Are My First Few Chapters Readable

[Yorth]

This is not self-promoting thread disguised as a story feedback one. I need legit advice. Many of my readers, both the ones that absolutely loved the story and the ones that hated it have expressed to me their concerns about my first few chapters. They said that they were a slog to read through, confusing, and jump from character to character way too much. I agreed with their feedback and that's why I started editing them. After a major editing run, I feel that I have reached a state that I can be proud of.

However, I am the writer, and I will be biased as all hell. I know the story and the characters so the transitions don't feel jarring to me. As such, I am asking you all to either confirm or deny my conclusion by reading the first few chapter of my story (Up to chapter 4: Omen)

Here is link

 

[Sandycat135]

Yes, although it is a bit tiring on the wordy bits.
I would suggest breaking up the sentences and removing the unecessary adjectives. A few long and wordy sentences are a bit tiresome to read. Try cutting a little unecessary description out.

Smushing it repeatedly in grammarly helps.

I've smushed the first bit in grammarly and tried to separate some wordy bits.

Personally, I think the way the characters speak is a tad rigid. Try using contractions, and think of what that character would say.

Spoiler

Shesmu came to a halt, out of breath and with as his heart pounding pounded against the inside of his chest:
(i would suggest using a colon. Try making the writing flow.)
beads of sweat rolling down his closed eyes. Taking control of his breathing, he straightened up;
(full stop would make it more digestible. Try seperating way too long sentences)
As strange runes floated inside his hazel eyes, as he gazed up into the sky.
His gaze fixated towards the sun, a screen stood beside the star. He read the star's description when as (stick it in grammarly) a few? strands of black hair settled across his face, obscuring his vision. (maybe try adding some slightly short sentence openers, as they help break things up)

 

[Yiphen]

I'm going to point out some things and hope there's a way to apply my opinions to broader things.

“Okay, okay. You guys can laugh at me all you want, we still need to go through with the strat.”

First off, the "strat" thing at the end tripped me up when I read through it. If they're going to speak in a dialect (couldn't find a better word), it should be more consistent.

"Okay, okay. Laugh all ya want, but we still need to follow through with the strat."

To match up more with "strat" part, it would be fine to shorten the sentence and replace some words with their less formal variants.
The "ya" part might be overdoing it, but whether it fits depends on how you want his character to be like.

“Cain and I will stop them from doing that. The rest of you will proceed with the strategy as normal. Okay, that’s it for now. We will meet on the battlefield.”

Since he (I'm assuming its the same guy) uses the full word for strategy this time, it would be more consistent if he either always said "strat" or always said "strategy."

"Cain and I 'll stop them. As for the rest of ya, same strat as last time."
<Insert response from random teammate>
"And, that's about it. See ya on the battlefield!"

Idk how to describe my decision for writing this change.


And on a side note:

“The most important thing that you need to remember is this; don’t engage with Crescent unless it’s absolutely necessary. Their whole team’s strategy will revolve around securing an Arcane Scroll for him.”

I don't actually know the context, but this line just seems illogical. If the enemy team's strategy revolves around them getting a specific item for a specific member, that item would likely make the specific member much more powerful. So, in what situation would not targeting the dude be a good idea?