nemorosus

Chapter 453: Drunkards of Exceptional Power

“People of Blackgard,” Argrave called out, his voice amplified by wind magic.

He stood on a raised platform in a gathering square that had been constructed in the center of the city, and the place was more than large enough host the gigantic population of the city that grew around them. A servant of Elenore’s had been using this to promulgate the results of the parliament, but now it served to project his voice. And the people—his people, he reflected—gathered to hear...

Chapter 452: Worldwide Debut

Argrave, Anneliese, and Melanie sat behind a pure white judge’s bench, lined up side-by-side but angled inward as though to surround something. Durran, Elenore, and Galamon stood behind them, serving in an advisory role. And across from them sat gods—but it wasn’t as though either occupied a position of authority over the other. Rather, god and mortal had the same domineering bench, and neither rested at an elevated level. Argrave had just finished explaining his offer—the heist again...

Chapter 451: First God of War

Argrave truly hadn’t known what to expect with Sataistador. When he thought of a god of war, he pictured the honorable general type, someone like Galamon—hard and brusque, one who talks harsh and short. He supposed the addendums of ‘chaos and ruthless destruction’ should’ve tipped his mind toward the direction of someone like Genghis Khan. He had tried to worm his way into disrupting Argrave’s plan, even despite the safety the White Planes offered.

And Melanie had been the o...

Chapter 450: Value of the Body

“You sold my daughter to a brothel?” Melanie’s father asked. There wasn’t anger in his voice—not really. Just disappointment.

“I wasn’t really going to do it,” her mother insisted. Red hair, green eyes, tall and robust—minus the scars, she was a mirror to Melanie today. “But you never visit me anymore! What else was I supposed to do?”

“But you accepted money from them, didn’t you? And I imagine you’ve already spent this money.”

Melanie looked up...

Chapter 449: Unloved Girl

Anneliese entered into a shabby old hut by the oceanside. As the door shut behind her, memories that she had long ago forgotten came rushing back. She and her mother had lived here, for a time. The little Anneliese walked to the center of the room, carrying the fish. She hung it up on a rack, where various implements for cleaning fish rested just beside. And there, back in the corner of the room on the bed, was Anneliese’s mother. She was unmoving, deep in sleep.

The door shutting beh...

Chapter 448: Getting One's Way

“Did you let me win?” Durran asked Garm.

Just as it had been in their fight many months ago, Garm stood on his field of roses, though strangely they were white roses this time. Durran’s desert was black and endless, just as before, in mirror of the Burnt Desert. These battlefields allegedly mirrored their minds, whether here in the White Planes or back then, when their souls had done battle to eat each other.

“Let you win?” Garm repeated incredulously, narrowing his eyes...

Chapter 447: Unforgiven, Unforgotten

When Galamon touched the bright white within the door to the White Planes, he had been expecting and dreading dealing with many things. Would it be the death of his brother? Would it be the first time he’d killed someone in wake of his vampirism? He had confronted these scenes in his head countless times.

Instead, when his vision returned to him, he gazed upon a tall Veidimen woman sitting upon a white throne. She wore a white robe of fur, and had a bow across her lap. Various other w...

Chapter 446: White Noise, Smell, and Taste

“It would be more cost-efficient for the spirits if I subsumed all of you into my alchemic body,” the Alchemist said, staring down at their group.

“It would be more cost-efficient for our sanity if we didn’t,” Argrave rebuked, looking up at the Alchemist.

The Alchemist shook his head as he watched Argrave. “You had my word no harm would come to you and yours, yet you waste precious resources because of distrust. No matter…”

Argrave gestured for everyone to co...

Chapter 445: Our Lords and Saviors

Argrave’s meeting with Artur had gone about as expected—the man wanted some recognition, and so they gave it. When they had entered, the former Magister of the Order was ready to demand something substantial. But Argrave had buttered him with sweet words, promised a nice plaque with his name on it, and the man folded like wet paper. Artur wanted these vain things—and quite frankly, he did deserve them—and so who was Argrave to deny that?

On the other front, the Vysenn r...

Chapter 444: Ground Floor Opportunity in the Heavens

Anneliese looked up at the Alchemist as he toiled with Felipe’s bones in seemingly incomprehensible manners. When she’d first met this giant, standing beside Argrave as he endured the worst pain of his life, she had been utterly afraid of him. He seemed unreadable, unfathomable, unknowable, and most of all unreasonable. Maybe there was still some truth to that. But the events of day passed showed that he wasn’t necessarily as monstrous as he presented himself to be.

