ throne some time ago, married Queen Om to Pigsy,(it doesn’t last; Pigsy’s kind of a diamond in the rough, if you see what I mean) and about now in the narrative he would be getting kind of bored. And Tripitaka would be reminding him that they can’t stay long – they still have those Scriptures to deliver.
There was one who came with the broken sun in her brow, and her blood was like molten gold. Once she stole the secret fire of Those Who Came Before from the Red Gods and coveted it, but it ruined her and made her ugly. She was a dirty god and she had a powerful enemy. She could not avail to touch him, so she crouched in his shadow while he became increasingly swollen with his own power and bloodthirst. Instead of growing, she diminished, and grew disheveled and her fire dimmed. But inside, her spark grew more powerful and fierce. She waited for the day her enemy became so tottering under his own monstrous power she could hack at it his ankles and fell him with a single blow.”
-Chronicle of the Fourth Conquest
Hrmm… Reckon that in a multiverse where physical armies are mostly packin’ hand-wielded weaponry, an “extremely masculine” army is a reasonable choice. Now, if ya got weapons that only require a trigger finger and some discipline to employ… Well, extreme masculinity would no longer be a requirement, I suppose.
Don’t really figure it’s a matter of sex / sexism either. “Extreme masculinity” is not limited to males, but is certainly more common in them.
Longer necks lead to richer and darker voices. The pitch stays the same, it is the overtones and formants that change. I learned this back in my theater days where I picked up several of my favorite masks.
A single drop of blood is one-sixtieth of a dram. The human body contains roughly one thousand, four hundred, and eight drams of blood. Therefore, eighty-four thousand, four hundred and eight worthy fighters could be granted their wish. That is, if they shared.
Pardon my heresy.
What, pray tell, does the title of preem mean? In my noble attic dwelling, the regal rats and I have no such formalities.
Sincerely,
An Ignorant (and Blasphemous) Fool
finally caught up with the story. now it’s time to whine at Abbadon to make more pages in a quicker manner! i love being a member of a webcomic’s audience
This is a smart blog. I mean it. You have so much knowledge about this issue, and so much passion. You also know how to make people rally behind it, obviously from the responses.
Don’t know if it’s just me, but INGSVLD looks quite consternated in the second panel. Almost has that crazed “oh boy I’ve always wanted to do this but I know I’ll die in the first round” look to him.
I do not count 108 here. Where are the rest? Are they yet to come?
Patience, young preem. While the multiverse knows no shortage of fools, restocking still takes time.
I don’t think its a matter of restocking.
I believe theses are the remnants that are chasing the prize after a whole year
And now the chase takes them to a tournament, where many who seek to have their hearts’ desire granted through martial prowess shall behold the Rising King, in all her glory.
Quality products, at wholesale prices! Get your fools while the getting’s cheap, my lovelies, for every one must go!
beings can exist outside private frames of reference
The work of Preem Schroedinger assures us that this is pure theory, yet to be ineffably proven to all
Theory is but a particularly persuasive lie.
It is holy to YISUN.
Existence, likewise, is only a particularly persuasive lie.
Why hold one above the other?
Abbadon can only fit so many into a single comic, unless maybe it’s an epic battle scene.
These seem to be most of the originals though.
The others came before.
Only these remain.
Supposedly they’re being replaced as others wander off or die. The number is said to remain about constant, only we know that it’s exact: 108 burning stars.
Hey girl,
What do you think about death?
Reach heaven through violence.
Hey, Orange Googles aka Princess Ruto is back! Sometimes this crocodile smile of mine is genuine.
“Immortals can’t hold a grudge that long”
How does someone living in a world with gods like these even consider that thought?
We all have the tendency to anthropomorphize the gods and anything else we don’t understand or want to relate to.
Unless you are unlucky enough to have the literal version, most people’s “private devils” are the same concept.
Only Millgrum the Vast had both the size and temerity to employ an actual shoulder angel. (And ended up with quite the pierced ear when he ignored sage advice.)
Young Ten Maya is a fool, is how.
Fools can convince themselves of anything.
Holding a grudge is an act of feeling strong hatred, and refraining from acting upon it. If an immortal were to pursue a grudge for such a time, it would seem only logical. To hold one, though?
