nemorosus

Chapter 567: Fields of Chaos

Ji Meng stood still as his honor guard put his armor on again. Some time ago, he thought he’d never again experience this feeling. He thought he’d grow fat, like a pig fated for slaughter, until Argrave’s hammer came down. But there was a new path—one where he didn’t need to worry about the excesses of the imperial court, the scheming, because someone else would handle it for him.

Perhaps he was simply broken after being in captivity. Regardless, as his guard tightened the las...

Chapter 566: Hell Manifest

What did mortals possess that the gods valued?

The ‘why’ of divinity wasn’t always something that could be precisely measured, but by and large, gods like Kirel Qircassia or Erlebnis valued mortal people only for what use they presented. Argrave had chosen his godly allies wisely, yet even they helped largely because they hoped to make worshippers out of Vasquer’s populace. They hoped to secure a permanent presence and a stable alliance that controlled an entire continent more t...

Chapter 565: Blues and Yellows

“It took them all a rather uncomfortably long time to reveal that man,” Grand Eunuch Hao complained to an emissary of Erlebnis, the orange-robed man sitting beneath a tree that blossomed in brilliant pink. “We had to force his hand, somewhat. But, well… have you read the story floating around?”

“We know it,” the emissary confirmed. Of all of the emissaries, this one seemed the most human, the most normal—the only oddity was a lump of flesh protruding on its back. It coul...

Chapter 564: The Tale of Sun and Moon

A story spread across the Great Chu—a story spread by tongue and page, delivered to all of the age. The words therein spoke of a victor, a conqueror, a fearless leader of the young and old whose name rung bold. He travelled the lands and sea, spurred forth by heaven’s guarantee, to bring the glory of their empire to another land’s history.

The tale, of course, spoke of the emperor.

With heaven’s winds guiding them and the emperor presiding them, an army divine soared to la...

Chapter 563: Threadspinners, Threadrunners

The following days were an incredibly complex dance of interwoven plots. They prepared for Sophia’s business in the background as their machinations over the Great Chu began to take effect. Elenore decided to be bold with her isolation of the information leaks, and Argrave was more than willing to help her. Her boldness rested in the fact that she intended to both probe for leaks and carry out their plans simultaneously.

Elenore’s probes were quite sophisticated, yet they had the ex...

Chapter 562: Daughter's Decision

“Essentially, the one person you thought as your lifeline was the one with the most comprehensive designs to take your throne,” Argrave told Ji Meng. “He really only had one condition, other than the standard marriage pitches. And condition that was to sideline you, keep you out of everything.”

“My daughter wouldn’t tolerate a marriage with the family that ended her father.”

“Your daughter was sitting right beside him when Governor Zen said that your death would be...

Chapter 561: Black Box Sophist

“What reason have I given you to suspect me of attacking people allied to you?” Governor Zen looked at each of them, eyes narrowed.

“None at all. It’s why we have to ask—because we can’t reasonably deduce who you are.” Argrave looked at Zen, stone-faced. “But what we can deduce is that you have sway in the armies here. Elsewise, you’d never have been able to contact us.”

“I don’t see why I’d mitigate that influence by having commanders killed,” Governor...

Chapter 560: The Grand Zen Family

Though most places in the Great Chu remained under the control of the enemy, there was one place that Vasquer could claim complete dominance over—the ocean. They had utterly vanquished the Imperial Navy of the Great Chu, partially repurposed it, and brought with them the naval might of the Veidimen in their struggle. On the divine side of things, Kirel Qircassia was only god of land and sky. At sea, he was weakened beyond compare.

After some further coordination with Governor Zen, the...

Chapter 559: Roots Larger than the Tree

Argrave once again stared upon a figure he’d hoped to forget. It was Sophia’s creation, Castro—the dim echo of the man that he’d taken the name from. Even today, he repeated things.

“I have a robust succession plan, Argrave,” her creation said.

Argrave looked upon his form with some unease. Anneliese was here as well, standing off to the side. But today, this thing’s creator joined them—Sophia. She stood just beneath him, hiding behind his legs in utter fear of wha...

Chapter 558: Child Reeducation

There was some small respite from the constant necessity of tending to the situation in the Great Chu. Their armies were, for a time, at a stalemate brought about by partial control of the enemy’s commanding officers. Any assault that was to come, either from the heavens or from the ground, was something they were amply prepared for. Law and the other gods made their presence more felt on the shores of the Great Chu every second, but until something decisive happened to tip the balance, the...

