55

55

Taal and Rhya stand at the border of another divine domain. Snow has started to fall as winter is on the horizon. But none of it passes an invisible line dividing Drakwald into two. The leaves of the trees within the domain are gold and faintly glowing. Still vibrant amidst the coming winter. Both Rhya and Taal felt a little bit like home but couldn't help but shake the eerie feeling. In front of them is still nature, yes, but unnatural at the same time. Invasive, resilient, and gnawing at the world itself. Even now the invisible line expands, swallowing Drakwald into its domain bit by bit to the point of the expansion cannot be seen by the naked eye. Then they sense the God of its domain approaching. Winds carrying faintly fragrant scents flow from the golden domain and the leaves of Drakwald rustles as if recoiling in fear.

The sound of giant hooves resound. Then Rhya and Taal met her. A daemon they have met before and even work together. But very different. One thing for sure, she is now a Greater Daemon with 4 meters tall height and a new pair of horns. Both Rhya and Taal also shed their mortal disguise, growing in size and showing their true form. Elk horn grows from Taal’s head and his already long beard grows even longer. As for Rhya, her hair grows longer, becoming white on the base of her blond hair as winter has come. The two Gods now stand at comparable size with Valariel at 3 meters tall.Nêww chapters will be fully updated at novelhall.com

“We met again.” Valariel starts

“Groveling much to ascend?” Taal starts, clearly hostile

“Just ascended today and no. I do not serve them.”

“That’s you doing three days ago?” Taal continues, clearly not trusting her

Three days ago? I start to think about what he could be referring to.

“My herd’s battle with Malagor and Taurox?” I tilt my head and ask

“What? Why?” Rhya ask confused

“I don’t know. I just noticed a town burning and my scouts tell me that Taurox and his entire minotaur tribe are moving directly to my herd. Malagor herded them to attack me and challenged me to a magic duel.”

“Where’s both of them now?” Taal asks

“Dead.”

Rhya and Taal look at each other. Both of them know of Malagor and Taurox. The former is the scourge of the God’s temples and priests. Finding new believers and sanctifying their temples again are hard and spend quite a bit of power. While the latter continue to ravage Talabecland, the province where there are mostly believers of both Rhya and Taal. Even Taal’s Fury, the knights on demigryph, have a hard time dealing with them. Now both of them died by an upstart daemon that claimed to not serve the Chaos Gods. Both also remember that Valariel offers an alliance. But still both are hesitant to trust as this suspiciously felt like another of Tzeentch’s schemes. Not to mention there is still the problem with the Changeling.

Slaanesh and Tzeentch trial:

All participant leaves the stage

Theatre of the Masque suspended

2nd place reward get:

Meanwhile at the Moot

Furlong is buried in the land of his family. Dying by overeating is quite common for the halflings. The procession is accompanied by a quarter of the Mootland populace that can attend. Including the ogres, and terrified Averlander who managed to keep their faces neutral as they stand besides the golden beastmen that is clearly larger than they usually were. The beastmen are not acquainted with this sort of ritual. Some even questioned in whispers on why Furlong’s corpse was not eaten by the others. A small sign of respect as Furlong has out eaten a minotaur and an ogre. Fortunately there's a language barrier so the humans who heard the whisper didn’t understand.

Furlong’s burial marks the end of the festival. Already the golden herd started packing again and to resume their journey. The halfling of course emptied one of their warehouses and gave it out to the herd, this way they already have an empty warehouse for the next harvest and no need to build another one. Some of the halflings even gave out some clothes to the still nude lesser daemons.

“What the fuck? How is this possible?” Valariel, still invisible and flying above, is genuinely confused. She reveals herself in all its glory and lands in front of Valeria who now wears human traveling clothes. The entire golden herd knelt in reverence.

“Mother! Congratulations on your ascension.” Valeria said as she look up

“I am surprised that you and the herd are welcomed by the halflings.”

“We stayed for a few days and joined their festival. Why didn't you tell us that the halfling worshiped you, mother?” she asks.

“No they are not. They worshiped Rhya.” I scanned around and saw the Robadel, halfling cook trying to hide behind an ogre. The only one that knows Rhya in my herd is that halfling. Is he smarter than I thought or all this is due to his stupidity? Regardless, this is a good development.

“But Rhya is a friend. So it's fine.” I quickly said as some of the beastmen started to become furious as they were lied to. What I said is technically not a lie. We are not enemies. Yet. This resulted in quite a clamor among the halflings.

“And this is for you.” I give Valeria the Horn of the Golden Mother. “This artifact will strengthen your entire herd. In case of emergency, you can blow the horn. I will send some help.”

“I am grateful for this gift, mother.”

“You can continue your journey to Cathay. There should be a trade road going there.”

—

He shambles back home. He can’t smell really well right now, but he remembers the way home. His throat is numb and itchy. In fact, so does his entire body and his body felt heavier. But that is irrelevant. Did his brother win the battle? He can’t remember much about the battle. Such are his thoughts as he shambles through. The clearing is near. Home is near.

The golden herd is on its way to recovery. Though now many if not all newborns have random mutations. Then a furious bellow tore through the calm at the edge of the camp. The golden herd moves as one to defend. There at the edge of a clearing is a shambling mound of rotting flesh. Heads upon heads upon heads. limbs rotting and melting into one then turned into maws of jagged teeth placed haphazardly on the rotting body.

Wolfe is here

Wolfe is home