Madness.
That whole statement doesn’t make sense logically: Maya holds the grudge, the girl says that immortals and hungry ghosts don’t and Maya doesn’t seem like either? So duh?
It would make more sense if she said that _only_ immortals and hungry ghosts can hold a grudge for so long.
Good point. Also, how does this kid get to be making sweeping statements about what can or can’t happen in the First City, where the dead are forbidden to beg because otherwise they’d be even more annoying?
It could be missing a comma. “I don’t believe you are (holding a grudge), either.”
Paralytic naivete.
I think that the word ‘Immortal’ is being used not as an adjective, but as a proper noun. That is, they’re talking about the *very specific concept* of the Taoist Immortal and not about undying beings in general. Taoist Immortals are all about attaining eternity by casting off worldly tethers and karmic bonds and it makes sense to describe them as ‘bad at holding grudges’.
I see the Carnival of Killers has been diminished to a mere handful.
Only the less insane survived.
There are always 108. Some might just be presently inconvenienced by death or day jobs.
The more insane. The *less* insane gave up and went home rather than continue tiling at windmills.
Murder The Gods And Topple Their Thrones is observant
Let us not forget that Pree Aesma was the greatest fool.
“Any man…”. If a woman were to ascend to the top [level]. would the fight go on? There IS a considerable amount of Ego at work here. Presidential level!
(pricks her finger and points out -whose- blood was never clearly stated. Then dies.)
This is just the advertisement, with a big asterisk leading to “terms and conditions apply.” Pretty sure Solomon David has spawned enough generations of legal theorists to sort out any clever little loopholes like that.
I don’t think it was an accident of wording considering who our protagonist is.
Solomon refuses to have daughters, after having lost two when he was a humbler man. What if a woman should ascend to succeed, and ask to be adopted? The Keeper of the Word Diamond would not open himself to such a possibility.
King Solomon may discover that a diamond may be very hard indeed… but it is also brittle.
And splits quite easily if struck at the proper spot in the proper direction.
Thanos Demiurge.
Thanos Demiurge.
Kill your 6 billion demons
Kill Your 6 Billion Personal Demons
Now THERE’S a fan fiction title if I ever saw one.
Kill Your 6 billion Personal Demons
(after creating them through division)
A fan fiction scripted for LARP
Author: YISUN
The hair pin.
The symbol of Zoss.
That is all.
The circle; immortal; infertile.
The division; which destroys the circle; a single continuous motion.
ROWDY FIGHT BOYS AND GIRLS LOOKING FOR A GOOD PUNCH-EM UP. A REAL SLOBBERKNOCKER
Pain
Regret
Impotence
Despair
Entropy
What a wonder it is be one who is like god.
Greatness
Respect
Esteem
Extravagance
Destiny
To be one who is like God, one must desire to be higher than God.
Is the neck-thingie the fish person to the left is wearing some sort of breathing device for someone with gills? If so, that’s a nice touch.
(She probably has a name but if so I have failed to remember it.)
She? Fool. That’s Abe Sapien.
Hrmm… Looks like Abe is still trying to avert the destruction of his world. Taking the fight right to the source. Keep at it, Abe.
Only hundreds of years? From how Om was talking — “the years flow like water”, or something — I thought it was more on the order of tens of thousands.
Yes, didn’t Solomon David mention at the beginning of the current book that he had been ruling his Celestial Empire for ten thousand years? Compared to how long the age of the gods and the period of the angels preserving Throne lasted, the time of the philosopher kings, the great war and the rule of the Seven seem barely an eye blink.
The heck? I had a reply to this that’s now disappeared….
“The days are like water.”
Yeah, Abbadon says on Tumblr that he doesn’t have a firm timeline. He says the calendar they use in Throne is counting from the beginning of the war, and that the year is probably 18-something or 1920 “cool-sounding.” But he also recently said that all the narrators are liars, so…
I think that unless the Demiurges themselves have registered in books or whatever when some events happened, much can be heard from oral – that means how long the events happened become blurry and some tellers can exagerate the years.
Of course some (if not all) can lie too
I am not usually prone to idle speculation but this thought has captured me.