Chapter 557: Family Before All

Early chapter in light of the surgery. If there's no chapters tomorrow or the days after, rest assured I'll make it up to you on the weekends, and be caught up in no time.
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“By rights, I should call the guards and have you cast into prison, tortured.” Zen carefully placed a bookmark into his book and set it aside.

“Do it,” Elenore said inside his head.

“I’m not telling him to ‘do it,’” Stain replied to her as he stared steadfastly. When he opened his ...

Chapter 556: Flesh Puppet

It seemed that, whenever Stain found himself gaining a solid foothold, a certain someone would appear and sweep everything away. It was rather troubling that the person in question was a monarch, while he was merely a disowned noble whose family hated him. When he was coming into his own as a thief—suddenly, there was a huge man putting a blade to his throat at Argrave’s direction. When he was coming into his own as the steward of House Parbon, a Bat swooped down from the sky and picked h...

Chapter 555: Friends of Yesteryear

“What makes you think you deserve my help?”

The Stain in Argrave’s memory was a young man that was brown of hair, somewhat good-looking, but beyond that, largely average. Height, bearing—nothing about him stood out. He was Generic Thief Protagonist Incarnate. That was probably a good thing in his line of work. Criminals often dressed similarly not only to signify belonging to a group, but also to avoid having their appearance easily identifiable by the guards. The Stain that Arg...

Chapter 554: Batwoman, Here to Burn the Nation

Argrave was higher ranked, and so had access to higher-ranked druidic magic. With it, he could create a temporary bond with a tamed creature only. For this purpose Argrave used a messenger pigeon, and with it, he examined the most important city in all the Great Chu.

The capital city of the Great Chu, Ji, had no peer. Argrave could say so fairly confidently while viewing it from above. He had been to Mundi, Dirracha, Sethia, and even founded a city of his own, Blackgard, but nothing cou...

Volume 3 edits + Burnt Desert Map, Second Audiobook Trilogy

Volume 3's edited eBook is out on Amazon dot com. Comes with a new map of the Burnt Desert, and a final wordcount of 117k versus 115k on the first draft of volume 3. Fewer total rewrites this volume, but still some.

I very much enjoyed hearing Luke Daniels narrate the Alchemist. Argrave and Anneliese's romance sparked its flame in that volume, too-- another of my favorite scenes. I'd give a link to Audible, bu...

Chapter 553: Gold Standard

Named Argrave's ability to teleport [Echo Step] and applied it retroactively to other chapters because it reads better.
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Argrave kneeled beneath a full moon on the deck of the Sea Dragon. He was already getting tired of this kneeling business. If he were a believer in omens, he might think that this fight would most surely be his loss. His personal heraldry was that of the sun, while the symbol of the Great Chu—the moon—was high overhead, at its brightest. Despite this, as Argr...

Chapter 552: Ancient Wit

Argrave looked upon Ji Meng, resplendent in silver attire meant for an emperor. He had been groomed, dressed, and outfitted as befit his station. And that was how he was to be treated, henceforth, given the presence of the eight commanders in this flagship. In order to avoid being perceived as a puppet, Argrave intended to have this emperor meet the eight commanders alone.

“I won’t give you a script,” Argrave put his hands on the smaller man’s shoulder. “But remember that you�...

Chapter 551: Grand Commandant Sun

Argrave stood atop the newly-built fortress in the Great Chu and watched the troops labor to repair the ships. Many had been badly hit by the brunt of that great wave of ice that had frozen the coastline of the Great Chu. He had spent the night here after a brief visit to a still distraught Sophia, and the ice had either broken from the tides or melted. Now, half a thousand ships that were no longer seaworthy were having that issue remedied.

“It’s done,” Elenore told Argrave, maki...

Chapter 550: In Motion

With the Sea Dragon connected to the heart of Vasquer, supply, manpower, and many other limiting factors ceased to be a significant issue in the shore of this distant and cold land. Their spellcasters, spared significant expenditure of magic by virtue of Anneliese’s stalwart frontline defense, worked the earth to build a great fortress. The architects of Relize were exported briefly to oversee things. To come from sea to land was the most difficult prospect, and now that it had been overcom...

Chapter 549: Frontline

Argrave stared at the steel docks on the southern shore of the Great Chu at the front of the Sea Dragon. He could see great silos full of the liquid fire that filled their turtle ships. He could see mounted ballistae manned by spellcasters that imbued the bolts with energy. He could see a huge garrison manning this coastal fort. Commandeered trading vessels stood like a wall of wood to block their advance with only a skeleton crew of slaves manning them.