Indeed, perhap...

Chapter 443: Man Plans, Gods Laugh

Though Argrave had been captivated by the discovery of [Blood Infusion], the Alchemist’s suggestion of robbing Erlebnis of knowledge drew his attention unlike anything else before.

Argrave and Anneliese walked into the Alchemist’s temporary abode constructed by his Pawns, where the giant waited for them with stacks of books laid out without much reason. He seemed to take issue with this, for he scooped up the books with many hands conjured from his body and placed them inside the wa...

Chapter 442: Shedding Mortality

Saving the world was just as arrogant a thing as trying to dominate or destroy it. Each of the three carried with it an implication; that one’s personal power was superior to that of the world. It implied that the world could be changed in such a way. It was easy enough to claim that Argrave had set upon this road for the purpose of saving his own life, but time and time again he’d proven that there was more to it than that. He did want to help people. And the worst part? He’d ...

Chapter 441: Finding Cycles to Break

“What we need most, more than almost anything, are bodies for this war,” Elenore told Argrave. “We must take advantage of Mozzahr’s arrogance to involve the dwarven nation persisting below even the Ebon Cult.”

Argrave listened to her proposal intently, and then leaned back into his chair. “Elenore… those people, the dwarves… they’ve been removed from the struggles of nations for decades. The most they face is the odd monster breaking through their mines, or… even les...

Chapter 440: What Could Be

Near a hundred flying beasts in the sky darkened the earth of Vasquer with their wide shadows in the early dawn. Just as Argrave’s royal procession with his army had been impossible to avoid noticing, so too was the so-called King of the Scorched Sand’s. The wyverns flew over the vast kingdom, trivializing the size of the land of green summer that was enduring the beginnings of the bitter struggle against Gerechtigkeit.

Their wyverns had been armored in southron elf illusion magic, ...

Chapter 439: Mindfulness

Argrave, after stating that he needed to exhume Felipe, realized that this was one of the times where blunt honesty would not serve him as well as couching his speech in flowery language. After the fact, he struggled desperately to douse the rising flames of protest that Orion birthed. If Orion got any angrier, perhaps ‘dousing the flames’ would have been a literal activity.

But by the end of it all—Argrave desperately explaining his purpose in doing so, and Orion desperately seek...

Chapter 438: Grave Son

When Argrave and Anneliese emerged from the Alchemist's fortress of obsidian, their party stepped forward eagerly to receive them. They had all seen the strange chimera named Pawn imitating Argrave, and now concern drove them in greeting. Their eagerness was abated by the looming giant that followed them. As the Alchemist exited, the vast black doors closed shut, pulled closed by an unseen force.

When finally the two groups met, Argrave looked between everyone awkwardly. He patted the s...

Chapter 437: Body Shop Selling Secrets

Anneliese followed the man who called himself Pawn, descending into the sterile obsidian fortress belonging to the Alchemist. She thought for half a second that Argrave had been returning when this Pawn emerged from the home, but only a second’s scrutiny broke that illusion. She didn’t enjoy whatever game this thing was. It had emotions, true enough, but it could not be human given its resemblance to Argrave. It had to have been made.

When this seemingly endless stairway fi...

Chapter 436: Strange Doctor, Strange Affliction

The Alchemist walked through his abode of obsidian with Argrave struggling to keep up just behind. Argrave thought that they were heading into the library once more, but the Alchemist reached into the walls as he walked to retrieve an obsidian staff. He slammed it on the ground, and the whole placed pulsed with purple lights.

Like that, the whole of it came alive. The hallway that they’d been walking through descended, forming a slope downwards. The walls and floors looked like ferrof...

Chapter 435: New World, Within

After leaving their army at the Low Way, their group departed in small number for the Alchemist’s home. Along the path, Argrave and Anneliese were eager students to the Tower Master of the Gray Owl. Though Anneliese had a teacher in the form of her grandmother, Argrave never truly had someone to tutor him dedicatedly. Castro’s guidance was like sanding and polishing to this craft of his that he’d built so quickly. There were many rough spots that sorely needed such treatment, and they w...

Chapter 434: Journey of Discovery

Argrave looked out across a room filled with torches. He walked to specific ones, passing others by, and lit them with simple spells. A bunch of his people watched what he was doing in confusion, but he carried on unconcerned. Finally, when he lit the torch in the top right…

The floor in the center of the room started to shift around, clicking and grinding into place as a stairway slowly took form. Argrave walked around it, joining everyone else while paying the strange contraption li...