Could Maya be holding an actual key, dark without the will to use it,
she unwilling to be yet another rock wielding savage?
Your thoughts?
Zoss and the Old Guard are all proof that you don’t need a Key to wield the fires of creation. He alone killed the angels without a single key, and was born a man. A strong enough Will coupled with a deep enough Want are all that is truly necessary.
Royalty, after all, is simply a continuous cutting motion.
“You should see what she can do with the hairpin.”
Whatever it is, it is mightier than the Maybe Sword, which is invincible.
Ah, so it is a coin.
Wealth is above might and comparison, for even invincibility can be bought.
The hairpin is mightier than the sword.
listen this mr abaddon.
I fucking love you you prick, and Im getting some yu yu hakusho tournament vibes, pls feed me.
We have ALL been starved of a good Tournament Arc.
Soon. But not soon enough.
Maybe the real violence was the friends we made along the way.
The friends we unmade.
“Test your mettle! Achieve Flawless victory! Listen to 90s techno!”
That’s wha they say….
I demand more Gunwitch
I notice that Pree Layla’s hair has grown out over the past year. It does that in those humans who insist on having a living scalp on their heads, the fools.
As any soldier will tell you, War changes its participants. Over a long enough timeline, your countrymen seem like strangers, and your enemies seem the closest things to friends.
Just ask Coriolanus.
Oh, spite! Oh, vengeance! Such sweet music!
You feed that grudge until its a serpent fit to swallow the sun.
When I was yet more foolish, I hypothesized that hate was the perfect evolutionary lifeform.
I saw the way it spread from host to host, the way it could live for an arbitrarily long lifetime, with no food or water, and I though it must be immortal.
Now I know better.
What is the fighting style of the Big Baby?
Red Grail Demolishes The Unexpecting. A style whose total lack of subtletly is made up for by its structure-leveling potency.
Oooooh, Yeah!
How the hell do y’all have time to draw and color all this with such insane detail? Once you get to a certain skill level is it that you can just draw stuff one time?
A tournament of the God-Emperor, how exciting. I just hope Old Solly is prepared to back up his claims, after all times are changing.
We are pleased to once again see good INSVLD well. This amalgamation of violent beings amuses us greatly.
They are getting the band back together !
top panel, sitting on the steps on the far right.
Is that Red Tusked Saar ?
where’s the cool cowboy looking person?
i hope they still live
Is the middle of Panel 3 not clearly visible to you, Preem Cotton?
“Listen ! What you’re about to face is VASTLY more important than, your Ego, your Enemy, or your Quest for REVENGE. You have embarked on a Sacred Mission. You’ve been Chosen to defend the Realm of Earth – in a Tournament called Mortal Kombat.
…The Essence of Mortal Kombat is not about Death – but Life.
Mortal men and women Defending your own World ! One of YOU THREE will decide the outcome of the Tournament. The Fate of Billions will depend upon you ! Ha Ha Ha ! – Sorry.”
– Lord Raiden, God of Lightning, Protector of the Realm of Earth
It took me all these years to notice Maya’s barrette is a broken key.
Being broken has never stopped her weapons from being effective.
I Like 2 Fight And Kill – But Where Is The Blood And Guts In This Page. I Liked The Pages Before Better Do That Again
Sand and blood make for heroes
Match with whisper, ring propose
and not the place a fighter throws
I feel like that last bit is a bit…self referencial.
Maybe just a touch.
(Come on, Maya! You’ll never storm heaven with that negative attitude.)
I salute the return of Big Baby! And who is that guy with a book for a head in panel 2?!!! This is like the Star Wars cantina scene, and I couldn’t be more pleased 🙂
Amoeboid Fist-Of-Goo – you have spotted Ingsvld !
I also find Ingsvld to be a fascinating character – and one of the most mysterious. My thought go round and round. If I were there in Throne, I’d be asking them. “WHOM – or WHAT are you ? HOW did you and your peeps come into being… and WHY….? What’s it like being such as yourself ? And so on….! I already assume Xe always feels bookish.
Oh yeah – and are you at related to the Pyramid Headed Character seen in “The War of the Teacups” ?
Maybe they are Golem-like creatures? Dunno, if something like rocks could get some spark of life in them, why couldn’t a book or a body made of clay or wax?