The southernmost portion of the ...

Chapter 548: Head in the Clouds

Argrave stood on the deck of the Sea Dragon, trying to dismiss the memories he’d made with Sophia here as a task of equal import demanded his attention. He could see it now, plain as day: the siege engine that had rained hellfire down on Berendar for the better part of a month, utterly defying their expectations of an offensive from the Coalition. And from all the way down here, the situation seemed quite formidable.

The Sky Tower looked like a great cumulonimbus. It was a dense billo...

Chapter 547: Renewable Resource

One morning, Sophia refused to leave her room. This was rather unusual, as she was never really disobedient. What’s more, she’d locked the door. The knights could certainly have forced it open, but Argrave had instructed them to be gentle with Sophia and try to avoid showing her undue violence or displays of force on account of what she’d already been through.

In the end, Argrave and Anneliese went personally to try and get her out of the room. Argrave knocked on the door and call...

Chapter 546: Little Helper

Argrave had never been on a boat for an extended period of time. That didn’t change, really, because Lira had installed a feature to his boat that allowed him to go back to land whenever he wanted. It did somewhat undermine the purity of such a thing, but that was already thoroughly marred by the underlying purpose of the Sea Dragon’s long voyage across the sea. The constant vigilance of the accompanying gods ensured they would not be accosted by enemies without warning.

Admiral Tan...

Chapter 545: Heroes Formerly of Berendar

Argrave examined the portal of Lira’s making. Raccomen’s was grandiose, yet the goddess of connections merely made one place seem to bleed into another without any pomp. It was a humble door into the side of the mountain, and when open, one could see the interior of the Sea Dragon. It had already been thoroughly tested. All of the prisoners taken during the fight against the Imperial Navy of the Great Chu had walked through these doors, whereupon they were taken to more suitable grounds.<...

Chapter 544: Exposed Heart

The boundary between B-rank and A-rank was the integration of magic into the body. That encompassed all—the brain, the soul, every part of a person that made them ‘them.’ At the same time, it was not ‘them;’ there was something beyond that, something that not even the most intense scrutiny could identify. That something was, simply put, consciousness. Anneliese had long wondered what made her ‘her,’ both before learning magic and long during the process.

The consciousness ...

Chapter 543: Last Barrier

Though Argrave had consulted her for advice occasionally throughout this ill-advised trial, after a time, he went deafeningly silent. Elenore contacted him through their connection time and time again without receiving a reply, and her head worked quickly. Was Argrave sulking, despairing? But then, it wasn’t like him not to reply.

When he suddenly returned to them in Blackgard, not saying anything at all, she grew worried. He walked past everyone and entered her office, then walked ov...

Chapter 542: What Is a Man?

What did it take for a mortal to sit on an even level with the gods themselves? Rook thought that was plainly on display here, today. Argrave had proven his worth long ago. There was not some divine characteristic separating man from god—at least not in his experience, during his ascension to this so-called exalted position. Gods were as vulnerable to mortal failings as they were before. Indeed, with their sphere of influence deciding their desires, it might be said that mortal failings wer...

Chapter 541: Idiosyncratic Risk

Despite the fact that Argrave was allegedly ‘on trial,’ when he entered the room where the gods of the Blackgard Union waited the only judgment that he received was curiosity. Only Lira knew the truth of what was going to be said here today—and even then, she only knew some of it. Argrave and Elenore had discussed how they might control the situation to come out ahead, and they had a relatively solid plan of attack.

As this was not a true dispute but an earnest disclosure between ...

Chapter 540: Court of Law

Many divine realms or places like the Shadowlands had specific rules to them. The realm that was host to the elven gods of the Bloodwoods ensured that all inside its boundaries had bounteous life springing from within them that would heal all of their wounds. Almazora’s realm gave all within it magic without limit. There were exceptions like Erlebnis’ realm, but most did have such quirks. Law’s Court was not one of the exceptions. As a matter of fact, it was one of the most noted exampl...

Chapter 539: Tainted Cooperation

“You’re a rather difficult man to hold something over.” Argrave sat cross-legged before Ji Meng, Anneliese in a similar position just beside him.

“You can certainly hold your victory over my head.”

Ji Meng drank his tea with crushed Ebonice fragments inside of it. He’d been forced to ingest that for a long while. Even once he stopped, it would take a little while before his magic would begin to return. If they kept going, perhaps it might become a permanent thing. Perh...