Chapter 433: Virtuous Circle

Argrave, with an abundance of electric eels swirling above his head, sent them forth not to attack but to exert pressure. It was like a pointed gun, ready to fire at any moment that Castro’s attention wavered. If he should attempt some retreat again, they would follow. The old spellcaster regarded them with his eyes briefly, and then focused back on Argrave.

Off to the right side, one of Argrave’s blood echoes prepared [Bloodfeud Bow]. He projected another echo far out to the left. ...

Chapter 432: Stress Test

All of the high-ranking members of the Stonepetal Sentinels were arrayed before Argrave side-by-side. They had all heard the spellcasters in their number; the king was possessed of magic enough to easily have breached A-rank by now. The two men by his side were giants both, and the sentinels were experienced enough to recognize that they bore enchanted armor. Even the king himself was no slouch, physically—standing a little over seven feet tall, his movements had a strange red mysticism to ...

Chapter 431: Buried Treasure

The red moon had long ago taken its place at the center of the sky, but still Argrave paced restlessly. They were in their own tent, pitched by the Veidimen warriors for their easy rest, but sleep was the last thing on Argrave’s mind as he consulted with Anneliese and Galamon.

Argrave looked up at Galamon. “If your kid wanted to kill himself, would you let him?”

Galamon stared back at Argrave for one, two, three seconds, white eyes colder than the grave. “No,” he said co...

Chapter 430: Dueling Perspectives

Castro’s tutelage was a welcome reprieve from the monotony of self-study. Argrave had never been truly taught by anyone, and so he eagerly looked to have his ability assessed by someone so highly regarded. The first thing that was asked of him was rather simple: Argrave was first instructed to describe his current capability. It had been a little awkward, what with Ingo also present, but he moved past that.

He, Anneliese, and Orion had moved to Castro’s private carriage for this con...

Chapter 429: Past Builds the Present

Argrave stood at the stables with Anneliese, watching as the people there tended to the horses that had been drawing their carriage. She held a packet in her hand.

“To think… your handwriting used to be so much neater,” Anneliese ruminated, biting her lip. “What is this strange script? It used to be so pretty…”

Argrave scoffed. “Is that the point?”

“No, no, of course not,” she said, flashing a teasing smile at him. “Infusing blood magic into all spells�...

Chapter 428: Strong Knot From Loose Ends

“Your Majesty…” Grimalt began, prompting Argrave to look into his amber eyes. “Why exactly am I here?”

The Veidimen officer was clearly uncomfortable in this luxury carriage—not that Argrave felt much different. But it seemed to bother him he was with Elenore, Argrave, Anneliese, Galamon, Melanie, and Orion—he felt his status was not up to snuff, evidently.

Argrave looked out the window of the carriage. “Did no one tell you, or does the marching army outside not gi...

Chapter 427: Where Power Lies

Anestis was a very, very long way from home. He had travelled miles upward through the earth, seeking his people’s secrets they had abandoned in the cities of old. His journey had taken him far beyond the abandoned cities, though, breaching even the surface. The sunlight from the suns was harsh enough to make him nauseous, and things were loud and fast and unpleasant.

The small mercy of his presence here was that he was a curiosity soon forgotten. When he had come upon the giant elf n...

Chapter 426: People, Big and Small

“I lost well over one thousand good people, Your Majesty,” Count Castille said to Argrave. “Good families relocated, leaving entire fields untended. When my father purchased the land well over eighty years ago, he bought it with the expectation that these serf families came with the land. For all intents and purposes… and meaning no disrespect, of course… recruiting people for Blackgard is tantamount to theft, Your Majesty. In the short term, we may have to abandon entire fields. Th...

Chapter 425: Rigorous Recalibrating

Argrave awoke long before Anneliese did, eager to seize the day. He was happy to have established the plan of action they’d be taking the next week or so. All that mattered now was adjusting the attitude of some of the parliamentary seats, performing well should debate arise, and executing things flawlessly.

He and his queen quickly prepared themselves for a long day of politics, then set out to meet with Elenore. Orion guarded them as they slept, but now he switched places with Galam...

Chapter 424: Two Rising Suns

Argrave took his place at the podium in the parliamentary hall. All of the guests looked at him with tired eyes. Even in their exhaustion, his reputation had grown to the point that no one would ignore him, not even Magisters. Ganbaatar came as a guest, representing the elven nations. But more than him, they’d called every parliamentary seat from all across the kingdom. Most had made it, fortunately, feeling grand things were afoot.

“I understand that most of you have come a very lo...