Wax lacks permanence
this is axiomatic
The book headed guys are a subrace of The Servants.
This I have read, that wisdom is care for afterwards.
Not so foolish, perhaps.
A Tourney of Might with a reward beyond comprehension. I never have come upon a fantastical festivity of bloodshed in all the years of lonesome travel!
Why would it be weird for Maya to be hundreds of years old? We’ve already seen other immortals before hand.
Is Maya’s companion/student Monkey?
Monkey would have sorted all this out about two chapters ago. He fought another Heaven long ago, and he’s got that sea-dragon staff. And he can grow to the size of a kaiju among many other attributes. He’s immortal from better peaches than Om knew, and he can call upon a whole Monkey Army if need be. With Pigsy and Sandy at his side, with the Monk Tripitaka counseling restraint, the Great Sage Equal To Heaven would have seized Zoss’ throne some time ago, married Queen Om to Pigsy,(it doesn’t last; Pigsy’s kind of a diamond in the rough, if you see what I mean) and about now in the narrative he would be getting kind of bored. And Tripitaka would be reminding him that they can’t stay long – they still have those Scriptures to deliver.
That idiot Monkey can’t even jump out of the palm of a man’s hand.
There was one who came with the broken sun in her brow, and her blood was like molten gold. Once she stole the secret fire of Those Who Came Before from the Red Gods and coveted it, but it ruined her and made her ugly. She was a dirty god and she had a powerful enemy. She could not avail to touch him, so she crouched in his shadow while he became increasingly swollen with his own power and bloodthirst. Instead of growing, she diminished, and grew disheveled and her fire dimmed. But inside, her spark grew more powerful and fierce. She waited for the day her enemy became so tottering under his own monstrous power she could hack at it his ankles and fell him with a single blow.”
-Chronicle of the Fourth Conquest
Layla Brimstone and Eris-lo Kai return! Yes!! Not to mention the Giant Golden Baby!
“A man who ascends to the top …”, not “Any who ascends to the top …”. I wonder ….
The Emperor is alllll about The Patriarchy.
Solomon’s decision to birth only sons and his extremely masculine army does suggest a certain level of sexism.
Hrmm… Reckon that in a multiverse where physical armies are mostly packin’ hand-wielded weaponry, an “extremely masculine” army is a reasonable choice. Now, if ya got weapons that only require a trigger finger and some discipline to employ… Well, extreme masculinity would no longer be a requirement, I suppose.
Don’t really figure it’s a matter of sex / sexism either. “Extreme masculinity” is not limited to males, but is certainly more common in them.
If you have a long neck you have a deep or high voice? 🤔
Longer necks lead to richer and darker voices. The pitch stays the same, it is the overtones and formants that change. I learned this back in my theater days where I picked up several of my favorite masks.
HELLO!
Fight him and take his key!!
(Also, I notice her hair tie thing is the same symbol as the one Allison has…)
A single drop of blood is one-sixtieth of a dram. The human body contains roughly one thousand, four hundred, and eight drams of blood. Therefore, eighty-four thousand, four hundred and eight worthy fighters could be granted their wish. That is, if they shared.
Hrmm… Before they could share any of it, they would have to draw it.
“Not a single one of us can defeat you… So we’ll have to gang up on you! Get him guys!” – Student of Ti-Kwan-Leep
Pardon my heresy.
What, pray tell, does the title of preem mean? In my noble attic dwelling, the regal rats and I have no such formalities.
Sincerely,
An Ignorant (and Blasphemous) Fool
It is my understanding that “Preem” and its variants are a shortening of “Supreme”, and are terms of respect.
Personally, I believe it is foolish to imprison one’s name within titles. Those who possess Royalty due not need to instruct others to respect them.
finally caught up with the story. now it’s time to whine at Abbadon to make more pages in a quicker manner! i love being a member of a webcomic’s audience
What a dumb broad…
… is that Chairman Netero in the foreground?
At this time I am ready to do my breakfast,
once having my breakfast coming again to read more news.
This is a smart blog. I mean it. You have so much knowledge about this issue, and so much passion. You also know how to make people rally behind it, obviously from the responses.